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 Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, often known as 'Wrathfinder' or as I'll simply refer to it throughout this LP, 'Wrath,' is an isometric story-driven RPG by developer Owlcat as an adaptation of the Wrath of the Righteous adventure path for tabletop Pathfinder 1st Edition. Pathfinder itself is an adaptation of Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition, my formative experience with tabletop gaming, and while I've never played a tabletop game of Pathfinder, 3.5E DnD is my favorite mechanical system in the franchise despite all the problems. Wrath of the Righteous is, to be blunt, a bit of a mess of the game and poorly documented to boot. This is a long, sprawling game with an enormous number of moving parts in both mechanical and story senses, an often less than helpful journal, and the wikis and online guides for this game leave much to be desired except for talking about mechanical builds. As such, I cannot promise an exemplary LP that will catch every detail and there's quite a lot about the game I still haven't figured out for myself. That being said, I enjoy Wrath a lot! While there's a lot of story variations and branches you can take, I will be playing through Wrath in the story path I enjoy the most, and while I'll try to cover all available content I can't make any promises. In particular, this game features what is known as 'Crusade Mode' which adds a turn-based strategy minigame and politics system to the game. I have never played with Crusade Mode on before (you can turn it off), but for the sake of showing this game off I'll be turning it on for this LP and going through this system blind! A few other notes before we begin: 1. No spoilers until I bring them up. For sake of managing the thread, I must insist on a no spoiler policy until I bring things up. I have a pretty liberal attitude about spoilers and so there will be unmarked spoilers ahead of reaching them in the game when I see fit to discuss them, but until I mention them, shush. 2. I do not have any of the DLC and will not include it in the LP. Wrath has a lot of DLC that adds new content of various kinds. None of it interests me so I haven't bought any of it and will not be showing or discussing it. 3. I know nothing about Pathfinder's setting. This game is my only exposure to the world of Pathfinder, so if you're hoping for the kind of lore essays and explanations I've made in my previous LPs, well, sorry. 4. I will not cover content beyond the story route I'm playing (mostly). Those familiar with this game know that there's a lot of ways this story can go, with a lot of replay value to the game. I will be largely confining the LP to my preferred path, though I will reference and talk about other paths in a limited manner as I see fit. There will not be voting on story choices. 5. I am bad at video games. I will be playing on the easiest difficulty and will not be covering power builds or in-depth mechanics. Table of Contents Prologue: Tremors 0a: Character Creation 0b: Mythic Paths Overview 1. A Sunny Day in Kenabres (Game Introduction) 2. Angel Angel, Burning Bright (Underground Caverns) 3. Choosing Sides (Neathholm) 4. A Maze of Twisty Passages (Shield Maze) 5. Into the Breach (return to Kenabres) Act 1: A Fire in the Night 6. On Higher Ground (Defender's Heart) 6.5 On Higher Ground, Part Two (Defender's Heart, continued) 7. To Ash and Cinder (Market Square) 8. The Cosmic Balance (Market Square, continued) 9. Starward Gaze (Market Square, continued) 10. Facing the Music (Arendae Party House) 11. A Love That Crushes Like a Structural Support Column (Tower of Estrod) 12. The Mask Slips (Gwerm Estate) 13. Chest Burster (return to Defender's Heart) 14. A Family Affair (Thiefling Hideout) 15. Laughing Till the End (Blackwing Library) 16. Taking the Gray (Gray Garrison) 17. From Beyond (the Wardstone) Act 2: The Long March 18. Call to Arms, Part One (the Queen's Command) 19. Call to Arms, Part Two (the Queen's Command, continued) 20. Call to Arms, Part Three (the Queen's Command, continued) 21. Disquiet (Zacharius Cemetary) 22. The Blooding (Houndhearts' Campsite) 23. The Known Unknown (Conundrum Unsolved) 24. Digging Deeper (Chilly Creek) 25. Outfoxed (Nameless Ruins) 26. Hell by Compass (Reliable Redoubt) 27. Golarion Drop (Leper's Smile) 28. Hide and Seek (Leper's Smile, continued) 29. Box of Toys (crusading) 30. Skin Deep (Heaven's Edge) 31. Backdraft (Lost Chapel approach) 32. The Butcher's Block (Lost Chapel) 33. Call and Response (Lost Chapel, continued) 34. Stay of Execution (crusading) 35. The Rising (the battle of Drezen) 36. In Rainbow Clad (the battle of Drezen, continued) 37. As a Traitor Deserves (the battle of Drezen, continued) Other Analysis Uneasy Rests the Head (Queen Galfrey character analysis) The Power of Solitude (On the power of friendship and not-friendship) Path of the Righteous (Plot review) Kalergo Justa (Nenio character analysis) Paths to Destruction (Mythic paths notes) Tales from the Fifth Crusade An Unlikely Vixen Ripple Fire Cythereal fucked around with this message at 02:32 on May 20, 2024 |
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Glossary of Terms (ongoing) AC: Armor Class, the number to beat on a modified d20 roll to hit someone. Attack of Opportunity: Bonus attacks made against enemies under special circumstances. Dip: The practice of taking a small number of levels in a given class to unlock particular class features. Edition Wars: An evil I will not tolerate in this thread. There have been numerous editions of Dungeons and Dragons as a system over the years, as well as Pathfinder which is legally not an edition of Dungeons and Dragons as a system. Many people have strong preferences for one particular edition, and some choose to express these preferences online with great enthusiasm and force. I will not tolerate this nonsense in my thread. You have been warned. Gish: A character built to be capable of both physical combat (especially melee) and arcane spellcasting. Grog/Grognard: A serious nerd for tabletop mechanics. Usually somewhat derogatory and/or bitter referring to fans of mechanical complexity and system mastery. Gygax: Gary Gygax, the man who created Dungeons and Dragons as we know it. A virulently racist, sexist, all-around piece of poo poo who has left an enormous mark on the tabletop fantasy gaming genre. MAD: Multiple Attribute Dependency, a class or system that benefits from 3 or more high attribute scores to be effective. Munchkin: That Guy. Saving Throw: A set of three bonuses to the d20 roll to resist certain effects and attacks. Cast of Characters  - Yua, the protagonist of the game as it unfolds. - Ascended Yua, a narrator looking back on events (PURE FANFIC) - Seelah, paladin of Iomedae and Best Gal. - Camellia, an unfortunate but mandatory addition to the party. - Lann, an idealistic underground crusader. - Woljiff, a tiefling thief from the streets of Kenabres. - Ember, an orphaned child with mystical powers.  - Nenio, a wizard asking the important questions. - Daeran, a legend in his own mind. - Finnean, a Pathfinder who doesn't seem to realize he's a magical weapon. - Katarina, a Desnan adept of spectacularly convoluted background (PURE FANFIC) - Sosiel, a priest of Shelyn. - Regill, a hard man making hard choices whether they're needed or not. - Arueshalae, renegade succubus who seeks to atone for her past. - Aivu, a young havoc dragon following the Song of Elysium. - Hulrun, a commander in the Crusade. - Anevia, spymaster of the Crusade. - Irabeth, knight-commander of the Crusade.  - Horgus Gwerm, a wealthy merchant in Kenabres. Secretly a commoner who assumed the identity of the now-dead real Horgus Gwerm. - Hilor, Pathfinder captain. - Greybor, assassin hired by the Crusade. - The Storyteller an elf loremaster with psychometric abilities. - Galfrey, Queen of Mendev - Nurah, Mendevian historian - Wilcer Garms, Crusade quartermaster - Wenduag, a treacherous renegade mongrel huntress. - Minagho, general of Baphomet's armies. - Staunton Vhane, a man who decided that the best way to address being despised for being a traitor was to commit more treason. - Areelu Voresh, the Architect of the Worldwound.
Cythereal fucked around with this message at 16:52 on May 18, 2024 |
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Feb 10, 2024 13:42
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Character Creation Like any proper groggy western-style RPG, we have a lot of paperwork to go through before we can start the game. JRPG fans, think of this as the replacement for your preferred long opening cinematics.  We will be playing the main story campaign, of course, but there are three DLC alternatives: Inevitable Excess is a small epilogue campaign of sorts, Through the Ashes is a brief side story campaign told at a smaller scale and stakes that takes place concurrently with part of the main story, and Treasure of the Midnight Isles is a roguelike procedurally generated dungeon mode.  Wrath of the Righteous is made by a band of extreme nerds, who have provided a highly customizable difficulty menu. On story mode, which I will be playing (mostly), the game is very simple and easy. Normal is infamous for thrashing people who think they can just walk into a game like this without understanding 1st Edition Pathfinder tabletop rules properly. Unfair is a brutally punishing affair designed for optimizers and masochists. I divert from pure story mode in one respect: I turn off auto-leveling companions. Auto-leveling in this game is terrible unless you well and truly don't know what you're doing. Note the talk of Crusade mode. This is a minigame of sorts that's something on the order of Heroes of Might & Magic V 1/2, unsurprising since it's made by the same people, and as I noted in the OP, I've never actually played Crusade mode before. I've set it to the easiest setting, but what will that mean? We'll find out!  Now to walk you through character creation options, starting with aesthetics. The portrait has nothing to do with how your character model looks, and you can import custom portraits of your own.  The first crunchy choice is our starting class. There's a lot of options, and every class has a series of subclasses. Frankly, I have no idea what some of them do! The options and their subclasses: Alchemist (Chirurgeon, Grenadier, Incense Synthesizer, Metamorph, Preservationist, Vivisectionist): Fight evil with drugs and bombs! Seems to be a wizard-but-not, preparing spells as bombs and ointments. I have no idea how this class works. Arcanist (Brown-Fur Transmuter, Eldritch Font, Nature Mage, Phantasmal Mage, Unlettered Arcanist, White Mage): A wizard with a mana system rather than Vancian spells. I think. Barbarian (Armored Hulk, Beastkin Berserker, Instinctual Warrior, Invulnerable Warrior, Mad Dog, Pack Rager): Noble savage, circa Arnold Schwarzeneggar. Get swole, get mad, get smashing. Bard (Archaeologist, Beast Tamer, Dirge Bard, Flame Dancer, Thundercaller, Tranquil Whisperer): That spooniest of classes emphasizes being a party face and skill monkey, with some arcane spellcasting. Bloodrager (Bloodrider, Greenrager, Mixed-Blood Rager, Primalist, Reformed Fiend, Spelleater, Steelblood): The power of miscegnation in your family tree lets you cast fist, because barbarians can be wizards, too. Cavalier (Beast Rider, Cavalier of the Paw, Disciple of the Pike, Fearsome Leader, Gendarme, Knight of the Wall, Standard Bearer): Off-brand paladin specializing in horse (or other mounts) because that class has too much baggage. Cleric (Angelfire Disciple, Crusader, Demonbane Priest, Ecclesithurge, Herald Caller, Priest of Balance): CoDzilla comes for you. The primary divine caster that can fight, buff, heal, cast, and more depending on your build. Druid (Blight Druid, Defender of the True World, Drovier, Elemental Rampager, Feyspeaker, Primal Druid): The Western fantasy conflation of all manner of pre-Christian faiths in Europe is here to cast nature magic and turn into a bear to rip your face off. Fighter (Aldori Defender, Armiger, Dragonheir Scion, Mutation Warrior, Tower Shield Specialist, Two-Handed Fighter): You fight. That is all. Hunter (Colluding Scoundrel, Divine Hound, Divine Hunter, Forester, Urban Hunter, Wandering Marksman): Ranger with alternate class features. Inquisitor (Faith Hunter, Judge, Monster Tactician, Sacred Huntsmaster, Sanctified Slayer, Tactical Leader): Paladin with alternate class features and no alignment baggage. Kineticist (Blood Kineticist, Dark Elementalist, Elemental Engine, Kinetic Knight, Overwhelming Soul, Psychokineticist): Why does every game that says you can play Aang or Korra feel the need to make it the most complicated goddamn class in the entire game? The point of 3.5E's warlock was to simplify a caster type. Magus (Arcane Rider, Armored Battlemage, Eldritch Archer, Eldritch Scion, Hexcrafter, Spell Dancer, Sword Saint): Because your DM didn't know what a red mage is. Monk (Quarterstaff Master, Scaled Fist, Sensei, Student of Stone, Traditional Monk, Zen Archer): The most infamously slow-start-strong-finish martial class in 3.5E, Pathfinder adds a lot of weird stuff. Oracle (Divine Herbalist, Enlightened Philosopher, Possessed Oracle, Purifier, Seeker, Wind Whisperer): Cleric with alternate class features. Paladin (Divine Guardian, Divine Hunter, Divine Scion, Hospitaler, Martyr, Stonelord, Warrior of the Holy Light): The class that launched a million internet flame wars is still here and still required to be Lawful Good. *ducks* Ranger (Demonslayer, Espionage Expert, Flamewarden, Freebooter, Nomad, Stormwalker): The nature-y warrior is still here, too. The racist one, not the angry one. Rogue (Eldritch Scoundrel, Knife Master, Master of All, Rowdy, Sylvan Trickster, Thug, Underground Chemist): Your catch-all sneaky stabby stealy criminal type traditionally required by law to pick locks and disable traps. Shaman (Possessed Shaman, Shadow Shaman, Spirit Hunter, Spirit Warden, Unsworn Shaman, Wildland Shaman, Witch Doctor): I have no idea how if at all this class is meaningfully different from cleric or druid. Skald (Battle Scion, Battle Singer, Court Poet, Demon Dancer, Herald of the Horn, Hunt Caller): Barbarian/bard multiclass. Slayer (Arcane Enforcer, Deliverer, Executioner, Imitator, Spawn Slayer, Stygian Slayer, Vanguard): Rogue, but firmly focused on stabbing people. Sorcerer (Crossblooded, Empyreal Sorcerer, Nine-Tailed Heir, Overwhelming Mage, Sage Sorcerer, Seeker, Sylvan Sorcerer): Doing arcane magic through the power of miscegnation and 'force of personality,' unlike those nerds who had to study. Warpriest (Champion of the Faith, Cult Leader, Disenchanter, Feral Champion, Proclaimer, Shieldbearer): Did we really need yet another 'divine magic sort who likes to fight?' Witch (Elemental Witch, Hagbound, Hex Channeler, Leyline Guardian, Stigmatized Witch, Witch of the Veil): Druid/wizard multiclass. Wizard (Arcane Bomber, Cruoromancer, Elemental Specialist, Exploiter Wizard, Scroll Savant, Spell Master, Thassilonian Specialist): Nerd.  Second is race. Most of these should be self-explanatory to this audience, but some might be unfamiliar to those not specifically fluent in Gygaxian: Aasimars are humans with angelic blood, tieflings are humans with demonic blood, oreads are humans with earth elemental blood, dhampir are living half-vampires, and kitsune are shapeshifting fox-people. Oh, and modern gnomes are actually fairies in Dungeons and Dragons because no one could ever decide how they fit in with dwarves and halflings.  Ahahahaha, we're not done with crunch yet! Most races have subraces! Humans are humans. Elves come in standard, angry (blightborn), and stuffed-in-locker (loremaster) varieties. Dwarves come in standard, racist (against the undead), and tough varieties. Gnomes come in standard, fast, and pyromaniac (that's literally what the subrace is called) varieties. Halflings come in standard, fast, and cowardly varieties. Half-Elves come in standard, raised by humans, and raised by elves varieties. Half-Orcs come in standard, raised by humans, and raised by orcs varieties. Aasimar ask what kind of celestial your ancestor hosed: generic, an actual angel, a fallen angel, an angel on weed, an angry angel, a drunk angel, or an angel that was actually a bird. Tieflings ask what kind of demon your ancestor hosed: generic, a furry demon, an internet troll demon, a redneck demon, a goth demon, a fascist demon, a Japanese demon, a body horror demon, an angry demon, a BDSM demon, or a demon that was trying to keep up with the joneses. Oreads either rock, iron things out, or shine like gems. Dhampirs ask what culture's mythological concept of vampire-like beings your ancestor hosed: England, China, Russia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, or India. Kitsune ask if you're specifically the smart kind of trickster rear end in a top hat by blood, or just regular edition.  Then you choose your background to give you some skill bonuses or extra proficiencies or other perks (or none if you want to hamstring yourself)...  Your stats...  Your skills...  Your feats...  Your class features and spells (if applicable)...  Your character's choice of patron god (or atheism) does occasionally come up in dialogue and can have minor (or surprisingly significant) effects. The choices: Atheist (N/A): The internet choice. Abadar (Lawful Neutral): God of law, cities, and trade. Admodeus (Lawful Evil): Boss man of hell. Calistria (Chaotic Neutral): Goddess of lust and revenge. Cayden Cailean (Chaotic Good): God of booze and adventure. Desna (Chaotic Good): Goddess of dreams, luck, and the stars and moon. Erastil (Lawful Good): God of the hunt. The Godclaw (Lawful Neutral): Paladins and hellknights are actually the same class, in this essay I will... Gorum (Chaotic Neutral): God of war, strength, and glory. Gozreh (True Neutral): God and goddess of nature. Green Faith (True Neutral): None of the above or below but you're still a nature worshiper of some kind. Gyronna (Chaotic Evil): Goddess of angry and evil women. Iomedae (Lawful Good): Paladin goddess. Irori (Lawful Neutral): Monk god. Lamashtu (Chaotic Evil): Goddess of monsters. Nethys (True Neutral): Mad god of knowledge and magic. Norgorber (Neutral Evil): Thief god. Pharasma (True Neutral): Goddess of death and fate. Rovagug (Chaotic Evil): God of destruction and chaos. Saranae (Neutral Good): Hippy goddess of peace and healing. Shelyn (Neutral Good): Goddess of beauty and love. Torag (Lawful Good): Smith god (and dwarves). Urgathoa (Neutral Evil): Goddess of necromancy and the undead. Zun-Kuthon (Lawful Evil): God of hatred, tyranny, and pain.  Your starting alignment needs to be within one step of your god's alignment.  Then your model's appearance...  Voice set...  And name and date of birth. Now, this is where y'all come in! I will be playing a Neutral Good female character. Period. Also, since each race and deity receives a bit of dialogue throughout the game, I am going to further strike from the list of options those I used in my previous playthroughs of this game. So I will need from the gallery a... Class or Role (Pick one or both): Alchemist Arcanist Barbarian Bard Bloodrager Cavalier Cleric Druid Fighter Hunter Inquisitor Kineticist Magus Oracle Ranger Rogue Shaman Skald Slayer Sorcerer Warpriest Witch Wizard LPer's Choice Melee Combatant Ranged Combatant Skill Character Caster LPer's Choice Race: Dwarf Gnome Half-Elf Half-Orc Aasimar Tiefling Oread Dhampir Kitsune LPer's Choice Deity: Cayden Cailean Desna Erastil Gozreh Green Faith Nethys Saranae Shelyn Torag LPer's Choice Name: Write your own! Or LPer's Choice. I reserve the right to disqualify votes I deem nonsensical. Votes that don't read the restrictions will be treated as LPer's Choice. Beyond that, I'm open to possibilities! If you want to know more about any race or class option on the table, just ask. Don't worry about doubling up with party members, for those who know who will be joining the crew. Voting closes when I feel like it on Wednesday night. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Feb 14, 2024 |
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Feb 10, 2024 13:43
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Mythic Paths Overview Since I don't have a prayer of stopping the thread from talking about it, one of the banner features of Wrath is the mythic path system. For reasons that will be discovered over the course of the game, the protagonist of Wrath is gifted with a remarkable potential for power that will, one way or another, be tapped and harnessed over the game to make the player character more than merely mortal. Each mythic path has a specific story of its own, but also heavily influences much of the main story and numerous sidequests. There is no opting out of this system: there *is* a choice to remain more or less mortal, but that is itself a mythic path all its own and comes late in the game at that. The good news is, each mythic path comes with a powerful suite of abilities that develop over the course of the game, and you can unlock up to six by the time you must make your first serious choice about what path to follow. As you might expect, these six get far more content than the latecomers, so I'll give each of them a brief overview now. Each mythic path has a theme song I'll link, and an associated alignment. Most mythic paths require you to be within one step of their alignment to complete their story arc, exceptions will be noted. Portraits shown are the female versions where applicable that you can choose to swap to late in the game if you complete the path's story.  Angel (Lawful Good) A shining exemplar of the heavens come to drive back the hordes of the Abyss. The default good-aligned mythic path offers the most traditional heroic fare of all the mythic paths, but with an interesting twist that there are two markedly different variants of the Angel story you can follow. Most mythic paths have subtly different dialogue based on where your alignment falls versus the path's home alignment, but Angel explicitly delineates the choice as the Angel of Judgment or the Angel of Mercy, and the difference can be summed up by how they address a particular late game adversary: "I have come to cleanse this land of your filth!" or "I have come to save this land from your wickedness!" Both are equally valid ways to play Angel, and if you're just here to be a righteous force of heaven played completely straight, there's no pressing need to even unlock another path.  Demon (Chaotic Evil) Demons are the main adversaries of the game, but what if you could take their strength for your own? Make no mistake, this is not a nice path where even if you try to avoid descending into evil you're still going to unleash an awful lot of collateral damage in your bid to seize control of the powers of the Abyss for your own. The driving theme of the demon path is the struggle over your rage, and the question of whether you or your raging hatred is truly in control here (and it's not going to be much comfort to those around you if you're trying to play it the Chaotic Neutral antihero route). But if you like the idea of fighting fire with fire, or just want to straight up be a bad guy, Demon might be to your liking.  Aeon (Lawful Neutral) Perhaps the strangest mythic power in the game is becoming a mysterious alien being from the stars. Aeons are manifestations of cosmic order with strange powers over time and space, and while the Aeon path is initially very much fantasy Judge Dredd in its rigid and uncompromising adherence to law and order, once the path gets rolling a better comparison might be a Cthulu cultist. Aeons are inscrutable beings of logic and order, and this path has by far the most stringent alignment requirements: you must be specifically Lawful Neutral at the critical moments and must take Aeon-specific options throughout the game to take your place among the stars. The Aeon path is weird even for a law and order type, and goes in very unexpected places at times.  Trickster (Chaotic Neutral) Perhaps your preferred idea of world-shaking power is not coming some cosmic being but instead the likes of Deadpool: someone aware they're a video game character and gets superhuman powers by rules-lawyering the dungeon master and making everything up as they go along. Trickster is one of the more divisive mythic paths in the game, as while it has some genuine pathos here and there, much of the path's flavor consists of knowingly turning this epic fantasy story into a running joke that's constantly winking at the camera and making fun of the writers. If you're the kind of person who would enjoy the Trickster path, you probably know who you are.  Lich (Neutral Evil) The threat of the Worldwound is such that surely any means are permitted if they offer the power to stop this evil, right? Take a seat over here, Arthas, because the Lich path is all about the temptation of power as you pursue what you believe is the greater good, and the question of whether that's still true by the end. It is possible to complete the Lich story without the world trading the Worldwound for a new and entirely different problem that's just as severe, but that is an extremely hard road to walk that the slightest misstep can end. The power of undeath is not a toy and can twist even the strongest souls and noblest intentions from whatever they set out to accomplish. You can't say your companions won't warn you about it, either. Some fans of the game, in fact, get mad that it is very easy to get burned to a crisp when you play with fire like this.  Azata (Chaotic Good) And then there's the path I'll be following in this LP. Chaotic Good as a cosmic force has often struggled to find an identity in Dungeons and Dragons, usually met with a shrug of 'Elves, I guess?' and for some reason often a Greek vibe. The Azata path in Wrath of the Righteous finds its voice by playing to romantic fantasy, an old if not necessarily well respected (at least in modern days) vein of fantasy literature. Others say that war is hell, but Azata call this a grand adventure against terrible evil. Trust your instincts and your luck, do what you feel is right, and let tomorrow bring what it will. Feelings should be expressed, often in song and poetry, and your more curmudgeonly companions are going to be perplexed more often than not when your plucky band of outcasts, rebels, and freedom fighters not only thrive in adversity, they'll win. There will be singing. Unicorns and rainbows are also likely.
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Feb 10, 2024 13:44
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Gun Jam posted:
Capfalcon posted:Deity: Pharasma Cythereal posted:Deity: Folks, please read the voting instructions.
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Feb 10, 2024 16:05
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Just for the record, I have no idea what 'an iconic' is, so if you're referencing a book character or something I'm not getting it. I'm also not taking any input on how to RP unless I specifically ask for it. I will play and write as I see fit. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Feb 10, 2024 |
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Feb 10, 2024 17:11
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Just me, but I think that looks like garbage and 'we want a Warhammer Fantasy witch hunter but don't want Games Workshop to sue us.'
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Feb 10, 2024 21:16
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Captain Rufus posted:RACE: Human (More feats is more funs. Especially when it comes to what this game throws at you.) Human is not allowed. I banned the races and deities I used in my previous games of Wrath to ensure I see more new dialogue for myself (my previous games were an Azata elf worshiping Pharasma, an Angel human worshiping Iomedae, and a Aeon halfling atheist).
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Feb 10, 2024 22:35
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CommissarMega posted:Mind if I ask what classes you played? I'd rather not. That's not the point of this thread. Shoot me a PM on SA or discord if you really care. quote:Also, would you also welcome fluff posts on Pathfinder itself, as long as it's not spoilery? Within reason as we get to things during the LP proper. I don't know poo poo about Pathfinder beyond what this game presents, and while I'm open to discussing things we do see, this is not a general lore chat thread for Pathfinder.
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Feb 10, 2024 23:01
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Drakenel posted:From warcraft to this? You're nuts. But i'm here for it. Good luck. It was this or a blind LP of BattleTech 2018's story campaign, a game I picked up a couple years ago but never got around to moving past the tutorial on. I settled on this because it's a game I know I like and a story (especially the Azata story) I want to share.  I need that after Warcraft.
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Feb 10, 2024 23:51
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To clarify a question I got on discord: no voting for portraits. I'll see what the thread decides for race and class, and then select a portrait or import one of my own as I see fit.
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Feb 11, 2024 03:46
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Clarifying another question I've gotten on discord: yes, Azata can complete the game as Neutral Good. This was my PC at the end of my previous Azata game: I will not object if the PC's alignment drifts into Chaotic Good, but I will probably be generally picking the Good options above all others.
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Feb 11, 2024 15:10
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CommissarMega posted:From what I remember, Mythics can stay within one step of their alignment and not have to take steps to remedy things, so NG Azata are 100% game legal. It depends on the path. As I noted in the overview, Aeons for example are especially stringent. Other paths will instantly and permanently change your alignment and make it impossible to change out once you lock them in.
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Feb 11, 2024 16:24
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I will be doing some breakdowns of classes and other mechanical aspects of the game as the LP goes on, for the record, I'm very conversant in 3.5E but am not one of the serious grogs. Voting will remain open for the rest of the week as promised. There's clear favorites for class, deity, and name, but race is tightly contested. Bard will be interesting if it keeps its lead. I've never built or used a bard in Wrath before.
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Feb 12, 2024 01:24
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ChaosStar0 posted:Edit: Also hope you romance Arueshalae. She's my choice among the romancables. All I'll say on this is: yes, folks, romance is in this game and a good romance story is catnip for me. My requirements in this game are simply to be a woman romanceable by women and not currently be a cannibalistic serial killer. This narrows the field nicely. 
Cythereal fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Feb 12, 2024 |
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Feb 12, 2024 13:09
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Fortunately, regardless of what combo wins, I have a couple of friends who have approached me on discord who are very knowledgeable about the setting and can fill me in on whatever the thread decides so I can write the heroine accordingly.
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Feb 12, 2024 17:09
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Well, voting is pretty overwhelming at this point but I am going to keep myself honest this time and not close voting early. For those concerned about my talk of burnout in previous LPs, I know full well this is going to be another very long LP and I need to force myself to pace.
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Feb 12, 2024 19:54
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Gun Jam posted:Who failed that part? (vampires?) Patience.
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Feb 12, 2024 20:03
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That being said, at the prompting of discord, here's the start of a glossary for Dungeons and Dragons fandom terms that you can expect me to use throughout the LP. I'll edit these back into the second post of the thread. Dip: The practice of taking a small number of levels in a given class to unlock particular class features. Edition Wars: An evil I will not tolerate in this thread. There have been numerous editions of Dungeons and Dragons as a system over the years, as well as Pathfinder which is legally not an edition of Dungeons and Dragons as a system. Many people have strong preferences for one particular edition, and some choose to express these preferences online with great enthusiasm and force. I will not tolerate this nonsense in my thread. You have been warned. Gish: A character built to be capable of both physical combat (especially melee) and arcane spellcasting. Grog/Grognard: A serious nerd for tabletop mechanics. Usually somewhat derogatory and/or bitter referring to fans of mechanical complexity and system mastery. Gygax: Gary Gygax, the man who created Dungeons and Dragons as we know it. A virulently racist, sexist, all-around piece of poo poo who has left an enormous mark on the tabletop fantasy gaming genre. Munchkin: That Guy.
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Feb 12, 2024 20:40
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I'll pass on the dirge bard, Pharasma wouldn't be happy about that one. As it is, just writing up all the actual crunch of character creation for the probable winner, which all easily adapts in case something else pulls ahead, was almost 2k words. Good Lord. But, I am assuming that some of my readers may have never played a d20 system game before, and while I'm no character optimization fiend, I am conversant in crunch and will be making an effort to explain what everything means as we go along.
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Feb 13, 2024 13:30
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Capfalcon posted:On the other hand, there's nothing more essential to the game experience than getting option paralysis in character creation! I am not one of those people who suffers from option paralysis as a general rule. There is only what do I choose to play now and what's replay value. There are very few games I only play once and call it done, usually games that I'd grown to dislike by the end but saw them out for whatever reason and uninstalled. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Feb 13, 2024 |
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Feb 13, 2024 22:48
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Let the record show that I hate you all for the mess this has made of my bookkeeping for the votes.
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Feb 14, 2024 12:46
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Just in case anyone missed it, I was being sarcastic with that remark.
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Feb 14, 2024 14:52
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:I just wanted to see a Fox Bard! For what it's worth, I wasn't expecting voting to be half this active, and I just spent the last half hour going through the thread and all my PMs fresh to recalculate votes in a bid to keep my bookkeeping straight. I think at this point, the next time I need to have a major vote, I'll look into one of those free online survey websites. -_-
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Feb 14, 2024 20:00
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gently caress it. I wasn't expecting half this much voting and I was not expecting to break out a spreadsheet. And this vote changing is driving me up the wall. I am curtailing voting by decree of stop making me do this much paperwork. Y'all have until I turn in for the night this evening for any last second votes. I do believe that in the future, I will be counting all votes as final. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Feb 14, 2024 |
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Feb 14, 2024 20:21
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Voting is now closed. I'm sorry to have to curtail voting like this, but in a sense it's a problem resulting from my own success - none of my previous LPs have had half this much engagement and I was not expecting anything like this many votes! I'm grateful so many people are interested, I'll just need to think about how to better handle any future voting. I'm chalking this one up to a learning experience and I'm sorry if anyone thought they had more time to get their votes in, keeping track of things was just growing untenable from an administrative point of view. As it stands, despite a strong last-second push, between this thread and discord we have a clear winner. Bard 15 Sorcerer 13 Skald 5 Kineticist 3 LPer's Choice 2 Magus 2 Alchemist 1 Arcanist 1 Oracle 1 Ranger 1 Witch 1 Wizard 1 Kitsune 15 Aasimar 12 LPer's Choice 8 Gnome 3 Dhampir 2 Half Orc 2 Oread 2 Tiefling 2 Half Elf 1 Desna 30 Cayden Cailean 6 LPer's Choice 5 Shelyn 3 Erastil 1 Nethys 1 Saranae 1 LPer's Choice 33 Katarina Turan 12 Kytherea 2 The story of the Fifth Crusade will center on a foxy bard following her [goddess of] dreams!
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Feb 15, 2024 02:01
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RelentlessImp posted:Thunderstruck intensifies Y'all realize you voted for a bard from fantasy east Asia (all of it, jammed into a single country, as I understand it), right? Less rock music, more throat singing.
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Feb 15, 2024 13:13
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CommissarMega posted:To be fair, considering just how diverse the Inner Sea region (Pathfinder's own Not!Europe setting, which includes the Worldwound area) is has been for the past hundred years or so, as well as it being very possible to land travel from Minkai to the land of the Linnorm Kings (Pathfinder's not!Scandinavia), it's not entirely impossible that a Kitsune might have been born and raised in the local culture- and I'm talking lineages of several generations here. There are significant populations of foreign descent living in the nearby areas (say what you like about Pathfinder- I certainly will- but a lack of diversity is not really one of them), so if you want a Kitsune bard rocking out to AC/DC, go ahead! I was joking, for the record. Sorta. Remember that I know almost nothing about Pathfinder's world, so the chances of oddities and mistakes when I write is going to be unusually high by my standards.
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Feb 15, 2024 13:59
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Please ease off world lore chat, folks. We haven't even gotten to the game itself starting yet.
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Feb 15, 2024 16:55
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Black Robe posted:Just going to imagine the fox bard screaming like real foxes every time. I was originally planning to make jokes about how the PC's singing goes unappreciated in this land because she practices the honored art of throat singing like her ancestors. I have decided that this is funnier to me. Traditional kitsune folk music is seldom appreciated by outsiders.
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Feb 15, 2024 21:11
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A Sunny Day in Kenabres Warning: this will be a crunch-intensive update.  While kitsune are native shapeshifters one and all, Wrath helpfully includes a portrait for each gender of a kitsune in their native form. This one even looks suitably bardic!  We start by choosing what our heroine's first level is in. The level cap in this game, and the assumed level cap in the tabletop, is 20. The class you start the game as does not lock you in any form, it is merely what you took your first level in. Bards have had an interesting history as a class in Dungeons and Dragons. While well known now as the traveling minstrel and entertainer class, when bards first appeared in Dungeons and Dragons they were much closer to druids in lore and scope, drawing heavily on Celtic, and especially Irish, pre-Christian religion and folklore. Originally, bards emphasized their role as lore-masters who wielded a powerful magic through song. Tolkien fans may know that in Lord of the Rings, the world was created by the gods singing the material world into being, this is the kind of thing that bards originally drew on. Less spoony, more Tom Bombadil, but that was many years and editions ago. Nowadays, bards are DnD's best-known jack of all trades class, capable of doing a bit of everything and an iconic support class. Wrath has a number of variants for every class, known variously as archetypes and kits, but I will be ignoring them and playing a traditional bard. None of the kits either do anything interesting to me, or make trade-offs that I don't think are advantageous.  Kitsune are, per stereotype from Japanese folklore, known as mischievous shape-shifting tricksters. In Pathfinder's world they hail from the region of Tian Xia, your mandatory vague mashup of China, Japan, Korea, and Mongolia that features in so many video games.  Kitsune have two racial variants. Both types enjoy a bonus to dexterity and a penalty to strength. The primary difference is whether they receive a bonus to charisma or intelligence. Bards, happily, will generally want all three of dexterity, intelligence, and charisma, and so the subraces are utterly interchangeable for my purposes. I go with vanilla by default.   Next our heroine receives a special background perk, reflecting some skills or magical knowledge or combat experience she has from her life prior to the game. In addition to a generic set, there's also a wide range of backgrounds tailored to specific regions of Pathfinder's world. I have very little idea what any of these mean and include them here for completion's sake. I'm sure one of our resident nerds can explain if anyone's interested. As we'll see, Wrath is deliberately very vague about where the PC comes from, so you're free to imagine whatever origin and background you like.  I decide that our heroine is of noble birth and spent much of her life prior to the start of the game as a courtier. The effects merit some explanation. First, if our heroine's class didn't give her Persuasion and Trickery as class skills (we'll see what that means in a minute), she'd have them regardless courtesy of her upbringing. Since our heroine does have these as class skills courtesy of being a bard, she instead gets a permanent +1 bonus to both skills. Second, if our heroine's class didn't give her proficiency (i.e. ability to use) rapiers and buckler shields, she'd have them regardless. Our heroine again does in fact have proficiency with the rapier and buckler already as a bard, so instead she'll enjoy a +1 attack bonus with rapiers and reduce any penalties from equipping a buckler by -1. I picked this background primarily for the skill bonuses. While party members can assist with skills much of the time, sometimes things will be down to just the PC and I rate Persuasion and Perception as the two most important RP skills for the protagonist. There's no background that gives a bonus to both, so I settle for Persuasion, and the bonus to Trickery will also come in handy.  Stats in this game start with a base value of 10, and we have a set pool of points to buy increases. You can see the effects of our heroine being a kitsune here: she's naturally charming and nimble, but has noodle arms. The core mechanic of this game, and any other d20 based system like Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, is the d20 in question: rolling a 20-sided dice versus a target number. Almost all the numbered bonuses and penalties you'll see in this game function by modifying that d20 roll in specific circumstances. Stats award bonuses in increments of 2: a stat of 10 or 11, for example, grants neither a bonus nor a penalty. 12-13 grants +1, 8-9 grants -1, and so on and so forth.  16 is a very good break point for the start of the game. Getting up to 18 is just too expensive if you're playing a character who gets consistent use out of multiple attributes (this is known as MAD - Multiple Attribute Dependency - and it's a curse for many classes), and bards most certainly do. For our heroine, I double down on the kitsune's natural game plan, focusing on dexterity (primarily used for making attacks with ranged weapons), intelligence (grants skill points), and charisma (governs a bard's spellcasting). You'll gain attribute points as you level up, and I'll likely dedicate all future points to dexterity. For what purpose, I'm currently undecided, either going into archery to support the team from the back ranks or picking up weapon finesse to swash buckles on the front line with a rapier.  bard.jpg Skills will come up on both the battlefield and in dialogue, and you can see one of the bard's strengths on full display here: they get every single skill in the game as a class skill. You can put one point into each skill per level, and for skills ticked for your class, they enjoy an inherent bonus. Each skill is governed by a different attribute, and you can see our heroine's attributes and background perk in action here. I will be putting points into perception and persuasion every level, and spend my other four starting skill points in each of the knowledge skills. You see, many skills are denoted as 'trained' or 'untrained' based on whether you've put a point into them or not, chiefly knowledge skills. Putting even a single point into a knowledge skill means your character genuinely knows even a little bit about the actual subject matter, rather than just relying on osmosis and hearsay. Bards, for a number of reasons, excel at knowledge checks and I give our heroine a broad base of knowledge. Very likely, I won't put another point into Religion or Nature. These two knowledge skills are governed by wisdom, not our heroine's strongest stat, and there are other skills I'd like her to develop. She'll have companions to help out with areas where she's lacking.  Feats represent a huge range of traits and abilities your character can pick up, and they range the gamut from build-defining to utterly useless. Learning feats and their prerequisites is a key part of learning how to build a character. Magical Tail here is an example of a trap choice, spending precious limited feats on gaining an assortment of magical abilities is so not worth it. This feat is exclusive to kitsune, but it is bad and whoever put it in this game should feel bad. You don't even get extra tails on your character model.  Some of the game's recommended feats are even legitimately useful. Lingering Song's usefulness won't become apparent until we actually see combat, but suffice to say that it's a huge asset to a bard's combat utility.   As a bard, our heroine also knows a bit of magic! Just two legit spells at the start of the game, but I pick up two useful ones. Cure Light Wounds is the most basic healing spell in the game and never goes amiss, while Grease will be useful for battlefield control. I'll talk about the magic system in more detail in the future, but CLW is a pretty self explanatory spell: it heals 1d8 hit points (one eight-sided die),+1 point per caster level. It can also be used to harm undead for the same value, though they can partially or fully resist its effects. Grease on the other hand is the equivalent of a giant banana peel or oil slick in a racing game, making enemies save (I'll talk about what this means later in the update) or fall flat on their rear end in an area for a period of time. Bards aren't full-tilt casters, but they get by. This is also why I made sure to give our heroine a charisma stat of 16: every casting class has a stat governing their magic, and can learn spells of a level equal to the number of points in that stat above 10. Bards, naturally, rely on charisma and so our heroine's 16 charisma means she'll be able to learn and cast up to level 6 bard spells. This is also the highest level of spells that bards can ever learn, so our heroine will have complete access to all the magic bards can do.  While the default in most polytheistic fantasy settings like this is in theory that almost everyone gives praise and worship to all the gods (or at least the good ones), Wrath like most games assumes that most people are basically devoted to just one of their choice. Per the thread's votes, our heroine is devoted to the goddess Desna. You can ignore the talk of domains and favored weapons, those are of no concern to a bard (they're mainly relevant to various divine casting classes and holy warrior sorts).  Hoo boy, I'll need to talk about alignment at some point but that day is not today. As a follower of Desna, who is Chaotic Good in alignment, our heroine needs to be within one alignment step of her: Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, or Chaotic Neutral. I pick Neutral Good, our heroine will be devoted to doing good above all else. As long as I don't slide into Lawful Good it won't be an issue.  Our heroine's appearance, which I elect to make resemble her portrait.  And because kitsune, her human appearance.  An ethnic Japanese acquaintance suggested the name Yua for our heroine, and I'm rolling with it. Birthday I picked on a whim, I don't believe it ever comes up in the game.  This is her character sheet, and there's a lot to take in here. Let's break it down.  The upper left box is largely self-explanatory, showing Yua's race, gender, alignment, attributes, class levels, and current and maximum hit points. In addition to skill checks, sometimes attributes will be directly tested on the d20 roll, so these bonuses and penalty should be kept in mind.  Our heroine's ability to kill, maim, and burn is measured here. Base attack bonus (BAB in the future) is inherent to your class, and bards start off with a clean zero. Fighters and other martial types will often start with a bonus of +1. At higher levels, as your killing power improves, many characters will learn to make multiple attacks per round which will be shown in the spaces to the right, albeit at a decreasing bonus for each successive attack. Remember, these are all about modifying the d20 roll. Because of our heroine's strength score of 9 and according -1 penalty, she has a -1 base penalty to melee attacks. This is calculated after the BAB, so in this case it's +/- 0 BAB, then -1 from STR for a total of -1. Of course, remember Yua's Courtier background - while it isn't listed here because she's assumed to be unarmed, she has a +1 bonus to melee attacks when specifically armed with a rapier, so if she can get her hands on one, she'll be back to a flat zero for melee rolls as the +1 bonus from Courtier and the -1 penalty from her noodle arms cancel each other out. On the other hand, Yua's DEX score of 16 means she enjoys a +3 bonus to ranged attacks! She'll be decently handy with a bow at the start. Combat maneuvers are a range of special attacks you can make during combat if you spend feats to learn them, like trying to knock an enemy on their rear end or disarming them. With Yua's STR penalty, she's at a penalty of -1 to initiate any combat maneuvers (not that she knows how to perform any), but she starts with a defense rating against combat maneuvers of 12. Enemies that try to perform maneuvers on Yua will need to roll a 12 or better on the d20 to pull it off - or have enough bonuses to equal 12 or better on top of whatever they did roll. Initiative represents how quick off the bat Yua is, every time combat starts every combatant rolls a d20 to see where they stand in turn order with the turn order going from highest initiative to lowest. Initiative is governed by the DEX stat, so Yua has +3 to her initiative roll (and now you know what the thread title means!). Spell Resistance denotes one's ability to resist incoming hostile magic. Yua doesn't have any resistance to magic at the moment.  Defense is the flip side of the coin. Armor Class, or AC, is a collective measure of how hard a character is to land a solid hit on, whether that means dodging out of the way or taking the hit harmlessly on the armor. Right now the game assumes that Yua is unarmored, so while the default AC is 10, Yua's native dexterity helps again by giving her a default AC of 13 - 10 base +3 from her DEX. Enemy attacks, between their roll and their bonus if any, will need to equal or exceed 13 to hit her. Flat-Footed is a special circumstance triggered by certain effects, mainly enemies striking by surprise or a character being distracted. Generally, being flat-footed denies a character's dexterity bonus to their AC, which is why Yua has the default AC of 10 when she's flat-footed. Touch is the opposite, there are some attacks that merely need to touch you to work and don't give a drat about armor. Only avoiding physical contact can help, and so Yua's back to her AC of 13 against touch attacks since the game is currently assuming she's unarmored. Fortitude is Yua's first saving throw, a d20 roll made against a wide variety of magical and mundane spells and effects. Fortitude represents one's ability to shrug it off through sheer inherent toughness - this is most iconically poison and disease to give you an idea of what this save represents. All saving throws progress differently based on different classes, bards don't grant any bonus to fortitude saves at level 1 but Yua's got some heart under her fur and so enjoys a +1 bonus to her fortitude save. Reflex saves are mainly called for dodging out of the way of things that aren't targeted attacks, think dodging a trap that your incompetent rogue didn't catch. Bards have a good reflex save progression and Yua's a nimble fox to boot so she's pretty good at this save from the start. Will saves represent strength of mind and discipline to endure and shrug off effects that would mess with the mind, like enchantment magic. Bards also have a good will save, and Yua has a small bonus to wisdom, so she does okay with this save. Speed represents how fast a character can move per round, 30 feet is the default.  Special abilities represent a grab-bag of perks. Coup de Grace is a special attack any character can make against a helpless opponent (generally this means disabled by magic or special attacks) in an effort to summarily dispatch them. It tends to hurt, but does render one vulnerable to any other enemies nearby. Treat Affliction lets a character try to cure poison or disease or similar effects if they have a medical kit item in their inventory. You'll generally be using magic for this instead. Demoralize (Persuasion) lets you spend an action trying to scare enemies to debuff them. Forget this exists unless you're on the Trickster mythic path. Tricksters can turn this from a useless curiosity to a map-clearing superweapon. Change Shape lets Yua shift between furry and human forms at will. Right now, all this really means is that when in fox form, Yua will have an extra attack when unarmed that lets her bite people. Fighting defensively is a toggle characters can make to gain a bonus to their armor class in exchange for a penalty to their attack bonus. Acrobatics lets a character slow their movement speed in exchange for immunity to certain forms of attack. I'll cover this in more detail later in the LP. Inspire Rage isn't likely to be useful, some classes can drive their allies voluntarily berserk and this lets you choose whether you want a character to go bananas when that happens. Inspire Courage, on the other hand, is one of the bard's signature moves: this is what lets Yua buff the party on command, starting with a +1 bonus to attack rolls, damage rolls, and to saving throws against fear and charm effects. Bard Proficiencies are Yua's familiarity with weapons and armor at the start of the game, and ability to use them without penalty. As a bard, Yua can use all simple weapons - think basic stuff like daggers, staves, and slings - along with shortswords, longswords, rapiers, and shortbows, and buckler and regular size shields. Bards can also cast magic while wearing light armor without penalty. Cantrips are a set of level 0 spells that Yua can cast as many times as she wants without pause. They're also all pretty useless so I'll probably never mention them again. Bardic Knowledge gives Yua a bonus of half her bard levels (minimum of 1) to all her Knowledge and Lore skill checks, and in the event I hadn't put a point into each, Bardic Knowledge also lets a bard treat all Knowledge and Lore skills as trained even if you don't have any points in them at all. This is a helpful bonus that will just keep getting better.  Skills shows all of Yua's skills and total ranks and bonuses/penalties.  If a character is a caster, the number of spells they have is shown here. Yua has an unlimited number of level 0 cantrips at her disposal, and can cast 2 level 1 spells per day.  Right now Yua's martial qualities are as explained above, but things can and probably will get more involved later.  The last new window here is the Traits box. Kitsune Magic gives Yua a +1 bonus to the difficulty check (we'll talk about this later, in brief it's how hard a spell is to resist) of any enchantment spell she casts, and because she's a regular kitsune with a charisma score of 11 or more, she can cast the Light spell as an inherent magical ability three times per day - redundant with Light in a bard's limitless cantrips in this case. Keen Senses gives Yua a +2 bonus to her Perception checks simply for being a kitsune (dwarves, elves, gnomes, half-elves, halflings, and oreads also get this). Agile gives Yua a +2 bonus to her Mobility checks for being a kitsune. Change Shape is, again, her inherent ability to shift between fox and human forms. So... got all that? I'm experienced with this kind of system so I can read sheets like this with ease, but please let me know if anyone has questions!With that, we are ready to start the game at last. Beats watching a 15 minute unskippable cutscene before you get to gameplay as far as I'm concerned.  We begin in media res, at a festival in the city of Kenabres.  With our heroine being carried in on a stretcher.  "My, my, would you look at this? But why would you drag a wounded fighter into the middle of the festival square? Couldn't she be carted off somewhere else, like... oh I don't know... an infirmary? Or an accommodating ditch?"We'll get to know everyone with a portrait later. For now, don't worry about who is who.   "Demons, Prelate! We found her barely alive outside the walls of Kenabres!" "The walls, you say? The enemy doesn't usually stray so close to the city. We must fortify the defenses... And you — hold fast, don't die, we'll see you right! We'll get you patched up now. But first — you there, guard, take her weapons: bearing arms is not permitted during the festival. Wounded or not, everyone must abide by the rules. She can get her things back after the festival."For those who haven't read one of my LPs before, dialogue with a character portrait is in-game dialogue. In this game, I'll use smilies to represent NPCs not important enough to be given portraits in the game. Dialogue you see like this is added by me. When preceded by a portrait, that's me writing fanfic dialogue.  "I won't give up that easily..." "Hear, hear! That's the crusader spirit! Hmmm... My powers are not enough here. Someone, call for Terendelev! You there! Yes, you - stop dithering and gawping and make yourself useful - go and get Terendelev!" "Prelate." (The lady raises her head in an affectation of surprise.) "Surely there is somebody else here better suited to running errands." "I'll get her. Terendelev! Has anyone seen Terendelev?"Bear in mind the talk of demons, and that Hulrun was pictured casting Restoration here. Kenabres is a city on the edge of what is known as the Worldwound: a region home to a permanent portal to the Abyss, the extraplanar home realm of demons. Demons, and the Abyss's corruption, seep out of the Worldwound and the surrounding regions, including the city of Kenabres, are heavily militarized. If you're familiar with Warhammer Fantasy, we're pretty much in the city of Praag looking the Chaos Wastes in the eye.  "I'm a crusader. I came to fight demons." "Oh, Iomedae save me from green recruits... They come without planning, without preparation, and they die before they even see their first real battle. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the utter waste of it all!"This exchange is the closest Wrath will get for a very long time regarding the PC's backstory and motives. For one reason or another, you happened to be in the city of Kenabres, were attacked by demons during the festival, and were brought here like this. All of these options are treated as equally valid, including going straight for the amnesia plot, but I elect to establish that Yua came here intentionally to join the battle against the demons. There's been four crusades against the Worldwound to date. As you might surmise, they haven't gone well.  "Hmph! All right, as you wish. You are our protector, and a dragon at that, so I shall defer to your wisdom. But be on your guard: I've been informed she was wounded near Kenabres — that means the demons are prowling just outside the walls. And the city is crawling with their spies! Others may be able to relax on this holiday, but not you or I — not the defenders of the city!" (Muttering discontentedly, the old man walks off.) (A beautiful silver-haired woman leans over you. She seems ageless, her face wholly unlined, but centuries-old sadness gleams in her eyes.) "Pry loose the grudging grip of pain. Cast off the veil of suffering flesh. Let light and life go forth in triumph to repel the skulking shade of death." (The longer she speaks, the stronger her voice becomes.) "There." Thank you for helping me. "I accept your thanks. But my work is not yet done." What happened to me? "I do not know yet, and that troubles me. I am not entirely sure what the demons did to you. This wound is no ordinary injury, and it was inflicted by no ordinary weapon. I have rid you of your pain and restored your strength, but only time will allow you to heal fully." Can I go? "Certainly, but be careful. I am not entirely sure what the demons did to you. This wound is no ordinary injury, and it was inflicted by no ordinary weapon. I have managed to get you back on your feet — but I have not healed you fully. Alas, sooner or later your pain will return. But do not be discouraged. You will recover, I promise you that. Tomorrow, come to the cathedral and say that you are expected by Terendelev, protector of Kenabres. We will find a way to help you. But for now, put this out of your mind and enjoy the festival — they are all too rare in this time of war, and merriment is one of the best medicines." Well, she wasn't wrong about that. Though if you want to know the real story of the Fifth Crusade and my part in things, excessive and poorly timed merriment played an important part in why a kitsune from Tian Xia was in Kenabres at all. At the time, though, I was just happy my lord had settled for exile rather than execution like the law decreed. Now I'm free to run around, but there's not a lot to do. This is mostly a standard isometric RPG, though it is a fully 3D world and you can rotate the camera around. Circle symbols with a hand like you can see next to our heroine represent places where you can interact with the environment.  In this case, playing darts.  The shift key highlights all interactable objects and NPCs. None of the NPCs, named or otherwise, have anything to say beyond brushing you off, so nothing to do but click on the second interaction.  And having a free drink!  Then the screen shakes and swarms of insects appear.  Demons appear and attack while a voice booms out.  Terendelev is on the scene and takes a few out with high level magic...   As best I recall, I think that at this moment I was shouting language that would get you thrown out of any reputable bordello in Tian Xia.    And now you know why Terendelev didn't get a portrait.  "What's the situation in the city?" "Who knows! Everything's on fire, crashin' down around our ears, the place is crawling with demons... Looks like a whole army attacked the city. We're sitting ducks!" "Care to lend me a weapon? I'll try to fight the demons." "Sure thing! Here, take this." (The halfling holds out the crossbow.) "Best crossbow I've got! The person who made it said it could pierce the hide of a demon lord, even! Good luck! Try not to get eaten now..." (The halfling's words are drowned out by a terrible rumbling and the rustling of countless tiny wings.) Insane? Yeah, probably, but I'd pretty well figured I was going to die so might as well go out with my boots on.   Fun fact: one ending to the game requires attacking Deskari right here, right now.      So, to recap, after being exiled from home I'd drifted across Golarion until I heard about the crusade against the Worldwound and thought it sounded like a good cause. I didn't even make it into Kenabres when I was set upon by demons, maimed within an inch of my life, wounded by a weapon a dragon couldn't recognize or fully heal, had a drink, was at the center of a massive demonic invasion, pissed off a demon lord of the Abyss, and got sent tumbling off a cliff that wasn't there thirty seconds ago. You sure you want me to keep telling this story? Fine, but there's a saying in Golarion: start as you mean to go on. In hindsight, my time with the Fifth Crusade certainly was that.New Glossary Terms AC: Armor Class, the number to beat on a modified d20 roll to hit someone. MAD: Multiple Attribute Dependency, a class or system that benefits from 3 or more high attribute scores to be effective. Saving Throw: A set of three bonuses to the d20 roll to resist certain effects and attacks. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Feb 17, 2024 |
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Feb 16, 2024 01:22
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Quackles posted:So what happens if you attack right away? Same thing that I showed. The only thing that matters is whether you attack or try to run.
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Feb 16, 2024 02:29
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CommissarMega posted:And so here we are in the Fifth Crusade, almost a hundred years after Aroden kicked it, all our hopes apparently riding on a single fuzzball with a... unique singing voice and hopefully good personal hygiene (seriously, read up on how bad foxes stink, it's wonderful). Well, right now she's just a hapless bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time as far as anyone is concerned. Your background feat, for the record, never gets mentioned at any point nor does it ever come up where your PC is from. NPC reactivity is based on three things: your race, your deity, and then classes get unique dialogue based on what you have the most levels in, and classes are divided into general groups with only a handful having specific and unique interactions: Agility Warrior Alchemist Arcane Caster Arcane Warrior Divine Caster Divine (General) Brawn Warrior Kineticist Mystic Theurge Nature Performer As a bard, Yua naturally clocks in as part of the Performer class group (as does skald). Beyond that, there's a grab bag of individual classes and prestige classes that get at least one unique interaction, but the only prestige class Yua might conceivably take, Loremaster, further gates its unique interactions behind being on the Lich mythic path.
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Feb 16, 2024 13:17
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A few backgrounds I will call out as specifically noteworthy: Farmer - Gives you proficiency with scythes (an exotic weapon, normally you have to take a feat to access). Scythes are rather silly weapons in most versions of the d20 system (I'll go over how weapons work in the next proper update), and normally you kind of have to ask how likely it is that you'll see a given weapon in a game. However, you might have noticed... Deskari sure likes his scythe! And so do his minions. As such, good scythes are going to be in ready supply throughout the game, so if you just want access to a good melee weapon, Farmer to unlock scythes is a fine pick. Mendevian Orphan - +1 to all saving throws made against demons. Demons are about 80% of all enemies in this game, this will apply a lot. Warrior of the Linnorm Kings - Cold Resistance 5. This is the only background that gives you any kind of flat damage resistance, and will stack with other sources. Cold isn't the most common damage type you'll see in Wrath, but it does come up, so this can be worth considering if you value this more than other bonuses. Courtier, honestly, is one of the weaker picks for the reasons other people have mentioned, but I like building for skills on appropriate characters. 
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Feb 16, 2024 16:44
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Patience, folks, I'll talk about combat mechanics in the next update. All I meant to do was note that Farmhand gives you access to a good weapon that's readily available in this campaign should your class lack one but you decide you want it. I will also not be attempting anything close to optimized builds or telling y'all how to do them.
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Feb 16, 2024 18:36
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Let me stress: this will not be a mechanically optimal LP and if you just want to talk about character optimization there are probably better threads for that. I want to aim this thread's mechanics chat at new and prospective players who may have never played a d20 system game before. There's a near-infinite well of mechanics chat you can get into if you want, but I don't care to.
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Feb 16, 2024 18:42
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Yeah, I just don't want this thread to disappear down the rabbit hole of optimization chat and endlessly theorycrafting about mechanics. That's about 90% of the actual Wrath thread up in video games, after all. This is going to be a casual game on the easiest difficulty setting and I'm hoping to explain how the game works for anyone who might not be familiar with these systems, and show some tips to making capable characters. I'll also be making many build decisions for the purposes of showing off different features of the game, not because I'm interested in maximizing effectiveness. This will not be a thread where I tolerate people going "That sucks and you suck for doing it" like the aforementioned thread in the video games forum did when I told them I was playing a psychokineticist or any similar bullshit.
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Feb 16, 2024 21:20
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Kanthulhu posted:Is it 10 + Dex mod (+3) - Str mod(-1)? I don't think we had those back on my old times of 3.5 D&D. Yup. 3.5E had combat maneuvers, but calculated the chance of defending against them separately for each. Pathfinder, or at least Wrath specifically, just established a baseline defense rating stat.
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Feb 17, 2024 18:03
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Angel Angel, Burning Bright This will be another crunch-intensive update. Future updates should be faster and cover more, but for now I'm still covering the basics.  Yua survived the fall none the worse for the wear, and you can actually see why in this screenshot! At the bottom of the screen, next to Yua's portrait, is the icon of a feather. This is the mark of a spell active on her, Feather Fall, which negates and reduces falling damage. Now how did she wind up with that effect...?  Up ahead, two people weren't so fortunate.  "Hey, hey! Stay with me! You actually got pretty lucky, you fell down into a black hole, but at least you're not on your own, you've got a great companion..." (The young woman in knight's armor studies the rocks intently, clearly trying to work out how to move them.) "Everything's going to be just fine... Tell me something: can you feel your legs?" "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."This is Anevia, and as you might guess by the fact that she has a portrait, she'll be a recurring character. Generally, though, she's less important than her wife who we'll meet later and doesn't do a whole lot in her own right. The primary noteworthy thing about Anevia is that she's associated with the hardest skill check in the entire game: near the end of the game, there's a DC 50 persuasion check to get her to acknowledge that she's transgender and was assigned male at birth.   Speaking of skill checks, here's our first! When you see a skill and a number in brackets preceding a dialogue option, this is an invitation to make a skill check on the d20 roll versus the specified number. Mouse over the skill, and it will tell you who in the party has the highest effective rank in the skill. In this case, Yua's weak strength means she's unlikely to make the Athletics check here, but on the other hand she only needs a roll of 2 or better to succeed. Also note the option to try to extort them for money, which is marked as (Evil). Whether you succeed or not, just trying will move your character one point towards Evil alignment.  "Look at you! It's good to meet someone who uses brains first and brawn second." (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."The good news is, passing the skill check awards experience for Yua. The bad news is, the situation is as bad as it looked. The Wardstone is a magic doohickey that was supposed to protect Kenabres from demonic incursion. Welp.  "I came here to fight the Abyss!" "A fellow crusader! Welcome, sister! This is great. I would have been happy to have any companion in this, but it's nice to be stuck down here with somebody who's my kind of crazy." "It's a good thing you've still got your faith. Because right now, to be totally honest, faith's probably the only thing we do have..." (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!"And with that, Seelah has joined the party!   Character Overview: Seelah Together we stand! Lawful Good Female Human Paladin (plain class) of Iomedae Romance: No Can I Fix Her: Yes Incompatible Paths: Lich, (spoiler) Background: Pickpocket (add Trickery and Stealth as class skills, +1 bonus if already class skills, +2 to initiative checks) Feat: Dodge (+1 dodge bonus to AC) Feat: Shield Focus (increase AC bonus of any equipped shield by +1) The only thing that could make me like Seelah more would be if women could romance her. Aside from the mandatory paladin 'to be lawful or to be good' quest, you've already seen just about everything there is to know about Seelah, and I adore her for it. Seelah is just happy to be here, fighting the good fight, to the point that some fans of Wrath decry that she can't possibly be a paladin of Iomedae given the total absence of a stick up her rear end. And unless you go down one of the evil mythic paths, she'll stay that way (the lawful resolution to her quest makes her more of a hardass, but not that much more so). In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with having a character who's simply a good person having a good time, if anything it makes Seelah distressingly sane compared to most of the cast we'll pick up. Mechanically, Seelah is by default meant to be a party tank. Except... 'tanking' doesn't really work in this game. Fortunately, Seelah is level 1 when she joins so you can build her in just about any direction. Common choices for Seelah include making her a bard (she's one point shy of the 16 CHA that I established unlocks the full suite of bard spellcasting) or a ranger (one of the most powerful melee classes in this game with one particular kit). I will be keeping her as a paladin in order to show off a very interesting (and kind of overpowered) mechanic that I've never seen in another RPG of this ilk: mounted combat! As a paladin, Seelah will eventually get her own warhorse that she can ride into battle. And no, there are no restrictions like 'you can't ride your horse indoors.' There will be cavalry charges inside peoples' houses.  Seelah joining also means gear, and it's worth a look for prospective new players how weapons work in this system. The longsword is the default weapon of Dungeons and Dragons, and will be the standard by which all other weapons are judged. A longsword inherently is a melee weapon that deals 1d8 slashing damage per swing. Now, just below that, you'll see '5-12 damage.' This is because Wrath helpfully auto-calculates the potential damage of this weapon in Seelah's hand. With her 18 STR, Seelah enjoys a +4 bonus to melee attack and damage rolls. Weapons in this game can score critical hits on a high enough unmodified (i.e. the natural d20 roll, before bonuses and penalties) roll, and a longsword crits on a roll of 19 or 20, which will then roll for damage as normal and then double it per the listed x2 modifier. Longswords are by default part of the martial weapons proficiency group, but as we've seen there are a lot of ways to get around that.  Seelah's shield illustrates how these work. Equipping a heavy shield gives a +2 AC bonus, but note the 'armor check penalty.' Equipping armor and shields imposes a penalty to certain rolls, mostly dexterity-related, reflecting how heavy and constricting equipment makes certain activities more difficult. The heavy shield imposes a -2 penalty to such rolls. Also, Dungeons and Dragons historically hates mages trying to wear armor, so the current system is that shields and armor add a % chance for any arcane spell you try to cast to simply fail. Seelah is not going to learn any arcane magic in my game, but if you give her levels in bard or sorcerer or what have you, equipping a heavy shield will give a 15% chance for any arcane spell she tries to cast to simply not work.  Seelah's armor shows how most armor in the game works. It's largely similar to the shield, but here you can see that the armor flatly caps the max dexterity bonus Seelah can obtain at 1. Which is, to be fair, the only DEX bonus she has. In case my more historical-minded readers are wondering what on earth 'banded mail' even is, it's the Dungeons and Dragons name for what's generally depicted as Roman style lorica segmentata armor, a mail made of overlapping metal plates riveted to an underlying layer of leather.  By comparison, here is Yua's starting weapon, a light crossbow. This deals a straight 1d8 damage, receiving no bonus to damage from any stat unlike Seelah's sword benefiting from her STR, and has a range of 50 feet. Light crossbows are part of the simple weapon group, meaning that from 3E Dungeons and Dragons through at least 3.5E and 1E Pathfinder, the light crossbow is the iconic 'gently caress it, I gotta have *something*' weapon of bards, wizards, and back-liners of all kinds. Wrath, fortunately, does not make you track ammunition for normal attacks.  For armor, Yua wears a humble leather jerkin (or jack or buff coat or cuir boilli or whatever you want to call it). It is, obviously, far less protective than Seelah's lorica but as light armor allows Yua to cast spells without penalty thanks to the bard's armored casting perk.  Yua also has a defensive accessory! The PC starts with these bracers no matter what, and they provide a +1 bonus to your AC and all saving throws.  Now back to the actual gameplay! Interactable objects are highlighted in yellow with the shift key.  Inside is a grab bag of different weapons, plus a cloak.  Seelah actually needs the saving throw bonus more than Yua, so she models the cloak. Also, note in the bottom left that Seelah's speed is only 20 feet. Heavy armor in this game, unless you circumvent this in various ways, slows down a character's movement speed - this is one reason I'll be putting Seelah on her horse the moment that becomes an option!   Alas, Terendelev. Party members dying isn't actually a concern on this difficulty, but hang on to this scale. It's used for something special much, much later in the game.  Up ahead is a survivor and a corpse.  "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 this is our new friend. We're looking for a way back to the surface."Unfortunately, it's a new party member.  What happened to this 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."Spoiler: Camellia killed him.  "We need to keep moving. There must be a way back to the surface around here somewhere." "That's right. It would be the height of foolishness to survive a demon attack only to perish under a pile of rubble." "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."   Character Overview: Camellia Death is life's greatest surprise. I enjoy surprising people. Chaotic Evil Female Half-Elf Shaman (Spirit Slayer) of the Green Faith Romance: Men Can I Fix Her: No Incompatible Paths: Aeon, (spoiler) Background: Courtier (add Trickery and Persuasion as class skills, add proficiency with rapier and buckler shield) Feat: Skill Focus: Trickery (+3 bonus to Trickery skill checks) Feat: Weapon Finesse (calculate melee attack bonus using Dexterity attribute instead of Strength when equipped with a light weapon, rapier, estoc, or elven curve blade) Our first cannibalistic serial killer for the party is a rapist besides, and a screenshot LP does not begin to get across how unhinged Cammy's voice acting is. Undetectable her alignment might be, but the all-seeing eyes of the UI know better, and you'll see Cammy's true alignment the moment you mouse over any alignment-restricted feat or class when leveling her up. Allegedly, Cammy was originally listed as simply True Neutral and had far more subdued voice acting, but so many people missed all the hints the game will drop about her true nature during alpha testing and were rudely surprised when the mask finally drops (especially people playing male PCs who romanced her) that Owlcat felt compelled to make it much more obvious to the player that Cammy is legitimately, fundamentally broken in her head and can only put up a facade of normality and being a victim for so long before her psychotic urges become uncontrollable. Unfortunately, the game will still act like the player doesn't realize she's at all suspicious, so I'll be dealing with this millstone around my neck for much, much longer than I'd like. Mechanically, though, Cammy is one of the most powerful characters in the game. Build her properly and she's an astounding support character and front-liner. I, however, will be discarding her from the party as soon as the game lets me, and killing her the moment the game allows me to, so her build is of no concern to this LP.  Moments after Cammy forces herself into the party, our first combat begins as a young giant centipede races out of the darkness and bites a chunk out of Cammy! If you're playing on any but the easiest difficulties, you want to move very carefully to avoid triggering enemies that lie in wait - either you or the enemy can initiate combat and get the first blow! Mousing over the centipede's attack helpfully shows all the math involved: because the centipede was making a surprise attack (i.e. starting combat), Cammy was considered flat-footed and denied her DEX bonus to AC (remember that in the first update?), leaving her with an AC of 15. The centipede needed to roll a 15 or better to hit Cammy, and rolled an 18 even before factoring in its modifiers, so it hit. The centipede has a base attack bonus of -2, but gets a +2 bonus from a buddy being next to it (this is called a flanking bonus - there are mods that show that real 'flanking' requirements can be put into the game and Owlcat consciously chose to model flanking as just having multiple allies in melee range of one enemy) to cancel that out, then the centipede enjoys a +2 bonus from its DEX score and a +1 bonus for being one size category smaller (easier to hit something bigger than you, as you might expect).  Fortunately, the giant centipede rolls poorly for damage and only inflicts 1 point of damage. Damage from attacks can never go below 0 unless actual Damage Reduction is in effect.  Now it's Yua's turn, and mousing over the enemy with the Y key reveals a complete breakdown of the enemy. We're on story difficulty and this is the first combat, so obviously this is almost completely harmless. On higher difficulties, Dungeons and Dragons d20 combat has a well earned reputation for rocket tag gameplay where it's routine for one good hit to kill either way.   Yua shoots the bug with her light crossbow, hits despite a -4 penalty for making a ranged attack against an enemy engaged in melee, and kills!  Seelah is up next and kills in a single blow from her sword.  And Cammy completes the set.   Moving on I loot another corpse for a gold piece, some vendor trash, and a set of padded textile armor. You can see the weight and sale value of any item here.  Another scale from Terendelev. Like the first, you want to hold on to this.  Up ahead is a giant fly, mildly more threatening than the centipedes.  Yua drops it in a single shot before it knows we're here and I skip over some more bugs.  Behind them is more loot.  The magic bracers are actually useless to me at the moment. They're meant to give completely unarmored characters a bit of protection, but even Yua's leather jerkin is better protection, much less Cammy's chain mail shirt and Seelah's lorica.  Scrolls are one-shot magic spells as usable items. This one's not worth remarking on unless you're playing as a dhampir - dhampirs by default count as undead, so 'inflict wounds' spells heal them like undead, and 'cure wounds' spells hurt dhampirs like undead. You have to take a feat to get around this.  Healing potions are healing potions. Mind what I just said if you've got a dhampir PC.  Skipping past another incidental combat, I find new types of loot: alchemy ingredients and cooking supplies. I'll show what these do later.  This monitor lizard is the first enemy to survive an attack! If you don't want to mouse over it for details, enemies have an HP bar visible over their model and in the turn order window at the top of the screen.  And at the end of this cave crawl...  (The man notices you and freezes. The curling horn protruding from his head casts a malevolent shadow on the cave wall.) "Wenduag!" "Lann? Did you find it?" (The woman looks just as strange as her companion — like a cross between a cat and a spider. When she catches sight of you, she immediately drops into a fighting stance. Her movements reveal the lethal grace of a wild predator.) "Who is that?"Meet the  "Demons are laying waste to Kenabres!" (Lann's expression hardens.) "If things are as bad as you say, then we all have to hurry." (Wenduag looks you over, considering something.) "You didn't come from the direction of the Shield Maze... drat it! I couldn't care less about what's happening on the surface, but the Maze..." "I realize that you guys have your own troubles. But we need to be in Kenabres, people are dying up there! Please, show us the way out." "Who are you? Tieflings?" Mongrelfolk like this are, for the record, not a PC option.  "Sadly, 'underground crusaders' is a bit of a mouthful, so people usually just call us 'mongrels'." (Wenduag lets out a disdainful huff.) "You just love repeating that, don't you, Lann? 'Mongrels' — that's what the uplanders call us. But we call ourselves 'neathers'." "No matter what you call us, it's not going to stop our horns, hooves, or tails from growing." "I've never heard of underground crusaders before."Whether this is accurate to Pathfinder's actual lore, I don't know. There's nothing like this in any DnD material I'm familiar with.  (Wenduag gives a contemptuous snort.) "That's human gratitude for you. Our forefathers suffered the consequences of demonic corruption, all to protect Mendev and Golarion, and for what? So we could become monsters used to frighten children." (Lann sighs.) "Every mongrel has their own take on it. Our chief, for example, thinks of us as something like a reserve military force. He thinks we're standing by until the moment we're needed. And when we emerge on the surface and save the day, all the people will see how good we are, and they'll love us for it. He leaves that last part out when he talks about it, of course, but it's easy enough to read between the lines." "What is this place?" "This is the hall where we remember the glory of our forebears. Sorry about the mess — it doesn't usually look like this, trust me. Sometimes we even wipe the dust off the exhibits." "This is where the relics of the first crusaders are displayed. Our lives are short, our glories are quickly forgotten... but this place helps us to remember that we are just as worthy as anyone else, and that our lives are not lived in vain." (Anevia lets out a low whistle.) "The first crusaders? You've been down here that long? That's crazy!" "What are you doing here?" In retrospect, all of this was the first clue I had that the war against the Worldwound had some... blind spots, shall we say. I wasn't thinking about it in those terms at the time, though. "We're looking for a holy sword. It was here, in the center, sticking out of a rock." (Lann frowns.) "The sooner we find it, the better. Some kids from our tribe took off for the Shield Maze. They figured it had collapsed and now it's their time to go up to the surface like all the legends foretold... Except they don't have a clue what's waiting for them up there. They're not fighters. And Sull, the chief of our tribe, is dead set against it — he says that now isn't the time for the underground crusaders to take up arms. If we get the holy sword, we might be able to change the Chief's mind." (Wenduag huffs a breath.) "It's a fool's errand. None of us will be able to hold the sword, let alone use it to save anyone. It's not an ordinary weapon — it's made from righteous heavenly flame and will burn anyone who touches it. Do you think you're special, Lann?" "I'll pick it up with my teeth and tie it to my hand if I have to... it doesn't matter. An angel's sword and a troop of stalwart mongrels will be able to work a minor miracle." (He chuckles.) "Speaking of which — you're still here, Wendu, which means that deep down you know it's possible." (Wenduag shrugs and turns away.) "Maze? Does it really lead up to the surface?"This exchange right here is the conflict between Lann and Wenduag in a nutshell. Lann believes that the mongrels are special, and have a purpose and destiny. Wenduag believes that's so much poppycock and there is only strength and survival.  "When the ceiling and walls started shaking, the young ones in our tribe lost their heads — they figured the Maze was going to collapse, so it was time to go up to the surface. They grabbed whatever weapons were on hand and ran off toward the Maze." (His eyes are filled with genuine concern.) "They think the Maze is no longer a danger to them. They've been listening to Wenduag too much..." "Don't try to blame this on me. Yes, I told them that our people are capable of making our way through the Maze. In the future. But I always told them to wait until I had made a map of all the Maze's dangers. I warned them a hundred times!" (You hear a hint of emotion in Wenduag's voice for the first time.) "But it was no use! My words just went in one ear and out the other!" "A sword of holy flame? How did it end up down here?" "It came here with its owner. A long time ago, fifty thousand gongs to be precise..." "Seventy years ago, in uplander time." (Wenduag rewards Lann with an irritated glare.) "Fifty thousand gongs ago, our forebears found a dead angel here along with the bodies of his comrades. The tribe gave them a dignified burial, and they were laid to rest with their weapons — but the flaming angelic sword was stuck in a rock and no one was able to pull it out. It burned to the touch, like real fire. So the rock was placed over the angel's grave. It should be here somewhere..." "Maybe the angel will dig himself out and find the sword for us? That might be our best shot in this chaos." "We'll find the sword faster if we work together. I'll help you."One of the primary themes and questions of Wrath of the Righteous is the question of identity and nature. Are you what biology has made you to be, or is there more to it than that? Lann believes that the mongrels have a history and a purpose that ennobles them, makes them special and vaunted despite their seemingly decrepit state as a people. Wenduag on the other hand believes that that dedication is so much propaganda and comforting lies, that there is no destiny for their people, no special calling, only fantasies. Both of them want a better future for their people, in their own ways, but their respective visions are incompatible.  "Now we're talking! Let's get to work. It's a good thing we all bumped into each other, isn't it?" "What, you want to find the sword quickly so the underground monsters bring you back to the surface? So be it."Lann is the more overtly helpful and friendly of the two, but his very idealism makes him stubborn and resistant to change. Wenduag is self-interested and cynical, but this also means she's the more open of the two to changing for the better down the line, she in some senses has more intellectual integrity and is more capable of understanding and admitting, under the proper circumstances, when she's wrong.  Lore: Religion check to identify this statue and earn some xp.  You just need to wander around a bit - this is the game tutorializing the use of the Perception skill to spot hidden interactables.  Until you find the sword.  Bringing us to a text adventure! If you read my mythic path overview, then you know that the Angel mythic path is divided into two variants: the Angel of Judgment and the Angel of Mercy. Your choices in this little sequence are what decide which of those two the Angel path will be on, if you decide to commit to it.   In text adventure sequences like this, only the PC's stats and skills matter. No one else can intervene.   It took me a long time to figure out what any of this meant. At the time, I almost felt like I was dreaming, one too many blows to the head that morning. (Seelah kneels before the light, offering up a prayer to Iomedae) (Lann looks at you, dumbfounded.) "That… that was it! The Light of Heaven! But how…" (Wenduag frowns.) "What did you do with it? Where did it go?" "You saw it, too? The traitors, the dying girl...?"Light of Heaven, the Angel mythic theme, played throughout that text adventure sequence.  (Lann rubs his chin anxiously.) "Sorry, I crack jokes when I get nervous. And when I'm upset. And when I'm happy. Anyway, what I said, it came out wrong. We need to bring you to Chief Sull! You can show everyone the Light of Heaven, we'll rally the tribe and go into the Maze, and we'll get back our kin!" "And what if she can't make it happen a second time? What then? The tribe will just say we're crazy and turn its back on us." "I think... I saw the memories of Lariel, the angel who died here." "Lariel? That really was Lariel? The angel from the legends? The ancestors even got his name right on the gravestone — the Chief will be thrilled." (Wenduag watches you with suspicion.) "You? Thousands of gongs and no one's been able to touch it, and now you, an ordinary creature of flesh and blood no different to us, get the sword and start talking about visions?" "Now, now, Wenduag, don't be a sore loser." (Lann nods toward you.) "She is clearly different from us — the sword appeared before her, along with the angel's name, and all that other stuff. Because she doesn't carry our mongrel taint. Heaven doesn't give a drat how special we are. We're born with evil inside us, Heaven doesn't need to know any more than that."If it sounds like Lann's a bit jealous, you're not wrong. He won't be the last person to get jealous of the PC being Special.   Oh, how little they knew. Power almost always comes at a cost, but none of us appreciated what that meant in my case at the time. (Wenduag stares at the divine light as if transfixed.) "This power… is the most majestic thing I've ever seen in all my life... Is this what the sun is like, Lann?" "Yes, it's similar… but this light is more… golden." (Lann drags his gaze away from it.) "Chief Sull needs to see this. Now that we have the power of angels on our side, he can't say no. He'll have to assemble a troop to storm the Maze." (Lann looks at you pleadingly.) "You uplanders care about your kids, right? Help us save ours. Without them, we won't survive. And then… the perils of the Maze won't be so bad if we go together, we'll make our way through it and find the way to Kenabres." "Lead us to your chief, then." "Let's go. We'll take the short route. Well, the only route, really."And with that, Lann and Wenduag join the party and the Angel mythic path has officially unlocked - though it won't be time to commit to a mythic path for quite some time yet. For now, a strange power has awakened in Yua.   Character Overview: Lann Thanks, Lann! You're so awesome, Lann! Lawful Neutral Male Mongrelfolk Monk (Zen Archer) of Iomedae Romance: Women Can I Fix Him: No Incompatible Paths: (spoiler) Background: Hunter (add Perception and Lore: Nature as class skills, add proficiency with longbow and shortbow) Feat: Combat Reflexes (make additional attacks of opportunity per round equal to DEX bonus, may make attacks of opportunity while flat-footed) Talking about Lann's character can be tricky, because it depends on which Lann is going to turn up at any given moment: he's rather inconsistently written between a laid-back nice guy and a high-strung hardass. Allegedly, he was the victim of rewrites in alpha much like Camellia: he was apparently a Neutral Good ranger (demonslayer kit) originally, but testers felt that he was too similar to another character who will join later, so he was reconfigured to his current state, and not all the writing got the message. The consistent core to Lann's character, though, is his desperate need to feel special and give his life meaning. Lann is all too aware of his painfully short lifespan as a mongrel, and has a deep-seated psychological need to feel that his life has purpose. Unfortunately, Yua is going to be rather rude and dismissive to Lann throughout the game for the simple reason that I mean to play Yua as a lesbian, and Lann is very likely to take what sounds like kindness and friendliness from a woman and interpret it as her urgently desiring to gently caress his brains out. While men misinterpreting basic friendliness from women as declarations of love and sexual interest is certainly realistic, it's not something I like to deal with in video games so Yua will spend most of her interactions with Lann driving him away with pointy sticks. Mechanically, though, Lann is a heavy hitter right from the word go and you can do a whole lot worse than keep advancing him in Zen Archer and putting points in DEX and STR. Archers are very strong in this game and Lann comes pre-set to go hard on that game plan. While I intend to do just that, I will be using Lann to demonstrate how you can give characters levels in other classes and so introduce one of the most broken mechanical parts of Wrath's design, so much so that not a single NPC companion comes specced for it by default.   Character Overview: Wenduag Rargh! Neutral Evil Female Mongrelfolk Fighter (plain class) of Lamashtu Romance: Men and Women Can I Fix Her: Yes Incompatible Paths: (spoiler) Background: Hunter (add Perception and Lore: Nature as class skills, add proficiency with longbow and shortbow) Feat: Precise Shot (can make ranged attacks against enemies engaged in melee without penalty) Feat: Point Blank Shot (+1 attack and damage rolls with a ranged weapon against enemies within 30 feet) Our second cannibalistic serial killer for the party, Wenduag is mostly as advertised: a survival of the fittest dog-eat-man libertarian survivalist. She is also a certified BDSM enthusiast happy to bottom for anyone she deems strong, so if you want a murderous spidercatgirl sub who calls you Master/Mistress all the time, Wrath might be the game for you! Wenduag is, unfortunately, a victim of most of her character exploration and growth being locked behind romancing her. There is more to her than what you see on the surface, but getting to that part of her character is contingent on dealing extensively with the surface impression and playing your cards just right so that she opens up. To be honest, I have never romanced Wenduag (see: cannibalistic serial killer) so I can't tell you any hard details, but she has some very dedicated fans out there. Mechanically, she's an in-flavor alternative to Lann, trading Lann's inherent power as a Zen Archer for the extreme build flexibility of a fighter. The Crimson Path Young Giant Centipede x3 Giant Fly x2 Giant Centipede x1 Spitting Giant Centipede x1 Monitor Lizard x1 Cythereal fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Feb 17, 2024 |
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Feb 17, 2024 18:34
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Torrannor posted:The mythic path themes are all really good, but we actually went with the path that has by far the best of them. I can't wait until we get to the point Cythereal can post the Azata theme. The themes for the first six are all linked in the mythic path overview on the first page.
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Feb 17, 2024 19:48
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