I have blindfight on all my frontliners as well.
It doesn't really make any less annoying to be perma-blinded AOE so lightly.
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It doesn't really make any less annoying to be perma-blinded AOE so lightly.
Just stick to a class rather than trying some crazy multi-classing. It's easier and might end up stronger in the long run as well.
most usefull thing i found was paying more attention to the log and using inspect when a fight is difficult. Most "unfair" stuff is avoidable if you know where it is coming from.
As mentioned before, a target's Spell Resistance (SR) is separate from the DC (difficulty check) of the spell you are casting. First you must overcome a target's SR (if they have one) by rolling and adding your character's spell penetration, and if you beat it, THEN the game checks to see if the enemy saves or if you hit (if it's something like a touch attack). There are feats that increase your spell penetration which can help you.
Don't be afraid to turn the difficulty down. There are some optional bosses that will REALLY kick your ass if you aren't prepared, and if you aren't playing on Core difficulty anyway, you don't get an achievement for beating them as it stands. Turn the difficulty down or leave and return later.
They now have a Story mode for Crusader that may make it much easier. Another option is to mod instant win for battles. That still gives you control over the story, without worrying about your army.
I ended up giving myself a bunch of extra resources just to hire more soldiers. I can't be bothered to worry about this system because I really don't think it is balanced well at all.
Ran into someone in Act 5 that gave almost 1.2mil XP when I killed him! Went from level 17 to 19.
Mephistopheles at the end of the Azata story line. I also got my butterfly wings!
Drezen second time through is so much more fun without having large pets getting stuck on everything and mounted charge never working right. It's like a siege mission done right...so good, and I love how massive the level is. Also, having more ranged classes works better, as fun as having a bunch of melee characters is. I'm going to have to try an archer of some sort eventually...the ranged cleave mythic ability is insane on the ranged companions.
And I agree with the post above about how terrible Owlcat is at balance. If we are just talking about the games as CRPGs, KM is, and WotR will end up in the top 5 of my favorite CRPGs of all time, true successors to the Baldur's Gate games, but the balance, bullshit, and system on systems is just such a drag. Nothing I complain about is enough to stop me loving the games, but they absolutely have someone, or some people on the team that think adding all sorts of bullshit or cheap stuff is just hilarious and how you do difficulty. Oh well, rant over, I love these games.
And I agree with the post above about how terrible Owlcat is at balance. If we are just talking about the games as CRPGs, KM is, and WotR will end up in the top 5 of my favorite CRPGs of all time, true successors to the Baldur's Gate games, but the balance, bullshit, and system on systems is just such a drag. Nothing I complain about is enough to stop me loving the games, but they absolutely have someone, or some people on the team that think adding all sorts of bullshit or cheap stuff is just hilarious and how you do difficulty. Oh well, rant over, I love these games.
I don't even think it's a bad system in principle, but the balance is precisely what makes it an absolute slog.
I think it has a rough start, and the tutorials really do not emphasize the value and importance of building income/recruiting buildings in all of your smaller outposts ASAP . There basically isn't a weekly supply of cheap units until you start building the support buildings at your other locations. It is like a feeder/hub system where your small outposts increase the supply available at your main locations.
I don't think the overall balance is that bad, but there is a level of intuition that comes from playing a bunch of King's Bounty / HoMM that carries over. The Hospital system is a great change to the genre IMO.
OP
OP
For sure.
It's actually a pretty decent little HoMM-lite imo. Just not super well explained and it's in an already massive game of another genre lol. I actually quite like it, but I also like HoMM.
I'm considering just spamming alchemists labs since energy is more important than units tbh and generals regenerate 10% of their energy each day.
This is the real issue. I struggled with the system until I realized that I needed to build the recruiting-based structures to give myself a steady supply of troops. I think I may have played the entire beginning of Chapter 3 without even the basic infantry/archery/cavalry buildings, or an understanding of hwo basic recruitment worked. I more or less funneled all my money into mercenaries to stay afloat until clarity dawned.
Once you get one strong army, things snowball - you will start murdering enemy units with, e.g., stacked archers, and it all becomes quite easy. I more or less stopped losing units in Chapter 3 after the coin dropped re: the basic system. But the game definitely could have given me more clarity about the systems.
The Crusade battles are atrocious. Using Pathfinder rules and applying them to stacks of units hitting each other in a HoMM-like fashion is a terrible way to turn things into 'army-sized' battles. It's an entirely different, broken game, because of how torn it is between being HoMM and Pathfinder.
Like, every single crusade battle is decided before you even fight, but then it takes 5-10 minutes to resolve. Direct-damage spells are stronger than anything. Giant units are useless. Ranged units always die first. Status effects, especially stuns or entangles, can lose even the strongest armies a fight just because they can't get to/attack an enemy. Unit stats basically don't matter because weaker units can so completely outnumber stronger ones that you will annihilate them through raw DPS, meaning quantity always wins over quality. There's also no real point in positioning or maneuvering on the map, since ranged units or cavalry will auto-target the weakest. And to top it all off, the AI is absolutely terrible.
There's no way to salvage it. The best thing to hope for is an easier way to skip it, since the current auto-crusade timelocks your exploration of the map.
Like, every single crusade battle is decided before you even fight, but then it takes 5-10 minutes to resolve. Direct-damage spells are stronger than anything. Giant units are useless. Ranged units always die first. Status effects, especially stuns or entangles, can lose even the strongest armies a fight just because they can't get to/attack an enemy. Unit stats basically don't matter because weaker units can so completely outnumber stronger ones that you will annihilate them through raw DPS, meaning quantity always wins over quality. There's also no real point in positioning or maneuvering on the map, since ranged units or cavalry will auto-target the weakest. And to top it all off, the AI is absolutely terrible.
There's no way to salvage it. The best thing to hope for is an easier way to skip it, since the current auto-crusade timelocks your exploration of the map.
- Basic Abilities
- Don't overlook these.
- Acrobatics is a modal ability that checks a character's Mobility skill to avoid attacks of opportunity.
- Charge is a standard action that lets you move twice your speed to attack an enemy, giving you a temporary bonus on that attack roll at the cost of a temporary penalty to AC. It's situational, but powerful against backline archers and casters (or flat-footed frontliners).
- Coup de Grace is a full-round action that can instakill or heavily damage a helpless character. The most common usage is to capitalize on the Slumber hex, which is part of Ember's starting kit. You open yourself up to attacks of opportunity using this, so be careful.
- Demoralize is a standard action that checks a character's Persuasion skill to proc Shaken on a single living enemy; this is a useful early debuff if you have an action to spare, and it gets even better if you build your party around the Shatter Defenses feat.
- Fighting Defensively is a modal ability that improves AC at the cost of some attack bonus. You can improve the bonus further by investing three ranks in the Mobility skill. The Crane line of feats also improves Fighting Defensively, making it popular for duelists, monks, and YouTube meme builds.
- Treat Affliction checks a character's Lore (Religion) skill to remove a disease; each character can be treated for disease once per day.
- Skills
- You want specialists, not generalists, mostly.
- It's impossible to give hyper-specific advice because it depends on your preferred party, but you always want at least one companion with high Trickery to pick locks and disarm traps—and multiple companions with decent-or-better Perception to find hidden stuff.
- When choosing which skills to pick on which character, consider the floor they have in each skill because of their ability score modifiers, background, and other bonuses. For example, Wenduag has a solid floor of +6 in Athletics (+3 class skill, +3 STR bonus); Camellia has an insane +10 floor in Trickery (+3 class skill, +4 DEX, +3 Skill Focus) and gets another +3 at rank 10 and you'll likely be pumping her DEX.
- You won't gain the +3 bonus for a class skill (or see it when gauging skill floors) until you've taken at least one rank in it.
- Some suggested companion specialists, off the top of my head:
- Athletics: Lann, Wenduag. Having one party member with stacked Athletics is useful for shortcuts while exploring a map and for some story sequences.
- Mobility: Seelah needs three ranks for Fighting Defensively. Camellia and other potential tanks or off-tanks can also use three ranks. Otherwise, one party member with stacked Mobility is useful for shortcuts while exploring a map and for some story sequences. Good positioning is typically better than using Acrobatics, but it's a nice bit of insurance for some glass cannons.
- Trickery: Camellia, Woljif. See above: by default, Camellia is better at Trickery than anyone else is at any other skill.
- Stealth: Arueshelae, Woljif. This has less use in this game than it does in tabletop—because it's trivial to Sneak Attack with Owlcat's flanking rules. It is checked to camouflage the camp and in some dialogues and story sequences, so it's worth stacking on one or two characters. There are also a handful of areas where having Stealth and Trickery on the same character is ideal because of trap placement.
- Knowledge (Arcana): Nenio, Daeran. This allows you to Scribe Scrolls at camp, which is useful throughout the game. Stacking it on Nenio and Daeran lets you scribe their arcane and divine spells, respectively, though you will need to find room for the Scribe Scrolls feat on Daeran. (A cute play would be to spec Seelah to Scribe Scrolls to share her unique paladin spells, but the investment likely isn't worth it.)
- Knowledge (World): Woljif. This allows you to cook and Brew Potions at camp. There are few naturals for this role who aren't committed elsewhere, and several of the most useful recipes have low DCs. Woljif is the only character with Brew Potions by default, and his high INT helps. Again, one or two dedicated specialists are nice to have.
- Lore (Nature): Lann, Wenduag. Mostly used to inspect enemies and delay rests. The former isn't a big concern, and there are other ways to mitigate the latter if needed (Seelah can take Mercy: Fatigued or Sosiel can grab Calming Touch via Impossible Domain: Community). It's nice to have, but it's not vital.
- Lore (Religion): Sosiel, Daeran, and maybe even Camellia. This helps mitigate abyssal corruption when camping, which helps you adventure for longer—though this isn't much of an issue in practice. It's also used to Treat Affliction, but the utility of this tails off quickly. Just pick it up on one or two people.
- Perception: This is useful on everyone, but it's especially nice on characters who have no other camping role to play and wear medium or heavy armor—because if they're keeping watch when you're ambushed, they won't lose their AC. (In practice, you will never be ambushed, so whatever.) Your entire party rolls for nearby hidden loot, doors, and traps, so it's a good investment across the board, and it's checked frequently in dialogues. All that said, if WotR follows Kingmaker's example, there will be some obscenely high Perception checks that only dedicated Perception bots will pass.
- Persuasion: Ember, Daeran. If you just want to pass dialogue skill checks, you only need one character with high Persuasion, and both these characters are built around CHA and have other bonuses (make sure you activate Ember's familiar). If you are building your party to Shatter Defenses, though, Seelah and Sosiel are other candidates for pumping Persuasion, especially if you can find room for the Intimidating Prowess feat.
- Use Magic Device: Nenio, Ember. This is potentially useful for anyone, though it's an uphill climb if it's not a class skill and they lack CHA. Nenio is the star here, provided you keep her as a Scroll Savant; at level 5, she gets a nice little buff to scrolls, and at level 10, she uses her caster level instead of the scroll's level. Don't sleep on this.
Good list. At the very least, new players should be aware of this.
Seelah also starts with decent trickery because of her background. I hate having my Paladin also play a thief role, but it's part of her story. I don't run with the other 2.
The single tip without going into a longer effortpost: Get the Enduring Spells and Greater Enduring Spells mythic abilities on your primary Divine caster/buffer. Having 24 hour duration buffs is insane QOL and it's even crazier with merged spellbooks on the Angel or Lich mythic paths
Yeah, I love this. Minmaxers will say it's technically a waste vs. Abundant Casting because you can just spam rest and rebuff with the lenient corruption mechanic, but whatever. It makes the game much, much more pleasant to play, and it can enable some crazy things at later levels (I saw a Reddit post where someone built to give themselves perma-Haste). I like it on my single-class Camellia and Woljif builds that focus on self-buffing before combat starts.
If you respec, I think its been said it breaks some mythic quests in later chapters.
I want a new game to play, and the OP makes this look really interesting with all of the unique classes.
If I know absolute zilch about Pathfinder, can I intuitively learn as I play or is the abyss way deeper than that?
Also, should I wait for a few patches, seeing the posts about the bugs?
If I know absolute zilch about Pathfinder, can I intuitively learn as I play or is the abyss way deeper than that?
Also, should I wait for a few patches, seeing the posts about the bugs?
Can I skip to Wrath of the Righteous? I'm not sure I have the time to play both and this feels like a Divinity Original Sin situation where I may go straight to the second game.
The stories are unrelated so you're not losing anything by jumping into WotR. However, it is very much the same game mechanically just in a new region/story. There's some UI and tutorial tweaks in the new game, but a lot of the scripting, balance, bugfixes, etc in Kingmaker is more polished. I also personally like the characters and setting of Kingmaker a bit more than where I'm at in WotR.
I started with a horse but it was too unreliable (pathing, dying all the time, etc) and ended up respecing out of it.
Horse can be a pain in dungeons because it's huge, but with a few feats and a surprising amount of equipable gear, it becomes a decent off-tank/dps that is always active vs. weapon bond that has a duration. I had death's door turned off for awhile, so it dying didn't matter, but I have it on now and I'm more careful with it, but it still does a decent job as another character. I would take it again if/when I respec Seelah.
I think someone also mentioned here that you can dip out of Pally for a level to get another type of pet.
Blind being permanent in a lot of circumstances is such a bad decision (which, to be clear, lays at the feet of Paizo, not Owlcat). It's kinda handwaved away, I feel, with remove blindness being a level 2 spell, but it can be such an incredibly debilitating condition, and to have to prep or know a spell specifically to get rid of it... bleh.
You 100% can, there's nothing in Wrath that relies on playing Kingmaker. I would say that in a general sense Wrath is just all around better than Kingmaker. Owlcat made improvements in almost every area; narrative, story structure, build options. Mythic abilities, feats, and classes add a lot of fun stuff. Unfortunately there are still rough spots; crusade mode is half-baked, combat balance can still sometimes be atrocious (though this was the same in Kingmaker, and simply carried over). Fighting a lot of demons has some weird disadvantages (can't use lightning unless you get the mythic elemental pen ability, lots of flat damage reduction). Wrath does have more bugs than current Kingmaker, it's true. But if you only had time or inclination to play one, personally I think Wrath is a better experience.
Players who loathe the crusade management stuff should know that you take a prolonged break from it in Chapter 4. It's really only present in Chapters 3 and 5, as far as I'm aware.
Generally, Chapter 4 is pretty impressive, and represents something with no real equivalent in Kingmaker. I'd guess it's partly a knowing nod to a famous section of BG2.
Generally, Chapter 4 is pretty impressive, and represents something with no real equivalent in Kingmaker. I'd guess it's partly a knowing nod to a famous section of BG2.
As said above, it's much the same game engine. But so far I'm liking Wrath a lot more - It's a bit more refined, has more options and classes... though I'm still in the early game and most people say there's still lots of bugs in later chapters.
Is this only after you get past Mythic Warrior? I've literally just gotten made the Knight Commander. I haven't actually reached my mythic class yet and don't wanna break something by messing around testing stuff on the same save.
Agreed it was terrible. Sucks because I love HoM&M 3, but ended up turning Crusader mode off a couple days before I took Drezen.
It's a permanent extra party member that will deal serious damage, ignore all damage resistances and be solid offtank with the Mythic companion feat. And with STR and DEX going well into the 20s, the horse can easily cover Athletics or Mobility skill checks (or both) as well, so you don't have to have Lann or Wenduag around all the time for those. And Seelah can use it as a mount too.
All that vs. a once or twice a day okay temporary buff.
It's not really close, take the horse.
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I'm of the opinion that you should always have an animal companion on somebody. It means more actions, more damage, more health, more carrying capacity, more skill check potential, etc. I can't speak to the horse specifically but if no one else is rocking a dog or something, go horse.
Question on Protection from Evil or Chaos. Would Protection against Evil also work against a demon which I assume is evil and chaos?
Finally got Greater Enduring and level 9 spells so I'm using the AutoBuff mod for my Cleric MC and wondering whether I should set it for Evil or Chaos? Thinking Evil is much more common.
Edit: Just checked and it's only a minute duration, so not enduring, but I still would like to know the answer!
Finally got Greater Enduring and level 9 spells so I'm using the AutoBuff mod for my Cleric MC and wondering whether I should set it for Evil or Chaos? Thinking Evil is much more common.
Edit: Just checked and it's only a minute duration, so not enduring, but I still would like to know the answer!
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God, trying to play an evil character in these kind of games is always so frustrating.
The evil dialog options basically amount to showing your ass at first sight to everyone and making everybody your enemy immediately (realistically) because you make fun of their dead children or something.
I mean, someone like Stalin could be very jovial and friendly on the surface, the knife in the back came later when someone didn't follow his ideas or something.
Is such a concept so hard to grasp? I don't want to play a character so incredibly dumb.
The evil dialog options basically amount to showing your ass at first sight to everyone and making everybody your enemy immediately (realistically) because you make fun of their dead children or something.
I mean, someone like Stalin could be very jovial and friendly on the surface, the knife in the back came later when someone didn't follow his ideas or something.
Is such a concept so hard to grasp? I don't want to play a character so incredibly dumb.
Either will work, but note that they don't stack. Also, the communal version is the one with a flat 1 minute duration; the single-target level 1 version should be minute per level. Also note, however, that it's I believe a deflection bonus to AC, the same type as ring of protection (so it doesn't stack), and a resistance bonus to all saves, the same type as a cloak of resistance (same deal). So once you start to get decent magic items it's generally outclassed. There is still the protection from mind effects/compulsion; I honestly can't remember the mechanics of that at the moment.
This is rude. Divine Weapon Bond slaps. Way better than a goofy pony.
Protection Against Evil works against Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, and Chaotic Evil alignments.
Protection Against Chaos works against Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, and Chaotic Evil alignments.
You can see a creature's alignment by inspecting it (tap Y, mouse over it), but this game is overwhelmingly stacked with Chaotic Evil enemies; that's the classic demon alignment (devils are Lawful Evil).
Sword of Heaven gets nuts. 2d6 extra holy damage per attack? Nice. Oh, it marks targets now, giving them -4AC? Great! Oh, it gives me haste but it's super haste that gives two extra attacks and quickens all spells 6th level or below? I just started laughing when I saw that one, and I still can pick another at mythic 10!
One of the common defenses I've seen of this is that, you don't have to take every evil conversation option. Except that every lawful or chaotic option will actually move you towards neutral, away from evil. So if you find no or very few evil options, but still want to be very lawful or chaotic, you'll end up as lawful neutral or chaotic neutral. As I've seen the options you get (granted, from playing a good playthrough), I really don't think you could actually pull off a PC that acts like Regill. You'd just end as lawful neutral.
Sword of heaven is also affected by greater enduring spells, if you take the ability that makes it last 1 minute per mythic rank. So you can have it permanently once you hit mythic 5. You can even take the one that lets you cast it on others to give it to pretty much your whole party. Granted, it's not particularly strong if your first two picks are the extended time and cast on others. If you got access to the super-haste effect sooner, I'd say going the party-buff route is almost mandatory for any angel. As it is, I ended up with the same -4 AC, and just ran the buff on my PC. Thought about respecing when I picked up the haste, but at that point I was smashing everything pretty good so just let it rock.
God ,i fucking hate how imprecise/unreliable the ground markers for AOE spells are in this game, by the way.
This character creator puts all RPGs I've played to this point to shame. I don't know what class to choose. Then they have the nerve to have six sub-classes...
May I ask which class dabbles in the Blind, Confusion, Paralyze, Sleep, Silence branch of magic? I usually do well with those.
May I ask which class dabbles in the Blind, Confusion, Paralyze, Sleep, Silence branch of magic? I usually do well with those.
I can't believe I missed the door to the special boss in Drezen the first time. Got it this time, but geez, it's right there.
most arcane casters will have access to plenty of that stuff but the Witch does debuffs particularly well with their class feature hexes.
Character creation is incredibly daunting. I've played Kingmaker (twice!), and I still just picked one class and ran it through without branching rather than deal with the complexity of planning a multiclass build. That's what I'd recommend doing for a first playthrough (and same for your companions - or just have them autoleveled, which I'm pretty sure is fine for moderate difficulty settings).
Just fyi, I think that if you're going to emphasize debuffs/CC, you'll want to be careful to 1) take all the spell penetration feats, and 2) take every stat increase/feat/item/whatever that increases the difficulty level of your spells. Otherwise I think it may be very hard to land that kind of spell on anything really dangerous, and lots of demons have spell resistance and good saving throws. My understanding is that as long as you take the spell penetration and pump up your caster stat such builds are very much viable, but I'll defer to anyone with a better understanding of the game if they disagree.
I hope the person that said let's have a tough fight right after solving a puzzle stubs their toe when getting up at night to go the bathroom.
I'm going to second witch, they are the premier debuff caster. Only problem is that there already is a witch companion, and another companion isn't a witch but is a hybrid class that has one of the defining witch features so you might feel that characters are redundant. There is enough room in character building even after class choice that you can make your character still distinct from the companions though so I wouldn't sweat it too much. The witch companion has the stigmatized witch archetype so probably don't pick that for your own character. Maybe look at the Winter Witch prestige class as something to work towards.
Combat log seems kind of buggy, because it's saying that Seelah attacks Incubus with "Bite", which makes no sense. She doesn't have any enchantments or feats that give her bite. Also, I finally just learned what the floating numbers above enemy heads are after all of this time. The numbers aren't all that intuitive at first, because they don't show your actual total, only your base number excluding modifiers.
Also, I get that when someone is rising from a prone position you can get an attack of opportunity, but are you also supposed to be getting them as they are being tripped or shoved out of combat? Because I'm getting an AoO twice from a trip now. The game seems to be treating them like the enemy is moving away. This wasn't happening before when I had a dog that would trip, and it doesn't happen when my leopard trips, but it does happen when I knock them down with my Kineticist, or when Battering Blast is used to shove them away.
Also, I get that when someone is rising from a prone position you can get an attack of opportunity, but are you also supposed to be getting them as they are being tripped or shoved out of combat? Because I'm getting an AoO twice from a trip now. The game seems to be treating them like the enemy is moving away. This wasn't happening before when I had a dog that would trip, and it doesn't happen when my leopard trips, but it does happen when I knock them down with my Kineticist, or when Battering Blast is used to shove them away.
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Oh wow, that's crazy. I went Guide the Faithful (-4AC), Everlasting Flame (lasts a minute per Mythic Rank), and Speed of light as mentioned, but I may still consider the party buff bit as it's just bananas to have a ten minute super haste that lets me fire off spells too.
Started playing it without any prior knowledge of Pathfinder and I feel like I'm doing fine.
It's a lot of reading in the beginning because you have to learn spells and systems or at least re-learn them from 5e.
I chose to auto-level companions to focus on my character and keep me spending time planning everyones paths somewhat in check for a first playthrough. I'm also switching to turn based for harder fights to be able to plan my moves better which makes the fights considerably "easier" for me.
I'm in act 2, over 40 hours into the game, taking my time but also still learning new systems from the game. I'm having a great time with it and can't wait to sink more hours into it. Depending on how much reading you can tolerate in your games, it's really good!