Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous

Wound up deciding to go Azata for my second run. I went with a Warpriest (Cult Leader) of Desna and an NG alignment. I do have to say, I'm enjoying not having to work to stay inside the LG box for a paladin character. Being able to pull out the occasional bit of Chaotic sarcasm or trash talk with enemies while still saying resolutely good is fun.

Timespike wrote:

Wound up deciding to go Azata for my second run. I went with a Warpriest (Cult Leader) of Desna and an NG alignment. I do have to say, I'm enjoying not having to work to stay inside the LG box for a paladin character. Being able to pull out the occasional bit of Chaotic sarcasm or trash talk with enemies while still saying resolutely good is fun.

How tough is it to keep to Lawful Good? My current playthrough (which im still doing because ive backtracked twice now) is a true neutral witch lich and i havn't had much trouble keeping right in the middle

thrawn82 wrote:

How tough is it to keep to Lawful Good? My current playthrough (which im still doing because ive backtracked twice now) is a true neutral witch lich and i havn't had much trouble keeping right in the middle

You're a witch lich and you've gone too far 'cause you know it don't matter anyway?

thrawn82 wrote:
Timespike wrote:

Wound up deciding to go Azata for my second run. I went with a Warpriest (Cult Leader) of Desna and an NG alignment. I do have to say, I'm enjoying not having to work to stay inside the LG box for a paladin character. Being able to pull out the occasional bit of Chaotic sarcasm or trash talk with enemies while still saying resolutely good is fun.

How tough is it to keep to Lawful Good? My current playthrough (which im still doing because ive backtracked twice now) is a true neutral witch lich and i havn't had much trouble keeping right in the middle

Depends on your personality, I guess? "Good" is a piece of cake. "Lawful" was what I found a little onerous.

"Lawful" seems to mean "incredibly fond of harsh summary punishments" in Owlcat's estimation, so there's a lot of what I consider to be overly-harsh Lawful options. I slipped into NG twice in one playthrough. I found as the game went on that if I basically took every opportunity to praise someone for doing their duty, show respect to high-ranking people, and so on, I was able to stay inside the LG box.

It's weird, though - there are some LG characters like the queen, Irabeth and Seelah that aren't as harsh as the lawful options make your PC out to be.

Timespike wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:
Timespike wrote:

Wound up deciding to go Azata for my second run. I went with a Warpriest (Cult Leader) of Desna and an NG alignment. I do have to say, I'm enjoying not having to work to stay inside the LG box for a paladin character. Being able to pull out the occasional bit of Chaotic sarcasm or trash talk with enemies while still saying resolutely good is fun.

How tough is it to keep to Lawful Good? My current playthrough (which im still doing because ive backtracked twice now) is a true neutral witch lich and i havn't had much trouble keeping right in the middle

Depends on your personality, I guess? "Good" is a piece of cake. "Lawful" was what I found a little onerous.

"Lawful" seems to mean "incredibly fond of harsh summary punishments" in Owlcat's estimation, so there's a lot of what I consider to be overly-harsh Lawful options. I slipped into NG twice in one playthrough. I found as the game went on that if I basically took every opportunity to praise someone for doing their duty, show respect to high-ranking people, and so on, I was able to stay inside the LG box.

It's weird, though - there are some LG characters like the queen, Irabeth and Seelah that aren't as harsh as the lawful options make your PC out to be.

There seem to be two categories of lawful responses that I've seen. "respect to your superiors" on one side, and "angry cop" answers on the other.

i feel like they've done that for all 4. good is 'kind caring' and 'smite all the evil.' evil has 'greed for greeds sake' and 'lets eat babies cause it's fun.' chaotic has 'batsh*t random' and 'FREEDOM'

That's a good observation about all 4 of the alignment poles having basically two dominant traits.

I found chaotic to be "sarcastic wit" and "the grays in humanity".

TRY THE AZATA MYTHIC PATH.

I've only just taken Drezen and therefore have only gotten the first few little bits of the stuff that's unique to it, but seriously, try it!

Timespike wrote:

TRY THE AZATA MYTHIC PATH.

I've only just taken Drezen and therefore have only gotten the first few little bits of the stuff that's unique to it, but seriously, try it!

Aizu is an incredibly fun companion, but unlike kingmaker, I found keeping pets alive really difficult.

Aivu is definitely fun, but also isn't anywhere near the entirety of what I'm enjoying about that mythic path.

Wait until Aizu is fully grown

Does she change names from Aivu to Aizu at that point? She's showing up as Aivu in my game, but two different folks have called her Aizu now.

I'm so glad I decided to try the Azata path. The whimsy and awe are both flowing freely, and I'm into it.

Spoiler:

My court is now a floating island and I just accepted some mimics into the crusade.

I'm on the road to Drezen now, and I have a question for those of you who are much further in the game than I am: Is there a hard time limit at any point in this game? I bounced of Kingmaker after 50-some hours because I lost the game due to the Cyclopes curse coming due, which wasn't clear in its consequences.

I like to take my time and meander through games like this, and I don't want to keep sinking time into enjoying the game if I'm going to hit a point where, "Sorry; you took too long. Fail; try again!"

Feegle wrote:

I'm on the road to Drezen now, and I have a question for those of you who are much further in the game than I am: Is there a hard time limit at any point in this game? I bounced of Kingmaker after 50-some hours because I lost the game due to the Cyclopes curse coming due, which wasn't clear in its consequences.

I like to take my time and meander through games like this, and I don't want to keep sinking time into enjoying the game if I'm going to hit a point where, "Sorry; you took too long. Fail; try again!"

I have finished the game once and nary a doom clock to be seen. I was a near-completionist, too.

Also: I figured out how and why I missed Woljif in my first playthrough.

Spoiler:

The area where he is forks off of a random encounter that initially appears to just be a bunch of traps out in the middle of nowhere. Made sure to explore that whole map this time rather than just disarming the traps and scooting, and lo and behold, I found Woljif again.

Only major timers seem to be the Crusade system, and even they dont seem to matter much, if at all.
The timers were terrible in the first game though.

Yeah, no timers. Just demon armies spawning in crusader mode, but you can just deal with them and carry on.

Update: respecced my Azata from Cult Leader to Shadow Sorcerer for more spellcasting and have been happy with that choice. Still loving the azata-specific elements in the story.

I really hope whatever DLC Owlcat does includes a few more prestige class options for divine spellcasters. Right now, there's very little.

I'd also be fine if more were put in by modders.

Thanks to all the WotR chat I’ve gone back and attempted Kingmaker again. I’ve done the first bit in a fraction of the time it took me last time and I’m now watching videos on kingdom building before I head off to deal with some trolls.

I’m using build guides from the GoG forums which are clearly explained and easyish to follow. The build depth in Pathfinder still overwhelms me if I try to approach it ‘blind’ as it were.

All in all it’s going well - when you can get past the impenetrableness of the builds/class system/kingdom stuff there’s a pretty good RPG in there. We’ll have to see how it goes

Sorbicol wrote:

Thanks to all the WotR chat I’ve gone back and attempted Kingmaker again. I’ve done the first bit in a fraction of the time it took me last time and I’m now watching videos on kingdom building before I head off to deal with some trolls.

I’m using build guides from the GoG forums which are clearly explained and easyish to follow. The build depth in Pathfinder still overwhelms me if I try to approach it ‘blind’ as it were.

All in all it’s going well - when you can get past the impenetrableness of the builds/class system/kingdom stuff there’s a pretty good RPG in there. We’ll have to see how it goes

I did the same thing, I'm at the Varnhold Vanishing. I discovered that removing a merc from your party via the x button (as opposed to clicking anywhere else on their portrait) removes them from your employment completely. Unfortunately I discovered this a couple of hours after doing it. Thankfully I had an old save.

Speaking of builds, I was reading neoseeker's builds and was blown away by his comment that a main tank should have 70-80 AC. Makes me realize how little I understand pathfinder mechanics and what to stack to get there. I don't think I ever cracked 50 on my playthrough.

Are there any good build pages that include all the buffs, spells and gear needed as well as just what classes and feats to take?

Alien Love Gardener wrote:

Yeah, no timers. Just demon armies spawning in crusader mode, but you can just deal with them and carry on.

There is one sneaky one: Be careful not to clear out all the standing armies too quickly in act 3 (and presumably act 5 but i'm not there yet) because the wandering armies don't actually spawn often enough to maintain your moral flag. I had a serious issue that required me to go bac ka good bit trying to finish out some of the longer decrees and having my moral tank into the floor because there we no longer armies to defeat to maintain it

Clumber wrote:

Speaking of builds, I was reading neoseeker's builds and was blown away by his comment that a main tank should have 70-80 AC. Makes me realize how little I understand pathfinder mechanics and what to stack to get there. I don't think I ever cracked 50 on my playthrough.

Are there any good build pages that include all the buffs, spells and gear needed as well as just what classes and feats to take?

Keep in mind Neoseeker builds are generally geared toward succeeding in Unfair difficulty, which makes good by it's title. They are cheese builds intentionally exploiting a series of unforeseen synergies in the pathfinder system and definitely not what you can or should be using on a reasonable difficulty, or representative of the designed intent of the pathfinder system as a whole.

Well, we progress. I’ve just started the 3rd act - the bloom stuff - and had several little epiphanies after I had to restart on failing to get to the Hunt quick enough (I consider that a mild enough spoiler to get away with!) and I’ve now reached further than I’ve previously managed.

I’m enjoying the way the game breaks down each act into a distinct storyline that’s like a separate game rather than one long continuation. Yes there’s a common thread through all of it, but over all it makes the game feel fresh on the each chapter. The builds are good although it would Probably help if I knew how to use them better, but I’m able to get through the slightly topsy-turvey difficulty spikes littered throughout the game OK.

What’s driving me nuts - and is more or less the reason why I abandoned my last attempt to play it - is the total lack of respect the game has for your time. It explains itself very badly, give task to do with little sense of the necessary urgency (I’ve only just realised half the kingdom building stuff you can’t even unlock until you reach the third act, despite the apparent urgency with which you’re supposed to complete them) and will happily put you in a fail state if you don’t get it all right. Which - at least so far - has cost me several hours in replays.

The ambition is really impressive, but it’s clearly a game that can’t see the wood for the trees half the time. Still, there’s enough here to keep me going for the time being. I’m saving like mad now.

Wrath sure is a lot better in that regard. Even if it still drags too much sometimes, and too much running back and forth, though most CRPGs since Baldurs Gate etc. suffered from that.
On the other hand, I am more into the kind of fantasy environment Kingmaker depicts (exploring old tombs/ruins, different cities/cultures in the game world etc.), than the Everything Demonic world of Wrath. The game just felt more varied.

Sorbicol wrote:

I’m enjoying the way the game breaks down each act into a distinct storyline that’s like a separate game rather than one long continuation.

So both of these games, Kingmaker and Wrath, are based on PnP paizo adventure paths. Those adventure paths come out as 6 volumes. Each act roughly lines up with the events of one of the AP volumes.

I'm really hoping for the third game (that hasn't even been teased, but I sincerely hope they're making) that they either do Iron Gods or Strange Aeons. Both of those look like they'd be fun.

Hell's Rebels for me. I've run the first part of that PnP via Roll20, and I'd love to play through it.

Honestly, I'd take any of them except the evil campaign they did. I've read summaries and they all sound cool. But they keep referring to Numeria in the existing games, and both have had at least some of the science-fantasy elements of that in them, so I would not be at all surprised if that's where we go next.