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Congrats on unlocking the best weapon in the game! We'll talk more about it next chapter, possibly with a bit more talking about itemization at higher difficulties. Nurah is an interesting character and another fun look at something brought up previously - by tying themselves to the Hellknights, Mendev has only been increasingly weakening themselves. It was mentioned previously, and will come up more, and ESPECIALLY comes up if you go the Devil path, but the Hellknights aren't just here to kill demons. Cheliax is slowly conquering Mendev, using their position in the Crusade to slowly take over more and more of Mendev's government positions, gaining more and more diplomatic advantage, all without ever actually going to war with them. As the saying goes, if there’s a Nazi at the table, and ten people are sitting with him and letting him talk, you're going to have a table with eleven nazis. Or, if you want, Mendev is slowly becoming the nazi bar. It is, weirdly, something that comes up in, maybe of all people, Daeren's talks. One of the reasons Daeren hates the Crusade is because he feels it's taken over Mendev to the point where there isn't a Mendev anymore - there's just the Crusade, and that means anyone and anything deemed "useful" to the Crusade, even if it's harmful or even evil, is given allowance. And likewise, anything deemed "harmful" to the Crusade is seen as anathema to be stomped out. Mendev is slowly turning into another colony of Cheliax. This is how you end up with Hellknights parading slaves through the region in shackles. How you get the tieflings going "gently caress this, I'm out" instead of helping defend the city. How you get loyal members of the Sunrise Sword bail out and leave the Crusade after being mistreated. How Ember and her father, who came to Kenabres to join the Crusade, end up on the pyre. When Ember says the gods are silly and don't know what they're doing, that's fueled by watching no small number of the valient and faithful of Iomedae commit or even just look the other way at daily atrocities. It's going to lead to Regill's insanely bad military advice starting next chapter. It's a question Wrath presents, but is very awkward about answering, especially in Chapter 1 where it tries to present the cultists in a goofy light, and it's the question of "how do people end up becoming demonic cultists anyways?" We saw the more dumb jokey responses already, but Staunton and Nurah are giving a new one: if your options are "abject and horrific slavery" vs "gently caress it, I'm burning it all down," you're going to see people side with the latter. If your options are "I spend the rest of my life being insulted and mistreated with no hope of ever being seen as better" vs "gently caress it, I hope you all loving die and your horrible Crusade fails," you're going to have people join the people doing the latter. The Crusade manages to fail at actually presenting itself as the better moral option to the demonic forces of the Abyss. It's not as if this doesn't have plenty and plenty of real world examples. By letting the Hellknights do as they please, Mendev is actively recruiting for their enemies. And while the Hellknights were happily helping the demons recruit more and more cultists, those same Helknights were nowhere to be found when Kenabres actually fell.
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May 14, 2024 18:26
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Sosiel can be a little boring, but he has an interesting character arc and some variety into how he can turn out. He’s not up with the top dogs but I like him a lot more then say Seelah or Lann.
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May 14, 2024 19:10
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There’s a camp chat with Nenio that I think gets sealed once you attack Drezen. Basically she gives your character a physical including a dental exam (special dialogue for dhampir or kitsune), then poses a couple philosophy questions. Your answers are alignment based and you will get a mythic path recommendation in response. It’s a bit amusing. I sympathize with Nurah and Staunton, but I would personally go more Woljif’s route than theirs. And as soon as someone like Yua showed up creating a better crusade experience than Mendev, I might join their army.
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May 14, 2024 19:59
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ProfessorCirno posted:
Which fits very nicely in "The Crusade is amazingly incompetent and wouldn't manage to do poo poo without PC" theme.
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May 14, 2024 21:21
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Cythereal posted:
Okay, I admit that I don't know much about communication in wartime in the medieval time (which these game ape), nor about how magical communication works in Golarion compared to ye olde d&d (sending's a level 4 cleric spell in 3.5 ; are mid-level clerics common enough to have one attached to every battalion?)... Buuut - isn't "we lost contact with our allies" still very much not a good thing? (last part of his sentence implies "as long they killing, who cares" - so much for discipline!)
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May 14, 2024 22:12
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Gun Jam posted:Okay, I admit that I don't know much about communication in wartime in the medieval time (which these game ape), nor about how magical communication works in Golarion compared to ye olde d&d (sending's a level 4 cleric spell in 3.5 ; are mid-level clerics common enough to have one attached to every battalion?)... You would think that each chapter would have a number of sending scrolls, sending is 5th level in Pathfinder so it's a decently high level so they might not have anyone capable of naturally casting it but you'd expect they'd be able to wing it with a scroll and spell components. edit: Dream Message is a third level spell and literally lets you send a one way message up to a minute long which is instantly received if they're asleep or will be received the instant they fall asleep. Seems pretty easy to just send a message to say "hey where are you guys at the moment? Hellknight Dugnutt is going to take a nap so send a message to him when you get this" and you literally only have to know the name of the target and have met them in person before. Testekill fucked around with this message at 22:34 on May 14, 2024 |
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May 14, 2024 22:28
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We'll notice eventually that there is quite a lack of unconventional communication in the narrative. Spellcasting should narratively be pretty rare. I think it's established elsewhere the various chapters of Hellknights are largely independent also.
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May 14, 2024 22:34
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Also, this would all require Regill to give a poo poo. Which he does not. Remember, Regill is lawful in the sense that he's a legalistic little shitweasel who's memorized every loophole and exact wording in the books to let him do whatever he wants with no respect whatsoever for the intent or spirit of the law.
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May 14, 2024 22:35
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Gun Jam posted:Okay, I admit that I don't know much about communication in wartime in the medieval time (which these game ape), nor about how magical communication works in Golarion compared to ye olde d&d (sending's a level 4 cleric spell in 3.5 ; are mid-level clerics common enough to have one attached to every battalion?)... having the slightest idea what the hell your armies are doing once they're over the horizon from you is a remarkably recent development, yes. getting things to the point that armies ostensibly on the same side wouldn't attack one another when they ran into each other took a hot second longer than you'd expect, let alone getting communications good enough they could keep each other informed about where they were and what they were doing. it took a guy with effectively infinite money to get it to sort of, SORT of work in the 1600s, and even then, most of what he was doing was keeping multiple competitive-murder-the-other-guy's-peasant teams in positions to maximize other-guy's-peasant murdering. topically, his ultimate fate was to get killed by his monarch and employer for the crime of "yeah you are too good at this war stuff and I don't need any rivals for the crown, thank you very much" Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! fucked around with this message at 23:44 on May 14, 2024 |
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May 14, 2024 23:41
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The fantasy genre has long had a policy of politely ignoring the effects large scale magic would have on the setting, because such a setting would be exceptionally stupid and unfun. Editions previous to 3.x didn't have this problem too much, as magic items simply were not purchaseable without DM permission, and it was implied that high level spellcasters were a rarity. 3.x, which includes Pathfinder 1e, uh. Has. A lot of problems. And in fact a decent amount of insanely long and utterly stupid conversations were devoted to trying to figure out how such a setting would work (again, it would be exceptionally stupid and unfun to play in) The only settings to consider otherwise was Eberron and Dark Sun; the former got around it by fashioning itself after post-WW1 Europe rather then ye olde fantasy, stating that characters greater then level 3 were a stark rarity, and while there's a plethora of low level magic items, anything greater is going to be substantially more rare; the latter said that yeah, that setting did exist, and magic drains nearby life, and that's why the whole planet is now a gods forsaken desert of misery, and why anyone who looks sufficiently wizardly will soon find themselves at the business end of an armed mob if they're lucky, and being cracked open and feasted on by the nearest Sorcerer-King if they're unlucky. Golarion, our current setting, took the same policy that Forgotten Realms took: Just Don't Think About It Too Much.
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May 15, 2024 02:45
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SettingSun posted:I think it's established elsewhere the various chapters of Hellknights are largely independent also. It's basically this. We're not even just talking about a different chapter, we're talking about an entirely different order of hellknights. The Godclaw and the Nail have separate command structures, which means they don't report to Regill and he doesn't report to them, which in turn means that as far as he's concerned, they're not his business. They're allies only in the sense that they probably have some shared interests if this particular chapter of Nail hellknights are in the area of the Worldwound killing demons, but that's as far as it goes... which is kind of the problem writ large, really, where a bunch of different groups have just been attacking this problem in their own ways without any meaningful coordination. If they wanted to keep in touch, they'd probably do a version of what actually happened when Regill's order needed help: they'd send a messenger. (In that case, the messenger sent himself, but it would have worked much the same way of Regill had ordered him to go.)
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May 15, 2024 03:07
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the only setting I've ever seen tackle it in an interesting way is Exalted. short version, superhumans are real, powerful, exist in a couple of different flavors, and the history of Creation is the history of horrible superhuman tyrants being overthrown, the horrors of their rule being cast down, and then discovering that ruling over vast masses of regular mortals as a superhuman makes you start looking at the world tyranically very, very quickly. why do the elementally-themed X-Men-level superhumans rule? they can communicate over long distances very easily, their soldiers are a match for a dozen lesser men, their sorceries more intricate and powerful than those of lesser magi, their craftsmen produce works no mortal could hope to approach let alone equal, and their diplomats can talk down the gods themselves. they cast down the horrid Anathema who ruled before. truly, no better rule than theirs could exist! and for the last six hundred years, most of the world has known which one of them is supposed to rule! the Empress, blessed be her glory, rules over about half of creation, and something like 70% of its people. she's used her superhuman talents to forge an empire that, no matter how much all its movers and shakers may wish otherwise, will fall apart without her to arbitrate disputes between its most powerful people. the setting's "modern day" starts at "it has been five years since the last time anyone saw her. the empire would be starting to fall apart anyway. the fact that the Goku-level superhumans have started to reincarnate is honestly just salt on the wound" welcome to what future historians are going to call the Time of Tumult, young PCs. a fair amount of the stories of this era are going to be about you. decide how they're going to go.
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May 15, 2024 03:19
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ProfessorCirno posted:Nurah is an interesting character[...] Interesting stuff, thanks for posting that. Count me among the "Sosiel is underrated" crowd. Cyth's take on him in the last update is pretty much my own feelings summed up much more elegantly. It's easy to overlook him, I certainly did at first, but there's good and interesting writing to be found if you give him a chance.
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May 15, 2024 04:13
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Sosiel is a good friend and I try to make it a point to help him out every Good playthrough. Neutral and Evil ones too, the extra experience is nice. 
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May 15, 2024 07:02
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Each time you want to send a message you can dispatch a messenger for a few copper pieces or burn a level 5 spell scroll which costs thousands(?) of gold. How many messages are needed to be sent every single day? Is it even possibly to get that many scrolls if someone could afford that, on top of all the other expenses of forever war? It's not like the average wizard is in any way inclined to spend all of their time just making scrolls. 
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May 15, 2024 08:44
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Poil posted:Each time you want to send a message you can dispatch a messenger for a few copper pieces or burn a level 5 spell scroll which costs thousands(?) of gold. How many messages are needed to be sent every single day? Is it even possibly to get that many scrolls if someone could afford that, on top of all the other expenses of forever war? It's not like the average wizard is in any way inclined to spend all of their time just making scrolls. I never ended up using scrolls just because their costs are just so brutal compared to the value they provide. If the scroll isn't an instant battle ender then it isn't worth it, and even then it might not be worth it. On that note, what bonuses are actually useful on a magic item, because on thinking about it, there aren't many. +1 works out to about 5% shift, which is nice for every roll, but if 5% is all you have then you're going to just depend on your tactics at that point. +1d6 damage is good to have, since it can make a large difference in weapon damage, DR/- is also good, but very rare; and there aren't any more rings of regeneration I notice as that would in fact be actually great. I ended up getting a lot of mileage out of using my Paladin's holy blade ability with the +1d6 fire and +2d6 holy damage bonuses. Extra points for mass bull's strength, power attack and a greatsword with its own +1d6. But without damage adding you're just not hitting hard enough to really inconvenience demons and magic items do little to shift that.
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May 15, 2024 10:27
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achtungnight posted:Sosiel is a good friend and I try to make it a point to help him out every Good playthrough. Neutral and Evil ones too, the extra experience is nice. I like Sosiel too. His story is great because it's very human and down to Earth compared to a lot of the other stories. It's a very personal story that doesn't have the supernatural messing with him at all.
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May 15, 2024 12:52
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I have some time to kill this morning because last night's storm knocked out the internet, she said. I can quickly record the next update, she said. I can just leave that for two or three days while I give the thread a break and let people catch up she said. Yeesh. I'd forgotten just how much killing there is to do in the next update. At least they fixed an obnoxious battle that used to straight up be an unwinnable boss fight until NPCs save the day. Now the cutscene kicks in if you just knock the boss down to half health.
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May 15, 2024 13:31
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rastilin posted:On that note, what bonuses are actually useful on a magic item, because on thinking about it, there aren't many. Can be a complicated issue. A basic +1 is useful because it lets you hit more often as well as boosting damage - if you somehow have overrun the AC curve and only miss enemies on a 1, that first part won't matter, but at the point in the game where you're getting +1 weapons, that's unlikely to be the case. A miss does zero damage, so you really want to avoid that. Taking a low-level melee attacker as an example: a 1H weapon is probably rolling 1d8, and a 2H weapon either 1d10 or 1d12, and you probably have around a +5 damage bonus from strength to start with. That bonus is increased for 2H weapons, so on average a 1H weapon is dealing around 9.5 damage and a 2H weapon is dealing around 13 damage per hit. If you're level 3, say, just for the sake of argument, your basic attack bonus on a physical damage class is +3, so your overall bonus to hit is probably around +8. Let's say you're fighting things with an AC of 19, so you're hitting 50% of the time. What happens to your damage numbers with a +1 weapon? Your average damage per round with the 2H weapon is 6.5 to start (13 * 50%). If you're hitting 5% more often, it's 7.15 (13 * 55%); with the extra +1 damage, that makes it 8.15. Let's say you pick up a 1d6 energy damage weapon instead (I don't believe that you get any of those that don't have a +1 bonus, but just for the sake of argument.) On average, the extra damage will be 3.5 when you hit, so you'd add on 1.75 (hitting 50% of the time) and have an average of 8.25 damage with that. In other words, 1d6 (barely) beats a +1 in that very specific situation. If it's a +2, though, you're looking at (13 * 60%) + 2, which is 9.8, clearly better. So it might seem intuitively like the +1d6 is better than the +1, but... it's not, really, they're about the same for general use. Of course, the other reason to pick up weapons with energy damage is to nail something that has a specific weakness, so that might tip the scales a little bit in that direction as long as you're not fighting strings of things immune to the damage type the weapon does. You can see what I mean by "complicated", since that's one type of weapon with one character against one enemy and I didn't even talk about critical hit probability and damage multipliers and damage resistance. As to whether any of this is useful, well, yeah, it kills guys slightly faster. And once you do start getting more frequent criticals and stacking additional attacks per round, these numbers will start multiplying in ways that make them pretty significant. A +3 weapon is much better than a non-modified non-magic weapon, for instance, not just a little better, because the effect of that +3 gets multiplied all over the place since you're probably doing a few attacks a round by the time you get one. You want all these bonuses to be as high as they can and stack together with each other as much as possible, because usually it isn't a single amazing weapon or ability making the difference, it's a bunch of incremental things that have all added up to create some monster that does hundreds of damage in a single round of attacks. Everything that provides any kind of bonus is useful, just make sure you look at what type of bonus it is, because bonuses of the same type generally don't stack and Pathfinder has a bewildering number of different types (enhancement, deflection, morale, circumstance, insight, sacred, profane, etc.). Weapon types to bypass DR or fast healing are also useful, but unless they have other things on them you often end up just stuffing those in your backpack or extra weapon slots and hopefully not forgetting they're there when you run into the right type of monster, because kobolds don't care if you're hitting them with a cold iron sword or not. Some of the less common modifiers, like Brilliant Energy can be very very useful except for very specific circumstances where their effects don't work. And so on. There are some enchantments that don't really do much, but I think those are in the minority; the real question isn't which ones are useful, it's which combinations are more useful than others for what you have the character using the item doing.
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May 15, 2024 15:10
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So, random thing that amused me this morning: one of the short story bits I've poked at for a future moment included me having a laugh at the idea of Hellknight bards. No reason they couldn't exist after all. Lo and behold, one of the new class kits revealed today for the final Wrath DLC is the Chelaxian Diva kit for bards, focused on using sonic attacks to kill by rupturing eardrums, melting brains, and crushing bones with hypersonic waves.
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May 15, 2024 15:18
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Chelaxians ruin everything, don't they?
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May 15, 2024 15:29
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Cythereal posted:So, random thing that amused me this morning: one of the short story bits I've poked at for a future moment included me having a laugh at the idea of Hellknight bards. No reason they couldn't exist after all. I think one of their biggest hit artists is a guy named Falco. His best known tune is “Rock me Asmodeus.” See y’all next post.
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May 15, 2024 15:33
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rastilin posted:On that note, what bonuses are actually useful on a magic item For this game in particular, it gets a bit tricky. First and foremost, one big question is, what spells / buffs are in play? I make use of a mod that makes buffing substantially easier. Having easy acces to buffs means some items are no longer really required; if you can have ready and reliable access to, say, physical stat boosts (your Bear's Strength, Bull's Con, etc) then belts that provide those stats aren't as needed. If you have easy access to deflection bonuses through Shield of Faith or high level Angel buff spells, you don't have to worry about keeping rings of deflection on. On the other hand, if you don't use a mod, buffing the whole party gets substantially more annoying; instead of one button, you gotta hit a whole drat ton of them, and it's a lot more understandable if you find that whole thing annoying and just don't do it. Unfortunately, this game is is made using the Pathfinder 1e ttg engine, which was built from D&D 3.5, a game wherein none of the devs actually realized how strong buffs were and accidentally made a game where buff spells absolutely reign supreme. When talking about weapons, buffs are also important because one spell, Greater Magic Weapon, will make ALL your weapons +5 weapons in due time. The second question is, what is that character going to be doing? Ember isn't exactly going to be doing a lot of physical attacking; especially later on when you can have more then enough spells to last you the day, she's going to be casting a spell as almost every single action. So, a good/strong weapon that does a lot of physical damage is entirely useless to her - you want something that's going to boost her spellcasting (and hey, we sure have a cool purple knife that makes your evocation spell stronger, huh?). On the other hand, Seelah is likely going to be attacking every round, especially since she's mounted, so you want something that does a whole lot of damage on her. Also, with my own tactics, where Seelah is riding a big beefy horse covered in defenses, I don't have to worry about her own AC all that much, so I can instead focus on giving her items that boost either her offense or allies' capabilities, rather then purely defensive ones. Seelah's going to be doing a lot of smiting, so a particular ring that gives her more smites is going to be ludicrously valuable. Thirdly, what are you fighting? This is actually a super important question for WotR because a lot of enemies here have a laundry list of immunities and another laundry list of things they take less damage from. Normally, weapons with a bunch of elemental damages on top is very valuable - a +1 flaming weapon is normally going to be more valuable then a +2 weapon, because doing an extra 1d6 damage is going to outpace +1 damage and +1 attack bonuses. But here in WotR, where basically all demons are either immune to fire or take 5-10 points of damage less from it, elemental bonuses are suddenly waaaaay less useful. This is going to haunt one character in particular, but we can talk about that more in Chapter 3 when we get there. This also takes difficulty into effect - WotR has a lot of items that make enemies roll saves vs effects, but those DCs tend not to be that massive, and so, in higher difficulties, a lot of those items are way less useful because enemies are going to save against those effects far more often then not. The good news is, while it's a super important question, it'a also a super easy question. You're going to be fighting demons primarily, undead secondary, and chaotic evil humanoids thirdly. Oh, there's other stuff to fight, but those three are are going to be most of your enemies through the entire game, and as it turns out, those three share a lot of common weaknesses. Lastly, what sort of stacking bonuses do you have? Crits are absurdly powerful because they multiple drat near everything, and mythic abilities give us access to more ways to stack crit bonuses. The best weapon in the game can be grabbed near instantly in Chapter 3 because, despite being "only" +2 (or is it +3? I forget), it's got an unnaturally massive crit range and modifier along with the ability to remove control effects from you. You don't have to worry about it not being a +5 because Greater Magic Weapon will make it one anyways. You don't have to worry about it being "low damage" from a lack of fiery/icy/etc, because demons are going to nosell most of that damage anyways. You don't have to worry about it's lack of save vs effect because enemies will nosell those, too. This makes itemization in WotR...weird. WotR has a lot of weapons that give save vs effects, and a lot of items that do elemental damage, and we don't actually give a poo poo about any of those. If you play with mass buffing, we also don't have to give a poo poo about common bonuses (note: mental bonuses are still very valuable as they determine spell slots, which only works if you have those before you rest). This means things like "the strongest weapon in the game is grabbed not even halfway in" and "a whole lot of late game items aren't useful in the slightest."
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May 15, 2024 16:36
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rastilin posted:On that note, what bonuses are actually useful on a magic item, because on thinking about it, there aren't many. I'll preface this by saying I'm mostly talking about D&D/Pathfinder generally, not this game which I have not played. To add to what idonotlikepeas said - bonuses to hit stack well with bonuses to damage, and stacking multiple bonuses helps turn multiple small advantages into an overall overwhelming advantage - there's two other things to consider: consistency and opportunity cost. Generally speaking it's nice to have more consistent lower damage rather than unreliable but spiky damage. Take an extreme example, where you could either guarantee every party member does ten damage every round or give every one of six party members a 1/6 chance to do 60 damage each round. I'd probably take the ten-damage-per-round option because it makes it much easier to plan, much easier to deal with chaff, and is basically as effective against big bosses. Plus action economy & the rocket-tag nature of D&D fights means guaranteed kills early effectively counts as defense for the team. (see, e.g., area of effect control spells, which don't kill but disable enemies long enough that you basically have two half-size fights instead of one full-size fight, and a half-size fight is less than half as hard) Opportunity cost also matters. What's the alternative to incremental buffs? As you say, it's often flat or dice-roll damage bonuses, or matching elemental damage types. For gear that doesn't go in a weapon hand, it's often utility bonuses like skill modifiers or activated abilities. All of these are less consistently useful than flat combat bonuses like +1s - skill checks are a sometimes food & there are lots of skills out there, activated abilities are only used so often while your characters are attacking/casting pretty much every round in combat, and in a given stretch of game you're probably making far more combat rolls than non-combat rolls anyways, and as far as combat modifiers go, damage-only buffs are primarily critical for specific enemy types with resistances/vulnerabilities or flat DR.
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May 15, 2024 16:58
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:the only setting I've ever seen tackle it in an interesting way is Exalted. short version, superhumans are real, powerful, exist in a couple of different flavors, and the history of Creation is the history of horrible superhuman tyrants being overthrown, the horrors of their rule being cast down, and then discovering that ruling over vast masses of regular mortals as a superhuman makes you start looking at the world tyranically very, very quickly. And also, the Goku-level superhumans coming back is the first warning that the even more ultimate horrors that they rebelled against and cast down are coming back, either from the (un)dead or from actual Hell. Which is not even getting into the weirder poo poo that's lurking out there and that will also begin to greeble their way out of the woodwork. What makes Exalted fun, though, is that you can absolutely play it as a straight up Shonen-anime. If you remember the old "Does the game let you do The Thing" meme, Exalted answers it with "Not only can you do the thing, you can do it so well that the gods themselves sit up and take notice", and it's a perfectly valid way to play, because you're going to be facing off against antagonists at your level or entire armies. But the best campaigns I've had in that game is from exploring how you deal with the consequences of your actions, and with a good GM, that can be intense: Okay, you've conquered this small city-state. Sure, you have the charisma and magical oomph to make people literally worship you or reduce them to a red smear on the cobbles with a gesture, but that's not going to help you keeping them fed. Or paid. Or keep order. You're going to have to make decisions on law, organization, taxes, and sure you can solve the details through your character's skills... But you, the player, will still have to design this thing. Tiny actions that you don't really think about once you've started to use your powers can have huge consequences. It depends a lot on the GM, but honestly, if you want to have a game about the dangers of investing someone with vast magical power and letting them run free, Exalted cannot be beat, in my opinion. ed: The best heroic fantasy setting, is, however, EarthDawn and I will die on that hill. TLM3101 fucked around with this message at 17:22 on May 15, 2024 |
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May 15, 2024 17:18
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ProfessorCirno posted:First and foremost, one big question is, what spells / buffs are in play? I make use of a mod that makes buffing substantially easier. Having easy acces to buffs means some items are no longer really required; if you can have ready and reliable access to, say, physical stat boosts (your Bear's Strength, Bull's Con, etc) then belts that provide those stats aren't as needed. If you have easy access to deflection bonuses through Shield of Faith or high level Angel buff spells, you don't have to worry about keeping rings of deflection on. On the other hand, if you don't use a mod, buffing the whole party gets substantially more annoying; instead of one button, you gotta hit a whole drat ton of them, and it's a lot more understandable if you find that whole thing annoying and just don't do it. Unfortunately, this game is is made using the Pathfinder 1e ttg engine, which was built from D&D 3.5, a game wherein none of the devs actually realized how strong buffs were and accidentally made a game where buff spells absolutely reign supreme. When talking about weapons, buffs are also important because one spell, Greater Magic Weapon, will make ALL your weapons +5 weapons in due time. The other factor here is opportunity cost. Both spell slots and equipment slots are limited resources, albeit they are limited in different ways - you can only be using one sword (or one pair of swords) at a time, and you only have N slots to use before the end of the day before you rest (and even if you don't care about how much time passes while you rest, and in Wrath it's easy not to care too much, it resets all your buffs). So if you decide you're going to burn four to six fourth-level spell slots on keeping Greater Magic Weapon running on your various characters, that means those spell slots can't be used for anything else (other buffs, blasting, etc.) This matters less at level 20 when you have a zillion spell slots, but it's important to remember that you're going to spend most of the game not being level 20. Emphasizing the end state while planning for a character build is an easy trap to fall into (in many games, not just this one), but D&D derivatives like this tend to have inverse power curves where the most difficult stuff to deal with is in the early or mid game before the multiplicative nature of your party's overlapping power structures utterly obliterates the difficulty, so figuring out how you're going to manage when you're level 8 can be more important than figuring out what you're doing at level 18. All of that isn't to say that burning all your spell slots on buffs and having your casters crossbow their way to victory is the wrong thing to do, it's just another decision you have to make about how you're going to play the game and get your damage numbers up where you want them. Some of that is objective, and some of it just depends on play style. Arcturas posted:Generally speaking it's nice to have more consistent lower damage rather than unreliable but spiky damage. Take an extreme example, where you could either guarantee every party member does ten damage every round or give every one of six party members a 1/6 chance to do 60 damage each round. I'd probably take the ten-damage-per-round option because it makes it much easier to plan, much easier to deal with chaff, and is basically as effective against big bosses. Plus action economy & the rocket-tag nature of D&D fights means guaranteed kills early effectively counts as defense for the team. (see, e.g., area of effect control spells, which don't kill but disable enemies long enough that you basically have two half-size fights instead of one full-size fight, and a half-size fight is less than half as hard) It's also worth mentioning that this is why blasting (with an appropriate setup) can be a good idea. No, really. If you look at it mathematically, something like haste is going to be more valuable than something like fireball because an extra attack from your whole party for (let's call it) six to eight rounds is going to do more damage than the six to eight d6s you get to roll one time for the fireball, even if you're tagging a few enemies with it (fireball is a third-level spell like haste, which makes this comparison pretty easy to do directly). Except that very few fights in D&D last six rounds and almost none last eight. (I just finished a Kingmaker playthrough last night, for instance, and I think the last boss fight was about six rounds.) So not only is some portion of the haste damage not going to happen, it's also the case that less damage now is sometimes more useful than more damage later. If shooting a fireball wipes out some of the weaker enemies, or lets followup melee attacks do so, you're now taking less damage from the enemies that have been removed across the entire fight even if the fight lasts longer. This is your classic alpha strike concept - the best time to hit the enemy hard is in round one, because early advantages compound over time. Of course, this is less applicable to buffs that last multiple hours, where you have to take the effects across several fights into account. (And how frequently you're resting, since that dictates your overall supply of spell slots.)
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May 15, 2024 22:12
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My argument against blasting is that it spreads damage out. Dead enemies deal no damage and cast no spells; it's better to kill enemies one at a time then slowly whittle down so all 6 die together, because every dead enemy is no longer a threat, whereas whittling down a group means all 6 are still actively endangering you. Fireball isn't a terrible spell, but a hasted Seelah can ride straight into the enemy and kill one, possibly two, maybe even more depending on the situation. The fireball might've done more damage in that instant, but I've removed one or two threats from the board, and you still have all six. It's also a question of priority targets; in Kenabres, for example, it's far better to run in and murder any dretches before they can stinking cloud the party, even if it means the rest of the enemy can plink at you here and there a bit more. Some enemies are more threatening then others. Now, in the end game, when I have a plethora of items to make my evocation DC "No" and enemy HP is such that two characters throwing a good blast will end the fight, things get a bit different. But for the most part? Ember gets way more out of an Empowered Scorching Ray then she does Controlled Fireball. Generally speaking I tend to prefer a hard offense/control push. Roll up on enemies and smash through them / stop them from acting before they have a chance to stop you. Also, hard offense means I blow through combats faster, so buffs do more work. But, as I said, it relies on a mod to make buffing a one button push kinda deal. Also, while buffs DO run out...GMW is measured in hours. It ain't running out .
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May 15, 2024 22:52
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Cythereal posted:Lo and behold, one of the new class kits revealed today for the final Wrath DLC is the Chelaxian Diva kit for bards, focused on using sonic attacks to kill by rupturing eardrums, melting brains, and crushing bones with hypersonic waves. So basically Noise Marine from 40k
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May 15, 2024 23:41
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Blasting is so much more satisfying, though. I don't think any RPG managed to hit quite the highs of playing a level-9 capable wizard in Baldur's Gate 2. Don't get me wrong, you can do some decent blasting characters in Wrathfinder (hell, I beat the game with one - Magus/Eldritch Knight focused on pulling as much chain lightning out of his rear end as humanly possible) but the game just puts a lot of obstacles in your way if you build something like this.
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May 16, 2024 00:56
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ProfessorCirno posted:My argument against blasting is that it spreads damage out. Dead enemies deal no damage and cast no spells; it's better to kill enemies one at a time then slowly whittle down so all 6 die together, because every dead enemy is no longer a threat, whereas whittling down a group means all 6 are still actively endangering you. Fireball isn't a terrible spell, but a hasted Seelah can ride straight into the enemy and kill one, possibly two, maybe even more depending on the situation. The fireball might've done more damage in that instant, but I've removed one or two threats from the board, and you still have all six. Well, the question there is whether a non-hasted Seelah can still kill that enemy after it's eaten a fireball - in most cases, if one extra attack from Seelah could kill it, the fireball will do enough damage to do the same. In fact, it's more likely to do so, since level 7 Seelah may not be doing 7d6 damage in a single attack. This isn't true in all cases, of course, depending on what enemy you're fighting, but if it's got fire resistance, you probably didn't cast fireball on it in the first place. It's not always a one-round thing, though; the longer the fight is likely to go on and the longer it takes to kill a single enemy, the more valuable that haste buff is going to be because it does let you stack damage from multiple characters on a single enemy and the damage keeps accumulating over each round. Using spells to jack the weaknesses of priority targets is good too, of course. This is why I think the answer to the question of "which buffs/spells/etc are good" is "it's complicated" rather than "this is the right way of playing". It's not about picking the Right Strategy so much as picking a strategy and then picking the Right Gubbins to support it. Like, if you're going to blast, you really need to get Ascendant Element. You need to boost spell penetration and evocation DC. You need to understand how the physical attackers work with the AOE damage to remove threats. You need to know when it's better to use a control spell first, or instead. It all has to work together, or the strategy will fail, and that's true no matter what you have your spellcasters doing. ProfessorCirno posted:Also, while buffs DO run out...GMW is measured in hours. It ain't running out Sure. Like I said, with that one the question is whether you have a better thing to do with a fourth level spell slot than turn a +2 weapon into a +3 weapon every day. (And the answer may well be no, at least for one or two of your characters, but it's a question you should ask.)
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May 16, 2024 01:57
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Drakenel posted:Chelaxians ruin everything, don't they? To quote the description of the Evil Choirmaster in Total Warhammer: "The adagio will tear your heart out. Quite literally." Yes, Evil Choirmasters are a thing in that game.
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May 16, 2024 02:26
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The Rising   "It was once an unassailable fortress. Luckily for us, the demons destroyed a lot of the defenses when they stormed the city, and in seventy years they haven't gotten around to mending them. But this isn't going to be easy. Unfortunately, most of the walls are still standing. (Anevia spreads an old city map on the table.) "The gates are old and rotten now. We can get through them with a ram. But then there will be street fights. It will be a hell of a fight in Drezen. Luckily, somewhere in the city there's a sacred banner — the Sword of Valor. Iomedae's holy relic wouldn't fall to corruption, like, ever. The demons just kept it as a trophy, a sign of our disgrace, and now it's going to be their downfall. If you find it and raise it again, all the demons in the city will be weakened and lose their ability to teleport. That's when we'll chop them up like blind rats. But don't forget, Staunton Vhane is somewhere out there, the same traitor who gave Drezen over to the demons in the first place. He won't part with that banner easily." (Regill looks at you without speaking. It seems he has a suggestion.) "What are the Eagle Watch knights going to do?"There's a lot of different ways the assault on Drezen can play out, it's a fairly open-ended dungeon (in gameplay terms) and if they're present characters like Galfrey and Nurah can present other options - Nurah, of course, tries to lead the party into a trap.   (Irabeth's eyes shine feverishly in her gaunt face.) "Who are you lying to? Yourself? Each other? The gods? You all realize that we're going to die. We're leading our people to the slaughter. Our army was almost defeated by a swarm of gargoyles. We won't last five minutes in Drezen." "Beth, are you nuts? Yes, it's a dangerous gig. We all knew what we were signing up for. But now that we've got here, you want us to poo poo our pants and go home? We got to bloody Drezen by some miracle, and we're about to take it back! Kinda late to chicken out, don't you think?" "It doesn't matter what we do. The lad hanging on the hook next to me didn't want to die — but what could he do to fend off death? What could I do? We're all doomed, but only a few of us are willing to admit it. By this time tomorrow, we'll all be dead." (Irabeth's voice drifts away, but then seems to carry from a distance, making its way through the sticky veil of fog that fills your mind. The demon that's appeared inside you struggles to be free. A little bit more and its wave of rage will engulf you.) "Irabeth, pull yourself together. Remember Kenabres! Despite everything, we won and stopped a catastrophe!"It's possible for Irabeth to be more resolute and optimistic here, but that requires things Yua hasn't done. There are three points to increase Irabeth's confidence, and Yua's only done one of them. The other two are to persuade Galfrey to accompany the crusade in Act 2 (in which case Galfrey still has complete faith in Irabeth and perks her up), and if the siege of Defender's Heart in Act 1 happens, to give her a pep talk afterwards. Since Yua did not bring Galfrey along, and the siege of Defender's Heart never happened, this is unfortunately where we're at.  "Drezen will be our death. You, Commander, might still have a chance to be saved, but you're leading your people to certain ruin." ('You pathetic little nothing! You were so proud of your strength, and yet you broke so easily!' The demonic rage inside you seethes and searches for an exit. It struggles to get out, exhausting, threatening, and convincing at the same time. You also feel strong enough to keep it under control, if you want to.) "There you have it, a perfect illustration of why the crusades have made not an inch of progress in a hundred years. A whining upstart commander has been put in charge of a knightly order by an idealistic Queen, circumventing all rules of military hierarchy. And now said upstart has crumbled in her first serious trial." (Regill chuckles harshly.) "Absolutely everything in this situation, from the story of Irabeth's rise to the reasons why she lost her reason and morale, demonstrates how dire matters truly are on our front. These problems can be rectified, of course, but to do that, we will need to drive the black sheep from the herd." [Good] "You leave me no choice, Irabeth. I'm suspending you from the operation. Anevia, make sure she gets some rest." If my little demon had focused on Regill, I honestly might have let it loose. The Hellknights had themselves almost been wiped out by gargoyles, and they'd made exactly as much progress as the crusade had. The only reason Regill was still alive was because one Hellknight defied orders and asked for our help. Arrogant, self-destructive, vain little moron. (Following Irabeth with her eyes, Anevia forces a neutral expression onto her face and turns back to the map.) "So... What are we going to do, Commander?" "Regill, what do you want to suggest?" "My scouts were able to approach the fortress walls, and they learned something unpleasant. The demons have giants who can shoot alchemist fire from catapults, or sometimes something even worse. They're positioned here." (Regill draws crosses on the city map.) "Luckily, as Anevia said, the city's fortifications are in a sorry state. If we come from this side, through the temple ruins, we can sneak up on the giants and finish them off before they inflict any serious damage on our army. It is a highly risky maneuver. If my unit was injured and exhausted, or suffered significant losses, I would consider the risk excessive and never countenance this plan. Fortunately, thanks to the Commander's timely aid, the Hellknights suffered almost no losses during the encounter with the gargoyles. We're ready to perform the maneuver, but we'll need cover in case we run into any special demons — like the nabasu we all remember. Commander, I would like your party to attack the giants with us." "The fighters won't like that. Our lads are hoping the Commander will personally lead them into battle, not go off with the Hellknights!" "Really? They won't like it? I'm getting tired of talking about the outrageous state of discipline in the crusader army. Shall we see how they like fire raining down on them from the sky?" "We attack tomorrow at dawn. Begin the preparations." "Where will you be in this battle?" "I will personally lead the charge." "So, you have chosen to ignore my suggestion? Very well, I won't object: you lead this army, and you bear the responsibility for the outcome of this operation. If you so command, I can send my people to act on their own, and I will attack with your group." "Wonderful. That will boost their morale. All right, we attack at dawn, then. May the good gods help us!"Regill's suggestion changes where you start in the battle, and the giants he talks about are indeed a bit of an issue. But doing so will hurt the Crusade's morale (you know, the 'keep this up or the game ends' bar, and Regill's 'the beatings will continue until morale improves' mentality is *not* a valid option), and just as importantly, going in through the front will position the party for something very useful.   Now, the path to your primary goal in Drezen is actually just a more or less straight line, but this is an enormous, sprawling map filled with demons and loot, and it costs you no crusade harm to take your time purging everything in sight.  Drezen is filled with every type of demon the party has met to date, and many of the cultists here are a new breed: votaries, each associated with a specific type of demon. While I don't know Golarion lore well, based on what votaries are in real life, I'd guess that these are all cultists who have each taken profane vows to worship some particular kind of demon and have gained magical powers associated with their chosen demon.  There's a bunch of ruined buildings to explore and loot, but this one has something special.  One of many unique, named minibosses littering Drezen.  Spot the secret door...  And we're in the dungeons. Do not scoff at cultists from here on: even on Story difficulty, the party gets pretty worn down over the course of the battle for Drezen, and jerks like this are one of the main culprits.  Now, recall the altar of Desna at the Lost Chapel, and our mysterious magic radio call that came with a divine sign of Desna's approval. An informant within the demons' ranks, locked up in the dungeons beneath Drezen.   (You recognize her voice. It's the woman who came to you in the vision in Desna's desecrated chapel. The woman who tried to warn Kenabres of the impending demon attack.) "I recognize you. We talked in a vision in the destroyed chapel, remember?" (Arueshalae looks at you, stunned.) "Yes... Yes! But I didn't see any chapel — to me you were here, in this cell. You looked different, but I do recognize your voice. Now I see... It was you — but in another form. That night you came to my prison, you looked like a beautiful, radiant azata!" "You... thought I was an azata in the vision." "Yes. First I heard a tune — a hymn to freedom within these oppressive walls... And then I saw you. You were glowing like the herald of Elysium. It was so amazing that I couldn't help but cry. Now I recognize your face. You look different, but still... You're the liberator who visited me when I was frightened and lonely." [Good] [Requires Azata] (Sing the Song of Elysium)There's a number of ways this first meeting with Arueshalae (hereon known mainly as Arue) can play out, and this is the version that occurs if you unlock the Azata path back in Kenabres, then solve the puzzle of the Deznan altar at the Lost Chapel. She'll still be friendly if you've only done one or the other, but she's much more reserved if you didn't do either. Nothing involving this subplot locks you into going Azata when the time comes, but Arue is very closely associated with that mythic path in terms of story and themes.  A purely vocal form of the Azata mythic theme plays during this cutscene as plant life springs up throughout the dungeon and glowing butterflies appear everywhere. The full version of the theme kicks in when dialogue resumes.  "Elysium..." (She whispers.) "That song, that hymn of freedom — it's the only thing that helped me survive among the demons. My light in this dungeon..." (Open the dungeon) "I see a spark of the light of Elysium in you. You are beautiful. Please, don't run away. Come with me — or I will have to search for you till the day I die just to see that beauty again." (The succubus looks at you, stunned. In her eyes you see a mixture of fear, hope, and something completely unnatural to demons — something fragile and tender, making her remarkably similar to a mortal.) "Yes... All right, I'll stay."Heavy-handed? Yes. Melodramatic? Without a doubt. Catnip for people like me? Absolutely.  Character Overview: Arueshalae To atone for what I've done is a death sentence, of a sort. A life of hard labor. Nothing I can do will make things right for those I have wronged, but I can make things right for others. Chaotic Neutral Ascending Succubus Espionage Expert of Desna Romance: Men and Women Can I Fix Her: Yes Incompatible Paths: Demon, (spoiler), (spoiler) The characteristically unsubtle hand of Owlcat works in Arueshalae's favor, in some ways: fallen angels are a dime a dozen in fantasy literature, but ascendant demons are quite a bit harder to find. Arue is a succubus who has grown a conscience and is trying to become a better person, but is so cynical she's downright naive about the world, and doesn't quite know what she's doing. I'll reserve talk of her romance for a proper character analysis post, but one of the main complaints people have about Arue is that some people feel like the PC is railroaded into having implied romantic feelings for Arue (or at least finding her extremely attractive), a concern especially for those who want to play gay men or straight women. I, in case it wasn't obvious, like Arue a lot as a character and she'll probably never leave the party from here on. I have quibbles about her writing, sure, but those are mainly due to her romance which I'll get to later. Arue is a heavy-handed stereotype who quite arguably panders to a certain kind of player, but honestly? I don't mind being pandered to now and then. Or you can push her at a vulnerable moment so she falls back into old ways and literally eats babies, becoming bar none the most thoroughly vile and depraved person on the entire playable roster. So there's that. Mechanically, 'Espionage Expert' is Wrath's iteration of the 'urban ranger' concept that's appeared throughout Dungeons and Dragons, in this case trading the ranger's animal companion for thief skills - Arue will comfortably fill the thief role for the party if that's what you need her to do. And unlike fellow latecomer Regill, Arue comes purpose built as a highly effective longbow archer with pretty much everything she needs for the job. A purpose built PC or smartly developed Lann or Wenduag is still probably a bit better, but Arue has special resistances and tricks coming out of her ears on account of being a succubus to make up for it. For her starting mythic powers, I give her cleaving shot and mythic rapid shot as she replaces Lann effective immediately. One caveat: Arue only joins the party at this point if you're in this full Praise Desna version of events, which also leads to not a single other character piping up. If you missed either Azata moment before, or don't jump straight for the magical duet, people will get understandably very suspicious of her and it's possible to free her but not recruit her, leave her imprisoned, or simply kill her. If you don't kill her but miss the chance to recruit her right now, you won't get a chance to recruit her again for a while.  A random dretch in the dungeon has this, which will come in handy later.  Moving on and fighting through Drezen, these jerks are some of the most obnoxious regular enemies in the game from here on out. They have an irritating set of defensive buffs and are almost all wizards.  Regular nabasu are now bog standard enemies.  I have no idea if this is a regular enemy or a named miniboss. Demon names are confusing.  One location in Drezen is the desecrated temple to Iomedae, where this miniboss lurks.  A dretch hiding behind a secret wall has another key.  Drezen is arranged as a set of three ascending terraces, each with its own set of walls. The second and third levels are guarded by a gate that you can either fight a few waves of enemies to break through, find the hidden levers to open, or you can use various athletics and mobility checks to get up to the second level (but not the third) by climbing the walls and ruins. Atop the walls of the second terrace are the giants Regill mentioned. They hit pretty hard, but they're not accurate and go down pretty quickly to focused attacks.  Sweep along the battlements, and this scene plays to let you know when both giants are dead.  The second terrace also has a ruined tavern where this fellow has taken up residence.  One of the dretches aiding him has the final key of the set.       The gang hits level 9 and everyone gets better at their job.  At the northern end of the second terrace is a secret door Yua can open because I found all three keys littered throughout Drezen.  It's filled with traps and incubi.  And the lever to open the gate to the third and final terrace of Drezen, if you don't feel like fighting multiple waves of trash.    (One blow of a monstrous fist turns the head of the demon into a bloody pulp.) "Stop talking. Fight." "There! That's what happens to cowards! Get it together, you maggots, and we'll destroy them!" "Quiet. Don't make me mad." "There they are! There they are! They're coming!" (Nurah sneaks a wink at you from behind the demons' backs.) [Intimidate DC: 22] "Hey, you! Demons! Who are you more scared of, him or me?" (The demons look at their leader, then at you, and back at him again. Their knees are visibly shaking.) "We're finished!"Yua is officially scarier to your rank and file demon than a balor.  This guy is named Darrazand, and he gets a bit of unusual characterization for a demon over the course of the game: he's a balor, about as powerful as 'regular' demons get, and he's the commander of Deskari's army just as Minagho commands Baphomet's army. Darrazand, though, is characterized as being unusually patient for a demon and takes the long view of the war against the Crusade: he sees the state of the Worldwound as a siege of Mendev's mind and soul, even without regular demonic attacks. Demons are immortal, and free to wait for the opportune moment to strike as the mortals of Mendev wear and buckle under the strain. As long as Drezen itself holds, the losses the demons take are effectively meaningless in his view of the war. Deskari trusts him specifically because, while Darrazand is a monstrously powerful fighter, he's a conservative strategist who's happy to let his boss lap up all the glory.  "Death to the mortals!"And now he's our problem.  Even on story difficulty, Darrazand is a tough cookie - my first game, on story difficulty, he drat near caused a party wipe. I've gotten much better at the game since then, thankfully.    But knock him down to half health, or if five rounds pass, the dwarf assassin we met back in Kenabres pops up. If you talk to Greybor and you also have Galfrey present, they establishes that this isn't as deus ex machina-esque as it seems, Galfrey of course knew perfectly well that Darrazand would be waiting in Drezen and went to considerable lengths to hire an assassin for the job while arming him with a dagger that was supposed to be enchanted to be capable of killing him in one strike. Didn't work, but it still took him out of the fight. Galfrey did not tell the party about this because she didn't want to risk Darrazand getting suspicious that the crusade might have a plan for dealing with him.  Darrazand, however, was not the final obstacle. The outer fortress of Drezen has fallen to the crusade, but the central keep remains. This fight is far from over. The Crimson Path (this update) Ash Giants 2 Babaus 27 Brimoraks 3 Cultists 47 Derakni 5 Dretches 20 Glabrezu 1 Incubi 11 Kalavaku 1 Minotaurs 3 Nabasu 1 Retriever 1 Schirs 11 Vrocks 7 Cythereal fucked around with this message at 17:21 on May 16, 2024 |
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May 16, 2024 16:49
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Remember this part of the siege taking me absolutely forever to do. To have it condensed in a single update puts into perspective how much combat takes up the time.
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May 16, 2024 16:52
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Votaries are no joke at all. Some of them have access to spells that will utterly wreck you - Shadow Votaries can instantly cover themselves with several defensive spells and then use Phantasmal Web and Phantasmal Putrefaction on you. Another one, I forget which, has access to Destruction, which can be a one-hit kill, and I think other control spells like mass paralyze and such. My first playthrough was on Core difficulty and the Votary combo in the church wiped me more then once before I finally cleared it - and those guys aren't even mini bosses. Add to that the nabasu level draining you and the combats in general being fairly punishing, this is a great place to being restoration potions/scrolls and/or make good use of the rest areas scattered around the city. I never take Regill on his offer. Not even because of morale reasons - it's pretty easy to have massive army morale by this point, enough so that the dip from following him will do nothing. It's because going his route requires he be in your party. Sorry Regill, you should've made better choices in your character build. I like Arue a lot as a character! I just don't like her class combo too much. I get it, in the actual tabletop game I think she was some kind of ranger or rogue class. But I honestly find I often mod her to some kind of bard or skald. Just feels like it fits better. Technically speaking you can go in a straight line up. At each door, if you try to do the straigh tline, you ahve a moment where you have to spend a few rounds defending a battering ram to break down the doors. However, doing this increases an invisible counter, and the siege is said to go far better if you don't do that, complete with a reward from Galfrey. I've actually never seen that content with Irabeth, simply because I just about always have both Galfrey in the Crusade and do the tavern siege in Kenabres. Should she be in a much better mental state, you get very different dialogue options that actually encourage her to enter battle with better morale instead.
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May 16, 2024 17:17
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Singing the Song of Elysium to the demon lady is much less touching and symbolic when it's just a fox screaming really loudly.
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May 16, 2024 17:21
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Hey, for what it's worth, I dig Arue's concept myself. As someone who tends to believe people can change and be better, It's a question I enjoy entertaining. Sure, it makes me naive sometimes, but I went through a pretty dramatic change as a person as I grew past my college days. Shame I didn't have the bleeding heart drive back then when I had all that energy. Azata was my first playthrough choice too, for what its worth. Was worth it for making the little man with the dumb hair mad.
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May 16, 2024 17:37
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New Demons- Kalavakus- These are demons created from the souls of slave traders and slave drivers. Big spiky giants with nasty abilities, as any player will see. They become frequent enemies in later parts of the game. Glabrezu- The Gnawbone miniboss we meet in the tavern is one of these guys. They're big dog-faced humanoids with two extra arms tabbed with crab pincers. They also have crab shells as armor. They're demons of treachery and often lead abyssal armies on a squad level. They also tempt mortals with promises of power in exchange for torment. Nasty customers in every way. Balor- Lots of lore around these guys. They're creatures of ultimate wrath and Abyssal army commanders. The name comes from a Celtic tyrant god-king and the appearance from the Balrogs of Tolkien stories. Big fiery giants with nasty swords and whips. There are also variants with other energy than fire- lightning, necromancy, acid... Balors are nasty customers and to survive one is a triumph. We'll be powerful enough to take on multiples and win later on. Galfrey will help lead the charge on the front gate if present. It's cool to have a 20th level Paladin tanking for you at higher difficulties. I didn't know you didn't get the option to perk Irabeth up without Galfrey's help or doing the siege. That's unfortunate. I usually pick the Regil path for attacking Drezen for strategic value. It does require putting him in the party and I've never noticed the morale hit, but I did not think about it pulling me away from getting Arue early before. You start on the opposite side of the map from the building near a wall breach if you pick Regil's way. Nurah's way starts you in a building in the back with some nasty Succubi and other enemies waiting to ambush you. And you find out she's the traitor once you find her helping Darrazand. Black Robe posted:Singing the Song of Elysium to the demon lady is much less touching and symbolic when it's just a fox screaming really loudly. Well, I suppose that is preferable to Arue over the screams of tormented souls in the Abyss. Heh. Chaotic unbridled Good stuff is catnip for people like me too.
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May 16, 2024 17:50
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I do appreciate that Regil actually has a good idea instead of mashing the "Be Evil" button. Unfortunately, he is still a dick about it, but he wouldn't be our half pint fascist if he cares about other people. Also, while her Espionage Expert kit is pretty bad for her new life as a semi-protagonist, Arue can at least get by with her absurd 70+ point buy worth of stats. If you use a mod to fully respec her, she's probably the single most powerful companion in the game. Darrazand is funny in that, if you don't know he's coming, he'll destroy you. After all, maybe you're about to get another shot of Mythic juice and turn the table on him, too. When it doesn't, you're already pretty committed, and it's a struggle to survive. However, if you know how the set piece works, he's easily cheesed by starting the cutscene, then have everyone run away out of range until the next part of the cutscene triggers. He's the bad kind of "unwinnable" to me, doubly so since the game already established that fighting terrifyingly stronger people is how the game moves forward at scripted points. But if he kills you here, well, hope you saved recently!
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May 16, 2024 19:22
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ProfessorCirno posted:But I honestly find I often mod her to some kind of bard or skald. Just feels like it fits better. I think a bard or skald is the absolute last thing she'd want to be short of a warlock. Arue is actually very shy and timid if you pay attention to her interactions with people. Her being so beautiful and charismatic is the root of why she's in so much trouble in the first place.
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May 16, 2024 20:13
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 16:47 |
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every once in a while you run into a character with The Designer Wanted To Shout-Out Their Inspirations tattooed on their forehead in 900 point font meet Planescape: Torment's Fall-From-Grace, 2018 Edition
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May 16, 2024 20:25
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