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

[Orud]

Hate it or like it, at least HATEOT was a short pain in comparison to Enigma.

 

[Jaedar]

The Enigma is the House at the End of Time, except this time it's optional so you'll suffer through it of you own volition. It's genius. A commentary on the nature of the player. Sheer brilliance.

It is optional. Otoh, if you want the secret ending, it's not so optional. There's also some really good loot in there, like a headgear with +20 insight to all saves for the MC.
Personally I played through a quarter of it, said fuck that and enabled toybox to let me skip the remaining wings and jump straight to the boss.

I think what's most baffling with the enigma to me is not the puzzles, but the encounters. Why am I fighting wave after wave of level 17 zombies when I'm guaranteed to be level 20 and level 8/9 mythic at this point? They don't even pose a challenge when I am unbuffed. And then the actual boss fight is one of the better ones in the game.

 

[Lambach]

It is optional. Otoh, if you want the secret ending, it's not so optional. There's also some really good loot in there, like a headgear with +20 insight to all saves for the MC.

Is this how it is in the Pathfinder tabletop or did Owlcat devs just go on a meth and moonshine binge and started putting these types of items in? I don't think even Deities have access to items of this power in, say, D&D 3.5.

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah that helm is fucking ridiculous. I (will) give it to my companion tank so he has saves almost as good as my MC (50 CHA Paladin Legend build)

 

[Lambach]

High-level D&D is broken and stupid no matter what, but that shit is just excessive, even by high-level D&D standards.

EDIT: 50 CHA Paladin, lmao, come on, that's just.... stupid. What the fuck does it even mean? People and demons alike repeatedly orgasm just by being in his general vicinity?

 

[Jaedar]

Also, I think having finished the game what annoyed me the most overall was all the pointless looting. Every room you enter seems like it has at least 3 containers (often one of which requires a perception check), and only very rarely is there any worthwhile loot in them (but occasionally they are hand placed with unique magic items). Instead you'll go traipsing through the personal realm of a demigod, find their secret stash and inside is 167 gold and 3 low level magic scrolls. It's such a waste of time. At least when there's trash mobs it's in theory draining your resources and buff timers.

There was a much greater variety & amount of weapons encountered during my playthrough than what I saw in Kingmaker. I was short of decent composite longbows in the lategame though, but overall a big imrpovement over Kingmaker where Valerie was stuck with the Flaming Bastard Sword +1 for most of the game.

I was very impressed with the weapons in the game. I'm not sure every weapon type has a really cool +5 weapon that's good enough for the endgame, but for sure most of them do, and there's also some really cool build around me weapons. I was less impressed with armor, but that's mostly because I feel the only armor options that make sense are unarmored (ie mythic mage armor) and full plate, and most of the cool armors feel like they're medium.

Yeah that helm is fucking ridiculous. I (will) give it to my companion tank so he has saves almost as good as my MC (50 CHA Paladin Legend build)

MC only though.

EDIT: 50 CHA Paladin, lmao, come on, that's just.... stupid. What the fuck does it even mean? People and demons alike repeatedly orgasm just by being in his general vicinity?

Most builds aren't going to hit 50 in a stat, but 30-40 is not unreasonable with buffs.

 

[Lambach]

Most builds aren't going to hit 50 in a stat, but 30-40 is not unreasonable with buffs.

I realize I'm bitching about something trivial, because the game was clearly designed to be a combatfag/build porn game (and Kingmaker was almost the same), but this reminds me more of some shitty Korean MMO where your character's stats don't really represent anything, those numbers just exist to be made into bigger numbers. Given that this is a tabletop adaptation, those numbers are supposed to mean something, to tell you something about your character. Why are people not automatically falling on their knees to worship someone with 50 Charisma? How does one even communicate with, say, a 40 INT Wizard? Why is a 40 WIS Cleric not familiar with every mystery of the Universe?

Anyway, pointless rant over, but high-level D&D is still stupid.

 

[Yosharian]

Most builds aren't going to hit 50 in a stat, but 30-40 is not unreasonable with buffs.

I realize I'm bitching about something trivial, because the game was clearly designed to be a combatfag/build porn game (and Kingmaker was almost the same), but this reminds me more of some shitty Korean MMO where your character's stats don't really represent anything, those numbers just exist to be made into bigger numbers. Given that this is a tabletop adaptation, those numbers are supposed to mean something, to tell you something about your character. Why are people not automatically falling on their knees to worship someone with 50 Charisma? How does one even communicate with, say, a 40 INT Wizard? Why is a 40 WIS Cleric not familiar with every mystery of the Universe?

Anyway, pointless rant over, but high-level D&D is still stupid.

Bruh we were just talking about a build that has 80 Charisma earlier in the thread :D

 

[Jaedar]

Anyway, pointless rant over, but high-level D&D is still stupid.

I agree. I really hope they'll focus the DLCs on mid/low level. Something like level 3-12 or along those lines.

 

[Yosharian]

Jaedar supposedly there is a version that is equippable by companions

 

[ArchAngel]

I finished my Angel run. HE MAN and Battlecat conquered all opposition,

Spoiler

even Deskari which surprised me that I even got that option LOL after beating last boss lady.

Compared to Lich ending this is more interesting and bonus characters that travel the story with you are better. You cannot control them directly like you can your undead companions but at least they are not all mute. I even got a chance to diplomacy boss lady into not giving me that crazy second fight.

On this run I tried to do more with Crusade Management. This time I got all stats to 8 and waited a long long time to see what kind of events can happen. Funny shit, there is a bunch of interesting events

Spoiler

like getting best dwarven waraxe in the game or being able to recruit Alchemists regularly

that basically happen months after you could have already finished the game.. they completely fucked up Act 5 crusade parts. Also at one point two flags turn red and you cannot do anything about it so you now just keep losing morale every day without being able to do anything and basically you are forced to go finish the game.

As for story itself, I done many choices different and got different magical items this time. Like

Spoiler

if you save a guy in some earlier Act, you can meet him in Abyss city in a tavern and when you talk to him he gives you a really good +4 composite longbow.

Balance of Crusade combat parts is basically non existent, I hope they didn't give up on trying to improve it. It is hilariously easy and basically a time waster. Even if you don't abuse spell casters, like I had 5 different generals in this run as a test, you still own everything with very little loses. Infirmary shit needs a complete overhaul. It needs to be weaker and once it is used it slowly regenerates over multiple days, not instant for next battle. Also units that ended up in infirmary need to show up slowly in your army over days, not instantly. It all makes crusade combat needlesly easy and way too fast letting you clear the maps super fast and miss so many events that show up very slowly.
Another fix would be that on highest difficulty all static enemy armies on map slowly get stronger over time by getting more and more of the units they have in them so in combination with infirmary nerf you cannot clear the maps so fast and you actually need to use your brain to plot a best way to do it all.

EDIT:
Now time for my shapeshifter druid Azata or Drizzt Legend run.
No sure if I should make Drizzt Demonslayer 20/Fighter 20 or Hunter 20/Fighter 20.

 

[Grunker]

House at the the edge of time is better than the enigma under every aspect, encounter design, enemies, loot, and placement in the timeline.
HATEOT is a good dungeon, actually now that I think of it, Kingmaker dungeons were all pretty good.

Kingmaker’s dungeons are easily the game’s worst aspect. They’re mostly just floorplans with fights in them.

How anyone who has played through actually good dungeons like Watcher’s Keep, Durlag’s Tower or Spellhold can call the weak dungeons of Kingmaker good is beyond me.

 

[Jaedar]

House at the the edge of time is better than the enigma under every aspect, encounter design, enemies, loot, and placement in the timeline.
HATEOT is a good dungeon, actually now that I think of it, Kingmaker dungeons were all pretty good.

Kingmaker’s dungeons are easily the game’s worst aspect. They’re mostly just floorplans with fights in them.

How anyone who has played through actually good dungeons like Watcher’s Keep, Durlag’s Tower or Spellhold can call the weak dungeons of Kingmaker good is beyond me.

Wrath has some more elaborate ones. For example, the siege of drezen has you assault multiple layers of a keep, while the enemy has some light siege engines and archers attacking you from the higher levels. Multiple ways to progress, from scaling rooftops and jumping to the next tier, to finding ""secret"" routes, to just calling a battering ram from your army and defending it while demons try to counterattack. There's even 3 different entrypoints onto the map, depending on your previous choices. The enemy variety and encounter design is still somewhat lacking though, and it really hurts it that it just keeps going.

A lot of them are pretty basic floorplans with traps and fights, although most bigger maps will usually contain an environmental puzzle or two as well.

Imo the best part of kingmaker was exploring around the overworld, and finding properly designed "1 encounter maps". Sadly, wrath has fewer of these.

 

[Delterius]

People and demons alike repeatedly orgasm just by being in his general vicinity?

but thats just a normal day...?

 

[ga♥]

House at the the edge of time is better than the enigma under every aspect, encounter design, enemies, loot, and placement in the timeline.
HATEOT is a good dungeon, actually now that I think of it, Kingmaker dungeons were all pretty good.

Kingmaker’s dungeons are easily the game’s worst aspect. They’re mostly just floorplans with fights in them.

How anyone who has played through actually good dungeons like Watcher’s Keep, Durlag’s Tower or Spellhold can call the weak dungeons of Kingmaker good is beyond me.

Yeah well every dungeon is some floors with traps and fights in them, and possibly puzzles, so not sure what you didn't like in kingmaker in Vordakai tomb (exept the final fight which is a bit a let down) or the Troll dungeon.

Watcher's keep and Durlag are pretty great, but what makes them great are the superior forgotten realms lore compared to pathfinder, Watcher's keep for example has a really weak level, the Lum the mad machine one which is just a bunch of places/fights connected without much reasoning behind them.

Anyway my point is that Wrath has higher highs and lower lows compared to Kingmaker, some dungeon are pretty bad, something I didn't feel in Kingmaker.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Kingmaker’s dungeons are easily the game’s worst aspect. They’re mostly just floorplans with fights in them.

How anyone who has played through actually good dungeons like Watcher’s Keep, Durlag’s Tower or Spellhold can call the weak dungeons of Kingmaker good is beyond me.

Quoting a dlc dungeon from a game where you're either clearing fow from rts forest maps or solving "activity book for 4 year olds" mazes fighting against lvl40 demon of pathfinding, made me laugh.

Taking general picture, area design in KM is very solid for iso crpgs, it then got better in Varnhold and I'd say even better in Wrarth, although I've put in on hold like halfway through. Encounter design is the obvious issue, and I didn't notice any improvement in Wrath, unfortunately. It got slightly worse, if anything.

 

[Grunker]

Watcher's keep and Durlag are pretty great, but what makes them great are the superior forgotten realms lore compared to pathfinder

What makes them great is the mulit-leveled design where each level has a singular purpose, filled with inventive puzzle design, a multitude of enemies and interesting characters. None of which Kingmaker has. I like the game for many reasons, but I can't recall a single dungeon that did anything interesting. Varnhold tries but it's basically just a teleport puzzle in an otherwise completely vanilla dungeon.

 

[Delterius]

superior forgotten realms lore

No

you're comparing turd from different species

Durlag's Tower is a good dungeon. Simple as.

 

[ga♥]

superior forgotten realms lore

No

you're comparing turd from different species

Durlag's Tower is a good dungeon. Simple as.

So is the troll dungeon in kingmaker, now what?
And having to fight Demogorgon at the end of Watcher's keep surely added to the charm of the dungeon, so yes, lore has some weight.

 

[ga♥]

Watcher's keep and Durlag are pretty great, but what makes them great are the superior forgotten realms lore compared to pathfinder

What makes them great is the mulit-leveled design where each level has a singular purpose, filled with inventive puzzle design, a multitude of enemies and interesting characters. None of which Kingmaker has. I like the game for many reasons, but I can't recall a single dungeon that did anything interesting. Varnhold tries but it's basically just a teleport puzzle in an otherwise completely vanilla dungeon.

Lot of words but not clear examples. It's fine though, you like more Durlag's tower and Watcher's keep, and I am fine with it as I like them too.
(What inventive puzzle design is in watcher's keep? because I cannot remember anything exept the random generated maze level, and considering it a pinnacle of inventive puzzle seems a bit of a stretch).

On a sidenote aren't you a pillars of eternity fanboy? Or at least someone who loved pillars a lot...? So, I take you liked more dungeons in POE1/2 than Kingmaker?

 

[Delterius]

superior forgotten realms lore

No

you're comparing turd from different species

Durlag's Tower is a good dungeon. Simple as.

So is the troll dungeon in kingmaker, now what?

fun but not as good and Durlag's tbqh.

fact: forgotten realms is shit. so is pathfinder, which is pathfinder lite. greenwood even had a writing role in the river kingdoms.

 

[ga♥]

super truth: Lesser shitty version of the two.

 

[purupuru]

mulit-leveled design where each level has a singular purpose

Never liked that particular aspect of bg dungeons, feels theme-park-ish (though I must admit that this design principle is great for packing lots of fun content in limited space, you know, like a theme park). I prefer dungeons that are more coherent and feel like an actual location.
I do agree that bg dungeons have much better puzzles, they fit thematically in the dungeons and encourage you to read, think and observe, not often difficult but flavorful nonetheless. Whereas Kingmaker and (most) Wrath puzzles feel like they are copied straight out of some "video game design 101" book.

 

[Riel]

superior forgotten realms lore

No

you're comparing turd from different species

Durlag's Tower is a good dungeon. Simple as.

So is the troll dungeon in kingmaker, now what?
And having to fight Demogorgon at the end of Watcher's keep surely added to the charm of the dungeon, so yes, lore has some weight.

A lo better than that: Assault on Drezzen in WOTR.

 

[ga♥]

mulit-leveled design where each level has a singular purpose

Never liked that particular aspect of bg dungeons, feels theme-park-ish (though I must admit that this design principle is great for packing lots of fun content in limited space, you know, like a theme park). I prefer dungeons that are more coherent and feel like an actual location.
I do agree that bg dungeons have much better puzzles, they fit thematically in the dungeons and encourage you to read, think and observe, not often difficult but flavorful nonetheless. Whereas Kingmaker and (most) Wrath puzzles feel like they are copied straight out of some "video game design 101" book.

What kind of puzzles is everyone trying to refer to? Durlag's statues asking about what happened to Durlag? The 4 guardians?

Also "each level with a singular purpose" only applies to Watcher's keep so not really sure what is the point here since it is not a rule for every BG dungeon.