Pathfinder Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Pre-DLC Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[PrK]

That's another different can of worm entirely. Since they are overstatted and their HD increased, had they access to such HD based abilities your life would be really unfair. Instead, they rely on off the chart SR to protect themselves from your abundant casting and favoured metamagic. Basically, since there's no AI competent enough to play D&D, we play who gets to roll bigger numbers.
It's not exactly fun but I don't think it's something that Owlcat can singlehandedly solve. AI in gaming is a pretty sore topic, for those that noticed...

Pierre singlehandedly solved this though, 3E specific no less, so I don't think the resources needed excuse works for Owlcat. The actual reason may well be that it would be quite harder with the RTwP simultaneous turn logic.
Just imagine though how great the Pathfinder games would be if the enemy actually silenced your casters, bull rushed you into pits, burned your web with burning hands, etc. Then the enemies wouldn't need to be overstatted and a good composition alone would be danger enough.

Are we talking about the same man who pits half-naked level 5 (at best) party against skeletal dragon, spawns enemies behind you in every second fight, heaps a ton of "free action" abilities on all notable enemies, has each hostile caster prebuffed with all with all spells they theoretically have access to without any care in the world for the spellslot count, forbids you to prebuff party with even simplest shit like Protection vs Elements at the same time... and... and...

...Homebrewed ridiculous Prismatic spell that randomly attacks all saves at once and programmed all higher level mages to spam it in endgame?

Although the encounters in KotC2 make the talk about overtuned ones in Wrath very cute, the AI itself is spectacular and could work with any type and level of encounter.

Does someone know how to trigger the option to upgrade your units available for hire ? So far I had the option to upgrade my archers and cavalry but I'm not sure what triggered it but I'd like to upgrade my foot soldiers.

I think it's the 3rd military rank upgrade.

 

[Sunri]

They nerfed blackwater quite hard now you just spam electricity rods and its over

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I can solo BG2:EE on Legacy of Bhaal difficulty

0,4% of players manage to do that with full party.

Yes, I too would like to meet the players who can solo with a full party.

 

[LannTheStupid]

reminder that this is still implemented incorrectly and isn't supposed to provide immunity from poison

It is implemented correctly, and it does not provide immunity from poison. What is not implemented correctly - and will never be fixed in all Owlcat Games, because it is a concept - is the flow of time on the locations. However, I'd rather not explain it in details to an obvious troll.

 

[Matalarata]

ierre singlehandedly solved this though, 3E specific no less, so I don't think the resources needed excuse works for Owlcat. The actual reason may well be that it would be quite harder with the RTwP simultaneous turn logic.
Just imagine though how great the Pathfinder games would be if the enemy actually silenced your casters, bull rushed you into pits, burned your web with burning hands, etc. Then the enemies wouldn't need to be overstatted and a good composition alone would be danger enough.

I agree on much of what you say but KoTC uses a much simpler engine and it simplifies many issues. Not that this detracts from his achievement, mind you, but I don't think it would be possible to do the same in a 3d environment? Although I'm sure if he had the resources and a team at his disposal in a perfect universe we could see wonders.


Edit: On a sidenote I just killed a Sinful Sinew At level 11, got over 20k xp

 

[ArchAngel]

WTF is with battles vs Ghouls. Enemy has 3 stacks of Ghouls and they permanently paralyze all your units and you never get a turn again... how did this shit pass any testing?!

Testing? Does OwlCat test their games?

As for crusade, if you are not spamming fireball, ice storm or scorching ray, you are playing crusade wrong.

They even paralyze my Zombies and Skeletons lol

 

[AwesomeButton]

elaborate, I want a good laugh.

Most of it was scripted iirc. Consider though that I have no fookin' idea what I'm talking about, cannot into software

That's not to diminish the value in SCS, but its source code is public on github, and anyone can see SCS consists of (lots of) behavior scripts, the kind which first were made available by BioWare with BGII.

That's why BG1 never had a mod like SCS, but BG1:EE is supported by SCS.

For what I mean under "AI", see for example this: http://battlebrothersgame.com/dev-blog-27-ai-battle-brothers-part-1/ and the GDC presentation they reference.

BTW, from superficially looking at what enemies are doing in WotR, it looks like they either attack you with default attack, use spells and abilities in a scripted sequence, or cast spells at predetermined coordinates - like that baphomet cultist in the first quarter of Market Square who always casts color spray in the same direction, sometimes hitting his own guys. They still have a lot of scripting to do until they reach SCS level if they ever reach it, and would never reach Battle Brothers' level.

They also rarely switch targets. The only reliable instance when they switch targets, in my experience, is if they are moving towards a character to attack in melee, but are intercepted by another character which attacks them in melee. Then they stop and fight the one who attacks them.

 

[Matalarata]

I could have rated your post either informative or the ghost thingie but since my troll boy you quoted is true and I have very limited knoweledge of all this, I gave you a kitty.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Also, why are people complaining about the difficulty? Just play on Core and choose the Last Azlanti mode. Suddenly you really want - and need - to prepare for every combat encounter. Better yet - and this is from personal experience - play Last Azlanti on your first playthrough. THEN you'll notice how very differently you'll be playing the game than usual.

They complain it's too hard, but won't lower the difficulty setting because of epeen reputation damage.

 

[Matalarata]

Bros. At which level I'm supposed to roam here? Drood was level 10, now everyone 11 (by a long shot, I'd say)

 

[LannTheStupid]

When the bug happens (often) you're potentially losing even multiple rounds - if you try to charge again from the same position (with clear straight route towards the enemy).

I wonder if the objects on the field have hitboxes that are not visible in TB, but block the direct route. So a rider on a mount occupies some grid cells that do not allow him to pass between other party members who have their own sets of grid cells. I guess a visible grid could have helped in TB...

 

[Zayne]

Who's my saint demonlord slayer?

Spoiler

You are, Ember!

Poor swarmy guy died in one turn, I've kinda expected more from him, especially since Baphomet was smart enough to start fight with dispelling every single buff from all your characters.

 

[Jaedar]

Not that any of this helps anyhow, since I suspect the enemy you are struggling with is Playful Darkness? Hes not intended to be tanked and is a puzzle fight akin to Kangaxx in BG 2. Hes meant to be dealt with using other measures. The fun of the fight is in figuring him out, having him explained to you kills all the fun.

Well, "struggling" is a strong word. It's not like it's that hard to just let my meleers (and attackers in general) hang back while I keep the enemy busy with skeleton summons and pummeling them with spells. It took me 3 tries to kill it.

The fight that made me complain is act4 minghou. I'm fine with optional bosses being a bit degenerate in their strategies.

 

[AwesomeButton]

When the bug happens (often) you're potentially losing even multiple rounds - if you try to charge again from the same position (with clear straight route towards the enemy).

I wonder if the objects on the field have hitboxes that are not visible in TB, but block the direct route. So a rider on a mount occupies some grid cells that do not allow him to pass between other party members who have their own sets of grid cells. I guess a visible grid could have helped in TB...

Last time I played Nenio's introduction combat, my cavalier's horse just turned crazy and started going in circles without entering the area where the cultists were.

It had no active status effects, neither did the rider, but I wasn't able to issue movement commands. I would select the horse, press G to make it halt, but it wouldn't answer to mouse left-clicks on terrain or attack clicks on enemies. It would just keep going in circles. It was a very convincing impression of the horse being scared IRL :D

 

[gurugeorge]

I've taken to playing it on Normal now.

 

[Shadenuat]

They nerfed blackwater quite hard now you just spam electricity rods and its over

I'd nerf any hp bloats if any, but I don't understand why people lost their mind of regen+immunity to element of it. It's an obvious gimmick, which is no different from enemy being invisible while also having protection from divination.

 

[Rusty Eyes]

elaborate, I want a good laugh.

Most of it was scripted iirc. Consider though that I have no fookin' idea what I'm talking about, cannot into software

That's not to diminish the value in SCS, but its source code is public on github, and anyone can see SCS consists of (lots of) behavior scripts, the kind which first were made available by BioWare with BGII.

That's why BG1 never had a mod like SCS, but BG1:EE is supported by SCS.

For what I mean under "AI", see for example this: http://battlebrothersgame.com/dev-blog-27-ai-battle-brothers-part-1/ and the GDC presentation they reference.

BTW, from superficially looking at what enemies are doing in WotR, it looks like they either attack you with default attack, use spells and abilities in a scripted sequence, or cast spells at predetermined coordinates - like that baphomet cultist in the first quarter of Market Square who always casts color spray in the same direction, sometimes hitting his own guys. They still have a lot of scripting to do until they reach SCS level if they ever reach it, and would never reach Battle Brothers' level.

They also rarely switch targets. The only reliable instance when they switch targets, in my experience, is if they are moving towards a character to attack in melee, but are intercepted by another character which attacks them in melee. Then they stop and fight the one who attacks them.

Still better than the Kingmaker AI mods, where the enemy will ALWAYS target your magic classes, no matter whether they wear armour, the distance etc, which leads to hilarious games of "AoO conga lines". I'm also mixed on the notion of pre-buffed enemies who don't know they can be engaged in combat at any moment.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I've taken to playing it on Normal now.

I switched to normal with my ill-fated wizard when I reached Lost Chapel at lvl 7. Soon after, I restarted with the cavalier.

 

[Reinhardt]

They nerfed blackwater quite hard now you just spam electricity rods and its over

I'd nerf any hp bloats if any, but I don't understand why people lost their mind of regen+immunity to element of it. It's an obvious gimmick, which is no different from enemy being invisible while also having protection from divination.

Have you tried it in tb? Running for 10 rounds from one already downed enemy to another with your only adamantine weapon was many fun.

 

[Shadenuat]

Shouldn't any +4 count as adamantine?

Regardless, while slapping it on a ton of mobs might be dumb, I don't see issue with concept itself, if used on some single enemies.

I'll obviously play ez fun patched game.

 

[Volourn]

Are you supposed to lose Demonic Hunger randomly for giggles on the world map? It states that any non LG character can use so I have my barbarian using it. It just seems to randomly vanish. Is it a bug? Or is it 'too evil' for goodie two shoe parties that it just teleports away? Either way, my barb has no weapon now. LMAO


"They also rarely switch targets. The only reliable instance when they switch targets, in my experience, is if they are moving towards a character to attack in melee, but are intercepted by another character which attacks them in melee. Then they stop and fight the one who attacks them."

They'll often switch targets if they get an AOO on someone. They will gladly switch to that character. Learned the hard way. Not always but frequently enough. <>

 

[AwesomeButton]

Still better than the Kingmaker AI mods, where the enemy will ALWAYS target your magic classes, no matter whether they wear armour, the distance etc, which leads to hilarious games of "AoO conga lines". I'm also mixed on the notion of pre-buffed enemies who don't know they can be engaged in combat at any moment.

In Battle Brothers the AoO is something the AI takes into account. Sure, it's a much simpler ruleset than Pathfinder, but one can dream.

The best AI behavior would be what the DM usually does - give the party a hard time but avoid killing them unless the fight is something important to the plot. Make the enemies suddenly behave in a suboptimal way if you sense you might kill someone. The majority of players would be unaware of this of course. This way people will neither have to reload endlessly, nor turn the RPG into a game of "find the loophole in the AI's routines" which it isn't meant to be. Retain their immersion instead. And then the difficulty settings would merely adjust how tolerant the AI will be of the player's own suboptimal choices.

I'm curious what the "Advanced AI behavior" dropdown does in WotR's difficulty settings. It reminds me of the "Multiplayer" option in the main menu of Monkey Island 4.

 

[Zero Credibility]

Exception to this is charging. That should not be possible even through friendly characters. but I'm pretty sure it is in the game. But then charging has bigger issues than that right now.

Charging trough friendly characters definitely isn't possible in Wrath. Its extremely tricky and buggy in general (at least mounted on a large size mount).

Yeah, charging is still iffy even after patches. However, it can be done through other characters - as long as there is nobody at the end point of the charge, because you still can't end your turn in an occupied position. What's worse, you can even charge through hostile characters, something that definitely shouldn't be doable. And if the AI can pull it off as well, that could be an issue. Say you open up a fight with a nice AoE spell from your backline mage. This sets every enemy damaged targeting that mage, and unless they are engaged in melee, they will try to reach him. And if they too can charge through hostiles, they can just charge through your frontline fighters to do so (eating an AoO in process, but still). Can't be certain, but I have a feeling this is what is actually happening in the game.

Btw, is anyone else disappointed with new haramaki armor? I was so giddy after finding it, the perfect item for my Sword Saint. Except, it shuts down Canny Defense. Come on Owlcat, "When wearing light or no armor", it's right there in your own damn description of Canny Defense. Fix this shit.

 

[Rafidur]

How viable would this be as a duo team?

MC: Thug4/PetInquisitor16 (focus on intimidate), Trickster ("You are so good at demoralizing enemies that just entering combat against you is enough to demoralize them", "You are so good at demoralizing your enemies that they lose the will to fight ", "You are so good at demoralizing your enemies that they lose the will to live")

Mercenary: grey-fur transmuter, focus on pumping MC stats as high as possible, mostly for the strength to intimidate feat.


The idea would be to have every enemy instantly kill themselves as the chad MC strolls around - with maybe the "Instead of just avoiding attacks of opportunity by your acrobatic movements, you can instead make them yourself every time you avoid one" trickster stuff to walk around enemies as a giant mobile dragon and slamming them several times with a ton of str and a flat-flooted bonus (maybe sneak attacks?). Pet could be turned into a dragon too, why not.

Would that works? Any suggestions on improving it? Does lockpicking bosses work, and is that better than the mobility feats? If they pass the initial DC, can you keep yelling threats until they kill themselves?

 

[Cyberarmy]

How viable would this be as a duo team?

That'll be powerful team but at later levels, after mythic 3-4. You'll suffer a lot at start if you go duo from there.
For more lulz pick a halfling and ride a mastadon (which will turn into a dragon later)