Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, Part 3

[uuuhhii]

that arue stat in the adventure path are just too crazy for a companion

it would make everyone else looks extremely weak

though compare to the stat bloat enemy have it may seems reasonable

the game really didn't design for anything other than merge book angel to be convenient

and the game was never designed well to begin with

[Gromnir]

13 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

 

the game really didn't design for anything other than merge book angel to be convenient

and the game was never designed well to begin with

disagree with the first point. agree with second.

merged spellbook angel characters are unburdened by the need to meta. the capacity to spam bolt of justice and storm o' justice with a high caster level character who also has a few o' the best defensive buffs in the game almost eliminates the need to micro parse the owlcat implementation o' the pathfinder rules. if you wanna play wotr straight, w/o reading guides or having awareness o' the best fests/spells/weapons/class features, w/o comical specific awareness o' the wotr synergies which exist specific in the owlcat implementation, then merged angel is nevertheless gonna be viable for a normal difficulty run and maybe even core.

unfortunate, particular given enemy stat bloat and immunities, we would suggest wotr were designed less for merged angel spellbook, 'cause the stat bloat don't matter for such characters, but rather for what we woulda' previous assumed were a small % o' wotr players who play at the margins o' the rules. inexplicable, the design o' many encounters hinges on the assumption a player will have indulged the kinda game the game mentality which gives 'em a huge advantage when facing bosses and the like, particular from the midpoint o' the game forward. 

knowledge and exploitation of pathfinder's non-intuitive stacking rules results in a significant gulf between the kinda attack bonuses and dcs a casual player may achieve versus the numbers you will see produced by persons who clear has meta'd the game to an extreme degree. am gonna suggest the enemy stat bloat we see in the game is legit if one assumes the player is commonly making use of multiple exploits, the kinda exploits which a pnp dm/gm would likely disallow. 

am not a proponent o' the wotr design philosophy which avoids almost any effort to balance but instead inflates foe capabilities so as to counter the assumed player exploits. however, am clear not the target owlcat were aiming to reach. wotr mythic paths is horribly unbalanced, but based on feedback we has seen, they is popular. w/o the bloat, the players who make extreme use o' pathfinder stacking opportunities woulda' been bored with wotr, but is hard to imagine the game were genuine designed for such players, and yet, here we are.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

On 1/12/2022 at 11:45 PM, xzar_monty said:

I am very much inclined to think that Owlcat likes to annoy players.

Maybe, but I think it's more likely bad design rather than intentionally annoying.

19 hours ago, Gromnir said:

regardless, name a companion and tell us how with owlcat stat distributions and starting feats the character is not good enough to do an unfair run?

Staunton. He's got a mess of a build with several junk feats and a curious attribute allocation. At best you can go down the Vital Strike chain and hope he doesn't get focused on.

Of course Staunton is an outlier and most companions seem to be built well enough, assuming WotR was designed to be played straight. Unfortunately Owlcat designed WotR assuming both a high level of system mastery and a tendency to exploit the system whenever possible. The problem isn't that Sosiel went for Medium Armor Focus instead of a Monk unarmored barb dip or that Seelah foolishly picked Shield Focus over planning on a  Paladin/Scaled Fist/Oracle/Court Poet/Dragon Disciple build, it's that the rampant bloat in WotR puts such a high premium on ramping your AB/AC/Saves to comically high levels that the flavorful options companions have taken or an inexperienced player would take just don't cut it for some of the difficulty spikes you'd be likely to hit on Normal. At the end of the day the problem is bad design, which Owlcat doubled down on instead of trying to address.

15 hours ago, uuuhhii said:

that arue stat in the adventure path are just too crazy for a companion

it would make everyone else looks extremely weak

though compare to the stat bloat enemy have it may seems reasonable

the game really didn't design for anything other than merge book angel to be convenient

and the game was never designed well to begin with

You can blatantly cheat by boosting your stats up to hit 40 in all attributes and you'll still fall short of some random enemies that pop up. PnP Cthulhu would probably not make it past Act 4.

[Gromnir]

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

the flavorful options companions have taken or an inexperienced player would take just don't cut it for some of the difficulty spikes

so, your one kinda example is self-identified as an outlier. exception which proves Gromnir's rule? ok with us. btw, we keep mentioning intimidation builds and how powerful they are, so is perhaps overlooked that staunton makes for a viable option for lich party intimidator seeing as how seelah and sosiel is not gonna be lich besties. hardly ideal an ideal use for staunton, but is workable for an outlier companion only available to lich players.

simultaneous, you in fact recognize the problem ain't the companions, but is rather encounter design which punishes anybody not knowledgeable o' owlcat's version o' pathfinder... which is repeating back to us our own oft-repeated argument.  your realization also invalidates your initial respec mod observation as the problem is the game is curiously designed for players with a high level o' knowledge o' the wotr implemented rules, so being able to custom build seelah or regill won't likely help with the problem...  particularly as you feel cheating abilities up to 40 is insufficient in some cases. respec is not a particular useful tool in the hands o' a player with limited knowledge o' owlcat's rules. heck, seelah is a funny mention as you meet her at level one, so is little you might want that you cannot spec or respec sans a mod anyways. whatever flavour you imagine is cooked into seelah is limited to level one feats and the class choice, which is hardly obstacles to building her many different ways. 

again, is not the companions, not even staunton, who you unlikely used meaningful in game as you just finished your first run with an azata. the tower shield bit is just weird for staunton but is hardly a real problem and may even come in handy in the extreme limited situations when you is losing dex and dodge bonus. 

if you do not know the stacking rules and owlcat's unique implementation o' them, then wotr is likely to be a frustrating experience. period. for whatever reason, owlcat designed the game so as to be moderate challenging for players with over-the-top knowledge o' their rules, and punishing for casual players. doesn't work for us, but owlcat fans appear to enjoy that kinda thing. converse, if you do know all the exploits baked into owlcat's wotr, then all the companions is endgame viable even on unfair.  is not the companions. optimize a wotr level one seelah *chuckle* will not somehow marked change any issues you have with facing demon lords, playful darkness or the pathetic quasit. 

HA! Good Fun!

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Gromnir said:

so, your one kinda example is self-identified as an outlier.

You asked to name a character and I did.  Staunton just isn't very good and even intimidate build can't save him, especially because even with Lich undead minions you've got better options for intimidation with at least two of them.

Regardless, yes the problem is more about the system as a whole than companions specifically. We agree completely on this front. The issue I have with companions is that Owlcat, designing the game assuming players would optimization over flavor, built companions more flavourful than optimal. It sends mixed messages to players and can be extremely frustrating if you aren't familiar with Owlcat's take on Pathfinder. It's on a similar level to the recommend feats, which do not recommend spell penetration or intimidation feats. Neither the recommended feats nor the unoptimized companion builds are a big deal if you know how the system works but it is confusing for those who aren't familiar, potentially in a way that makes the game unplayable.

Edited January 14, 2022 by KP on top of ZA WARUDO

[Gromnir]

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

You asked to name a character and I did.

some people will never admit a mistake. context is important, no? if the only companion you come up with to refute the notion that the wotr companions is viable even on unfair is a single lich-only option (and staunton is indeed still viable unfair) then has the example served better to illustrate your point or ours? *insert shrug emoji here*

respec mods won't fix the problem, 'cause the problem is not the owlcat builds for companions but rather the requisite high degree o' knowledge o' pathfinder and wotr specific. is not even genuine a matter o' optimization as your mention o' seelah should make clear. don't matter how optimal is seelah at level one when facing playful darkness or nocticula. our angel run were with a sacred huntsmaster/zen archer and no matter how we built such it weren't gonna be anywhere near as powerful as a combined spellbook angel. we didn't choose optimal stat distributions or skill choices, and near the end o' the game we were choosing feats for flavour. we did not go half-elf for our azata blaster sorcerer, though would be something we obvious recommend to a player choosing to optimize. didn't matter 'cause we knew which domains to choose and which spells were synergizing and which hexes worked best and/or stacked with other hexes. have used "optimization" language our self and am thinking is not actual accurate. to succeed on even moderate difficulty levels w/o suffering significant frustration you don't need anything close to optimal, but you do need a high degree o' wotr and pathfinder specific knowledge. 

'course again we has noted owlcat fans actual want the bloat, even if they rail 'gainst it. owlcat fans do not want any kinda balancing efforts to be made by the developers to their favorite exploits, which leads to mark of justice, the madness and community domains as well as the metal curse hex being disproportionate powerful. is hellfire rays comical overpowered when elemental damage boost options is worked into the equation? 'course they are, but as such is in pathfinder, is no way owlcat were gonna nerf. is dozens o' such exploits and owlcat fans has made it most clear they love such nonsense, which is why the even more munchkiny mythic path options owlcat largely spun outta whole cloth is also having fan approval. note, is not overpowered merged spellbooks which is criticized even in this thread but rather the fact only lich and angel enjoy. am knowing people don't wanna admit, but the reason you got bloat and difficulty spikes o' bosses is precise 'cause you got the unbalanced mess o' a game you wanted. am suspecting the only way to make even a few encounters any kinda challenge for knowledgeable players were to add bloat, 'cause as much as kingmaker coulda' been renamed pathfinder: adventures in munchkinland, as soon as wotr were announced as the ap chosen it were clear the player power level were gonna get an upgrade.

regardless, companion builds in wotr is not a genuine problem which limits success in wotr. identify one lich specific companion who is nevertheless unfair viable as evidence to refute such is perhaps not as effective as you thought it were.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Gromnir said:

staunton is indeed still viable unfair

You are the first person I have heard of successfully using Staunton on unfair. Was it fun to drag him around on unfair? How did he do against Areelu and Deskari?

Not every character needs to be optimized to the max like SwordSaint/Vivi/ScaledFist/Paladin to be able to clear unfair. But there are clearly trap and suboptimal options as well as (near) essential options. Neither the companion builds nor the recommend/ not recommend feats communicate this, the only way to know is to have system knowledge and metagame knowledge. The game assumes players will know how to game the system while providing information contrary to gaming it. That's just bad design.

Since Seelah keeps being brought up let's use her as an example. Sure you can make her a Bard or Oracle and it's great, but make her go all in on Paladin and not pick up a mount? She will move like a snail and crumble against the bloated AB, despite having the appearance of a solid heavy armor sword n board build. Does the game attempt to explain any of this? No, it dumps Seelah on you with the an initial build appearing to be for tank that most unfamiliar with Owlcat's Pathfinder would assume is good enough.

[ShadySands]

I put my -redacted- run on hold to mess around with some of the classes I never play and that's pretty much any non-companion or full spontaneous caster class.

Cheliax is getting on my nerves in my Devil run. I might just have to kick them out or kill every last one of them, I dunno if that's an option

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

12 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

I put my -redacted- run on hold to mess around with some of the classes I never play and that's pretty much any non-companion or full spontaneous caster class.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Cheliax is getting on my nerves in my Devil run. I might just have to kick them out or kill every last one of them, I dunno if that's an option

 

Comparatively to Kingmaker, I think the 6th level casters took a bit of a hit. Cavalier can be really good but it's most obvious tactic can be hard to pull off with the mapping.

Apparently you can manipulate your deals to benefit you at Cheliax's expense and this causes Cheliax to attack. You also can kill the queen afterward, from what I've heard. It'd be fitting for a Devil, if true.

[Gromnir]

our initial test lich and staunton finished off deskari anticlimactic quick. have mentioned previous how is possible to reduce unfair boss will saves by more than 20.

replayed a few times and with a glaive the warpriest didn't need be a frontliner but he is capable of big damage if built reasonable. staunton finished off deskari in atleast one fight, which typical only had us lose one or two summons or companions. yeah, get hit by deskari more than once and is pretty much game over for a companion. nevertheless, am suspecting you are simply gross mistaken 'bout the potential relative power of player parties. have mentioned previous how is possible to depower foes like deskari with empowered and maximized enervation, so once you add in factors such as madness domain abilities ('cause a non-save skill boost for deskari also cripples him significant,) as well as the debuffs from fear and literal a dozen other item and spell-based modifiers, deskari on unfair is not the challenge you believe he is. reduce will saves and ac to extreme manageable levels. with the knowledgeable stacking of attack bonuses, ac and silly mythic abilities like last stand, end game bosses rare lasted more than a couple rounds against any o' our parties, but that is 'cause we know the exploits.  

so, seelah is like staunton if you don't take a horse? that cannot be what you are suggesting. play seelah straight paladin and her main benefits is mark of justice and full ab, which is more than enough to make her unfair viable. perhaps the game don't tell you a horse is needed or that you should switch to a 2-handed weapon 'cause depending on how you loadout your party, those is not genuine essentials. on our azata run we gave seelah 8 levels o' court poet, but such did not help her endgame survivability much.  we always play tb, and as such with a sorc who kept the party near perpetual hastened, seelah were able to charge into battle w/o any problem and she were a viable quasi tank. as noted elsewhere, animal companions make better tanks.  we actual gave seelah weapon bond and we mistaken had chosen the last stand mythic ability 'cause we didn't realize such were nullified by life bonding friendship 'til late in act v, simple 'cause seelah hadn't died up 'til that point. never respec'd. did every major fight on unfair as well as the hard level difficulty we were ordinarily playing. the eight levels o' court poet were also a bit o' a waste 'cause as we mentioned earlier in this thread, the dc for waterfall were busted. our intent were to make a blaster who could take advantage o' waterfall to do big cold damage and we thought with all the conjuration dc buffing books, feats and items we could make waterfall boss viable. court poet o' eight levels shoulda' given us a functional +3 to dc for our sorc spells. largely wasted on our main character, though such buffs did aid other charisma and int based contributors to our party. 

again, our seelahs have been nowhere near optimized. did not appear to follow your needs neither. perhaps if we wanted optimized, respec would have us, as we had done elsewhere, give seelah a level o' oracle or sylvan sorc and then go mostly paladin and take a wolf or dog (or boar if serious 'bout unfair) but we didn't do respec on azata. were more than good enough with sword and board plus mark of justice and weapon bond.

the reason our parties were effective is not 'cause o' optimization or even anything you has mentioned. we roll-stomped 'cause we knew what spells, abilities and items synergized to give us an overwhelming advantage 'gainst bosses. such imbalance is what owlcat fans want. create such advantages for players and their parties and owlcat's reasonable if cheap response were stat bloat, which nevertheless is insufficient in most cases. 

HA! Good Fun!

ps animal companions, fully buffed, is overwhelming powerful, However, with aivu and a party full o' companions we had given animal companions, we opted for less clutter. seriously, the reason for not having a seelah animal companion is 'cause once you get 'round four critters in a party, on too many maps they functional block out other party members, and aivu becomes particularly large. couldn't justify another dog or wolf... and for whatever reason, lann's velociraptor displaced space as if it were one size larger than it were s'posed to, which am assuming is a bug which has never been addressed. the circle under the raptor takes up more space than dogs or other large critters. go figure. zoo management were a freaking nightmare when we first entered the drezen citadel, and that were pre aivu. 

pps @ShadySands if there is a way to kill a certain fiendish personage in a devil run, then we might consider a devil run. there is a robe which 'causes a -4 save v. fear, compulsion and charm effects to anybody in a 30' radius, but am suspecting you only get it if you kill the eponymous owner. otherwise, from what little we seen o' the devil stuff, we suspect we would be channeling lando too quick to endure.

 

Edited January 15, 2022 by Gromnir

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

23 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

our initial test lich and staunton finished off deskari anticlimactic quick. have mentioned previous how is possible to reduce unfair boss will saves by more than 20.

replayed a few times and with a glaive the warpriest didn't need be a frontliner but he is capable of big damage if built reasonable. staunton finished off deskari in atleast one fight, which typical only had us lose one or two summons or companions. yeah, get hit by deskari more than once and is pretty much game over for a companion. nevertheless, am suspecting you are simply gross mistaken 'bout the potential relative power of player parties. have mentioned previous how is possible to depower foes like deskari with empowered and maximized enervation, so once you add in factors such as madness domain abilities ('cause a non-save skill boost for deskari also cripples him significant,) as well as the debuffs from fear and literal a dozen other item and spell-based modifiers, deskari on unfair is not the challenge you believe he is. reduce will saves and ac to extreme manageable levels. with the knowledgeable stacking of attack bonuses, ac and silly mythic abilities like last stand, end game bosses rare lasted more than a couple rounds against any o' our parties, but that is 'cause we know the exploits.  

None of that affects Deskari's 80+ AC though and even tossing out the buffs Staunton is around 10 attack lower than other melee fighters the Lich might have on hand. Did you have to use the teamwork feats to shore up Vital Strike enough to hit, or did you use other debuffs after enervation?

25 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

so, seelah is like staunton if you don't take a horse?

Not that bad, just substantially worse than Seelah with a horse. If you go with Seelah's default build she goes full Paladin with Divine Weapon Bond, Heavy Armor Focus, Weapon Focus + Improved Critical, the Vital Strike line, Toughness, Great Fortitude, and Missile Shield. If this was pnp none of these would be that bad, but given WotR's bloat her AC is going to cap off much lower than the attack rolls I've seen enemies with in the game. You can always stack buffs on Seelah to boost AC, but almost all of that would apply to Iomeneigh as well who would be tankier and faster than Seelah on foot. Pally Seelah without a horse is just worse than Pally Seelah with a horse, and there's no real way to infer that from the information given to you in game.

51 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

seriously, the reason for not having a seelah animal companion is 'cause once you get 'round four critters in a party, on too many maps they functional block out other party members, and aivu becomes particularly large. couldn't justify another dog or wolf... and for whatever reason, lann's velociraptor displaced space as if it were one size larger than it were s'posed to, which am assuming is a bug which has never been addressed. the circle under the raptor takes up more space than dogs or other large critters. go figure. zoo management were a freaking nightmare when we first entered the drezen citadel, and that were pre aivu.

The animal companion spaces do not correlate with their statistical size, Dinosaurs are especially bad and take up the space of 3 to 5 humans. I will probably not use anything but a horse or wolf because of this.

To boot, I have a suspicion that having multiple pets + aivu made the performance issues I had in certain areas worse.

[Gromnir]

 

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

None of that affects Deskari's 80+ AC though and even tossing out the buffs Staunton is around 10 attack lower than other melee fighters the Lich might have on hand. Did you have to use the teamwork feats to shore up Vital Strike enough to hit, or did you use other debuffs after enervation?

am not sure if you are being serious, so will pretend you are. shame on us.

of course to other buffs, debuffs and teamwork feats. you do realize outflank is functional a must for any melee character... works ok for ranged. fear, as we has mentioned ad nauseum is also a powerful debuff which a character such as the undead warpriest who no doubt has shatter defenses will exploit to render deskari footed, significant robbing him o' ac. previous we listed all the items which increase illusion and/or enchantment dc. consider all the potential debuffs those make possible. curses directed at deskari once his saves is lowered is a nice way to debuff him further.  rangers bond? you do know how effective rangers bod can be, and with distracting shots, your melee characters is gonna benefit even more.  if you buff staunton with madness to get the bonus to ab, how is that any less effective than a debuff to deskari ac? who cares if stunton takes a hit to his saves and skill checks 'cause with the kinda damage he and your party do, the fight is not gonna last more than a couple rounds. if you want to hit deskari with staunton is not hard to manage stratospheric ab buffs. since you were planning on a vital strike build, then you must realize there is multiple ways to get staunton the benefits o' true strike, yes?  earlier we were mentioning a terrible companion we would never use for a good run... which doesn't apply to a lich run, yes? why did we say we would take the nameless mess of a character? review if need be.

Spoiler

that single character, 'tween two hexes may lower deskari ac by 10 points.

with the madness buff alone + the debuffs from that companion and you got a functional equivalent o' up to a 20 point shift in your favor, though likely only 19 as whomever you got doing your cleric domains likely is not sosiel.  we would definite recommend adding community domain for any unfair run as well, which should provide another +10 stacking ab bonus*chuckle* for our parties we ordinarily got deskari and baphomet fear locked w/i moments o' the start o' battle, so staunton hacking away with vital strikes boosted by fortune while enjoying that companion's hexes means we are gonna hit kinda regular. 

etc.

you don't genuine need us to run down the entire lists? has gotta be dozens o' videos on how people take down deskari on unfair and am suspecting many have common elements and not all is gonna be one-shot kills such as or weird approach. 

https://www.google.com/search?q=deskari+unfair+wotr&oq=deskari+unfair+wotr&aqs=chrome..69i57.10205j1j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

gonna once again observe how the most simple reason why offending bloat exists is 'cause is so many videos and guides such as you will no doubt find with your favorite search engine which explain how to dispatch deskari w/o much sweat. the companions are all more than fine precise 'cause owlcat's version o' pathfinder is so easily exploited. could make even better companions? so what?

is not about optimization, which you keep ignoring. sure we can build a better vanilla paladin seelah than the handicapped version we ultimate ended up with in our azata run, which was our point. (though, in our defense, stances were only removed from court poets after we started seelah as our paladin court poet) we can build a better blaster than we used for our main azata. we never use that companion, and such is functional self handicapping but not for the tanky explanation you offered earlier in the thread. identify better is not meaningful when discussing whether or not the companions is viable w/o resorting to mercs or respec mods, which if you wanna review were your observations. seelah w/o a horse is capable o' an unfair run, and if she is capable o' unfair while non-optimized, then trying to convince us she (and the other companions) is somehow insufficient for the ordinary wotr player's comes across as wholly unconvincing. is particular weird 'cause is not even some hidden or removed quality o' seelah which you is referencing insofar a the horse. somehow is now meaningful that the divine weapon bond recommendation is evidence o' poor designed companions such as inspired respec mods or mercs. 

the wotr companion builds is more than adequate, and the bloat is clear not the insurmountable issue you imagine it to be. personal am thinking owlcat's assumed player solution to bloat is terrible, but we played flavor companions and switched to unfair to test boss battles and managed better than just fine. is so much ridiculous dc boosting gear and spell synergies and hex exploits that the bosses don't stand much o' a chance even with mythic bloat... and that should be the real problem being identified, but is nevertheless overlooked.                                                          

HA! Good Fun!

[Chairchucker]

Elan of the Houndhearts is the worst. Every time I restart I like him less. What a self righteous jackass. He is probably my least favourite character.

[ShadySands]

I find him a bit annoying but at the same time wish we had more interaction with all of Seelah's little crew. All their quest resolutions are a little too simplistic.

 

[Gromnir]

wotr characters (including companions) don't get much effort.

Spoiler

as for elan, hate to say this, but his biggest problem is he doesn't realize he is part o' a heroic fantast story.  the one member o' the crusade who would be complete unsurprised by the big reveal behind your mythic powers is elan, 'cause he is the only character in the game who voices concerns 'bout a nobody from nowhere with no mendev military experience sudden being given the responsibility for leading the crusade. another one of galfrey's rash decisions. he is also the guy who observes how preternatural convenient it is that you and your party show up with sooperpowers at a moment o' great need. a collection o' inexperienced adventurers with no great history o' accomplishments is granted powers by... whom? the gods? and btw, your party includes lunatics, serial killers, criminals and misfits which is great if you are telling a fantastic story o' high adventure, but is unlikely the folks you want leading the world's best hope against a demon incursion led by multiple demon lords. elan questions all of this, saying out loud what a reasonable person would be thinking.

oh, and elan is most assured correct that the proper response to dealing with curl at the campsite were to kill or disable him asap, and then ask him or his corpse questions afterwards, 'cause in a fantasy world you may indeed as questions after they are dead. 

elan seems like a toolbag 'cause he is the only member o' the crusade who isn't going along with the heroic fantasy trip everybody else is enjoying. am not his fan either, but am also recognizing he is possible the only crusader voice o' reason we get a chance to hear, and is unfortunate limited to extreme brief and unpleasant interactions. he woulda' made a fantastic cassandra if he had been given more development, but to be fair, homer didn't give much development to cassandra. 

HA! Good Fun!

[uuuhhii]

who

didn't put much thought into those minor character

was too busy disappointed by things like the lack of baphomet in act 5

and didn't even get a decent conversation with that balor in act 2 and 3

[Gromnir]

HA! Good Fun!

ps whatever owlcat did insofar as the smite ability, it did not affect our celestial velociraptor from receiving unlimited smite opportunities. am admitting it feels a bit cheaty, but watching the dino explode stuff is kinda addictive. 

Edited January 17, 2022 by Gromnir

[Agiel]

Just as well that those fixes were for Trickster talents were either mere stepping stones to the truly broken talents (World 1) or ones that I invested no points into (Nature, Stealth) on my playthrough. Granted the bug that truly crippled my Trickster playthrough was Persuasion affecting my own party members and paralysing them.

[xzar_monty]

And so I met everyone's favourite enemy, Playful Darkness. It's certainly not a pleasant encounter. In fact, after I had tried it once on Core(*), I set my Difficulty to Normal and managed the encounter on my first try. The loot was underwhelming, i.e. just what I expected. The XP reward was good, though, it has to be said. I can't remember getting anything close to those numbers from anything else, quest-related or otherwise.

I suppose the most reasonable way to deal with this is "tons of summons" + "as much dispelling as you can muster" + "and then all the firepower you have". Firepower both literal and figurative.

 

(*) Actually Custom. Core has the "Numer of Enemies" set at "Increased", whereas I want it at "Normal". Everything else is at Core settings for me. I find it slightly annoying that the default Core is, in a way, something other than Core.

[Gromnir]

6 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

And so I met everyone's favourite enemy, Playful Darkness. It's certainly not a pleasant encounter. In fact, after I had tried it once on Core(*), I set my Difficulty to Normal and managed the encounter on my first try. The loot was underwhelming, i.e. just what I expected. The XP reward was good, though, it has to be said. I can't remember getting anything close to those numbers from anything else, quest-related or otherwise.

I suppose the most reasonable way to deal with this is "tons of summons" + "as much dispelling as you can muster" + "and then all the firepower you have". Firepower both literal and figurative.

 

(*) Actually Custom. Core has the "Numer of Enemies" set at "Increased", whereas I want it at "Normal". Everything else is at Core settings for me. I find it slightly annoying that the default Core is, in a way, something other than Core.

from the playful darkness encounter you do get a stat boosting book and the helm is potential quite strong until end game. keep in mind animal companions may wear helms. our aggressor velociraptor made considerable us o' the helm. am having a difficult time criticizing the loot reward.

our recollection is playful darkness has something like 60ish ac on core (maybe hard) and is +30 level, with ~+30 for all saves. most summons will get chewed up and your party will only hit on a crit or with the benefit o' true strike... or perhaps with a touch attack. even summons, which is a good idea, you need all the essential buffs and debuffs and need use spells which ignore saves and sr, OR go the creeping doom route OR get lucky with an azata caster who also has all the right equipment to maybe generate enough o' a dc to maybe get a lucky cast or two.

am personal a fan o' stacked pillars of light and an over-the-top intimidator 'cause then we don't need camellia, but intimidation and stacked pillars o' light is most definite exploitive.

there is ways to defeat playful darkness on core-unfair, but they all require the kinda pathfinder cheese... and is the cheese which led to owlcat adding the bloat.

HA! Good Fun!

ps

Spoiler

am pretty sure blightmaw also offers a huge xp boost, keeping in mind it is a lower level encounter so it necessarily offers less xp, but proportional it were a significant reward and resulted in an insta party level-up for our crew.  for reasons we have mentioned previous, blightmaw is for Gromnir playstyle easier to overcome than chorussina, so is no downside to letting blightmaw spawn. get the ring which boosts enchantment spell dc by 2 is also a fantastic loot drop... if you have a caster built to take advantage o' such.

 

[ShadySands]

It cracks be up every time I tell on Curl for looting corpses since by this point if I haven't already written the book on corpse looting then I've at least penned the foreword. 

[Gromnir]

Just now, ShadySands said:

It cracks be up every time I tell on Curl for looting corpses since by this point if I haven't already written the book on corpse looting then I've at least penned the foreword. 

our aeon stole everything not nailed down and nobody cared. enter a pub and purloined their food and booze while kitchen staff looked on impotent? our justice were in short supply as we entered buildings in kenebras and took the hidden gold the residents no doubt meant to keep out o' the hands o' thieves and looters. 

crpg morality is limited to the game impact it has on an alignment compass or faction reputation meter. 

aside

this stuff is so weird. 

wotr wenduag:

Spoiler

and a quirky aside possible limited to early print editions, but the pronoun used to describe wenduag in the first ap installment is mixed-- gets both male and female pronouns in the extreme limited exposure it ever received. we assumed wenduag were male, not that we ever gave it much thought as it were an extreme minor npc in the run o' wotr our group never bothered to finish.

regardless, the anime treatment for wenduag, given we thought o' him as they creepy spider dude with the extra limbs and eyes, is kinda amusing... and so utter typical o' what we expect from fans.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[xzar_monty]

The stealing mechanics really is mightily weird. I mean, stealing was noticed in Ultima V, back in the 1980s, but in P:K and WotR nobody cares. It's just odd.

Btw, after Playful Darkness and another encounter (boss), I ended up in the Abyss and presumably in Act 4 or whatever -- and immediately failed a quest. I think it was called "Maximize all crusade stats", close to that anyway. I really don't know what I could have done better: the map is pretty much cleared and I waited for some extra demon armies to arrive, but that's about it. Not a lot more to do, in my understanding. My levels are at IV and V. In at least one stat I have more XP than is needed to progress but there is no progress. Again, it's just odd.

[Agiel]

For nearly all Mythic paths, particularly good-aligned and non-Chaotic ones, I don't really see much role-playing justification to take Wenduag over Lann. You as your character have seen first-hand how deceitful she is and are given just about every justification in thinking that she can turn at the drop of a hat, and from what literature I've read about her storyline unless you follow a very specific set of decisions she'll do just that. Granted as compared to Lann it seems at least a bit harder to stumble into a romance sidequest with Wenduag with my female PC.

Edited January 19, 2022 by Agiel

[Gromnir]

4 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

The stealing mechanics really is mightily weird. I mean, stealing was noticed in Ultima V, back in the 1980s, but in P:K and WotR nobody cares. It's just odd.

Btw, after Playful Darkness and another encounter (boss), I ended up in the Abyss and presumably in Act 4 or whatever -- and immediately failed a quest. I think it was called "Maximize all crusade stats", close to that anyway. I really don't know what I could have done better: the map is pretty much cleared and I waited for some extra demon armies to arrive, but that's about it. Not a lot more to do, in my understanding. My levels are at IV and V. In at least one stat I have more XP than is needed to progress but there is no progress. Again, it's just odd.

which stats is iv as 'posed to v? could advise if we know where is the shortfall.

HA! Good Fun!