Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, Part 4

[InsaneCommander]

Drezen – Part 4

 

Spoiler

I couldn’t resist sending some fireballs into a room full of cultists chanting. But I wondered if there was something else to see there, so I reloaded and waited for it to finish and holy crap! Blightmaw totally destroyed my party. He one shot even my tank.

Then I tried again with some preparation. He has low Reflex so I started casting Grease and Web once the enemies were triggered, along with most of my summons, including the two Azata (one from the Tankard of Free Spirit). He actually resisted all the spells, but a little later I cast another Grease (a Heightened one) and it worked. Still, it was a close call, there was only one summon left in the end, besides Bismuth, the Triceratops, that finished the battle with -113 HPs. I didn’t even try to Frighten Blightmaw since I was keeping everyone as far away from him as possible. In the end, the battle was worth it as now I have a +2 DC ring for Enchantment spells. This is enough to change my mind about the respec of Mythical abilities.

I checked the internet for strategies and it seems you can attract him all the way to where “Yaniel” is and let them have fun with each other. I imagine she would have no choice since she still wanted to keep her disguise at that time.

The two battles with Nabasus had plenty of Web and Grease too, and the last of my summons.

When I displayed the relic, I chose Azata. Ember was happy, Arueshalae really liked that and Seelah thinks we are a circus now. I wonder how she reacts to Trickster. Now I have a third spellbook and it seems they all had the same spells to choose from. But that is ok, I won’t be progressing as Oracle. I also gained the adorable Dragon companion, Aivu. I gave her lots of scrolls since she has levels in Use Magic Device, but there were only a few battles left and I didn't even tested that.

Areelu appeared and told Sosiel and Nenio to shut the f*** up. She was revealed as the caster of the Feather Fall spell in the beginning of the game. I wonder who protected Seelah, Camellia and everyone else who fell into the crack on the occasion. Only Anevia got seriously hurt.

In the end I found the three stooges Minagho, Nurah and Staunton. The demon was panicking, but if she dies, won’t she simply return to the abyss? Or will she become a larvae again? I didn’t select it, but it was cool to see a dialogue option calling them cowards and traitors.

And apparently one of the dialogue options was for low intelligence characters, or at least that was how Staunton took it:

Now Ember finally has ascendant fire, Nenio got the abundant casting level 2 and Sosiel the greater 24 h duration for spells. This is gonna be awesome, it'll work for Eagle’s Splendor and other spells that used to last only a few minutes.

 

[ShadySands]

Regarding Yaniel

I used to get her killed at the ghoul pit because she drops some pretty decent loot. Didn't break anything in the story either but I haven't tried it in a while so I dunno if it still works.

 

[Gorth]

I'm about to enter Drezen. Together with Regill or his Hellknights. No idea if that's better or worse than joining the full frontal assault with the masses.

Regarding Nurah:

 

Oh yes, definitely something fishy about her. When the gargoyles were attacking the camp and everything was on fire, she was caught red handed with a vial of alchemists fire (or whatever the d&d molotov c0ctails are called) and tried to convince me it was a weapon against the fire resistant gargoyles. Yeah right, I might be a barbarian, but I'm not that stupid. I do have int 10 after all. Then I completed the Lost Chapel and went back to camp. Checking out all the NPC's to see if any new conversations showed up. Very little. Nurah also in complete denial about her arsonist tendencies. The game is dropping 3 tons clue pieces on your head, that she was behind the fires, but it will not let me burn at the stake. Then I decided to revisit Lost Chapel, because my first party was chosen for fighting and not passing skill checks and I failed several of the skill checks along the way *cough* and I completely overlooked a path leading down to the foot of the hill. Found a few items to put on an altar and after a lot of trial and error, got something that sounded like a tune out of it.

Went back to camp, did a last round before attacking Drezen and lo and behold, my perceptive barbarian spotted something in Nurahs tent. In the end, I decided to try to recruit her. The world would be better off without Crusaders and Demons after all...

Yes, I probably do spend way too much time revisiting my camp followers, but it surprises you every now and then. Also threw a round of drinks and song for the boys and girls to cheer up the mood. I can almost feel Regills eyes carving through my back and out of the front of my chest

[majestic]

Done:

Finished the game and did the secret ending. The final few fights were really weird, even for the unbalanced madness that Unfair is.

Spoiler

Some trashmobs (Gallu Stormcallers are immune to most easily available control spells) were worse than Areelu, Baphomet and Deskari. The Echo died in a single round.

Never touching that difficulty level again. Like ever. Sheesh.

[Gromnir]

6 minutes ago, majestic said:

 

endgame desolating gallu stormcallers are frustration-level tough. however, in spite of having wings, they is inexplicable subject to being knocked or rendered prone. is a number o' tactics which should not work 'gainst threshold gallu which nevertheless do. am recalling first time at threshold using battering blast and being surprised at the gallu falling prone after being hit. able to prone 'em makes a huge difference for us. our recollection is their reflex saves is their worst defense, so...

HA! Good Fun!

 

[MrBrown]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Done:

Finished the game and did the secret ending. The final few fights were really weird, even for the unbalanced madness that Unfair is.

  Reveal hidden contents

Some trashmobs (Gallu Stormcallers are immune to most easily available control spells) were worse than Areelu, Baphomet and Deskari. The Echo died in a single round.

Never touching that difficulty level again. Like ever. Sheesh.

What, you're not going for the "Sadistic Game Design" -achievement?

[majestic]

33 minutes ago, MrBrown said:

What, you're not going for the "Sadistic Game Design" -achievement?

It might not be impossible to do Sadistic Game Design on a full Unfair run, but I'm certainly not going to try.

1 hour ago, Gromnir said:

endgame desolating gallu stormcallers are frustration-level tough. however, in spite of having wings, they is inexplicable subject to being knocked or rendered prone. is a number o' tactics which should not work 'gainst threshold gallu which nevertheless do. am recalling first time at threshold using battering blast and being surprised at the gallu falling prone after being hit. able to prone 'em makes a huge difference for us. our recollection is their reflex saves is their worst defense, so...

HA! Good Fun!

Part of the frustration came from wanting to rush to the end and be done with it. One of them alone wasn't a big issue, but the packs that have two of them were a bit problematic. The biggest problem is the duality of their insane area of effect spells, using Icy Body to stop Cone of Cold is one thing, but when one of them randomly decides to use Firestorm instead that doesn't go so well. This is one of the instances where playing on RTwP is much easier as you can just have Ember delete one from existence while rushing the other before they can act.

[InsaneCommander]

Just started Act 3 and it seems somebody has been a very naughty girl.
 

Spoiler

Besides people complaining about Aivu and her smart invention of non magical Grease (wanting to release little balls in Iomedae's temple), there are concerns and complaints about the Commander not being like the noble paladins. Somebody even called Desna the most useless god.

I reloaded to check the other three Mythic paths I could choose. Only Nenio reacted to Trickster. Angel is obviously well seem by Seelah, Sosiel and even Arueshalae. Demon freaks them out.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

3 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Somebody even called Desna the most useless god.

Desna doesn't let her priests lynch people out of paranoia, so those crusaders should clean up their own house before opening their mouths.

[Gorth]

Almost cleared out the first map of Drezen. It sure doesn't hold your hand when comes to finding the sword of valour. Still no clue where it is and enemies seems to be respawning? Luckily I found a few spots where I can rest, even if it doesn't restore various permanent damages to my party. Ah well, Regill cracks the whip, I'm sure he'll make everyone up to the task once they've made enough crutches and stretchers for my party

 

The GOG launcher gave me an achievement (don't remember the name) telling me I've kept all paths open. Guess I did something right somewhere

 

I guess this afternoon is going to be me running all over the map, fighting baddies, trying to see what I missed that could lead me to completing the mission... (I did meet the queen and Irabeth etc. after starting the assault)

[Gromnir]

25 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Almost cleared out the first map of Drezen. It sure doesn't hold your hand when comes to finding the sword of valour. Still no clue where it is and enemies seems to be respawning?

1) if enemies are respawning, such is a new drezen feature.

as long as you do not count rando overland maps as respawn, the number o' locations in the game where respawn happens is extreme limited and am not thinking drezen boasts any such areas. or at least such were not the case previous.

2) beware resting

speaking o' the game not holding your hand, 'cause you rest different through camp supplies in drezen as 'posed to the overland map or your crusade camp, you will not be able to view your proximity-to-the-worldwound corruption metre following each rest while retaking the city. at some point, if you rest too frequent, you will receive the rather significant corruption penalties... and am unable to tell you how often is too often. 

or perhaps is a non-issue on lower difficulties. honest don't know, but at least on hard difficulty, we got a small surprise on our first run when we realized how resting following a sub-boss fight, while much o' functional drezen maps were ahead o' us, we were already taking corruption. rested maybe twice up until that point?

is also possible this aspect has been addressed via a patch but we never saw mention. until you find the sword o' valor and are able to sanctify a rest area (behind the scenes we s'pose) you are probable gonna suffer corruption accumulation w/o any way to dissipate.

good luck, crusader.

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

[Gorth]

48 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

1) if enemies are respawning, such is a new drezen feature.

as long as you do not count rando overland maps as respawn, the number o' locations in the game where respawn happens is extreme limited and am not thinking drezen boasts any such areas. or at least such were not the case previous.

...

good luck, crusader.

Thank you

 

If they don't respawn, I think I just have a bad habit of "cutting corners" that I somehow missed when going through areas first time (wouldn't surprised me if I regularly missed enemies at the limit of the fog of war areas). If they don't respawn, that would be a bit of a relief.

As for resting...

The corruption meter is indeed blanked out and the occasional load screen hint tells me it's dangerous because corruption (can do all kinds of nasty stuff to my stats etc.), although I suppose the warning is not specific for the difficulty, just a standard load screen blurb. Have kept resting to minimum, but the mini bosses just seems to leave my party a bit depleted at times...

 

Will keep resting as little as possible

 

Edit: I could have sworn those duos of Vrocks weren't there when I walked through those gates the first time. Will pay closer attention

Edit2: Because I may previously have fought those close to the gates, but then climbed the walls to get to the other side...

Edit3: Because assaulting castles with cavalry and having your horses, raptors, boars etc. using ladders is a thing

Edit4: To be fair, only the horse (Iomedae) is a fully grown mount. Regills raptor (Raptus) is still too small as is Sosiels boar (Angus). The latter is hilarious, introducing me to the trip mechanic. Nothing like an evil sorcerer lying flat on his/her back because an ornery boar tripped them over

[Gorth]

Ah, figured out where to go next in Drezen... at least a bit further

Her Majesty found one door is not good enough for her illustriousness. To be fair, the mission description at the last gate did say I had to breach all previous doors. My bad.

Fighting of a second horde of demons of various types and sizes, my poor party was feeling a bit under the weather. I used my by now substantial stash of cure light wounds to bring the living up to speed. Most spells gone, Gorth and Camellia suffering permanent attribute damage, Gorth and Seelah being at Deaths Door and two animal companions dead beyond resting in the courtyard, I followed Galfrey through the last gate... just to run into another mini boss. Yay for being well prepared for that fight

Luckily it was one of the easier fights. I thought it was bugged at first as I kept hammering away at him and causing damage despite him being at 1hp. Then he set my party on fire and said something to the effect of "Burn!" (not what he said, I just don't remember the exact wording).

Going on for another two rounds for that and me wondering if its a bug or plot armour, met a dwarf, suddenly running into the scene and trying to stab the boss with a dagger... and doing nothing, except he now finally realized a tactical retreat being the course of wisdom. The dwarf (Greybor I think his name was), was not very talkative besides revealing he was an assassin and the dagger had been supposed to actually kill said boss. Ah well, better luck next time dwarf.

 

That was my lunch break entertainment for today and I'll have to get back to my game tonight, trying to work out where to go from there. Did sleep again to replenish spells though. Especially after gaining a level, taking my party to level 9. Besides Regill now rides his raptor and Sosiel rides his boar, the spell casters also got new spells.

[Gromnir]

well, feyspeaker appears to finally be working as designed. the archetype gets all the best illusion spells except weird... but with one level o' loremaster we add weird too. the shadow spells is now working with both ascendent element and the elemental bloodline: water which transforms all elemental damage spells into cold, and while there is more fire kinda gear in the game, a druid may wield the shield which boosts cold damage by 1 per die. so with cross blood and second bloodline mythic am getting the +4 per die bonus damage treatment, which is nice 'cause the shadow evocation hellfire rays hit hard... although there is not a good way to add arcane trickster for obscene sneak attack damage. animal companions is a class feature for druids and we have a fair amount o' skill points. feyspeaker is a charisma-based caster so am having fantastic persuasion. pickpocket is the obvious background for the initiative boost, so am also able to put points into stealth, trickery or both. don't need have daeran or camellia around to cast creeping doom if we wanna cheese playful darkness with that approach, though we prefer fear lock through intimidation. get high will and fort saves and decent ab. etc.

that said, is by no means some kinda world wrecker build, but a high charisma gnome feyspeaker (likely azata) is one o' those good-at-many-things options which is appealing  to us... and is also kinda ridiculous. 

the downside is we already played wotr as a blaster sorc, so the feyspeaker is maybe not different enough to be worth the effort. sure, am knowing from building nenio to exploit phantasmal killer and the like just how powerful is many wotr illusion spells, but am already able to add nenio to a party. is just not much from the feyspeaker which we ain't done similar already.

regardless, our next full run will be post enhanced edition, so we got time to decide.

HA! Good Fun!

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Whelp, I reinstalled the game (with some new mods) and am now going to spend time testing out character concepts. Probably more time than I'll actually play the game.

[Gorth]

Spent most of the evening, but... Drezen is now secured from demonic occupation. Way too many things happened to summarize. Met the architect (first disguised, later as her true self), fought a traitorous dwarf and his girlfriend, got forced to pick a mythic path (no path was not an option as far as I could see???), so picked trickster. Did save the game before making any choices though. Now running around and exploring my new base of operations. Got two new party members. A fallen demon and a dwarf that got hired for a dragon hunt. Way too much to catch up on reading in the mission log here past bed time. Tomorrow

[MrBrown]

26 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Spent most of the evening, but... Drezen is now secured from demonic occupation. Way too many things happened to summarize. Met the architect (first disguised, later as her true self), fought a traitorous dwarf and his girlfriend, got forced to pick a mythic path (no path was not an option as far as I could see???), so picked trickster. Did save the game before making any choices though. Now running around and exploring my new base of operations. Got two new party members. A fallen demon and a dwarf that got hired for a dragon hunt. Way too much to catch up on reading in the mission log here past bed time. Tomorrow

Demon and Angel are the only ones that are always available (including Legend later on), the other 4 you have to do stuff to qualify for. Trickster and Aeon are pretty easy to find, Azata and Lich not that easy.

[InsaneCommander]

Sold almost everything I had and spent nearly all of my money on some awesome magic items. The best ones being goggles to increase Nenio's checks against Spell Resistance, Salamander and Pyromancer rings for Ember, gloves of Persuasion for my main character and goggles of +10 Perception for Arueshalae, which she seems to be putting to good use with her voyeur activities.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, MrBrown said:

Demon and Angel are the only ones that are always available (including Legend later on), the other 4 you have to do stuff to qualify for. Trickster and Aeon are pretty easy to find, Azata and Lich not that easy.

I'd say that Azata is much easier than Lich, unless you're speed running it's hard to miss the quest.

[InsaneCommander]

I just learned why people love Elemental Barrage so much.

 

[Gromnir]

6 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

I just learned why people love Elemental Barrage so much.

the triggers for elemental barrage don't follow real world logic but rather programming logic. there is a 1st level druid/hunter/ranger spell called acid maw. cast the spell and your animal companion's bite attack does acid damage. the spell isn't ordinarily all that useful but the thing is, when the caster's animal companion bites while under the influence o' acid maw, it counts as a caster elemental attack and is gonna trigger elemental barrage. the firebrand spell works similar but is higher level.

there is also a familiar/item/critter which may be equipped. the little beastie does random 1d4 elemental damage per round, but for the purposes o' a proc for elemental barrage, it ain't the mini-beastie doing the damage, but the character who is equipping it in an item slot. 

is a few such examples in the game and don't assume that such features need make sense for you to benefit from an elemental damage proc.

HA! Good Fun!

[InsaneCommander]

26 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

the triggers for elemental barrage don't follow real world logic but rather programming logic. there is a 1st level druid/hunter/ranger spell called acid maw. cast the spell and your animal companion's bite attack does acid damage. the spell isn't ordinarily all that useful but the thing is, when the caster's animal companion bites while under the influence o' acid maw, it counts as a caster elemental attack and is gonna trigger elemental barrage. the firebrand spell works similar but is higher level.

there is also a familiar/item/critter which may be equipped. the little beastie does random 1d4 elemental damage per round, but for the purposes o' a proc for elemental barrage, it ain't the mini-beastie doing the damage, but the character who is equipping it in an item slot. 

is a few such examples in the game and don't assume that such features need make sense for you to benefit from an elemental damage proc.

HA! Good Fun!

Then it is even more overpowered. Even a lv 1 spell can trigger it.

On 9/2/2022 at 11:33 PM, Gromnir said:

outlook the opposite o' @InsaneCommander'cause for us, our entire party build philosophy is boss fight dependent.

Just to clarify, when playing on Normal I don't mind if the bosses are a challenge and resist Intimidation. My future playthroughs will be on harder difficulties and I will consider it in a different way.

[majestic]

1 hour ago, InsaneCommander said:

I just learned why people love Elemental Barrage so much.

What he doesn't say is that if you have a Brown-Fur Transmuter Mercenary with Elemental Barrage and you use that character to cast Geniekind on someone else (BFT's special ability - cast personal only transmutations on other characters), it actually uses the BFT's Elemental Barrage. As a bonus, you can get the buff to last for a full day (24 ingame hours) with the right Mythic Abilities and equipment. Feel free to buff your already ridiculous main character* with a BFT's Dragonkind III, Frightful Aspect and 4x Geniekind (although not in this particular order, Geniekinds first) and watch your character go to town with 11 (or so) attacks per round each dealing four different types of elemental damage.

BFTs might just be the most broken thing in the game. Don't leave home without them.

*Can also do that to your pets for added hilarity, but you're probably going to run out of Arcane Reservoir points before long.

[ShadySands]

More specific on the Yaniel thing

If you take a character into the ghoul pit room and immediately head to the exit she spawns for her cutscene, but if the difficulty level is high enough and you didn't clear the mobs before triggering her, everything will swarm her and kill her. Then you can clear the room (and/or drop the difficulty) and then collect your ill-gotten loot.

Areelu still spawns when you get outside

Again, I don't know if they ever fixed that because I haven't tried it in a while. 

[InsaneCommander]

Retrained my main character to get rid of some spells I never use. I'm a Court Poet 8/Thug 1/Seeker 1 now. Got rid of Haze of Dreams and "moved" Remove Fear to the Oracle book, since I don't use it that much and I have less uses there. Also "moved" Summon Monster I from Oracle to Skald to get a proper duration.

I didn't know I would have to remake everything in character creation too. That was annoying.