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

[Rhobar121]

You bring up a 100% optional fight, with mobs not even appearing in the area untill you trigger their anger by stealing from a grave

Fair enough, it's been awhile and I don't remember what causes the spectres to show up. If it is clearly signposted along the lines of "grabbing this item will cause several overtuned mobs to show up who are beyond the scope of what the system is designed for," then yeah, my fault. If it says something generic like "beware the wrath of the spirits" then eh, I guess it's still my fault for not save scumming enough or reading a guide. Also, can you un-trigger the ghosts? Once they are there they don't go away and they're all along the paths to the other quests in the area.

If you return the item you took from the body the ghosts will disappear, although they give so much exp that killing all 7 gives you almost a full lvl.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Grampy_Bone I don't understand you. Or, to be more precise, neither you, nor other tabletoppers.

You refer to the encounter design guide. Who wrote it, why, and for whom? What is the goal of such (and not some other) distribution of encounters? Which experiences do DMs who use this guide try to achieve?

Is it to keep the TT game lighthearted and fun? Will it work for an adversarial DM whose goal is to make Dark Souls out of the tabletop campaign? Do such DMs still exist anywhere west of the Oder?

I don't know. If you do, I will appreciate the explanation.

I know (by osmosis, if you want) that Owlcat Games employees run regular weekly TT sessions for every new game. I know that some of the higher-ups are their DMs, maybe even Mishulin himself. Logically, it means that they have very stable and reliable parties, because people physically work right there (or they did, but it's a different story). It is probably voluntarily, but maybe not exactly; if an employee from the designing team does not regularly play the game s/he is designing, that's odd.

As a result, maybe Owlcat can afford much more adversarial campaigns than the guides suggest. The guides are from Paizo, after all, and with all due respect, they have a lot of browney points in favour of "modern audiences" (TM). Also, there is an achievement called "Sadistic Game Design"—don't you think it's there for a reason?


TL;DR: While I agree that Owlcat's design does not follow the encounter guide, I doubt that applying the guide to a computer game would have improved the game.

 

[razvedchiki]

isnt the primalist bloodrager with an arcane second bloodline the perfect tank?
you get guarded stance/animal totem from the barb powers and blur/displacement from the arcane bloodline plus mirror image.

 

[Haplo]

isnt the primalist bloodrager with an arcane second bloodline the perfect tank?
you get guarded stance/animal totem from the barb powers and blur/displacement from the arcane bloodline plus mirror image.

I'd not say perfect. But yeah, not bad.

 

[razvedchiki]

ok many mobs have true sight but its usually the bosses if i remember correctly.

 

[Average Manatee]

isnt the primalist bloodrager with an arcane second bloodline the perfect tank?
you get guarded stance/animal totem from the barb powers and blur/displacement from the arcane bloodline plus mirror image.

Taking the blur/displacement abilities means you can't take barb powers which kind of defeats the point of primalist unless your plan is to wait until level 16 for your build to come online. Otherwise you want good abilities at the non-multiple of 4 levels since you'll be trading all those out for rages. I'd rather just take Angelic for Angelic Attacks all the way from level 1.

There's also the possibility of just taking Bloodrider instead. Being mounted trivializes a lot of defensive problems.

 

[scytheavatar]

isnt the primalist bloodrager with an arcane second bloodline the perfect tank?
you get guarded stance/animal totem from the barb powers and blur/displacement from the arcane bloodline plus mirror image.

You can get guarded stance/animal totem easily from a Skald and any arcane caster can cast displacement on any character. Most people pick lethal stance over guarded stance as the offense boast is just too good to give up.

 

[Yosharian]

To be fair it is natural behaviour in CRPGs to kill everything you come across. It isn't immediately obvious when you encounter those spirit druids, that you can actually just skip past them.

Imagine if, for example, one of your party members commented, upon entering the area, something like 'this place looks dangerous' etc

 

[Shadenuat]

Grampy_Bone I don't understand you. Or, to be more precise, neither you, nor other tabletoppers.

You refer to the encounter design guide. Who wrote it, why, and for whom? What is the goal of such (and not some other) distribution of encounters? Which experiences do DMs who use this guide try to achieve?

Honestly dont know, i sometimes see cr talk as sign that people never dmd. As dm i never used it to orient in anything, instead i looked directly at creature stats, hp, ac, special abilities, and context of the encounter inside the story. I am sure there are enough high level creatures that particular party composition can beat being low level and enough low level monsters which are a bitch in comparison (remember swarms in pkm).

 

[Haplo]

isnt the primalist bloodrager with an arcane second bloodline the perfect tank?
you get guarded stance/animal totem from the barb powers and blur/displacement from the arcane bloodline plus mirror image.

Taking the blur/displacement abilities means you can't take barb powers which kind of defeats the point of primalist unless your plan is to wait until level 16 for your build to come online. Otherwise you want good abilities at the non-multiple of 4 levels since you'll be trading all those out for rages. I'd rather just take Angelic for Angelic Attacks all the way from level 1.

There's also the possibility of just taking Bloodrider instead. Being mounted trivializes a lot of defensive problems.

Eh, the advantage of Primalist over Barbarian is that he can pick and choose. Generally the split could be around 50/50 Rage Powers and Bloodline Powers.

 

[razvedchiki]

isnt the primalist bloodrager with an arcane second bloodline the perfect tank?
you get guarded stance/animal totem from the barb powers and blur/displacement from the arcane bloodline plus mirror image.

Taking the blur/displacement abilities means you can't take barb powers which kind of defeats the point of primalist unless your plan is to wait until level 16 for your build to come online. Otherwise you want good abilities at the non-multiple of 4 levels since you'll be trading all those out for rages. I'd rather just take Angelic for Angelic Attacks all the way from level 1.

There's also the possibility of just taking Bloodrider instead. Being mounted trivializes a lot of defensive problems.

are you sure? i respeced a lvl 13 char and i could normally take the barb powers and the bloodline one with the mythic feat. i use the TTT mod.

 

[razvedchiki]

isnt the primalist bloodrager with an arcane second bloodline the perfect tank?
you get guarded stance/animal totem from the barb powers and blur/displacement from the arcane bloodline plus mirror image.

You can get guarded stance/animal totem easily from a Skald and any arcane caster can cast displacement on any character. Most people pick lethal stance over guarded stance as the offense boast is just too good to give up.

the ragers displacement from the power is permanent while he rages, saves a spell slot of the casters.
i agree for the lethal stance, guarded gives a total of 6 ac which you may or may not need it.

 

[Yosharian]

isnt the primalist bloodrager with an arcane second bloodline the perfect tank?
you get guarded stance/animal totem from the barb powers and blur/displacement from the arcane bloodline plus mirror image.

You can get guarded stance/animal totem easily from a Skald and any arcane caster can cast displacement on any character. Most people pick lethal stance over guarded stance as the offense boast is just too good to give up.

Stances stack. No reason not to get two stances, Demon path issues aside

 

[Haplo]

isnt the primalist bloodrager with an arcane second bloodline the perfect tank?
you get guarded stance/animal totem from the barb powers and blur/displacement from the arcane bloodline plus mirror image.

You can get guarded stance/animal totem easily from a Skald and any arcane caster can cast displacement on any character. Most people pick lethal stance over guarded stance as the offense boast is just too good to give up.

Stances stack. No reason not to get two stances, Demon path issues aside

I don't think that's correct? At least not with TTT.

 

[volklore]

ok many mobs have true sight but its usually the bosses if i remember correctly.

You can buff with mind blank to deny divination-based concealment negation. I don't remember things having true sight until late act3. Until you get it on a caster you can use scrolls, pretty sure they are sold. Only thing that can truely break through concealment is echolocation.
Also worth noting a lot of bosses with concealment also have mindblank (like playfull dorkness) so only way to break through their concealment is either dispelling the mindblank or echolocation from a UMD scroll or shared by an alchemist/BFT

 

[volklore]

I noticed that Command did not work on corrupted mongrels (monstruous humanoid).

Saving Throw Will negates; Spell Resistance yes

Did you check the saves in the log?

I couldn't even use the spell. When I tried to click the mongrel, I'd get a prompt saying something like ''target is monstruous humanoid, cannot be targeted unless serpentine bloodline''.
I have no clue if it's related to TTT or not (no such thing in the readme). I didn't have another compulsion spell to try (although I seem to remember hypnotism worked on another character).

 

[Yosharian]

isnt the primalist bloodrager with an arcane second bloodline the perfect tank?
you get guarded stance/animal totem from the barb powers and blur/displacement from the arcane bloodline plus mirror image.

You can get guarded stance/animal totem easily from a Skald and any arcane caster can cast displacement on any character. Most people pick lethal stance over guarded stance as the offense boast is just too good to give up.

Stances stack. No reason not to get two stances, Demon path issues aside

I don't think that's correct? At least not with TTT.

Skald gifted stance plus inherent stance from your Barb powers stack in vanilla

I don't use TTT

 

[LannTheStupid]

I noticed that Command did not work on corrupted mongrels (monstruous humanoid).

Saving Throw Will negates; Spell Resistance yes

Did you check the saves in the log?

I couldn't even use the spell. When I tried to click the mongrel, I'd get a prompt saying something like ''target is monstruous humanoid, cannot be targeted unless serpentine bloodline''.
I have no clue if it's related to TTT or not (no such thing in the readme). I didn't have another compulsion spell to try (although I seem to remember hypnotism worked on another character).

This seems to explain it. As I understand it, the chain goes as follows:

1. Command is marked as "(compulsion) [language-dependent, mind-affecting]".
2. Language-dependent descriptor is "A language-dependent spell uses intelligible language as a medium for communication. If the target cannot understand or hear what the caster of a language-dependent spell says, the spell has no effect, even if the target fails its saving throw."
3. Serpentine Bloodline has the Arcana "Your powers of compulsion can affect even bestial creatures. Whenever you cast a mind-affecting or language-dependent spell, it affects animals, magical beasts, and monstrous humanoids as if they were humanoids who understood your language."

So monstrous humanoids are considered unable to understand intelligible language.

Hypnotism, on the other hand, has "(compulsion) [mind-affecting]" in the description, which means the spell is not language-dependent.

 

[Yosharian]

My tank's AC:

AC Bonus Breakdown:
-- Touch AC bonuses --
+10: Basic AC bonus
+20: Dexterity bonus [50 DEX]
+7: Deflection bonus [Flawless Ring of Protection]
+1: Dodge bonus [Haste spell, boosted by boots]
+1: Dodge bonus [Haste effect from Skald 20, stacks with Haste, boosted by boots]
+8: Dodge bonus [Canny Defense, 28 INT]
+2: Insight bonus [Foresight spell]
+6: Dodge bonus [Guarded Stance, activated by Skald]
-1: Size penalty [Frightful Aspect]
-- Non-Touch AC bonuses --
+6: Natural Armor [Frightful Aspect]
+6: Natural Armor [Inspired Rage]
+4: Natural Armor [Greater Mutagen]
+5: Natural Armor [Lizard Familiar, Iceplant Hex, Icy Protector]
+4: Shield [Shield spell]
+5: Enhancement to Natural Armor [Barkskin]
+14: Armor bonus [Archmage Armor]
Total Armor Class: 98
Touch Armor Class: 54

+6 AC from inherent Guarded Stance activated by Skald

 

[Yosharian]

And his AB:

Attack Bonus Breakdown:
+17: Base Attack Bonus
+20: DEX bonus
+5: Enhancement (Weapon enhancement)
+4: Morale (Greater Heroism)
+4: Insight (The Bound of Possibility)
+6: Competence (Lethal Stance, allied Skald)
+4: Untyped (Weapon Focus feats)
+4: Untyped (Weapon Training)
+1: Untyped (Haste spell)
+6: Untyped (Enforcing Gaze - Attack)
+1: Untyped bonus [Demonic Resentment]
+1: Untyped (Haste effect from Skald 20, stacks with Haste)
+3: Untyped (Inspired Rage, allied Skald)
+2: Untyped (Call to Violence cloak, worn by ally)
-1: Penalty (Frightful Aspect)
Non-Conditional Attack Bonus: 77
Conditional:
+4: Untyped (Outflank feat + Flanking bonus)
+10: Untyped (Ever Ready, AOOs)
+2: Concealment (Greater Invisibility)
+2: Bane Enhancement (Evil Outsider Bane, Peacemaker, only vs Evil Outsiders)
Total Maximum Attack Bonus: 85 (+10 AOO)

Including +6 from Lethal stance

 

[Haplo]

Neat.
Anyway, how far in the game are you now, Yosh?

 

[Yosharian]

Neat.
Anyway, how far in the game are you now, Yosh?

Completed it a long time ago

 

[Roguey]

To be fair it is natural behaviour in CRPGs to kill everything you come across. It isn't immediately obvious when you encounter those spirit druids, that you can actually just skip past them.

Imagine if, for example, one of your party members commented, upon entering the area, something like 'this place looks dangerous' etc

When you pick up the item, a ghost pops up to start yelling at you. I put it back because I knew if it was an encounter I was expected to manage without too many problems it'd just trigger automatically instead of giving me a warning.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

A ghost starts yelling at you? Oh fuck that! Just what I want is to be nagged in a fucking game. IRL is bad enough. I play games to escape reality. Serious, WTF?!?

 

[Yosharian]

To be fair it is natural behaviour in CRPGs to kill everything you come across. It isn't immediately obvious when you encounter those spirit druids, that you can actually just skip past them.

Imagine if, for example, one of your party members commented, upon entering the area, something like 'this place looks dangerous' etc

When you pick up the item, a ghost pops up to start yelling at you. I put it back because I knew if it was an encounter I was expected to manage without too many problems it'd just trigger automatically instead of giving me a warning.

The druids are encountered way before then, you are thinking about the scripted encounter but there are random ass druids + their buddies
waiting to fuck you up just dotted around the map

Honestly the ancient treant is way worse than the druids