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

[Yosharian]

I'm trying to theorize a build for Azata, I feel like Favorable Magic + Zippy Magic + Incredible Might is the way to go, but I'm struggling to determine what might be the best way to go about a 9th-level spellcasting gish for this. I'm torn between optimizing for DC or optimizing for spell damage dice, and it doesn't seem like it will be a very powerful gish either way.

Favorable Magic's 25% penalty on successful saves makes me even consider saying fuck it I won't even invest in DCs at all and just pump damage dice to oblivion. 75% of infinity damage means you are dead either way, dipshit demons!

But not sure how to best exploit this strategy, EK sounds like a great bet but with the dipping required to get all the spell damage dice, I don't wanna lose another level of progression

 

[Yosharian]

Daidre you were right

Spoiler

Some genius on Reddit was like 'WELL IF HE DIDN'T SHOW PROOF THEN I WOULDN'T TRUST WHAT HE SAYS' so I had to go and fucking test it

[–]PhantomVulpe Azata[S] 4 points 6 hours ago
I just did Spawn slayer with demon slayer dip and let me tell you...the boss fights were a goddamn joke cause of this. Hell it made fighting in the flesh market more easier.

I mean how did he not fucking notice that he was getting 0 benefit from it

 

[Daidre]

I'm trying to theorize a build for Azata, I feel like Favorable Magic + Zippy Magic + Incredible Might is the way to go, but I'm struggling to determine what might be the best way to go about a 9th-level spellcasting gish for this. I'm torn between optimizing for DC or optimizing for spell damage dice, and it doesn't seem like it will be a very powerful gish either way.

I did Elemental Specialist Wizard once, with 1 lvl Crossblooded Sorc dip > 10 Eldritch Knight for powerful Fire Ray spells (they proc EK capstone) with 3 Fire Dragon Bloodlines. She was designed as trickster but Azata would work too. And she was not much of a gish honestly, although she was not completely horrible with the bow as a back up option. What does not work all that well, imho, is trying to chase DC and damage dice both at once - too much competition between mythic abilities and bloodline choices.

I had to go and fucking test it

Yes it was similar for me when I run Spawn Slayer through the DLC 3 campaign back it September and never once I saw modified Studied bonus. Alas, right I have so many mods, template-based including, that un-modding the game to check something mod-clean became painful.

 

[Desiderius]

I'm trying to theorize a build for Azata, I feel like Favorable Magic + Zippy Magic + Incredible Might is the way to go, but I'm struggling to determine what might be the best way to go about a 9th-level spellcasting gish for this. I'm torn between optimizing for DC or optimizing for spell damage dice, and it doesn't seem like it will be a very powerful gish either way.

Favorable Magic's 25% penalty on successful saves makes me even consider saying fuck it I won't even invest in DCs at all and just pump damage dice to oblivion. 75% of infinity damage means you are dead either way, dipshit demons!

But not sure how to best exploit this strategy, EK sounds like a great bet but with the dipping required to get all the spell damage dice, I don't wanna lose another level of progression

Phantasmal Mage is incredible. Shadow Spells give you full spellbook, and you can stack meta with Reservior Pts.

 

[Desiderius]

Daidre you were right

Spoiler

Some genius on Reddit was like 'WELL IF HE DIDN'T SHOW PROOF THEN I WOULDN'T TRUST WHAT HE SAYS' so I had to go and fucking test it

[–]PhantomVulpe Azata[S] 4 points 6 hours ago
I just did Spawn slayer with demon slayer dip and let me tell you...the boss fights were a goddamn joke cause of this. Hell it made fighting in the flesh market more easier.

I mean how did he not fucking notice that he was getting 0 benefit from it

I’m like 40% sure that the original tooltip just gave a CMB bonus, not an AB bonus. This could be the usual vaporware where they OK a change then the tooltip team gets ahead of the implementation team.

 

[Yosharian]

Anyone else notice that 1) Armor Training isn't working at all, doesn't grant an increased Max Dex bonus and 2) Tower Shield Specialist's Max Dex bonus thingy isn't working at all either?

What's hilarious is that the pop-up warning me that the armor I equipped was restricting my DEX bonus to AC, CORRECTLY CALCULATED THE IMPROVED BONUS. But the game's actual AC calculation DOESN'T. LMAO.

Never mind never mind he was ENCUMBERED I'm a dumbass lol.

 

[Yosharian]

Mighty Advisor

Dwarven Waraxe

This +4 dragon bane dwarven waraxe doubles any insight bonus to attack and damage the wielder might have.

Tested with Aeon's Bound of Possibility. It doesn't work. Good job Owlcat, you fucked up once again.

 

[Haplo]

Wat

Is that not how it works? I could swear that I landed hits despite rolling below enemy AC as long as I rolled within the weapon's Crit range.

Indeed it is not. Only "20"is a guaranteed hit.

... barring concealment that is.

 

[Lambach]

Indeed it is not. Only "20"is a guaranteed hit.

... barring concealment that is.

Oh come on, I'm not that fucking retarded to have gone through 5 playthroughs wrongly thinking this is how it works.


........ r-right?

 

[Desiderius]

Ok, ga3, here's MR3, lvl 10 Aivu, RTwP, Unfair, beginning of Ch3, no mods, unoptimized party:



Can always eat a Shield scroll (she has high UMD) and/or use Illusion Magic if you want more protection. Animal Growth (didn't have here yet) adds AC/AB/dam. Party optimized for Unfair could have 10 or so more AoE AC, which is what I had on Unfair run with Azata Skald MC.



This party had Dirge Bard MC (with Divine Hunter Pal splash for Staff Sling proficiency and Precise - not great) and Wolj Transmuter to cast Swift Slow using Darven's Hat each fight. Obsidian Flow from Wolj, Stone Call/Enforced Vigor from Aru, Mythic Dazzling from Reg, Prayer from Sos control battlefield.

 

[Desiderius]

Indeed it is not. Only "20"is a guaranteed hit.

... barring concealment that is.

Oh come on, I'm not that fucking retarded to have gone through 5 playthroughs wrongly thinking this is how it works.


........ r-right?

Use autoconfirm effects so you don't have to worry about it.

 

[Lambach]

Man, hasn't that always been one of the staple rules since D&D 3.0 and onwards? Am I going crazy?

 

[Desiderius]

That's hard. On turn based. So yes, it's normal. You can enjoy whatever difficulty you want btw, I don't care, just don't pretend everything that works for you on easy, and 20 mods installed, should work for anyone else, or they are doing something wrong.

Which has been your shtick for years, like when you argued that TRISTIAN with a GLAIVE is actually super optimal! Together with screenshots of Tristian critting as a proof.

(1) Tristian with Serpent Prince was great, but that pic is obvious joke both because it has 4 nat 20s in a row and it's not there to attack bosses (in retrospect that pic is missing 3 obvious buffs so guess I could have), it's main use was cleaning up adds with AoOs while also casting/healing. Free action econ, and a good one with wide crit/Outflank (Fauchard, not Glaive - he doesn't get even Simple Proficiency so Exotic is good investment). There's other pics of him doing that effectively.

(2) This is my first TB playthrough. Doing it because good fit with Swifts (which are clunky in RTwP) and Aeon/Sos/Reg have a lot. It's... not trivially easier. If you think it is you suck at RTwP. No interrupting spells/abilities with damage, no zerging, no Leading Strike, tougher positioning. So far it's mostly been harder, tho tank Seelah helps. I can see why people gravitate toward tank and spank and are starving for damage in TB. Didn't need in RTwP.

(3) The mods I'm using nerf as much as they help. Have to hit at full AC to turn on Shatter. Have to spend 3 Feats and 14 Mobility ranks to get full attacks Mounted (which vanilla gets for free), nerfed Abundant. Mods add some variety but mostly just fix bugs and restore some TT functionality where it makes for better game.

 

[Haplo]

Man, hasn't that always been one of the staple rules since D&D 3.0 and onwards? Am I going crazy?

Nope, this was never the rule in 3.0+.
Only natural 20 is autohit. Wide critical range is meaningless if you cannot hit the enemy in the first place.

 

[Desiderius]

There is a mod option that lets you turn off autoconfirm on 20 as well if you want.

EDIT: just checked and apparently 20 doesn't autoconfirm in vanilla and TTT turns it on by default (you can turn it back off in config).

 

[Desiderius]

To sum up, the answer to the question "What does Azata get at MR3?" is "It gets a full pet," which means that it turns any caster into a Sylvan Sorc and/or lets you turn a non-pet class into a pet class, usually for purposes of Mounted Combat.

Aivu does not in fact have abysmal AC unless you're too lazy to cast a Barkskin (you can also now buy a +5 Barding relatively cheap at Grotto if you're struggling with this, which gives +13 net AC), so this is a powerful ability. I'd recommend getting the mod that fixes Animal Growth if you want to go mounted right away, or play a DEX-based class with Reduce Person.

 

[Average Manatee]

Man, hasn't that always been one of the staple rules since D&D 3.0 and onwards? Am I going crazy?

Never been the case in tabletop.

I do know that all crits automatically hit in the infinity engine games so maybe you got the idea from there. Actually a bit of an annoying feature that significantly weakens AC stacking when you play with SCS, because enemies get re-statted to often have single or two-handed weapon proficiency which lets them crit on a 19 and therefore doubles the minimum amount of damage you could theoretically take with infinite AC. Player characters end up with a low enough THAC0 to never miss anyway, certainly not on a nat 19.

 

[Haplo]

Haplo you seen this? https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder.../80_damage_merged_domain_buff_judge_religion/

Yes, I have

Gozenka on Discord was already advertising Destruction Domain with the DLC3 ring a while ago when I was planning my Mobility Trickster.
Briefly considered switching Sword Saint to Sanctified Slayer. But finally decided against it.

Here BigArdGaming has added War Domain on top. Which is maybe not that great as another Swift Action activation. I'd maybe rather take Trickster double Good (or Madness) for +20 Attack.
Still, that's a lot of fixed, multiply-eble damage bonuses.

Been playing a bit with Destruction, but not on Trickster and without the ring (so much less effective... and not level 20 power either).
Maybe I'll take it on the Sanctified Slayer Aeon. I mean, +16 damage is not shabby either - or+24 with the ring (and +8 for everyone, including the mount... and enemies). Though not sure yet, in practice those Destruction rounds were running out quickly.

Yeah I agree, the amount of rounds you get is a major problem. Cute for boss fights, but meh the rest of the time.

Side note I am seeing some reports of bugs with the double morale ring, apparently it doesn't double stuff like Azata ability score boosts correctly?

The big issue is the Destructive Smite toggle (Destructive Aura takes a Standard Action to activate - but can stay active if you wish).
Destructive Smite seems not to last for rounds but for hits...

 

[Yosharian]

Hmm

 

[FreeKaner]

Here is another in these series of undead bloodline sorcerer:

35 DC on this.

There are surprisingly a lot of enemies whose entire set of immunities just come from being undead. Eternal Guardian with all its immunities is another one, his fortitude is only 15 in core as well so he was only saving on nat20s.

 

[Yosharian]

I found some undead assholes in an area right next to Drezen on the East side, one of em casting level 8 spells like Rift of Ruin, Blasphemy, some disease shit, a right pain in the ass, I'm only level 10.

Kill em, and there's nothing in the area except a fucking +2 Mithral Greatsword with some shitty enchantment, what the fuck. All that effort for a fucking +2 weapon wtf

 

[frajaq]

is game worth a re-play? been like months since my last run, did they re-work those Mythic Paths with lackluster details/no details?

 

[Desiderius]

I found some undead assholes in an area right next to Drezen on the East side, one of em casting level 8 spells like Rift of Ruin, Blasphemy, some disease shit, a right pain in the ass, I'm only level 10.

Kill em, and there's nothing in the area except a fucking +2 Mithral Greatsword with some shitty enchantment, what the fuck. All that effort for a fucking +2 weapon wtf

It’s not shitty since it procs on hit, and Mithril +2 is very solid at that point. Greatsword isn’t the best to specialize in but its a good best available Martial for awhile.

Main benefit of Ashbury is nice chunk of EXP. You did pass the Knowledge check, right?

 

[mediocrepoet]

New bug. Nature Whispers doesn't work.

No idea if this was answered since you mentioned this, but I've had it where a character picked up Nature's Whispers and it didn't show at first, but if I equipped and unequipped something that changed AC, like armour, then it would show properly. I think you need to trigger a recalculation of AC after you pick it up.

 

[Sykar]

Here is another in these series of undead bloodline sorcerer:

35 DC on this.

There are surprisingly a lot of enemies whose entire set of immunities just come from being undead. Eternal Guardian with all its immunities is another one, his fortitude is only 15 in core as well so he was only saving on nat20s.

I wonder if you could combine that with Arcane as a crossblooded in KM with CotW mod installed. Could be funny, Undead to let your spells affect them and Arcane to compensate for lost spell slots and extra 2 DC at 15.