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

[Yosharian]

Beast rider > hunter as a level 1 choose your mount pick.

The issue with Hunter is that loss of BAB. Getting Shatter, Imp Crit, etc one level later hurts quite a bit on the higher difficulties

 

[Haplo]

Beast rider > hunter as a level 1 choose your mount pick.

True. But then you face the opportunity cost of not selecting Gendarme for up to 2 more feats in 3 levels (which are good for chargers - due to +2 AB on Charge Cavalier bonus). Still, its a solid option.

Mad Dog 1-2 is another solid option - but may cause alignment issues.

Hunter probably mostly makes sense as a 3 level dip - for free Outflank and either Teamwork sharing (regular) or Celestial template (Divine Hunter - probably only makes sense for the Velociraptor Smite memes).

 

[proxon]

Really enjoyed act 4 overall, particularly the optional fights with the imp, and the house where you get the +2 charisma book but also general pacing. The sudden and unexpected fights during the city, especially with soul hunters but also others really spice it up and make the whole city feel dangerous and keep you on your toes at all times. Most of the fights were won by just phantasmal web into phantasmal putrefaction with PK on choice targets but unattended succubi and incubi dish out ridiculous damage even to my 60ac Camelia and Woljif.

Best chapter by far, best music too.

 

[mediocrepoet]

So I've been tooling around with the early game again and whatever the last patch was in the last day or so broke Lann's Zen Archer level up (prob the entire class), instead of ZA bonus feats that are good for it like PB shot, etc. it's now using the regular monk feat list.

 

[Grunker]

Merry christmas, fellow autists. I love you all. Except Desiderius. But as they say:

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

So I've been tooling around with the early game again and whatever the last patch was in the last day or so broke Lann's Zen Archer level up (prob the entire class), instead of ZA bonus feats that are good for it like PB shot, etc. it's now using the regular monk feat list.

Just imagine the shape of this game after 3 more DLCs

 

[Yosharian]

Hmmm I hadn't thought about the Outflank thing, that is quite juicy actually

I still can't justify it though, full BAB is just too good and I would have to give up Perfect Strike or Demonslayer and that's too much

 

[Desiderius]

Daidre what are the consequences of leaving the Delamere artifacts in the Tomb? Bringing them to Drezen?

 

[FreeKaner]

Really enjoyed act 4 overall, particularly the optional fights with the imp, and the house where you get the +2 charisma book but also general pacing. The sudden and unexpected fights during the city, especially with soul hunters but also others really spice it up and make the whole city feel dangerous and keep you on your toes at all times. Most of the fights were won by just phantasmal web into phantasmal putrefaction with PK on choice targets but unattended succubi and incubi dish out ridiculous damage even to my 60ac Camelia and Woljif.

Best chapter by far, best music too.

Yes, appeals to my oriental soul. If only we could build skull towers to make Tamerlane proud.

 

[Desiderius]

Beast rider > hunter as a level 1 choose your mount pick.

Then spend your other 19 levels there too. Great class, especially for MC. No need to nerf yourself.

You're acting like a better pet isn't one of the best abilities in the game.

Oh yeah, level 6. Lets see how many more attacks you get with a velociraptor vs a horse. That's a better comparison.

Uh, Horse gets 3 from the get go and is already Large lol. The Raptor shenanigans come online later when damage is much less of an issue. Strength of early Raptor is survivability, but Horse can get there.

The game gives you six companions, not just one. Several of them make good attackers - don't have to max damage on MC let alone Mount if you're making good use of them.

The pets are really well designed with each having strengths and weaknesses. Even Bismuth has Pwerful Charge + Trip somehow. I'm not that interested in exploiting bugs in the first place, but even less bugs that just generate extra damage which I don't really need and would just further shorten combats that I already find a little too short. I like the replayability of different pets and getting the most out of my classes without needlessly nerfing my MC. Unlocking the new abilities that come with new class levels and putting them to use is my favorite part of the game and what I've found to make the biggest difference in performance. I've done that with about seven different pets at this point.

 

[Infinitron]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1184370/view/3611354287389871254

Update 2.0.5p
Hello, pathfinders!

We are here with a hot-fix 2.0.5p for a couple of issues found after the previous patch.

• Your characters could get access to some technical feats from bosses, and for some classes the feat progression broke. For Lann’s Zen Archer archetype, for example. Now it should be safe to level up, but if you already took wrong feats for Lann, you may need to retrain him.
• After the previous update, some important characters started to die, and the quests that depended on them couldn’t be completed. For example, when you storm Drezen gates, the crusaders who held the ram and helped to break the gates could die, or an essential character in Pulura's Fall could die. It will stop happening now, but if you have encountered this issue already, you may need to load the previous auto save, or a save before visiting the location for the first time, when the characters were still alive. If that doesn’t help, please send us a bug report via Alt+B.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience these issues caused for you.

 

[Humbaba]

Boy do they make you work for the swarm path. Fighting those ravenous vescavors is no fucking joke. But so far the path is very cool, you basically become an OP BG1 solo PC and nothing can stop you. Just wiped the floor with the two dragons at the burial ground. Swarm infest is great against single targets.

Narratively, the path starts out very strong, with Iomedae literally nuking you to dust, as well she should. But your LUST FOR REVENGE resurrects you as a pile of bugs, as you try to find a way to rid yourself of Deskari's influence who has hidden one of his locusts in your ass or something.

HOWEVER I wish they fudged the inventory weight mechanics a bit because you have to dump your entire fucking stash if you don't wanna walk around everywhere overloaded. Seems like an oversight but granted 90% of the shared stash was potions and scrolls I was never going to use anyway.

 

[ga♥]

Swarm is the strongest martial mythic I think, nothing compares, not even legend. But it was quite buggy when I did it, as for example you have crusade events in Drezen that are supposed to buff you but do nothing.

I don't remember issues with the weight, I guess you had pets with the companions or something and never dropped items in the stash?

 

[LannTheStupid]

You're under-leveled *every level of the game*. Do the side by side comparison at each level and you'll see it. It's why people aren't doing the Monk and Vivi splashes anymore. The ruleset is literally designed around single-classing *especially* for redundant classes.

That's the point you're missing. And every good builder considers it. In every good YT clip or Neoseeker page.

There are benefits in class dips as well as opportunity costs.

Like, a Psychokin with 1 level of Trad Monk.

Every time I buff him with Owl's Wisdom he gets both AC and damage. Every time he fights Defensively he gets Crane Style discount for only 1 feat price. And it is 1 dip in a full BAB class for a 3/4 BAB. I am OK with him not having Deadly Earth 1 level earlier if he keeps one immensely helpful half-elf alive.

I think in your crusade against "memes" and "opportunity costs" you forget about real benefits of multi-classing. As real crusaders did, who first were eradicated by Saladin, and now their last holdings are decimated by true believers (Bismillah Hir Rahman Nir Rahim).

 

[Desiderius]

You're under-leveled *every level of the game*. Do the side by side comparison at each level and you'll see it. It's why people aren't doing the Monk and Vivi splashes anymore. The ruleset is literally designed around single-classing *especially* for redundant classes.

That's the point you're missing. And every good builder considers it. In every good YT clip or Neoseeker page.

There are benefits in class dips as well as opportunity costs.

Like, a Psychokin with 1 level of Trad Monk.

Every time I buff him with Owl's Wisdom he gets both AC and damage. Every time he fights Defensively he gets Crane Style discount for only 1 feat price. And it is 1 dip in a full BAB class for a 3/4 BAB. I am OK with him not having Deadly Earth 1 level earlier if he keeps one immensely helpful half-elf alive.

I think in your crusade against "memes" and "opportunity costs" you forget about real benefits of multi-classing. As real crusaders did, who first were eradicated by Saladin, and now their last holdings are decimated by true believers (Bismillah Hir Rahman Nir Rahim).

Sometimes it can be worth it. @Haplo splashes Gendarme to get to Shatter and Vulpine Pounce on time on a feat-starved 3/4 class. That's a qualitative difference. I threw in a TSS level at lvl 6 on Seelah to pick up the equivalent of two extra Feats looking ahead to unlocking Armor Training on Tower Shield at Pal13/TSS3 because that marginal AC I pick up there lets her tank some of the hardest targets and Pal could use the bonus feats. Throwing a zero BAB/zero Feat lvl onto a Mounted class at lvl 1 is a *major* price that you don't need to pay if you just play the class that gets the Mount you want in the first place.

Dude, you're the one that's missing the point. I've already been thru all that.

The question here was about splashing a duplicate class to get a different mount. The fallacy is that all that costs you is the capstone. I'm walking people who fall for that thru the true cost you've got to look at.

You're shooting the messenger.

 

[LannTheStupid]

The question here was about splashing a duplicate class to get a different mount.

What's wrong with that? If I want Seelah to ride a pig (which IMHO suits her much better) I'm OK spending 1 level on Beast Rider while not losing BAB. Yes, I will have all the mercies and the Mark of Justice 1 level later. So what? She, <insert a racial slur>, rides a pig!

The weights different people assign to different costs are different. Isn't that obvious?

You're right that people need to understand them fully, and I agree with that. Informed choices are always better.

 

[Desiderius]

They're not applying different weights, they're not understanding what the trade entails. When they talk about capstone that's what's happening. Many such cases!

It's to be expected when people are going from a ruleset (3.5) that strongly incentivizes multi-classing to one designed to bake a lot of the 3.5 multi-classing benefits into the single-class cake to open up more options. That's why the d20 site takes the trouble to walk people through the downside of duplicating abilities when multi-classing with similar classes.

It's unbelievable how many glibertarian Western tropes you uncritically spout while supposedly looking down your nose at the West. You're more Western than we are - especially on the bad parts. The customer is not in fact always right, at least at first. It takes time and engagement. That can come from authority (as it does in most Eastern traditions), community (which gets cut off by mods so worried about hurt feelings that they cancel all criticism), or the company itself (even Western companies used to be far more paternalistic with both customers and employees - that's a good thing. Dads are missed).

If you want Seelah to ride a pig then use a respec mod so you're not blowing two Feats on Dodge and Shield Focus that Mounted characters don't need in the first place. Then you can play a class with Pig Mounts or mod that into Pal. Player choice, amirite?

 

[mediocrepoet]

Just remember, any time that someone takes a non-Desi approved dip, a sperg loses his mind. Won't you please think of the spergs?

Whether you know it or not, a Desi agent is checking up on your single player progress, furiously masturbating at the thought of catching you in the act of making a sub-optimal character or one that he simply does not understand or care for! YOU ARE ALL ON NOTICE!

 

[mediocrepoet]

Player choice, amirite?

More seriously, sir, I know that you are very knowledgeable and passionate about this game and its predecessor and I'm just coming back to it after a long hiatus. Will you please rate my next PC? I'm thinking of going Lich MP, so Death Knight, of course.

Anyway, I'm making him the Vampire Hunter D Dhampir thing for +str +int, then starting as fighter. At fighter 1, I can take both arcane armour training and arcane armour mastery for -20% to casting in armour. You get level 2 right away, so there I can take my necromancer spec mage and use the wizard bonus feat to take spell focus necromancy. Naturally, I'll be aiming at the Eldritch Knight class for maximum awesome.

Pretty sweet, right?

 

[LannTheStupid]

Also, dear Desiderius, there are capstones - and there are milestones. They require meta-knowledge, but it is widely available now.

If dips make the performance of the character be subpar at some important events - like the Gray Garrison, the siege of Dresen, Playful Darkness and so on - then the multiclassing is bad or, at least, badly timed. However, if dipped characters peak at exactly those moments - then multiclassing is good.

And going for mods with Owlcat's awful QA is just a bad taste. It's like not washing for several weeks; one can have sound and legitimate reasons for that, but s/he still stinks.

I'm thinking of going Lich MP, so Death Knight, of course.

See, this is how the language interferes with perspective.

In English "death" is masculine, while almost all of the nouns do not have gender. So the word "death" stands out, and it is a "he". So powerful Death Knights on horses and so on come to mind for you.

In Russian every noun has a gender. Every one of them, you cannot speak proper Russian without gendering everything. And death - "смерть" - is feminine. Usually she is depicted as the crone with a scythe who just reaps souls without much effort. Like grass. Or, in some modern cases, not a crone, but a girl, sometimes not even ugly.

So I am planning my Lich as a female Dhampir Cruoromancer, extremely fragile, maybe with 8 in both CON and STR, but very intelligent, beautiful and graceful. And deadly. With as much focus on necro DC as I can muster. I think even a suboptimal wizard is good enough for Hard.

 

[mediocrepoet]

See, this is how the language interferes with perspective.

In English "death" is masculine, while almost all of the nouns do not have gender. So the word "death" stands out, and it is a "he". So powerful Death Knights on horses and so on come to mind for you.

There are some good examples of this for sure and your perspective on this is interesting, but "Death" isn't really masculine in English. I mean, the grim reaper may be normally thought of as male-ish, but it's a shrouded figure with a scythe. But there are also other concepts associated with death like your fragile crone, it's more of an everything goes thing.
If anything, I'd say "Death Knight" is more a D&D thing that was basically a rip off of Tokien's Nazgul and has little to do with linguistics so far as I know.

Things that may be more linguistic based and really give an insight into how language can shape world view and "colour" would be something like "potato" in English vs. "pomme de terre" in French. Which sounds better and more evocative? A potato or an apple of the earth? I don't know any Russian, so I don't have any examples that may be more relevant to you. Well, outside of like... "Blyat" I guess. Gotta learn the important ones, right?

 

[LannTheStupid]

mediocrepoet Nah, we just imported potatoes straight from the West, both the vegetable and the word which comes from German "Kartoffel". For a while peasants were afraid of it. They tried to use potato berries - which are poisonous - and thus were reluctant to grow it. Surely, after some of them were executed for not following the Tsar's order, people started digging, and eventually potatoes became one of the staples of Russian cuisine.

 

[Desiderius]

Player choice, amirite?

More seriously, sir, I know that you are very knowledgeable and passionate about this game and its predecessor and I'm just coming back to it after a long hiatus. Will you please rate my next PC? I'm thinking of going Lich MP, so Death Knight, of course.

Anyway, I'm making him the Vampire Hunter D Dhampir thing for +str +int, then starting as fighter. At fighter 1, I can take both arcane armour training and arcane armour mastery for -20% to casting in armour. You get level 2 right away, so there I can take my necromancer spec mage and use the wizard bonus feat to take spell focus necromancy. Naturally, I'll be aiming at the Eldritch Knight class for maximum awesome.

Pretty sweet, right?

Sry, don't do Lich. Daidre's probably your best bet there.

Aeon's pretty fun with the Lawlful crew teaming up to take down the forces of Chaos:



Touch of Law seems appropriate. Reg now has Law, Nobility, and Travel Domain with Domain Zealot. He's kind of busy.

 

[Desiderius]

mods with Owlcat's awful QA is just a bad taste

Lol at this point mods *are* Owlcat's QA. I've got much higher functionality using Mod Finder than I ever had with vanilla.

YOU ARE ALL ON NOTICE!

Damn straight phaggots! Git gud. Kotex has a reputation to uphold.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Notice who doesn't lose their shit - the best player here (far better than me).

Hey thanks bro.