Pathfinder Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Efe]

well said.
imo people want to remove prebuffing because its the low hanging fruit. actually removing most anything is a cop out.

 

[user]

I feel like people have too strong of an emotional attachment/response to pre-buffing and that clouds their judgement a little bit.

It has nothing to do with emotion of any kind. We have been discussing it in the DF thread as well, and there were some good arguments about how pre-buffing, not only adds "simulationist points" (which in general imo are essential to RP), but adds another tactical layer if the game has decent resource management mechanics.

What could be done perhaps, is allowing the player to group these spells, like with some kind of chain contingency from bg, which will not be worth abusing in combat. Would prefer that over the game-y allowing buffs in combat only that DF did.

 

[The Avatar]

There is already a mechanic for limiting the amount of buffs- the stacking rules. Its just that there are so many different types of buff types that almost everything stacks. Personally, I would happy if they took out pre-buffing for round/level spells and maybe minute/level spells. They could make the other buffs (10 min/level and hour/level) last forever like in Dragon Age Origins- that way you don't have to pre-buff at all.

 

[Lacrymas]

adds another tactical layer if the game has decent resource management mechanics.

What is this tactical layer that is gone when you only allow buffing in combat? I mean when you don't severely restrict resting. And even when you do, what is the benefit of allowing pre-buffing in terms gameplay design?

 

[user]

adds another tactical layer if the game has decent resource management mechanics.

What is this tactical layer that is gone when you only allow buffing in combat? I mean when you don't severely restrict resting. And even when you do, what is the benefit of allowing pre-buffing in terms gameplay design?

The layer of preparation - managing your resources until your next rest, depending on the number of resting you can do in a dungeon, deciding whether they are worth investing in your next encounter/s. Combat, if it's hard enough, isn't so much about managing your long-term resources, but about managing what to use each round depending on what your enemies do. Deciding whether to cast buffs in combat involves tactics as well of course, but combat is already tactical (in an ideal game), but the layer of preparation is gone if you can only use them there. And yes the layer of preparation involves much more than buffs, like potions etc, but why remove a large part of it?

But say, nevermind resource management - it seriously irks me, when I can see the enemy through the fog of war and I suddenly get the ability to cast buffs only when I get into an enemy's specific aggro range. It just is too game-y for me.

 

[Lacrymas]

The layer of preparation isn't gone, you still have to choose which buffs you are going to memorize and which potions to have in your backpacks (or quick slots in the case of PoE and to a certain extent BG1). The only difference is that you have to actively choose to use the buffs in combat, which prevents you from doing other things at the same time (debuffing, attacking, healing, moving, whatever), making it an actual tactical choice.

 

[user]

The layer of preparation isn't gone, you still have to choose which buffs you are going to memorize and which potions to have in your backpacks (or quick slots in the case of PoE and to a certain extent BG1). The only difference is that you have to actively choose to use the buffs in combat, which prevents you from doing other things at the same time (debuffing, attacking, healing, moving, whatever), making it an actual tactical choice.

They sure are - good thing that games with pre-buffing also have a lot of buffs which you can/have to use in combat. Games that don't have pre-buffing only have the latter, as well as a smaller variety of buffs as a result. Yes, the layer of preparation involves more, but why take that away from it when that micromanaging can be resolved in other ways?

 

[Lacrymas]

The micromanagement is only a symptom, the disease is pre-buffing. You take it away to resolve design inconsistencies and make room for better choices.

 

[Efe]

micromanagement is irrelevant to prebuffing. you dont prebuff every 6 seconds.
prebuffing is being prepared before the actual encounter either by in-game or meta knowledge. what you want only makes it so you can prepare less.

i always assume the other side is basing their anti-prebuff narrative with deadfire in mind. if you do, then consider casting almost same buffs every 3 rounds of the fight with each of your characters and that you have to repeat these buffs every 4 rounds. is it really any less tedium?

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Oh I should also ask if they have any plans to redesign random encounters. Some random encounters on the world map can be brutal in early unfair.

What's your complaint? Were you expecting something else from Unfair?

 

[Lacrymas]

micromanagement is irrelevant to prebuffing. you dont prebuff every 6 seconds.
prebuffing is being prepared before the actual encounter either by in-game or meta knowledge. what you want only makes it so you can prepare less.

i always assume the other side is basing their anti-prebuff narrative with deadfire in mind. if you do, then consider casting almost same buffs every 3 rounds of the fight with each of your characters and that you have to repeat these buffs every 4 rounds. is it really any less tedium?

Quite the contrary, the preparation is the same in both cases, you still have to know what buffs you have to memorize, whether metagame-y or not. The only difference in this context is when you cast these prepared buffs. Deadfire's system was terrible because there was no resource management of any kind (outside of Magran's challenge, but it was a really shit challenge) and it was built around casting the same things every fight (because that's what people did in PoE1 too). Like I said before, pre-buffing allows you to overpower your characters and brute force encounters, that's why people like it, it makes them feel smart when they win compared to people who don't pre-buff, but it's a crutch and it's painfully obvious it's a crutch when you take a step back and examine the whole picture.

 

[santino27]

They are not going to get rid of prebuffing, so this whole discussion is utterly pointless for this thread.

 

[Yosharian]

Pre buffing is fine in PnP because no DM would allow a party to sit outside the boss's room casting spell after spell without interruption. Meanwhile in Pathfinder you can sit outside of the Troll boss's aggro radius and go to sleep, and then buff to your heart's content just outside of the fog of war.

Banning pre-buffing in these cases is a band-aid for bad game design. Everyone in a room should be able to see each other under normal conditions, 30' RTS-style "fog of war" makes no sense. Enemies should hear the player when they approach and act accordingly.

Yes this is exactly the problem. SCS solves this by allowing enemies to have buffs pre-cast.

Also spell sequencer, contingency, etc are massively helpful for designing enemy encounters. I think they should be brought back in.

 

[Tigranes]

Pre buffing is fine in PnP because no DM would allow a party to sit outside the boss's room casting spell after spell without interruption. Meanwhile in Pathfinder you can sit outside of the Troll boss's aggro radius and go to sleep, and then buff to your heart's content just outside of the fog of war.

Banning pre-buffing in these cases is a band-aid for bad game design. Everyone in a room should be able to see each other under normal conditions, 30' RTS-style "fog of war" makes no sense. Enemies should hear the player when they approach and act accordingly.

Yes this is exactly the problem. SCS solves this by allowing enemies to have buffs pre-cast.

Also spell sequencer, contingency, etc are massively helpful for designing enemy encounters. I think they should be brought back in.

I agree, and I would argue that the natural things to change here are things like SCS-style enemy prebuffs (if not quite as intense), Call For Help mechanics, symmetrical sight ranges (if you see enemy, they see you), and much tighter rest restrictions (no resting/going back to town in dungeons except in clear occasions where it makes sense, just like the DM might allow you to find a safe alcove).

Of course, any kind of rest restriction seems to get a lot of blowback even here, so I don't know if players actually would enjoy an isometric D&D RPG where enemies don't sit around waiting for you to jump in all hasted up & alpha-strike with simultaneous fireball & web.

 

[Yosharian]

Well Haste is a short duration buff so I'd argue that that should not be precast. But anything with hour or min per level durations? Absolutely fine.

As for rest restrictions... I'm torn. I hated Pillars' rest restrictions, and I always mod them out of BG2. I do leave in the 'attacked while resting in dungeons' part though.

 

[Tigranes]

It doesn't always have to be rest restrictions. The point is that with the old IE model, you have several different ways in which the player can 'alpha strike' while the enemy has nothing. You get stealth, asymmetric LOS, rest, prebuffs, while the dumbass enemies stand around half-blind, and then willingly walk over to your chosen bottleneck.

The problem is that trying to solve this problem can also cause new issues. Engagement/AOO/threat values were born to compromise the player's ability to perfectly control the battlespace. That's a good goal, but came with side effects - e.g. POE's initial engagement was too fiddly, and the threat system often just encourages using magical provoke abilities.

So if resting restrictions was judged as too annoying, then you could, say, have a gameworld where you can rest, but you're often in the role of breaking down entrenched enemies on high alarm fighting on their own turf - so enemies tend to prepare turrets, traps, bottlenecks, to even the field. I would be fine with that.

 

[Pink Eye]

Oh I should also ask if they have any plans to redesign random encounters. Some random encounters on the world map can be brutal in early unfair.

What's your complaint? Were you expecting something else from Unfair?

I was expecting to not get ambushed by this fucker at level 5 on Unfair :D

 

[Pink Eye]

There's stupid. Then there's impossible. I can deal with stupid. I can't deal with impossible.

 

[Yosharian]

Bahaha. Ironman run?

 

[Pink Eye]

Bahaha. Ironman run?

Nope. Just regular unfair. But can you imagine how upsetting that'd be for an unfair + iron man random encounter?

 

[Efe]

elder elementals used to be a bug that was supposedly fixed...
which area are you in?

 

[Pink Eye]

elder elementals used to be a bug that was supposedly fixed...
which area are you in?

This was from my walkthrough before the save got corrupted. I think this was level 5 right after chapter 1. I was exploring the world map when I got ambushed by this fucker.
>elder elementals used to be a bug that was supposedly fixed
Nope. It also happens in Varnhold DLC when you're resting in the final dungeon.

 

[Sjukob]

you cast 4 spell at most.

Typical buffing routine of party at around level 10, might varry depending on the party composition and enemies you are going to face. Personally, I like melee heavy teams.
-delay poison communal
-barkskin for melee 2-5 (pets count too)
-blur for melee 2-5
-shield of faith for melee 2-5
-enlarge person for all non-dex melees 2-5 or use mass version if you have access to it
-shield for tanks or whoever you can spare it for 2-3
-aspect of the falcon for archers 1-2
-hurricane bow for archers 1-2
-mage armor for pets/unarmored melees 1-3
-whoever has mirror image casts it on himself 1-2
-whoever has lead blades casts it on himself 1-2
-magic fang for pets/druids 1-2
-animal growth for pets/druids 1-2
-whoever has expeditious retreat casts it on himself 1-2
-archon's aura
-good hope
-alchemists or those with vivisectionist dip inject steroids 1-2


additionally you might want these depending on the encounter:
-freedom of movement
-resist energy comunal/protection from energy communal
-death ward
-remove fear

and for tough encounters you probably want some stronger buffs that don't last long:
-haste
-sense vitals
-displacement
-bomber's eye
-divine power
-geniekind
-greater invisibility
etc

And if you play with mods you have access to even more buffs: magic weapon, strong jaw, bone fists, keen edge, fly and others. Also, it's likely that I have forgotten something.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Pink Eye That's pretty funny. An "Epic Difficulty" encounter is average party level +3. That elder elemental has a CR of 11, which 3 BEYOND epic. Lol. If it's not a remnant of the bug, your argument might have a case.

 

[Pink Eye]

Sjukob Since you use mods, there is a mod that helps with prebuffing, here: https://www.nexusmods.com/pathfinderkingmaker/mods/119