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

[Dishonoredbr]

Not sure if you've actually skipped the tavern? Unless you're already storming the Grey Garrison. I though I skipped it also and then.. boom... messenger while travelling urging me to go help.

I skipped because i was ready to attack the Grey Garrison.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

You can't activate azata song pre-combat... WHY??? it works with every other song godamnit owlcat!!!

That's just something with some Mythic paths. I couldn't use Demonic Rage out of combat too..

 

[Haplo]

If I go angel, what are the good targets for Sword of Heavens "Abolish X" upgrades?

I mean from numerous/dangerous enemies point of view, obviously, not immunities/healing.

Seems to me that even as melee he will have a faster and more consistent power ramp then Aeon (Bane at Mythic Rank 4... for 8 rounds per rest initially...) and better reactivity story too.
The powergaming choice for my charging tripping character would be Demon, but too few rages and I don't really feel like playing the game for the first time on an evil path.
And no, resting all the time is not a solution for me.

Aeon has insane reactivity, extremely satisfying for the player, but also objectively the most powerful moves.

Char building wise they seemed very weak though. Tradeoff for their story power?

Well, I've read that they are great in their moments of glory. Like retconning certain major events.

On the other hand, it's also supposed not to come all that often. And from what I've read, rather then being cosmic Judge Dredd I envisioned, you often play local judge of peace, being forced to shitty judgments in petty cases if you want to stay on the "true" path and enjoy aeon story powers.

 

[LannTheStupid]

you often play local judge of peace, being forced to shitty judgments in petty cases if you want to stay on the "true" path and enjoy aeon story powers.

That is how I perceive the first chapters. I want to see mystical figures like Areelu Vorlesh (whom everybody seems to hate, so I, for sure, need to ally with her), but to be noticed by greater powers I have to deal with this pointless "crusade". Worldwound is open, but no one waits for me there.

So - to chores.

 

[Seigneur Locklear]

can you

Spoiler

drop the handkerchief, finish the area and then go back and get it?

That was the first thing I tried, followed by spawning a brand new one via toybox. Didn't work. The only solution I had was to complete one of the NurahDiscovered event tags in toybox to actually get the dialogue option. I'm having my third run now, Angel after Aeon and Lich and it seems that their last patch has broken more things than it has fixed.

 

[Delterius]

fuck it. gonna play divination wizard.

 

[LannTheStupid]

2 observations.

1. Hard is a very nice difficulty. It makes me think. Had to roll back about 4 hours of the game, but now I can "Build Back Better" (C).
2. I like how large are alignment shifts in this game. In Kingmaker the shift from True Neutral to Lawful Evil happened after the Stag Lord and Trobold, at some point in the Lizard village. Here it is visible after a dozen of choices.

 

[Longes]

fuck it. gonna play divination wizard.

Divination has a super awesome school ability, but there are very few good divination spells in the game, so your extra slots will be wasted. IMHO, Conjuration has the best slot/ability balance, but Necromancy can turn some early game encounters into comedy.

 

[volklore]

fuck it. gonna play divination wizard.

Divination has a super awesome school ability, but there are very few good divination spells in the game, so your extra slots will be wasted. IMHO, Conjuration has the best slot/ability balance, but Necromancy can turn some early game encounters into comedy.

The aura is great but initiative is what's selling me on divination, initiative is bonkers in this game, especially if you play turn-based. And there are a few divination spells that have some useage with rays. Spell slots hardly matter with abundant casting being in the game and rest restrictions being generally more soft than in kingmaker.

 

[jungl]

Imbalance is fun.

Owlcat does a dogshit job in that department. Enemies needing lesser, greater and ally spell penetration + all the focus and elemental just to hit half the enemies in the game with spells is retarded. I would of scaled the the encounters to party composition. If you have a lot of touch attack party members then fewer enemies with high ac. If you do not then more enemies with lower ac. Also scale the gold rewards if you pick gimp not op classes, domains. owlcat is lazy.

Pierre does a lot better then owlcat in using the 3.5 ruleset maybe pazzo should of let him work on pathfinder instead lol. Mushrooms>owfat.

 

[Delterius]

Divination has a super awesome school ability

The aura is great but initiative is what's selling me on divination

Yes.

slot/ability

It doesn't really matter with Abundant Casting. And in my case the trickster mythic has ways to cast infinite buffs from wands and infinite cantrips as attacks, plus two wizard spellbooks at Rank 7.

 

[volklore]

hmm should I take demongraft or nah ? Is there a way to negate the zerking effect ?
Something tells me it's a bad idea but +2 DC is so juicy mnmnmgh

 

[Longes]

hmm should I take demongraft or nah ? Is there a way to negate the zerking effect ?
Something tells me it's a bad idea but +2 DC is so juicy mnmnmgh

Yes. It's called "being a spellcaster whose health doesn't go below 20%"

 

[volklore]

hmm should I take demongraft or nah ? Is there a way to negate the zerking effect ?
Something tells me it's a bad idea but +2 DC is so juicy mnmnmgh

Yes. It's called "being a spellcaster whose health doesn't go below 20%"

So never roll bad on initiative and have an archer pelt me with 10 arrows ?

 

[Sharpedge]

To keep things interesting, in my current run I decided to stretch myself a bit and try to meet the conditions for both Equal to Aroden and Sadistic Game Design simultaneously. This is how it is currently looking.

Spoiler

So far I have completed A1 and A2, with a total of 7 rests in A1 and 11 rests in A2. I am also thinking of bumping the difficulty up to hard or unfair for this, because even with the rest limitations this is not as challenging as I was expecting it would be. Currently the most challenging part of the run has been micromanaging unit pathfinding, because they have the infuriating tendency to not go where you click.

 

[Delterius]

hmm should I take demongraft or nah ? Is there a way to negate the zerking effect ?
Something tells me it's a bad idea but +2 DC is so juicy mnmnmgh

Yes. It's called "being a spellcaster whose health doesn't go below 20%"

So never roll bad on initiative and have an archer pelt me with 10 arrows ?

do you now understand the power of the true strike specialist wizard

 

[volklore]

oh I do! To be honest initiative is pretty shite early game, but now that I am facing mythic archers of doom I am taking every bit of it I can. I am probably going to take mythic imp. initiative too, which sucks majorly because I need so many of them... But also initiative still does nothing for some of the wave fights that happen in act4. Archers appear out of nowhere and get free turns before you get to even be allowed to target them. Not sure demonggraft is a good idea even with good initiative. Maybe I'll wing it anyway, azata aren't supposed to give a shit !

 

[Longes]

oh I do! To be honest initiative is pretty shite early game, but now that I am facing mythic archers of doom I am taking every bit of it I can. I am probably going to take mythic imp. initiative too, which sucks majorly because I need so many of them... But also initiative still does nothing for some of the wave fights that happen in act4. Archers appear out of nowhere and get free turns before you get to even be allowed to target them. Not sure demonggraft is a good idea even with good initiative. Maybe I'll wing it anyway, azata aren't supposed to give a shit !

If you don't start the day by casting Mirror Image and Blink - then are you even really living?

 

[PrK]

So, finished the game (on core, about 200h), here are some short thoughts, mostly vis a vis Kingmaker.
For a buildfag it’s a spectacular game, and will be even better when it’s patched so more than half the feats/abilities work correctly. I’m eagerly waiting for the release of the roguelike mode.
There are some nice encounters, particularly boss fights, that are challenging and interesting, but overall there are too many uninspiring, copy-pasted ones, especially at the latter parts of game. That fact combined with the nonexistent AI makes it a real shame, as it hampers the enjoyment of your creatively built party in actual combat situations, when mostly everything has stats, immunities and innate abilities up the ass to make up for lackluster composition and scripting.
Story wise it starts abysmally, basically mandating a demon playthrough so you can cull all those pathetic, degenerate NPCs that boss you around, but it gets better later, and chapter 4 was quite nice (the roating camera gimmick was cool there if I’m being honest). Still, Kingmaker was far ahead in this department. The central theme was not as intriguing as Kingmaker’s curses one, but maybe with different choices it shines more. Companions are on par with Kingmaker, with some stand out ones like Regill. Reactivity, especially along the mythic paths is great and miles ahead of anything in Kingmaker. And since mythic paths besides story offer gameplay variety, it makes it a very replayable game (if you can stomach going through some of the worst stretches again).
The crusade minigame is a joke.
Music is amazing.
It is quite buggy still, if you’re interested just wait.
All in all, the character building is so good it makes it worth playing, but it is a step down from Kingmaker in almost every other way.

 

[Longes]

Story wise it starts abysmally, basically mandating a demon playthrough so you can cull all those pathetic, degenerate NPCs that boss you around, but it gets better later, and chapter 4 was quite nice (the roating camera gimmick was cool there if I’m being honest). Still, Kingmaker was far ahead in this department. The central theme was not as intriguing as Kingmaker’s curses one, but maybe with different choices it shines more. Companions are on par with Kingmaker, with some stand out ones like Regill. Reactivity, especially along the mythic paths is great and miles ahead of anything in Kingmaker. And since mythic paths besides story offer gameplay variety, it makes it a very replayable game (if you can stomach going through some of the worst stretches again).
..
All in all, the character building is so good it makes it worth playing, but it is a step down from Kingmaker in almost every other way.

I guess I'll have to disagree. Kenabres + March on Drezen is way better than the Stag Lord hunt, since you aren't fucking around in side-quest dungeons like the Kobold Tree and getting your ass wrecked by random encounters. And Areelu is a far better and more charismatic villain than Nyrissa.

Though ultimately I suppose it comes down to which theme and feel you like more. Kingmaker is a low-end rags-to-riches story about relatively mundane adventures with a very monster-of-the-week feel. Wrath is about ramping up to demon lords, insane archmages, and crazy extraplanar shit. I like Wrath's story more, but IMHO both are valid.

Personally, an issue that I have with both games, is that I want smaller games with tighter stories and I want them now. I want companions who interact with each other, instead of wondering why Ember has no input on Seelah's and Arueshalae's storylines. I want fewer mythic paths that have greater integration. Disco Elysium is actually a hyper-linear game where you can never hop off the central plot train and nothing you do matters, but it does an amazing job of tricking you into thinking that the things you do matter and have impact. While Wrath will frequently have you do things only for the tail end to disappear into the aether.

 

[volklore]

Fey > Demons fite me

 

[Longes]

Fey > Demons fite me

Devils > Demons fite me

 

[LannTheStupid]

Kingmaker is a low-end rags-to-riches story about relatively mundane adventures with a very monster-of-the-week feel. Wrath is about ramping up to demon lords, insane archmages, and crazy extraplanar shit. I like Wrath's story more, but IMHO both are valid.

So far I feel like in Kingmaker the protagonist had much more agency in the first 2 acts. The player was given sovereignty right away, so gallows can be built, and people die by the players decree. In Wrath the player is a small cog in the crusade machine. Even the half-orc who lost the whole city and is left with a small tavern is bossing the player around. This leaves bad taste in the mouth and pushes to the evil path.

On the other hand, may be the payback will be sweet.

 

[Ulysa]

I want to be a tank but with intelligence. Is there any class and build not too complicated for this? Thank you

 

[Longes]

Kingmaker is a low-end rags-to-riches story about relatively mundane adventures with a very monster-of-the-week feel. Wrath is about ramping up to demon lords, insane archmages, and crazy extraplanar shit. I like Wrath's story more, but IMHO both are valid.

So far I feel like in Kingmaker the protagonist had much more agency in the first 2 acts. The player was given sovereignty right away, so gallows can be built, and people die by the players decree. In Wrath the player is a small cog in the crusade machine. Even the half-orc who lost the whole city and is left with a small tavern is bossing the player around. This leaves bad taste in the mouth and pushes to the evil path.

On the other hand, may be the payback will be sweet.

There are two big flavors of payback: be a lich/demon and blow 'em up. Or be a Devil and sell out the country to devil-worshipping slave-owning turbo-facsists from Cheliax.
As for agency, is "go retake Drezen" that different from "go shank the Stag Lord"?

I want to be a tank but with intelligence. Is there any class and build not too complicated for this? Thank you

The easiest you can do is Alchemist (Vivisectionist) 20. They get pretty beefy by mid-game, do good damage with sneak attacks, and can be made even beefier with dips into Monk, Barbarian (Instinctual Warrior) or Student Of War (Wis or Cha to AC, Wis to AC, Int to AC respectively)
Fighter (Aldori Defender) 2/Monk (Scaled Fist) 1/Ranger (Demonslayer) 2/Aldori Swordmaster 5/Aldori Defender 10 will get you an insanely tanky unarmored swordsman, and you want roughly Int 14 and Cha 16 for it. Take the intimdation feat line (dazzling display, shatter defenses).