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

[Average Manatee]

Consider Skald over Bard, basically an improvement in every way possible.

 

[Nerevar]

Make sure you have a pet somewhere there. All the carry weight will make you move faster and it will be better in combat then most of your dudes.

 

[Mauman]

Second Owlcat did a poor job in adapting the AP, so the pacing is all off and the story beats are poorly written.

I kind of disagree here, considering the original AP was extremely shit to begin with.

Hell, they managed to IMPROVE Iomadae (a low bar to clear I know, but even as the queen bitch she is in the game, she's still miles better than the literal torture queen she is in the AP).

 

[MartinK]

Paizo writing was never any good. Wasn’t there a controversy a while ago concering one of their AP containing a cute teenage aasimar girl NPC who fucks displacer beasts?

 

[MerchantKing]

Paizo writing was never any good. Wasn’t there a controversy a while ago concering one of their AP containing a cute teenage aasimar girl NPC who fucks displacer beasts?

Change displacer beasts to orcs and the story will now be profitable.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I do like some of the mechanics and the sheer amount of build options, but it doesn't matter when a good chunk of the abilities you have are useless because you're fighting mostly demons, who have a specific set of immunities and resistances.

I feel like its mostly fine, except for the omnipresent poison immunity (which really needs ascendent element poison)? I guess almost everything having spell resistance is also annoying but its not that high and once you spec a bit into beating SR its a non-issue.

For the most part enemies have different sets of saving throws and there's various enemies with really high AC but low touch AC and so on. So matching your attacks to what you are fighting does pay off. Of course eventually its also easy to just overpower anything even if you're fighting their strongest defense, a consequence of the very inflated power levels in Wrath.

You're still fighting mostly demons though. Kingmaker has a much more varied roster of enemy types.
You had Trolls, Monsters, Fey, Undead, kobolds, lizardmen, humans and other strange things.
In Wrath its mostly demons throughout all of the acts and the game eventually just spams huge monsters at you. I haven't seen a Vermlek since act 1. Whilst the saving throws might be different, they still share a lot of similar traits such as electricity and poison immunity.
This means that for most of the game you will never touch either of those except in specific circumstances, and I find that to be poor encounter design.
You can't even use poison against humans late game because in act 4 they all have life bubble.

Even Fallout 1 had a variety of enemy types, and your main antagonistic faction were Super Mutants.

 

[Yosharian]

I do like some of the mechanics and the sheer amount of build options, but it doesn't matter when a good chunk of the abilities you have are useless because you're fighting mostly demons, who have a specific set of immunities and resistances.

I feel like its mostly fine, except for the omnipresent poison immunity (which really needs ascendent element poison)? I guess almost everything having spell resistance is also annoying but its not that high and once you spec a bit into beating SR its a non-issue.

For the most part enemies have different sets of saving throws and there's various enemies with really high AC but low touch AC and so on. So matching your attacks to what you are fighting does pay off. Of course eventually its also easy to just overpower anything even if you're fighting their strongest defense, a consequence of the very inflated power levels in Wrath.

You're still fighting mostly demons though. Kingmaker has a much more varied roster of enemy types.
You had Trolls, Monsters, Fey, Undead, kobolds, lizardmen and other strange things.
In Wrath its mostly demons and the game eventually just spams huge monsters at you. I haven't seen a Vermlek since act 1. Whilst the saving throws might be different, they still share a lot of similar traits such as electricity and poison immunity.
This means that for most of the game you will never touch either of those except in specific circumstances, and I find that to be poor encounter design.
You can't even use poison against humans late game because in act 4 they all have life bubble.

I had a player try to use a poisoner character in one of my games and the amount of hoops we had to jump through to make it even halfway viable was fucking ridiculous

 

[Desiderius]

Consider Skald over Bard, basically an improvement in every way possible.

Not every way. Base Bard is pretty boring although it still has Unique things like Fascinate and Fear Song along with some extras here and there, and the rest of your team can benefit from buff Songs while casting.

Archetypes like Dirge and Court Bard have their own things going on. Depends if your party wants to lean more toward fighting or offensive casting.

The current run I have on hold is Beast Tamer with Summoning Focus and it is really well designed. Monster Tactician was very solid in P:K and this adds Bard spellbook and some Songs to it.

Auto Magic Fang, Greater on Summons is a nice one. Free Augment Summoning saves two Feats (don’t need dead Conj Spell Focus prereq).

 

[Nirvash]

My bard exist to buff before the fight, sing the song of cheerleading at the start, summon shit during it and then heal at the end.
And after the equipment and feats roll in, some offense/debuff magic i lack.

Anyway, lv5, magic companion weapon, get big spell and get stronk spell, heroism/song/bless, my braindead 2h fighter is starting to happy cleaving the shit out of everything.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Dirge Bard is okay, other archetypes can suck-a-dick.

 

[Desiderius]

Dirge Bard is okay, other archetypes can suck-a-dick.

You’re such a memetard. Game’s just too big for some people to wrap their minds around.

My bard exist to buff before the fight, sing the song of cheerleading at the start, summon shit during it and then heal at the end.
And after the equipment and feats roll in, some offense/debuff magic i lack.

Bards/Skalds aren’t very good Summoners and Channeling should handle healing needs. Soothing Song is solid but you don’t get that until lvl 14 and should have plenty of Channels by then. Likewise Song can be activated pre-combat especially with Lingering.

That leaves you a whole action econ to play with and I’ve found them better offensive casters than fighters in Wrath with help from Azata. Skald might be better fighter but it’s the only one that can cast while getting Rage Powers so end up casting with it too.

 

[Nerevar]

Wrapping up my Vivisectionist Lich playthrough (what the fuck was I thinking playing without a merged spellbook).

Sure I am strong and can hit flatfooted ac with even my last attack think I have like 12 apr? True mutagen is amazing too.

Next playthrough is going to be Trickster into legend secret ending. I either want a mutation warrior or a skald.

I want something suitable for hard that can blend up everything with big numbers and pass every skillcheck, 40 levels to work with what would be best?

 

[Yosharian]

I either want a mutation warrior

SS13/MW7 is pretty powerful IMO

There's a build on my page, it's for Demon but you could adapt it

It's pretty half-arsed, I haven't done the race properly and the feats are based on this disarm idea I had that didn't even work properly

But the core idea is exploit SS & MW fighter levels stacking when they shouldn't lolololo

You get the idea

 

[Haplo]

Its strong even without the Mutagen stacking cheese. Not that 5 levels of MW are of that much help here: its just a single Mutagen Discovery (plus Weapon Training, bonus feats).

2 levels of IW round it up nicely: 13 SS / 5 MW / 2 IW

 

[Nerevar]

Those are cool but I'm going to go trickster into legend after so I've got 40 levels to play with.

I was thinking 2 Pal/1 Oracle/1 Scaled Fist just for AC/saves and then 36 levels of something for big damage, Either using grave singer or a fauchard or two scimitars/rapiers/kukris. The IW is less cheesy and gets uncanny and evasion or something.

 

[Parabalus]

legend secret ending

won't work?

 

[Nerevar]

Aww. Just looked it up... Guess I gotta play through two more times after this.

 

[Yosharian]

Its strong even without the Mutagen stacking cheese. Not that 5 levels of MW are of that much help here: its just a single Mutagen Discovery (plus Weapon Training, bonus feats).

2 levels of IW round it up nicely: 13 SS / 5 MW / 2 IW

Woops I meant SS13/MW7

 

[Yosharian]

Honestly IMO Legend is best picked for RP reasons, and the best RP path for it is Demon -> Legend.

Legend just comes really late and by that time you are pretty much done with the game

I really don't know if I would give up Trick Fate and other Trickster insanity for just 20 extra levels

 

[Haplo]

Honestly IMO Legend is best picked for RP reasons, and the best RP path for it is Demon -> Legend.

Legend just comes really late and by that time you are pretty much done with the game

I really don't know if I would give up Trick Fate and other Trickster insanity for just 20 extra levels

Yeah, people are excited about keeping the Perception crit feats and still having another 20 levels to pick, but frankly going Legend from a strong Mythic Path, like the Trickster, is a downgrade in Power Gaming terms.
Despite the pile of BAB, attacks, stats, HPs and skills you're getting.

The Mythic Path abilities & spells, as well as Mythic Abilities & Feats round and complement the character more (if picked correctly, that is).

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I feel like that's a problem with all the late mythics, they come at a point in the game where you just want to push to finish, not experiment with weird shit, unless it's your 15th playthrough.

Dumbfucks should have made more content for the basic paths instead of adding random shit 30 minutes before finale, but I guess this is the (Owlcat's) way.

 

[Average Manatee]

For Legend especially. Spending 15 mins pressing buttons to level up another 20 levels is a bit of a downer.

That said I can definitely understand that implementing a full MR3->10 path probably takes 5-10x the effort of what the late game mythics take. If we're stuck with late game mythics then they just needed to have more relevant and interesting content for Act 5 pre-threshold. Inevitable Excess is... really not what anyone wanted, I think.

 

[MerchantKing]

For Legend especially. Spending 15 mins pressing buttons to level up another 20 levels is a bit of a downer.

That said I can definitely understand that implementing a full MR3->10 path probably takes 5-10x the effort of what the late game mythics take. If we're stuck with late game mythics then they just needed to have more relevant and interesting content for Act 5 pre-threshold. Inevitable Excess is... really not what anyone wanted, I think.

But that's the best part of this game!

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So I'm a proper devil now

Some observations -

You get unlimited power word, dominate and HFR casts. Which is kind of nice if you built for it. I, however, did not as I was going for more of a martial inquisitor build.

You also get Fire immunity, which ironically means that Hellknight does not synergize that well with devil.
It also doesn't synergize that well with Infernal Bloodline Sorcerers as they get most of what that mythic path offers (and more. Power of the Pit grants both fire AND poison immunity), which is kind of weird. I guess it does encourage some multiclassing as you get back the abilities you "lose" but still, kind of awkward.

In fact, Devil seems to be better for support characters or casters, as you get a lot of nice support abilities and spells but nothing that really increases your BAB other than Aeon Bane
That Hell Seal that instantly kills an allied target if their health drops low and deals damage to enemies seems to work on summons and dominated enemies, which makes it a lot more viable.
You still get Gold Golem Summons at Rank 9 as devil, which is weird to me. You'd think you can summon something more diabolical.
You do not get a Devil Mythic Spellbook; your spellbook effectively stops at level 5 spells for Aeon, which is lame.

In short, kind of cool but still feels half-baked. I don't feel weaker, which is what I was worried about, but the fact that its a late game path that doesn't entirely synergize with all builds (you absolutely need Fire Ascendency and Spell pen to make the most of Devil) feels awkward and that you still get some Aeon path abilities in the form of Golems feels phoned in. You don't even lose the Aeon version of Bound of Possibility, which is great because that enchantment is amazing, but still, kind of lame for a DEVIL mythic path.

Apparently the best designed paths are Angel and Demon, which if true indicates that they worked on those the longest and most other paths afterwards came later, with the late game paths being mostly afterthoughts that they just squeezed in there because they thought it would be cool.

 

[Desiderius]

Wrapping up my Vivisectionist Lich playthrough (what the fuck was I thinking playing without a merged spellbook).

Sure I am strong and can hit flatfooted ac with even my last attack think I have like 12 apr? True mutagen is amazing too.

Next playthrough is going to be Trickster into legend secret ending. I either want a mutation warrior or a skald.

I want something suitable for hard that can blend up everything with big numbers and pass every skillcheck, 40 levels to work with what would be best?

Prestige works well with Legend since you can get full development of base class along with two Prestiges.

I did Aldori Defender6/Aldori Swordlord10/AD4, then finished up AD with Legend and added Duelist 10. Aldori Defender is good fit with Trickster to supplement the damage with Sneaks and add in some Illusion buffs. Swordlord is strong at defense and debuffing attacks but can use the damage help.