Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Pathfinder Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Game of the Year Edition

Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
15,281
Trouble is the dragon can harass your party in random encounters untill finally defeated. So unfortunately the solution is to metagame a little: don't even speak to Greybor in the tavern until you're ready to tackle the dragon.
This way she won't start to spawn.
You kno the real penepe asshole munchkins would immediately sink their money into constructing some sort of retarded ballista on a wheels fueled by holy rage and drive around with it towards nearest dragon moment they hear even word "dragon".
For all their claimed penepe experience when it comes to providing real story options, owlcats aren't so penepe.

The real PnP experience is you dam all the entrances to an area and then flood it with water. If the DM doesn't give you xp for doing this then it means you need to start mixing in things like salt or acid until you get that xp.
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
Patron
Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
29,935
Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Oh my fucking god, I hate this "your MC dies, it's instant game over, reload" mechanic. Not only is it incredibly annoying most of the time and downright infuriating sometimes when your MC is a squishy pajama-wearing Sorc like mine, but it doesn't even make sense narrative-wise. Let me give you an example.


EDIT: Jesus, I didn't even realize this was such a wall of text before I posted it.

TL;DR for those who don't want to read angry ramblings:

I don't like the "MC died, reload last save" mechanic in general, but this one encounter that I've been repeating for a couple of hours especially pissed me off, because a Dragon killed my MC with a Breath Attack, with all the other 5 Party Members alive, while I had an Oracle with "Raise Dead" available to cast and a couple of Diamonds in the Inventory, who was very much still alive and could've just brought my MC back in a minute. The most infuriating part is that the Dragon was so close to death it would've been killed literally by the next action in the current turn, i.e. by Lann who would've rolled a guaranteed natural 20 on his next attack because of True Strike and shaved off that last few HP. But no, MC died, so you have to reload the last save and do it all over again because fuck you, that's why.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The angry ramblings:

So I'm in Act 3 and hunting that Red Dragon, whatever her name is and finally got her cornered on top of that tower, ready to do one final battle. Now, it's entirely possible I'm doing something wrong and suck at the game, but expecting a level 10 Party, even with Tier-3 Mythic Abilities and Feats to actually beat that thing "fairly" even on Core seems a bit ridiculous to me. Her stats are simply insane for that level. No matter which gear loadout I went with, no matter what I buffed myself with, no matter anything, the only one I could get from my Party to beat her AC without rolling a natural 20 was Seelah, and that's only because of the -4 AC penalty from Evil Eye Camellia was spamming every round and Seelah's +5 Attack Bonus from Smite Evil. And even so she needed to roll 15 or thereabouts to hit on her highest BAB attack + another one from Haste (the second natural attack also needed a 20). My MC has got all the Spell Pen Feats, including the Mythic one, but he still needed some sky-high dice rolls to be able to beat her Spell Resistance (and I could pretty much forget about ever beating her Saves, because LOL). Meanwhile, that bitch has a trillion attacks per round and her AB is so high that it makes virtually no difference whether I have 35 AC or 0. Putting Displacement, Stoneskin and Protective Luck on Seelah (who in addition to being the only semi-reliable damage dealer was also the tank) did help somewhat, but the fucking overgrown lizard has just so many attacks per round that she manages to go through those defenses much faster than I can heal Seelah, even with a 100% dedicated Heal-bot Daeran in the party, plus her own heals.

After a couple of wipeouts and reloads, I figured the honorable way of fighting just isn't gonna work and said "Well, if you're gonna spew bullshit at me, Owlcat, I'll spew it back at you". My MC is a Sorc Lich with a merged Spellbook, so he has the Exsanguienate Spell. It's a single-target damage nuke that does Caster Level d6 worth of damage, and does 1d6 worth of STR damage and some Bleed damage on a failed Fort Saving Throw, but even on a successful one, it still does the full CL/d6 damage which I think is Negative Energy, but I'm not sure (the Dragon was not resistant to it, anyway). The kicker is that it requires no roll to hit and ignores Spell Resistance entirely, so on anything that's not Undead or a Construct, you're 100% guaranteed to land a not-too-shabby chunk of damage. But, given the Dragon's massive HP pool and my relatively low Caster Level (low compared to a lvl 25 Red Dragon, I mean), I would need a lot of casts to bring it down with it. So how do you survive long enough? Welp, My buddy Daeran had 11 uses of Animate Dead at Spell Level 3 and another 6 at Spell Level 4 because of Extend Spell.

The idea was to summon wave after wave of of those Bony Bois to block the Dragon's movement towards the party. The Bois have only 11 HP and like negative AC, so the dragon can wipe out an entire wave in a single Full Attack, but that's exactly the point: as long as she was using a Full Attack each round, my MC was able to safely cast Exsanguienate every round for about 40-50 guaranteed damage a pop. The Dragon's Breath Attack was the problem, because it's AoE was large enough to wipe out the skellies and hit p. much my entire Party because of how small the fighting area is, but I stocked up on Communal Protection From Energy. One Breath Attack is enough to almost always burn through the entire 100 points worth of protection from that Spell, but only a tiny bit of damage gets through to the Party.

Anyway, after about 11-12 Rounds of my MC casting that cheesy Spell and Daeran summoning skeletons each round, while Camellia was casting Communal Protection From Energy after each Breath Attack and Lann was occasionally using his Monk abilities to activate True Strike for a guaranteed roll of 20 on his first attack for some extra damage, I managed to bring the damn fucking thing down to like 10 HP or something. So how does any of this have anything to do with what I said in the first part of the post?

Well, after so much time spent on something that can be best described as literally "anti-fun", as luck would have it, the Dragon had already burned through the last Protection of Energy I had prepared and the party was exposed. At its last couple of HP, the motherfucking thing decided to use its Breath Attack one last time. The whole party got fucked up pretty bad, but they all survived (some just barely, though). The only fatality? My squishy MC Sorc, of course. And he wasn't knocked out, he was dead dead. Instant game over, reload previous save. And the best part is, Lann was supposed to act next in the current turn and he had True Strike active, so it would've been a 100% guaranteed Dragon kill like 3 seconds after my MC died (well not literally a kill, because there's a scripted event, but I would've won the fight). But nope, instant game over, do it all over again. I brought her down this way eventually, during one bout in which the dice were unusually kind to me, but my god, like I said, anti-fun.

Not only is it super frustrating gameplay-wise, but again, it doesn't even make sense in game-world logic. Why would the entire shindig be over if the MC takes a short dirt nap when he has a perfectly alive Daeran with several casts of "Raise Dead" available right there next to him? I wasn't killed by something that prohibits revival, like Disintegration or Finger of Death, I just got burned up pretty badly. If you were really autistic you could argue that the in-game justification is that Daeran doesn't like being a part of the Crusade, and with you dead the Crusade is p. much over, so he doesn't want to revive you. But it would be exactly the same with Sosiel there instead. And even before your Party members get "Raise Dead", why exactly can't they just take your body to a Cleric that can revive you? It doesn't make sense to advance story elements with a dead MC, that I understand, but getting killed in some random dungeon by a stray Critical Hit arrow while your Party is still alive really shouldn't spell an instant "game over" when there are realistic means of bringing you back. I hated that in Baldur's Gate as well, but at least there it made sense, story-wise (i.e. your soul instantly becomes fuel for Bhaal), which I don't think is the case here.

Semi-coherent rant over. I will say, though, I really hope this kind of an encounter is a one-off or at least very rare. Cheesing fights this way is just not fun. Maybe other players built their MCs and Parties differently so that they can actually go toe-to-toe with a level 25 Dragon at level 10, but with my current setup, I really don't see how I can boost my numbers to match such an opponent. Just for example, how exactly do you build a character at that point in the game that has an AC high enough to withstand her for more than a couple of rounds even with stuff like Displacement, Stoneskin, Barkskin, Reduce Person etc? I remember certain Alchemist and Sword Saint builds being nigh-unkillable in Kingmaker, but even there in order to reach that point they needed more levels and much better equipment than what I have available now.
Roll a barbarian
 

RunningWolf

Learned
Joined
Oct 7, 2020
Messages
120
Virgin barbarian solo ragelet vs CHAD Skald party wide turbo RAGE. Skald is so good it even rages your summons. My skeletons clapped some cheeks in Leper's Smile dungeon due to +5 AB they got from level 8 Skald, when usually they cant hit anything for shit.
 

Haplo

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
6,567
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Virgin barbarian solo ragelet vs CHAD Skald party wide turbo RAGE. Skald is so good it even rages your summons. My skeletons clapped some cheeks in Leper's Smile dungeon due to +5 AB they got from level 8 Skald, when usually they cant hit anything for shit.
Raging mindless undead... now that's a sight to behold!
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
Patron
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
14,859
Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
Oh my fucking god, I hate this "your MC dies, it's instant game over, reload" mechanic. Not only is it incredibly annoying most of the time and downright infuriating sometimes when your MC is a squishy pajama-wearing Sorc like mine, but it doesn't even make sense narrative-wise. Let me give you an example.


EDIT: Jesus, I didn't even realize this was such a wall of text before I posted it.

TL;DR for those who don't want to read angry ramblings:

I don't like the "MC died, reload last save" mechanic in general, but this one encounter that I've been repeating for a couple of hours especially pissed me off, because a Dragon killed my MC with a Breath Attack, with all the other 5 Party Members alive, while I had an Oracle with "Raise Dead" available to cast and a couple of Diamonds in the Inventory, who was very much still alive and could've just brought my MC back in a minute. The most infuriating part is that the Dragon was so close to death it would've been killed literally by the next action in the current turn, i.e. by Lann who would've rolled a guaranteed natural 20 on his next attack because of True Strike and shaved off that last few HP. But no, MC died, so you have to reload the last save and do it all over again because fuck you, that's why.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The angry ramblings:

So I'm in Act 3 and hunting that Red Dragon, whatever her name is and finally got her cornered on top of that tower, ready to do one final battle. Now, it's entirely possible I'm doing something wrong and suck at the game, but expecting a level 10 Party, even with Tier-3 Mythic Abilities and Feats to actually beat that thing "fairly" even on Core seems a bit ridiculous to me. Her stats are simply insane for that level. No matter which gear loadout I went with, no matter what I buffed myself with, no matter anything, the only one I could get from my Party to beat her AC without rolling a natural 20 was Seelah, and that's only because of the -4 AC penalty from Evil Eye Camellia was spamming every round and Seelah's +5 Attack Bonus from Smite Evil. And even so she needed to roll 15 or thereabouts to hit on her highest BAB attack + another one from Haste (the second natural attack also needed a 20). My MC has got all the Spell Pen Feats, including the Mythic one, but he still needed some sky-high dice rolls to be able to beat her Spell Resistance (and I could pretty much forget about ever beating her Saves, because LOL). Meanwhile, that bitch has a trillion attacks per round and her AB is so high that it makes virtually no difference whether I have 35 AC or 0. Putting Displacement, Stoneskin and Protective Luck on Seelah (who in addition to being the only semi-reliable damage dealer was also the tank) did help somewhat, but the fucking overgrown lizard has just so many attacks per round that she manages to go through those defenses much faster than I can heal Seelah, even with a 100% dedicated Heal-bot Daeran in the party, plus her own heals.

After a couple of wipeouts and reloads, I figured the honorable way of fighting just isn't gonna work and said "Well, if you're gonna spew bullshit at me, Owlcat, I'll spew it back at you". My MC is a Sorc Lich with a merged Spellbook, so he has the Exsanguienate Spell. It's a single-target damage nuke that does Caster Level d6 worth of damage, and does 1d6 worth of STR damage and some Bleed damage on a failed Fort Saving Throw, but even on a successful one, it still does the full CL/d6 damage which I think is Negative Energy, but I'm not sure (the Dragon was not resistant to it, anyway). The kicker is that it requires no roll to hit and ignores Spell Resistance entirely, so on anything that's not Undead or a Construct, you're 100% guaranteed to land a not-too-shabby chunk of damage. But, given the Dragon's massive HP pool and my relatively low Caster Level (low compared to a lvl 25 Red Dragon, I mean), I would need a lot of casts to bring it down with it. So how do you survive long enough? Welp, My buddy Daeran had 11 uses of Animate Dead at Spell Level 3 and another 6 at Spell Level 4 because of Extend Spell.

The idea was to summon wave after wave of of those Bony Bois to block the Dragon's movement towards the party. The Bois have only 11 HP and like negative AC, so the dragon can wipe out an entire wave in a single Full Attack, but that's exactly the point: as long as she was using a Full Attack each round, my MC was able to safely cast Exsanguienate every round for about 40-50 guaranteed damage a pop. The Dragon's Breath Attack was the problem, because it's AoE was large enough to wipe out the skellies and hit p. much my entire Party because of how small the fighting area is, but I stocked up on Communal Protection From Energy. One Breath Attack is enough to almost always burn through the entire 100 points worth of protection from that Spell, but only a tiny bit of damage gets through to the Party.

Anyway, after about 11-12 Rounds of my MC casting that cheesy Spell and Daeran summoning skeletons each round, while Camellia was casting Communal Protection From Energy after each Breath Attack and Lann was occasionally using his Monk abilities to activate True Strike for a guaranteed roll of 20 on his first attack for some extra damage, I managed to bring the damn fucking thing down to like 10 HP or something. So how does any of this have anything to do with what I said in the first part of the post?

Well, after so much time spent on something that can be best described as literally "anti-fun", as luck would have it, the Dragon had already burned through the last Protection of Energy I had prepared and the party was exposed. At its last couple of HP, the motherfucking thing decided to use its Breath Attack one last time. The whole party got fucked up pretty bad, but they all survived (some just barely, though). The only fatality? My squishy MC Sorc, of course. And he wasn't knocked out, he was dead dead. Instant game over, reload previous save. And the best part is, Lann was supposed to act next in the current turn and he had True Strike active, so it would've been a 100% guaranteed Dragon kill like 3 seconds after my MC died (well not literally a kill, because there's a scripted event, but I would've won the fight). But nope, instant game over, do it all over again. I brought her down this way eventually, during one bout in which the dice were unusually kind to me, but my god, like I said, anti-fun.

Not only is it super frustrating gameplay-wise, but again, it doesn't even make sense in game-world logic. Why would the entire shindig be over if the MC takes a short dirt nap when he has a perfectly alive Daeran with several casts of "Raise Dead" available right there next to him? I wasn't killed by something that prohibits revival, like Disintegration or Finger of Death, I just got burned up pretty badly. If you were really autistic you could argue that the in-game justification is that Daeran doesn't like being a part of the Crusade, and with you dead the Crusade is p. much over, so he doesn't want to revive you. But it would be exactly the same with Sosiel there instead. And even before your Party members get "Raise Dead", why exactly can't they just take your body to a Cleric that can revive you? It doesn't make sense to advance story elements with a dead MC, that I understand, but getting killed in some random dungeon by a stray Critical Hit arrow while your Party is still alive really shouldn't spell an instant "game over" when there are realistic means of bringing you back. I hated that in Baldur's Gate as well, but at least there it made sense, story-wise (i.e. your soul instantly becomes fuel for Bhaal), which I don't think is the case here.

Semi-coherent rant over. I will say, though, I really hope this kind of an encounter is a one-off or at least very rare. Cheesing fights this way is just not fun. Maybe other players built their MCs and Parties differently so that they can actually go toe-to-toe with a level 25 Dragon at level 10, but with my current setup, I really don't see how I can boost my numbers to match such an opponent. Just for example, how exactly do you build a character at that point in the game that has an AC high enough to withstand her for more than a couple of rounds even with stuff like Displacement, Stoneskin, Barkskin, Reduce Person etc? I remember certain Alchemist and Sword Saint builds being nigh-unkillable in Kingmaker, but even there in order to reach that point they needed more levels and much better equipment than what I have available now.
Pass your skill checks.

Finally get a game where skills matter and people just act like it isn't there since they've never played one before.

Also Owlcat left auto-Inspect on in Wrath unlike P:K for the people who can't/won't pass their skill checks so people could read them and attack the weaknesses there.

Dragon has a glaring one as Shadenuat has already mentioned.

Cam11BigBall.jpg
 
Last edited:

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
Patron
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
14,859
Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
Oh my fucking god, I hate this "your MC dies, it's instant game over, reload" mechanic. Not only is it incredibly annoying most of the time and downright infuriating sometimes when your MC is a squishy pajama-wearing Sorc like mine, but it doesn't even make sense narrative-wise. Let me give you an example.


EDIT: Jesus, I didn't even realize this was such a wall of text before I posted it.

I don't like the "MC died, reload last save" mechanic in general, but this one encounter that I've been repeating for a couple of hours especially pissed me off, because a Dragon killed my MC with a Breath Attack, with all the other 5 Party Members alive, while I had an Oracle with "Raise Dead" available to cast and a couple of Diamonds in the Inventory, who was very much still alive and could've just brought my MC back in a minute. The most infuriating part is that the Dragon was so close to death it would've been killed literally by the next action in the current turn, i.e. by Lann who would've rolled a guaranteed natural 20 on his next attack because of True Strike and shaved off that last few HP. But no, MC died, so you have to reload the last save and do it all over again because fuck you, that's why.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The angry ramblings:

So I'm in Act 3 and hunting that Red Dragon, whatever her name is and finally got her cornered on top of that tower, ready to do one final battle. Now, it's entirely possible I'm doing something wrong and suck at the game, but expecting a level 10 Party, even with Tier-3 Mythic Abilities and Feats to actually beat that thing "fairly" even on Core seems a bit ridiculous to me. Her stats are simply insane for that level. No matter which gear loadout I went with, no matter what I buffed myself with, no matter anything, the only one I could get from my Party to beat her AC without rolling a natural 20 was Seelah, and that's only because of the -4 AC penalty from Evil Eye Camellia was spamming every round and Seelah's +5 Attack Bonus from Smite Evil. And even so she needed to roll 15 or thereabouts to hit on her highest BAB attack + another one from Haste (the second natural attack also needed a 20). My MC has got all the Spell Pen Feats, including the Mythic one, but he still needed some sky-high dice rolls to be able to beat her Spell Resistance (and I could pretty much forget about ever beating her Saves, because LOL). Meanwhile, that bitch has a trillion attacks per round and her AB is so high that it makes virtually no difference whether I have 35 AC or 0. Putting Displacement, Stoneskin and Protective Luck on Seelah (who in addition to being the only semi-reliable damage dealer was also the tank) did help somewhat, but the fucking overgrown lizard has just so many attacks per round that she manages to go through those defenses much faster than I can heal Seelah, even with a 100% dedicated Heal-bot Daeran in the party, plus her own heals.

After a couple of wipeouts and reloads, I figured the honorable way of fighting just isn't gonna work and said "Well, if you're gonna spew bullshit at me, Owlcat, I'll spew it back at you". My MC is a Sorc Lich with a merged Spellbook, so he has the Exsanguienate Spell. It's a single-target damage nuke that does Caster Level d6 worth of damage, and does 1d6 worth of STR damage and some Bleed damage on a failed Fort Saving Throw, but even on a successful one, it still does the full CL/d6 damage which I think is Negative Energy, but I'm not sure (the Dragon was not resistant to it, anyway). The kicker is that it requires no roll to hit and ignores Spell Resistance entirely, so on anything that's not Undead or a Construct, you're 100% guaranteed to land a not-too-shabby chunk of damage. But, given the Dragon's massive HP pool and my relatively low Caster Level (low compared to a lvl 25 Red Dragon, I mean), I would need a lot of casts to bring it down with it. So how do you survive long enough? Welp, My buddy Daeran had 11 uses of Animate Dead at Spell Level 3 and another 6 at Spell Level 4 because of Extend Spell.

The idea was to summon wave after wave of of those Bony Bois to block the Dragon's movement towards the party. The Bois have only 11 HP and like negative AC, so the dragon can wipe out an entire wave in a single Full Attack, but that's exactly the point: as long as she was using a Full Attack each round, my MC was able to safely cast Exsanguienate every round for about 40-50 guaranteed damage a pop. The Dragon's Breath Attack was the problem, because it's AoE was large enough to wipe out the skellies and hit p. much my entire Party because of how small the fighting area is, but I stocked up on Communal Protection From Energy. One Breath Attack is enough to almost always burn through the entire 100 points worth of protection from that Spell, but only a tiny bit of damage gets through to the Party.

Anyway, after about 11-12 Rounds of my MC casting that cheesy Spell and Daeran summoning skeletons each round, while Camellia was casting Communal Protection From Energy after each Breath Attack and Lann was occasionally using his Monk abilities to activate True Strike for a guaranteed roll of 20 on his first attack for some extra damage, I managed to bring the damn fucking thing down to like 10 HP or something. So how does any of this have anything to do with what I said in the first part of the post?

Well, after so much time spent on something that can be best described as literally "anti-fun", as luck would have it, the Dragon had already burned through the last Protection of Energy I had prepared and the party was exposed. At its last couple of HP, the motherfucking thing decided to use its Breath Attack one last time. The whole party got fucked up pretty bad, but they all survived (some just barely, though). The only fatality? My squishy MC Sorc, of course. And he wasn't knocked out, he was dead dead. Instant game over, reload previous save. And the best part is, Lann was supposed to act next in the current turn and he had True Strike active, so it would've been a 100% guaranteed Dragon kill like 3 seconds after my MC died (well not literally a kill, because there's a scripted event, but I would've won the fight). But nope, instant game over, do it all over again. I brought her down this way eventually, during one bout in which the dice were unusually kind to me, but my god, like I said, anti-fun.

Not only is it super frustrating gameplay-wise, but again, it doesn't even make sense in game-world logic. Why would the entire shindig be over if the MC takes a short dirt nap when he has a perfectly alive Daeran with several casts of "Raise Dead" available right there next to him? I wasn't killed by something that prohibits revival, like Disintegration or Finger of Death, I just got burned up pretty badly. If you were really autistic you could argue that the in-game justification is that Daeran doesn't like being a part of the Crusade, and with you dead the Crusade is p. much over, so he doesn't want to revive you. But it would be exactly the same with Sosiel there instead. And even before your Party members get "Raise Dead", why exactly can't they just take your body to a Cleric that can revive you? It doesn't make sense to advance story elements with a dead MC, that I understand, but getting killed in some random dungeon by a stray Critical Hit arrow while your Party is still alive really shouldn't spell an instant "game over" when there are realistic means of bringing you back. I hated that in Baldur's Gate as well, but at least there it made sense, story-wise (i.e. your soul instantly becomes fuel for Bhaal), which I don't think is the case here.

Semi-coherent rant over. I will say, though, I really hope this kind of an encounter is a one-off or at least very rare. Cheesing fights this way is just not fun. Maybe other players built their MCs and Parties differently so that they can actually go toe-to-toe with a level 25 Dragon at level 10, but with my current setup, I really don't see how I can boost my numbers to match such an opponent. Just for example, how exactly do you build a character at that point in the game that has an AC high enough to withstand her for more than a couple of rounds even with stuff like Displacement, Stoneskin, Barkskin, Reduce Person etc? I remember certain Alchemist and Sword Saint builds being nigh-unkillable in Kingmaker, but even there in order to reach that point they needed more levels and much better equipment than what I have available now.

I think it might be worth looking at your party composition and Mythic Ability selection.

It's *really* worth investing in Greater Heroism ASAP as a spell for your Sorcerer, giving +4 AB and saves to an ally really helps.

If you use Sosiel, grab him impossible domain: Community for party wide +WIS to AB and saves 1/day for boss fights, too.

With Arueshale you can combine Instant Enemy and her hunter's bond to share half of her favored enemy bonus (party wide) against one target, which is also good against bosses. At Level 10 I think that works out as +3 for everyone, +6 for her*.

Also, Seelah gets a huge party buff at Paladin 11 (Mark of Justice for smilte to all allies) so I normally wait until then before going after the dragon.

*EDIT: She gets 0 casts (+attribute modifier) of 3rd level spells at 10th level, but you can give her a +WIS hat (or abundant casting level 1 for +4 1st to 3rd level spells/day) to fix that.
Aru's custom class is CHR-based and she has infinite CHR. No problem getting casts (though I get abundant first too get even more to keep Vitals up and yeah Instant Enemy and other great Ranger spells*).

* - Try Stone Call + Feather Step, Mass (long-lasting AoE prebuff) + the Mythic (Instill Vigor?) that gives +2 Mythic bonus to everything when you damage party members.
 
Last edited:

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
Patron
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
14,859
Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
That's a solid choice, certainly. But it doesn't stack with his default Touch of Good Sacred bonus. My preference is to get Domain Zealot + Impossible Domain: Madness ASAP. Even moreso on a caster MC - the saves debuff is massive!
This way I can supercharge the accuracy of chosen characters (or even spread the Madness a little, as it lasts 3 rounds) and also greatly debuff the saves of main enemies. Plus get a huge boost on skillchecks when needed.
Sosiel's Swift action econ is already clogged. If you want Community get it from Sacred Huntmaster Lann. Add in Nobility from Reg and you're set. Or just play an MC with Domains. They're really good. Madness is a little TOO good.

after about 11-12 Rounds of my MC casting that cheesy Spell

>roll Barbarian
>Rage
>lower AC by 2
>die 10% faster

:hmmm:

Best defense is a good offense. Or you know any offense at all.

If your fights are taking that long you're not using cheese. More like the opposite. For better or for worse the Dragon fight is mostly about making sure you've got the skills to pass the dialogue checks and reading the Inspect screen (Snowball bypasses SR) to find enemy weaknesses. Owlcat uses fights like this as gateways to make sure people are picking up the tactics they're going to need to survive the rest of the game and you're going to need to be able to do those things going forward.

Dragon CAN be ganked without that (way easier at lvl 11 than 10) but it is absolutely a step up from other foes to do that without passing the skill checks that weaken it and give you surprise/keep your team at full strength and/or knowing how to read an Inspect screen.
 
Last edited:

Haplo

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
6,567
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Oh my fucking god, I hate this "your MC dies, it's instant game over, reload" mechanic. Not only is it incredibly annoying most of the time and downright infuriating sometimes when your MC is a squishy pajama-wearing Sorc like mine, but it doesn't even make sense narrative-wise. Let me give you an example.


EDIT: Jesus, I didn't even realize this was such a wall of text before I posted it.

I don't like the "MC died, reload last save" mechanic in general, but this one encounter that I've been repeating for a couple of hours especially pissed me off, because a Dragon killed my MC with a Breath Attack, with all the other 5 Party Members alive, while I had an Oracle with "Raise Dead" available to cast and a couple of Diamonds in the Inventory, who was very much still alive and could've just brought my MC back in a minute. The most infuriating part is that the Dragon was so close to death it would've been killed literally by the next action in the current turn, i.e. by Lann who would've rolled a guaranteed natural 20 on his next attack because of True Strike and shaved off that last few HP. But no, MC died, so you have to reload the last save and do it all over again because fuck you, that's why.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The angry ramblings:

So I'm in Act 3 and hunting that Red Dragon, whatever her name is and finally got her cornered on top of that tower, ready to do one final battle. Now, it's entirely possible I'm doing something wrong and suck at the game, but expecting a level 10 Party, even with Tier-3 Mythic Abilities and Feats to actually beat that thing "fairly" even on Core seems a bit ridiculous to me. Her stats are simply insane for that level. No matter which gear loadout I went with, no matter what I buffed myself with, no matter anything, the only one I could get from my Party to beat her AC without rolling a natural 20 was Seelah, and that's only because of the -4 AC penalty from Evil Eye Camellia was spamming every round and Seelah's +5 Attack Bonus from Smite Evil. And even so she needed to roll 15 or thereabouts to hit on her highest BAB attack + another one from Haste (the second natural attack also needed a 20). My MC has got all the Spell Pen Feats, including the Mythic one, but he still needed some sky-high dice rolls to be able to beat her Spell Resistance (and I could pretty much forget about ever beating her Saves, because LOL). Meanwhile, that bitch has a trillion attacks per round and her AB is so high that it makes virtually no difference whether I have 35 AC or 0. Putting Displacement, Stoneskin and Protective Luck on Seelah (who in addition to being the only semi-reliable damage dealer was also the tank) did help somewhat, but the fucking overgrown lizard has just so many attacks per round that she manages to go through those defenses much faster than I can heal Seelah, even with a 100% dedicated Heal-bot Daeran in the party, plus her own heals.

After a couple of wipeouts and reloads, I figured the honorable way of fighting just isn't gonna work and said "Well, if you're gonna spew bullshit at me, Owlcat, I'll spew it back at you". My MC is a Sorc Lich with a merged Spellbook, so he has the Exsanguienate Spell. It's a single-target damage nuke that does Caster Level d6 worth of damage, and does 1d6 worth of STR damage and some Bleed damage on a failed Fort Saving Throw, but even on a successful one, it still does the full CL/d6 damage which I think is Negative Energy, but I'm not sure (the Dragon was not resistant to it, anyway). The kicker is that it requires no roll to hit and ignores Spell Resistance entirely, so on anything that's not Undead or a Construct, you're 100% guaranteed to land a not-too-shabby chunk of damage. But, given the Dragon's massive HP pool and my relatively low Caster Level (low compared to a lvl 25 Red Dragon, I mean), I would need a lot of casts to bring it down with it. So how do you survive long enough? Welp, My buddy Daeran had 11 uses of Animate Dead at Spell Level 3 and another 6 at Spell Level 4 because of Extend Spell.

The idea was to summon wave after wave of of those Bony Bois to block the Dragon's movement towards the party. The Bois have only 11 HP and like negative AC, so the dragon can wipe out an entire wave in a single Full Attack, but that's exactly the point: as long as she was using a Full Attack each round, my MC was able to safely cast Exsanguienate every round for about 40-50 guaranteed damage a pop. The Dragon's Breath Attack was the problem, because it's AoE was large enough to wipe out the skellies and hit p. much my entire Party because of how small the fighting area is, but I stocked up on Communal Protection From Energy. One Breath Attack is enough to almost always burn through the entire 100 points worth of protection from that Spell, but only a tiny bit of damage gets through to the Party.

Anyway, after about 11-12 Rounds of my MC casting that cheesy Spell and Daeran summoning skeletons each round, while Camellia was casting Communal Protection From Energy after each Breath Attack and Lann was occasionally using his Monk abilities to activate True Strike for a guaranteed roll of 20 on his first attack for some extra damage, I managed to bring the damn fucking thing down to like 10 HP or something. So how does any of this have anything to do with what I said in the first part of the post?

Well, after so much time spent on something that can be best described as literally "anti-fun", as luck would have it, the Dragon had already burned through the last Protection of Energy I had prepared and the party was exposed. At its last couple of HP, the motherfucking thing decided to use its Breath Attack one last time. The whole party got fucked up pretty bad, but they all survived (some just barely, though). The only fatality? My squishy MC Sorc, of course. And he wasn't knocked out, he was dead dead. Instant game over, reload previous save. And the best part is, Lann was supposed to act next in the current turn and he had True Strike active, so it would've been a 100% guaranteed Dragon kill like 3 seconds after my MC died (well not literally a kill, because there's a scripted event, but I would've won the fight). But nope, instant game over, do it all over again. I brought her down this way eventually, during one bout in which the dice were unusually kind to me, but my god, like I said, anti-fun.

Not only is it super frustrating gameplay-wise, but again, it doesn't even make sense in game-world logic. Why would the entire shindig be over if the MC takes a short dirt nap when he has a perfectly alive Daeran with several casts of "Raise Dead" available right there next to him? I wasn't killed by something that prohibits revival, like Disintegration or Finger of Death, I just got burned up pretty badly. If you were really autistic you could argue that the in-game justification is that Daeran doesn't like being a part of the Crusade, and with you dead the Crusade is p. much over, so he doesn't want to revive you. But it would be exactly the same with Sosiel there instead. And even before your Party members get "Raise Dead", why exactly can't they just take your body to a Cleric that can revive you? It doesn't make sense to advance story elements with a dead MC, that I understand, but getting killed in some random dungeon by a stray Critical Hit arrow while your Party is still alive really shouldn't spell an instant "game over" when there are realistic means of bringing you back. I hated that in Baldur's Gate as well, but at least there it made sense, story-wise (i.e. your soul instantly becomes fuel for Bhaal), which I don't think is the case here.

Semi-coherent rant over. I will say, though, I really hope this kind of an encounter is a one-off or at least very rare. Cheesing fights this way is just not fun. Maybe other players built their MCs and Parties differently so that they can actually go toe-to-toe with a level 25 Dragon at level 10, but with my current setup, I really don't see how I can boost my numbers to match such an opponent. Just for example, how exactly do you build a character at that point in the game that has an AC high enough to withstand her for more than a couple of rounds even with stuff like Displacement, Stoneskin, Barkskin, Reduce Person etc? I remember certain Alchemist and Sword Saint builds being nigh-unkillable in Kingmaker, but even there in order to reach that point they needed more levels and much better equipment than what I have available now.

I think it might be worth looking at your party composition and Mythic Ability selection.

It's *really* worth investing in Greater Heroism ASAP as a spell for your Sorcerer, giving +4 AB and saves to an ally really helps.

If you use Sosiel, grab him impossible domain: Community for party wide +WIS to AB and saves 1/day for boss fights, too.

With Arueshale you can combine Instant Enemy and her hunter's bond to share half of her favored enemy bonus (party wide) against one target, which is also good against bosses. At Level 10 I think that works out as +3 for everyone, +6 for her*.

Also, Seelah gets a huge party buff at Paladin 11 (Mark of Justice for smilte to all allies) so I normally wait until then before going after the dragon.

*EDIT: She gets 0 casts (+attribute modifier) of 3rd level spells at 10th level, but you can give her a +WIS hat (or abundant casting level 1 for +4 1st to 3rd level spells/day) to fix that.
Aru's custom class is CHR-based and she has infinite CHR. No problem getting casts (though I get abundant first too get even more to keep Vitals up and yeah Instant Enemy and other great Ranger spells*).

* - Try Stone Call + Feather Step, Mass (long-lasting AoE prebuff) + the Mythic (Instill Vigor?) that gives +2 Mythic bonus to everything when you damage party members.

Enforcing Vigor? Interesting. Never tried that. As far as I remember there was an early annoying armor with a Cold aura that dealt damage to everyone near. Could be a simpler, passive application (though not that wide).
Edit: White Dragon Armor breastplate.
 

Lambach

Arcane
Possibly Retarded
Joined
Feb 11, 2016
Messages
13,207
Location
Belgrade, Removekebabland
Dragon CAN be ganked without that (way easier at lvl 11 than 10) but it is absolutely a step up from other foes to do that without passing the skill checks that weaken it and give you surprise/keep your team at full strength and/or knowing how to read an Inspect screen.

That's true during your first ambush, when you get huge Circumstance bonuses.

When you gank the Dragon at the top of the tower, you get no bonuses at all. I beat all the Skill Checks to reach the Dragon undetected, then passed both Stealth Checks as it was talking to Storyteller. There are no bonuses to be gained from that, the only thing you get is Greybor moving up right next to the Dragon before the start of the fight so that the Dragon can tear him to pieces more easily. I was wondering whether that was a bug or an oversight or just retarded design.
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
Patron
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
14,859
Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
Dragon CAN be ganked without that (way easier at lvl 11 than 10) but it is absolutely a step up from other foes to do that without passing the skill checks that weaken it and give you surprise/keep your team at full strength and/or knowing how to read an Inspect screen.

That's true during your first ambush, when you get huge Circumstance bonuses.

When you gank the Dragon at the top of the tower, you get no bonuses at all. I beat all the Skill Checks to reach the Dragon undetected, then passed both Stealth Checks as it was talking to Storyteller. There are no bonuses to be gained from that, the only thing you get is Greybor moving up right next to the Dragon before the start of the fight so that the Dragon can tear him to pieces more easily. I was wondering whether that was a bug or an oversight or just retarded design.
Idk Dragon's always almost dead on that fight for me. Can be tough on the first two but never had any issues on that one so assumed it was the skill checks.

If you give Greybor Shield Bash at 10 from Combat Style and Shield Mastery at 11 along with Defensive Study he gets a lot sturdier, plus there are a lot of good Bashing Shields.
 

Lambach

Arcane
Possibly Retarded
Joined
Feb 11, 2016
Messages
13,207
Location
Belgrade, Removekebabland
Hm it seemed to me Greybor lands hit on dragon and you win initiative too, I can't remember.

Probably. I don't quite remember either, possibly because it was completely irrelevant to me who won Initiative. I could do precisely jack diddly squat to that thing in a single Turn, regardless of whether I acted first or second.
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
Patron
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
14,859
Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
Oh my fucking god, I hate this "your MC dies, it's instant game over, reload" mechanic. Not only is it incredibly annoying most of the time and downright infuriating sometimes when your MC is a squishy pajama-wearing Sorc like mine, but it doesn't even make sense narrative-wise. Let me give you an example.


EDIT: Jesus, I didn't even realize this was such a wall of text before I posted it.

I don't like the "MC died, reload last save" mechanic in general, but this one encounter that I've been repeating for a couple of hours especially pissed me off, because a Dragon killed my MC with a Breath Attack, with all the other 5 Party Members alive, while I had an Oracle with "Raise Dead" available to cast and a couple of Diamonds in the Inventory, who was very much still alive and could've just brought my MC back in a minute. The most infuriating part is that the Dragon was so close to death it would've been killed literally by the next action in the current turn, i.e. by Lann who would've rolled a guaranteed natural 20 on his next attack because of True Strike and shaved off that last few HP. But no, MC died, so you have to reload the last save and do it all over again because fuck you, that's why.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The angry ramblings:

So I'm in Act 3 and hunting that Red Dragon, whatever her name is and finally got her cornered on top of that tower, ready to do one final battle. Now, it's entirely possible I'm doing something wrong and suck at the game, but expecting a level 10 Party, even with Tier-3 Mythic Abilities and Feats to actually beat that thing "fairly" even on Core seems a bit ridiculous to me. Her stats are simply insane for that level. No matter which gear loadout I went with, no matter what I buffed myself with, no matter anything, the only one I could get from my Party to beat her AC without rolling a natural 20 was Seelah, and that's only because of the -4 AC penalty from Evil Eye Camellia was spamming every round and Seelah's +5 Attack Bonus from Smite Evil. And even so she needed to roll 15 or thereabouts to hit on her highest BAB attack + another one from Haste (the second natural attack also needed a 20). My MC has got all the Spell Pen Feats, including the Mythic one, but he still needed some sky-high dice rolls to be able to beat her Spell Resistance (and I could pretty much forget about ever beating her Saves, because LOL). Meanwhile, that bitch has a trillion attacks per round and her AB is so high that it makes virtually no difference whether I have 35 AC or 0. Putting Displacement, Stoneskin and Protective Luck on Seelah (who in addition to being the only semi-reliable damage dealer was also the tank) did help somewhat, but the fucking overgrown lizard has just so many attacks per round that she manages to go through those defenses much faster than I can heal Seelah, even with a 100% dedicated Heal-bot Daeran in the party, plus her own heals.

After a couple of wipeouts and reloads, I figured the honorable way of fighting just isn't gonna work and said "Well, if you're gonna spew bullshit at me, Owlcat, I'll spew it back at you". My MC is a Sorc Lich with a merged Spellbook, so he has the Exsanguienate Spell. It's a single-target damage nuke that does Caster Level d6 worth of damage, and does 1d6 worth of STR damage and some Bleed damage on a failed Fort Saving Throw, but even on a successful one, it still does the full CL/d6 damage which I think is Negative Energy, but I'm not sure (the Dragon was not resistant to it, anyway). The kicker is that it requires no roll to hit and ignores Spell Resistance entirely, so on anything that's not Undead or a Construct, you're 100% guaranteed to land a not-too-shabby chunk of damage. But, given the Dragon's massive HP pool and my relatively low Caster Level (low compared to a lvl 25 Red Dragon, I mean), I would need a lot of casts to bring it down with it. So how do you survive long enough? Welp, My buddy Daeran had 11 uses of Animate Dead at Spell Level 3 and another 6 at Spell Level 4 because of Extend Spell.

The idea was to summon wave after wave of of those Bony Bois to block the Dragon's movement towards the party. The Bois have only 11 HP and like negative AC, so the dragon can wipe out an entire wave in a single Full Attack, but that's exactly the point: as long as she was using a Full Attack each round, my MC was able to safely cast Exsanguienate every round for about 40-50 guaranteed damage a pop. The Dragon's Breath Attack was the problem, because it's AoE was large enough to wipe out the skellies and hit p. much my entire Party because of how small the fighting area is, but I stocked up on Communal Protection From Energy. One Breath Attack is enough to almost always burn through the entire 100 points worth of protection from that Spell, but only a tiny bit of damage gets through to the Party.

Anyway, after about 11-12 Rounds of my MC casting that cheesy Spell and Daeran summoning skeletons each round, while Camellia was casting Communal Protection From Energy after each Breath Attack and Lann was occasionally using his Monk abilities to activate True Strike for a guaranteed roll of 20 on his first attack for some extra damage, I managed to bring the damn fucking thing down to like 10 HP or something. So how does any of this have anything to do with what I said in the first part of the post?

Well, after so much time spent on something that can be best described as literally "anti-fun", as luck would have it, the Dragon had already burned through the last Protection of Energy I had prepared and the party was exposed. At its last couple of HP, the motherfucking thing decided to use its Breath Attack one last time. The whole party got fucked up pretty bad, but they all survived (some just barely, though). The only fatality? My squishy MC Sorc, of course. And he wasn't knocked out, he was dead dead. Instant game over, reload previous save. And the best part is, Lann was supposed to act next in the current turn and he had True Strike active, so it would've been a 100% guaranteed Dragon kill like 3 seconds after my MC died (well not literally a kill, because there's a scripted event, but I would've won the fight). But nope, instant game over, do it all over again. I brought her down this way eventually, during one bout in which the dice were unusually kind to me, but my god, like I said, anti-fun.

Not only is it super frustrating gameplay-wise, but again, it doesn't even make sense in game-world logic. Why would the entire shindig be over if the MC takes a short dirt nap when he has a perfectly alive Daeran with several casts of "Raise Dead" available right there next to him? I wasn't killed by something that prohibits revival, like Disintegration or Finger of Death, I just got burned up pretty badly. If you were really autistic you could argue that the in-game justification is that Daeran doesn't like being a part of the Crusade, and with you dead the Crusade is p. much over, so he doesn't want to revive you. But it would be exactly the same with Sosiel there instead. And even before your Party members get "Raise Dead", why exactly can't they just take your body to a Cleric that can revive you? It doesn't make sense to advance story elements with a dead MC, that I understand, but getting killed in some random dungeon by a stray Critical Hit arrow while your Party is still alive really shouldn't spell an instant "game over" when there are realistic means of bringing you back. I hated that in Baldur's Gate as well, but at least there it made sense, story-wise (i.e. your soul instantly becomes fuel for Bhaal), which I don't think is the case here.

Semi-coherent rant over. I will say, though, I really hope this kind of an encounter is a one-off or at least very rare. Cheesing fights this way is just not fun. Maybe other players built their MCs and Parties differently so that they can actually go toe-to-toe with a level 25 Dragon at level 10, but with my current setup, I really don't see how I can boost my numbers to match such an opponent. Just for example, how exactly do you build a character at that point in the game that has an AC high enough to withstand her for more than a couple of rounds even with stuff like Displacement, Stoneskin, Barkskin, Reduce Person etc? I remember certain Alchemist and Sword Saint builds being nigh-unkillable in Kingmaker, but even there in order to reach that point they needed more levels and much better equipment than what I have available now.

I think it might be worth looking at your party composition and Mythic Ability selection.

It's *really* worth investing in Greater Heroism ASAP as a spell for your Sorcerer, giving +4 AB and saves to an ally really helps.

If you use Sosiel, grab him impossible domain: Community for party wide +WIS to AB and saves 1/day for boss fights, too.

With Arueshale you can combine Instant Enemy and her hunter's bond to share half of her favored enemy bonus (party wide) against one target, which is also good against bosses. At Level 10 I think that works out as +3 for everyone, +6 for her*.

Also, Seelah gets a huge party buff at Paladin 11 (Mark of Justice for smilte to all allies) so I normally wait until then before going after the dragon.

*EDIT: She gets 0 casts (+attribute modifier) of 3rd level spells at 10th level, but you can give her a +WIS hat (or abundant casting level 1 for +4 1st to 3rd level spells/day) to fix that.
Aru's custom class is CHR-based and she has infinite CHR. No problem getting casts (though I get abundant first too get even more to keep Vitals up and yeah Instant Enemy and other great Ranger spells*).

* - Try Stone Call + Feather Step, Mass (long-lasting AoE prebuff) + the Mythic (Instill Vigor?) that gives +2 Mythic bonus to everything when you damage party members.

Enforcing Vigor? Interesting. Never tried that. As far as I remember there was an early annoying armor with a Cold aura that dealt damage to everyone near. Could be a simpler, passive application (though not that wide).
Edit: White Dragon Armor breastplate.
There are some other armors she wants, and my melee aren't near my ranged when that fires usually IIRC. Works well to trigger the armor that gives extra damage of Elements you take damage from tho since casters can hang out by her.
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
Patron
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
14,859
Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
Hm it seemed to me Greybor lands hit on dragon and you win initiative too, I can't remember.

Probably. I don't quite remember either, possibly because it was completely irrelevant to me who won Initiative. I could do precisely jack diddly squat to that thing in a single Turn, regardless of whether I acted first or second.
Charge zerg in RTwP gives everyone +2 from Charge, +4 from Flanking, and AoOs on Crits. Bless Weapon autoconfirms crit threats.

You should also have access to better Summons from items alone that can live longer than a round/buff team if you prefer that approach. Greater Courage from Seelah takes care of the Fear. Resist Energy kicks up to 30 at lvl 10(?) and Prot on top of that soaks the Fire.
 

Lambach

Arcane
Possibly Retarded
Joined
Feb 11, 2016
Messages
13,207
Location
Belgrade, Removekebabland

You should also have access to better Summons from items alone that can live longer than a round/buff team if you prefer that approach.

I left Regill at home to make space for Greybor and Regill's the one carrying Duality of Conjuration and Summoning in my crew. I forgot to give that item to someone else before I was already balls-deep into the Dragon. I wonder if those three Monadic Devas would've been useful or if they would've ended up being just some more pieces of meat for the Dragon.

Greater Courage from Seelah takes care of the Fear. Resist Energy kicks up to 30 at lvl 10(?) and Prot on top of that soaks the Fire.

Fear and Fire are not the problem (mostly), the former is countered by Greater Courage like you said or Remove Fear and Fire is blocked by Protection From Energy.

No, those billion attacks per round each with insane damage were the bane of my existence.
 

Haplo

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
6,567
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
To bodyblock more effectively, try to get the Clemency of Shadows ring ASAP. Not only does it give extra AoOs to everyone, but also summons a spider whenever an ally falls... including summoned allies (and spiders summoned by itself).
Its actually a bit OP (but not quite as much as when it was bugged to mass-summon new spiders also whenever your characters turned invisible).
 

Lambach

Arcane
Possibly Retarded
Joined
Feb 11, 2016
Messages
13,207
Location
Belgrade, Removekebabland
To bodyblock more effectively, try to get the Clemency of Shadows ring ASAP. Not only does it give extra AoOs to everyone, but also summons a spider whenever an ally falls... including summoned allies (and spiders summoned by itself).
Its actually a bit OP (but not quite as much as when it was bugged to mass-summon new spiders also whenever your characters turned invisible).
To be honest, I would love to never have to use bodyblocking techniques again. It feels more like an AI exploit than a proper strategy. This time I did it because I honestly could not come up with anything else, other than turning down the difficulty or getting out and returning 5 levels and 3 Mythic Tiers later.
 

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
Patron
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
14,859
Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
That’s a good bit later than Dragon.

Like Hargulka it’s one of those I encounters designed to get you out of your comfort zone (if that zone is going to get you into trouble later - Hargulka does that for Zombie Giants, Devarra for big Demons/Dragons to come) and get you to explore some of the mechanics you may have neglected.

Both CAN be brute forced with Grease/Magic Missile auto-attax or whatever but it’s more likely to just feel really unfair and that’s when people ragequit and complain about bloated stats.

They’re not ALL bloated and it’s gratifying to find the ones that aren’t and develop the versatility to exploit that. Which is the intended play pattern I’m pretty sure.

Devas have aura that buffs team and should be able to survive a round of his hits. Soul Eaters can Enervate him?
 
Last edited:

Desiderius

Found your egg, Robinett, you sneaky bastard
Patron
Joined
Jul 22, 2019
Messages
14,859
Insert Title Here Pathfinder: Wrath
To bodyblock more effectively, try to get the Clemency of Shadows ring ASAP. Not only does it give extra AoOs to everyone, but also summons a spider whenever an ally falls... including summoned allies (and spiders summoned by itself).
Its actually a bit OP (but not quite as much as when it was bugged to mass-summon new spiders also whenever your characters turned invisible).
To be honest, I would love to never have to use bodyblocking techniques again. It feels more like an AI exploit than a proper strategy. This time I did it because I honestly could not come up with anything else, other than turning down the difficulty or getting out and returning 5 levels and 3 Mythic Tiers later.
Summons are a supported strategy. As you’ve discovered there’s nothing cheesy about it as there are foes that can blow thru it easily.
 

Shadenuat

Arcane
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
11,977
Location
Russia
They even went as far as use level design of locations to limit your summons and pets a bit.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom