Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, Part 4

[Gorth]

@Gromnir regarding horse mortality, It's something of my own doing I suspect. I keep forgetting that mounts can use potions for starters. They (the mounts) have some very old hand me downs protection gear, because I forget they can use it after having given them something initially. I've sold better gear to vendors by far, because I keep forgetting to check the mounts inventory

The way I (mis)use Seelah is probably also a contributing factor. While she is low on the Initiative pecking order, the over the top mobility of her horse (daredevil) means she'll regularly be the first and only one on the front line, unless enemies spawn on top of my party. The other mounts are similarly targets when Regill, Sosiel and my barbarian gets close to enemies, their mounts gets similarly targeted. Seelah (and her horse) just seems to spend more time in engagement range with enemies. I should probably tell her to take a deep breath and cast a few more buffs before running off doing heroic stuff. I'm sure Iomedae (the goddess, not the similar named horse, or maybe both) will understand.

I cant remember if I even gave snapshot to Aru. I'll have to check (the warrior levels was mostly just piling as many feats on longbow focus, rapid shot, better crits, etc. as possible, but I can probably get most of those from the ranger line anyway, if necessary see if any of her mythic levels can spare a few additional combat feats)

 

Edit: It's just hard to resist with Seelah, she has all that speed at her disposal (makes 'vroom! vroom!' noises )

 

Edit2: I'll spare the world the bad puns about Seelah's mount having too many horse powers

[majestic]

@Gorth you need to start treating your animal companions as if they were full-fledged party members. Just hopping on the horse with a shield isn't going to cut it. If you want Seelah's horse to be tanky, you need to buff it like you would your 'real' tanks, and consider giving it tanky feats, like Dodge, Diehard and Toughness and Back to Back. If you want to go all out on the defensive feats, you can pick up Crane Style by picking up Improved Unarmed Strike, which will not do anything for natural attacks.

This is, by the way, another one of those ridiculous advantages of playing an Angel with merged spellbooks. It is really hard to beat being able to buff almost every useful long-term combat buff with but two casts - for the entire party once the Communal versions come, but it's not like the single target ones are significantly more work, and you can make those spells last for a day in the higher levels, and as if that's not enough, you can blast entire screens of enemies for 200+ damage per round with no saves and no resistance, or knock entire screens of enemies prone (while also dealing significant damage to them).

We're all talking about how to best break the game and all that, but the truth is since you're playing a Trickster, you'd more or less need to know what you're doing when attempting to do so, otherwise the game gets harder than it would be if you for some reason picked a Cleric or Oracle Angel as your main.

Consider for a moment the Paladin 11 / Sohei 6 build mentioned before, that works by far and large and is for most parties an ideal choice so there's nothing wrong about using that on Seelah (other than making your own version on a mercenary handily beating it out in terms of pure effectiveness), but @Gromnir does raise a more than decent point about a crit focused build with Gendarme at level 8. Paladin 11 / Gendarme 8 (Order of the ****atrice) will, with Trickster feats being available, probably outperform that - but that assumes that you've started out picking Perception 1 and moved to Perception 2 for Mythic levels 3 and 4 and you can spend your 'teenage' levels picking up Improved Improved Improved Improved Critical, but also need to keep in mind that as the name suggests, that's four feats used. Well, ain't we lucky that Paladins and Cavaliers get bonus feats?

It's the same for casters - your casters can pick the Completely Normal Spell metamagic feat, which moves spells down a level, and yes, that actually does mean you can have all your level one spells as at-will cantrips or orisons. It lets you use Selective or Bolstered at the same spell level and gives you more ranges to work with Heightened should you so choose (there are buffs and other things you may want to have more of - even it it is just Instant Enemy ). It also makes Empower Spell a more viable choice, and you can then have little dear Ember, for instance, have Hellfire Rays with an insane critical hit range that are Empowered. Use a rod that gives you Maximize, and woops. Enemies that went poof before will go POOF.

It is also very helpful to figure out how to get to Mythic 4 before doing most of Act 3. Granted, that's true for most characters, but particularily for Tricksters. You might also want that Arcana 1 pick before finding a whole lot of loot too. Trickster can be made to do ludicrous things, from getting weird feats to a 25 BAB to being able to reload item drops until you get a major bonus or making enemies fight each other instead of you, but for all of them, you need to know what you're doing.

Playing Angel? Yeah, no, just open your spell tab and click one of the I WIN buttons.

The only other Mythic Path that gets obvious I WIN buttons is Lich, but for Lich you need to know a bit about metamagic and Expanded Arsenal shenanigans* to really make their spellbook shine, and ideally go Sorcerer because Sorcerers are gonna Sorcerer (and Sylvan Sorcerers get a full level companion to ride to boot, because why not make the class more lol than it already is).

*Expanded Arsenal sums up, not picks the highest. Expanded Arsenal: Necromany and put your Spell Foci/School Masteries on everything else you get your hands on will push your DC and caster levels further. Have fun with your CL 34 Necromancy spells that get +5 or so DC, depending on your feat choices.

11 hours ago, Gromnir said:

ps(edit) another highly underrated attribute and its related feats is initiative. our first character in wotr were an inquisitor archer who had improved initiative and mythic improved initiative. being able to act first is vast underrated. 'stead o' chasing weapon specialization for the minor addition to damage it provides, am gonna suggest improved initiative and mythic improved initiative is a superior goal. 

Makes you wonder what Owlcat thought when they made the Pickpocket background. Outside of edge cases there's no real reason to pick anything else. +2 to Initiative for free? Sign me up.

11 hours ago, Gromnir said:

wanna turn aru into a snapshot archer? is not as if we ain't seen the neoseeker build you reference, the one where seize the moment, point blank master and outflank come at levels 17 through 19 respective and is a build which looks much better on paper than in practice, 'cause if you have a party with animal companions, and @Gorthand most o' us do, then arue is gonna be spending at least a round simple getting into snapshot useful ranges as she is gonna be backline with the casters sans a mount while all the melee characters rush forward. wanna factor in the lost round o' damage? 

Nothing prevents her from being on Bismuth. It's only 10 feet per round slower than a horse, and the point is not to get her directly into fray, just slightly behind it. Probably also depends a little on whether you play exclusively in TB mode or not. Getting Aru in place is not the issue, making Bismuth survive the ordeal is something else, and level 19 is hardly something to hold against her when the build's to hit chances are rather similar until 19 where Quarry inarguably really takes off (it is borderline unusable before that if you want to argue lost rounds of damage).

11 hours ago, Gromnir said:

regardless, is more than one way to build arue just as there is more than one way to build seelah. am finding arue is quite effective as a vanilla ranger but the problem is most folks just don't get how instant enemy works and the synergy it has with ranger's bond.  no way am giving up five levels o' ranger spell casting and the final level o' favoured enemy for weapon specialization and the mythic specialization... 'cause improved quarry complete smokes mutagen and the delay o' favoured enemy increases is too costly. regardless, find a way to put arue on a dog, wolf or other trip animal companion with full or near full levels and am gonna be in complete agreement 'bout the viability o' a snap shot arue build.  did that with an urban hunter lann and while it were taking effort to get right,  it were indeed more than viable. 

That's fine, really. I don't agree, of course, and the Neoskeekers build worked well enough for me, at least. Of course, there's a bunch of things that do depend a lot on playstyles and difficulty too. Arguably, assuming @Gorth can put Arue close to the frontlines quickly enough, his Trickster should provide enough crits to make it win out with Seize The Moment. Especially on normal where hitting enemies isn't as much of an issue.

Edited October 2, 2022 by majestic

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

@Gorth you need to start treating your animal companions as if they were full-fledged party members. Just hopping on the horse with a shield isn't going to cut it. If you want Seelah's horse to be tanky, you need to buff it like you would your 'real' tanks, and consider giving it tanky feats, like Dodge, Diehard and Toughness and Back to Back. If you want to go all out on the defensive feats, you can pick up Crane Style by picking up Improved Unarmed Strike, which will not do anything for natural attacks.

I knew I had saved those 42 potions of Blur for a reason!

[Gorth]

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