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

[Nerevar]

Just finished my first playthrough. Wasn't too bad specced in falchions.

If I did it again I would pick greataxe or scythe. Pic is unbuffed because you cannot buff in this location. Probably my build wasn't the best, next playthrough will do a trickster martial.

Spoiler

 

[Sharpedge]

If you are playing solo and Death Ward is unavailable to you outside of scrolls, Danse Macabre is the best option available to you. Whilst it is true you can potentially cast Death Ward from scrolls in this circumstance, the scroll version of the spell is easy for monsters to dispel and this is actually relevant on hard or unfair as enemies will frequently attempt to dispel you, including enemies where the death ward immunities are important.

 

[LannTheStupid]

It is always recommended to reequip everything on every new map or after the rest. It is obvious to everyone who have ever solved Windows problems by rebooting.

 

[Yosharian]

Well of course its useful in solo.

 

[ga♥]

Bit of fun is the worst pick for trickster.

 

[ga♥]

Bit of fun is the worst pick for trickster.

How so?

Mirror image is part of the trickster spellbook, so all you get is the +3 to skill checks. Pretty meh compared to the other picks.

 

[Yosharian]

Its three free mirror images per day, and how is +3 to all skills bad?

 

[Delterius]

Bit of Fun is good if you don't already have a source of Mirror Images. Which Trickster already has. Mirror Images is not that hard to come by in general. +3 to all skills is nice to have, nothing exciting, unless you build for Athletics based saves or hold out for really late game tricks. Instrument of Freedom fits Trickster well enough and might see more use throught the game.

That said, people fret too much about the mythic ascension ability.

One thing I've been meaning to test is the Persuasion trick. I thought it was useless at first and forgot about it, but now I realize that while mooks might fall for the Paralyze Demon Lords are likely to resist it and fall for the standard demoralize. The overall experience is you insta kill people one on one and paralyze mooks as soon as combat starts.

 

[ga♥]

Its three free mirror images per day, and how is +3 to all skills bad?

Not bad, worst compared to the rest, as a melee martial I never found myself in short of mirror images, and the +3 to skill checks... I never needed those.
If you are melee martial without reach, close to the abyss is objectively better.
If you are martial with reach or an arcane/divine caster any other choice else sounds better, but depends on your build.

 

[Haplo]

Well, I must say that this is like the first game ever I had to resort to special solutions to progress. Twice so far, actually.

First time in Drezen, where I couldn't pass the gate we broke down during the siege and had to Dimension Door to the balor boss... with Nenio alone. Good thing Galfrey rescued Nenio then.
Now in Areelu's lab... kinda the opposite... I sequence broke the area by using Dimension Door to get to the Heart early..... and ended loosing my entire party during a scipted stair passage.
Thank god for the Toy Box mod.... it allowed me to re-recruit my party - as I overwrote my quicksaves and my previous save was before entering the hut.

On the positive side, my training is paying off, even without Ember present to hex enemies (makes me kinda question Jinx... but can still be good for bosses where Charge is not possible.... and there's apparently also a nice +5 CMB falchion late game).

Spoiler

 

[Haplo]

But the change that allows the rider to full attack after movement means that I'm never dismounting.

And charging works OK for you even in tight spaces?

Well, obviously charging in tight spaces is tricky. But sometimes still possible. At least I'm not loosing rounds anymore. Quite the opposite: movement + melee full attack is awesome action economy.

This is quite compelling. I think I will make my Good hero a rider - when it comes to that playthrough. Thanks for sharing!

And even in tight spaces, charging often works as combat opener.
The downside is that in enemy groups, priority targets are rarely in front...

On topic of charging, also in tight quarters, on Reddit I saw talk of Arcane Rider builds - which could be a solution. Apparently an Arcane Rider can teleport as swift action at level 14. The interesting part is using this trick as a tactic to position yourself away from enemies, in optimal position for charge...

 

[Thonius]

Arcane rider is great class, with magus pool well you get two maguses kinda.

 

[CodexTotalWar]

On the positive side, my training is paying off, even without Ember present to hex enemies (makes me kinda question Jinx... but can still be good for bosses where Charge is not possible.... and there's apparently also a nice +5 CMB falchion late game).

Spoiler

Noice. Where's the massive piercing damage coming from - is it a Cavalier class ability?

 

[volklore]

Bit of Fun is good if you don't already have a source of Mirror Images. Which Trickster already has. Mirror Images is not that hard to come by in general. +3 to all skills is nice to have, nothing exciting, unless you build for Athletics based saves or hold out for really late game tricks. Instrument of Freedom fits Trickster well enough and might see more use throught the game.

That said, people fret too much about the mythic ascension ability.

One thing I've been meaning to test is the Persuasion trick. I thought it was useless at first and forgot about it, but now I realize that while mooks might fall for the Paralyze Demon Lords are likely to resist it and fall for the standard demoralize. The overall experience is you insta kill people one on one and paralyze mooks as soon as combat starts.

Heh, 3 circumstance bonus to skillcheck is good for most trickster builds who want to use the skill dependant tricks (persuasion, trickery, mobility especially). Any character that does not get mirror image naturally has to wait till M4 to get it from a trickster spellbook and with low amount of casts so it's not that big of a waste.
As far as the persuasion 3 trick goes, I really want to know how it pans out. The wording is weird, it make it seems so they have to fail the save from persuasion 2 to trigger to coup de grace but if they did they'd be paralyzed... So the only solution is anything that doesn't get paralyzed by the trick (which is everything on hard +) coup de grace themselves ?

 

[ga♥]

Persuasion 3 wasn't working last time I checked, was it fixed?
Also volklore persuasion 2 on trickster uses ranks, not the total value so the +3 would not even count, so does athletics 3 (athletics 1 was broken, athletics 2 too according to reddit).
Only one could be mobility 3 (and the trickery), but that comes too late, and I doubt those +3 would make much a difference.

 

[volklore]

I mean if you're picking persuasion line you are stacking intimidate to take advantage off the free intimidate proc at the start of combat, and some intimidate checks are pretty high on higher difficulties. Persuasion 1 is really good action economy, you get to start combat with everything already shaken and you get access to it way before casters would get to frightful aspect. And for mobility 2, you need to stack mobility pretty high to beat big enemy CMD consistently and for trickery 2 the trickery check is at -20 so an extra +3 isn't bad. Depending on how many of these you want to use on a single char +3 to all skills is pretty good value.

 

[ga♥]

I don't even know if Persuasion 1 uses ranks or total value (and I even had it lol). Anyway I agree it's not worthless. But I keep seeing more value in other mythic abilities, and if you plan to switch to a "prestige" mythic path later (GD, legend, swarm, devil), then sorry, it becomes worthless (3 mirror image/day in Act V is near 0 value).
(I did pick bit of fun, but just because I thought it was a requirement for going trickster, then I regretted it for the rest of the game when I discovered it wasn't).

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Chaotic_Heretic anyway what UI mod are you using?

Its a combination of two mods.

Bubble Tweaks and Toybox. The party UI expansion is from bubble tweaks (very useful when I have mercs with pets); and the item rarity / scroll highlight color is from toybox.

 

[Yosharian]

How is mirror image worthless in act 5? There are monsters in Threshold that don't pierce it. And like Volklore says getting it at M1 is huge. You know, because the start of the game is the hardest part. +3 stackable to all skills doesn't interest you but getting an ability that replicates a buff that everyone gets anyway is super good....I don't get that. Also the dispel thing is overstated.

The Gore attack is very nice, that's probably what I would get otherwise.

Also, when you get mirror images naturally, having an extra 3 per day is NOT useless.

 

[Haplo]

On the positive side, my training is paying off, even without Ember present to hex enemies (makes me kinda question Jinx... but can still be good for bosses where Charge is not possible.... and there's apparently also a nice +5 CMB falchion late game).

Spoiler

Noice. Where's the massive piercing damage coming from - is it a Cavalier class ability?

Spirited Charge feat. It basically copies all other damage (and transforms it intro piercing).

 

[Delterius]

(persuasion, trickery, mobility especially)

You forgot athletics. My problem with a lot of those is that you're building for mythic rank 7, or rather your first and effectively only greater trick. This leaves us trickery and athletics as two mythic rank 4 tricks that you can make good use of. And if you happen to not care about those then you're better off going for instrument of freedom. But like I said at that point you're quibbling. People care way too much about the ascension ability. I played an arcane trickster which means I was the skill monkey but the mirror image component was fucking useless. Don't think I would had had a much better experience with the other ascension tricks though. Kinda wish bit of fun had best jokes baked into it or something like that.

Yeah I agree that the wording of the persuasion tricks is weird. If persuasion 3 is supposed to run on ranks as well then it's fucking useless. If not then it creates this weird situation where you paralyze every Mook you come across, but can insta kill every Demon Lord instead.

 

[volklore]

(persuasion, trickery, mobility especially)

You forgot athletics. My problem with a lot of those is that you're building for mythic rank 7, or rather your first and effectively only greater trick. This leaves us trickery and athletics as two mythic rank 4 tricks that you can make good use of. And if you happen to not care about those then you're better off going for instrument of freedom. But like I said at that point you're quibbling. People care way too much about the ascension ability. I played an arcane trickster which means I was the skill monkey but the mirror image component was fucking useless. Don't think I would had had a much better experience with the other ascension tricks though. Kinda wish bit of fun had best jokes baked into it or something like that.

Yeah I agree that the wording of the persuasion tricks is weird. If persuasion 3 is supposed to run on ranks as well then it's fucking useless. If not then it creates this weird situation where you paralyze every Mook you come across, but can insta kill every Demon Lord instead.

Athletics 1 and 2. Mobility 2, trickery 1 and 2 and persuasion 1 can all be gotten at M4 (so a combination of two skill dependant tricks at M4), they all require steep skill checks. And the mirror image, I bet that on a full arcane caster it's a bit shit. But on the Sword saint mobility 2 build I am going for, I am pretty heavy on mythic abilities so don't really have space for abundant casting early on which means I get to free up some lvl 2 slots.

 

[Delterius]

Athletics 1 and 2. Mobility 2, trickery 1 and 2 and persuasion 1 can all be gotten at M4 (so a combination of two skill dependant tricks at M4), they all require steep skill checks.

Mobility 2 doesn't require skill checks. Persuasion 1's check isn't that steep. Athletics 2 is not a priority until mythic rank 6 at the earliest. Like I said you can build for using that +3 but more often than not you won't.

 

[volklore]

Athletics 1 and 2. Mobility 2, trickery 1 and 2 and persuasion 1 can all be gotten at M4 (so a combination of two skill dependant tricks at M4), they all require steep skill checks.

Mobility 2 doesn't require skill checks. Persuasion 1's check isn't that steep. Athletics 2 is not a priority until mythic rank 6 at the earliest. Like I said you can build for using that +3 but more often than not you won't.

Mobility 2 requires a skill check. 'avoiding attacks of opportunity' means beating the enemy CMD with a mobility check when moving out of enemy threat range using 'acrobatic movement' stance ability. It's probably the most skill check reliant trickster ability because large demons have insane CMD.

 

[Delterius]

Athletics 1 and 2. Mobility 2, trickery 1 and 2 and persuasion 1 can all be gotten at M4 (so a combination of two skill dependant tricks at M4), they all require steep skill checks.

Mobility 2 doesn't require skill checks. Persuasion 1's check isn't that steep. Athletics 2 is not a priority until mythic rank 6 at the earliest. Like I said you can build for using that +3 but more often than not you won't.

Mobility 2 requires a skill check. 'avoiding attacks of opportunity' means beating the enemy CMD with a mobility check when moving out of enemy threat range using 'acrobatic movement' stance ability. It's probably the most skill check reliant trickster ability because large demons have insane CMD.

You're right. I thought that mobility 1 already pretty much made you immune to attacks of opportunity. My mistake.