Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, Part 3

[xzar_monty]

3 hours ago, bringingyouthefuture said:

Couple questions if you all will humor me.  So what's the general consensus on difficulty?  I got through the game on core difficulty

Playing on Core, too.

The difficulty is mostly all right, with some absurdities. Enemy generals one-shotting you with Scorching Rays or Lightnings (this is absurd in the sense that you can't do anything about the generals, only their minions). Really over-the-top stat- and otherwise-buffing on some enemies, such as Playful Darkness and the ancient tree thing in Wintersun. These are doable, but I'd still regard them as absurd.

My biggest gripe is that the game so blatantly cheats, as it did in P:K. Just one of the many examples: when you go to help Regill and his fellow hellknights, you end up taking shelter in a cave. Once the battle begins, the gargoyles start spawning out of nowhere inside the cave. It's perfectly fine that approximately half of them seem to come in through the entrance, but what's the deal with the other half appearing out of nowhere, possibly through the ceiling or something? How's that not cheating? If the cave has no ceiling, it's not a cave by definition, and if its ceiling has larger than gargoyle-sized holes in it, these should be obvious to spot and communicated to the player. Owlcat just goes and cheats. It's an awful policy. And this is just one example. Facing difficulty can be stimulating (how could it not be?), but facing a cheat is such a letdown, because there's nothing you can do except save-scum and meta-play.

[Gromnir]

3 hours ago, bugarup said:

Stumbled upon some dude called something like Sinewy Sinus while exploring. Took a look at his stats, reloaded, buffbotted, pre-cackled luck and defense hexes. He offed my sacrificial skellington friend and feared two critters, but was fantastically susceptible to hellfire and went down fairly easily in two turns, and the best thing of all - he dropped over 20K of XP that got me to level 11.

the siabre perhaps? on the wintersun map as part o' the miammir(sp?) the scholar quest? not positive which encounter you reference. siabre is a what as 'posed to a who. 

on the same wintersun map is another obscure kinda quest which offers a big xp payoff.

Spoiler

take the whip from the skeleton in the circle o' glowing stones and then defeat all seven o' the ghosts on the wintersun map. am recalling is a similar xp award as the siabre. 

is too late to worry, but blightmaw (act ii) in the drezen keep is easily missed and his demise results in a considerable xp reward. 

secret of secrets quest is gonna be too difficult to explain w/o a map... is end of act iii material, though is possible to complete in act iv if you miss it it in act iii. big xp. is a nice ring reward for spontaneous casters. global achievement stats says only 1.4% o' players has completed secret of secrets. 

is considerable missable content in acts iv and v. when you get to those acts we will spoil you if you wish.

the most stoopid missable content is random lore/mobility/athletics checks which curious offer broken kinda rewards in a few spots. is the ravaged longhouse map in act iii which has a couple athletics checks and a mobility check which in the beta were worth something close to 3k a piece, but has since been reduced to nevertheless improbable amounts. 

HA! Good Fun!

[bugarup]

46 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

the siabre perhaps? on the wintersun map as part o' the miammir(sp?) the scholar quest? not positive which encounter you reference. siabre is a what as 'posed to a who. 

on the same wintersun map is another obscure kinda quest which offers a big xp payoff.

is too late to worry, but blightmaw (act ii) in the drezen keep is easily missed and his demise results in a considerable xp reward. 

secret of secrets quest is gonna be too difficult to explain w/o a map... is end of act iii material, though is possible to complete in act iv if you miss it it in act iii. big xp. is a nice ring reward for spontaneous casters. global achievement stats says only 1.4% o' players has completed secret of secrets. 

the most stoopid missable content is random lore/mobility/athletics checks which curious offer broken kinda rewards in a few spots. is the ravaged longhouse map in act iii which has a couple athletics checks and a mobility check which in the beta were worth something close to 3k a piece, but has since been reduced to nevertheless improbable amounts. 

Nah, he was on tiny map a la random encounter, somewhere southwest from Drezen methinks, but am not totally sure. There's a cart, some dead guys, a ghost and seemingly wounded guy, you click on him and whoops, an ambush. Haven't been to Wintersun yet, I'll be on the lookout for this Siabre. 

Been to the longhouse, nasty ugly annoying enemies, no clue why Cardi B graced them with a song, did not even pay attention to skill XP because it's usually peanuts. 

Blightmaw I got on my other party, and then on all the following ones I took through Chapter 2 after I compared his XP with his summoner's.  Him being easier to kill but giving 5 times bigger XP is one of those Owlcat things I guess. 

Niiiiiice ring. Me and Ember are both rocking Salamanders, it's a good, useful ring, but this one with its golden words of "Not affected by target's spell resistance" will sure come in handy too. 

 

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, bugarup said:

Nah, he was on tiny map a la random encounter, somewhere southwest from Drezen methinks, but am not totally sure. There's a cart, some dead guys, a ghost and seemingly wounded guy, you click on him and whoops, an ambush. Haven't been to Wintersun yet, I'll be on the lookout for this Siabre. 

 

 

the crimson dust encounter?  is an ecorche model,

so we didn't think o' as a ghost. am not thinking it were incorporeal as it dropped an amulet of natural armour as 100t. is what you reference?

that said, the ecorche did spawn outta seeming nowhere and provided good xp.

HA! Good Fun!

ps don't quote us, but am thinking the name o' the ambusher is sinful sinew. our memory is excellent but our dyslexia is terrible, so we frequent get names wrong and reorder numbers in comical ways.

pps we did a limited experiment with the battlebliss and then our patience ran dry. maybe a dozen fights? am mentioning 'cause is the worst potential unlimited xp exploit in the game and 'cause o' one o' the possible foes. we fought battlebliss after completing all battlebliss quests and we got mostly deathsnatchers, but near equal frequency o' the recent mentioned ecorche. we did fight a balor as well. always a solo antagonist. no 100t drops and the experience rewards is trivial by act iv standards but we didn't see a limit. takes literal seconds to defeat each foe and the fights may be repeated ad nauseum. 

Edited February 22, 2022 by Gromnir

[bugarup]

13 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

the crimson dust encounter?  is an ecorche model,

so we didn't think o' as a ghost. am not thinking it were incorporeal as it dropped an amulet of natural armour as 100t. is what you reference?

that said, the ecorche did spawn outta seeming nowhere and provided good xp.

HA! Good Fun!

ps don't quote us, but am thinking the name o' the ambusher is sinful sinew. our memory is excellent but our dyslexia is terrible, so we frequent get names wrong and reorder numbers in comical ways.

That's the one!  Kinda got him half right on sinew part. And the ghost was just hanging there complaining about getting flayed if you clicked on him, this dude sprung out of the "wounded" guy. 

[ShadySands]

Yeah, the ghost is only there if you are a lich but same encounter. Lich path has several ghosts that can provide some hints and random info about various things.

[Gromnir]

9 hours ago, bringingyouthefuture said:

 

When I picked it up it was in a pretty sad state, especially some of the battles where enemies would walk a straight line literally off the maps, not to mention the poor balance.  Still was alright and probably won't go back to the game until all the DLCs release, etc.  but that being said if I never have to fight another demon again in a game I wouldn't be to upset, there was a lot of demons ... is it safe to say the games release felt rushed?  I mean even in terms of story and continuity, but I have a feeling with better balance and bug fixes it will feel more cohesive.

balance is a feature o' pathfinder and wotr magnifies. am playing with difficulty set to hard with boss fights upped to unfair, but this is only 'cause we have so many hours invested in the game and we know a whole lotta cheese which makes the game a bit too easy unless we increase difficulty. wotr balance is terrible, and the game becomes much easier if you got community and madness domain powers along with a mark of justice paladin as well as a skald (melee party) or court poet (casters).  can do the cackle exploit for fortune and protective luck. we know how to upgrade relics. we know which spell schools have the most dc boosting gear and where such gear may be found. there is good weapon choices and bad. is good animal companion options and poor. is a whole lotta wotr options which individual make only small differences, but when added together skew difficulty such that death to the player on unfair happens 'cause o' impossibility to prepare and/or a series o' improbable bad rolls and not 'cause o' challenge.

as to the stability o' wotr, many bugs remain, but few is game or quest killers. "enemies would walk a straight line literally off the maps," is a thing, but it literal only happens to us...

Spoiler

on one quarter o' the upper city map o' alushinyrra. we cannot play tb mode on the portion o' the map where is vellexia's abode. is a particular challenging mob involving a kineticist and multiple gallu and random other fiendish types. am rare playing in rt so this battle is particular annoying as it represents an unpleasant charlie fox. however, if we do this encounter, or the nearby fight with the vampires and ecorche, our party members and enemies will be sent into walls and beyond the edge o' the map. 

is dozens o' spells, abilities, feats and gear which do not work as described, although we have been happily exploiting the hunter's celestial velociraptor's unlimited smite while perpetual forgetting to make a bug report related to the issue. is all kinda things broken in wotr, but the game is no longer unplayable from our pov, and given how the game were in august/september, am actual pleasant surprised by the current state o' the game. 

based on our experience with kingmaker, am feeling some confidence in proclaiming our belief that wotr is never gonna be complete fixed. however, am satisfied with the progress regarding wotr stability, and keep in mind this is from a guy who were extreme critical o' kingmaker... and am not a fan o' munchkiny wotr aspects. is a whole lotta reasons we should be dumping on wotr, but am surprised in a good way by wotr stability.

however, to repeat, is no fixing wotr balance. pathfinder is busted and wotr magnifies pathfinder balance issues by including their unique and busted spin on mythic. is pnp options in wotr no real dm/gm would ever allow collective. owlcat fans has consistent made clear they don't want player abilities nerfed even when broken, so the reasonable solution is to buff enemies? is a predictable spiral o' stoopid regarding balance as each new power upgrade for players leads to additional bloat to enemies, which further annoys casual players. 

HA! Good Fun!

[xzar_monty]

32 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

is a predictable spiral o' stoopid regarding balance as each new power upgrade for players leads to additional bloat to enemies, which further annoys casual players.

Given this (and as far as I can tell, you seem to be correct), it's actually quite surprising that the game seems to be doing so well. Does this mean that the "niche" audience consisting of hard-core RPG enthusiasts with a broken-system-abusing streak is a lot bigger than anyone could have guessed?

[uuuhhii]

15 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Given this (and as far as I can tell, you seem to be correct), it's actually quite surprising that the game seems to be doing so well. Does this mean that the "niche" audience consisting of hard-core RPG enthusiasts with a broken-system-abusing streak is a lot bigger than anyone could have guessed?

consider how player base received the kingmaker swarm problem

there isn't that many vocal pathfinder 1e player remember many minor rule

more player still fight the system to enjoy the game not enjoy the game because of the system

[Vaeliorin]

Man, I keep finding weird bugs.  In the interest of seeing if maybe angel would be better for my shaman, I was messing around with it, and somehow managed to end up with spell levels in my spellbook that only had angel spells and no shaman spells.  If it had been consistent, that would have been one thing, but it was different levels of spells various times.  Though, come to think of it, I remember hearing about that one before, I think...solved on a reload, maybe?

Regardless, I honestly think gold dragon is better than angel for the build I'm messing with.  The extra 10 base attack is pretty huge, as are the stat boosts (especially since the character is using intimidate as well...+8 Str and +8 Cha is a pretty substantial boost.)  Azata and Aeon's attack boosts might compete, but loosing out on the extra power attack damage and save buffs would hurt.  Yeah, gold dragon doesn't have a spellbook, but angel is the only spellbook that would really give significant boosts from what I can tell.

I should really continue my current run instead of playing with builds...

[ShadySands]

Gold dragon doesn't have a spellbook but the spell boosts are pretty awesome between perfect soul and the natural immunities feats

Quote

The Gold Dragon gains immunity to cold, fire, electricity, and acid, energy drain and negative energy. All your damage is now holy damage.

Any Spells dealing damage now change their dice to d10, if it was not d10 or greater. If it was d10 or greater, the spell instead plus one bonus to damage per die.

I did a crossblooded trickster blaster to GD just to play around with and his damage was measured in Deskaris per second

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, ShadySands said:

Gold dragon doesn't have a spellbook but the spell boosts are pretty awesome between perfect soul and the natural immunities feats

I did a crossblooded trickster blaster to GD just to play around with and his damage was measured in Deskaris per second

am thinking there is some misconceptions about spellcasting. the angel and lich spellbooks are indeed powerful, and caster level does make a big difference in a few situations, but for a blaster, being level 30 as 'posed to 20 don't make much difference. your ability to hit touch ac is not gonna improve with 10 extra caster levels, and is so much gear for beating touch ac and sr that those hurdles is a non factor in any event. is a few blaster spells where dc's is important, but dc is also not based on caster level. caster attribute score and spell level is important for the would-be blaster. the gold dragon, now that is working, gives a charisma caster a big boost, transforms damage type to unresistible holy damage and ups the hd from what is typical d6 or d8 to d10, which am knowing don't seem like a huge factor until you do the math. is why those stacking 1-point-per die boosts from crossblood bloodlines or a few gear pieces is so devastating when added to hellfire rays and stormbolts n' such... though particular hellfire rays as you are talking endgame 45 hd worth o' damage. 

as noted, am gonna eventual go lich/gold dragon. yeah, is tough to compete with a few o' the mindlessly spammable lich and angel spells, but am not thinking we handicap self too bad by going with the gd route.

HA! Good Fun!

ps our blaster main were a sorc azata. am not gonna suggest azata is best for blasters, but is more than good enough to be managing screen wiping displays o' pyrotechnics. we went cold, which were a mistake 'cause o' what we assume is a bug regarding dc boosting feats and gear not applying correct to the azata spellbook, but even as a human instead o' half-elf, and recognizing we didn't take best archetype for a blaster, we were screen clearing opposition with impunity.  zippy magic is a big boost for a blaster. we went arcane trickster and were satisfied with the results. 

but again, lich and angel is having many advantages o' blasters w/o needing work out the details o' a build or come up with a plan to take advantage o' capabilities. an angel oracle spamming storm of justice is not requiring schemes or plans or exploits. with storm of justice, enemies die... fast. entire screen o' enemies.

will be curious to see how builds perform with the dlc. inevitables and proteans is gonna be foes 'stead o' demons. holy damage shouldn't be effective against non evil, but holy and unholy damage doesn't behave as one would expect in wotr.

pps we mention proteans 'cause when we recent checked to see how many steam players had managed the secret of secrets quest, we saw the thumbnails for the new dlc achievements, and the "glimpse of truth" achievement sure has the semblance o' a pathfinder protean. 

Edited February 22, 2022 by Gromnir

[Vaeliorin]

3 hours ago, ShadySands said:

Gold dragon doesn't have a spellbook but the spell boosts are pretty awesome between perfect soul and the natural immunities feats

I did a crossblooded trickster blaster to GD just to play around with and his damage was measured in Deskaris per second

Yeah, I was more referring to the extra spells that the various classes get that could fill in holes in the Shaman spellbook.

Also, in my testing, the gold dragon die size increase doesn't work.  I was messing around with an Eldritch Scion Gold Dragon, and her shocking grasp was stilling doing d6's.  But maybe a mod or something was interfering with it (or maybe it actually requires you to do the quests?  I was just testing with toybox.)

[majestic]

Well, Drezen is taken, and with the Angel spell merge it's going much better than before. Reaching level 9 made the Brown-Fur Transmuter a whole lot more fun too. It is really not very fun to go up against those hit point sponges that you pretty much need to pull out extended buffs for all the time to make it all bearable, but it's workable enough.

Need to pull out some serious defense scaling shenanigans to make this work. Once I'm done, I'm never going to play Unfair again.

[Vaeliorin]

So I found an actual, honest to goodness playing the game not just messing around with builds bug.  In the market square, there's that house that has a Brimorak and some other demons in it, and I can't get past the doorway.  I can get into the house, but there's a doorway just inside, and I can't move past it.  I cheated in an item that gave me dimension door, and I couldn't even dimension door past it.  It's like the area has no walk mesh or something.  Not a huge deal, it's only a little bit of xp, but I kinda wanted the sword that you get there.

Anyway, just finished the tavern defense...was pretty easy (grease is really good), but took a while.  Ended on turn 34.  I kept waiting for the big minotaur thing to show up, and it seemed like it took forever.  Just a couple things to finish up in Kenabres (Just Woljif's quest and there one other area that's on the part of the map...the PItaxian Wine Cellar?) before storming the Garrison.

[Gromnir]

3 hours ago, Vaeliorin said:

  Not a huge deal, it's only a little bit of xp, but I kinda wanted the sword that you get there.

 

heads up: the covenant o' the inheritor relic fragment is also in the burning house.

aside:

with valmallos all but confirmed as the inevitable in the dlc art for "the inevitable excess," we would not be surprised if narriseminek, the protean lord o' ascendence, also makes an appearance. 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited February 23, 2022 by Gromnir

[Vaeliorin]

8 hours ago, Gromnir said:

heads up: the covenant o' the inheritor relic fragment is also in the burning house.

aside:

with valmallos all but confirmed as the inevitable in the dlc art for "the inevitable excess," we would not be surprised if narriseminek, the protean lord o' ascendence, also makes an appearance. 

HA! Good Fun!

Bleh, I didn't realize that.  Validating files, if that doesn't fix it, I guess I'll just cheat it in...it's not like it isn't a fight I could win pretty easily at this point.

[Gromnir]

30 minutes ago, Vaeliorin said:

Bleh, I didn't realize that.  Validating files, if that doesn't fix it, I guess I'll just cheat it in...it's not like it isn't a fight I could win pretty easily at this point.

are you playing the beta or 1.1.7f? not being able to get through doors were a frequent bug in pre and early post-release builds. those complaints has made a recent comeback, but am not sure if is mod related, 'cause again, is something which had largely disappeared from the owlcat forums until recent.

am not using mods, and we haven't had the doorway bug in many months, but anecdotal and singular experience is not meaningful.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Vaeliorin]

10 hours ago, Gromnir said:

are you playing the beta or 1.1.7f? not being able to get through doors were a frequent bug in pre and early post-release builds. those complaints has made a recent comeback, but am not sure if is mod related, 'cause again, is something which had largely disappeared from the owlcat forums until recent.

am not using mods, and we haven't had the doorway bug in many months, but anecdotal and singular experience is not meaningful.

HA! Good Fun!

 

The beta.  I've had the doorway bug during turn-based combat, but this wasn't in combat.  I just couldn't go through the doorway, and trying to dimension door past it, it wouldn't let me target anywhere past the door.  I couldn't cast any spells past it (I tried to fireball through the door to aggro the enemies, and it wouldn't let me.)  I actually tried Toybox's kill all enemies button, and nothing died, so I don't know that the enemies were even there (I've never used it before, so I have no idea how it works.)

I just cheated in the piece of a holy symbol and continued on.  Just finished the Gray Garrison (where I had another bug where it didn't properly transition back to my party after showing the Areelu cutscene, so it was just my party and the wardstone in a gray void...fortunately reloading fixed that) and about to leave camp for the first time.  Hopefully the future will be more bug free.

[bringingyouthefuture]

On 2/22/2022 at 10:52 AM, uuuhhii said:

consider how player base received the kingmaker swarm problem

there isn't that many vocal pathfinder 1e player remember many minor rule

more player still fight the system to enjoy the game not enjoy the game because of the system

So I honestly think they could balance the game better by just cutting back on the amount of encounters and/or the number of enemies in the encounters, they did a descent job of creating some interesting boss fights, and I like the fact that the hardest fights you can skip if you want, but around the time of Drezen the game goes a little overboard in the encounters, there was a clear dropoff in enjoyment for me after that point, though this was definitely helped by the leveling up my mythic abilities  

I was still playing when you couldn't turn of Aivu's frightful presence too, it was intense ...

[Vaeliorin]

Okay, so I went with a mage general this time (I went with a fighter general my first attempt, thinking that they'd get more troops faster, hence stronger army) and wow is it ridiculously more powerful.  Just scorching ray-ing enemy units out of existence.  It's silly how much better it is.

[Gromnir]

On 2/23/2022 at 5:12 PM, Vaeliorin said:

The beta.  I've had the doorway bug during turn-based combat, but this wasn't in combat.  I just couldn't go through the doorway, and trying to dimension door past it, it wouldn't let me target anywhere past the door.  I couldn't cast any spells past it (I tried to fireball through the door to aggro the enemies, and it wouldn't let me.)  I actually tried Toybox's kill all enemies button, and nothing died, so I don't know that the enemies were even there (I've never used it before, so I have no idea how it works.)

I just cheated in the piece of a holy symbol and continued on.  Just finished the Gray Garrison (where I had another bug where it didn't properly transition back to my party after showing the Areelu cutscene, so it was just my party and the wardstone in a gray void...fortunately reloading fixed that) and about to leave camp for the first time.  Hopefully the future will be more bug free.

am literal only having five minutes to post. that said, saw this (belated) and am gonna observe the bug you describe with doorways appears to be common in the beta. had been all but complete exorcised for months. in fact, is quite a few curious legacy bugs in the beta. example: the inability o' a few classes and archetypes to choose the relevant caster spellbook for loremaster has returned with the beta.  playing the beta is an at-your-own-risk proposition-- there is a considerable chance o' suffering a build or save killing bug if you play beta. based on a bit o' the official board feedback regarding bugs and the beta, we would not be shocked if the dlc (and the patch changes) were again delayed.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[ShadySands]

Lich just got out of the Abyss

 

And underwent the final transformation to become a true lich. Gave up everything but my vitality and the ritual worked but when all was said and done Zach wouldn't give me my phylactery without me begging for it. I ending up killing him when the only options left were beg or attack but not before he broke my phylactery. I also now have his phylactery, which he's stuck in, in my possession and I'm pretty curious to see how this unfolds.

I also still look like a skeleton even though I kept my vitality. I dunno if that's a bug or I missed the explanation or just misunderstood.

Oh, and Seelah left me because paladins don't like liches and even though I had done nothing wrong apparently enslaving the dead is inherently evil or something. Just for the record, I was a solid N. 

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by ShadySands

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

17 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Lich just got out of the Abyss

  Reveal hidden contents

And underwent the final transformation to become a true lich. Gave up everything but my vitality and the ritual worked but when all was said and done Zach wouldn't give me my phylactery without me begging for it. I ending up killing him when the only options left were beg or attack but not before he broke my phylactery. I also now have his phylactery, which he's stuck in, in my possession and I'm pretty curious to see how this unfolds.

I also still look like a skeleton even though I kept my vitality. I dunno if that's a bug or I missed the explanation or just misunderstood.

Oh, and Seelah left me because paladins don't like liches and even though I had done nothing wrong apparently enslaving the dead is inherently evil or something. Just for the record, I was a solid N. 

 

Note: this is all hearsay

The lost vitality hits you with a -2 to physical stats. It's about turning into a senior. Which makes **** all sense but whatever, you easily recoup the attribute loss.

I know liches can still do the Ascension regardless of Zach and the phylactery, but I assume it may change the normal ending. You've lost out on an item with a once a day revive, because Lich immortality isn't for you.

Personally I think the skeleton lich is a disappointment and prefer the Pathfinder art concepts.

[uuuhhii]

1 hour ago, ShadySands said:

Lich just got out of the Abyss

  Hide contents

And underwent the final transformation to become a true lich. Gave up everything but my vitality and the ritual worked but when all was said and done Zach wouldn't give me my phylactery without me begging for it. I ending up killing him when the only options left were beg or attack but not before he broke my phylactery. I also now have his phylactery, which he's stuck in, in my possession and I'm pretty curious to see how this unfolds.

I also still look like a skeleton even though I kept my vitality. I dunno if that's a bug or I missed the explanation or just misunderstood.

Oh, and Seelah left me because paladins don't like liches and even though I had done nothing wrong apparently enslaving the dead is inherently evil or something. Just for the record, I was a solid N. 

 

iomedae did start the whole career fighting whispering tyrant

it make some sense follower of iomedae doesn't like lich specifically