Pathfinder Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Beta Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Thonius]

Aren't assassins ebul?

 

[Gay-Lussac]

How is a single summon limit atrocious? Summoning in these games is a completely degenerate playstyle as players go into encounters after reloads with full knowledge of what kind of encounter awaits them.

 

[Ol'man]

How is a single summon limit atrocious? Summoning in these games is a completely degenerate playstyle as players go into encounters after reloads with full knowledge of what kind of encounter awaits them.

Kind of depends. undead summons either 1) don't scale or 2) scale like garbage, ensuring the screen full of skeletons is awesome, but you outgrow it over a handful of levels. Higher level summon spells lower the numbers (less spell slots) so it is sort of self correcting.

 

[Ol'man]

Owlcat NEEDS to consider the balance of the game, rather than porting stuff as-is. There is a ton of stuff in PnP that is hopelessly shit.

In Kingmaker half the archetypes are fucking awful and not even worth taking.

I'm not saying divert too much from PnP (those animal companions were insanely overpowered) but at the same time porting everything without caring about whether it's even worth taking over the base class is silly.

But Owlcat's idea of balance 1) is huge stat bloat on top of 2) throwing feats on NPCs left and right and 3) +5-8 items.

It's not that PF can't use some balance: it's held together by duct tape and glue as is, despite the designers efforts, but Owlcat balancing abilities isn't confidence inspiring after they treated NPCs in Kingmaker.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Balancing a single-player game is a deadly sin for which Mr. Josh Sawyer has been condemned to substance abuse for the rest of his life.

 

[Cryomancer]

How is a single summon limit atrocious? Summoning in these games is a completely degenerate playstyle as players go into encounters after reloads with full knowledge of what kind of encounter awaits them.

Many reasons
1 - Put the players and enemies under different rules since this rarely applies to enemies
2 - Removes the decision between "should i summon one thanadaemon with a 9th spell slot or a lot of soul eaters?" You always summon higher levels and all before becomes worthless. My animate dead on house of edge of time can't hit anything BUT they can distract enemies while my cloudkill lower his CON and FORT save.
3 - Leads to a ludonarrative dissonance. Since there are no reason to someone able to control a Thanadaemon to not be able to control 2 skeletons.
4 - The most popular mods for games iwht a single summon limit, like spell fixes for nwn2 and warlock reworked remove this abomination.
5 - Necromancer is one of the most popular arcane classes on P&P. One summons kills the class. Mainly on PFKM which doesn't have OHK spells. Only One Hit Massive damage spells.

 

[Gay-Lussac]

1 - Put the players and enemies under different rules since this rarely applies to enemies

Yeah, because the NPCs aren't going to start a fight with 20 summons up (unless designers intend for this to be part of the encounter's challenge). Reload button is just too strong of a tool for players.

2 - Removes the decision between "should i summon one thanadaemon with a 9th spell slot or a lot of soul eaters?" You always summon higher levels and all before becomes worthless. My animate dead on house of edge of time can't hit anything BUT they can distract enemies while my cloudkill lower his CON and FORT save.

I like the way the Monster Tactician's summon solves this (same as Summoner): your lower level summon spell is just gradually upgraded and you get a choice between a set range of number of lower level summons or fewer more powerful ones. But you still can't stack the monsters, whatever you choose.

3 - Leads to a ludonarrative dissonance. Since there are no reason to someone able to control a Thanadaemon to not be able to control 2 skeletons.

No greater dissonance than someone creating a gazillion summons because they know an encounter is ahead (again, reload button too strong). So I get what you're saying, but the dissonance is already there in a CRPG and honestly beyond repair.

I think overall it just leads to degenerate gameplay and I'd rather not have this and stacking multiple instances of the same persistent area spell in the game unmodded. But I'm not all that bothered about it, I just ignore using these options and move on.

 

[Desiderius]

o, they should maintain everything as close as possible to P&P.

I can understand not nerfing, but not buffing?

Some Archetypes are clearly worse than the base-class that there is no reason to use them. BUffing them so there are reasons to play them is good. No need to make them all Sword Saint Magus good, but at least not "Jesus this Archetype is pretty much gimping my self."

There are remarkably few of those if you test them.

Only ones that come to mind are Chiurgeon (although a random free res ain't nothing if you're playing tinman) due to centrality of Infusion Discovery to all Alchemists making main archetype ability moot, and Eldritch Archer which is scandalously COPYPASTA (can't even cast Hurricane Bow and still gets Medium/Heavy Armor abilties).

THF got gimped by addition of Weapon Mastery feats to base Fighter/Aldori.

 

[Desiderius]

Summons are well-balanced in P:K since they don't benefit from most group buffs/abilities which are the hidden strength of the game.

Try getting your summoned pack of Dire Wolves to Trip anyone and you'll see. As Sorc says main benefit of Skellies is their immunities, but there's a lot of competition for those spell slots.

 

[Desiderius]

But Owlcat's idea of balance 1) is huge stat bloat on top of 2) throwing feats on NPCs left and right and 3) +5-8 items.

It's not that PF can't use some balance: it's held together by duct tape and glue as is, despite the designers efforts, but Owlcat balancing abilities isn't confidence inspiring after they treated NPCs in Kingmaker.

You know, it looked like that at first glance but once you get into the game it somehow worked. Agree they could cut some of the bloat on both sides, but the game presented a consistent level of challenge with the exception of most of the too weak Pitax chapter.

I would rather see Mobs learn how to use those Feats better and/or group buffs/tactics than stack big stats on both sides.

 

[Cryomancer]

Yeah, because the NPCs aren't going to start a fight with 20 summons up (unless designers intend for this to be part of the encounter's challenge).

There are summoners who summon a lot in mid fight on pfkm

You should't create a game expecting that the player will use cheese tactics like save scumming and rest scumming.

I like the way the Monster Tactician's summon solves this (same as Summoner): your lower level summon spell is just gradually upgraded and you get a choice between a set range of number of lower level summons or fewer more powerful ones. But you still can't stack the monsters, whatever you choose.

Still awful. And even if you buff low level summons, why i would use a higher level? Let the player decide between quality, quantity or anything in between.

No greater dissonance than someone creating a gazillion summons because they know an encounter is ahead (again, reload button too strong). So I get what you're saying, but the dissonance is already there in a CRPG and honestly beyond repair.

If the player wanna save scum, is his problem. But you should't design your encounter expecting it from the player; And enemy necromancers on NWN2 start the fight animating a lot of bodies nearby then. Hell, even warlocks summons a lot of demons to attack you, but when the warlock enters on your party, he suddenly becomes 666 times weaker.

And note that you not only can have multiple undeads, but they also last until slayn and you can have more types of undeads on P&P.

===================================

Anyway, few interesting things from : All we know from Wrath of The Righteous -> Source https://forum.owlcatgames.com/t/things-we-know-about-the-sequel-to-pathfinder-kingmaker/15191


1 - Romanceable succubus

• "Arueshalae (Succubus)

• Arueshalae is a Romance Option."

2 - Liches reanimating bosses to serve him

"Some of your Companions may not like your style and will make themselves known and may even may flee in the face of your newfound power. But don’t worry! As the lich, you’ll be able to recruit some of the enemies that you’ve defeated to become your undead minions and eventually your complete party can be comprised of these minions that serve under you"

3 - Demon shapeshift

Cool Stuff: Demonic Rage! A Special Sort of Rage that stacks and/or blends with the Barbarian and Bloodrager’s Rages. The more you activate it per day, the less control you will have over your character during the rage. Demonic Rage will give access to “Demonic Aspects” that give you aspects of demons when you use it. Examples this are the Brimorak which gets flaming weapons, immunity to fire, and some other stuff; and the Shadow Demon which turns you attacks Incorporeal. You can also Shape Change into Demons. You also get a cool set of Horns.

Source https://forum.owlcatgames.com/t/things-we-know-about-the-sequel-to-pathfinder-kingmaker/15191

My only worry is if for eg, you need to be a wizard to become a lich and the lich template is worthless for other casters and other creatures.

If only barbs can benefit from demonic transformation.

 

[Desiderius]

Owlcat NEEDS to consider the balance of the game, rather than porting stuff as-is. There is a ton of stuff in PnP that is hopelessly shit.

In Kingmaker half the archetypes are fucking awful and not even worth taking.

I'm not saying divert too much from PnP (those animal companions were insanely overpowered) but at the same time porting everything without caring about whether it's even worth taking over the base class is silly.

Consider the possibility that there are archetypes you haven't learned to appreciate yet. 75% of archtypes have viable uses, and that might be a little low. Again, you can't evaluate classes in a vacuum, but since you have many more companions than slots you can build them to specialize in beating certain foes, which opens up more viability options.

 

[Yosharian]

I agree that a 1-summon/animate limit is too strict, but also there should be limits so that the player doesn't summon an actual army of undead (like a hundred monsters) and just trivialize the game. But up to like 10 or so monsters/undead should be fine.

 

[Cryomancer]

I agree that a 1-summon/animate limit is too strict, but also there should be limits so that the player doesn't summon an actual army of undead (like a hundred monsters) and just trivialize the game. But up to like 10 or so monsters/undead should be fine.

The 3.5e rule for summons is actually quite good.

You can have your CASTER LEVE * 2 HD worth of undead.

So if you are a lv 15 sorcerer, you can have 30 hit dice worth of creatures, it can range from 3 Efreets ( 10 hit dices on pathfinder ) to 30 1 HD skeletons.

Dread necromancer can have 4 hit dice worth of undead creatures per caster level and seems that it only applies to undead(not sure). If you summon more, the mobs doesn't disappear. They just are free(and will probably attack you). One of the few mmos that i liked a little, Age Of Conan, had necromancers with up to 8 summon slots and some powerful minions take 2 or 4 summon slots. You can also take massive debuffs to increase your summon slots up to 11.

PS : I an not sure if this hit dice rule exists on pathfinder TTRPG too, but on Pathfinder Kingmaker, i can have 6 Thanadaemon(each one with 15 hd) and like 18 Soul Eaters(each one with 11 hit dices). NWN1 with PRC mod and NWN2 with warlock reworked have this rule.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Consider the possibility that there are archetypes you haven't learned to appreciate yet. 75% of archtypes have viable uses, and that might be a little low. Again, you can't evaluate classes in a vacuum, but since you have many more companions than slots you can build them to specialize in beating certain foes, which opens up more viability options.

Now I know you are going to post a screenshot with some unknow archetypes dealing 200 damage with 7 attacks or something but in general, some of those archetypes have strictly worse class features than the base class.

The Firedancer or Thundercaller Bards for example. Compared to base Bard their class features are lackluster. Yes, you can still build them to be viable but anything you do to make them viable will be in spite of their Class features, not because.

 

[Efe]

summoner enemies do indeed summon same as players would. two early game examples would be technic league encounter and goblin shaman.

some options in archetypes or abilities are definitely worse than rest.
how many times did you do healing judgment? Tell me blight druid does better than base? flamewarden adn stormwalker lose pets for mere gimmicks.

did anyone look at arcane bomber and say "I want to play this over alchemist"?

 

[Pink Eye]

>did anyone look at arcane bomber and say "I want to play this over alchemist"?
Used to be another unfair player on steam who played lots of of arcane bomber. Was his favorite class.

 

[Yosharian]

The Firedancer or Thundercaller Bards for example. Compared to base Bard their class features are lackluster. Yes, you can still build them to be viable but anything you do to make them viable will be in spite of their Class features, not because.

If you think the Thundercaller is lackluster I don't know what to say, that archetype is extremely powerful

 

[Yosharian]

>did anyone look at arcane bomber and say "I want to play this over alchemist"?
Used to be another unfair player on steam who played lots of of arcane bomber. Was his favorite class.

And that doesn't mean that the time spent putting that class into the game was well-spent.

 

[Desiderius]

>did anyone look at arcane bomber and say "I want to play this over alchemist"?
Used to be another unfair player on steam who played lots of of arcane bomber. Was his favorite class.

And that doesn't mean that the time spent putting that class into the game was well-spent.

Bomb-throwing is decent action economy for a pure caster when not casting. Alchemist is slow spell progression, Arcane Bomber is fast. Apples and Oranges.

Wasn't my thing but evidently class was fine. Guy Pinkeye is thinking of was one of main/best posters on Steam forums when we were there. Pretty sure Arcane Bomber was his thing.

Here he is:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/640820/discussions/0/1642044369661319560/#c1642044369661782728

"dont revolve your arcane bomber around bombs. Bombs are not what your there for primarily. You are a wizard first, and a bomber second. Get done what you need to get done, THEN focus on bombs, the same way you would with auto attacks, or cantrips"

 

[Desiderius]

The Firedancer or Thundercaller Bards for example. Compared to base Bard their class features are lackluster. Yes, you can still build them to be viable but anything you do to make them viable will be in spite of their Class features, not because.

If you think the Thundercaller is lackluster I don't know what to say, that archetype is extremely powerful

Not trivial to beat saves with it on high levels since performances aren't spells, but it does attack main weakness of both lategame enemies (Ghosts and Hunt).

 

[Cryomancer]

And that doesn't mean that the time spent putting that class into the game was well-spent.

He is a class with access to alchemical bombs and tier 9 magic. Optional or not, is cool in concept.

 

[Desiderius]

some of those archetypes have strictly worse class features than the base class.

That's what I thought too then I tried to make some of them work and more worked than I thought. The Fire classes for Bard and Ranger don't give you enough, but some people just like to watch the world burn.

The Teleport thingie for the Electric Ranger is hard to quantify, especially since you get a free attack from it, and the Thunder Bard Sonic Blast has it's uses.

Just because Dirge and Pets are OP doesn't mean the alternatives are a waste of time. Base Ranger with the group boost Hunter's Bond instead of pet is itself pretty solid.

 

[Cryomancer]

Imagine a kineticist with pets since lv 1... Most broken class ever.

 

[Ghulgothas]

That's the fun of these games. Seeing how ridiculous your bullshit, Build-Porn, Munchinkinned-out Monstrocity can get.