Its SO worth it.
Its not perfect but its SO satisfying.
Its only been ~2 hours but I like the campaign and most of it was sort of spoilered by watch beta class gameplay videos.
QoL improvements are really nice. From something as simple as more granular fog of war and wall clipping for the camera to just the fact that you can rotate the camera. The detailed info helps a ton when looking at your class choices in advance.
I am going to go on a limb and say that you can run almost any class/race combination with average stats and beat the campaign. First because you have strong and balanced companions. Second because at some point your mythic path takes over. And from what I've seen, you will be godlike. It probably won't trivialize the game on the whole but I think you won't have to save scum anything on normal difficulty.
My halfling cav zipping around and charging into battle on her smilodon is worth the price of admission alone. But I am going to start another character or 2 because there is a trickster rogue that trades rogue talents for hexes. And there is a witch of the veil that can invis and teleport. Or I just really like the idea of a halfling hag chewing things up in melee with her claws and hexing.
Anyone worried about bugs can likely rest easy. The beta was in better shape than Kingmaker was in its early days. By a lot. I had few bugs, and all of them minor. I went about 15-20 hours with only the occasional cosmetic quirky bug popping up intermittently.
My opening hour in the full release as been smooth.
Rolled up Tiefling sword saint and now demand that days have more hours.
Rolled up Tiefling sword saint and now demand that days have more hours.
Classic! I just rolled a tiefling trickster rogue.
I'm someone who knows nothing about Pathfinder, but always pays attention to any epic RPG that comes out. I've reacted with amused bewilderment reading this list of subclasses.
Greenrager- What, like incredible hulk?
Drovier- They made that word up, right?
Colluding scoundrel- Why not just a plain scoundrel? Why add collusion to the mix?! That's mighty specific.
Overwhelming soul- What even does that mean?
Oh, also overwhelming mage- Heh
Rowdy- Haha
Brown fur transmuter- Haha, what the heck?!?
And the list goes on. And on.
So despite my analysis paralysis I think for my first playthrough I have settled on one of the following options:
An Aasimar Purifier (Oracle Subclass) and have gone Battle for my mystery to get access to some martial abilities. I plan on going Angel as my mythic.
A Tiefling Rowdy Rogue that will go Trickster as it's mythic.
A human Quarterstaff Master that will eventually go Golden Dragon.
A human Demonslayer Ranger that will go Azata...
Who am I kidding, I still can't decide!
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Review "Buy, Wait for Sale, Never Touch?"
I actually can't stand this guy's reviews. It's 20 min long, I feel like half of it is him trying to make a flat affect joke. Just my opinion.
They added turn based combat, and unlike Pillars you can switch back and forth, mid-game.
I know, and I LOVE it! I was hoping it would work well, and it does.
I think I rolled up at least 6 characters before I settled on one.
My current PC is an Aasimar Oracle 1/Paladin 1. Plan is to pick up 5 more levels of oracle and 3 more of paladin and then go Hellknight Signifier. Ascension path is Angel.
Then again, who knows. I may decide to do something different and start over again. Holy cow is this game awesome.
The leveling seems slower in this game compared to Kingmaker. Well I know on one hand it does require more xp each level. I may be remembering those numbers wrong (I thought 1=0 xp, 2 = 1000 xp and 3 = 2500 or 3000 xp. WotR is 1/0, 2/2000, 3/5000) and I may be comparing it to BtSL which levels you really quickly.
I remade a character with a centipede as a mount because I've heard it was in beta. Sadly it does not work so it may be that it needs to size up at level 7 even though I am a halfling. That is too long to wait.
I did make a mad dog barb that is riding her boar. I took the bullwark defensive perks for the boar which should add nicely to the boar's highest natural defense. She is just started so I do not know if I will convert her to a hag witch or not. The hag witch on her own is pretty lukewarm.
The elemental witch is cool but has drawbacks. The at will elemental ray is nice but the attack rate is pretty slow. So early on, your target can be killed before you can fire.
I just feel like we won't know how things open up without a BtSL style endless dungeon DLC. There are a lot of things that are coming for classes at level 3-4 or even 6 that we won't get to until very committed to the campaign.
Maybe the way forward if they let us hire/create our own companions in the campaign, is to do that once we get to level 7 or so. That really worked for me in BtSL. I built an arcane trickster from vivi alchemist and sylvan sorc that reached level 7 solo. Then you can just reload the save and test out all sorts of new builds, level dipping or old builds with new weapons.
edit: Oh and the turned based system and the switch I have used a little but will definitely use more. It is so seamless that it works the way everyone expects it to and you hardly notice that you are enjoying using it. Its that good.
Been experiencing a movement bug fairly frequently. My main character freezes in place and won’t move with the group. I have to select him to move individually to get hom unstuck. I’m thinking it might be an issue with being mounted.
I've gotten that bug roughly 5-6 times in the over 10 hours played. It has only happened when mounted...
There are other not really bugs but problems with pathing that make moving in TB awkward. When you click, you can click the walls and terrain and it can cause your character to do things like run out of the room you are fighting in or run up the stairs or other inconvenient or vulnerable location.
The slumber hex is incredibly powerful. I've never used the mage spell sleep so I don't know how it compares. I think sleep is aoe or multitarget no? But slumber knocked out the toughest baddie of a supposedly hard early demon fight and made quick work of it.
The pleasant surprise was that when the tough baddie woke up and stood up, he triggered an attack of opportunity for most of my party surrounding him. He pastified instantly from the onslaught 
I decided to go with the witch hex channeler after one dipping mad dog for the boar pet/mount. It is good but not as good as I'd hoped it would be. Witch of the Veil might have been a better choice though I don't have sneak attack to get the most of it.
Going pure mad dog was a definite option as well. That initial level in it is serving my combat needs just fine. This is especially so in TB where I can charge before combat is triggered to initiate the surprise round. There are many other subtle benefits to mounted combat that reviewers I feel overlooked when they say it isn't as developed as it could be. The movement speed is incredible and especially so for small races that don't have the foot speed. This is critical for reaching archers and casters that Seelah is just too slow to get to before taking a few rounds of spells.
Focus fire is the name of the game in WotR as in all rpgs. Mounted combat is a fast hitting 2 person focus fire that either removes or seriously injures an enemy with 2/3s of your party yet to attack. It is a tremendous advantage.
The tooltip for hex channeling needs to be updated. It doesn't list how many times per day you can channel energy so I though it would be awesome to channel energy at will. Well it looks like it either based on your int, or I am further screwed because its 3 times plus your cha modifier. (I have no cha bonus on my character, sadly) The channeling has helped in a fight against swarms where the only effective ability I had was burning hands. I turned out none much worse the wear from casting that and hitting my party a couple of times. Then channeling to heal the party damage.
Cripes that was long, sorry!
I love how this game looks. The UI, the presentation. Top notch. I don't think Bioware can top this. Is this way better than Kingmaker? I've never played a Pathfinder game before paper or videogame.
The new game has a lot of clarity changes that help with the insane amount of feats and customizability. Of course the devs then doubled the amount of character options. And on top of that, they gave you racial variants and over 20 backgrounds that give you weapon proficiencies and skill boosts. Oh and then they added equipment and feats for animal companions...
(this is also all before talk of the ~10 mythic paths)
The first game is like the cumulative info from one year of wikipedia. The new game is like 5 years. It is much better looking, much better playing, and much deeper. With the addition of hot swapping between RT and TB combat, I don't see how it won't "beat" BG3.
How are folks spec-ing out the companion characters? I’m tempted to give Seekah a bard dip but I’m also morbidly curious what the auto-level does.
I've auto-leveled everyone so far and all my alts except one on my most recent attempt. I dipped Seelah into sylvan sorc to: get her some cantrips for swarms and get her a horse to double/triple her mobility.
I am with you on the curiosity with auto-leveling. I don't know what magic voodoo is powering Wendaugh but she is a ranged beast as a (pure?) fighter. I just found her a rare composite longbow too! I may have to make an alt mimicking her progression. She is that powerful
My current "main" is a halfling alchemist incense fighter with one dip cav to ride an elk. Bombs are fantastic but most of my incense talents have no tool text so I have to guess that they are working and what they do. Reach, range and toxic are obvious but there is nothing stating how much. It may have been better to go vivi but I made so many vivis and vivi dips in Kingmaker, I wanted to try something new.
There are so many feats I want to try out that don't state what the prereqs are aside from a prior feat like weapon finesse (mythic). I hope that doesn't mean that it is a mythic path option because it is finesse tactics (using dex bonus for damage roles, unclear whether it reqs a weapon selection or not) without having to dip 3 levels of rogue. There is also slashing grace and fencing grace that do the same. Both require no offhand (bucklers work) and work with all slashing or piercing weapons respectively.
Just chiming in to say this game has hidden and side content galore. Lots of little bits that I wouldn't call easter eggs because I'd wager they have significance for mythic paths or NPC dialogue. Its all over the place. I can't think of a game that compares. It is the kind of content density that can only come from a sequel because the devs know what the tools can do and they know they have to outdo themselves. They have in spades and I haven't even completed act 1.
I'm about half way to level 5 on my party, mopping up all the side quests before I hit what I'd guess is the act end. I figure I've put 8 hours into this party with another hour of subquests. The act finishing quest will probably be 1-2 hours more and there is a subquest I found on another alt that I haven't picked up. (maybe another half hour)
I don't know how many acts are in this game but I know it is at least 5. So it is looking like a 60+ hour game at this point.
How far have you all progressed so far?
Cardinal Sparks is ready to cleanse the heathen with holy fire.
Inquisitor with high Charisma and Wisdom.
So I've tried both with and without controller and I'm not sure which is better. Thoughts? Customization suggestions?
Ranged spell combat does not work with the witch's elemental ray 
Instead of wasting 2 and a half hours to see if ranged spell combat works with kinetic blast, I am going to fire up Kingmaker to test it out. I think I've have already tried it but for some reason it didn't get it's hooks in me. I'll be sure to look at the numbers this time.
edit: alas it does not work with kinetic blast either...
I re rolled as a cleric and now I cant cast any level one spells. After checking the internet it seems to be a bug to do with neutral alinement. I guess I could re roll again but I'm rapidly cooling on this game.
You could use the respec mod to redo your character in place without losing any progress. Or Bag of Tricks to tweak your alignment.
Eh. Re rolled as a rogue to avoid any more spell related bugs. I'll give it another shot but after years of encountering game-breaking bugs I have a very low tolerance for them.
If you have the complete edition, I highly recommend trying out classes/builds in BtSL. I think you will find it fun rather than frustrating.
I have some of the same issues to a minor extent in WotR. I just like the early campaign a lot more so wasting 1-2 hours on a bad build isn't so bad past the initial rage quit.
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On a side note, hunter scoundrel is pretty bomb! Teamwork feats get applied to your pet automatically. The scapegoat mechanic is free on your pet so as long as you hold it back a bit, your frontliners get sturdier (-2 bonus to be hit) for free. If there was a ranged animal companion it would be even sweeter because it works on spells that aren't targeting the scapegoat either. I think the bonus increases every 5(?) levels as well. My companions that aren't my pet seem to be getting a lot of crits early on. (2 of 3 enemies in the maze get crit at least once with my hunter scoundrel)
Its got to just be stacking so many bonuses: flanked, flat footed, concealed, scapegoat, stat, proficiency + background...
farley3k wrote:Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Review "Buy, Wait for Sale, Never Touch?"
I actually can't stand this guy's reviews. It's 20 min long, I feel like half of it is him trying to make a flat affect joke. Just my opinion.
The length of his reviews is his strength. He does start out super flat here but picks up as the review goes on. I expect he recorded it after getting up or something. 
His reviews are some of the best out there though. Well worth the 15+ mins because he spends time with the games and dives fairly deep, unlike working for certain outlets.
Its pretty spot on. I think some added frustration comes form bugs on higher difficulty levels.
If you play it on normal, you can skip a few as well as some performance hits.
The one thing he doesn't touch on is that you don't have to get that far into the class complexity. You can play as say a stock cleric and auto-level your way through the campaign. You get a trap/lock disarming character in the first 10 minutes so you aren't forced into taking perception and trickery on your main character. Any straight up summoner would allow you to overwhelm in combat. Paladins and rangers can be played simply. My latest alt, the hunter seems pretty utilitarian (spells, heals, pet, martial prof, med armor, and ranged) and not overly complex. Having an animal companion really takes the burden of your class choices off considerably.
@mods - can we change the title of the thread to reflect the sequel is out and is glorious? (Wrath of the Righteous)
MOD
@mods - can we change the title of the thread to reflect the sequel is out and is glorious? (Wrath of the Righteous)
Done!
Trying to figure out a Half Orc Sohei/Beast rider build. I want at least 11 or 12 levels of Sohei, I mostly just want a cooler, more thematic mount than a horse for my Sohei, probably a wolf or boar. Need to get that Dex to damage going as well.
I would pick which one gets enlarged at a lower level. I believe some of them upgrade at 4 and the rest at 7. That is a big difference since you can reach level 4 well before you finish act 1. Level 7 seems like it won't happen until some ways into act 2.
The reason I mention this is because as a half orc, you will only be able to ride a horse at level one. It is the only large mount. The others start at medium or even small and your mount has to be one size larger in order for you to ride it. I think half orcs are still considered a medium race.
Also, unless there is something specific about the beast rider that interests you, take a look at the hunter archetypes. They are druid (wis) spell casters which will pair nicely with your sohei's wis AC bonus. Plus some of the hunter archetypes have really nice bonuses to pets. One give the judgement mechanic to you and your pet. Another makes your pet celestial ( at level 3?) which gives it smite evil/good and a bunch of magic resistance. And there is always the scoundrel archetype with the scapegoat mechanic that is freely toggled for your pet. I am tempted to dip all my companions one level of this as while I doubt it stacks it will make it so that every enemy is taking -2 hit chance on most of my party.
Where's the best place to learn about Pathfinder's core system? Buy a book?
Paizo has an online version of the rules: https://2e.aonprd.com/ . There's also a version as part of the Open Gaming Network here: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/ . I'm not sure offhand which version that one is though.
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