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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
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Honestly, I don't care how faithful the monster stats are.
They have been changed so many times between editions that it is not consistent anyway.
Statistics are the least important part.
In the end, only few people will care.
In addition, the Intellect Devourer is a much more iconic monster that will be known to most players. How many players do Lemure know?
Ultimately, dnd itself encourages you to customize monsters to your needs.
Besides, the imp as boss fight is not very interesting, don't you think? ??? I totally don't agree. First, faithful monster stats determine what you're fighting. Not having faithful monster stats means you aren't fighting the thing you think you're fighting. Imagine fighting a mind flayer that doesn't take control of people's minds or does anything with the mind. They just slash you with their hand claws. That's what Larian has done to the intellect devourers. I don't care what it looks like, if it doesn't act like an intellect devourer, it's not an intellect devourer. Secondly, I don't mind at all if Larian and/or other devs create their own versions of monsters, but give them something different for a name - like Astral Plane Intellect Devourers or whatever. Part of being creative is that you invent new things, but if you're inventing new things give it new names. Don't call it a cat but make it act like a bird (unless you give it wings... lol... but then you'd have a tressym, now wouldn't you?) Thirdly, the fact that many players have no idea what a Lemure is... that's EXACTLY why they should use it. How much more interesting is that than fighting the same things you've fought before in other games (intellect devourer in Neverwinter Nights, for example - which, by the way, used proper intellect devourer abilities and such and was very well done). That's one of my issues with BG3 right now also. Instead of using a variety of creatures and taking full advantage of the monster manual, they're giving us the same old monsters that other games have given us. Why the heck NOT throw lemures at us so players are like, "What the heck is that?" Why not throw a few more fiendish monsters in there? Bring the Blood War to the nautiloid and have winged demons like vrocks drop manes and dretches onto the decks to fight? I mean, at this point, I doubt they'd do this because of how far they are into production, but DUDE! Yes! Give us some different monsters to fight. Give us some new things and create some variety. And lastly, I absolutely think an imp would make for an awesome Prologue Boss Fight. Creativity! That's the key. WotC has already provided a decent starting template for a working final boss imp. Imagine this: Chrigs, the Imp - Final Boss Fight on the Nautiloid just before the helm. Chrigs has 13 AC and 15 HP (giving him a bit more than the average imp). He has a nasty scar on his head and a broken horn, and his right eye is missing - just an eye socket. Chrigs begins by turning invisible as his two lemures charge at you to try to block you from getting to the helm. Chrigs reappears and attacks you with his sting. +5 to hit, he rolls 15 and hits. He does 4 damage and you make a Constitution save of 12. Success. You take half damage from his 3d6 poison. His roll is 9. So you've lost a total of 9 HP between the initial damage and the poison (with half damage because you succeeded in the save). You're a fighter, so most of your health is gone in one hit. Or maybe you're a mage. He just took you down in one hit. Thankfully, you have Lae'zel and Shadowheart and Us. Lae'zel rushes up to him with sword and shield and attacks. Hits. Does 5 damage, but he's resistant. Dang! That's only 3 damage. He still has 12 left. Thankfully, Shadowheart has Guiding Bolt. She casts it and hits. 11 damage. So glad you saved it. He's only got 1 HP left because Guiding Bolt wasn't reduced. Chrigs turns invisible again. The lemures attack, wounding Lae'zel. It's not much, but it's a bit. Shadowheart rushes up and heals you. Lae'zel attacks the lemures. Chrigs reappears near the helm and has one of those brine bombs. He throws it at Lae'zel and deals damage to her. He then laughs and mocks her as he takes cover behind the helm. Together, your party finishes the lemures. Chrigs drinks a potion and rushes forward, positioning himself between you and the helm so he'll get an attack of opportunity with his sting if you attempt to run past him. Shadowheart tries again with Guiding Bolt and misses. Dang! You attack. Lae'zel attacks. Still, he's standing either because of resistance or because you missed him. He transforms into a raven and flies up to something dangling over your heads. With a snip of his beak, he cuts it loose. It drops on Lae'zel. See. There's all sorts of things you CAN do with an imp. You could give him a fun weapon. You could give him personality where he makes all sorts of fun remarks while he fights you. I'm sorry, but a taunting, devilish, mischievous imp as a boss fight for a Prologue makes a TON of sense and could be VERY rewarding and enjoyable. I still prefer the current versions. I never really cared about statistics. In the older games, they didn't really care too much either. This is something that does not matter from RP's point of view. Minimum and maximum HP for mobs exists. The aim of the prologue is to make it "epic". It is a desperate defense of mind flayers against githyanki that local devils have chosen to get involved in. Another thing is that lemures can't fly and the devils didn't have time to prepare for real attack. The devils that appeared on the ship got there because they were fast enough. The entire prologue takes no more than a few minutes, otherwise the ship would be destroyed in Avernus. From a plot point of view, the presence of imps makes perfect sense. Leaving aside, the imp swarm looks better than the slime pile.
Last edited by Rhobar121; 03/06/22 10:25 PM.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Feb 2021
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Well. To each their own. But, I will say, hellsboars can't fly either.
There are always ways around such things.
Don't get me wrong. Hellsboars are cool. I like them. They're actually good level 1 enemies. I'm totally fine with them and actually like them a lot.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2012
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As far as the encounter design / enemy usage goes, I do find it hard to take (at least) Kingmaker seriously when it resorts to you fighting the same encounter over and over again in the final stretch, and some shmucks in the Pitax palace are more dangerous than an ancient cyclopean lich who can be defeated in one round. The Pitax part in general is where the first game starts falling apart at the seams both narratively and gameplay-wise, and if the WotR responses are anything to go by, Owlcat do seem to have a thing for starting (relatively) strong but then running out of steam past about two-thirds of the game.
I kinda hope for Rogue Trader to be smaller than what they usually aim for because of that. Shorter, but without nearly as much repitition and filler between the actually good parts of the game.
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member
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member
Joined: May 2022
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Two maybe not directly related thoughts:
It's ok to not care at all about statistics and monsters being true to the rule, but ultimately my feeling is if that is your take (and it's valid) then using the D&D license doesn't really matter for you. As it stands I think the monsters per rules are more interesting than what Larian is doing and more appropriate to the setting. In a progression RPG I think trying to make the prologue more epic by introducing nerfed version of more impressive monster is a bad idea. With nerfed here I mean: no lore reason for them to be weaker and having the same name as P&P enemies but missing abilities. Crippled, diseased or baby versions of the same monsters would work better.
As for WotR I have written it before and I'll likely do so again - for me it is the best RPG since at least PoE 2: Deadfire and probably longer than that. I don't really see any chance for BG 3 to even come close to it in my esteem at the moment. WotR is a game with serious flaws, and yes, I agree the map random encounters are one of them. But it's a tiny part of a game that reaches heights in other areas that the vast majority of other RPGs don't even approximate. Flawed masterpieces are just preferable to polished standard fare.
For what's it worth I am pretty ambivalent about Kingmaker, so it's not even about RtWP, Pathfinder or being an Owlcat fan for me.
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addict
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addict
Joined: Sep 2017
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BG3 is only going to be distinct for the cinematics and full voice, which is maybe why Larian decided to go that route for EVERY encounter after initially aiming for only important scenes. The Larian "balance", homebrew, unnecessary items, and gimmicks are terrible.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
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As far as the encounter design / enemy usage goes, I do find it hard to take (at least) Kingmaker seriously when it resorts to you fighting the same encounter over and over again in the final stretch, and some shmucks in the Pitax palace are more dangerous than an ancient cyclopean lich who can be defeated in one round. The Pitax part in general is where the first game starts falling apart at the seams both narratively and gameplay-wise, and if the WotR responses are anything to go by, Owlcat do seem to have a thing for starting (relatively) strong but then running out of steam past about two-thirds of the game.
I kinda hope for Rogue Trader to be smaller than what they usually aim for because of that. Shorter, but without nearly as much repitition and filler between the actually good parts of the game. I would say the game died with the Vordakai. From that moment the game suffers from a huge drop in quality. The game would have been better if they had cut out the rest of the content at this point and moved to the end.
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addict
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Joined: Oct 2020
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As far as the encounter design / enemy usage goes, I do find it hard to take (at least) Kingmaker seriously when it resorts to you fighting the same encounter over and over again in the final stretch, and some shmucks in the Pitax palace are more dangerous than an ancient cyclopean lich who can be defeated in one round. The Pitax part in general is where the first game starts falling apart at the seams both narratively and gameplay-wise, and if the WotR responses are anything to go by, Owlcat do seem to have a thing for starting (relatively) strong but then running out of steam past about two-thirds of the game.
I kinda hope for Rogue Trader to be smaller than what they usually aim for because of that. Shorter, but without nearly as much repitition and filler between the actually good parts of the game. That's fair. I also generally prefer shorter games anyway, so I hope for that too.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
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Two maybe not directly related thoughts:
It's ok to not care at all about statistics and monsters being true to the rule, but ultimately my feeling is if that is your take (and it's valid) then using the D&D license doesn't really matter for you. As it stands I think the monsters per rules are more interesting than what Larian is doing and more appropriate to the setting. In a progression RPG I think trying to make the prologue more epic by introducing nerfed version of more impressive monster is a bad idea. With nerfed here I mean: no lore reason for them to be weaker and having the same name as P&P enemies but missing abilities. Crippled, diseased or baby versions of the same monsters would work better.
As for WotR I have written it before and I'll likely do so again - for me it is the best RPG since at least PoE 2: Deadfire and probably longer than that. I don't really see any chance for BG 3 to even come close to it in my esteem at the moment. WotR is a game with serious flaws, and yes, I agree the map random encounters are one of them. But it's a tiny part of a game that reaches heights in other areas that the vast majority of other RPGs don't even approximate. Flawed masterpieces are just preferable to polished standard fare.
For what's it worth I am pretty ambivalent about Kingmaker, so it's not even about RtWP, Pathfinder or being an Owlcat fan for me. WoTR has too many problems to be called a masterpiece. The game for the premiere was in an extremely terrible condition. Sometimes it couldn't even be completed (demon, bitch). At some point I had to basically start the whole act all over again. It's good that it happened in the second act, and not later, because I probably wouldn't have finished the game. Some classes did not work (recently when I played it has not changed completely). All descriptions were literally copied from the pnp, although they worked completely different in the game. I don't want to write about the fact that some mythical paths did not work properly (I wonder if they finally fixed the golden dragon). Which by no means should have happened considering it's the main feature. Of course, the chance is that they will eventually fix it, but I doubt that in WoTR you can find a lot of serious bugs already present from Kingsmaker. The first two acts are really great but then a huge drop in quality starts to show up. Sometimes it feels like a completely different game. The game has problems with the fights design from the very beginning. I have the impression that the developers literally do not understand the concept of cr. There are a lot of battles in the game that a team on a low level should never have to fight. Of course, it would be a smaller problem if the monster skills were implemented as they are in the pnp, but of course they also had to overdo it here. I don't know why, but the devs just love enemies with high DC who take the whole team out. Of course, they are often skills without protection or it is only available from a much higher level. These skills are balanced by the player being immune to the next ones after they expire. Of course, they completely forgot about the implementation of the last part, which means that many enemies will be able to literally stun lock the whole party forever. I wrote about random encounters before. It is simply an accumulation of the remaining combat issues raised to the power of not being buffed and being surrounded. The game starts dropping a lot from act 3. There is absolutely nothing in the game on the level of the Battle of Drezen. While act 3 is still quite nice, not counting the dubious project of battles, it only gets worse. Act 4 introduces probably the worst navigable city in history. Here again, the rather interesting idea of a changing environment has been overused. None of the creators thought that while it looks great the first time, it becomes irritating and frustrating when you have to cover the same route over and over again. Was it so difficult to design this location so that it would change once or at the moment of proper progress? Finally we end act 4 and come to act 5 which is just weak. I would compare it at best to Arx in DoS2 (base version). The act is clearly incomplete. And the Iz battle itself and the dungeon lately are pretty bad. Honestly, I was expecting something on the Drezen level. In act 5 there is also one of the worst dungeons in crpg games, Enigma. I don't feel like writing about the crusade system. This is another unnecessary adding to the game and above all a boring system. If, instead of wasting time, they had concentrated on completing Act 5 and fixing bugs, it would have been better. This is one of those pieces where the game would gain a lot, if it had just been cut. This is where I will end because I have quite a long post anyway.
Last edited by Rhobar121; 07/06/22 10:24 PM.
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apprentice
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apprentice
Joined: Dec 2021
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Oh man, I had a very similar experience with WOTR, although I did not encounter anything that would actually brick my game.
I still want to love it and complete it as I've never actually completed Act 5 but anytime I try to focus to do it I remember just how much I'll have to go through, and ugh. Feels like theorycrafting a build is more fun than actually trying to play it out. I was left with the impression that Owlcat do care for the game but they also wanted to make more, make everything "bigger", stronger, and so on but in the end neither part received proper attention.
Last edited by Ruswarr; 07/06/22 09:37 PM.
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enthusiast
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Joined: Jun 2012
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I would say the game died with the Vordakai.
From that moment the game suffers from a huge drop in quality.
The game would have been better if they had cut out the rest of the content at this point and moved to the end. It had some good parts - I liked a few of the late-game non-mandatory locations, such as the First World mini-bosses and the tomb that you unlock by defeating them all, although the obnoxious puzzle that you had to run to two separate areas to solve, wasting tons of time if you didn't have a portal network in your towns, is awful. The Spawn of Rovagug was a cool boss fight too, although it was DLC content (to be fair, a lot of the final, more or less fixed version of the game wasn't there at first). But Pitax, the HatEoT and its preambule, and the epilogue were just an extra 15-20 hours of mostly monotonous dungeon cleanup with repeating fights. Plus, the game had the gall to hide the Best Ending (tm) behind you having to max out the curse research, wasting time on kingdom projects that take ages and don't do anything, and when Pitax and beyond hit you basically can't do anything except solve crises or lose the game. To be fair, I couldn't really give a crap about Nyrissa neither in character nor myself. She doesn't really gives you any justification to, and the whole "I am evil because I was cursed to be evil" thing doesn't really help her case much. Why the writers assumed that your character would be infatuated with her is beyond me.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
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I would say the game died with the Vordakai.
From that moment the game suffers from a huge drop in quality.
The game would have been better if they had cut out the rest of the content at this point and moved to the end. It had some good parts - I liked a few of the late-game non-mandatory locations, such as the First World mini-bosses and the tomb that you unlock by defeating them all, although the obnoxious puzzle that you had to run to two separate areas to solve, wasting tons of time if you didn't have a portal network in your towns, is awful. The Spawn of Rovagug was a cool boss fight too, although it was DLC content (to be fair, a lot of the final, more or less fixed version of the game wasn't there at first). But Pitax, the HatEoT and its preambule, and the epilogue were just an extra 15-20 hours of mostly monotonous dungeon cleanup with repeating fights. Plus, the game had the gall to hide the Best Ending (tm) behind you having to max out the curse research, wasting time on kingdom projects that take ages and don't do anything, and when Pitax and beyond hit you basically can't do anything except solve crises or lose the game. To be fair, I couldn't really give a crap about Nyrissa neither in character nor myself. She doesn't really gives you any justification to, and the whole "I am evil because I was cursed to be evil" thing doesn't really help her case much. Why the writers assumed that your character would be infatuated with her is beyond me. Using the toolbox and enabling the option of setting all edicts to 1 day will significantly improve the game.
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Banned
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Banned
Joined: Dec 2020
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Well I see Pathfinder Wrath of Righteous is overrated to kingdom come. When I finally would have time to play more it cost up to KINGDOM Come. Hell not not paying those prices. Guess I wait if needed even 6 months for big discount.
I have already bought BG3 and played early Access.
Last edited by Terminator2020; 17/06/22 07:30 AM.
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Joined: Oct 2020
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Too funny seing people criticize WoTr...yet what ELSE IS THERE TO COMPARE?? Solasta? BG3? and uuuh...DOS2?!
There is so much content and detail in that game its just too easy to rip it apart.
Truth is, there is nothing like it nowadays. I think its hardly overrated. Its not perfect but it has PLENTY of GREAT THINGS. For every couple things you dislike I can give you a BOAT load of good things. Which is the total opposite of BG3.
Last edited by mr_planescapist; 17/06/22 09:21 AM.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2020
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Too funny seing people criticize WoTr...yet what ELSE IS THERE TO COMPARE?? Solasta? BG3? and uuuh...DOS2?!
There is so much content and detail in that game its just too easy to rip it apart.
Truth is, there is nothing like it nowadays. I think its hardly overrated. Its not perfect but it has PLENTY of GREAT THINGS. For every couple things you dislike I can give you a BOAT load of good things. Which is the total opposite of BG3. I love this. U cannot possibly dislike a title I enjoyed and dismiss it as trash. Only I can do that with something you like...
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2012
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Too funny seing people criticize WoTr...yet what ELSE IS THERE TO COMPARE?? Solasta? BG3? and uuuh...DOS2?!
There is so much content and detail in that game its just too easy to rip it apart.
Truth is, there is nothing like it nowadays. I think its hardly overrated. Its not perfect but it has PLENTY of GREAT THINGS. For every couple things you dislike I can give you a BOAT load of good things. Which is the total opposite of BG3. Pillars 1 and 2? Both are enormous games in their own right that don't have a boat(tm)-load of repetitive content and poorly implemented systems that are there because the dev team felt like slapping something on top. PoE1's castle management is as light and unobtrusive as it gets, and while some (or many? Don't know for sure) really hated the ship customization and naval combat in PoE2, I, for one, really enjoyed it, though I am a sucker for text-based things (which at least one Pathfinder game implemented really disappointignly) and the XVII century ships. They also have a RtWP combat system that doesn't suck since it wasn't an attempt to shoehorn a turn-based system into real-time, and was built for RtWP from the start with every mechanic actually making sense. Playing both on the Path of the Damned difficulty for 100+ hours was a great experience. Even PoE2's ending, while a letdown, didn't really leave much of a sour aftertaste. Playing even Kingmaker on Challenging turned into a test in patience at the 60-hour mark (out of the 92 that it took me to beat it), and I wanted it to just freaking end. Yes, neither of them was perfect on release either, requiring heavy rebalancing and adding of things (like how I don't really see PoE2 working without a few of the challenges turned on, and PoE1 had its mechanics basically remade because the first version was a head-scratcher here and there), but, unlike the Pathfinder games, patches and updates actually polished and perfected them into a really shiny final product, not a broken mess that both Kingmaker (after how many years?) and WotR (which they have the gall to release awful DLC for without fixing the bugs already there) were and still remain to this day. As for BG3 - if I can squeeze more enjoyment out of an EA fustercluck with one incomplete act of content, questionable implementation of the source ruleset, and many mechanics still missing than out of the checklist-y blanket of a game that was Kingmaker with its god-awful writing, terrible pacing, bad encounter balancing, uselessness/sub-optimal state of most features and classes (pure arcane spellcasters basically become useless in the late game), mobile game-like kingdom management, and a map mostly consisting of repeating locations containing at most a fight or two and some item, then, well, I guess Larian are doing at least something right in my book. I still haven't played WotR and I dunno if I'll have it in me, honestly. If it's more of the same but doubles down of what was already bad in the first game, then no thanks.
Last edited by Brainer; 17/06/22 11:23 AM.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
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Too funny seing people criticize WoTr...yet what ELSE IS THERE TO COMPARE?? Solasta? BG3? and uuuh...DOS2?!
There is so much content and detail in that game its just too easy to rip it apart.
Truth is, there is nothing like it nowadays. I think its hardly overrated. Its not perfect but it has PLENTY of GREAT THINGS. For every couple things you dislike I can give you a BOAT load of good things. Which is the total opposite of BG3. How much garbage there is compared to worthwhile stuff? In my book one doesn't get point for creating 100-200hour experience, if only handful of those hours are worth experiencing. These days I value my time more then money. I can't comment for WotC as I didn't try it out, but that is how I felt about Kingmaker. I can compare it to many things - and it comfortably sits as the worst campaign I played alongside original Nevewinter Nights - really poor story, horrible pacing, small amount of content spread throughout a bloated, repetitive map, just overall a poorly designed title. If you asked me which one I want to replay less, it would be a tough pick. I backed the sequel though - I don't have a courage to fire it up, though. I am glad you like their games. It might be Bethesda thing again - many people enjoyed their games, and I just can't see why.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Oct 2020
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I really WANT to love WOTR, but.... I just can't. I am in that city in hell and.... it feels like a job more than a game. I can't force myself to play more than 10 minutes at a time.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2009
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I think that at least some of the case for fighting those high-CR monsters at the start could be fixed simply by adding the words "injured" or "badly wounded" (or something to that effect) in front of the name, so that you're not fighting a full strength Intellect Devourer, you're fighting a "Badly Wounded Intellect Devourer". Larian wouldn't have to change anything else about the enemies, but the qualifiers would serve as an adequate hand-wave for being able to survive those fights.
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veteran
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Joined: Feb 2020
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I really WANT to love WOTR, but.... I just can't. I am in that city in hell and.... it feels like a job more than a game. I can't force myself to play more than 10 minutes at a time. This is the worst part of the game imo...
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Feb 2021
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I think that at least some of the case for fighting those high-CR monsters at the start could be fixed simply by adding the words "injured" or "badly wounded" (or something to that effect) in front of the name, so that you're not fighting a full strength Intellect Devourer, you're fighting a "Badly Wounded Intellect Devourer". Larian wouldn't have to change anything else about the enemies, but the qualifiers would serve as an adequate hand-wave for being able to survive those fights. This is ALMOST true. Add Wounded in front of imps and intellect devourers and then give them back their abilities - like sting and devour intellect and resistance. OR... Call them something different. Intellect Devourer could be Ustilagor, baby intellect devourers, and imps could be something like Imp Grunt or Fledgling Imp or Imp Peon. Just something to let us know they are inferior to normal versions. But then they'd have to call phase spiders something different too, like Phase Teleport Spitter Spiders, and wood woads and mud mephits would need new names too, and harpies would be Stone Throwing No Club Harpies etc, etc, etc
Last edited by GM4Him; 17/06/22 12:28 PM.
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