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

[Lambach]

Should have just made it random instead of player controlled.

Jesus fuck, you sick bastard!

 

[skaraher]

The Hand of Inheritor is much more a bro, competent and sensible than the mortal crusaders but man, he sure is a gullible retard. Even when your mythic path is obviously evil he considers you Golarion's Champion and act all shocked and surprised when you go full murderhobo.

 

[Ghulgothas]

The Hand of Inheritor is much more a bro, competent and sensible than the mortal crusaders but man, he sure is a gullible retard. Even when your mythic path is obviously evil he considers you Golarion's Champion and act all shocked and surprised when you go full murderhobo.

To be fair, the guy who wears a glorious golden bucket with no eyeholes as a helmet would be oblivious to a lot of things.

 

[skaraher]

Part 2 of integrated Treasure of Midnight is easier than Part 1. The boss was a fun and challenging fight though. Siege Golem are the perfect counters to Kineticist shennaningans : they pull you into your own AOE.

Demon Woljif is underwhelming. No visible gameplay benefit (is it still bugged ?) and next to no dialogue.

 

[Humanophage]

I'm currently approaching Drezen, just did Lost Chapel.

My party at the moment:
1. Hmoyko the Molfar - a Hex Channeler witch with a Shadow patron. Focuses on casting Slumber and channeling. Has Shadowplay, so presumably his future shadow spells will be powerful. Should have put in more Dex, but no one really attacks him anyway. Has both positive channel and negative channel (Mythic).
2. Camellia - default shaman. Her primary task is putting an evil eye hex so that Hmoyko can reliably Slumber everyone. The other big task is to spam skeleton summon. I hear some people use her as a tank, but for me she's just a non-squishy caster.
3. Seelah - pure Negro Paladin with a horse, wielding a polearm. Great for doing coup de grace on slumbering characters because of her huge reach. Smite evil is also extremely useful against tanky characters.
--- Ottmar - her trusty steed. Tanks really well. I don't understand why no one targets Seelah and instead keeps beating the horse.
4. Lann - default monk archer. Deals a good amount of damage with buffs, but a bit uninventive. Gets enlarged by Camellia.
5. Nenio - default wizard. Not very impressive for now, given the low level. Haste is too important though.

The last member is flexible. At first, I had a vivisectionist Woljif, but he is a bit squishy. Now the main alternative is Daeran, who also has a pet bully wolf via Mythic that is surprisingly good at tripping (e.g., tripping the lich, tripping the ghouls). Stacking two channelers also gives good AoE versus large hordes of undead. He can also help Camellia spam skeletons. But now I am considering replacing Daeran with Ember because you can stack Witch Evil Eye with Shaman Evil Eye, giving -8 to saving throws. This would pretty much guarantee successful slumber as well as subsequent coup de grace (since fortitude is also weakened). It could be further amplified with misfortune.

The balancing is very odd. E.g., there's that item that summons 4 nabasus/angels which steamroll any enemy, including that Level 20 stringy otherling and the tough hidden nabasu in Lost Chapel. Theoretically, it is supposed to be a bit random, but really the chance of getting more than 50% of hostiles is tiny. And you can just run away then.

In terms of difficulty, I kept Hard without changing it. It was somewhat tough at first, but it gets much easier when you get the first mythic level.

 

[Lambach]

I'm currently approaching Drezen, just did Lost Chapel.

My party at the moment:
1. Hmoyko the Molfar - a Hex Channeler witch with a Shadow patron. Focuses on casting Slumber and channeling. Has Shadowplay, so presumably his future shadow spells will be powerful. Should have put in more Dex, but no one really attacks him anyway. Has both positive channel and negative channel (Mythic).

OK, I have to ask: what was the inspiration for this Chad Thundercock over here? Is he based on some other fictional or real character?

 

[Desiderius]

I'm currently approaching Drezen, just did Lost Chapel.

My party at the moment:
1. Hmoyko the Molfar - a Hex Channeler witch with a Shadow patron. Focuses on casting Slumber and channeling. Has Shadowplay, so presumably his future shadow spells will be powerful. Should have put in more Dex, but no one really attacks him anyway. Has both positive channel and negative channel (Mythic).
2. Camellia - default shaman. Her primary task is putting an evil eye hex so that Hmoyko can reliably Slumber everyone. The other big task is to spam skeleton summon. I hear some people use her as a tank, but for me she's just a non-squishy caster.
3. Seelah - pure Negro Paladin with a horse, wielding a polearm. Great for doing coup de grace on slumbering characters because of her huge reach. Smite evil is also extremely useful against tanky characters.
--- Ottmar - her trusty steed. Tanks really well. I don't understand why no one targets Seelah and instead keeps beating the horse.
4. Lann - default monk archer. Deals a good amount of damage with buffs, but a bit uninventive. Gets enlarged by Camellia.
5. Nenio - default wizard. Not very impressive for now, given the low level. Haste is too important though.

The last member is flexible. At first, I had a vivisectionist Woljif, but he is a bit squishy. Now the main alternative is Daeran, who also has a pet bully wolf via Mythic that is surprisingly good at tripping (e.g., tripping the lich, tripping the ghouls). Stacking two channelers also gives good AoE versus large hordes of undead. He can also help Camellia spam skeletons. But now I am considering replacing Daeran with Ember because you can stack Witch Evil Eye with Shaman Evil Eye, giving -8 to saving throws. This would pretty much guarantee successful slumber as well as subsequent coup de grace (since fortitude is also weakened). It could be further amplified with misfortune.

The balancing is very odd. E.g., there's that item that summons 4 nabasus/angels which steamroll any enemy, including that Level 20 stringy otherling and the tough hidden nabasu in Lost Chapel. Theoretically, it is supposed to be a bit random, but really the chance of getting more than 50% of hostiles is tiny. And you can just run away then.

In terms of difficulty, I kept Hard without changing it. It was somewhat tough at first, but it gets much easier when you get the first mythic level.

There's a Cloak in Areelu's Lab I think you're gonna like.

 

[skaraher]

because you can stack Witch Evil Eye with Shaman Evil Eye, giving -8 to saving throws.

This is the same kind of cheese as Smite Chaos from Hellknight stacking with Smite Evil from Paladin and cumulating Scaled Fist and Oracle bonus to CA.

We shall soon see if Baphomet's Kung Fu will measure up against the Avatar's earth bending.

 

[Humanophage]

I'm currently approaching Drezen, just did Lost Chapel.

My party at the moment:
1. Hmoyko the Molfar - a Hex Channeler witch with a Shadow patron. Focuses on casting Slumber and channeling. Has Shadowplay, so presumably his future shadow spells will be powerful. Should have put in more Dex, but no one really attacks him anyway. Has both positive channel and negative channel (Mythic).

OK, I have to ask: what was the inspiration for this Chad Thundercock over here? Is he based on some other fictional or real character?

The original inspiration is this guy, as well as molfars in general. I kept mashing him up with separately generated "shadowy gnomes" until I got a good image. A second inspiration was Gann of Dreams, although I haven't really played MotB. The idea is he should combine themes of shadows, dreams, life/death energies (channeling), and thin borders between worlds - but he should also look somewhat mundane. There's also the general Carpathian flair a la Negura Bunget or Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.

Here are some images I generated when coming up with a portrait, but they don't all fit the style:

because you can stack Witch Evil Eye with Shaman Evil Eye, giving -8 to saving throws.

This is the same kind of cheese as Smite Chaos from Hellknight stacking with Smite Evil from Paladin and cumulating Scaled Fist and Oracle bonus to CA.

I was hoping there would be synergy between different witches/shamans in that they'd cackle to prolong each other's hexes. But it turns out the hexes are considered separate. So it's just a different kind of synergy. I wonder if the hexes from other hex-making classes like magus count as a separate type. Though they say it's witch hexes, so they probably count as witch. I thought the game sort of wanted you to go over the top because it keeps throwing those insane overpowering feats and items at you. Like, you only have 2 spells of level 3 and are trying to squeeze out one more slot with Int... and it throws a feat that gives you 4 more of every level. The whole thing feels like some kind of absurdly epic power metal album.

 

[Desiderius]

because you can stack Witch Evil Eye with Shaman Evil Eye, giving -8 to saving throws.

This is the same kind of cheese as Smite Chaos from Hellknight stacking with Smite Evil from Paladin and cumulating Scaled Fist and Oracle bonus to CA.

We shall soon see if Baphomet's Kung Fu will measure up against the Avatar's earth bending.

Smite Chaos doesn’t stack with Mark of Justice though strangely.

 

[The_Mask]

Negura Bunget is actually one of my favourite bands. I have a T-shirt from them. Interesting choice. :D

 

[skaraher]

Nocticula fight on Demon was easy. The tricky part was to find a tempo to use a crossbow to shoot midnight bolt, cause only my MC had enough Fortitude to resist her Seductive aura. Losing a move action to use a crossbow in the first rounds his dangerous, but it was necessary, she dies too much quickly to my earth blast with Kalavaku if I don't.

One shotted Shamira and became leader of demon town, banging Evil Arueshalae while romancing Camellia in Drezen, life is good. I enjoyed Wenduag interaction but she broke the romance path when I reminded her she is just a minion in my army.

 

[skaraher]

Just finished the Evil characters arc. Some thoughts :

- Camellia : Very engaging story. Easily missable as most sane or good characters would have executed her after the Act 3 reveal. Ton of reactivity in the dialogue, lots of surprises, and each time you thought you'd unraveled the full extent of her depravity she still surprises you. One of the finest piece of writing for Owlcat companions, who are in general rather bland. Camellia is not gray, she is black. Unambiguously evil. She has no real excuses, no redeemable quality, no possibility for the player to change her personality via Talk no Jutsu. You either embrace the crazyness or do the sensible thing and do away with her. Some moments were legitimately hilarious.

What is the reward for this arc :

Spoiler

She stays the same evil bitch but promises to try to behave normally with you.

Spoiler

Which predictably epicly fail.

Romance are usually a cringefest in CRPG, but it was nice to see the writers use it as an excuse to develop a fun story arc. You need to actually pay attention to her fucked up personality to find the right answers and progress it to the grandiose finale. Also she has a ton of dialogue and interaction in Demon City in Act 4 and acts as a nice foil to Arueshalae.

- Wenduag : Lann counterpart, their companion quest are basically the same and follows mongrelfolk trying to find their place in the world. Wenduag is a fun character with a lot of reactivity and interaction during the whole game. She is basically your standard evil minion-lieutnant who always advocate for brutality and murderhoboing your way through the game. Her romance was rather bland, but with a relatively complex dialogue structure and multiple possible outcomes.

- Evil Woljif : Basically 0 meaningful content after you complete his story arc, like many characters which is a shame as it ends with a radical shift in character. You can see most writing went into the Human Woljif outcome. Gameplay effect seems to be bugged. Characters whose story arc are resolved in Act 4 like him and Sosiel don't really have much to go with them in the final part of the game.

- Evil Arueshalae : devoid of content, clearly an afterthought. Mecanically she is a totally new character with a different build (Spoiler : it is shit. Favored enemies like Halfling or dwarf, which you practically never encounters). I think it is a hard limitation of Owlcat engine and that they can change characters portraits, but not their voice set. She is pretty much the standard evil succubi. Not really complicated to have, her quest and romance structure is one of the simplest of the game, you just have to take one EVIL option in her quest.

Arueshalae is defintely a lot of missed potential. The character is at the center of a lot of interaction but her dialogue and arc is trash, and the alternative option lead to basically nowhere.

Demon mythic arc was a fun ride. I didn't do yet the three major dungeons of Act 5 but completed all the Mythic quests. The direction taken by the writing focus more on demon corruption being your inherent bestial nature that you can choose to embrace or control, but you aren't really tempted by the idea of EVIL in itself. Basically you can side with Nocticula and be the sidekick in her character arc, or you can go all the way on the path of RAGE and FREEDOM.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I've been messing around with different builds. Sword Saint is very powerful, but it's just not what I want. I try messing around with gishes, including Eldritch Knights, but you're inevitably building a fighter with some spells. I want the inverse. On the same note, I tried messing around with the Angelfire Apostle. While Abundant Casting easily makes up for its deficiencies, I can't make Cleansing Flames work. The damage is too small to make burning a Channel Divinity worth it. It's also has a perverse incentive, because if you're using Cleaning Flames, you're depleting your bank of channels for the various curative effects.

I'm having a fun playing with TTT and metamagics. While Azata does seem to edge out Trickster in being the most powerful spellcaster, it's not by much. UMD III and especially Completely Normal Spell are not to be underestimated. I've taken to using a Pride Thassolin Specialist. Illusion has long been my favorite D&D school, and it's well represented in WotR. Shadow Spells + CNS nearly give you 3 schools for the price of one. I can even indulge in Great Jokes mythic ability. Shadow Enchantment using CNS can cast from L2 slots and properly uses illusion DC. Having all that selection cast at the base spells normal level is excellent. All the metamatics even work on them too. Azata progresses much more cleanly though. Trickster mythic path is slow growth and late to bloom.

I think my next test will be with an Abjurer cleric. I want to mess around with Destructive Dispels and Dismissal/Banishment with nukes in reserve. Will probably go Angel. I haven't touched that mythic yet.

 

[skaraher]

If you are on Demon path you can DEVOUR SOUL the hand of the inheritor after defeating him. But my version seems bugged as it didn't gave me any buff, I just have the benefit of hearty meal shown as permanent.

 

[Desiderius]

I've been messing around with different builds. Sword Saint is very powerful, but it's just not what I want. I try messing around with gishes, including Eldritch Knights, but you're inevitably building a fighter with some spells. I want the inverse. On the same note, I tried messing around with the Angelfire Apostle. While Abundant Casting easily makes up for its deficiencies, I can't make Cleansing Flames work. The damage is too small to make burning a Channel Divinity worth it. It's also has a perverse incentive, because if you're using Cleaning Flames, you're depleting your bank of channels for the various curative effects.

I'm having a fun playing with TTT and metamagics. While Azata does seem to edge out Trickster in being the most powerful spellcaster, it's not by much. UMD III and especially Completely Normal Spell are not to be underestimated. I've taken to using a Pride Thassolin Specialist. Illusion has long been my favorite D&D school, and it's well represented in WotR. Shadow Spells + CNS nearly give you 3 schools for the price of one. I can even indulge in Great Jokes mythic ability. Shadow Enchantment using CNS can cast from L2 slots and properly uses illusion DC. Having all that selection cast at the base spells normal level is excellent. All the metamatics even work on them too. Azata progresses much more cleanly though. Trickster mythic path is slow growth and late to bloom.

I think my next test will be with an Abjurer cleric. I want to mess around with Destructive Dispels and Dismissal/Banishment with nukes in reserve. Will probably go Angel. I haven't touched that mythic yet.

I really liked the Gnome Racial Special Arcanist with Azata. Shadow spells make up for the downside of Arcanist.

 

[Yosharian]

Supposedly the best written arc for Arue is redemption from the Demon path

 

[skaraher]

I did Baphomet prison and Purula. Act 5 is... Well you can clearly see its not finished. The climax of the game is the second battle of Drezen, after that you're sent to tie up all plots loose ends and its rather barren. There are no debriefing, no real acknowledgment after Purula and Ineluctable. Only main stories missions are Iz and Threshold. You also have all those backer quest to finish but they are largely irrelevant and you dont need the loot nor the xp.

Not really any hindsight on Areelu vorlesh and what motivates her actions in the act 4 and 5. Not talking about the overall Worldwound plot but all the convoluted backstabbing between the three demons lord. What is she trying to accomplish ? I did some secret ending steps but havent yet visited her secret lab yet.

I didnt have those questions in Aeo, as in this path you rush the time rift to save the world and murdergibs any obstacle in the way.

I read DEVOURing the angel was added by EE. As of my version it is bugged, dont know if it will give the correct buff in 2.10. but I skimmed through reddit and steam forums and nobody have documented going through it yet, only datamining.

 

[ArchAngel]

I did Baphomet prison and Purula. Act 5 is... Well you can clearly see its not finished. The climax of the game is the second battle of Drezen, after that you're sent to tie up all plots loose ends and its rather barren. There are no debriefing, no real acknowledgment after Purula and Ineluctable. Only main stories missions are Iz and Threshold. You also have all those backer quest to finish but they are largely irrelevant and you dont need the loot nor the xp.

Not really any hindsight on Areelu vorlesh and what motivates her actions in the act 4 and 5. Not talking about the overall Worldwound plot but all the convoluted backstabbing between the three demons lord. What is she trying to accomplish ? I did some secret ending steps but havent yet visited her secret lab yet.

I didnt have those questions in Aeo, as in this path you rush the time rift to save the world and murdergibs any obstacle in the way.

I read DEVOURing the angel was added by EE. As of my version it is bugged, dont know if it will give the correct buff in 2.10. but I skimmed through reddit and steam forums and nobody have documented going through it yet, only datamining.

Her actions are that she is using everyone in this game to accomplish her goals. Demon lords are just one more pawn in her game.

 

[skaraher]

Finished Treasure of Midnight Isles and currently doing Enigma. Treasure was a fun ride and the three last boss (Songbird, Soul, Nahyndri husk) were nice fight. Loled at Owlcat attempt to introduce Dark Soulesque cinematics in their engine.

Enigma is a massive slog and the arrow puzzle are bullshit. Rooms after rooms of undead spamming Phantasmal putrefaction.

 

[ga♥]

- Evil Arueshalae : [...] I think it is a hard limitation of Owlcat engine and that they can change characters portraits, but not their voice set.

Wut do you mean? I am pretty sure she has different voiced lines, even if not that much.

 

[ArchAngel]

Finished Treasure of Midnight Isles and currently doing Enigma. Treasure was a fun ride and the three last boss (Songbird, Soul, Nahyndri husk) were nice fight. Loled at Owlcat attempt to introduce Dark Soulesque cinematics in their engine.

Enigma is a massive slog and the arrow puzzle are bullshit. Rooms after rooms of undead spamming Phantasmal putrefaction.

Smart people forget Enigma exists. It is by far the worst part of this or any Owlcat game and I played House in first game fairly early.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

I think I'll just use mod that skip puzzle in any future playthrough. Enigma is a massive slog even as an Aeon, I dread doing it with any other Mythic Path.

Putrefaction that last fucking minutes being spammed by one of the most common respawning mob in the dungeon who also cast Ice Prison is probably something that I want to experience only once. Even with Aeon who is making his part immune to the mental putrefaction, it is a massive slog from Ice Prison alone.

 

[skaraher]

- Evil Arueshalae : [...] I think it is a hard limitation of Owlcat engine and that they can change characters portraits, but not their voice set.

Wut do you mean? I am pretty sure she has different voiced lines, even if not that much.

I mean Evil Arueshalae is mechanically a different character with a different voiceset than good Arueshalae. I think they can't change the voiceset of an existing character. But maybe I'm wrong.

 

[skaraher]

Tried to do the Secret ending for the lulz, dialogue option never showed up. Did some digging in the save edit engine, turned out I was missing a flag for visiting Areelu secret lab, which I had done.