Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, Part 3

xzar_monty · January 26, 2022

@Agiel, now that was nice! How long does it take you to do that?

xzar_monty · January 26, 2022

Btw, now that I'm proceeding in the Abyss, I've decided to tone down the difficulty of the boss fights. There's so much stat-bloating and cheesing going on on Owlcat's part that it seems perfectly fair to me. I like a challenge as much as the next guy, but challenges that revolve around mastering/abusing the game mechanics (as opposed to problems that need to be solved within the game) aren't much fun, in my view.

Agiel · January 27, 2022

@xzar_montyHey thanks! Worked on it on and off for about a week (hey, I wish I had Darkergrey's work ethic) so it's hard to say how many hours in total I spent on it. Initially I thought Aivu would be the toughest part of drawing it (as I am not a scaley), but as it turned out Arueshalae's outfit turned out to be what vexed me most, taking two scrapped passes until I finally got it right.

bugarup · January 27, 2022

Dusted off save files since Owlcat's community liaison on reddit keeps dropping giddy hints at big new shiny patch. Decided to postpone Bomber/Trickster until second playthrough when I'll have better grasp of the game because right now, no matter how hard I squint I cannot see any synergies between those two. Will be going with a sorcerer Lich instead, since it's more intuitive, plus if I spec him into summoning/conjuring I'll be less annoyed about spells constantly failing to hit. Almost had forgotten how irritating that broken plaza is and how unfun is the game at low level. :getlost:

Gromnir · January 27, 2022

35 minutes ago, bugarup said:

Dusted off save files since Owlcat's community liaison on reddit keeps dropping giddy hints at big new shiny patch. Decided to postpone Bomber/Trickster until second playthrough when I'll have better grasp of the game because right now, no matter how hard I squint I cannot see any synergies between those two. Will be going with a sorcerer Lich instead, since it's more intuitive, plus if I spec him into summoning/conjuring I'll be less annoyed about spells constantly failing to hit. Almost had forgotten how irritating that broken plaza is and how unfun is the game at low level.

hmmm. we woulda thought a grenadier + trickster would be kinda ideal. chuck holy bombs with ridiculous high crit chance and sneak attack damage? take four levels o' underground chemist? have personal avoided trickster 'cause along with merged spellbook angel is kinda the cheese route, but am thinking you should be able to do trickster and bomber.

@Agiel did the full trickster run so perhaps he has thoughts.

HA! Good Fun!

uuuhhii · January 27, 2022

trickster are ideal for prepared full caster arcane trickster

battering blast are extremely powerful and scale into higher level well

though feat number might be a little low

bugarup · January 27, 2022

54 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

hmmm. we woulda thought a grenadier + trickster would be kinda ideal. chuck holy bombs with ridiculous high crit chance and sneak attack damage? take four levels o' underground chemist? have personal avoided trickster 'cause along with merged spellbook angel is kinda the cheese route, but am thinking you should be able to do trickster and bomber.

@Agiel did the full trickster run so perhaps he has thoughts.

HA! Good Fun!

I planned for holy and force bombs indeed. Crit range comes from a Trickster feat, and sneak dice from underground chemist, but why 4 levels and when should I take them? All in batch or should I scatter them a bit?

I'm afraid I won't be able to do Angel, also Azata because I'm more of a roleplayer than powergamer and in this case cheese gets bit different meaning. "I came to save the world and ya'll, puny mortals, also to moralize at everyone within earshot! Behold my shiny halo and utter absence of sense of humor! " "Tra la laaaaa~, I'm so twee I piss rainbows and sh†t cookies! Teehee! " Yeah, how about f†ck no. :down:

Edited January 27, 2022 by bugarup

Gromnir · January 27, 2022

2 hours ago, bugarup said:

I planned for holy and force bombs indeed. Crit range comes from a Trickster feat, and sneak dice from underground chemist, but why 4 levels and when should I take them? All in batch or should I scatter them a bit?

I'm afraid I won't be able to do Angel, also Azata because I'm more of a roleplayer than powergamer and in this case cheese gets bit different meaning. "I came to save the world and ya'll, puny mortals, also to moralize at everyone within earshot! Behold my shiny halo and utter absence of sense of humor! " "Tra la laaaaa~, I'm so whimsical I piss rainbows and sh†t cookies! Teehee! " Yeah, how about f†ck no.

am gonna guess the underground chemist levels is likely unnecessary but four levels is the traditional pnp route for adding sneak attack to a grenadier. at level 4 o' chemist, sneak attack damage is applied to splash weapons. ordinarily you don't apply sneak damage to bombs, but owlcat mechanics is wonky and weird with near anything resulting in sneak attack opportunities. have honest not looked to see how trickster interacts with bombs.

regardless, a grenadier with holy bombs, the trickster crit range, plus potential sneak damage sounds like decent synergy and IF we were ever gonna consider a trickster run we might pick such a build.

'course we mentioned early in the thread the class which really had our curiosity were skalds. yeah, court poets got the nerfed in a big way with their skald stances being removed entire, but vanilla skalds is current working sans keening and the class offers bonkers buffing potential for a party. am suspecting skald will be our next main character choice 'cause at the moment the companions is not ideal for skald... unless your main is a paladin. play w/o seelah and her mark o' justice ability for mid/late game bosses is not something we would voluntarily consider unless we had another paladin, and possible act vi paladin companions is not a meaningful substitute.

HA! Good Fun!

ps according to a couple owlcat forum posts we read, bolt of justice/storm of justice is not working for at least a number o' players since the most recent patch. we went with a zen archer/sacred huntsmaster angel for our initial run, mostly 'cause we knew angel were less buggy than the other mythic paths at release... which weren't saying much. however, if you want angel for the ultrafantasticdivinepowha, now might not be the ideal time to indulge, though is clear angel ain't a first choice for you anyways. that said, from a rp pov, unless you are playing a lg paladin, is easy to go generic good in wotr w/o needing indulge the "behold my shiny halo" shtick. owlcat writing is not great, but for whatever faults may exist in the angel mythic path, and there is many, the angel writing is inclusive and kinda generic good as 'posed how you might be imagining. angels and paladins come to your aid at pivotal plot points but they ain't particular judgey o' your actions as long as you are at least more good than not.

however, am not sure how seelah could ever maintain paladin status in the owlcat wotr universe. if you want to maintain lg alignment, then constant choosing the good option will see you fall from grace and the lawful dialogue choices appear purpose designed to be merciless. in our opinion, seelah is not capable o' maintaining owlcat lg.

that said, azata does indeed have a whole lotta whimsy aspects.

Edited January 27, 2022 by Gromnir

Gromnir · January 27, 2022

HA! Good Fun!

ps lotta fixes in this one. no doubt it breaks a few things as well, but if most o' the fixes take, it will represent a noticeable improvement for more than a few build choices. o' particular note, as we were mentioning angel 'bove, the heavenly host ability for the sword of heaven has been broken since day and 'ccording to the patch notes it is fixed. however, as is a beta, am thinking we sit this one out for the nonce. am in act iv with our aeon and don't wanna break it more than is broken already.

pps "Marksmen's damage has been moderately decreased;" well, that could hurt considering our building scheme is pretty much based on maximizing marksman and general powha.

Edited January 27, 2022 by Gromnir

ShadySands · January 27, 2022

Quote

Greetings, crusaders!

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There is also news on the console release of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. The team is working hard on the console version of the game, and there's steady progress. However, as we went forward, it became clear that we do need that extra time after all. We made the tough decision to postpone the launch on consoles to early autumn, 2022 so we can deliver the best gaming experience on console – as well as address any remaining issues on the PC edition. We believe that in the end it will be better for the game and hope for your patience and understanding.

To arms, crusaders! Happy Lunar New Year!

Agiel · January 29, 2022

On 1/27/2022 at 12:13 AM, bugarup said:

Dusted off save files since Owlcat's community liaison on reddit keeps dropping giddy hints at big new shiny patch. Decided to postpone Bomber/Trickster until second playthrough when I'll have better grasp of the game because right now, no matter how hard I squint I cannot see any synergies between those two. Will be going with a sorcerer Lich instead, since it's more intuitive, plus if I spec him into summoning/conjuring I'll be less annoyed about spells constantly failing to hit. Almost had forgotten how irritating that broken plaza is and how unfun is the game at low level.

Unfortunately I can't speak to how well the Mythic path synergises with a bomber archetype, as in my playthrough my PC was an Elf Knife Master Rogue. The Perception 2 Trick helping to impart Improved Improved Improved Critical to party members certainly did wonders for Camellia and Woljif (the latter, whom I had largely neglected, managed to get bumped from terrible to tolerably usable). Mobility talents for my Rogue PC were also quite hilarious, as on top of maxing out Dex and the usual AC-buffing shenanigans (short of the vaunted Monk/Scaled Fist dips) the Trickster spell-list includes the critical survivability spells such as Mirror Image and Displacement (on top of the <<Bit of Fun>> Mythic ability, which is Mirror Image in all but name) she could run circles around crowds of mobs and body parts would fly everywhere due to all of the flat-footed AOOs. As mentioned in the previous thread the Persuasion 2 trick can open the way to some one-shots with a ready supply of Polar Rays (see: Ring of Boreal Might), but as the Paralyse check is 10 plus your ranks of Persuasion the max DC is limited to 30 at level 20, leading me to believe its utility will not be as great in Core and above. Nonetheless as Gromnir has stated repeatedly, the essentially free Dazzling Display at the beginning of combat bestowed by Persuasion 1 will certainly be invaluable.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Agiel

uuuhhii · January 29, 2022

23 minutes ago, Agiel said:

Unfortunately I can't speak to how well the Mythic path synergises with a bomber archetype, as in my playthrough my PC was an Elf Knife Master Rogue. The Perception 3 Trick helping to impart Improved Improved Improved Critical to party members certainly did wonders for Camellia and Woljif (the latter, whom I had largely neglected, managed to get bumped from terrible to tolerably usable). Mobility talents for my Rogue PC were also quite hilarious, as on top of maxing out Dex and the usual AC-buffing shenanigans (short of the vaunted Monk/Scaled Fist dips) the Trickster spell-list includes the critical survivability spells such as Mirror Image and Displacement (on top of the <<Bit of Fun>> Mythic ability, which is Mirror Image in all but name) she could run circles around crowds of mobs and body parts would fly everywhere due to all of the flat-footed AOOs. As mentioned in the previous thread the Persuasion 2 trick can open the way to some one-shots with a ready supply of Polar Rays (see: Ring of Boreal Might), but as the Paralyse check is 10 plus your ranks of Persuasion the max DC is limited to 30 at level 20, leading me to believe its utility will not be as great in Core and above. Nonetheless as Gromnir has stated repeatedly, the essentially free Dazzling Display at the beginning of combat bestowed by Persuasion 1 will certainly be invaluable.

pretty sure perception 2 unlock the trickster feat

one of the most overpowered feature of trickster

has that been changed in recent patchs

Gromnir · January 29, 2022

am recalling back in october @Agiel mentioned the usefulness o' the protective luck hex, particular when used with cackle. slipped our mind at the time, but as we were indulging in prebuffing cheese for an unfair pathetic quasit fight, we sudden 'mebered we were gonna share a curious exploit but got distracted with other things.

you may use cackle outside of combat, and you may spam it. as such it is possible to extend the durations o' the protective luck and fortune hexes to minutes as 'posed to seconds and you may do so before you enter combat. the fortune hex is limited to one use per day per character/companion, but with cackle and a willingness to spam cackle for a bit, you may provide your entire party with the benefits o' both protective luck and fortune and those hexes will remain effective for the duration o' a boss fight.

is tedious indulging the silliness we describe, so is not something we do other than unfair boss fights and even then we limit to a couple characters, but the hexes is extreme powerful as agiel recognized and with pre battle spam o' cackle, the one shortcoming to the hexes (their duration) is eliminated.

HA! Good Fun!

Edited January 29, 2022 by Gromnir

Agiel · January 29, 2022

The fact that Cackle can be used out of combat to effectively function as a pre-battle buff did not go unnoticed by the developers for Toy Box, as there was an option for "Cackle for 10 minutes outside of combat" or something like that. Can't help but think doing such in a live tabletop session will earn one withering glances or rulebook in the face from the DM.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Agiel

Gromnir · January 29, 2022

is indeed an exploit, and is part o' the reason we only use on unfair. after all, from our pov, unfair is 'bout having a scheme to take advantage o' pathfinder and owlcat loopholes.

however, for the folks who look at wotr enemy stat bloat and see as inherent unfair, there exist in the game numerous exploits similar to cackle extending the duration o' protective luck and fortune... stuff no real flesh and blood gm/dm would ever allow. seeing as how the fan base doesn't want such exploits o' pnp rules addressed and recognizing that owlcat has eschewed near any effort to close pathfinder loopholes, am suspecting the recognition o' cheese such as our observed cackle is part o' wotr design.

HA! Good Fun!

xzar_monty · January 30, 2022

14 hours ago, Gromnir said:

is indeed an exploit, and is part o' the reason we only use on unfair. after all, from our pov, unfair is 'bout having a scheme to take advantage o' pathfinder and owlcat loopholes.

Indeed. Even on some of the easier difficulties(*), at least some the encounters feel less like "playing a cRPG that takes place in a fantasy setting", and more like "making an almost excessive number of calculations and iterations in order to beat the game mechanics".

(*) Meaning, I am not as good with the mechanics as some other people are.

Agiel · January 30, 2022

On 1/29/2022 at 1:25 AM, uuuhhii said:

pretty sure perception 2 unlock the trickster feat

one of the most overpowered feature of trickster

has that been changed in recent patchs

Corrected now. Thanks for the heads up.

bugarup · January 31, 2022

Oh well. I'll wait for Trickster fix patch and meanwhile run my other parties through those boring, boring, horrible, unfun, did I mention boring, low levels. Speaking of them, am I doing something wrong with Camellia or is her consistently doing 0-1 damage just a low level thing? I was using Woljif and his sneak attacks before, decided to give her a chance and she's dead weight. :getlost: I'm keeping her a Shaman with that ~~face~~iceplant thing and a rapier which appears to be as deadly as a mosquito bite, both with her default cold iron one and Finnegan. Seelah in defensive stance does, like, 20 times more damage than her.

Also, I somehow managed to clock in 97 hrs in the game even if I play more RTWP than TB, have crusades on auto-win mod and I only have one party at the start of Chapter 3, one starting Chapter 2, one doing the end dungeon before Chapter 2 and two more just out of tutorial dungeon. :blink:

Gromnir · January 31, 2022

1 hour ago, bugarup said:

Speaking of them, am I doing something wrong with Camellia or is her consistently doing 0-1 damage just a low level thing? I was using Woljif and his sneak attacks before, decided to give her a chance and she's dead weight. I'm keeping her a Shaman with that ~~face~~iceplant thing and a rapier which appears to be as deadly as a mosquito bite, both with her default cold iron one and Finnegan. Seelah in defensive stance does, like, 20 times more damage than her.

for camellia, take fencing grace at level five if you are concerned 'bout early damage output. use o' a buckler does not count as rendering your off-hand otherwise occupied. so, with a high crit weapon in the hands o' a high dex character such as camellia, particular when she adds spirit hunter buffs to exploit mythic elemental barrage at some point, camellia will be doing admirable damage... but as early as level five you should be able to squeeze decent damage outta her via fencing grace.

'course is other ways to go with camellia, but if you want early damage improvements, take fencing grace at level five, which is gonna happen before assaulting the gray garrison, yes?

HA! Good Fun!

ps (edit) via the beta patch, the aeon receives a whole bunch o' new gazes options.

https://imgur.com/a/dKtqZUM

...

damn.

Edited January 31, 2022 by Gromnir

bugarup · January 31, 2022

53 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

'course is other ways to go with camellia, but if you want early damage improvements, take fencing grace at level five, which is gonna happen before assaulting the gray garrison, yes?

HA! Good Fun!

ps (edit) via the beta patch, the aeon receives a whole bunch o' new gazes options.

https://imgur.com/a/dKtqZUM

...

damn.

Yep, just before it and I took...something else, I think. Oh well, between my brand new menagerie of pets and sorcerer's selective greases and entangles I think the party can carry this load through the garrison.

Aeon looks very interesting conceptually, has very pretty design and his theme is probably my favorite piece of the soundtrack so I'm tempted too, even if picking lawful options makes you look like particularly petty banana republic dictator. :down: I wonder if I can just toybox-lock the alignment and stick with less covert evil dialog options.

PK htiw klaw eriF · January 31, 2022

4 hours ago, bugarup said:

I wonder if I can just toybox-lock the alignment and stick with less covert evil dialog options.

You can, but right now TB hasn't been updated to be compatible with 1.2.

ShadySands · January 31, 2022

2 hours ago, KP the Torque Dork said:

You can, but right now TB hasn't been updated to be compatible with 1.2.

There's a test release on Discord if you're interested

Edited January 31, 2022 by ShadySands

PK htiw klaw eriF · January 31, 2022

2 hours ago, ShadySands said:

There's a test release on Discord if you're interested

Good to know. I'm probably going to wait for the DLC to drop and beat some robot up though.

xzar_monty · February 1, 2022

20 hours ago, bugarup said:

Oh well. I'll wait for Trickster fix patch and meanwhile run my other parties through those boring, boring, horrible, unfun, did I mention boring, low levels.

Some of the encounters on low levels are really difficult because you are so low on resources. Owlcat tends to be unfair, but this is an area where it's particularly unfair.

Then again, in Deadfire, the most difficult encounters for me were Gorecci Street and the Engwithian Digsite. Low level, low on resources = very hard.

bugarup · February 1, 2022

3 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Some of the encounters on low levels are really difficult because you are so low on resources. Owlcat tends to be unfair, but this is an area where it's particularly unfair.

Then again, in Deadfire, the most difficult encounters for me were Gorecci Street and the Engwithian Digsite. Low level, low on resources = very hard.

I don't play POTD, but the digsite is doable on upsaled veteran, also it makes you go creative and utilize those low level spells you normally pay no attention to. It also goes all way back to PoE1, as I have fond memories of defeating the kraken with whatever I could scramble out of ingredients in my pockets because I was out of rests and could not sneak back to replenish stuff. Wrathfinder's problem is that, other than buffs and occasional good spell like Grease, low level abilities are completely useless. And I'm talking Normal/Core here.

As for Toybox, it's no problem, I'll wait. First for Owlcat fixing what the patch broke, then the patch of the patch, then whatever patch fixes broke again, then after another iteration or two, Toybox itself. Maybe they'll fix Toybox's bugs too, cause while I can do with never talking to Nenio, belt items vanishing is a no go. :getlost:

Edited February 1, 2022 by bugarup
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