Pathfinder Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Game of the Year Edition

[Tsubutai]

I've had no problems popping chests on Core just using Camilla with maxed trickery and some +5 ring, no idea what's this shit about needing a super specialzied trickery dude.

Camellia is Half Elf with +3 (6 after lvl 10) Trickery from her Racial Skill Focus. She is already optimized to be party's lockpicker by Owlcat. Same as Octavia in Kingmaker.

I've never had issues with DC for Trickery skill checks in the main camaign, but +5-15 Skill items are beyond rare in Rogue-like. There, especially if you try to hit above your level with 3 skull islands, I had my Kineticist, for example, who had sky-high DEX, class skill and food buffs, rolling critical failures for the trap disarm way more often than I'd like, on Hard. Would be even worse on Unfair.

There are no crit failures on skill checks. If you can beat them by 20 you’re good, but that’s easier said than done. That’s where the take ten (or 11 for Touch of Law) abilities kick in.

There sort of is for disarming traps specifically - you set the trap off if your roll is below the DC by 5 or more.

 

[Desiderius]

I've had no problems popping chests on Core just using Camilla with maxed trickery and some +5 ring, no idea what's this shit about needing a super specialzied trickery dude.

Camellia is Half Elf with +3 (6 after lvl 10) Trickery from her Racial Skill Focus. She is already optimized to be party's lockpicker by Owlcat. Same as Octavia in Kingmaker.

I've never had issues with DC for Trickery skill checks in the main camaign, but +5-15 Skill items are beyond rare in Rogue-like. There, especially if you try to hit above your level with 3 skull islands, I had my Kineticist, for example, who had sky-high DEX, class skill and food buffs, rolling critical failures for the trap disarm way more often than I'd like, on Hard. Would be even worse on Unfair.

There are no crit failures on skill checks. If you can beat them by 20 you’re good, but that’s easier said than done. That’s where the take ten (or 11 for Touch of Law) abilities kick in.

There sort of is for disarming traps specifically - you set the trap off if your roll is below the DC by 5 or more.

That’s not what crit failure means. If you have 100 AB you can still miss an attack against a creature with 20 AC if you roll a 1. With 100 Trickery you’ll Disarm a 20 DC trap even on a 1.

 

[LannTheStupid]

I much prefer the dismissal option.

Massive QoL improvement compared to Kingmaker. Apparently, even after all this time, they still haven't patched it into that game, which is just baffling.

Yeah. Backporting a feature into the older game where the engine is more limited than the new one. And with Owlcat's QA processes. And then make it available for Kingmaker on consoles. And so that a 5 year old game does not break.

No, thanks. Go mod yourself.

 

[Lambach]

Yeah. Backporting a feature into the older game where the engine is more limited than the new one. And with Owlcat's QA processes.

No, thanks. Go mod yourself.

You might've had a point, if the feature in question wasn't such a simple one.

 

[Average Manatee]

Have you played the class? DEX-based? I don’t want to have to fool with Finesse. Heavy’s great.

Specialization reduces total cost. Total cost for KKnight = total cost for regular Kinnie -1 on Infused Blade attax. So if you can’t Gather the only way you can afford a Substance Infusion is to take Burn (limited resouce) or Specialization with free Blade. It’s the main point of the class.

A feat for like 6-10 easy AC over a strength build is pretty no-brainer IMO. Only reason I could see for a Strength build is to use cleave feats. Which incidentally would also allow you to use gather power and metakinesis in melee and therefore be significantly better damage for a regular kineticist, I think? Incidentally I wonder if Vital Strike (Mythic) would also combine with Kinetic Blade.

So at lvl eight with Haste all of a sudden you’ve got three attax with Trip or Magnetic or whatever on each one. And yeah if I have a character with Shield + Heavy + Earth DR I want to be in melee even before iteratives, especially since that way I don’t need Point Blank/Precise and benefit from Flanking. KKnight also counts as having Combat Expertise which unlocks Trip Feats. And yeah advantage on Will/Fort saves is *really* good since it turns crit misses from 1/20 to 1/400. Curing Fatigue/Exhaustion is also a nice convenience.

All Kineticists will have the same 3 attacks at level 8 and can do the same damage. Don't need to unlock trip/greater trip through combat expertise because they can get it as a bonus feat with their element (earth) at level 2. They won't need point blank or precise either if they are using Kinetic Blade.

I played TSS1/KKnight on Val in P:K and it was great. Nothing “broken” (few things in these games really are - kiting is highly overrated, especially in Wrath) but very resilient and effective. I think Whirlwind was bugged to be free but regular attax were good too. Jewb threw Transformation on her and she was Mud (?) Blasting five times per turn with Greater Trip (and Tandem) on each one IIRC. (With my luck this doesn’t work for some reason and I’m getting it mixed up with some stupid shit I was doing tanking with MT Tristian). I do know the Whirlwinds were great and that regular Kinnie runs into a little bit of a wall with the one Blast per turn limit late game since it’s not guaranteed to hit while KKnight ends up with at least 4 per turn.

Not saying Kinetic Knight is a weak class or anything. All Kineticists target touch AC and have huge damage, so they all do perfectly fine. It's just one of many archetypes where the advantage wasn't well thought out and takes away way too much for what it gives you.

 

[Desiderius]

You don’t have the Feats for Finesse and Agile Manuevers. For fuck sake you’ve got Heavy Armor, you’re not getting 6-10 AC over that with DEX-based and STR is so much easier to boost.

It’s like you guys have three builds in your heads and you try to shoehorn everything into them. It gives you five attax eventually where base Kin only gets one, along with the tools to survive in melee on top of the necessary cost reduction that facilitates full attacks. If you can’t figure out what to do with that that’s a you problem.

The dudes who wrote this ruleset were masters. If you legit try to reverse engineer what they were trying to do with each archetype you’ll uncover all kinds of things you didn’t know you could do.

 

[biggestboss]

I've been waiting forever for the EE version to come out for the controller compatibility and finally picked this up with the Humble Bundle. Pretty excited to get started but... I couldn't help but notice the quality of the character models in character creation. Did they get Prosper to model these?

 

[Average Manatee]

You don’t have the Feats for Finesse and Agile Manuevers.

Yes you do? Post your build. What other essential feats are you loading up on?

For fuck sake you’ve got Heavy Armor, you’re not getting 6-10 AC over that with DEX-based and STR is so much easier to boost.

After buffs and everything, yeah you'd have about that AC. STR is easier to boost but you're also not getting damage from it which means its much weaker than normal. At least I think you don't, tell me if I'm wrong because the UI has had fucked up kineticist damage numbers forever.

It’s like you guys have three builds in your heads and you try to shoehorn everything into them. It gives you five attax eventually where base Kin only gets one, along with the tools to survive in melee on top of the necessary cost reduction that facilitates full attacks. If you can’t figure out what to do with that that’s a you problem.

Bro I don't think you understand that base kineticist can take Kinetic Blade and have just as many attacks. That's actually how it works. They can actually deal MORE damage with kinetic blade than Kinetic Knights do once they can empower/maximize their kinetic blades, something Kinetic Knight lacks.

 

[Desiderius]

No, you can’t, because you can’t Gather and Full Attack in the same turn. Why can’t you get that through your head? Do you just not use Substance Infusions? The four attacks with a Trip on each one is the point of playing it in the first place. Or Magnetic etc.

KKnight gets Combat Expertise for free so unlocks all the Trip Feats, you want the Shatter line, and you need Outflank etc. There’s no room to dick around with Finesse. Seriously Kalikke is set up for exactly what ypu’re talking about and it’s a clusterfuck outside of bugged Whirlwind.

Again, have you played the class or is this the usual negative theorycrafting? I thought all the same shit. Then I tested it. I was wrong.

 

[Average Manatee]

Again, have you played the class or is this the usual negative theorycrafting? I thought all the same shit. Then I tested it. I was wrong.

Have you played the class? Base Kineticist can reduce Kinetic Blade's burn cost just the same as anything else, without gather power. While using 1-2 substance infusions. And unlike Kinetic Knight, they can get metakinesis on their attacks, which effects kinetic blade's full round attacks, which greatly amplifies their damage. They can spend burn to do this, they can gather power before combat starts, they can give up their single attack on a charge or move+attack to empower+maximize their next full round attack, and at level 19 they'll get free empower on every attack automatically through metakinesis mastery. Kinetic Knight has none of these options to boost their melee capability, on top of having no ranged or broken pulsating AoE rapefest trap capability. And Kineticist doesn't need to invest much at all to get the latter, they pick the same infusions and just take deadly earth when its available. That's it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It’s in that world. Technic League is a thing. Big subplot in LotR was Saruman modernizing Isengard and the blind eye of the Modern/Technological to Evil. Same with Blackwater (reference to rl Blackwater/Blackrock where same is happening Scouring the Shire style).

Is Arcanum absurd?

to be quite frank everything related to spaceships in golarion is absolutely moronic and best ignored. its not just on the face of it either, a closer inspection just makes it worse. golarion is at the same time the most important planet in the universe and also the only one made up of renaissance faire morons who can't open a portal to the galactic federation to learn their tech. it's tacked on, bad and almost insulting to compare with arcanum.

mixing(for lack of a better word) sci-fi and fantasy seems to have become increasingly difficult for nu-writers when it came completely naturally to earlier ones to the point it was a common trope in early RPG entries. If anything, the key is to keep them as separate as possible.

Arcanum isn't really the same at all, as it's not anywhere near the same kind of technology leap. And the part about keeping them separate is built into the game's lore.

 

[Yosharian]

I've had no problems popping chests on Core just using Camilla with maxed trickery and some +5 ring, no idea what's this shit about needing a super specialzied trickery dude.

I've had no problems popping chests on Core

popping chests on Core

on Core

 

[Cyberarmy]

Encore?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I've had no problems popping chests on Core just using Camilla with maxed trickery and some +5 ring, no idea what's this shit about needing a super specialzied trickery dude.

they're going to sperg out because you're not playing on the Super Deluxe Bloated Stats mode

 

[Yosharian]

But fine, fine, maybe I overestimated the need for a higher skill bonus. I play with the highest DCs/stats possible (but without that retarded double damage thing) and in Kingmaker you definitely found traps and chests with super high DCs. Maybe that's not the case in Wrath. I'm sure someone has noted at least a few instances of very high Trickery checks, though. I believe one of them is to obtain one of the +2 tomes.

I think it's the STR one. Act 3, DC 55.

And sure, you can also optimise with other abilities such as Touch of Law.

I also don't like reloading my save until I roll high, which is why I favour having a really high Trickery bonus

I still think it's a very good archetype. As others pointed out, the metamagic feats are extremely nice.

 

[Grunker]

I've had no problems popping chests on Core just using Camilla with maxed trickery and some +5 ring, no idea what's this shit about needing a super specialzied trickery dude.

they're going to sperg out because you're not playing on the Super Deluxe Bloated Stats mode

seems like most people in the thread play on core, including desi

you seem to be projecting

 

[Grunker]

Btw so far all Trickery checks I’ve encountered have been retriable, does that continue?

if so, the point of having supar high trickery seems even more moot

 

[Daidre]

Only reason I could see for a Strength build is to use cleave feats.

I did some testing pre EE - and Cleaving feats were definitely not working in my modded game. And rule explicitly forbids using Vital Strike with it, same as Cleave, so it most likely does not work too (cursory search says the same thing).

And yes, without Kinetic Whip for AoOs and unique feature to use it early and burn-free, Kinetic Knight is worthless - since his only road to have viable-for-melee AC is to rely on bugged Crane style (Wing) that is not even supposed to work with shield. But in the mod-clear game it is more on castrated vanilla vs unique archetype doing his own thing scale.

 

[Lambach]

I'm sure someone has noted at least a few instances of very high Trickery checks, though.

Yes, there are. Simply having a maximum base rank in Trickery for your level and decent DEX is just barely OK enough to get you through. You absolutely need additional boosts to Trickery with things like buffs, Feats, equipment and the like if you want to (almost) never fail any Checks.

What's funny though, is that there are more than a few locked chests in the game with DCs much, much higher compared to others in the area, but contain only something like a couple hundred gold and random junk. Not sure if it's an oversight or if it's Owlcat trolling the players.

 

[Yosharian]

Only reason I could see for a Strength build is to use cleave feats.

I did some testing pre EE - and Cleaving feats were definitely not working in my modded game. And rule explicitly forbids using Vital Strike with it, same as Cleave, so it most likely does not work too (cursory search says the same thing).

And yes, without Kinetic Whip for AoOs and unique feature to use it early and burn-free, Kinetic Knight is worthless - since his only road to have viable-for-melee AC is to rely on bugged Crane style that is not even supposed to work with shield. But in the mod-clear game it is more on castrated vanilla vs unique archetype doing his own thing scale.

Improved Cleaving Finish used to have a bug where it didn't detect enemies dying properly so it wasn't continuing to cleave. This was verified by Vek in the game's code (guy who makes TTT). Not sure if it's been fixed yet

Cleaving Finish should be OK

 

[Lambach]

Btw so far all Trickery checks I’ve encountered have been retriable, does that continue?

if so, the point of having supar high trickery seems even more moot

They're retriable only to a certain point. Fail a check to disarm a trap by a certain number (5 IIRC but I'm not sure) and it triggers. Locks on doors and chests can get jammed, becoming impossible to pick.

Having someone with super high Trickery is not exactly necessary, per se, but it makes your life a helluva lot easier.

 

[Daidre]

Cleaving Finish should be OK

No, it was not working, exactly I said. If anyone else checked it properly in-game and at least Cleaving Finish was working with Kinetic Blade - I would welcome the fact and will write it off as mod "feature".

 

[Yosharian]

Cleaving Finish should be OK

No, it was not working, exactly I said. If anyone else checked it properly in-game and at least Cleaving Finish was working with Kinetic Blade - I would welcome the fact and will write it off as mod "feature".

WTH? Alright, I will have to test it I guess.

 

[Yosharian]

Nope, Cleaving Finish is working just fine.

Spoiler

First attack is listed as 1/X, second attack is definitely a bonus attack since it doesn't say 2/X. It's working fine. No idea if it works with Kinetic Blade though.

 

[Daidre]

Nope, Cleaving Finish is working just fine.

Oh, sorry, I was talking about Kinetic Blade. Both Cleaving Finish and Vital Strike should not work with Kinetic Blade per RAW, with them being modification of Kinetic Blast and it is forbidden for Blast.

The kineticist is never considered to be wielding or gripping the kinetic blast (regardless of effects from form infusions; see Infusion), and she can’t use Vital Strike feats with kinetic blasts.

I did some extensive testing with Cleaving Finish and Kinetic Knight, and I've never got Cleaving Finish to trigger. And Kinetic Blast was not multiplied by Vital Strike. But it was several patches ago and I have no inclination to retest it all over again. So I'd be glad to hear that someone played with Kinetic Blade + Cleaving Finish in Wrath and it was working, in practice, not in theory.