LOL, took too much time wandering around the city doing dumb sh*t...
...so when we had to defend Defender's Heart we barely managed to make it until the end when the Minotaur showed up and kicked the living daylights out of all of us.
Upside, despite the 60-some-odd minutes of gameplay it took, I not only don't feel frustrated, I checked a few guides, saw how to make the fight easier, and heartily look forward to taking it on again later and beating the Minotaur to death with my bare hands.
Still trying to figure out my optimal Party atm. I'm currently Myself (Eldritch Scoundrel), Seelah, Camellia, Lann, Ember and Woljif, but I'd like to give Daeran and Nenio spins too. I'm like 50% looking for what works in gameplay and 50% "characters I like to hang out with".
I think Seelah and Lann have pretty much locked down "Permanent Party Member" status, which just leaves 3 slots to fill.
That said, while I said and still say I don't want to spend all of my time min-maxing out my PC, having done a little bit of reading on builds and stuff, I'm kinda close to restarting and making up a new PC. I mean, I'm only 10 hours in, and HowLongToBeat says I'm almost certainly in for 130+ hours of gameplay (I am definitely a sidequest kinda guy).
Plus, I had no idea Woljif was an Eldritch Scoundrel, which means there are two of them in my parts and given the sheer number of different classes in the game, seems kinda silly to have two of the exact same archetype running around.
EDIT: Also, so I kinda understand the "Flat-Footed" mechanic, but can someone explain the... pre-Combat round stuff in turn-based mode?
Y'know, when combat has "started" but before the official First Round of combat, so you characters can move limited distances (the dashed lines are yellow), but it seems like, if an enemy is in range of one of your archers and they don't move, you can shoot them? Is that the surprise round?
Y'know, when combat has "started" but before the official First Round of combat, so you characters can move limited distances (the dashed lines are yellow), but it seems like, if an enemy is in range of one of your archers and they don't move, you can shoot them? Is that the surprise round?
Yeah, that's the surprise round. It's been a while since I've actually played tabletop Pathfinder, so I might be wrong on some of the specifics, but: the Surprise Round is when one side surprises the other, the aware side gets to take a single action in that turn, rather than the full round of actions of a normal turn. So that can be an attack action (but notably not a full attack action, so just a single attack), or a move, or a single spell with a cast time that allows it, which will be most of them.
You can also take a 5 foot step aside from that single action, you can change from standard move to 5 foot step with a right click when a character is selected. The game will use it automatically if you're just outside of range of a ranged or spell attack in the surprise round, so you might've seen that and wondered why your characters could move just a little bit in those rounds.
You can also potentially use the charge action to close the distance with enemies and do a single melee attack if they're near enough. That's been fun for the druid in my party that's basically morphed into a Smilodon permanently, and gets a full attack after a charge due to some feat or another.
That said, while I said and still say I don't want to spend all of my time min-maxing out my PC, having done a little bit of reading on builds and stuff, I'm kinda close to restarting and making up a new PC. I mean, I'm only 10 hours in, and HowLongToBeat says I'm almost certainly in for 130+ hours of gameplay (I am definitely a sidequest kinda guy).
Yup, did some more reading and ended up restarting the game. This time I'm going for a Eldritch Scion build.
Little thing I heard online though, gave Seelah and Camellia a level of Rowdy Rogue and goodness gracious. We are team Sneak Attack City right now.
I have escaped Kenabres!
Still very much enjoying myself, and slowly amping up the difficulty levels. I had no idea that the "weaker/stronger" enemies thing wasn't just about raw status but about what abilities they use.
I want to kill every goddamn Dretch I see, I swear to God I hate stinking cloud so much.
Also, was delighted to find myself fighting a significant number of enemies with Stat Drain/Level Drain abilities. (Hint: He was not delighted.)
But no, I'm getting a better handle of combat, even if I feel like you really gotta think-think about how you use your magic users, because we just hit Level 5 and I feel like we only just started getting access to spells that are meaningful.
Grats. Its a great game!
Rowdy really is fun.
But you know this is Pathfinder so there is a billion things beyond that.
Like:
Taking a dip in a pet class so that you can mount it and charge with Rowdy...
The shifter class is really cool.
If you're talking about dips, mutagen fighter is ridiculous. Get a stacking strength / dex buff for 10 minutes with LV 1 dip and don't even lose a Base Attack Bonus. Heck, my MC was mostly a mutagen fighter for what was a supercharged Fighter kit.
Other things to plan around are teamwork feats with attacks of opportunity. Pets can build on trip abilities with teamwork feats for cheesy fights (it's like a free single target Grease spell).
Whoof, well, this had ben an A+ experience...
....until I got to the Crusade Army map. Like, it's not terrible, but it absolutely feels like a half-realized extra mechanic that gives you a lot more busy work than actual enjoyment. And sure, you can turn it off, but it's clear they want you to play through it.
It's not a game-breaker or anything, but speaking for myself, that part is a bit of a blah.
Also, I criticized Divinity 2 for lacking trash mobs to fight, but I gotta say, Pathfinder might go too far in the other direction. I would love less random meaningless encounters with giant bugs in this game, please and thank you.
It's still good, but I've finally run into my "Oh, this could be better" critiques.
EDIT: Lemme put it this way. I am SO GLAD the ToyBox exists. Cuz it allows you to really speed through some of the truly boring stuff.
Crusade tactic seems like: buy all ranged units and use leaders who can cast offensive spells to smoke the opposition. That and have 2 chokepoint armies. Once you got that covered, you can basically run around most of the map freely - until you hit a doom stack well beyond whatever you can field, which probably indicates you shouldn't be there at this part of the story.
Restarted again as a Warpriest, because frankly, I'm not a fan of the game's main Healer options (bless Sosiel's well-meaning heart).
Anyway though, I'm out of Kenabres and got Seelah her mount. Question though... is there a way to leave it at home sometimes? Or do you just have to take it with you all the time?
Restarted again as a Warpriest, because frankly, I'm not a fan of the game's main Healer options (bless Sosiel's well-meaning heart).
Anyway though, I'm out of Kenabres and got Seelah her mount. Question though... is there a way to leave it at home sometimes? Or do you just have to take it with you all the time?
There’s no way to not have a pet in your party, except temporarily if it dies.
Ah, gotcha.
Well, I love how accidentally hilarious that makes the occasional skill check in the game. Like climbing a ladder....
...with your horse.
Pets with mobility and athletics could be the difference between landing on top of a dragon (wholly unprepared and unbuffed) or otherwise being able to prepare and assault it. There's also various skill checks which can result in very frustrating exhaustion/time wasted if you don't have enough points here.
And let's be honest - who bothers with a sneaking pet or one with arcane or religious knowledge 
Dragging my ass through the Drezen fight and my God, Pathfinder is an unforgiving system.
Like I said, I'm so glad I downloaded the ToyBox, because I'm not nearly skilled/patient enough to grind through these fights and I'm not even close to hard. I should've made this post after the Leper's Smile fight, which is genuinely some of the least-fun, infuriating experiences I've had in quite a while!
It feels like my entire spellcasting capability is rendered useless because every enemy has like 15+ Spell Resistance, along with like +12 in relevant modifiers, meaning they only have to roll like a 4 to resist every single spell I cast.
And their ACs are 20+. And they've got Damage Reduction. And while they can resist my spells, we can't resist ANY of theirs. It's like I have to rest after every 1.5 fights!
And to be clear, I accept that this is because I am Bad At The Game, but, in my humble opinion (and my difficulty is pretty much set to the core rules, except enemy Crits are weak), they've forgotten a bit of advice I remember getting as a DM, which is that it's not fun to just miss all the time in fights and have all of your spells be ineffective. Ya gotta find a different way to make things difficult. I think most players would prefer to hit consistently but not do that much damage as opposed to never hit, and when you do, do tiny damage.
For all of my misgivings about Larian's style of combat, I think they did a much better job of giving you fights where you didn't just feel wholly impotent, which happens to me pretty often (Succubi, among other enemies, are a party-wipe almost every time).
EDIT: Oh and like a solid 1/3 of the opponents have abilities/spells that do Ability/Level damage, which is my single biggest pet-peeve in RPGs. I despise it. Outside of giving it to boss characters, I don't think any enemy should have those abilities and be able to spam them as frequently as they occur in this game. I'm like this close to using ToyBox to just turn it off entirely.
(Succubi, among other enemies, are a party-wipe almost every time).
Also, it is flatly absurd that Dominate Person does not end the moment the person that cast the Domination dies.
EDIT: Johran Vane. 38 AC. I'm giving up for a while. Ridiculous, excruciatingly un-fun.
I think I said when I was going through Kingmaker that Owlcat set out to implement Pathfinder on a computer, they didn’t set out to make a Pathfinder computer game.
All the rules are there and they are rigidly enforced. A level of min/maxing is required for character builds to overcome those ACs and resistances even on the easier difficulty levels. In Wrath of the Righteous, given most of the foes you are facing are demons of one form or other, you have to build characters with that specifically in mind so they have the right skills and abilities to overcome their specific resistances.
When you look at Larian’s approach to BG3, where the gaming experience comes first and they adapt the D&D ruleset to account for it, it’s a night and day difference.
It’s entirely possible to build a character in pathfinder that can’t hit anything and dies in one hit because you don’t have a PhD in the character creation system. It’s a big failing.
Everything you said Sorbi.
They give you 500 different classes, and if you don't know how to min-max every one of them, you've got no chance of winning on any difficulty harder than story mode.
I'm not even close to playing on hard, and it feels like the only options are "Play Legit, with the difficulty way down (so most enemies don't even use their abilities)" or "Relentlessly cheat with ToyBox."
Like, I know it's because I'm frustrated right now because I just blew six hours of my evening not having fun, but grinding through a single setpiece full of various enemies that took multiple reloads to defeat, only to come upon one that I literally cannot appear to hit in any circumstance has me about ready to start BG3.
I cannot express how much of my initial goodwill this game has squandered just to be difficult for its own sake. I'm not even out of Act II, and the amount of fun I've been having has been on a steady decline.
I'm genuinely pissed because I was so high on this game when I started, and it has crushed almost all of my enjoyment.
Everything you said Sorbi.
I'm genuinely pissed because I was so high on this game when I started, and it has crushed almost all of my enjoyment.
You have to regard Pathfinder’s class systems as a buffet of options rather than making a specific class. A bit from here, quite a lot from there depending on the generic type of character you are trying to be - fighter, wizard, rogue etc. I do applaud the ambition of the system, but Owlcat don’t even attempt to explain it all and assume you to be a diehard fan even before your start.
I only finished Kingmaker because I’m stubborn and don’t like leaving games unfinished when I’ve put that much time and effort into it. I didn’t enjoy the final couple of acts at all, as my comments earlier in this thread should make very clear. Wrath of the Righteous is much better, but I sort of dwindled out of it about half way through and have never found the desire to go back and finish it.
The pathfinder games are game where I can see and admire the effort that’s gone in to creating them - there’s no doubt Owlcat have made the games they wanted to make. But that’s the issue - you have to accept you have to play them they way they want you to and not necessarily the way you want to.
-I think I start to lose interest in Pathfinder when it gets to the stage where I have to apply 7-8 buffs on my party to progress.
-I can delay that point with min maxing, collecting powerful feat combinations and/or learned multiclassing.
-Still a fantastic game worth hundreds of hours of play.
-There is a puzzle and dialogue focused DLC and a rogue-like DLC that are fantastic too!
-The ability to swap between RTwP and TB is a marvel.
On 1 and 5, completely agreed, and what's gonna bring me back is 3.
Like, I'm quite enjoying the plot, even if I'm tired of "Chosen one" narratives. I fully enjoy enough of the companions that I want to see how their stories go, there's just so much I like, but I really, really dislike having to do the buff/debuff dance before every fight!
Like, i'm not against buff/debuffs, but you need to be adding like... 8 before every fight!
My friend gave me a good bit of advice last night though, when I was infuriated:
What helped me a bit is like, you can't play it thinking "my base attack power is the important number." You have to think, "the important thing is my party having as many ways to temporarily raise ours / lower their defense" then you stack them in combat
Which, again, don't like, but I get it.
I was super-pissed last night but I'll come back to it again fairly soon. I read a couple Reddit threads about how to take on Johran, so I've got a clue, but yeah, as Sorbicol said, it's very easy to build out a class that leaves you incapable of defeating difficult enemies because you chose the wrong perks/feats to min/max out your character, and to me, that's bad game design.
-I think I start to lose interest in Pathfinder when it gets to the stage where I have to apply 7-8 buffs on my party to progress.
-I can delay that point with min maxing, collecting powerful feat combinations and/or learned multiclassing.
-Still a fantastic game worth hundreds of hours of play.
-There is a puzzle and dialogue focused DLC and a rogue-like DLC that are fantastic too!
-The ability to swap between RTwP and TB is a marvel.
Bubbles ultimate buff mod. One click, all your buffs are applied.
While it's great that there's a mod for it, it's a failing of the game that the mod is even "necessary" to begin with (and yes, I know that there's also the approach of building characters to use feats/metamagic to make buffs last for multiple encounters or even until the next time the party needs to rest, but that's just another band-aid for the same balancing issue).
I love Kingmaker and Wrath, but I hate the games' difficulty being balanced around the expectation of metagame min/maxing and fully buffing before each encounter.
I love Kingmaker and Wrath, but I hate the games' difficulty being balanced around the expectation of metagame min/maxing and fully buffing before each encounter.
I know saying "THIS" is such played-out 2007 millennial sh*t, but this.
Anyway, back at it tonight, and thanks to a few guides online and a ton of save-scumming, I have finished the assault on Drezen.
I've also looked up several build guides to retrain my companions. I'm not a fan of it, but it is what it is, and the combat is such that I might as well just embrace the mix/max optimization. I just wish I could've played around and created a character to my playstyle, instead of to their expectations. Doing the reading on this game is not optional, it is mandatory.
EDIT: LOL, watched a Regill build video where his AC eventually ends up at EIGHTY-SEVEN.
Even if you aren't into using other folks builds, you should check out the stuff CRPGBro does on youtube, they are excellent at explaining skill synergies, gear, playing style, etc.
Boy howdy were YOU ever right. I apologize for ignoring your advice.
LOL, spent the better part of 4 hours not playing the game, but re-speccing my entire party.
LOL, spent the better part of 4 hours not playing the game, but re-speccing my entire party.
Well. Can't say it didn't work.
In a single fight, after re-speccing my party, my two wolves, both with Trip and Combat reflexes, utterly annihilated the enemies in a way that would've been embarrassing to watch if it wasn't so immensely joyful to shove it right back up the game's ass.
EDIT: Several more hours in, and yeah, I just am not built for the constant buff/debuff this game requires. Thank God for ToyBox. I find that setting it to my party always rolling with Advantage retains a good amount of challenge while not forcing me to cast 15 buffs/debuffs before every single combat.
Basically, the issue remains, the way this game wants you to play in combat, I just find to have gone too far in one direction.
IMHO, my ideal game is one where buffs/debuffs are definitely very useful, but someone playing on "Normal" difficulty can reasonably beat the game without using them.
Also, again, the Crusade map would be just awful grindwork, but thanks to ToyBox making my Generals living Gods, it's fine.
Got in a little more to end my vacation. Again, it's just such a fine line between "I'm having fun!" and "I hate this," which for me, is broadly when I feel like I'm expected to use 5+ buffs/debuffs to get through a fight.
And from some of the guides I'm seeing online, 5 is beneath the minimum for some of these fights.
Spent a healthy chunk of time tearing around the Crusade map though. It's going to take so, so long to get to all the different places to visit. So long. I hope they don't make anything in this game too time-sensitive.
I also didn't realize until late last night that the "Murky Grotto" or whatever takes you to the Treasure of the Midnight Isles DLC, which I'm considering starting but also moderately terrified of (both in terms of enemy strength and in terms of it taking several years to finish).
Do not pass go. The midnight isles is terrific! Great for rapid leveling and build experimenting.
There are multiple paths and it is clearly marked the level of toughness for each path.
You island hop and there are level 1, 2 and 3 islands. You can hop from level 1 to level 1 for the easiest route. You can go all 2 or 3 for more challenge. Or you can mix and match based on which completion rewards you want.
Your island tier progress is saved if you die. Each tier is 4 island plus a tier ending boss island. So if you die on island 2 tier 3, you will start on island 1 tier 3 next time.
I hope they get around to the last two DLCs soon I'd like to do a complete playthrough sometime but it's been at least half a year since the last DLC I think?
Do not pass go. The midnight isles is terrific! Great for rapid leveling and build experimenting.
There are multiple paths and it is clearly marked the level of toughness for each path.
You island hop and there are level 1, 2 and 3 islands. You can hop from level 1 to level 1 for the easiest route. You can go all 2 or 3 for more challenge. Or you can mix and match based on which completion rewards you want.
Your island tier progress is saved if you die. Each tier is 4 island plus a tier ending boss island. So if you die on island 2 tier 3, you will start on island 1 tier 3 next time.
I think you are describing the rogue-like version of the dlc played separately. If you are doing the midnight isles as part of the main story it’s slightly different. Act 2 unlocks the first group of isles that have to be done in order, act 3 the next, and the last set unlock in act 4. Difficulty roughly corresponds to the midpoint of those acts.
Yeah, I'm mid-story. But I guess Imma go do it then!
Yes. I am talking about the rogue-like version outside the main campaign.
So you will probably get a taste of what the rogue-like version offers by completing the in campaign islands. And get a nice xp boost for your campaign party.
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