Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous vs BG3

Yeah, I've never played tabletop pathfinder, but uh, yeah, holy shit.

I've noted new stuff in chapter 1 that weren't there in the beta when I had played through. Like the abandoned cat that you can adopt, and the pet snake you can catch. Both confer +2 bonuses to perception, while one grants an additional bonus to lore arcana and the other grants another bonus to lore nature. But the cat's bonuses are marked as a morale bonus, while the other was an insight bonus. So having both pets equipped to the same character's usable item slots has the effects stack. (In my case, my Eldritch Archer who makes use of all three skill checks, by way of his Healer background making Lore Nature and Religion checks run off of his INT modifier instead of his WIS.)

On a side note, someone is finally uploading the entire OST to Youtube right now. I loved the soundtrack while playing through the beta. This game has so many combat themes that I was basically hearing new themes every time I progressed into a new chapter.

This is my personal favorite standard battle theme, one of about three that you start hearing upon reaching chapter 3.

Yeah, that was a kickstarter goal, so they they delivered. I also found several dialogues for specific races, gender and for some classes (not archetypes) so far. That is added to the unique dialogues of every mythic path. It´s been fun so far.

I end up changing Lann to a hunter (he has the underground hunter background) and picked the nastiest, smelliest cur I found as an animal companion, and I call it "Wendy"
I think that´s something Lann would do =D

Even for RTwP, for an intro dungeon the Shield Maze is way over the top. I played on Hard so it was a bit rough but even if you play on Normal that amount of fights is unnecessary. Especially when your party is at level 2, meaning that you simply don't have a whole lot of resources or "tactics" to rely on. Whether fights are easy or hard or just right, it gets boring quickly. I have mods that make the first dungeon of BG2 much harder and it's still doesn't feel drawn out to this extent. That Large Water Elemental alone probably took like half an hour...

Pro tip: In the gazillion difficulty options there is one to modify the number of enemies, which includes enemies per encounter and also the number of encounters. That applies to the first dungeon too.

If you find there are too many encounters for your taste, check the option because if you are playing hard mode you may have it to the maximum.

Then again that also probably means falling behind on the exp curve at some point.

In my experience in the beta, it does not matter much. You get way more XP for completing quests and skill checks than killing and you level up the mythic class by milestones, it´s tied to the story, not your xp gained.
It seems it could be different for the Mythic Legend path, that it is rumored to allow you to gain xp fastest so your "standard" class will go to up to level 30 or more. That said, you lose your mythic powers following that path.

So I finished chapter 1 and I have to say the characters in Wrath are (mostly) way above and the ones in BG3.

I take Daeran over Astarion any day.
The only direct "archetyp" comparsion BG3 wins is the wizard because Nenio is (so far) pretty annoying.

Larian would do well to hire the writes from Owlcat. Or at least have their writers play Wrath a ton and then lock them in a room till they rewrote the companions.

I did not try trip in a horse, but cleave, power attack, etc works that way and the wolf and leopard trips automatically when hit.

I feel like Nenio is a case of the writers knowing that you can't have a realistically well rounded cast if -everyone- was likeable to the standards of the audience. One could say it's a fundamental difference in writing philosophy, in that the WotR cast may be written largely to enhance the overall narrative, rather than to solely please the audience.

What I mean is that the writing is self aware enough that the rest of the cast occasionally dunks on Nenio as the game progresses, and the player character also gets many opportunities to disparage her in dialogue too. Because why the hell would they not? A self-professed know it all scientist that's only a stone's throw away from embarking on the same path as the exact kind of person responsible for the state of the region should rightfully get heavily scrutinized. That said, I think she's just as important to the narrative as everyone else for this reason, and ends up being likeable in the end in a very roundabout way as a result.

The only thing I'll say that exemplifies how even the rest of the cast may be just as baffled as the player is... Well, you should take Nenio along in the Lost Chapel in chapter 2, if you also found and brought a certain wand with you.

I've heard very spicy things from other beta testers who brought Nenio and Regill together in their parties too. Apparently ultra spicy if throw Woljif into the mix on top of that.

(There's also other curious pairings such as Ember and Daeran that I never brought along together in my main party, of which I've only heard good things about how those two interact. How they treat each other is apparently not what you’d expect from neutral good and neutral evil characters. Incidentally, I think a big part of Daeran's popularity seems like it might come from this exact pairing, which is really tempting me enough to consider benching Lann in favor of Daeran for my main party in order to see this for myself, especially since my Eldritch Archer and later Arueshalae together already covers most of what Lann does.)

Ember and Cam or Seelah and Darien have some juicy dialogues too.

Now that i mention her, I think Ember has banters with anybody in the beta =D. She is a strange character, but if you read what she is saying she makes more sense with her babbling than many others. She has some interesting banters.

Regill is also a must, it would be great if you can pick him sooner like Arueshalae in the game. Bet he would have something to say about Kenavres.

I dunno about the characters per se and the writing, that could be a matter of tastes, but what i can safely say is that i am enjoying much more the stories and banters of the characters in Wotr than the ones of Astarion or Wyill. They are better merged into the main story IMHO.

Camellia and Lann can get really nasty towards each other too. Consistently so.


I mean, I really don't want to speak on this, but I will probably forget if I don't and since we're bringing it up now...

On the topic of BG3, I only hope to see a similar level of party interactivity by the time the rest of the companions get to join our parties here. I feel the only real reason the BG3 companions are seemingly universally polarizing at the moment is that they give off the impression that they are seemingly detached from the actual plot, or maybe even clashing with it in terms of trying to catch your attention. Like you could remove Gale or Astarion especially, or move them to joining the party later in the game, and the narrative of the actual story probably wouldn't feel like it has changed in any significant way. Granted, there's only 5 companions that can join us right now, but the lack of variety just makes this viewpoint seem worse than it actually is.

Remove any of the WotR companions in comparison, and you not only lose the perspective they bring to the narrative and from their specific backgrounds in terms of how they relate to the actual story, but you also lose the party banter that serves to build up the other characters interacting with them too. This becomes especially apparent later in the game, especially throughout chapter 3. It's an interesting comparison of writing philosophy, at least.

When I played the game for the first time through alpha phase 1, I didn't think the party members were really anything special at first. Then alpha phase 2 happened with chapter 3 being added, and my opinions on all of the companions had completely flipped by the end of it.

Like Ember. I thought she was just the eternally annoying young optimist character for no good reason. Oh boy, I was so glad to be very wrong on this front. She's still an optimist, but tempered by an understanding of reality that stops her from going into full stupid, and her optimism despite all she has experienced is instead one of her strengths rather than a flaw. Very intriguing, really.

For example, if your character is an atheist, you get this unique dialogue with Ember.


Now that I know I'm not alone in this assessment with the game being fully released, it makes me excited to see how people will analyze the rest of the cast in a few weeks from now.

I would say the weakest companion in WotR is Sosiel, but I would say that might be purely because I never really noticed him interacting with the rest of party or reacting to certain situations/enemies as much as everyone else does. Not even when I did bring him into the active party during his personal quests and a certain thing temporarily forcing players to change up the party in the second half of chapter 2. And whenever he does interject in something, it's not that interesting, I think. But the devs have long known that Sosiel was generally universally agreed to be the worst companion from a writing standpoint throughout the entire testing period, so I wonder if the last beta phase and the full release may have improved him somewhat.

I did look through all the options, and did notice it. Though, admittedly, I did also forget about it until the part where your group and the half-orc paladin chick ran into 15 enemies outside the dungeon. I was puzzled a couple seconds then remembered there was that option. So it affects the number of encounters too? Good to know.

I think I can say that while wotr is by no means perfect, it is a good crpg and the options ALONE mean that you can have a very customizable experience. Any class, any build is possible if you're willing to adjust the difficulty options. Now of course, most people will refuse to change the difficulty to suit their current knowledge/skill/build, but at some point, if you want to enjoy the game you're playing, why not fiddle with the massive amount of options you've been given? You'll change your build/gear, why wouldn't you change the options?

Excellent!
This is one of the most impirtant things I love about this game. In an RPG I'm all for downgrading XP gain for killing things. An RPG should be first and foremost about the story and quests, and even things like skill checks, and combat should be dead last in relevance for advancing the game. BG3 should learn from this example.

My problem so far is that the game makes me feel dumb and dialogues are way too repetitive. Like, Something is thoroughly explained, like real overexposure about everything, and then I get a dialogue, and what's that? Asking about the same things they talked about just literally seconds before.


Like, all these dialogues, except the attack are about stuff that was told and answered a few moments before, like, literally the same demon explained her evil plan to the wardstone, and the dwarf and Irabeth explained who she was, etc.


Like, I'm not saying the game is bad, it's just, small things are making me feel really bored, and hard to progress, I'm not hyped to keep playing. The only good thing honestly is the companions, I love Lann btw. He is such a nice guy. And I want to throw Camila off a cliff, I really want to. And I'm also enduring because I want to soon have my Succubus future wife.
But the main story and the writing is the weakest point for me so far.
I hope I change my mind at later acts, but having this feeling, in the beginning, is annoying, to say the least.

Before playing WoTr, the essential portrait mod (Heroes of Stolen Lands)
https://www.nexusmods.com/pathfinderwrathoftherighteous/mods/27

That's why in this particular instance I chose option #3.

It's a matter of principles to leave those options in. There are reasons why a player would want to be reminded of a particular detail. Like in my case, it's not rare that I would be playing a game half asleep around 3 in the morning, then after I take my 12h sleep and get back to the game, I realize I'd skipped through the last 12 conversations without really registering anything into my brain. Or maybe like when my friend is trying to play the game when his two kids just keep fighting and screaming into his ears. He would keep selecting the option asking the NPC to explain things again, then turn to his kids to tell them to quiet down, and then realize he's forgotten what the NPC just said.

What disappoints me more is the fact that all these options are still mostly written in the plain, minimalist, unexpressive style like in P:K.

I noticed that too when I was checking some feats on my current party (and planning how to respec Lann - done that now, he's an absolute powerhouse now). It's honestly a small but incredibly fun thing for me, personally, as I tend to pour over in-game books and the like. I feel half of the weight for the party inventory is just the books I'm lugging around planning to read when I've a moment to stop.

Sadly I've not yet found many instances in my own dialogue for Pharasma, but I have seen a few for being a dhampir! They're subtle, but I like seeing them crop up - especially regarding companions who are 'different' expressing to you how it's like to live as an Other, and them always saying stuff along the lines of "but I'm sure you know just as well as us what it's like, huh?" It's the little things like that which I always appreciate for cRPGs like this, and WotR is not disappointing.


The options are there in case people are forgetful, or followed a different branch of dialogue - I often skip over anything I've already heard from other sources, or the options to "tell me again" in the tavern; they're there in case I forget, but until then, I don't have to click on them. Their existence certainly doesn't make me feel I or my character is dumb, however - in fact, my character often feels smarter than me when it comes to this setting, haha. Might just be a personal thing.

I've come across some small things that are a little odd or just not as good, but overall the writing feels very solid past the prologue and engages me more than some of BG3's dialogue... playing BG3 at present, I didn't really feel that attached to anyone in the group, nor that concerned about what was going on in the grove. Perhaps it's simply the difference in how they're presented - I like the style of old cRPGs where much of it is just reading, as if from a book. BG3's cinematic presentation is nice and beautiful, but... feels like it's taking me out of things more often. I'm not feeling that way in WotR.

It doesn't have as good of writing as say, Pillars of Eternity did - but it's by no means boring or awful to me, and in fact keeps making me want to continue fighting through things so I can get to more story, more dialogue, more instances of interaction with my companions (I adore all of them... aside from Camellia. Yes, even Daeran is endearing in a weird amusing way).


Especially as someone who, until this game, was entirely unfamiliar with the Pathfinder setting, going into this and learning and being dragged into the world and it's problems has been quite enjoyable. I've pumped 18 hours into it the past few days, and I feel I've barely even scratched the surface. The game is meaty and just what I had been looking for to sate the cRPG desire that BG3 is not fulfilling in its current state of EA.

I just hope the remaining bugs and issues with the game from a technical standpoint get addressed fairly quickly - I'm still lamenting not being able to do Gwerm's Mansion before we saved the city.

Encounter design so far is not very good, worse than PK imo. I've just played through a scenario where the allied crusade melee fighters stood there doing nothing, unless the enemy got very close to them. It feels like an unintended comedy, except it makes turn based unplayable due to the sheer number of combined ally and enemy units.