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

[Yosharian]

HKS is medium BAB, case closed

 

[FreeKaner]

What does EK do that HKS doesn't? Doesn't HKS give you a bunch of resistances and immunities?

Full BAB, bonus feats, access to fighter restricted feats, free Quickened spell (or spell effect proc, like Move trough Space to freely teleport) when you score a crit...
HKS has comparatively very low value - its only use is getting rid of Arcane Spell Failure from wearing armor.

C'mon man.

I did a full breakdown a couple weeks ago of everything HKS gives you. It is a lot. A Hellknight Order is nothing to sneeze at. EK is mostly a holdover from 3.5 and gets outclassed by other options aside from a few corner cases.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/posts/8479085/

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/posts/8475256/

Trickster is, ironically, the least "random" path and there is an excellent synergy in his kit.

I never tried Legend, does BAB stack when you get Legend, or how does that work?

Best part of Legend is letting you get full Prestige (two actually) without giving up base class progression. It's pretty great. Obv better for non-caster Prestiges since spell progression doesn't matter.

EK is "outdated" but that is precisely why it works. Just giving you full BAB and access to fighter feats together with arcane self-buffs just makes you a better fighter really don't need bunch of gimmicks for it.

 

[scytheavatar]

HKS is medium BAB, case closed

Medium BAB classes are in a massive disadvantage in this game. For one enemies have far more AC here than in Kingmaker, so the extra attack is very important especially for iterative attacks. But also Power Attack + Mythic Power Attack is a very important source of damage and every melee character HAS to be built around it, which means even less attack for melee builds (and 10 less damage for medium BAB compared to full BAB). Some medium BAB classes has ways to boast their attack to make up for it, but you will struggle to do that with a HKS.

Also while HKS is medium BAB, Sorcerer is low BAB.

 

[FreeKaner]

HKS is only good if you would want to not use arcane armor and have more AC. That is useless in this game because of archmage armor mythic.

 

[Yosharian]

HKS is medium BAB, Sorcerer is low BAB.

It is? Goodness me!

 

[Average Manatee]

Can you still proc sneak attacks with two handed weapons? I saw a Great Axe wielding Sanctified Slayer build and it looked really badass.

Of course. AFAIK anything that has an attack role can proc sneak attacks, including spells (Arcane Trickster having an ability that even lets them apply their sneak attack damage to non-attack spells, like fireball or chain lightning that just auto hit).

HKS is medium BAB, case closed

Yeah, combining a low BAB with a medium BAB class and expecting to hit anything in melee and then deal effective damage is a joke. At best all that HKS BAB gets you is a small attack boost if you are spamming hellfire ray.

Sure you can argue transformation/legend and stuff but that's so late that building for it is stupid. Are you going to be taking melee feats for 15 levels that you can't use only to start pulling your weight in midnight fane?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah BAB is extremely anti-fun.

 

[Desiderius]

Now you’re just trolling.

 

[Average Manatee]

Finally able to casually exceed 1k damage on a single non-crit attack.

Spoiler

EDIT: Oh wait, forgot to set difficulty to unfair. I guess its not a legit kill since it was only hard difficulty.

 

[Desiderius]

Intransigent ignorance does hurt me for some reason, but not in my butt.

 

[Haplo]

Can you still proc sneak attacks with two handed weapons? I saw a Great Axe wielding Sanctified Slayer build and it looked really badass.

So in Act 5 now, about to do the Trial to become a devil. Might go back in time in Kenebras and then save Galfrey first though, because the dumb twat decided to yolo my forces into enemy territory.

I don't think Hellknight synergizes that well with Inquisitor at all. Giving up spell progression isn't worth it. Getting domain progression from a bug is nice though. Furthermore, as a Hellknight you'll typically want to wear heavy armour, but Inquisitors want to use at most medium armour so they can use Stalwart. You do get a lot of nice resistances as Hellknight, but that unlocks at level 9 which means you won't have greater bane or level 6 spells. Smite isn't useful either because it scales with Charisma and as an Inquisitor you want to go Acolyte so you can get Wisdom Scaling for your charisma, thereby completely ignoring that stat.

HKS would suffer from similar issues; heavy armour access is pointless, you lose domain progression unless you pick godclaw, you lose greater bane if you level up HKS to access their resistances and as a divine caster you wouldn't benefit from arcane reduction.

HKS as a cleric might be funny though; With godclaw you would have like 3 domains at your disposal + impossible domain. Its just that whatever domains you picks at a cleric wouldn't progress past 10 if you decide to max out HKS.

Sure, you can sneak attack with two-handers.

HKS doesn't get/progress domains in vanilla as far as I'm aware. Godclaw HK can pick Domains as his Disciplines. But HKS doesn't get those.

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

Droogs,
I can't get starting the 'Ashes' DLC to progress past selecting difficulty. I've verified the install. Any tips before I nuke from orbit to reinstall?

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Can you still proc sneak attacks with two handed weapons? I saw a Great Axe wielding Sanctified Slayer build and it looked really badass.

So in Act 5 now, about to do the Trial to become a devil. Might go back in time in Kenebras and then save Galfrey first though, because the dumb twat decided to yolo my forces into enemy territory.

I don't think Hellknight synergizes that well with Inquisitor at all. Giving up spell progression isn't worth it. Getting domain progression from a bug is nice though. Furthermore, as a Hellknight you'll typically want to wear heavy armour, but Inquisitors want to use at most medium armour so they can use Stalwart. You do get a lot of nice resistances as Hellknight, but that unlocks at level 9 which means you won't have greater bane or level 6 spells. Smite isn't useful either because it scales with Charisma and as an Inquisitor you want to go Acolyte so you can get Wisdom Scaling for your charisma, thereby completely ignoring that stat.

HKS would suffer from similar issues; heavy armour access is pointless, you lose domain progression unless you pick godclaw, you lose greater bane if you level up HKS to access their resistances and as a divine caster you wouldn't benefit from arcane reduction.

HKS as a cleric might be funny though; With godclaw you would have like 3 domains at your disposal + impossible domain. Its just that whatever domains you picks at a cleric wouldn't progress past 10 if you decide to max out HKS.

Sure, you can sneak attack with two-handers.

HKS doesn't get/progress domains in vanilla as far as I'm aware. Godclaw HK can pick Domains as his Disciplines. But HKS doesn't get those.

Really? I could have sworn was I able to pick a god claw domain for HKS when I was experimenting with that Hellknight Domain progression bug.

 

[FreeKaner]

I guess HKS is still value, because mythic abilities and feats are at quite the premium and you can save a couple by being HKS.

 

[Desiderius]

That's a part of it. There's two links last page with the different Orders and the various advantages. For beginners you've got the +4/+4 vs Demons or the scaling AoE Morale AC Aura, but the others have some play to them too.

The main thing about BAB in general is that the AB/AC scale in 3.5 goes from 1-30ish, while P:K it's 1-60 and Wrath 1-90, so +1 BAB is 1/3 the value in Wrath as in 3.5, outside of iteratives which aren't as relevant for melee.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Classes have other things to compensate for lower BAB, but once you get into upscaled enemies, Wojif isn't compensating by having more sneak than Gaybor, because Wojif isn't hitting things. This is not a complicated concept, but unfortunately it requires launching the game and playing it, instead of sperging on the forums about imaginary builds only ever tested on paper.

 

[Desiderius]

Wojif isn't hitting things

He is in my games, and it is easy to see in the screenshots I post ad infinitum.

Why is that?

it requires launching the game and playing it

When you're in a hole, stop condescending.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

OK my review of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, in bullet points because I'm lazy:

Pros:

• The gameplay (meaning combat and character build mechanics) is still top-notch and better than any other RPG I've played on the market. Some RPGs are simpler, which is fine as it would be exhausting if everything was as complicated as pathfinder, but very few are this involved. I still might like The Dark Eye's rule set more, but I prefer pathfinder to D&D.
• The addition of mythic paths are nice, mainly because it can be a long time between levels sometimes, so it gives additional dopamine hits in dry spots. They are also fun to play, and while certain powers are OP, these games are really fucking hard, so it doesn't matter.
• The combat overall felt more balanced than Kingmaker, in the sense that there weren't as many "must pick or you will lose" type feats or abilities.
• The story and companions are a big improvement over Kingmaker, which seemed like a grab-bag of quests rather than a single, coherent, narrative. I really liked some of the companions, enough that in rare instances where I had to kill them, it kind of sucked (RIP Wendaug who is a killing machine and probably the best martial damage dealer out of the box). A lot of the political intrigue with the demons was actually fun too, although, much of it is buried behind "secret ending" tasks that are so fucking convoluted that it will be unlikely to stumble on them without using a guide.
• I tend to measure RPG companions not by whether I liked them, but rather in terms of if I'll remember them in 5 years. These are the memorable companions from WRATH: Wendaug/Lann dynamic (although, Lann himself is boring), Camelia. Ulbrig isn't especially interesting, but his DLC is well-done and very involved, which makes him memorable. He's also a bro, so I wish it had been released when I started so I could romance him.

Meh:

• The new Crusade system is marginally better than Kingmaker's Kingdom Management. It's slightly more straightforward and way less of a time suck. That said, even on unfair, it's super easy, so it mostly felt like a time filler to me, which isn't really needed in a 200+ hour game.
• While I played most of Kingmaker in RTWP, I played most of WotR in turn based. Turn-based is fine, but it's clear the game wasn't designed or balanced for it given how much time it adds to the runtime and how certain fights make it a pain in the ass. A skip animation function to speed up moves would be nice.
• Some of the encounter design relies heavily on gimmicks, to the point that for a few bosses, if you don't have X, Y, or Z character or ability, you are basically fucked and need to back track. This only happened to me a few times, and comes with the territory to a degree, but it can be frustrating. Unlike Kingmaker, though, there weren't as many "point of no return" moments, so it was usually easier to go back to an earlier save game.
• I really, really, hated the final chapter 6 dungeons, but they are incredibly linear and short, so they ended up being semi-fun "get good" moments in the end.

Cons:

• Buffing is still a MASSIVE issue in this game, to the point that I think I'd hesitate to ever play another Owlcat Pathfinder again if they don't fucking do something about this. Again, I don't think it's an exaggeration that I probably spent at least 80+ hours of my 400 hours playtime fucking buffing before fights. It helps a little that you can get Enduring Spells as a mythic feat, but it takes 2 feats and is more of a luxury than a necessity, so it's not something most people will get early in the game. Modders have already figured this out. It shouldn't be a difficult fix to allow you to prep-program standard buffs you can apply to your party at the start of the battle.
• Loading Screens are still abysmal. I usually would not complain, but this game has so many different interfaces, and so many loading screens for each one, that probably at least another 80 hours of my 400 playtime was watching loading screens. I have a really fucking fast computer and solid state harddrive, but it made seemingly no difference compared to running the game on my (slower) laptop, so it's not hardware.
• Swarms are still a massive issue, to the point that I think Owlcat botched their implementation somehow. Rather than fix how they work, they seem to have just added necklaces that treat swarms like any other characters, rendering them basically pointless. They do dumb shit like this in their game design all the time, and while the new necklaces take the headache away, it's kind of puzzling why they designed them like that in the first place.
• The Treasure Island DLC is terrible. Dull, boring, enemies in square rooms on islands that all have incredibly annoying status effects. And there's really no story or anything other than, "Get the treasure!" The problem is, it has some really good items too, so it punishes you for not doing it. It'd be a basic, mediocre, DLC if they just did like 5 islands per chapter. But in typical Owlcat fashion, they did 13 shitty, horrible, copy-pasta'd islands for Chapter 3, 8 for Chapter 4, and 5 for Chapter 5, making what could be a fun, mediocre, trifle with awesome items into a horrible slog.
• I was mostly pleased with level design, up until I hit Nenio's final dungeon and Chapter 6. I gave up on Nenio's dungeon. Even with a guide, it probably would have taken me 10+ hours, which is just too fucking much at the end of a really long game. They should have found a way to break it up into parts, so you do different sections over a number of chapters. Honestly, her whole quest sucks. It's all "travel to tiny location on map to grab puzzle pieces, then travel to opposite end of the world to do a shitty puzzle."

 

[Average Manatee]

Mid vs. High BAB doesn't matter that much when it comes to actually hitting things. Where it matters is more/sooner iteratives and better power attack damage.

The problem with HKS vs. EK isn't just that it's mid BAB. It's that it's mid BAB with no real redeeming features.

 

[Delterius]

The problem with HKS vs. EK isn't just that it's mid BAB. It's that it's mid BAB with no real redeeming features.

isn't it less than mid? its 10 levels of low bab with 10 levels of mid bab. don't care about unfair but i'd think it would kinda suck there.

 

[Average Manatee]

The problem with HKS vs. EK isn't just that it's mid BAB. It's that it's mid BAB with no real redeeming features.

isn't it less than mid? its 10 levels of low bab with 10 levels of mid bab. don't care about unfair but i'd think it would kinda suck there.

True, I was just talking in general comparing the two classes.

It's still not that much, 3 AB difference. That's like a one buff gap. The bigger problem is missing out on outflank until like level 12 or something. You need something substantial to make it worth the trade, like sneak attack or some unique buffs like skald song or mutagen.

 

[Desiderius]

Like 3 Morale AoE AC? that sort of thing?

I listed the breakdown of what it gets in those links. You don’t have to limit yourself to just theorycrafting. There is a game you could play to find out.

Archmage Armor burns a Mythic to get 5 AC (total) at lvl 6, 6 at level 8, 7 at lvl 10, 8 at 13, 9 at 16 etc.

With HKS and Armor Training you’ve got 9 at lvl 6, 13 at lvl 10 with Adamantine DR, and the capacity to go higher as the big DEX buffs open up, and the Armor Training cancels the Heavy Speed malus early.

If you’re Melee gish you want STR-based and caster stat so cranking up base DEX high enough for the DEX limitation on Heavy to come into play isn’t practical anyway.

HKS is full spell progression, EK isn’t. That’s more important than having to miss out on Outflank for a level. And you don’t have to burn a Feat on Martial Prof so you can use that for Exotic.

 

[Desiderius]

As for Feats, if you want to beat saves take caster Feats and don’t gish. If you want to gish take melee Feats. You’ll only be short if you’re trying to go DEX-based for Archmage which you don’t have to with HKS.

What Fighter Feats are you taking? Weapon Specialization gets outclassed by the scaling too, as even Sneaks do eventually but you’ve got Vitals for that if you want them.

Pal (and thus Mark) is Lawful just like HKS but I guess if you want an Evil party hitting things could be more of a challenge but Evil has other ways around that.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Having finished WOTR on Unfair, these are my completely heterodox words of wisdom that most people in this thread will probably hate, mock, and jeer, but they worked for me:

• Early-mid game Sensei's are awesome. They can buff with bard songs and they can cast mass-true strike, which can power you through most mid-game bosses. They are also great late-game for specific encounters (final boss).
• I didn't learn this early enough, but Skalds are also awesome as their rage effect stacks with most other group buffs. If I ever replay this game, I'd probably play as an axe throwing Skald.
• Take Wendaug over Lann if possible. I don't know what the fallout is of this decision (does it lock you into evil?), but she's way better than Lann at dishing damage which you need in the early chapters. I had to kill her in my run, which sucked.
• Ulbrig is awesome. He's spongey as fuck, but he dishes out so much damage and can basically just warp around the battle field, that he kind of seems unbalanced in many ways. Given the huge number of OP items in that dlc, I suspect they were using it as some kind of retcon to balance some of the game's difficulty spikes without having to do a rebalance from the ground up.
• Hexes are mostly shit (on Unfair). Ember is fine if you want a hexer as she at least can do damage, AOE, and debuff via non-hex spells like Enervate. However, in many cases, if you have her, you will want her casting those spells at the start of battles rather than hexes. I qualify this with "on Unfair" because ac is already absurd on Unfair, so wasting a character's turn on a shitty -2/4/6/8 ac debuff is rarely worth it, especially since there's no mass version of it and, apart from bosses, whatever you are targeting will be dead shortly regardless. The only time it is worth it is to debuff bosses to make them more susceptible to spells, but I personally never really found this to be required and can't recall any fights (other than very early game) when it made a huge difference.
• More on that: Camelia is useful early game, because anyone can cast low level spells and they work. However, on unfair late game, spells don't really hit unless you build your characters to make them hit, which requires feats, so I honestly don't see how she can be a great character without sacrificing something essential. I made her melee (which I regret), which just meant she was both a shitty melee character and a shitty spell caster. If I had to do it again, I'd probably make her a bow wielder as her high dex makes her cut out for it, but she wouldn't be able to do anything other than bows and hexes.
• Shatter defenses is nice, but very situation specific and not necessary. You don't get the mass shatter debuffs until chapter 3/4, and it's very useful as a feat for chapter 4, but it's expensive and at chapter 5 everything annoying is basically immune to it, so I don't think you need to waste the feats on it if you don't want, although some builds will have feats to spare, so probably fine for them. It will really help you with a few situation specific fights (especially most of Ulbrig's dlc, which involves fighting large numbers of those flying mantis things--all of which are susceptible....although you can do his dlc at anytime, so I'd just wait), but I don't think it's as much a priority as Kingmaker. Especially if you are trickster, I think following the "improved, improved, improved" critical tree is a better investment.
• I cannot imagine how anyone could complete this game on unfair without taking Last Stand, which is absurdly overpowered, but also necessary, and seems like another one of those powers Owlcat added and assumed everyone would take to avoid a ground up re-balancing.

'k, that's all. Now everyone proceed to freak out.

 

[Desiderius]

Lann starts with two attacks at full BAB. If Wend is outdamaging Lann early you’re doing something wrong. I’m a longtime fan of straight Fighter but it takes longer to get there on ranged than melee because it wants PBM, which has prereqs, and needs the Snap Shots to turn on AoOs.

Likewise Cam has all the tools for melee (tho her archetype is a better fit for STR-based). If she’s sucking for you you’re missing something. Beating saves on Unfair is a tall hill to climb for her even with caster Feats, but she has some that don’t need to including Nature Summons which are better than Cleric/Wiz book.

Hexes don’t suck for the simple fact that they bypass SR and have an effect whether they beat the save or not (you can even use the other ones against threats with lower saves). Cam has a unique one that unlike Evil Eye isn’t mid-affecting. If she wasn’t such a cunt she’d be hard to cut from my team.

Shatter isn’t a must but applying Shaken is generally worth it anyway and relatively easy to do. Sicken is harder but doable as is Entangle. Few big threats are immune to those and finding ways to regularly apply them (and get Archon’s to land) makes a big difference. It’s akin to buffing your whole team at once.