Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous

Hmm
I trust Owlcat
But the Rogue Trader table top stuff on YT is vague and very, very dry

It also apparently uses a d10/d100 system which I believe is what I played and liked when I played "Arkham Horror" IIRC. But that seemed like it works for table top and has some questions for CRPGs.

Hrm.

I do like the 40K setting, and will definitely be looking into this one.

But there's been plenty of Warhammer gaming in recent years and I would have loved to see Owlcat's particular talents put to use in finally bringing a proper Iron Kingdoms (Warmachine/Hordes) CRPG into existence.

I was hoping for Starfinder or a sequel to DoW2 so I guess it is close enough to not be too disappointed.

I wonder if converting to d10/d100 is what lead them to turned based only? Although they did seem quite enamored of their Wrath turn based implementation.

Shadout wrote:
imbiginjapan wrote:

Just not into 40k?

Yeah.

On the upside the Rogue Trader milieu seems a bit more loose than the mainline WH40k tone since it's sort of a privateers and smugglers kind of thing. I expect this lets them be a bit more creative with the tone and plot than they could be with the hardcore Space Marine type stuff.

I have to reserve judgement on the turn based thing - I could see it working better than RtWP since the majority of characters would likely be packing heat... to manage cover and ranges etc. in real time seems like it would get messy.

So I did it...
I apologize in advance if I jinxed Rogue Trader.
I bought the $99 founder's pack with the alpha access.
They are vague on beta but I found a spot on the FAQ where it indicated next year for beta.
I can't wait to get my hands on this and hopefully help influence development.

The new DLC was released today.
It is the rogue-like dungeon crawl I have been waiting for for a year now...

Cannot wait to dive into character build madness

DLC is great so far.
It seems easy to cripple your low level party by not removing the corruption system.

edit: and it seems corruption is wiped when you complete the island "chain". Also, there is an island that has a statue that will remove corruption as a reward.
Interesting bit of randomness and strategy. In fact the island rewards remind me of the systems of Slay the Spire.

I see room for the way the rogue-like was done both in Righteous and Kingmaker. Kingmaker truly was a build tester with enough carrots. Righteous is more of a minigame than a build testing "tool". Though I will admit that I am finding Righteous to be a better party comp "tool". My first party is a veil witch mutation warrior and a chiurgeon that was later joined by a PC island reward that I made a beast cavalier. The witch warrior was supposed to test dual throwing axe but I got a weapon for killing a boss that is preventing that.

No love for the new DLC?
It has its quirks but it is certainly doing its job of making me fall in love with some classes because I've found interesting builds for them.

Hunter is for sure a star. How can you not love a spontaneous casting healer with a pet that you can mount, charge in and whack things with? I took he wreck style pet and have made use of sunder armor in a critical boss fight.

I have always wanted to love kineticists but they never felt as special as I wanted them to be. But now: gather power + empower + kblast = way too much explody goodness

I also like arcane tricksters from back in Kingmaker. They aren't OP meta at all but with hex channeler witch as a base, and ranged trap disarm, they have incredible utility.

I am really looking forward to replaying the entire game. Been holding out for all the DLC to release (and not sure if it has?).
But considering its massive size, I dont know when.

Wait for the extended edition to release. I believe it is in the next few weeks and will be a free update to prior purchasers. It is supposed to be a pretty sizeable patch packed with QoL and more.

I like the new DLC; it's fun to be able to tinker with weird build and party compositions without having to take them through the storyline. (I like the story, but because of that, there are quite a few mythic paths I just won't touch. I want a good outcome for the world.) And the tailwinds system is fantastic. I am currently running an all-dwarf party because I got Tailwind of the Bearded and they are nigh-unto indestructible.

Protip: dwarves are already tough. Giving your whole party +6 CON due to Tailwind of the Bearded is absurd. I'm not sure they can die. If you ever see that tailwind, TRY IT OUT.

I got one that is I believe, +6 or +4 on ranged touch attacks. Go go gadget kineticist!

fangblackbone wrote:

Wait for the extended edition to release. I believe it is in the next few weeks and will be a free update to prior purchasers. It is supposed to be a pretty sizeable patch packed with QoL and more.

This is what I will do - especially since it will include controller support, and I can do my favorite thing, and play it on the living room!

So I blew it because I was confused by how the "resting in port" works in the latest rogue like DLC.
You go back to port after finishing the fifth island, at which point you can go off the ship and rest without corruption.
Well, I had a party that was up to level 7 and I thought I was at the point where I could rest in port, but ended up wiping a decent party So I started over in frustration and chose the cleric premade to see if I could still load the old party's save. I could not so I was stuck with the premade cleric and then amazing air kineticist I made. I then used gold to remake another staple class, the divine hunter. It is very capable as a mounted combatant and spontaneous healer. (one of these days I may make a whole party of hunters)

I rounded out the party with a half orc great axe wielding rowdy. I have to say hitting for 99 damage is pretty satisfying at level 6-7. At that point, my cleric was just not useful. So I used gold to re-roll a wildland shaman. Her boar is level 7 now so is large enough for the half orc shaman to ride. She is much more effective than the stock cleric after only a couple of islands.

I saw a video on an incense synthesizer alchemist so I have one of those. They claimed that the incense fog was an aura but I don't see any feat or mythic power that makes it that way. So I may reroll that character too as right not there isn't much use for bombs and all she does is hurl javelins

I just saw in the Video Game Deals thread that Wrath of the Righteous is part of a humble bundle and it plus all of the Bioware isometric classics for 20 dollars is pretty hard to pass up but I would rather play this with a controller on my series X as that version just released last week. Has anyone seen a review or have impressions on a console?

The console port for Kingmaker has issues that still need addressing apparently. So, I'd expect it to be buggy with the potential for some things to never get fixed. And Wrath is 5x more complex than Kingmaker.

But I don't have any first hand experience so check for reviews. ($20 is low enough for double dipping considering everything else you get with it)

Ok it took me a few hours to clear the chargen process.

Normally I roll a PLD as MC for easy dialogue choices. Decided this time I'd go Fighter for high BAB with Two Weapon Fighting with finesse, picking Human for the extra feat. Was thinking of Dhampir but healing sounds like a problem for undead.

Got to level 2 then had a whole party wipe on a shield bearing cultist in the early part of the intro maze. Good time as any to roll a new character:)

I need to read up on the mounted combat stuff. Not sure if I'll dip into Cavalier or other pet/mount classes.

In Kingmaker I was multiclassing to cheese some AC, sneak die etc. Sounds like Wrath has even more options!

Personally, I appreciate the high customization of the difficulty options, but even with that I still haven't quite found my happy medium. I hate the stat bloat and the way the game is tuned to the expectation that you're always stacking every buff you can before each fight (especially once you get past the opening 10-20 hours) and min-maxing your character builds, so I've been trying to find a way to get the enemies' down to a degree of stats that makes them suitably difficult without being a cakewalk and I just haven't quite hit that balance yet.

All that said, both Pathfinder games are brilliant and arguably the best CRPG implementation of the D20 system that's ever made. And I particularly love the work put into a rich roster of NPC's & villains in these games (and frankly, I absolutely loved the kingdom management of Kingmaker; the crusade management in Wrath isn't quite gelling with me on the other hand).

Farscry wrote:

Personally, I appreciate the high customization of the difficulty options, but even with that I still haven't quite found my happy medium. I hate the stat bloat and the way the game is tuned to the expectation that you're always stacking every buff you can before each fight (especially once you get past the opening 10-20 hours) and min-maxing your character builds, so I've been trying to find a way to get the enemies' down to a degree of stats that makes them suitably difficult without being a cakewalk and I just haven't quite hit that balance yet.

All that said, both Pathfinder games are brilliant and arguably the best CRPG implementation of the D20 system that's ever made. And I particularly love the work put into a rich roster of NPC's & villains in these games (and frankly, I absolutely loved the kingdom management of Kingmaker; the crusade management in Wrath isn't quite gelling with me on the other hand).

You can get mods that autocast the buffs for you with however much fairness you desire.

Wrath of the Righteous is a terrific game and one of the best rpg's I've played.
The character options were staggering in the first game and even more so in the sequel.

Yeah, I didn't take the prompt about the Angel mythic pathway seriously from the time I drew Excalibur the flaming sword out of stone. I don't even know what builds well into an Angel mythic - in one of the PLD subclasses, the light aura only does well around level 14 PLD but that's locked away so many different other multiclass options that I kinda backed away from it (only to play the game to find one of your starting companions is a PLD).

I'll probably look at a 2H fighter subclass dipping into Cavalier for a mount and perhaps one of the Rogue subclasses for a dip into sneak attack for flanking, assuming the PLD companion + fighter companion will main/off tank and the 2H MC is intended to DPS/backup tank. For 2H I hope there are decent Elven curved swords (the closest to a Daikatana I guess), since I'm thinking of a finesse build with medium armour for AC rather than full strength/heavy plate.

I don't know. I also want to think about ranged attack builds! Too many options!

Bfgp wrote:

Yeah, I didn't take the prompt about the Angel mythic pathway seriously from the time I drew Excalibur the flaming sword out of stone. I don't even know what builds well into an Angel mythic - in one of the PLD subclasses, the light aura only does well around level 14 PLD but that's locked away so many different other multiclass options that I kinda backed away from it (only to play the game to find one of your starting companions is a PLD).

I'll probably look at a 2H fighter subclass dipping into Cavalier for a mount and perhaps one of the Rogue subclasses for a dip into sneak attack for flanking, assuming the PLD companion + fighter companion will main/off tank and the 2H MC is intended to DPS/backup tank. For 2H I hope there are decent Elven curved swords (the closest to a Daikatana I guess), since I'm thinking of a finesse build with medium armour for AC rather than full strength/heavy plate.

I don't know. I also want to think about ranged attack builds! Too many options!

Trickster is probably the best mythic path for melee but you basically are a giant asshat. Angel pairs best with divine casters.

Restarted with a PLD, dipped one level into Vivisectionist for the strength mutagen with the intent of taking the Angel mythic.

This game is hard in the early stages. Wiped so many times it wasn't funny towards the end of the Prologue. Finished a lot of challenging battles by resting, then using scrolls and chugging buffing potions etc.

But addictive as heck. I looked up from my screen and it was 1:30am. Took me longer than I really needed as I kept forgetting to save and the autosave wasn't reliably doing its job.

Fear on hit glaive from the Prologue boss is great for causing fear and the subsequent AOO procs as the enemy break and run away.

Now I'm at the tavern and level 3, I'm going to reconsider party composition and companion builds. Giving Seelah a horse via monk dip was unexpectedly ineffective for tanking (made her very mobile though).

Horse movement was fast. I want that for my MC who is useless at offtanking but great at deleting enemies.

There is an NPC right next to the half orc paladin story NPC. I'll look up his name but he is the retrainer to respec your character and party members.

Also, most people dip mutation warrior instead of vivisectionist for the mutagen. You won't lose your fighter BAB that way.

Any of the pet classes work as a one dip due to pets/mounts being very capable tanky fighters early on. Some may be more optimal than others but all serve that basic function. Also, I am pretty sure Seelah gets a horse on her own (level 7?) despite her unspecified paladin class.

fangblackbone wrote:

There is an NPC right next to the half orc paladin story NPC. I'll look up his name but he is the retrainer to respec your character and party members.

Hilor.

That's him!

When I started this last year, I jumped straight in, figuring I'd lose momentum if I looked up build guides. I made my PC a Paladin, because I hadn't rolled one for a while, and it fit with the "Crusadey" theme of the story.

5 minutes in, and the very first companion you meet is a Paladin! Still, I kept going, figuring I'd swap her out as I met more folks.

Many hours later, and my two mounted Paladins charge in and crit half the board before anyone else gets close. Party balance be damned! I've also straight up killed a few characters who could have been companions -- normally I would collect every possible party member, even if I never used them.

I'm loving it!

Yep, found him last night but didn't get time to check all of the options or create new characters / respec. I thought he said a Pathfinder merc costs 4500 gold?? At some point I understand it was only supposed to put you back 100 gold per character...

By the way - I am playing on custom settings with Core as the overall difficulty - but Core doesn't permit respec so you have to toggle that in your difficulty settings.

The gold thing and encumbrance. Oh lord. I was super encumbered towards the end of the Prologue as I kept trundling all the cultist loot up the stairs and new areas because I figured you wouldn't be able to backtrack to pick anything up. I know we're playing Pathfinder rules, but surely, can we just skip that level of simulation? What I mean is - once you clear an area, it should be easier to just have the sector inventory lootable - so you can still require players to run back and forth like shopping mules, but not force them to carry everything during boss battles for fear of gold loss.

Re Mutation Warrior - I'm aware of the BAB loss but I think that subclass doesn't come with the 1d6 sneak attack with a single level dip in Vivisectionist? The other point is the mutagen is only available with 3 levels in Mutation Warrior (uh, I only just dinged into lv 3 on completion of the Prologue). One or even two levels into that subclass would have been meaningless in the Prologue (well, you would get another feat and 1 extra BAB which a 1PLD/1VIV would not).

I'd have to reassess down the track whether to drop the 1VIV and pick up 3 Mutation Warrior. For now, I really want 3PLD for the immunity to fear.

As for Seelah - yeah I think she gets a horse by default at lv 7 but I was hoping I could buff her AC with a dip into the Monk subclass (Sohei?). Unfortunately with no barding the horse typically went down in the first few rounds, so it wasn't overly effective in the early levels.

I think my experience in the Prologue was quite similar to other people - it was difficult in the low levels where your hit points are almost non-existent, there's bugger all gear / feats to build mitigation, and the mobs are stat optimised for difficulty's sake.

I couldn't have really changed that even if I went pure whatever build - nothing could really tank the more challenging threats without RNG luck.

Knowing this game is combat heavy for EXP, I hope future encounters are not as stat-checking in nature, but I have a horrible feeling they are. Pillars and Kingmaker were also like this, and I understand why it's so (due to the AC and to-hit system) but hopefully I don't spend so much time reloading as I did last night.

I think its 2 levels of viv for sneak attack... I could be wrong. I used the viv dip a lot in Kingmaker for my arcane trickster prestige class characters. In Wrath it is much easier to go with a different dip that escapes me.

There are definitely interesting dialogue puzzle solutions for xp in this game.

Your choice of difficulty will probably give you a much different starting experience than I've had.
Of note is that certain class archetypes really shine in turn based mode.