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

[Longes]

Phew. After nearly 300 hours I'm done with WotR for a foreseeable future. Did Demon, Swarm-That-Walks, Aeon, and Devil. Thoughts on the paths:

• Demon - pretty cool, although being evil in this game is as pathetic as evil should be. Go on, kick Ember for a laugh, you sick fuck. The path is fun, has a good amount of unique content, and I'd rate it top out of the four I played. The main problem is that it's slow to ramp up and only really gets going in act 4.
• Swarm-That-Walks - barely playable garbage. Don't touch it. This is KotOR 2 ending level of bad and should have been left on the cutting floor. Nothing works, the Crusade Management is turned off because it doesn't work, all the stories dead-end. It's absolute shit.
• Aeon - autistic time cop. The mechanics are... alright-ish. It ends bitter-sweet, and like all the other paths suffers from there not being enough content. It makes me want to play an Aeon game, rather than a game where chunks of Aeon are scattered here and there.
• Devil - begins too late to really be interesting. You have to fuck up and get booted out of the Aeon school to enter and get ready to be fucked by Cheliax like an Abyssal hooker. But I admire the extent to which Galfrey gets outplayed here, and Devil's rousing speech is my favorite of the four. "We are Hell!" indeed. Devil also had my favorite mechanics out of all the paths. Walking into a room, dropping Edict of Never-Ending War, and seeing the enemies explode each other never got old. Overall though - not enough content. I'm also very sad that Asmodeus has zero reactions to the entire path.

 

[Mauman]

Trickster fun.

I appreciate how they programmed

Spoiler

a spit roasted wyvern to come alive at your command to help you in Arue's chapter 4 quest

.

 

[Anonymous Wife Scholar]

Go on, kick Ember for a laugh, you sick fuck.

No!

 

[The_Mask]

I just...

Spoiler

cheesed the Transformed Nabasu with the Pit exploit, because some dumbfuck at Owlcat throught that it having TWO abilities that can deliver more than 100 DIVINE DAMAGE in 1 round was a good idea. I feel 0 fucking remorse.

Furthermore I got 1440 exp at the end, for all of that shit. Whoever designed that encounter deserves to roast in hell.

0 satisfaction. 0 skill. Just jank and cheese, and bug exploits. 10/10 would cheese again.

 

[Yosharian]

Nearly finished my cheesemaster Legend build. 105 AC without Smite Evil/Chaos. Add another 15 or so with them. Up to like 90 AB. Crits for 500 damage on 11-20. Immunity to crits, fire, ability score damage, tons of stuff.

 

[cw8]

Completed Act 4 yesterday. Did you guys:

Spoiler

Use Midnight bolt on Bahopmet? And did you guys take the Noticula's Profane Gift?

 

[Mauman]

Completed Act 4 yesterday. Did you guys:

Spoiler

Use Midnight bolt on Bahopmet? And did you guys take the Noticula's Profane Gift?

The only Profane Gift I plan on taking is from the one TRUE queen.

 

[Ghulgothas]

Apart from her Phantasmal Killers being able to reliably and consistently kill after being boosted with Triple Spell Penetration and Persistent Metamagic, Nenio is worth keeping around just to see everyone she tries to talk to tell her to fuck off.

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Longes]

Completed Act 4 yesterday. Did you guys:

Spoiler

Use Midnight bolt on Bahopmet? And did you guys take the Noticula's Profane Gift?

Spoiler

Midnight Bolt - yes. You have to use at least one bolt on at least one demon lord to Ascend, and every bolt on every demon lord to bring the party with you.

Profane Gift - I got it, and immediately blew it up to grab the crystal.

 

[cw8]

Without spoiling anything, how long is Act 5 compared to Act 3 n 4

 

[Haplo]

Man, moving trough entire Leper's Smile on hard is exhausting.
Didn't think I'd need to rest twice inside... and still barely make it trough.

Guess maybe I should have exhausted all other locations before going there. Maybe some more chars could be level 8 then.

Hope there is some army left outside...

 

[Cryomancer]

Without spoiling anything, how long is Act 5 compared to Act 3 n 4

Chapter 5 is very fast if you disable crusade management. And both chapters are just a slog.

 

[volklore]

Man, moving trough entire Leper's Smile on hard is exhausting.
Didn't think I'd need to rest twice inside... and still barely make it trough.

Guess maybe I should have exhausted all other locations before going there. Maybe some more chars could be level 8 then.

Hope there is some army left outside...

I just rush the entire thing straight to the veskavor queen now, the extra loot isn't worth the hassle. The morale loss isn't worth it at this stage either imo. I think the path straight north to the queen has 2 encounters. I think this game really needs mind blank scrolls to be sold at the vendor seeing how many mind-affecting effects the game throws at you in the early game.

 

[Parabalus]

Completed Act 4 yesterday. Did you guys:

Spoiler

Use Midnight bolt on Bahopmet? And did you guys take the Noticula's Profane Gift?

Spoiler

Midnight Bolt - yes. You have to use at least one bolt on at least one demon lord to Ascend, and every bolt on every demon lord to bring the party with you.

Profane Gift - I got it, and immediately blew it up to grab the crystal.

If you reject the gift every time in A6 you get

Spoiler

Darkness Caress This Headband of Perfection +8 allows its wearer to add their Charisma bonus to all damage dealt by ranged weapons. Given by Nocticula at the start of the final dungeon

At least she told me it's because of rejecting it, might be for everyone.

There's also potentially one extra crystals for Demons and tricksters, meaning you can skip something.

 

[Daidre]

I just rush the entire thing straight to the veskavor queen now, the extra loot isn't worth the hassle. The morale loss isn't worth it at this stage either imo. I think the path straight north to the queen has 2 encounters. I think this game really needs mind blank scrolls to be sold at the vendor seeing how many mind-affecting effects the game throws at you in the early game.

I hadn't completely tested it, but it looks like there is more than just a morale loss in Leper's Smile sequence - I've noticed that all my unit stacks in HoMM mode lost about 5% of their number after I've wasted the time to save half-dead caravaner, and suspect that number will grow depending on the amount of detours you make on your way to the swarm queen.

 

[volklore]

I just rush the entire thing straight to the veskavor queen now, the extra loot isn't worth the hassle. The morale loss isn't worth it at this stage either imo. I think the path straight north to the queen has 2 encounters. I think this game really needs mind blank scrolls to be sold at the vendor seeing how many mind-affecting effects the game throws at you in the early game.

I hadn't completely tested it, but it looks like there is more then just morale loss in Leper's Smile sequence - I've noticed that all my unit stacks in HoMM mode lost about 5% of their number after I've wasted the time to save half-dead caravaner, and suspect that number will grow depending on amount of detours you make on the way to the swarm queen.

Yes if you spend too much time there your army melts (since they are holding the swarm while you are supposed to surgically remove the queen-But the rate at which it does melt depends on your choices in the vignette i.e picking sosiel to lead for example will make him heal the troops and radically reduce the troop loss). And at this stage of the game, you have very little finance point income and terrible troop growth rate so spending too much time there is just not worth it. Unless you're a monk since there is a decent monk robe there.

 

[Haplo]

From what I've read only looting + saving the caravaneer counts... and who do you nominate to distract the swarm.
Seems like I've made the worst pick with Nurah...
Plus I've looted once and saved the guy. So I wonder if I will have any army left... My morale will likely be at like below -50.

Spoiler

Best seems to be... Sosiel, then Lann

Interesting, so time spent counts also? Damn.

 

[volklore]

Otherwise if you want to clear and get all loot, the best way I found to deal with those swarms was equipping everybody with melee bludgeonning weapons (even archers) and keep up haste and you should be able to nuke the swarms before confusion creates too much of a problem (alongside usual aoe spells)

 

[volklore]

From what I've read only looting + saving the caravaneer counts... and who do you nominate to distract the swarm.
Seems like I've made the worst pick with Nurah...
Plus I've looted once and saved the guy. So I wonder if I will have any army left... My morale will likely be at like below -50.

Spoiler

Best seems to be... Sosiel, then Lann

Interesting, so time spent counts also? Damn.

Sosiel is definitely best pick to prevent troop loss, basically he heals them while they hold. And yes Nurah is the worst.

 

[Daidre]

Sosiel is definitely best pick to prevent troop loss, basically he heals them while they hold. And yes Nurah is the worst.

I think he is tied with Regill for the best outcome, if you choose the option to distract a swarm. Amazing gnome being amazing, nothing new here)

 

[Technomancer]

I hadn't completely tested it, but it looks like there is more than just a morale loss in Leper's Smile sequence - I've noticed that all my unit stacks in HoMM mode lost about 5% of their number after I've wasted the time to save half-dead caravaner, and suspect that number will grow depending on the amount of detours you make on your way to the swarm queen.

I lost 1/3 of my army by fully exploring the location and collecting everything.

 

[Longes]

If you open your inventory, notice the Perfumed Hankerchief, and throw it out - you'll remove almost every swarm out of the area without even fighting. Being a worshiper of Norgobrober also helps notice the hankerchief.

 

[volklore]

If you open your inventory, notice the Perfumed Hankerchief, and throw it out - you'll remove almost every swarm out of the area without even fighting. Being a worshiper of Norgobrober also helps notice the hankerchief.

Holy! That's some cool reactivity there. That was mentioned in dialog after the fact but I did not think it was an actual item you could notice and remove from the inventory.

 

[Longes]

Without spoiling anything, how long is Act 5 compared to Act 3 n 4

About as long as act 4 IMHO. Act 3 is by far the longest act in the game.

 

[Longes]

If you open your inventory, notice the Perfumed Hankerchief, and throw it out - you'll remove almost every swarm out of the area without even fighting. Being a worshiper of Norgobrober also helps notice the hankerchief.

Holy! That's some cool reactivity there. That was mentioned in dialog after the fact but I did not think it was an actual item you could notice and remove from the inventory.

Yeah. And if you worship Norgober, he'll chime in at the start of the area telling you that there's a traitor in your midst and that you should check your inventory for any new and suspicious items. You can then rub in [REDACTED]'s face that only an idiot tries sneaky tactics against Norgoberites..
Alternatively, you can be a worshipper of Gozreh and get a buff for Leper's Smile. I don't know what the buff does because who the fuck would ever think about writing tooltips for this shit?