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

[Acrux]

Stop rolling elves and I will not hunt your characters down and kill them. Simple as that.

"Not another fucking elf." - Hugo Dyson, hearing LOTR read aloud by Tolkien

 

[ga♥]

Just finished a demon playthrough.
So far, done Lich, Trickster, Angel and Demon, from start to finish.
Unfortunately the general impression that the game was made as an angel and then adapted to the other mythics still remains, despite people saying demon has "lot of content", which I found to be a half truth, all in all, the game never changes a lot... and Chapter V has the same 0 reactivity problem.
And in chapter IV you still go to the abyss with the hand of inheritor who still thinks Iomedae gave you your demonic powers.

Spoiler

I became Nocticula consort, and yeah, 0 consequences about it. No reactivity at all

 

[Desiderius]

Funding follows engagement. Stats show most people don’t play that far. In the East you’re under the thumb of the State. In the West some sperg consultant’s spreadsheet.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Just finished a demon playthrough.
So far, done Lich, Trickster, Angel and Demon, from start to finish.
Unfortunately the general impression that the game was made as an angel and then adapted to the other mythics still remains, despite people saying demon has "lot of content", which I found to be a half truth, all in all, the game never changes a lot... and Chapter V has the same 0 reactivity problem.
And in chapter IV you still go to the abyss with the hand of inheritor who still thinks Iomedae gave you your demonic powers.

Spoiler

I became Nocticula consort, and yeah, 0 consequences about it. No reactivity at all

all the consequences with Hand of Inheritor is whether you can save him or kill him. If you are non-Angel but still good aligned during Ch 4 you will have choice to save him, otherwise he dead in Ch 5

 

[ga♥]

What I meant is that it makes no sense for the Hand of inheritor to think evil mythics got their powers from Iomedae.

 

[Sarathiour]

This is Paizuo setting, were thiefling can be become paladin without any question asked.

I remember asking him as a demon, he just handwave by saying that mortal's power often manifest in strange way, and saying that he has faith in his lady, even if he can't comprehend it and does not have any explanation to offer.
The hand actually trust you more easily if you are an angel.

It's clearly not the most infuriating part of the writing.

 

[Grunker]

do you guys also watch porn for the plot

 

[gurugeorge]

do you guys also watch porn for the plot

Porn used to have plots as a fig-leaf to give an ounce of respectability, they were never an integral part of the thing. In fact I remember in posh recording studios that used to have Betamax porn collections, etc., back in the 80s, we'd basically just fast forward to the juicy bits. Nowadays people mostly watch free clips that depict only the important business at hand.

CRPGs on the other hand, the plot is part of the work, otherwise they would just be tactical games only. You might want them to be just that, but they aren't just that. Even when they seemed to be just tactical games to some degree, strung together with sketchy excuses for plots, the only reason they were like that was because of technical and financial limitations. Developers always had aspirations to make the larger type of gesamtkunstwerk. The ideal is there, like Mt. Everest.

 

[Aarwolf]

do you guys also watch porn for the plot

Yes.

 

[IllusiveBrian]

Porn used to have plots as a fig-leaf to give an ounce of respectability, they were never an integral part of the thing. In fact I remember in posh recording studios that used to have Betamax porn collections, etc., back in the 80s, we'd basically just fast forward to the juicy bits. Nowadays people mostly watch free clips that depict only the important business at hand.

CRPGs on the other hand, the plot is part of the work, otherwise they would just be tactical games only. You might want them to be just that, but they aren't just that. Even when they seemed to be just tactical games to some degree, strung together with sketchy excuses for plots, the only reason they were like that was because of technical and financial limitations. Developers always had aspirations to make the larger type of gesamtkunstwerk. The ideal is there, like Mt. Everest.

In the US it was decided by the Supreme Court that in order to get constitutional protection, works had to have some scintilla of artistic merit. That's why old pornos would have some threadbare plot, because otherwise they merely "appealed to the prurient interest" and weren't protected speech. Porn is so widely accepted now that no one is interested in actually enforcing the laws on the books that technically prohibit transmitting obscene content, so the pro forma plot is not as required.

CRPGs should have a good plot because you're roleplaying a character that's part of it and making decisions based on their character and the plot, for something based on D&D it obviously needs to be flexible enough for the main character to be anywhere from a saintly paladin to an unhinged lunatic, but that doesn't mean the story and the supporting characters can't be decently written and fulfill compelling roles in the story. Otherwise the player has no reason to care what decisions they make since it's all shit anyway. And some porn does kind of need a plot, like if you're trying to appeal to incest fetishists the porn has to convince the audience that the characters are related before having them fuck.

 

[Desiderius]

no one is interested in actually enforcing the laws on the books that technically prohibit transmitting obscene content, so the pro forma plot is not as required.

No, there still are, and we will prevail due to the evident results of the present experiment with not doing so combined with the anti-natalism that led the authorities to promote the degeneracy (literally inimical to growth) in the first place going out of fashion.

Getting back to the actual enforcement of laws and suppression of vice will also happily give free spirits something real to rebel against for a change.

 

[gurugeorge]

no one is interested in actually enforcing the laws on the books that technically prohibit transmitting obscene content, so the pro forma plot is not as required.

No, there still are, and we will prevail due to the evident results of the present experiment with not doing so combined with the anti-natalism that led the authorities to promote the degeneracy (literally inimical to growth) in the first place going out of fashion.

Getting back to the actual enforcement of laws and suppression of vice will also happily give free spirits something real to rebel against for a change.

That's an often-overlooked aspect of the thing. People have no idea how exciting it was to be a rebel against the accepted public ways in the 60s and 70s. There was an actual counter-culture that felt good to be part of, that had its own ways, its own meeting places, etc.

Every healthy society needs an underground, a bohemia and some gadflies. They just don't need to be normalized.

 

[IllusiveBrian]

No, there still are, and we will prevail due to the evident results of the present experiment with not doing so combined with the anti-natalism that led the authorities to promote the degeneracy (literally inimical to growth) in the first place going out of fashion.

Getting back to the actual enforcement of laws and suppression of vice will also happily give free spirits something real to rebel against for a change.

I wish you all the best in your quest, but I don't think you'll consistently find 7+ jurors that are willing to convict someone for making adult porn, even in very conservative areas. There are always people willing to do anything to protect the children, so that's usually where these kinds of laws are applied in reality (e.g. a shop with porn in the window or an adult site that advertises itself in places where minors are likely to see it). Laws prohibiting a vice don't really suppress it, they just make it more expensive which promotes organized crime to provide it. It would be compounded in trying to generally criminalize Internet porn by the fact that at least some countries won't follow suit so it will be very difficult to enforce, and it will make more people look into and start using anonymity services which will make it harder for authorities to tell who is using those for real crimes and who just wants to avoid getting clipped for watching some boobs. Granted, organized crime is extremely useful for political elites since they can use it to do their dirty work in exchange for legal protection, which of course is part of the reason criminalizing vices doesn't accomplish the stated goal.

I'd suggest turning your righteous indignation toward more objectionable progressive excesses, like Drag Queen Story Hour or the coverup of transsexual sex crimes like what happened in Loudon County.

 

[Humbaba]

What I meant is that it makes no sense for the Hand of inheritor to think evil mythics got their powers from Iomedae.

I always chalk that up to za Hando being a retard in canon.

 

[ga♥]

Anyone played Swarm? I am mythic 8 so I should be able to make a clone, my swarm size in the UI is 192/1 so I guess it should be 1? But when I click the ability to make a clone it says "caster doesn't have requirement swarm size: 1". Bug or am I missing something?

Btw I lost all demon mythic spellbook and abilities

edit: needed swarm size 3.

 

[Desiderius]

When one re-cognizes that the adjectival form of vice is vicious the scales begin to fall from the eyes.

In any event the comparison between simulated combat and simulated sex is a fallacious one, and the Role part of RPGs has always been as important as the Playing as well. The better the game, the more inseparable story and combat.

 

[Sarathiour]

I'm playing around synergy with acid arrow, wo end up being quite an incredible spell because it's a shitty one.

Dealing 2d4d is never going to put a dent on anyone pas the shield maze, but it's extremely good to use with item that proc on damage. Currently I'm using it with first retriever relic. You have to burn a feat to wear padded armor, and convert the damage to electricity. In exchange for that and -2 on CON and attack roll, all your spell are quickened and got a +1d12 damage added.

For converting energy, either use the storm lord resolve or a dip into sorcerer, which will also grant you the opportunity for spending a mythic level in bloodline ascendance, which will grant you immunity to sneak, crit and electricity.

Apart from that, you can either bite the bullet and pick elemental ascendance, suffer 2d4 damage per round and gain the extra electricity damage, and also got a nice synergy with the elemental absorber shirt which will give the equivalent of a free bolster, or use whatever you want by carefully microing/using TB because converting ability is a free action, which mean you can turn it off at the beginning of the round after the damage from acid arrow, and turn it back on before the hand of the round.

 

[Yosharian]

jfc the period between twice-born warlord and rushlight is boring as fuck. endlessly pressing SKIP DAY with no content to explore. I hope Wrath doesn't have anything like this, I'm almost tempted to say fuck the artisans and put kingdom management on auto

 

[Sarathiour]

You can either put crusade on auto and press skip day until the fort get cleared, at the cost of getting relic.

Or play the crusade system which is going to make you regret kingdom management.

 

[Yosharian]

You can either put crusade on auto and press skip day until the fort get cleared, at the cost of getting relic.

Or play the crusade system which is going to make you regret kingdom management.

So it's worse than Kingmaker?

 

[Efe]

Better or worse might change on person
What I can guarantee is tactical combat and army building is equally terrible for everyone. almost zero redeeming qualities to it. which makes entire system feel pointless.

 

[Humbaba]

So it's worse than Kingmaker?

Combat was broken because magic was OP last I played, don't know if they patched that. But there is none of that kind of downtime Kingmaker has between chapters. You can even get some pretty good items via crusade mode.

 

[Sarathiour]

Magic is the elephant in the middle of the room, but even if you cut that, it's not terribly interesting. Some unit are miles better than other, unless you really want to suffer you're going to end up with the same cookie cutter build as everyone and use setsuna shy for nuking ennemies, and eventually switch to a ranger with shitload of archer at some point.
Anyway, it's pretty much impossible to loose in crusade mode, the only question is how much time you're going to end up wasting on it.

 

[Desiderius]

Caster general is undocumented auto mode. Actual automode left my game hung twice and you miss out on the unique relics that unlock additional viable strategies, similar to KM in P:K. So people that blow them off literally don’t know what they’re missing.

If you play non-caster generals and try to maintain three viable armies to cover map (I.e. pretend you’re playing HoMM) there’s some decent play to it but the fact that it unnecessary undermines whole thing.

I guess you could crank up Crusade difficulty (as you could in P:K with the KM, though I never heard of anyone doing it) but you’re still stuck with caster just being OP. By ch 5 each general gets a dominant ability and they give you a couple pre-leveled so you can try it out at that point.

As with much else in Wrath they opened up a lot of well-conceived design space but the follow-up is lacking badly.

 

[Sarathiour]

Idk if you actaully tried to play without caster desiderius, but the current crusade mode is a fuckfest of ability not working, bugged damage formule and uninteresting drawn out battle. I wanted to like it, but HoMM it is not.