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

[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.

 

[ga♥]

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.

By Act V you should really have other ways to access mirror image if you really need it, and it's defintely easier than getting another attack.

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

I never found myself saying "oh shuck I finished my mirror image casting spells better rest" in 150+ hours.

 

[CodexTotalWar]

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

Thanks man. I have been avoiding mounted combat in general due to the previous bugs. Looks very powerful though.

 

[The_Mask]

 

[axedice]

BTW all companions can tank unfair with 80+ AC and a bunch of immunities with the right setup. Seelah, camellia and wenduag/lann are the best bets though, since they only have 1 level at their base class. Camellia is good at this even with her base class, but a tank without any other utility is a no go for unfair imo.

I can get Lann and Wenduag and Camellia to over 80 ac but how do you do it with Seelah? Also Camellia's utility is stabbing people and having frightful aspect so you can get shatter without dirge of doom or a divine caster running up.

With Seelah, you have to make Desiderius cry

At lvl20 she's : 13 pally/5 alchemist/1 oracle / 1 monk pajama tank

11 pally is base for mark of justice, that was the whole reason I recruited her. Then I gave her 2 more levels to get another greater angelic aspect in the party for cold/acid immunity.
5 Alchemist (chirurgeon or sth) was to get cognatogen charisma bonus for MoJ. The added AC helps, but infinite true strikes/Shield and exp. retreat is the MVP here. Chirurgeon for free skill focus : religion feat
1 oracle for nature's whispers (Nature oracle revelation that gives cha to AC instead of dex to AC). I choose enlightened philosopher to get a free knowledge : world skill focus.
1 monk is scaled fist obviously. She's a pajama tank, but she does an OK job for a party wide +11 AB dispenser.


Camellia is the best tank if you want to roll with base classes for some roleplaying reasons, but other than that frightful presence can be cast on anyone, and she does lack some key buff spells like death ward / life bubble / heroism etc. I prefer brown-fur transmuter tanks to give the entire party elemental and crit immunities, so I rolled Wenduag as one :

 

[Parabalus]

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).

It uses total value, combine with Thug for a very easy first round.

It also works(ed) when your main PC is in another map, so like in the Arena or camp ambush, which is very handy.

Both persuade 2 and 3 used rank, they're trash.