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

[Desiderius]

Don't fight defensively. Nobody's making you.

I don't understand why I shouldn't fight defensively. I like to micro, and the game clearly shows which character is under attack. I can switch the defensive style on and off on any frontliner depending on the attacks of the enemy. If a character is flanking then fighting defensively is not needed; if a character is being attacked then fighting defensively is kind of a no-brainer.

If you can swallow the -4 AB malus I guess. My game no longer shows the red lines of who's being attacked (maybe because I'm playing TB to manage all the Swifts). I do use it like that strategically (used to use it on Harrim a good bit, but he had Touch of Chaos to target Touch AC), but no longer blow all the feats for a small enhancement to it since aside from Seelah it doesn't come up much and when Nenio's rolling as she is now most of my dudes don't get attacked much at all.

My Ember with a build of hellfire does Brrrrrrrrrr

Hellfire comes online pretty late as well. Enchanter Ember doesn't take *that* long since she gets Confusion. She can also do a lot of buffing and hexing in situations where it's not as needed/effective. She eventually makes a good Mind Fog machine but that does take awhile to get going.

I like Conjurer on her since then you can just skip Spell Pen altogether since Hexes already bypass it and it sets up her good Summons. That's what I'm doing on Drovier (Druid) Lann. You can then use the Mythic that lets you transfer School Feats to turn on Enchanter late at which point she's got the Feats to pick up Spell Pen.

 

[Desiderius]

Speaking of Crane Style, anybody got any thoughts or experience re. Quarterstaff Master monk? I've found a portrait I really like that would suit the character I have in mind

Duff class or usable with a bit of care and attention? Is it worth leaning into the CM stuff?

I did an Angel run with it and it was great. Ended up mostly just going for Trip since you get Style Strike free one and Enlarge effects give a CM bonus while going well with the growing Dice. It picks up Disarm late that you can use against Trip Immune.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

her good Summons.

Is this viable even on Unfair? On Hard with Aeon Gaze boosting them and all the related Mythic Abilities + Feats I still feel that they are doing nothing except being meat shield. Even after all that they need to roll like 16 - 20 to hit anything and they still die in 1 enemy full attacks. Am I missing something? I even have those items that boosts summon including the Haste whip

 

[Lambach]

her good Summons.

Is this viable even on Unfair? On Hard with Aeon Gaze boosting them and all the related Mythic Abilities + Feats I still feel that they are doing nothing except being meat shield.

On Unfair, I very much doubt Summons can serve as anything other than meat shields*, no matter what. On Core, I had a Monster Tactician Aeon with all the relevant Gazes, Feats and Items like you're describing, and the Summons were decently strong and could do a fair bit on their own (when their brain-dead AI would let them, that is), but I still don't think they would've been anywhere nearly as strong on Unfair with those same stats.

*the one exception would be Insect Swarm + Mark of Justice combo that a lot of people use to take down Playful Darkness, for example

 

[Cyberarmy]

Is this viable even on Unfair?

Main problem with the summons are their non existant AI, they are only useful as glorified meat shields nothing more.
Best summon is Lich s Repurpose spell.

 

[Haplo]

Domain Zealot Reg using Touch of Law for save, skill check, and attack:

Hard Gormandizer fight w/ tank Seelah

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Touch of Law lets the target roll 11 on everything for a turn. Saves, skill checks, attacks, etc... Here can see all three (Cornugan is nice with TTT Shatter). If you think things thru can really get your money's worth. Will get Inspiring Command soon (can use pre-combat) and maybe Travel Domain for Swift Teleport.

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Seelah using Keen Scimitar (lets Divine Bond make weapon +4) to good effect. Using bonuses to make up for maluses.

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Here's what you get for (some of) those maluses. Poor Regill gave Touch of Rolling 15s to Gorm. Seelah's AC getting up there nicely.

*Looks like Defensive Study AC does NOT get shared by Vanguard's Bond* though. Switched from Spawn Slayer to Vanguard since Spawn ability not working.

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Easy crits also trigger Oppressor's Gloves malus. Nenio crit missed a save on Confusion from Glabrezu so couldn't take advantage.

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Sos has Improved Crit now to go with perma-advantage.

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Nenio gets her revenge with Shadow Confusion.

New Damage Breakdown feature is handy:

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Looking forward to picking up Aeonbane soon. Isn't Gaze supposed to be Free Action now? It's still using a Swift.

Yeah, Gazes are free actions. If they're Swift in your game, it sounds like a bug.

 

[Haplo]

Owlcat are at it again with their retarded character builds

Just recruited Lann to find that he has COMBAT REFLEXES at level 1. Without Snap Shot. And he took it instead of Precise Shot. So he has -4 to hit most of the time.

Godamn Shield Maze is hard enough without this 10 IQ character building

He always has. Is this your kid posting on your account?

ZA gets Snap for free at level 9. And Precise for free at lvl 2. I think Reflexes is prereq hint for Seize the Moment**, though that’s going to take some work to trigger. Biggest problem is that they forgot to remove Rapid* prereq for Improved Snap (or give Improved/Greater to ZA free at later lvls like Instinctual Warrior gets the Blind Fights).

* - big benefit of ZA is getting Flurry instead of Rapid, saving a Feat and a Mythic

** - ranged can’t flank, but can threaten. Outflank requires the former, Seize the latter. If you multiclass Lann into a class with Solo Tactics or Tactician, the Reflexes are a prereq to choose Seize for those.

Still, Outflank usually works on ranged characters for me. No need for Seize.

 

[Ryzer]

Should I wait for season pass 2 content to play this game or is it worth it to play it now?

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Should I wait for season pass 2 content to play this game or is it worth it to play it now?

Season Pass 2 unlikely to change the core game too much, but if you plan on playing with mods might as well wait because your save could very well be nuked every major patch and this game is long. Main campaign on RtwP Hard can easily be 100+ hours matter.

If you play vanilla might be fine to do it now. Season Pass 2 will add 1 Dungeon, 1 Companion and new class (Shifter), and bunch of Citadel DLC for Mass Effect esque quests. Probably not really impactful unless you really want to play Shifter.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Is this viable even on Unfair?

Main problem with the summons are their non existant AI, they are only useful as glorified meat shields nothing more.
Best summon is Lich s Repurpose spell.

Even if you cheat and use Toybox to control them and use turn based they barely do anything except distracting enemy in Hard, even more so on Unfair. Which they could function as well even without any build. Well they might die in 5 hit instead of 4 or they can hit everytime they reach 19 instead 20. But those difference as I understand might as well not matters.

 

[FreeKaner]

Unfair is just badly designed, the game is already stat bloated much like kingmaker, adding more stat bloat just makes the systems collapse more not add to the gameplay. Core+ with additional enemy behaviors is a "happy" medium, as happy as it can be in a degenerate ruleset like Pathfinder anyway.

 

[Yosharian]

Unfair isn't so bad if you turn off the damage scaling, still a bit too brutal really but it's a nice challenge. With damage scaling on its just ridiculous

 

[ga♥]

How are you getting Crane on Cam anyway? She can’t splash Monk.

You take Improved unarmed fighting and then crane. 4 feats for the whole line.
Worth it? I don't know, but if you don't go dual wielding it's doable.

 

[Yosharian]

 

[LannTheStupid]

If one turns off damage scaling on Unfair, then it does not play Unfair anymore, only glorified Hard. The point of the double damage is to turn Hard ("I can eat some hits and still win") to Unfair ("if they can hit me I am dead"). That's the main point of the whole exercise.

If you can swallow the -4 AB malus I guess.

Well, if I'm being attacked, then I have to. Surely, all frontliners have at least 3 ranks of Mobility just for such cases.

However, I see "no reason to pass" (C) on the Crane feats for multiclassed monk pajama tanks.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Core and move up to to Hard past level 12ish seems to be sweet spot.

 

[FreeKaner]

I just don't understand why owlcat hates armor so much. They keep armor drops exceedingly rare, they didn't implement any of the armor-related mythic abilities, they didn't implement fighter armor training feats. Hell they didn't even implement cavalier ignoring armor check penalties while mounted. What is the big idea?

 

[Haplo]

If one turns off damage scaling on Unfair, then it does not play Unfair anymore, only glorified Hard. The point of the double damage is to turn Hard ("I can eat some hits and still win") to Unfair ("if they can hit me I am dead"). That's the main point of the whole exercise.

Well, even that is not quite accurate, as Last Stand exists.

 

[Desiderius]

I just don't understand why owlcat hates armor so much. They keep armor drops exceedingly rare, they didn't implement any of the armor-related mythic abilities, they didn't implement fighter armor training feats. Hell they didn't even implement cavalier ignoring armor check penalties while mounted. What is the big idea?

They originally had pretty much all the companions including Greybor DEX-based as well. Looks like they fell hard for the "Armor is bad" meme.

Core and move up to to Hard past level 12ish seems to be sweet spot.

You can afford the move up to Hard before that. It's not true that Unfair will one-shot you if you prepare for it, with the point of the difficulty being to force you to do so. That delays the offensive overload that would otherwise trivialize the game. Playing Tinman (Saves and Rezzes get a lot more valuable when you turn off the reload button) serves a similar purpose.

 

[LannTheStupid]

I just don't understand why owlcat hates armor so much. They keep armor drops exceedingly rare, they didn't implement any of the armor-related mythic abilities, they didn't implement fighter armor training feats. Hell they didn't even implement cavalier ignoring armor check penalties while mounted. What is the big idea?

Well, if you are really interested, I can share my take on it. Which is not even "because frak you and your knights in shining armour".

IMHO it's because on Golarion touch attacks exist and work. It is like old Honkong kung-fu movies made true: there are combatants who can kill or seriously cripple an opponent by just making contact with any part of the opponent's body. No force applied. Like that super secret fantasy kung-fu strike that stops the opponent's heart or something.

Under such circumstances traditional Medieval amour would be less prevalent on the battlefield. Those who are to fight and win against mages and other opponents with touch attacks will have to be either mages themselves - or unarmoured or lightly armoured, very skilled, very nimble fighters. They will have to avoid touches and try to touch the opponents with their deadly attacks. No actual physical force, just choreography of dodges.

Maybe there will be some place for heavy plate with some exceptional training, so that even in 50 pounds of steel a fighter still can dodge all attempts to touch him. And the Church of Iomedae would send all high ranking paladins to learn wushu. But in general the battles will be very different from those on Earth.

 

[LannTheStupid]

If one turns off damage scaling on Unfair, then it does not play Unfair anymore, only glorified Hard. The point of the double damage is to turn Hard ("I can eat some hits and still win") to Unfair ("if they can hit me I am dead"). That's the main point of the whole exercise.

Well, even that is not quite accurate, as Last Stand exists.

Not in the Shield Maze, though.

 

[Desiderius]

Well, if I'm being attacked, then I have to

That is not the case. You can also prepare ahead of time so that +3 AC is irrelevant or use a non-Defensive attack to serve the same purpose while also doing more damage (such as with Cornugan). The options are endless.

Surely, all frontliners have at least 3 ranks of Mobility just for such cases.

Usually. When I respecced Reg to redistribute his skill pts I gave him 12 INT so he could get 3 Mobility and 3 Perception (for Back to Back) by lvl 12 (main skills are World and Persuasion w/ the required 2 in Arcana). Since he's my Cornugan guy I haven't used it much. If you have a hard target then you can use tactics to avoid getting attacked much on your other toons (with help from Difficult Terrain and Entangle effects where applicable). Tankard summon is handy to avoid getting overwhelmed.

BTW, Duality summoning item gives opponents in the aura +4 AC, and if the Soul Eaters spawn aggro they can end up draining you (Death Ward doesn't work against them since they're Daemons). Very interesting design.

However, I see "no reason to pass" (C) on the Crane feats for multiclassed monk pajama tanks.

You'll notice people not nerfing themselves with this much any more. Once you're no longer Fighting Defensively by default it becomes a lot less appealing to play the whole game underleveled.

 

[Desiderius]

touch attacks exist

Another meme. Where they do there's available remedies other than trashing your whole build and wasting item slots.

How are you getting Crane on Cam anyway? She can’t splash Monk.

You take Improved unarmed fighting and then crane. 4 feats for the whole line.
Worth it? I don't know, but if you don't go dual wielding it's doable.

Crane also requires Dodge. Seelah starts with it, Cam doesn’t. Four Feats is almost half of what Shaman gets *in total*. What are you even talking about?

“There’s nothing else worth taking” means you’re not playing Wrath yet. Try it - it’s fun.

 

[ga♥]

You take Improved unarmed fighting and then crane. 4 feats for the whole line.
Worth it? I don't know, but if you don't go dual wielding it's doable.

Crane also requires Dodge. Seelah starts with it, Cam doesn’t. Four Feats is almost half of what Shaman gets *in total*. What are you even talking about?

“There’s nothing else worth taking” means you’re not playing Wrath yet. Try it - it’s fun.

Who said there's nothing else worth taking, I was just explaining to you how to do it, learn to read.

 

[Desiderius]

Who said there's nothing else worth taking, I was just explaining to you how to do it, learn to read.

You did. If you're blowing four feats on a class that feat-starved you're saying that implicitly. Melee Cam is Weapon Focus into Fencing Grace into Outflank. Then Initimidating Hex to open up Shatter at 9. That would leave you at lvl 15 for Crane Style and 17 for Wing. Total theorycrafting masturbation. Her class has Weapon Enchanting and Fast Spell Progression. To make those relevant on higher difficulties requires some help, but they're really good if they get it. You've already got plenty of other tanking/meat-shield options.