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Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, Part 3


ShadySands

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lack o' unit diversity at start may not be a fair criticism. most strategy games start you off with limited units. one o' our favorite all-time rt strategy games is warhammer: shadow of the horned rat. for the first couple missions you got access to the grudgebringer cavalry and the grudgebringer infantry. that's it. reach a town after a couple missions and you get mercenary crossbowmen. in wotr there is no real crusade tutorial, so lack o' diversity is, one suspects, part o' the design o' what amounts to a functional tutorial stage. a player who needs learn mechanics by doing is not simultaneous overwhelmed by a discouraging number o' potential units that have strengths and weaknesses expressed only in numbers meaningless w/o context. too ez to pick wrong if you don't know, so the game doesn't force the player to make such choices. reasonable.

but yeah, the wotr crusade system is woeful unbalanced and non-intuitive. do not attack too frequent or too soon 'cause you could wipe out all enemies too quick resulting in fatal morale drops as you spend too much calendar time not acquiring new outposts or defeating established armies. am s'posing there is some kinda ideal building construction strategy, but if there is it didn't seem to matter much 'cause we had a mage general and plenty o' archers. am bothered by fact there is a few choices which is functional you win button options. speaking o' which, azata generals gets song of seasons extreme early in act iii, which is one o' those win button powers-- functions a bit like the voice of renewal spell we mentioned earlier in that it simultaneous damages and heals. if your army survives turn 1, then the spell triggers and mass heal and mass damage occur  simultaneous. converse, am recognizing just how ez it is to build a wrong army if you are a new player. try and figure out strengths and weaknesses o' units based on numbers provided in stat blocks is extreme misleading. a new player looking at only unit stat blocks tries and build a winning army? good luck.

the thing is, wotr crusade system is close to being engaging. am able to see the potential. regardless, is not near as punishing as kingmaker, so am gonna take that as an unexpected win.

HA! Good Fun!

ps somebody also needs explain why the azata general capstone ability is...

Spoiler

 a mass death effect. feels way wrong even if it is another win button ability

 

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

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13 hours ago, Gromnir said:

but yeah, the wotr crusade system is woeful unbalanced and non-intuitive. do not attack too frequent or too soon 'cause you could wipe out all enemies too quick resulting in fatal morale drops as you spend too much calendar time not acquiring new outposts or defeating established armies.

Oh heck, I hadn't thought of this at all. Let's see if I run into a fatal morale drop later on. I have definitely waged a war of conquest. Surely there was no way I could have known otherwise (from within the game).

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15 hours ago, Gromnir said:

converse, am recognizing just how ez it is to build a wrong army if you are a new player. try and figure out strengths and weaknesses o' units based on numbers provided in stat blocks is extreme misleading. a new player looking at only unit stat blocks tries and build a winning army? good luck.

Yeah, I noticed this (sorry for the double quote by the way). I generally dislike metagaming but I did read some info on the units, because what the game tells me is just so vague and difficult to assess.

Also, it seems to me that some units really are rubbish, definitely not worth investing in. One example would be shieldbearers. Maybe I'm not a good player of the game, but the only legitimate use I can think for these is meat shield: if the enemy has large teleporting units such as glabrezus, you can move your shieldbearers in front of your archers so that the glabrezus can't teleport next to them and destroy them. And that's it. Even this is a rare enough instance, so shieldbearers are not worth it even for this occasion. Do correct me if I'm terribly wrong. (I received some shieldbearers after completing a quest or doing something like that, I can't remember -- I certainly didn't invest in them.)

I have come across an enemy army with shieldbearers in it, and they were useless there, too. Took some time to take down, obviously, but posed no danger whatsoever.

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17 hours ago, Gromnir said:

do not attack too frequent or too soon 'cause you could wipe out all enemies too quick resulting in fatal morale drops as you spend too much calendar time not acquiring new outposts or defeating established armies.

FWIW, I have never run into this problem. Not sure if this is a function of skipping days vs not skipping day (?)

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5 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Oh heck, I hadn't thought of this at all. Let's see if I run into a fatal morale drop later on. I have definitely waged a war of conquest. Surely there was no way I could have known otherwise (from within the game).

if you are a die hard completionist and you exhaust all crusade battles early, then you could run into a problem.  has happened to us twice, though admitted once were in the beta and is possible the problem were bug related. noteworthy: in act vi, if you are planning on doing the secret ending, the problem we mention actual becomes likely as 'posed to mere possible.  the act vi hurdle may be overcome by the following:

Spoiler

advance the calendar at threshold as opposed to the world map and/or drezen fortress. arsinoe is available to allow resting at the entrance to the final game area and you may spam rests to advance the literal months o' time you may need to reach your target date for the secret ending. advance months with no foes to fight and a morale loss o' 5 per day will result in catastrophic morale unless you has chosen to save every possible crusade project which boosts morale, and even then it could be problematic.  every few days, 1-3 enemy armies will attack your outposts, which can be annoying if all your units insta panic due to sub 100 morale. sleep at threshold and rando spawning enemy armies is delayed.

also, complete unrelated, is worth noting that for boss battles the grandmaster rod has an interesting quality which might be overlooked. use the rod nullifies any resistance or immunity, which means even if you are facing one o' the bosses which is immune to fear or energy drain or whatever, the grandmaster rod may be used to guarantee your spell overcomes both sr and the immunity/resistance. sure, it doesn't make sense that you could frighten a golem to death with weird or phantasmal killer, or successful level drain deskari with enervate, but the rod makes such possible. 

(edit) in fact, level drain demon lords is one o' our favorite tactics. remove six levels from a demon lord means their saves also drop by six. wanna end a demon lord in one round, then use madness domain and maxed and empowered enervate, in addition to other staples previous mentioned, and you will be able to baleful polymorph or weird nocticula and be guaranteed success. 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

Edited by Gromnir
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"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

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congrats to @Agiel

HA! Good Fun!

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"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

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2nd and 3rd should be switched tbh. Regill as an exasperated middle manager knight forced into having a party should be in the game.

Anyways I think I'm somewhere in the middle of my 1st run (Azata) and by god I wish I had picked Wendaug instead of Lann. This guy has complained non-stop after leaving the cave and his advice has been bad to the point I wish I could go back and ask the cat girl to come with me instead. Between this and the psychotic lawful dialogue options I think at least one writer really hates the lawful axis. Regill, who should be the exact opposite of my CG Azata, has been more fun so far than the lizard-goat half-elf man.

Edited by KP on top of ZA WARUDO
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"Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman run the 21st century version of MK ULTRA." - majestic

"you're a damned filthy lying robot and you deserve to die and burn in hell." - Bartimaeus

"Without individual thinking you can't notice the plot holes." - InsaneCommander

"Just feed off the suffering of gamers." - Malcador

"You are calling my taste crap." -Hurlshort

"thankfully it seems like the creators like Hungary less this time around." - Sarex

"Don't forget the wakame, dumbass" -Keyrock

"Are you trolling or just being inadvertently nonsensical?' -Pidesco

"we have already been forced to admit you are at least human" - uuuhhii

"I refuse to buy from non-woke businesses" - HoonDing

"feral camels are now considered a pest" - Gorth

"Melkathi is known to be an overly critical grumpy person" - Melkathi

"Oddly enough Sanderson was a lot more direct despite being a Mormon" - Zoraptor

"I found it greatly disturbing to scroll through my cartoon's halfing selection of genitalias." - Wormerine

"I love cheese despite the pain and carnage." - ShadySands

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26 minutes ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

 

Anyways I think I'm somewhere in the middle of my 1st run (Azata) and by god I wish I had picked Wendaug instead of Lann. 

good news, you possible get a second bite at the apple.

gonna admit we feel bad for sosiel when we world map travel and have lann in party. sosiel's existence offends lann and while am sympathizing with the mongrel to a degree, if were a pnp rpg, we most assured woulda' taken efforts to talk to lann alone and try and convince him that being bitter 'bout his existence were a valid personal choice and he were justified in feeling as if his lot were unfair, but to constant snipe at sosiel as if the priest o' shelyn were responsible for lann's burdens were equal unjust and unfair.

failing such efforts to convince lann to change, chances are we woulda' ditched him... or perhaps we woulda' told him that behind his back camellia were mocking his appearance and lack o' social graces. am suspecting a guileless lann would turn his attention towards camellia and as such our lann problem would be disappeared in short order. 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Edited by Gromnir

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

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29 minutes ago, Chairchucker said:

I can't stop restarting this dumb game

 

I now have over 300 hours and probs like 20-30 restarts

 

Have been to act 4 once

I know the feeling, I think I've sunk most of my time into theory crafting.

Something I've noticed is a peculiarity with Bloodrager and Second Bloodline. Because in WotR Bloodrager has bonus feats in the bloodline advancement instead of in the class advancement like Sorcerer or Oracle (for revelations), if you take the Second Bloodline Mythic Ability you get another set of bonus feats.  Which can be really strong if you set it up right. The downside is the way the Primalist archetype works you lose out on both bloodline abilities for levels divisible by 4 if you take Primal Choices. Which can be a real bummer.

"Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman run the 21st century version of MK ULTRA." - majestic

"you're a damned filthy lying robot and you deserve to die and burn in hell." - Bartimaeus

"Without individual thinking you can't notice the plot holes." - InsaneCommander

"Just feed off the suffering of gamers." - Malcador

"You are calling my taste crap." -Hurlshort

"thankfully it seems like the creators like Hungary less this time around." - Sarex

"Don't forget the wakame, dumbass" -Keyrock

"Are you trolling or just being inadvertently nonsensical?' -Pidesco

"we have already been forced to admit you are at least human" - uuuhhii

"I refuse to buy from non-woke businesses" - HoonDing

"feral camels are now considered a pest" - Gorth

"Melkathi is known to be an overly critical grumpy person" - Melkathi

"Oddly enough Sanderson was a lot more direct despite being a Mormon" - Zoraptor

"I found it greatly disturbing to scroll through my cartoon's halfing selection of genitalias." - Wormerine

"I love cheese despite the pain and carnage." - ShadySands

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9 hours ago, Gromnir said:

congrats to @Agiel

 

Hey thanks! And to you as well @KP on top of ZA WARUDOManaged to win a key for the DLC season pass, but on and off whenever the inspiration hits me I'll do a quick cartoon and occasionally will get responses that say they managed to brighten someone's day, and given that most of the creative stuff I do for a living is largely soulless those are the greatest rewards. Have an idea for a strip featuring Aivu, so stay tuned.

@ChairchuckerSame here. Did a restart for a playthrough that was going wonderfully because I had sold some of the buff books to a vendor I no longer had access to before I learned their significance, and even re-speccing a bad character build feels a bit... dirty, with all the weird bugs with the current implementation and how it effectively functions as a free Scroll of Atonement.

Edited by Agiel
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“Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.”
 
-Jonathan Littell <<Les Bienveillantes>>
Quote

"The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete."

-Rod Serling

 

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32 minutes ago, Agiel said:

Hey thanks! And to you as well @KP on top of ZA WARUDOManaged to win a key for the DLC season pass, but on and off whenever the inspiration hits me I'll do a quick cartoon and occasionally will get responses that say they managed to brighten someone's day, and given that most of the creative stuff I do for a living is largely soulless those are the greatest rewards. Have an idea for a strip featuring Aivu, so stay tuned.

@ChairchuckerSame here. Did a restart for a playthrough that was going wonderfully because I had sold some of the buff books to a vendor I no longer had access to before I learned their significance, and even re-speccing a bad character build feels a bit... dirty, with all the weird bugs with the current implementation and how it effectively functions as a free Scroll of Atonement.

Congrats! =D

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Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. - H.L. Mencken

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1 hour ago, Agiel said:

 

@ChairchuckerSame here. Did a restart for a playthrough that was going wonderfully because I had sold some of the buff books to a vendor I no longer had access to before I learned their significance, and even re-speccing a bad character build feels a bit... dirty, with all the weird bugs with the current implementation and how it effectively functions as a free Scroll of Atonement.

all the weird bugs is why we feel no guilt 'bout respec. sure, you likely reference the respec bugs, which is why we ordinarily hold off on a respec unless am hitting some kinda imprecise threshold o' frustration, but has been too many builds rendered ineffectual by a bug, or less efficacious by a patch which were s'posed to fix a bug but did not. is also the situation such as recent when skalds sudden became viable, which had not been the case for the entire beta and near three months post release; were no chance in hell we would restart a game past act i just to take advantage o' skald build for a companion, but respec were legit.

am agreeing that respec a bad character build carries with it a taint, but if the reason the character build is bad is 'cause o' owlcat ubiquitous bugs, curious implementation and wonky fixes, then our guilt decreases to zero.  

will also note a few bugs required a respec to be cleared post patch. camellia as a spirit hunter could get dazzling display through a hex, but on a reload that hex would disappear, replaced by the dreaded question mark icon on her character tab. eventual the problem were fixed, but you had to respec to benefit from the fix. is a similar bug with animal companions taking the tandem trip feat, which may only be cleared with a respec. no guilt 'bout using respec in such cases.

and frankly am feeling kinda like an idiot for restarting a new character when our recent azata run includes a save from immediate pre mythic level three choice, a save which has access to all mythic paths. yeah, is likely our aeon run is gonna involve yet another exciting journey through the shield maze *groan* but our smarter and wiser self wonders why  am forcing our self to endure such yet again when we could simple respec at the start o' act iii. 

is an owlcat game and until virtual all class feature bugs is addressed, chances are the taint which would ordinarily accompany respec will remain near insignificant. in fact, am kinda grousing at the potential need to pay for respec considering is owlcat implementation which most often compels us to make use o' the feature. 

HA! Good Fun!

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

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Somehow I have managed to avoid any major pitfalls in my Azata run (using the Tabletop Tweaks mod that has several fixes) and am happy to keep on trucking. If I did mess something up then I would have no problem with a respec, because if WotR won't play fair than neither will I. Especially considering how broken some stuff is.

"Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman run the 21st century version of MK ULTRA." - majestic

"you're a damned filthy lying robot and you deserve to die and burn in hell." - Bartimaeus

"Without individual thinking you can't notice the plot holes." - InsaneCommander

"Just feed off the suffering of gamers." - Malcador

"You are calling my taste crap." -Hurlshort

"thankfully it seems like the creators like Hungary less this time around." - Sarex

"Don't forget the wakame, dumbass" -Keyrock

"Are you trolling or just being inadvertently nonsensical?' -Pidesco

"we have already been forced to admit you are at least human" - uuuhhii

"I refuse to buy from non-woke businesses" - HoonDing

"feral camels are now considered a pest" - Gorth

"Melkathi is known to be an overly critical grumpy person" - Melkathi

"Oddly enough Sanderson was a lot more direct despite being a Mormon" - Zoraptor

"I found it greatly disturbing to scroll through my cartoon's halfing selection of genitalias." - Wormerine

"I love cheese despite the pain and carnage." - ShadySands

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the developers made almost no effort to balance wotr, save for adding stat bloat. am not a fan o' the runaway stat bloat, but am understanding how we get bosses with +80 ac and +50 save modifiers. we recent played around with creating a level 20 angel oracle (no multiclass) and achieved +70 ab and +100 ac. 'cause o' owlcat's quirky implementation o' pathfinder rules and the plethora o' god-tier level 100t, not to mention the nonsensical game breaking potential o' a few mythic + ________ combos, a player may metagame insane high attack bonuses and dcs while simultaneous generating improbable stacking debuffs. no doubt owlcat made wotr with the recognition that soon after release o' the beta, people would discover exploits and post such info... which is exact what happened. is unavoidable that each unbalanced archetype and each new level offers increasing options to break the game. this is why on higher difficulties it is the lower level boss battles which is the most troublesome-- your options when confronting an unfair shield maze water elemental and hosilla is limited. 

the ordinary player who is unaware o' all the metagamey nonsense is gonna see stat bloat and be discouraged. reasonable. it would seem owlcat didn't make the game for ordinary players. owlcat correct assumed that players would learn the exploits and as such stat bloat was no doubt deemed necessary to make at least a few battles challenge worthy, but the developers were clear ok with the reality they were giving a big middle finger salute to more casual players.

again, am suspecting from owlcat pov stat bloat were not so much unfair as a necessary evil. got a sp game with reload so the odds is already skewed in favor o' the player compared to tabletop pnp. add mythic and a whole bunch o' archetypes and splat book stuff most reasonable pnp game masters would disallow save with restrictions to a game already favoring the player compared to pnp and the owlcat folks no doubt felt they had to do something to maintain some kinda challenge level. many/most owlcat fans view balance as a vulgar term, and stat bloat is owlcat's crude effort to balance the game, although most casual (sane) players won't see it that way.

as an aside, now that skalds is mostly unbugged, the stat bloat for bosses is even more reasonable. the skald ability to share rage powers with a party has not been exploited much by players 'cause as often as not it ain't been working, but a high level skald is able to buff a melee party with not only basic inspired rage which provides significant increases to attack bonus but also abilities such as the lethal stance line and beast totem abilities, resulting in increased attacks, ac and critical threat range. skalds beat brown fur arcanists as far as party buffs is concerned and they is also quite competent in melee combat, though w/o multiclass they won't genuine be pulling their weight during the early levels o' the game, and skalds (other than court poets) is one class it is extreme costly to indulge even a one level dip.

again, am not a fan o' stat bloat, but if the fan base is rabid opposed to balancing abilities available to players, owlcat has limited options for making the game challenging for players who indulge in meta or those who is already well-versed in pathfinder.

HA! Good Fun!

"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

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On 12/29/2021 at 4:39 PM, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

because if WotR won't play fair

This is by far the most annoying aspect of the game for me. Owlcat doesn't care one bit for fair play, it just blatantly cheats. I don't understand this.

I recently had a boss fight with a fellow who seemed pretty difficult at the start (but then I made him useless with one spell). When he died, he metamorphosed into something else entirely, which was understandable given his mythic status (at least according to how I read it). But then, after I destroyed everything he metamorphosed into, he turned into yet another thing which made no sense whatsoever, and after I destroyed that, he came back around for a chat.

This stuff makes no sense.

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10 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I haven't made much progress in my game because while I was stuck deciding which mythic path to take I started reconsidering my class. Maybe magus, maybe inquisitor, maybe go back to an old save and kill Hulrun for good measure. Le sigh.

I know that feel all too well. There are too many interesting class/mythic combos.

Hulrun is awful.

He just showed in Drezen. When I asked him how he felt knowing the Desnans were right he said he should have tortured them more. That Iomedae has not smited him is a big black mark against her. I wish you could bring it up and throw him out, but I guess it's either kill him in Kenebres or have him in Drezen.

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"Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman run the 21st century version of MK ULTRA." - majestic

"you're a damned filthy lying robot and you deserve to die and burn in hell." - Bartimaeus

"Without individual thinking you can't notice the plot holes." - InsaneCommander

"Just feed off the suffering of gamers." - Malcador

"You are calling my taste crap." -Hurlshort

"thankfully it seems like the creators like Hungary less this time around." - Sarex

"Don't forget the wakame, dumbass" -Keyrock

"Are you trolling or just being inadvertently nonsensical?' -Pidesco

"we have already been forced to admit you are at least human" - uuuhhii

"I refuse to buy from non-woke businesses" - HoonDing

"feral camels are now considered a pest" - Gorth

"Melkathi is known to be an overly critical grumpy person" - Melkathi

"Oddly enough Sanderson was a lot more direct despite being a Mormon" - Zoraptor

"I found it greatly disturbing to scroll through my cartoon's halfing selection of genitalias." - Wormerine

"I love cheese despite the pain and carnage." - ShadySands

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He also tried to have a little girl burned at the stake, but leaving him alive is one of only two ways (the other exclusive to Trickster only) to...

Spoiler

...both save Galfrey and Irabeth and keep the Sword of Valor in act 5. 

 

Edited by Agiel
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Quote
“Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.”
 
-Jonathan Littell <<Les Bienveillantes>>
Quote

"The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete."

-Rod Serling

 

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10 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I haven't made much progress in my game because while I was stuck deciding which mythic path to take I started reconsidering my class. Maybe magus, maybe inquisitor, maybe go back to an old save and kill Hulrun for good measure. Le sigh.

clerics or the like is ordinarily our go to to choice in crpgs. however, for pathfinder 1e pnp we were always a fan o' inquisitors, albeit mostly 'cause o' skills and the ability to make an actual useful ranged character. crpg wotr angel clerics is kinda op, so we skipped, but inquisitors ain't bad neither. sacred huntsmasters and sanctified slayers is amongst our two favorite wotr archetypes, and perhaps counter-intuitive, the crappy capstone ability for inquisitors increases their appeal for us as they have a sorta level sixteen sweetspot, which means three-to-four levels o' multiclassing gives 'em added flexibility.

shady could make an inquisitor o' desna, which admitted requires a bit o' mental gymnastics. rid the world o' hulrun as kinda divine justice? a hulrunless wotr does make a couple later act encounters problematic, but on the plus side o' the ledger, perhaps hulrun may rest a bit easier knowing the considerable good use seelah achieves smiting evil with his sword during the early game.  

then again, wotr magus sword saints produce the similar kinda silly damage as they did in kingmaker, but you gotta follow a pretty freaking exact meta build plan to get the most outta 'em. 'course the vital strike damage in the multiple thousands is kinda a h00t. 

HA! Good Fun!

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"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

"Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019)

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5 minutes ago, Agiel said:

He also tried to have a little girl burned at the stake, but leaving him alive is one of only two ways to...

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...both save Galfrey and Irabeth and keep the Sword of Valor in act 5. 

 

I learned that the hard way in my first couple of playthroughs. I both like and hate that some choices early in the game have such major consequences in the end.

I was able to get the ascension ending in my first full game playthrough without a guide but I heard rumors of about certain things on Discord and played the beta to the end fifty-leven times so it wasn't totally blind. Who would think one of the very first choices you make in the game could lock you out of an ending.

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Free games updated 3/4/21

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25 minutes ago, Agiel said:

He also tried to have a little girl burned at the stake, but leaving him alive is one of only two ways (the other exclusive to Trickster only) to...

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...both save Galfrey and Irabeth and keep the Sword of Valor in act 5. 

 

Not just a little girl, but her father as well, who was a servant of Iomedae and an Empyreal Lord. And of course countless others, so much so that Irabeth has to bail Thieflings out of jail so he doesn't interrogate then to death. Then he stands outside a hole for a week or so killing mongrels while demons run rampant butchering people maybe a hundred feet away from him.

How Hulrun wasn't smited for his numerous misdeeds while Staunton spent seven decades as a pariah for being tricked by a master of manipulation is just weird. But I think at least someone at Owlcat really does not like the Lawful axis. So far almost every (Lawful) option is pretty much the (Evil) one.

10 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

I learned that the hard way in my first couple of playthroughs. I both like and hate that some choices early in the game have such major consequences in the end.

 

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I was able to get the ascension ending in my first full game playthrough without a guide but I heard rumors of about certain things on Discord and played the beta to the end fifty-leven times so it wasn't totally blind. Who would think one of the very first choices you make in the game could lock you out of an ending.

 

In general I think it's a good thing. The problem in WotR is communication though. There's more than a few things you don't really have too much idea of their significance, like the crusade projects.

Edited by KP on top of ZA WARUDO

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15 hours ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

In general I think it's a good thing. The problem in WotR is communication though. There's more than a few things you don't really have too much idea of their significance, like the crusade projects.

I think I'm close to the end of Act 3 now, and I'm getting the feeling that my crusade might come crashing down eventually, because of something I have neglected. Let's hope it won't happen, but you're absolutely right: it's almost impossible to know what's important and what's not.

By the way, does everybody else keep getting a whole bunch of unnecessary army units? I've got some mongrel archers, some shieldbearers and whatnot, and essentially no use for them. I get them as rewards for quests and choices, but they sure don't look useful.

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From a lot of others' playthroughs I've seen they have armies re-named "Trash-1", "Trash-2" ad-infinitum to store un-wanted army units since army slots for generals are at a premium and they cannot be disposed of conveniently otherwise. The Crusade mode of the game could certainly use a "disband unit" option a la the Total War games so as to reduce the amount of busywork sorting through what armies need to be moved or not.

Edited by Agiel
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“Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.”
 
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"The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete."

-Rod Serling

 

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quote self is gauche, but...

On 12/12/2021 at 1:17 PM, Gromnir said:

ps in our most recent azata run, at the end o' act 3 we technical had seven armies, but the army strength for all save two armies were in the 1-3 range and were composed o' "free" troops we had no way o' functional using.

the thing is, you may simple stack the unused armies at lost chapel or wherever, thus avoiding map clutter.  it would be nice to declare the additional armies o' donated troops which serve no real purpose reserves or retired or something which might hide 'em so they didn't add another pointless unit to scroll through when accessing the crusade ui, but is not as if you need provision 'em or something with an actual in-game cost. 

on our list o' proposed crusade fixes, hide or retire unusable units would be not at the top. we consider this aspect a minor annoyance, and if we were unable to ignore minor, we would never have completed wotr. 

"How Hulrun wasn't smited for his numerous misdeeds while Staunton spent seven decades as a pariah for being tricked by a master of manipulation is just weird. But I think at least someone at Owlcat really does not like the Lawful axis. So far almost every (Lawful) option is pretty much the (Evil) one."

keep in mind, 'ccording to owlcat, stauton's jaunt with the sword o' valor were "unauthorized." the unwise military escapade encouraged by a demon's machinations were illegal by its very nature.  staunton knew what he were doing were a violation o' orders. converse, hulrun, like it or not, is acting with the authority provided to him and his cruelty is not driven by a desire to see others suffer or as an excuse for personal gain, or so the alignment argument goes. like it or not, hulrun has clear been given broad discretion to root out infidels and fifth columnists, real or imagined. hulrun's zealotry and paranoia is displaying monumental bad judgement but is quite possible he is acting under color o' law and is arguable he ain't even doing evil as his intent is not tainted-- he believes he is literal fighting on the side of the angels.  regardless, is specific noted staunton's taking o' the sword of valor were unauthorized. one may only assume the inquisitors o' the crusade, such as hulrunn, is given wide latitude to ferret out threats. owlcat is clear embracing a simplistic but nevertheless rational interpretation o' lawful... and might not be appropriate to blame owlcat neither.

from The World Wound Incursion:

Witch Hunters: Prelate Hulrun might be the most 
notorious witch hunter in Kenabres, but he’s hardly 
the first. In 4622, during the First Crusade, holy 
warriors streamed into Mendev, where they encountered 
Sarkorians practicing their unique druidic faith. The 
crusaders, goaded by their righteous fervor, mistook the 
wooden fetishes and rustic rituals for evidence of demonic 
inf luence. In that first year, more than 40 natives of the 
region died at the hands of ardent crusaders. 


As the years passed, formalized groups of witch hunters 
emerged from the disorganized chaos of the First Crusade. 
These witch hunters were often self-styled, their tactics little 
more than brutal trial and error. The least bit of “evidence” 
could mark a target for investigation—a club foot, a thick 
accent, or even a “suspicious” absence of abnormalities. The 
witch hunter groups gained reputations for being cruel and 
arbitrary, although these weren’t always deserved. 
Demons ranged freely over the Worldwound and 
often spilled into Mendev. Demonic possession 
did happen, though not nearly as often as the 
witch hunters charged. Genuine witch hunters

used divination magic and cautious investigation to draw 
out and destroy fiends, but they were rare compared to the 
inflamed inquisitors who burned innocent Mendevians at 
the stake.


With the advent of the Fourth Crusade, the Order of 
Heralds took strong measures to end the bloody witch 
hunts of Mendev. The frequency of hunts has dropped 
substantially, but Prelate Hulrun remains an active and 
enthusiastic hunter. He maintains a troop of trained witch 
hunters he dispatches throughout the city to investigate 
rumors of corruption and possession. The power of the 
witch hunters isn’t absolute, but the sight of their Iomedaean 
vestments edged with orange flames makes even the most 
pure-hearted citizen uneasy. Hulrun’s witch hunters are 
led by the stone-faced Liotr Hawkblade (LN male human 
inquisitor of Iomedae 5), an Ulfen warrior who has served 
under Hulrun for the last 15 years.

'course pnp hulrun is also a bit more self-reflective:

The next 50 years saw Kenabres swell to the size it is today, 
yet this growth was not always easy. The city’s famed prelate, 
Hulrun Shappok, first gained the trust and admiration 
of Kenabres’ citizens by organizing inquisitions against 
suspected demon-worshipers and witches. Hulrun and 
his force of elite witch hunters exposed dozens of cultists 
and spies—and, it is said, executed many more under 
suspicion but with no real proof. These events started the 
Third Crusade—widely accepted as the least effective and 
most self-destructive of the four crusades. Still, Hulrun 
roused respect and admiration in the populace as well as 
fear, and he agreed to guide the city as its prelate in 4682. 
Though Hulrun was forced to temper his obsessive witch 
hunts somewhat in his position as prelate, his inner zeal 
has only recently begun to truly diminish. Looking back 
on his actions has left him struggling with shame over 
how these events cast a shadow over Iomedae’s church and 
the crusades for decades to come.

and if it makes you feel better, pnp hulrun ( a level 13 LN inquisitor o' iomedae) dies even before terendelev, which is hardly a surprise as hulrun were kinda near the top o' areelu's hit list seeing as how his witch hunting fervor instigated the third crusade.

all o' which ignores fact the d&d alignment axis is monumental stoopid and wholly unnecessary. 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited by Gromnir

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