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Keldulas posted:I always found the beginning of this comical, for how trite the dragon's death is. Funny enough the Dragon has a bit more to do in the original Adventure Path. Namely she is not instantly killed by Deskari there, cause Deskari does not show up for the attack, instead his second in command Khorramzadeh the Balor does. He has more of an even fight with the dragon though he still kills her, and she saves you right before she dies. Also I only recently learned that Pathfinder Demon rules are different than D&D Demon rules. Namely other than Demon Lords, demons have no special protection from death in Pathfinder. In D&D when a Demon dies it's banished to the Abyss and can only actually be killed by dying in the Abyss. In Pathfinder nothing like that exists they just die when killed unless they are a Demon Lord. So all the Demons that die here are actually dying which is nice.
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Jul 8, 2022 07:36
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ChaosStar0 posted:Got the game open due to working out builds for the companions. There are 25 base classes without mods and each base class has at least 5 archetypes, minor variants on the class that trade some abilities for others. Basics like Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Bard, Paladin, Rogue, Ranger, Sorcerer, Monk, and Barbarian are in as well as more unusual ones like Magus, Oracle, Alchemist, Cavalier, Witch, Kineticist, and Inquisitor then there are the hybrid classes, which is like if you fused two classes into one like Arcanist(Wizard and Sorcerer), Slayer(Ranger and Rogue), Hunter(Druid and Ranger), Bloodrager(Barbarian and Sorcerer), Warpriest(Fighter and Cleric), Skald(Barbarian and Bard), and Shaman(Oracle and Witch). On top of this, two of the mods that DN is running with add the Brawler (hybrid of Monk and Fighter) and Ninja (technically considered an archetype of Rogue, but basically a hybrid Monk and Rogue).
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Jul 8, 2022 07:37
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Lynneth posted:Jesus, that's a lot of bloody classes. And they have subtypes? So over a hundred options, at minimum? I'd get decision paralysis if I tried playing. Thaaaat's Pathfinder! 
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Jul 8, 2022 07:40
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Yeah, decision paralysis is one of the major reasons I quit playing this game. Someone could really exercise their writing muscles with a "Paths Not Taken" series of articles for this LP.
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Jul 8, 2022 07:58
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Lynneth posted:Jesus, that's a lot of bloody classes. And they have subtypes? So over a hundred options, at minimum? I'd get decision paralysis if I tried playing. That said, if you want to minimax you will probably only touch 20 or so classes/subclasses in total cause the balance is really skewed towards certain archetypes , IE: as someone has mentioned, if you want to build a minimax tank, you are going to splash 2 levels of Scaled Fist Monk - allows you to add Cha bonus to AC and gives you Crane Style and prereq feats to fight defensively with increased bonuses - which means that you are never going to use any armor on your main tank if you are minmaxing. Similar "almost always in" dips are Vivisectionist for the added sneak attack damage or Alchemist for the lvl1 Mutagen buff and the potion selfbuffs. If you are playing on Normal (or Core even) you don't really need to minimax, but if you know how the system works you will have to play the game knowing that you have partially merged yourself every time you are having issues with a difficult fight. E: on Normal you can probably get through the game with a 20lvl single class character and be happy about it, as mentioned the "missing out" feeling is only there if you know how the system works. That Italian Guy fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Jul 8, 2022 |
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Jul 8, 2022 08:50
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A good way to avoid choice paralysis is to go into the character creator with a good idea of what kind of character you want to be. If you go in saying "I wanna cast spells" you'll have a bad time, since it's a roleplaying game it helps a lot to think deeper. Create a little character in your head and pick what fits the closest.
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Jul 8, 2022 09:03
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Also helping decision paralysis is respecs, as far as I've seen, are free. Or if you somehow use up all the free ones, are apparently very cheap. So you can start off going "playing as a mad bomber sounds like fun" and then just completely change your mind and become something else entirely with zero downsides. Update will be a little later on.
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Jul 8, 2022 09:15
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DoubleNegative posted:Also helping decision paralysis is respecs, as far as I've seen, are free. Or if you somehow use up all the free ones, are apparently very cheap. So you can start off going "playing as a mad bomber sounds like fun" and then just completely change your mind and become something else entirely with zero downsides.
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Jul 8, 2022 09:35
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That Italian Guy posted:Yeah it's really overwhelming, especially cause you can multiclass much more easily compared to 5e D&D. This means that if you want to minimax you usually ends up with a 5class-multi'd monstrosity with one or two "main" classes and a bunch of 1-2lvl dips to get specific features. Having played through it on Core with a party full of mainly single class types I can confirm that it's fine. You do need to have some system knowledge on Core, or at least a willingness to read a lot and respec when you notice something isn't working. What you absolutely can't do on Core and above is just play with any old party composition and expect to get through: you will need to have divine and arcane buff access, have one character that's built tanky to go in first, have abilities that target all the 4 major defenses, etc. You don't need to do the more Extreme Charopt stuff, however. I did not have a single Brownfur Transmuter, I only had one character with an animal companion (my MC was a Cavalier of the Paw because gently caress yeah, halfling knight riding a dog), no one in my party could use mutagens or had a level of monk, I had no Bard or Sensei, no Community domain, etc. I tried doing some respecs to more ~optimal~ classes for the post game: I made the Paladin NPC take a bunch of Bard levels so they could both smite and sing, I gave the Witch NPC the bloodlines of two fire dragons and a fire genie, I slapped extra domains on everyone who could take them, etc. It did ... very little, because my frontliners already had enough AC and attack bonus to do their jobs no problem on Core. The bloodline changes did up the Witch's ray damage numbers quite considerably, but not to the point where it made a difference on what fights I could take. FWIW, if you are doing the assorted dips for melee then Vivisectionist is not as universally good in Wrath as it was back in Kingmaker ... mainly because Mutation Warrior exists and 4 levels of that is usually the better choice for non-sneak attackers. Mutagens themselves remain very good value. A tanky character can be done in a couple of ways. Taking levels of Scaled Fist is popular because it works well with Paladin levels or Charisma casters (notably Oracles who can use the dip to get double Cha to AC. Oracle frontline tanks are very good in Wrath). Wisdom monks are still useful for other cases, like on a shapeshifter Druid or to have a tanky Sensei to stand in front, dodge hits and buff their friends instead of having a Bard stand in the back and buff their friends. TheGreatEvilKing posted:You could probably drop cha and raise Con higher, you get a lot more out of actually investing in the skill and 12 Con on a rogue is just asking to get splattered. 12 or 14 con is pretty common on frontliners in the charopt builds for higher difficulties, since if you don't have enough defenses layered to not be hit in the first place you're probably toast. Charisma can give you AC, smites, spells and spell DCs, etc which depending on class can be more valuable, even defensively. In the Ninja's case Cha is apparently the stat that gives them Ki pool points, similar to Scaled Fist Monk, which seems like a reasonable trade vs Con. Just more mirror images is a very good defensive, plus apparently (looking at the SRD, not sure how much is implemented by this mod) you can also spend Ki points to have an ally take damage in place of the Ninja.
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Jul 8, 2022 10:32
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Lynneth posted:Jesus, that's a lot of bloody classes. And they have subtypes? So over a hundred options, at minimum? I'd get decision paralysis if I tried playing. Yeah I just started playing this and ended up going for a Half-Orc standard fighter. Should be simple right? Except the fighter class gets to pick a new feat almost every level and the list of feats has dozens of options.
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Jul 8, 2022 10:59
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 Hello everyone and welcome back. We somehow survived our first encounter with a demon lord. If you didn't read the encyclopedia entry on them, then let me get you up to speed... demon lords are practically demigods. They possess power on a scale that's unfathomable. We not only shot one in the chest with a crossbow and managed to hurt him, but we survived to tell the tale!  Let's break narrative for a moment and take a look at the game's mod manager. I'm using a fair few.  The one we're interested in is the Toybox mod. This is basically the developer console, but in mod form. It's incredibly powerful and can be used to outright cheat if you want. It also lets you further tweak the difficulty of the game. Call it homebrew rules if you like.  Some options are also quality of life changes. Stuff like letting companions not in your active party comment on the situation at hand. The option isn't quite right and will break scripting in a couple of edge cases, but for the most part it works wonderfully.  Down here in the "cheats" section is what I'm more interested in however. I've got Modifier Stacking - On reflection, I have removed this because it's not the intended experience and the game is designed around only non-alike modifiers stacking. Spontaneous Caster Scroll Copy - TeeQueue posted:From the wording, I think it may let Spontaneous Casters copy scrolls into their own spellbook, letting them grow their list of spells known to choose from? That's a huge buff to spontaneous casters like Sorcerers/Bards/etc, if so. I have also removed this because this is way too cheaty and removes the only downside spontaneous casters have! Highlight Hidden Objects - This is mostly moot if you have a character with high Perception (like we do), because you'll see all the hidden poo poo anyway. But this lets you see where it is. Handy and not really broken because, like I said, high perception. No Equipment Weight - Nobody cares about inventory weight limits, and if they claim they do, then they're lying to either you or themselves. Wrath of the Righteous also isn't Skyrim or Fallout where having a cheated carry weight lets you break the game's economy. The only time we're gonna be hurting for money is early on. By the time we get to the midpoint of the game, we will be rich beyond the dreams of avarice. And that's with weight limits enabled! So the system is completely pointless. Anyway, that's it for the Toybox portion of the game. Now back to the update already in progress...  First off, here's Lisbeth's portrait. See that little icon there?  Apparently somebody was looking out for us! I hesitate to think what might have happened had that spell not been in effect, because Lisbeth woke up lying face down.   The intro is scripted to end after you finish two out of the three objectives on the tracker.  I'm never going to remember to look at the journal every time it updates. But luckily we can see all the previous entries when we finish a quest. So we won't miss anything!  Let's get a move on.  Ouch. Looks like we really did catch a lucky break! And a little further past them...  We get thrown into a conversation. Anevia here is one of the people we met twice in the intro. She's the lady who was complaining about not being able to relax while downing a beer. She's apparently "a small woman" despite her model being the same size as every other female character. She's also a trans woman whose wife bought her an elixir of gender change as a wedding gift. None of this ever comes up unless you pass an extremely difficult skill check in act 5. Also Anevia's portrait (and her wife's portrait) are both ones you can use for your own character.  Seelah is another familiar face from the intro. This is the woman who barreled off through a crowd to get the dragon, Terendelev. I would have  "I feel 'em all right, wouldn't say no to a little less feelin' in 'em... My ankle's killin' me. But my back seems to still be in one piece. My head, too." Lisbeth is not a dick, so she's not gonna question why helping someone is a good idea, nor is she going to demand payment like the evil option is suggesting. See what I mean about evil being stupid in this game? So let's look at the options in green. If we mouse over the green bits...  These are the skill prompts I mentioned in the last update. Athletics is not a tagged skill, and its bonus is running off of Lisbeth's strength bonus. If you don't remember, her "bonus" is -1. So she takes a -1 penalty to every strength check. Because of both her low strength, plus athletics not being tagged, the skill's "bonus" is a -2. Thankfully these maluses aren't cumulative. The strength penalty has already been applied, in fact. On a DC12, we'd need to roll 14 or higher to win. While it's theoretically doable, this is probably not the smart pick.  Knowledge (World) is not a tagged skill either, but it has a +1 bonus, so we would only need to roll 11 or better to beat the DC12. These dice checks, that's what DC means by the way, are off a D20. So we would need to roll 11 or better on a D20, to give you an idea of how likely or not the outcome is. The funny thing is, the diplomacy check would be the most likely to succeed. But again - Lisbeth isn't an rear end in a top hat.  [Knowledge (World) 12] "We don't have to rely on brute strength for this. I'll try to find something to use as a lever." [Failed a Knowledge (World) check] Either the sticks you've found aren't suitable or you're just not using them correctly, but your efforts come to nothing. For purely illustrative LP-related purposes, this is probably the optimal outcome. Failed skill checks aren't the end of the world. The game has to continue. Anevia is a major NPC in the game, so she can't just be left rotting down under Kenabres because we were playing a rail thin half-elf.  "I don't think you're going to get anywhere with that. Why don't I just..." Using all of her strength, the knight moves the boulder and drags the wounded woman out from under the rubble. After making sure her charge is all right, the knight allows herself to catch her breath and wipe the sweat from her brow."Seelah will come through like this if you fail like we did, or just refuse to help. She's about to join our party after this conversation, however, and she'll probably never leave it outside of extenuating circumstances. So if she's gonna be around for the rest of the game, may as well get off on the correct foot! The woman feels her leg. "drat it all! I think it's broken. Ah well, I've had worse — I'll just make myself a splint outta something..." Fishing a piece of twine from her pocket, she gets to work. "Thanks for the help. I wouldn't have lasted long on my own stuck under there. I'm Anevia Tirabade, of the Eagle Watch. I was overseeing security at the festival square — I thought maybe spies or demon worshipers might have something nasty planned... What actually happened, though, now that I did not see coming. I don't think anyone could've been prepared for that..." "Well, I'm Seelah, paladin by the grace of Iomedae. I crossed the whole continent to come to Mendev and fight demons... And well, I've been fighting for a while now." Seelah's expression darkens. "I don't even want to think what might be happening up there in the city. Kenabres has lost the protection of Terendelev, and of the Wardstone too, looks like! It's a relic without equal, it was placed here personally by Iomedae's herald with the goddess's blessing. I really wanted to go see it, to pray before it... But there's no point worrying about a stone when there are people dying in the streets." "Yeah, things are lookin' grim enough, but don't lose heart. Wardstone or no, dragon or no, Kenabres will never give in — simple as." Anevia's eyes shift to you. "Well, we've introduced ourselves, what about you?" Our decision here doesn't change anything as far as I can tell. Wrath of the Righteous is an ambitious game, but it's nothing quite like NWN2 or KOTOR2. So while a character might disapprove of one answer or another, you're not gonna get hosed out of a good ending for them because you said your name and nothing else, for instance. So, in keeping with Lisbeth's nature as a ninja, let's just give an answer in that vein. "One person's war is another person's opportunity. I'm in the city to seek my fortune." Seelah frowns. "Yeah, we've seen plenty of your type before..." "If I'm here to kill demons, what does it matter that I'm doing it for a paycheck?"Seelah dislikes mercenaries, but gently caress it, may as well get paid! This world is caught up in a Hellwar that has been going on for over a century at this point. Anevia and Seelah are both young, probably in their twenties, so they grew up in a world where this war and the associated Crusades are a stark reality. And while Lisbeth is a half-elf, I like to think she's similarly young. So it makes no sense why anyone would be distrustful of mercs at this point in history. "At least it's an honest answer." Anevia tightly ties off the twine on her improvised splint and, leaning on a stick, hauls herself to her feet. "Now then, I'll hobble my way outta here somehow. The city ain't far, only thirty paces or so... That's if you're going straight up, of course. I'm afraid we're gonna have to go the long way round." "To summarize: there are three of us, with five working legs, three pairs of decent hands, two clear heads and one made of wood — that's mine. Underground monsters, beware!" Seelah winks. "Anevia, you stay behind us. You're in no fit state to fight. If we do come up against anything, the two of us will try to manage on our own first. Well, onward! May the good deities lead us back to the open sky soon!"Anevia is an extremely well-trained archer. She is gonna hard carry us for this first section of the game.  Anevia is also a guest party member. She follows behind us, and can't be hurt, but she's also not controllable. But here's Seelah!  She's got a permanent fatigue debuff because we didn't pass the skill check. Pathfinder Permanent is different from real world permanent. In Pathfinder, "permanent" buffs/debuffs just mean they don't have a set duration. Like the tooltip says, fatigue gets cleared by rest. I think we can live with a -2 malus to strength for this first part of the game.  We also need to fix the game's formation. I'm not sure what automatic is going for here, but this is kinda useless for two melee characters. So let's just fix it up some.  My personal preference is the wedge formation. Anyway, I didn't think to grab a shot of her stats, but Seelah is a Paladin. She joins at level 1, so you can do pretty much anything with her, though her stats are built to be a physical fighter. In pretty much every play through I do, I turn her into my party's tank. Monsters tend to attack whoever they see first, so putting her at the lead is a good way to get enmity. She can also wear heavy armor out the gate, making her even more ideal for the role. As a Paladin, she also very slowly learns divine magic, so she will eventually be able to buff the party. I've got a build more-or-less in mind for her, one we'll be able to start pursuing in the next couple updates. Spoilers, nobody levels up in this update because I have XP gains set to 1x. One of my games in progress has XP gains set to 3x. My characters in that are early-mid act 3 and are a full act ahead in terms of relative power. It's really fun as a power fantasy, but levels in this game are pretty deliberately paced for a reason.  "Look, Hulrun put all the confiscated weapons in this chest. Take a look — maybe your things survived the fall." Weapons in red are ones we don't have the proficiency to use. Ones in blue are magic. I want to get my hands on a really good dagger, but we'll have to make do with something else until then.  A resistance bonus is different from armor bonus, and so on. Normally similar bonuses don't stack. So two resistance bonuses, for example, don't stack. But you can stack a resistance and a mutation bonus. This +1 is a handy bonus to have, and so it's going on Lisbeth. The 375 (Target Logo) is the monetary amount for the cloak. +1 cloaks are a dime a dozen, and by the end of the game we'll likely be drowning in them.  This shuriken would be an ideal starter weapon, but take a look at the tooltip again. "1-1 damage when equipped" is kinda poo poo. It uses strength to damage as well, and is not finesse, so it doesn't qualify for dex to damage. A pity, because masterwork and cold iron are both handy qualities to have. I don't know what they do, but they're more modifiers so they have to be better. Right?  I grabbed everything. Even if we did have carry weight enabled, this tutorial section is so short that there's no downside to doing so. In fact, it's free money! Also we'll be using this short sword because we can finesse wield it.  Lastly, we have some magical bracers on hand. Curious... Who promises what? Oh well, mysteries for another time!  Just past the chest we find another item.  This is an extremely rare item. In fact there are only a small handful in the game, all found in this little "dungeon". This resurrects someone back from the actual dead instead of a KO state.  Full tooltip if you're curious! Permanent negative levels can be dispelled by a cleric. I'm not playing on Core or above, so we will not need these. Just as well, because if I'm not mistaken, these scales will be possibly needed for something else later on. And if not, at least we have a memento of the nice dragon that saved our life before getting decapitated.  Past another bend, we find Camellia (also from the intro) in a strange position. She's covered in blood, standing next to a mutilated dead body.  "Relax, friend, we're not demons or cultists! Don't poke my eye out with that thing, all right? We fell down here during the attack. I'm Seelah, that's Anevia and Lisbeth. We're looking for a way back to the surface." "Really? I'm so ever glad to hear it..." The girl relaxes slightly, but she keeps her hand on her sheathed weapon. "Allow me to introduce myself: I am Camellia. I was also in the square when... when..." Her self-control falters for a moment and you glimpse the fear beneath her mask of perfect placidity. She licks her lips nervously. "I can scarcely believe it. How did all those demons get into the city? I thought — naively, it now seems — that the Wardstone protected us from attack. And Terendelev? I can't wrap my head around it." "What happened to that poor man? Who is he?" "I don't know. He must have been in the square when disaster struck. I tried to revive him, but he was already dead, sadly." "He didn't get these wounds from the fall..." Seelah's eyes warily scan the area. "Be on your guard. Whatever killed him likely hasn't gone far." "Seriously?" "Yeah, stick close. I'll make sure it doesn't hurt you." You roll your eyes. "Thanks, Seelah." Anevia peers at the dead man's face. "Hang on, I think I know him. His name's Aravashnial, the egghead from the library. He was a good lad, even if he was kinda stuck-up... May his soul rest in peace!" She catches your eye and ever-so-subtly shakes her head. "Not many could withstand a strike from a demon lord - not even Terendelev." "I can't argue with that. We're fortunate to be alive, albeit underground." "Deskari himself has come to Kenabres... There's no mistaking that ugly mug. Terendelev tried to fight him, but what could she do against a near-deity? Even the Wardstone was no help. Our city used to be protected by powerful forces, but now..." Anevia shakes her head. "...we've seen how powerless they truly are." Camellia finishes Anevia's thought with ruthless precision. "Henceforth we shall have no one but ourselves to rely on, I suppose?" "Tell me about yourself." The girl gives an elegant shrug. "Who am I? Just an ordinary citizen who decided to take a stroll through the square on the day of the festival. But that's not what you wish to know, is it? You most likely wish to know whether I'll be a burden should you ask me to join your group. No need to worry about that. I can assure you that I am skilled with a rapier, and I also possess some knowledge of magic." She touches the polished snake skull amulet that hangs around her neck. "We need to keep moving. There must be a way back to the surface somewhere around here." "That's right. It would be the height of foolishness to survive a demon attack only to perish under a pile of rubble." "Are you coming with us then? The more the merrier. And that blade of yours is nothing to sniff at." "Certainly. Survivors should stick together, it's only sensible. Who knows what else could be prowling about in these caves." "Let's see if this poor bloke has anything useful on him. Not to sound like a heartless brigand or nothin', but we kinda need all the supplies we can get right now."Gained 125 Experience  We need to do something to make Camellia useful.  Pathfinder, for some reason, introduces dual wielding penalties for holding a shield in your offhand. Despite having just as much Dex as Lisbeth, Camellia won't be able to hit anything while holding her shield. (Yes this applies to Seelah too.) So we need to unequip her shield. Her amulet can't be removed. It's an amulet of hide alignment. So to recap, Camellia was found standing near a dead man covered in blood, she claims to be skilled with her rapier, and she's hiding her alignment from the party. She's definitely trustworthy. Anyway, Camellia is a Spirit Hunter, which is a subclass of Shaman. She learns spells primarily from the Druid trees, but also has some early game crossover with divine casters like Clerics or Paladins. She also gets access to hexes from Witches, which means she's technically one of the more useful party members. She can also off tank with her shield if need be. She can cover a lot of niches, it just depends on what you need in any given situation. I never used her in my first play through because she couldn't hit the loving broad side of a barn with both hands and a bat, no matter how much I leveled her up and gave her feats to counteract that. So she became the first permanent bench warmer in the party. That kind of colored my impression of her, and so despite how useful she can be, she will always, to me, be the worthless dipshit who couldn't do anything right.  Moving on, Aravashnial has a masterwork dagger on him. It's technically lower damage, but we can make some miracles happen with daggers.  A little further on, we come across the first encounter. Fitting for a level 1 party, it's against bugs. While I could show off the turn-based system, I don't really care for it too much. So we're just gonna kinda steamroll these suckers.  Like I said, Anevia has got this poo poo handled.  Another group later, and she's definitely hard carrying us. There were two flies. She killed both of them.  A dead body down a dead end has some equipment. Those are +1 AC bracers, and the potions are low level healing potions. Finally the scroll is Inflict Light Wounds. Inflict Light Wounds posted:When laying your hand upon a creature, you channel negative energy that deals 1d8 points of damage + 1 point per caster level (maximum +5). The Inflict Light Wounds scroll would be handy if we had a spell caster in the party. A proper spell caster, I mean. Camellia technically counts, but she's got the stats to be a front liner. Cure Light Wounds posted:When laying your hand upon a living creature, you channel positive energy that cures 1d8 points of damage +1 point per caster level (maximum +5). Since undead are powered by negative energy, this spell deals damage to them instead of curing their wounds. An undead creature can apply Spell Resistance, and can attempt a Will save to take half damage. The potion doesn't technically have a caster level, outside of specific feats, so I think it's just 1d8+1. So it cures between 2 and 9 HP. Given most of the party has around 10, that's pretty good! berryjon posted:1d8+1 is a range of 2-9, not 1-9.  Several unremarkable encounters later, we arrive at an underground structure. I know it feels like I'm skipping through these updates, but this is more focused on the story than the combat. Legitimately all I've done for combat is put it on Real Time With Pause mode and just let Anevia turn things into paste. The encounters end in like 10 seconds this way, it's pretty great. Anyway, I'm cutting the update here because there's about to be a shitload of talking going down. Originally the next update and this one were planned to be one huge whole. But the next one is longer than this one while covering about the same amount of ground. Also it would have gone over the post limit by somthing like 10,000. Encyclopedia Golarionnica Wardstones DoubleNegative fucked around with this message at 14:05 on Jul 8, 2022 |
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Jul 8, 2022 11:23
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DoubleNegative posted:
I think I know what this should do if it was working, I think? Normally for Arcane Casters, a Wizard can copy scrolls into their spellbook without issue, while Spontaneous Casters can never grow their spell list through that means since they don't have to pre-prep spells from a defined list and just know what they know. From the wording, I think it may let Spontaneous Casters copy scrolls into their own spellbook, letting them grow their list of spells known to choose from? That's a huge buff to spontaneous casters like Sorcerers/Bards/etc, if so.
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Jul 8, 2022 12:01
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NoNotTheMindProbe posted:Yeah I just started playing this and ended up going for a Half-Orc standard fighter. Should be simple right? Except the fighter class gets to pick a new feat almost every level and the list of feats has dozens of options. Feats are especially tricky cause there are so many of them and a lot of feats that appear to be useless are prerequisites for very powerful ones 8 levels down the level progression; it's especially difficult when the feat that you actually want is locked behind multiple prereqs IE: Cleave progression may be self evident for someone not familiar with PF, but that's not the case for Shatter Defenses (and how to get there, since the prerequisites feats for it won't even show up in the list of available ones on level up if you don't have enough ranks in Intimidate). That Italian Guy fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Jul 8, 2022 |
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Jul 8, 2022 12:25
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TeeQueue posted:I think I know what this should do if it was working, I think? Normally for Arcane Casters, a Wizard can copy scrolls into their spellbook without issue, while Spontaneous Casters can never grow their spell list through that means since they don't have to pre-prep spells from a defined list and just know what they know. Oh. In which case, I'm gonna turn that off. That's a little too cheaty.
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Jul 8, 2022 12:32
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DoubleNegative posted:The potion doesn't technically have a caster level, outside of specific feats, so I think it's just 1d8+1. So it cures between 1 and 9 HP. Given most of the party has around 10, that's pretty good! 1d8+1 is a range of 2-9, not 1-9. But yes, nothing odd at all about that last party member. And it's nice to see story and gameplay integration with the Amulet there.
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Jul 8, 2022 12:34
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Camellia is ok as a buffer and summon bot, but yeah there are far better party members. Ones you don't find covered in blood next to dead bodies hiding their alignment
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Jul 8, 2022 12:39
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Yeah, it's not exactly subtle. I mean why would you possibly have a reason to hide your alignment, being ashamed of being Good? (to be fair, this is mostly down to the alignment system being stupid as hell but that's a whole different can of worms)
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Jul 8, 2022 12:50
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I'm genuinely not sure why you'd ever need to cheat in modifiers of the same type stacking. The game has really tight math and I had one or two tricky spots the entire way through at Hard mode. I don't want people getting the wrong idea about the game mostly - it can be difficult but I only remember one (incredibly out of my way and 100% optional) fight that I thought was unreasonable. Otherwise you have a really satisfying difficulty curve that is happy to let you do what you'd like.
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Jul 8, 2022 13:25
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This has nothing to do with the game but I feel the need to share this official art of Seelah from one of the PF rulebooks. If I recall correctly it was from a section about how to deal with moral dilemmas in-game. 
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Jul 8, 2022 13:29
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Chicken Thumbs posted:This has nothing to do with the game but I feel the need to share this official art of Seelah from one of the PF rulebooks. If I recall correctly it was from a section about how to deal with moral dilemmas in-game. I mean, I'd rage too, if my Anti-Paladin arch-nemesis turned out to be a Looney Tunes villain.
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Jul 8, 2022 13:43
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Obviously you go to the orphanage in the village of Burning first. Those kids need all the visits they can get 
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Jul 8, 2022 13:58
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Chicken Thumbs posted:This has nothing to do with the game but I feel the need to share this official art of Seelah from one of the PF rulebooks. If I recall correctly it was from a section about how to deal with moral dilemmas in-game.  I love Seelah.Galick posted:I'm genuinely not sure why you'd ever need to cheat in modifiers of the same type stacking. The game has really tight math and I had one or two tricky spots the entire way through at Hard mode. I don't want people getting the wrong idea about the game mostly - it can be difficult but I only remember one (incredibly out of my way and 100% optional) fight that I thought was unreasonable. Given the poo poo we're gonna be getting up to with mythics, stacking a couple of +1 AC modifiers is gonna be the least of our worries.  Though you do raise a good point. While a couple of +1 AC bonuses aren't gonna make or break anything, it isn't intended by any stretch.berryjon posted:1d8+1 is a range of 2-9, not 1-9. Good to know, thanks! I'll edit this into the update.
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Jul 8, 2022 13:59
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NoNotTheMindProbe posted:Yeah I just started playing this and ended up going for a Half-Orc standard fighter. Should be simple right? Except the fighter class gets to pick a new feat almost every level and the list of feats has dozens of options. There’s also a One Feat Per Level mod that works for every class if you want to go really nuts. I used to have such fun with the Kingmaker mod version of Toy Box. I rolled with an active party of all my characters until it was impossible (the end game missions won’t let you do this), did critical hits with every attack while bad guys missed, you get the idea. I didn’t fully explore Toy Box but it looks even more whacked in some ways. I think you’re mistaken about how Spontaneous Caster Scroll Copy works, though, DN. Spontaneous Casters are casters who don’t have to memorize their spells such as Bards & Sorcerers. They pick from a list of spells they know on the spot, casting a certain number of spells per day. The trade off is they can use scrolls but not copy them. If, say, your Ice Dragon Blood Sorcerer wants to learn Fireball, he can’t because it’s not in his Bloodline. Unless this mod is on and then it lets him copy the Fireball spell off a scroll and add it to his arsenal same as any standard Wizard can. I think that’s how it’s supposed to work anyway. Wait, someone already handled this. Sorry. In the Adventure Path it’s the dying dragon that casts Feather Fall on you right before she croaks. How she knows you’re going to need it and how she casts without a head is given a hand wave explanation. I would be surprised if ninjas don’t have a Feather Fall ability anyway (though probably not at first level). In Kingmaker you could also use NPC portraits for your character. This causes the NPCs to use different portraits and the results can sometimes be amusing. It can be very tempting to play as an rear end in a top hat in this game. Glad you’re not. Shurikens aren’t finesse weapons? That doesn’t seem right! Ugh. Also, masterworks are weapons of high quality suitable for enchanting. They get a +1 to hit but not damage. Cold iron means the weapons automatically go through the damage resistance of demons and fey. I always worry about someone when they say “allow me to introduce myself”. Thanks, Mick Jagger. In the original adventure the dead half-elf Camellia finds is a Riftwarden and powerful NPC mage ally of your party. I know why they excluded him in the game, but for now it’s another significant change, one of many. The game is very different from the source material if you had not already guessed.
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Jul 8, 2022 14:15
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Xerophyte posted:12 or 14 con is pretty common on frontliners in the charopt builds for higher difficulties, since if you don't have enough defenses layered to not be hit in the first place you're probably toast. Charisma can give you AC, smites, spells and spell DCs, etc which depending on class can be more valuable, even defensively. In the Ninja's case Cha is apparently the stat that gives them Ki pool points, similar to Scaled Fist Monk, which seems like a reasonable trade vs Con. Just more mirror images is a very good defensive, plus apparently (looking at the SRD, not sure how much is implemented by this mod) you can also spend Ki points to have an ally take damage in place of the Ninja. I had to hit up the PFSRD because before this post i would have bet real money that ninjas ran off Wisdom. This is what you get for playing too much 3.5.
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Jul 8, 2022 15:03
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:I had to hit up the PFSRD because before this post i would have bet real money that ninjas ran off Wisdom. This is what you get for playing too much 3.5. either: 1) Ninja is an alternate form of Rogue in the TTRPG, and they have the option to pick some of each others Rogue Talents / Ninja Tricks; Rogues already have some Charisma based abilities, so they decided to make the Ninja Charisma based to avoid adding to Multiple Ability Dependency. 2) Pathfinder practically encourages playing ersatz versions of copyrighted characters: Card Caster (Magus) is X-Men's Gambit, Shield Champion (Brawler) is Captain America, Magical Child (Vigilante) is a magical girl, etc. Clearly, the made Ninja Charisma based so that you can play Naruto.
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Jul 8, 2022 15:17
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DoubleNegative posted:Pathfinder, for some reason, introduces dual wielding penalties for holding a shield in your offhand. Despite having just as much Dex as Lisbeth, Camellia won't be able to hit anything while holding her shield. (Yes this applies to Seelah too.) So we need to unequip her shield. Wait what. You do not get dual wielding penalties for using a shield. That should only happen of you are using shield bash (which requires a feat), in which case you actually are using the shield as a weapon. Check if they have shield bash toggled on in their abilities. Or maybe some mod has broken it, both of them hit stuff just fine in my game.
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Jul 8, 2022 15:33
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Fighter is all about the feats, So many feats, ALL of the Feats with mods? EVEN MORE FEATS.
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Jul 8, 2022 15:49
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Culka posted:Wait what. You do not get dual wielding penalties for using a shield. That should only happen of you are using shield bash (which requires a feat), in which case you actually are using the shield as a weapon. Check if they have shield bash toggled on in their abilities. Or maybe some mod has broken it, both of them hit stuff just fine in my game. After conferring with a friend about it, it's apparently specifically only bucklers. And it's a -1 to hit instead of a dual wield penalty. Also she has informed me that Cam doesn't use dex for her to-hit stat. Good thing we get saddled with her for the first dungeon of the game. 
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Jul 8, 2022 16:04
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Being fair: Cam is a Shaman. She's a caster!
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Jul 8, 2022 16:05
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Actually the two weapon fighting penalties should only apply to Shields if you have the Shield Bash feat, which lets you use Shields as weapons.
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Jul 8, 2022 16:09
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DoubleNegative posted:After conferring with a friend about it, it's apparently specifically only bucklers. And it's a -1 to hit instead of a dual wield penalty. Also she has informed me that Cam doesn't use dex for her to-hit stat. pfSRD posted:This small metal shield is worn strapped to your forearm. You can use a bow or crossbow without penalty while carrying it. You can also use your shield arm to wield a weapon (whether you are using an offhand weapon or using your off hand to help wield a two-handed weapon), but you take a –1 penalty on attack rolls while doing so. This penalty stacks with those that may apply for fighting with your off hand and for fighting with two weapons. In any case, if you use a weapon in your off hand, you lose the buckler’s Armor Class bonus until your next turn. You can cast a spell with somatic components using your shield arm, but you lose the buckler’s Armor Class bonus until your next turn. You can’t make a shield bash with a buckler. It looks like that's only supposed to apply if the weapon is equipped in the same hand as the buckler, but also WotR isn't the same as TTRPG so they may have fudged it for this one. That said, Cam definitely uses dex to hit with a rapier—there's no way to get her current +5 to hit at level 1 with her +0 strength modifier, but quite a few to get it with a +4 dex modifier if she took the weapon finesse feat. She just doesn't get the dex to her damage rolls, same as our ninja buddy.
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Jul 8, 2022 16:11
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Yeah in PF "Dex to attack" and "Dex to damage" are separate bonuses that you get with separate feats/class features. Also Cam can become a powerful tank/buffer and yes, she has absolutely no skeletons in her closet either.
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Jul 8, 2022 16:20
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This is why I’m happy to be corrected! I’m learning a lot and it’s also informative to any other Pathfinder newbies in the thread. I’m still not sure why Camellia is historically (for me at least) bad at hitting. It does sting a lot less on RTWP though when others can cover for her better.
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Jul 8, 2022 16:25
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Kinda surprised to see these opinions on Cam, I've read a lot of opinions on the gane and a lot swear on Cam as the best tank/frontliner, to some people's annoyance since she's... totally not problematic. Yup, nothing to see here.
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Jul 8, 2022 16:26
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Why, if she was evil then her sheet would say evil!
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Jul 8, 2022 16:28
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GiantRockFromSpace posted:Kinda surprised to see these opinions on Cam, I've read a lot of opinions on the gane and a lot swear on Cam as the best tank/frontliner, to some people's annoyance since she's... totally not problematic. Yup, nothing to see here. Yeah, if you want to roll with the NPCs instead of rolling your own mercenaries, Camelia/the PC are the default main tank slots since our Paladin friend is the best suited to become a Bard - and if you are minmaxing you need a Bard in your party.
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Jul 8, 2022 16:28
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Jokes aside, does Pathfinder have malicious spells/effects that target alignments other than Evil? Because I'd say making sure some evil rear end in a top hat doesn't murder/brainwash/curse you for being a good person would be a decent investment.
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Jul 8, 2022 16:38
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how they handled it kinda makes meta-knowledge unavoidable. They should've pretended Camellia's amulet was some non-magical keepsake (explaining why she'd refuse to take it off) or just left it unidentified (and Camellia refuses to let you identify it or tell you what it does), and shown Camellia's alignment as Neutral (because alignment detection spells only reveal if the target is or isn't Good/Evil/Lawful/Chaotic, not if the target's Neutral. So True Neutral is indistinguishable from undetectable alignment). That way, you might know or suspect that Camellia's hiding something, but you don't know what. Instead, Camellia might as well have introduced herself by saying "Hi, I'm definitely not evil! *wink wink*"GiantRockFromSpace posted:Jokes aside, does Pathfinder have malicious spells/effects that target alignments other than Evil? Because I'd say making sure some evil rear end in a top hat doesn't murder/brainwash/curse you for being a good person would be a decent investment. don't know if WotR does (though they likely do), but the TTRPG does have a handful of "gently caress the opposite alignment" spells (eg Blasphemy damages Good creatures and has no effect on Evil, Dictum hurts Chaotic and has no effect on Lawful, Anti-Paladins can Smite Good, etc).
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Jul 8, 2022 16:53
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I know that it would utterly break the class, but I'm the rear end in a top hat who would allow sorcerers to scribe scrolls. I've always disliked Vancian casting despite having spent most of the 90s playing 2e D&D, and adding sorcs didn't improve that for me. It was either 'you can learn as many spells as you want but have to predict, somehow, which ones you will need' (wizard) or 'you can cast anything that you have but your selection is pathetic and you will constantly be unprepared' (sorcerer). In our 2e campaigns, we had wizards super-specialise but they essentially were a hybrid of both. My first time playing Baldur's Gate 2, I had a sorcerer main and every time I would find a scroll I would edit it into his repertoire with GateKeeper. I knew that it was technically 'cheating', but it seemed like something a god-child should be able to do. It had a major downside, though... because of the wy spell selection menus worked in that game, it took forever to find the spell that I wanted. My characters might know 18 level X spells and have 4 level X casts left before needing to rest, and the game would have to list every single known spell with the number of level charges remaining. Yes, I was an idiot
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Jul 8, 2022 17:11
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NullBlack posted:don't know if WotR does (though they likely do), but the TTRPG does have a handful of "gently caress the opposite alignment" spells (eg Blasphemy damages Good creatures and has no effect on Evil, Dictum hurts Chaotic and has no effect on Lawful, Anti-Paladins can Smite Good, etc). There's a bunch of anti-Chaotic stuff in this game, too. There's plenty of support for being a Lawful Evil type.
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Jul 8, 2022 17:39
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