Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, Part 3

[Achilles]

On 12/6/2021 at 8:13 AM, Gromnir said:

 

HA! Good Fun!

Not sure if a new game is required but I've noticed that quite a few things in the last couple of patches aren't actually patched.

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, Achilles said:

Not sure if a new game is required but I've noticed that quite a few things in the last couple of patches aren't actually patched.

am also confused by a few fixes. the loremaster quirk which allows you to choose any feat including trickster mythic feats were s'posed addressed in a previous patch, but we frequent test out mercenary builds and the loremaster exploit were still present last week. the nightspinner quest still bugged for us though it were addressed in a recent patch. similar, but different, the zaoris's pin from the mines is indeed gone, but is not available through crusade battles in our current run. etc.

unrelated, but equal curious, have been waiting for somebody (anybody) to mention the anevia elephant in the room, but such has surprising never happened. given the siege of dragonspear kerfuffle, the lack o' acknowledgement o' anevia is curious. am suspecting more than a few people who claimed to have played the wotr pnp adventure has not, 'cause owlcat handling o' the issue were noteworthy though hardly surprising. personal we didn't bring up earlier 'cause we assume the worst o' gaming communities and have rare been surprised by the reality-- unnecessary distraction. nevertheless, is now three month post release and am nevertheless surprised by the absence o' people asking owlcat for an explanation. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Achilles]

8 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

unrelated, but equal curious, have been waiting for somebody (anybody) to mention the anevia elephant in the room, but such has surprising never happened. given the siege of dragonspear kerfuffle, the lack o' acknowledgement o' anevia is curious. am suspecting more than a few people who claimed to have played the wotr pnp adventure has not, 'cause owlcat handling o' the issue were noteworthy though hardly surprising. personal we didn't bring up earlier 'cause we assume the worst o' gaming communities and have rare been surprised by the reality-- unnecessary distraction. nevertheless, is now three month post release and am nevertheless surprised by the absence o' people asking owlcat for an explanation. 

HA! Good Fun!

I haven't played the pnp version, but I want to say that I think I know what you're talking about.

If I'm correct, the answer is

Spoiler

It's fairly buried. The player has to:

1. Wait until act 5
2. Navigate through a greyed out dialog option (as though they somehow knew there's something new to be found)
3. Pass a Persuasion 50 check

If they do all of that, then the topic is up for a very brief discussion before never, ever coming up again.

[Gromnir]

4 minutes ago, Achilles said:

I haven't played the pnp version, but I want to say that I think I know what you're talking about.

If I'm correct, the answer is

  Hide contents

It's fairly buried. The player has to:

1. Wait until act 5
2. Navigate through a greyed out dialog option (as though they somehow knew there's something new to be found)
3. Pass a Persuasion 50 check

If they do all of that, then the topic is up for a very brief discussion before never, ever coming up again.

doesn't actual get explicit discussion even when skill checks is passed. anevia's condition is never disclosed, or at least it weren't every time we played.

HA! Good Fun!

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Gromnir

[Achilles]

5 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

doesn't actual get explicit discussion even when skill checks is passed. anevia's condition is never disclosed, or at least it weren't every time we played.

HA! Good Fun!

 

Without context, I don't know that I can comment further. What felt like an obvious takeaway, to me, was that

Spoiler

the potion performed the equivalent of gender reassignment

Was that not it?

[Gromnir]

15 minutes ago, Achilles said:

Without context, I don't know that I can comment further. What felt like an obvious takeaway, to me, was that

  Hide contents

the potion performed the equivalent of gender reassignment

Was that not it?

Spoiler

indeed, but were actual described as a health problem, which kinda surprised us. given the relationship o' irabeth and anevia, is understandable for you to make the inference, and no doubt that were intended. you could infer, but am gonna suggest anevia never actual implied. 

regardless, describe as a health problem shoulda' had more than a few folks in a twist. expected the gamergate folks woulda' been enraged regardless. all one need do is review this thread and see how a few posters were bothered by the abundance o' inclusive romantic relationships.

 

edit: am not recalling exact wording at the moment, but reveal were along the lines o' a "medical condition that was expensive to resolve." that's it. 

handled different than pnp and were clear hiding. in the pnp setting is not the kinda thing one would need hide, so the layers o' obfuscation were owlcat's own spin.

HA! Good Fun!

Edited December 8, 2021 by Gromnir

[Achilles]

5 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

  Hide contents

indeed, but were actual described as a health problem, which kinda surprised us. given the relationship o' irabeth and anevia, is understandable for you to make the inference, and no doubt that were intended. you could infer, but am gonna suggest anevia never actual implied. 

regardless, describe as a health problem shoulda' had more than a few folks in a twist. expected the gamergate folks woulda' been enraged regardless. all one need do is review this thread and see how a few posters were bothered by the abundance o' inclusive romantic relationships.

HA! Good Fun!

Not gonna lie, my initial knee-jerk reaction was "why?", but a split second later it occurred to me that it's definitely fitting with the major theme of the story and I was able to move on.

As for how it's categorized, that also seemed sound to me, but I think that some people were going to be upset no matter how they portrayed it.

Spoiler

I don't remember which V.S. Ramachandran book it was (I think it was Tell-Tale Brain), but in one of them he's discussing all the fun ways in which mismatches between our bodies and our brains' mental models of said bodies cause problems. The most common one is sudden onset clumsiness during puberty when our bodies are growing faster than our brains can update the model and navigating through physical space suddenly becomes complicated. The more uncommon ones looks like people who are born without limbs complaining that their prosthetics are too long/short/whatever even though they are custom made to give the wearer "normal" proportions and the wearer "shouldn't" know what having hands/feet/whatever feels like. The takeaway being that sometimes our mental models of our bodies don't match our actual bodies and sometimes they don't match is really, really non-intuitive ways. The author doesn't offer this as an explanation for transgenderism, but I definitely left the book feeling as though it was probably the best possible explanation I'd ever heard.

Which is to say, that if a fantasy role playing game says you can fix that mismatch with a potion, then I think that feels a lot more grounded in reality than a lot of other things I accept without questioning in said game

 

[Gromnir]

possible confusion. am thinking the near complete lack o' people being upset is the surprise. particular after other games which dealt with similar content had developers facing considerable backlash, owlcat taking a hard pass shoulda' elicited some reaction. reality has been no reaction, or near none.

in the crpg, is not actual implied what is the medical condition, so am suspecting the vast majority o' posters shrugged and moved on w/o a second thought. probably figured it were just another example o' sketchy owlcat writing. in retrospect this approach were a good choice by owlcat as they has somehow managed to avoid controversy. am nevertheless surprised owlcat were allowed to sleight-of-hand this aspect into nothingness. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Achilles]

9 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

possible confusion. am thinking the near complete lack o' people being upset is the surprise. particular after other games which dealt with similar content had developers facing considerable backlash, owlcat taking a hard pass shoulda' elicited some reaction. reality has been no reaction, or near none.

in the crpg, is not actual implied what is the medical condition, so am suspecting the vast majority o' posters shrugged and moved on w/o a second thought. probably figured it were just another example o' sketchy owlcat writing. in retrospect this approach were a good choice by owlcat as they has somehow managed to avoid controversy. am nevertheless surprised owlcat were allowed to sleight-of-hand this aspect into nothingness. 

HA! Good Fun!

I suspected that's what you meant. In which case I refer back to my original spoiler: it's buried

Spoiler

 

[Gromnir]

10 minutes ago, Achilles said:

I suspected that's what you meant. In which case I refer back to my original spoiler: it's buried

  Hide contents

 

must have been really buried and not original accessible at release either 'cause we passed the skill checks and got medical condition. nowhere available during beta neither. 

and again, why hide? purposeful hide?

Spoiler

literal the first line o' anevia's character description in the pnp adventure is a s follows:

Born a man and originally named Anvenn, Anevia grew 
up on the streets of Nisroch, and witnessed a hundred 
horrors by age 12.

regardless, am thinking obfuscation were the point.

regardless, complete lack o' upset is what is surprising. the gamergate folks is quiet and the folks who would ordinarily be curious 'bout the attempt to hide has also been silent.

HA! Good Fun!

ps we just checked btw, to see if perhaps the internet had spoken on this and we missed:

https://www.thegamer.com/pathfinder-wrath-righteous-secrets-tricks/

"It is possible, through speaking with Anevia and Irabeth at length, to learn that Irabeth once sold her family sword to pay for medical expenses for Anevia. Upon learning this, you can then ask Anevia what was wrong with her — she will never tell you what it was, however. In this game, at least."

from reddit you will see posts as recent as a month past which specific mention how is not mentioned in the game save as a secret medical condition, or somesuch. skill checks passed.

if is now in game, am suspecting is recent and am suspecting owlcat surreptitiously added.

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Gromnir

[Gromnir]

those sneaky *astards.

...

we figured out the change. irabeth's sword. can't progress w/o irabeth's sword, which were not present in beta or at release. when we played with angel no irabeth sword. replayed with azata and we were past the siege of drezen when sword were final patched back into the game, so again, no chance to get your hidden dialogue.

am thinking is no accident the sword were missing from the game for so long. could claim to paizo were an oversight and not an intentional effort to hide.

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Gromnir

[Achilles]

15 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

nowhere available during beta neither. 

Beta only went up to act IV and this reveal is only available after things settle down in act V.

I suspect that you're right; the lengths one has to go to in order to get this dialog are fairly extreme. I can't speak to the motivations, but at the same time, I think the fact it's there says something also. Maybe I'm being too generous.

[Achilles]

6 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

those sneaky *astards.

...

we figured out the change. irabeth's sword. can't progress w/o irabeth's sword, which were not present in beta or at release. when we played with angel no irabeth sword. replayed with azata and we were past the siege of drezen when sword were final patched back into the game, so again, no chance to get your hidden dialogue.

am thinking is no accident the sword were missing from the game for so long. could claim to paizo were an oversight and not an intentional effort to hide.

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

 

You only need the scabbard, which I think was present through most of the beta (I recall being able to ask both parties about it and getting shut down).

My first encounter with that dialog was before the patch that fixed the sword.

Sorry

EDIT

To clarify

Spoiler

1. Act I - Find the scabbard
2. Act II - Ask Irabeth about the scabbard (she tells you it was for medicine for Anevia). Ask Anevia about the medicine and she tells you to pound sand.
3. Act V - Visit Anevia and bring up the topic again (by navigating through greyed out dialog options). Pass a Persuasion 50 check. Get the full story

Per a recent patch, you can find the sword that Irabeth tells you about in Act II and return it to her for 50000gp, which is enough to cover Greybor's per diem, but didn't seem to have any impact on the steps outlined above.

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Achilles

[Gromnir]

just checked for extreme late fifth chapter saves and we can ask 'bout the scabbard and the pawning o' the sword, (oddly shows up as a new dialogue option) but nothing else. however, these is saves which we suspect were unaffected by some late patches.       

passing perception and persuasion checks o' 50 for our act v angel is a non factor. is an inquisitor with acolyte who went full wisdom, so even if these were hidden checks, we could only possible fail on a 1, and again, we got save points which would allow us to try over and over and over.

could we be stuck in a tom stoppard play?

possible, but unlikely.                  

HA! Good Fun!                

Edited December 8, 2021 by Gromnir

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

47 minutes ago, Achilles said:

I suspected that's what you meant. In which case I refer back to my original spoiler: it's buried

  Hide contents

 

I think it's funny that one of the options is "that's unnatural" when at that point your character can do the impossible at a whim and traveling with a cat-spider girl who reptilian goat boy. All things considered, changing your sexual characteristics with a magic item is more natural than turning into a glowing beacon of buffs to hit 80+ AC and immunity to everything or becoming a Lich.

Anyways I'm trying to decide between gods for my Lich and Demon runs. Urgathoa is the obvious choice for Lich, but I think Zon-Kuthon is an interesting pick. For Demon Lamashtu or Rovagug seem like the obvious choices, but I think Gorum would be fitting. Does anyone have experience with interactions with those gods in WotR?

[Gromnir]

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

I think it's funny that one of the options is "that's unnatural" when at that point your character can do the impossible at a whim and traveling with a cat-spider girl who reptilian goat boy. All things considered, changing your sexual characteristics with a magic item is more natural than turning into a glowing beacon of buffs to hit 80+ AC and immunity to everything or becoming a Lich.

 

was kinda our point. refer to as a medical condition or a health problem and then have potential response being to observe how is unnatural, should be the kinda thing which sets the teeth on edge o' more than a few folks, but we ain't heard any complaint whatsoever. am suspecting is 'cause anevia's unnatural solution is largely unknown by the fanbase.

aside, can say with certainty urgathoa gets a few nods in lich dialogue options, but am only knowing through act iv.

by comparison, in the beta we played an azata through act 4 as a desna worshiper and our current azata, almost most done with act v, is a follower o' cayden cailean and the two azata has played almost identical-- maybe three different dialogue options and nothing significant. not a meaningful choice.

HA! Good Fun!

[Achilles]

1 hour ago, Gromnir said:

am suspecting is 'cause anevia's unnatural solution is largely unknown by the fanbase.

I thought it odd that they introduced the mystery only to leave it unsolved until I came across a discord message indicating that there was more to do in act V.

While not the exact same thing, I think it's somewhat similar to one of the secret endings, for which one of the prerequisites can only be discovered by data mining or following a guide (which data mined for you). There's a lot of this game that the casual player is probably never going to come into contact with. 

[Chairchucker]

Personal theory on why this plot point is hidden behind many layers of skill checks etc:

Owlcat are based in Russia and don't wanna draw tooooo much attention to it.

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, Chairchucker said:

Personal theory on why this plot point is hidden behind many layers of skill checks etc:

Owlcat are based in Russia and don't wanna draw tooooo much attention to it.

we mentioned earlier in this thread how during a stream with owlcat and paizo developers, james jacobs, the creative director o' paizo, started talking 'bout how inclusive is the pathfinder game and how they specific designed wotr to be such... and the owlcat developers sudden became taciturn--looked like kids caught stealing.  some serious poker tells on display with one owlcat personage literal covering her mouth with her hands. another owlcat visibly swallows and sudden begins looking at something or someone off-screen. 'course nobody from owlcat addressed james feedback, but one o' the owlcat community managers ('cause apparent they need two) changed the subject: okay, next question.

and again, is not just hidden... hiding what were presented were matter o' fact in pnp. we did everything on the list provided and could not access. am suspecting this were not original capable o' completion, cause for us, with our original game, is not. 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited December 8, 2021 by Gromnir

[ShadySands]

IIRC in one of the earlier betas you could learn about it at the beginning of chapter 2 if you could pass the ridiculously high skill check. I dunno if that was just broken since it's now a chapter 5 discovery or if they moved it on purpose but I was surprised and impressed at the lack of outrage over it after Siege of Dragonspear.

[Gromnir]

lack o' outrage is, we suspect, almost complete attributable to lack o' awareness.

the pnp pathfinder fans clear didn't care, just as pnp d&d fans didn't care 'bout dragonspear's issue. wotr were not a new adventure path, so whatever issue pnp people mighta' had with anevia were pretty remote and well trodden. 

the gamergate folks are still largely unaware o' the anevia stuff, and the problem now is that many o' them has played through the game and likely has commented 'pon or come to conclusions regarding the title. sudden become aware  and need face hypocrisy regarding dragonspear or change their position on wotr is not a comfortable place to be. how does one square contempt for dragonspear while giving wotr a pass? 

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Agiel]

As Irabeth and Anevia were present in the original Adventure Path and their background has been imported into the CRPG unchanged it would seem to me that if you were a Pathfinder player who liked the fluff and were still onboard for the computer game Anevia's storyline either elicited a positive response from you or you've long since made your peace with it if not. And if the <<Kingmaker>> and <<Wrath of the Righteous>> CRPGs were your entry-points to the Pathfinder background and you complained about Paizo and Owlcat writers (even if, as some pointed out earlier, the latter somewhat bungled the approach to it) "cramming a wokish SJW agenda down the throats of the audience", well tough break pal, because where were you in 2013 when the Adventure Path was published?

Edited December 8, 2021 by Agiel

[xzar_monty]

I have now played the game for quite a bit, I'm at level 9 and I suppose I have battled through most of Drezen and the citadel, although this part is not complete yet (I chose my specific mythic path [azata, it was a tough choice between that and aeon] and have done a couple of encounters in the citadel area after that).

Now, two questions:

1) Is it sensible to play this game as an evil character? I don't see it. Even if you want to make evil choices, the storyline is so clearly a "good" one. I mean, surely you can't join the demon army or anything, can you? So how does evil work? It would seem very forced to me, but I must say I haven't even tried.

2) What do you people think of the puzzles in this game? I think they are poorly designed: there is a distinct lack of clues(*) and often very little you can do in terms of determining what went wrong or not, i.e. it turns out to be just guessing in the end. For instance, in one of the earlier puzzles you had to put down four domino-like pieces in the right order. This was, in theory, a good puzzle, but in fact the implementation was poor: you could only make a real choice with the first piece, and after that you could only choose one of the remaining three (and then two, and then one). If you got the first one wrong, there was nothing to it, and if you got the first one right, there was also nothing to it, because you couldn't make a mistake after that. So instead of a real puzzle, it was actually a toss of a four-sided coin.

(*) I may be wrong here, as it's possible that I'm just too thick or inattentive to see the clues. Which is why I'm asking.

Edited December 10, 2021 by xzar_monty

[ShadySands]

4 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

1) Is it sensible to play this game as an evil character? I don't see it. Even if you want to make evil choices, the storyline is so clearly a "good" one. I mean, surely you can't join the demon army or anything, can you? So how does evil work? It would seem very forced to me, but I must say I haven't even tried.

It really depends on how you want to define evil but yes you can play evil. You'll still have the same basic goal of stopping the invading demons/closing the Worldwound but you can do some terrible things to get there. I haven't played evil to see just how far you can push it but

Spoiler

Yes, you can lead a demon army. I don't think you can join the invading demon army but there are a couple of other demons that you can side with and also a couple of devils you can side with if you prefer your evil lawful. The lich and swarm paths are also options if you like playing with dead things or are a hungry, hungry hippo-shaped mass of all bugs consuming everything in their way.

I did think most of the puzzles were pretty bad

Edited December 10, 2021 by ShadySands

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

7 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

So how does evil work?

"(Evil) I don't like you. Die! [Attack]"

Specific to the bits I've played and the more that I've sought out, most evil has a reason to oppose the Worldwound, including Demons themselves. While the Crusade is being run by Lawful Good types, after you join it you bend it to your path.

But...

I'm not sure about it, but I think Swarm may allow you to join Deskari.