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

I agree, that was a staple of D&D 3.5, luckily the usefulness of low-level mages was improved in 5e. I think it was a reaction against the overwhelming power of casters in AD&D and 2e that end up backfiring in the end =D. 5e made a good job reaching the classic D&D feel but updating the ruleset to make it more easily playable.
In Pf1e you get feats every 2 levels so the basic caster will need "spell penetration" and "greater spell penetration" pus "point blank" and "precise shot" if you plan to use ray spells and maybe a mythic feat (that you get at level 6 and you another in Drezen at 7-8) so that puts you in level 6-7 instead of level 12, if you are playing a class/archetype or race that does not give you extra feats ( Elves and half-elves could have a natural bonus to overcome SR, and humans, wizards, sorcerers, skalds,... and many archetypes give you extra feats) but, even if you have useful spells before that, you reach your true potential much later than martial classes




Yeeeah... because only wizards have spells that ignore SR and it´s only the pits. You have grease, acid arrow, ice ball, glitterdust, web, entangle, to name a few very good low-level spells ...and you do not have tons of ways to improve your chances to overcome the spell resistance even if you don't (the same as the ways to use tactics to improve your chances to land a hit or to deal damage)
You can check all the spells that ignore spell resistance, most of them are in the game (they are over 30, many are available for many classes)
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/tools/spells-db
Add to that all the hexes and supernatural abilities, that by definition ignore spell resistance.

You also have a mythic feat that allows you to ignore energy resistance ( I miss one to ignore poison resistance for druids and Hunters, I think there´s a mod for that), something not usually available. Maybe it´s because I´m used to tabletop but that helps the spellcasters a lot. You reach a point in the game where you can overcome the spell resistance of most enemies ( unless the dice god is in a srewd mood).

That doubles in the case of normal combat: you can use normal attacks just fine unless you are playing core and above besides against some enemies, and if you are not enjoying yourself for some reason, that´s a thing you can tweak in the options, it´s not even a cheat. It´s a single-player game, you can play as you want. My sister played on Story mode to enjoy the story and roleplay and she did just fine. People play the game for different reasons, all valid.

I do not say you are not in the right, and I am not going "Git Good" in a single-player game where you can play as you want; but (and I am assuming you are discussing in good faith not over-exaggerating on purpose) I think you and I have very different standards about the impact that it has in the game. Games where you can hit the enemy with any attack at any level with any class in the way of Skyrim (otherwise a great game),Dungeon siege,Castlevania, Amalur, etc... where all the enemies have only a total of 4 or 5 abilities and combat tactics, etc are not really my cup of tea. Those have stale combat. In this game, not so much for me.

Chapter 2 looks real promising so far (about mid-way through, I guess).

Additionally, any game taking obvious inspiration in terms of resting/camping from the Nordlandtrilogie / Realms Of Arkania games is some kind of incline by definition. The third game of that trilogy had actually thrown all of that out as in particular in the US lots of players found it "tedious". Before Kingmaker, I never thought I'd see something similar another time (the Expedition series though is taking obvious cues here also though). They only need to do a more Conanes'que soundtrack in a possible third game to nail it.

For D&D5e fans, they made a mod to make the cantrips of pathfinder scale with your level like in 5e. It´s an interesting addition for people that do not like crossbow wizards.

https://www.nexusmods.com/pathfinderwrathoftherighteous/mods/64

It´s a miracle that purists didn´t flood the modpage with deadly viruses (yet) XD. I´ll download the mod as soon as possible just in case if you like that kind of thing.

I appreciate the combat tips, but I have no issue with the difficulty. I just find combat boring, because of how repetitive it is. There are no options to tweak the encounter design so that it doesn't spawn trash mobs everywhere. The game at this point feels like fighting the same group of monsters all the time.

I've been watching HazVsRPG doing the Last Azlanti challenge from Owlcat (Owlcat Last Azlanti). The challenge is on Normal. Haz has just finished Drezen and he's been absolutely steamrolling through just about everything. It took me 2 days to clear Drezen on Hard. There were some fights that I was like, "he's gonna have some trouble here", but nope. Even the last boss of Drezen, the optional bosses, he just went in and beat up everything, first try. I wouldn't say he's "casually" playing it, but he's not really number crunching or anything, either. The way he's playing is about what you'd expect from the average player, I'd say.

I's not unlike any other game, it's important to adjust your expectation as you progress. Avoid the quests that you think may be tough until later. I avoided the quest Dragon Hunt (cause dragon, obviously) until there was nothing else to do, and when I finally did this quest it was easy, even the mandragoras that some players on reddit mentioned had given them trouble were quite easy. If you're expecting a "fair and nice" DM playing these Pathfinder games, you're probably gonna be disappointed and not be able to enjoy it. And if you don't enjoy it then it's hard to force yourself to slow down and figure things out step by step.

In my 2nd run of Kingmaker I avoided all areas that were tough for me in my 1st run, and only went to areas that I knew I could comfortably cleared. And later on I was surprised to realize that it was easy doing just that, i.e. there wasn't any point in the game when I felt like I ran out of things to do just because everywhere I went enemies were too tough; I had a much easier time the 2nd time around, even though I played on a "slightly" harder difficulty.

On "Normal" in WOTR, the enemy setting is set to "slightly weaker enemies". This means, amongst others:

- reduced enemy AC
- damage reduction basically being slashed in half (!)
- swarms appear to to take more damage

I started the game playing on "normal" with enemy damage adjusted to 100%, just as I did with Kingmaker (was fine on Kingmaker really with a few spikes providing a bit of an added challenge), but I've now changed it as so far there has barely been anything really challenging in there (and I'm not a player of the P&P). And I'm now at least halfway through chapter 2. This could be in parts influenced too by that I'm playing exclusively TB so far, whereas Kingmaker I had finished RT exclusively.

They still seem to have nerfed things a lot, enemies too. Whilst there are optional fights that can be a tad harder than the average mob, even this relatively far into the game I've yet to face anything remotely on the level of the optional wererats in very early Kingmaker.


Reactivity from what I remember of Kingmaker, seems much improved from Kingmaker though. There's even stuff referencing to the deity you pick in creation (and not merely dialogue, but also the adventure book parts). May even lead to an extra quest (not sure yet).

Additionally, in my last session my Tiefling was visiting a remote village. Both their priest and the town folks referenced to me being an unusual sight. Would have even better if that had further consequences, such as them not trusting me, not actually wanting to deal and trade with me (true to the character creation description about fear and mistrust towards Tieflings).

But there appear to be neat touches all over the palce. [b][/b]

Yeah when I decided to give Kingmaker another try I also played Normal with enemy stats pulled up to 100%, which I considered "proper" Normal, or "real" Normal. The fact that "weaker enemies" is part of "Normal" means little if we just look at "Normal" as "intended for your non-hardcore, typical player", which, judging by watching Haz play, I find reasonable.

I have seen others on reddit mentioned the wererats, but I for one actually liked that fight, and I think it's actually on the easy side, as far as "optional fights" are concerned. It's a rather simple case of the standard "inspect your enemies, figure out what in your toolbox would work, then go for it" process. I liked it, because 1) there is a solution, and 2) it's the right amount of "dicey", given the power difference between the enemies and your party, enough to make it fun. The wererat to the right of your party is level 2, so he's vulnerable to Sleep. The other two are higher level but still have pretty bad Will save, so they're vulnerable to Hold Person. So an easy solution here is to have at least 2 casts of Hold Person in the party. After that it's easy to Coup De Grace them to death. In fact, the wererat on the left is quite manageable even without Hold Person cause he at least doesn't have concealment. This doesn't involve any secret combo or obscure advanced knowledge. Even if they succeed on the saves, the whole process is short enough (3-6 rounds), I don't find reloading 2-3 times that much of a problem.

I'm really enjoying my playthrough. I've certainly run into a few bugs, but nothing horrendous on my end thus far (though I've heard some bad stuff for others).

My only real gripes are the mythic balancing and reactivity-Angel and Lich seem to be far above the others. I'd say Azata and Aeon could use some love compared to then. Then I've heard it all takes a backseat to their stories as well. Especially where Golden Dragon feels tacked on.

Other than that a complaint would be DLC plans. I'd rather they expanded the base game with more quests, story and locations. Maybe a post-game. They're all kind of their own self contained thing aside from DLC 1.

Demon has great reactivity in chapter 4 - a unique route through the whole chapter - unfortunately chapter 5 is the opposite

Anyway, I would like them to actually finish their game before they release any DLC

Baldurs Gate 3 sort of makes me feel like i'm playing a turn based Dragon Age Origins

I didn't read every post, but I'm left baffled as to how OP thinks Larian Studios went woke?

Despite being leftwing, progay, pro multiculturalism, etc...., I'm very critical of the woke movement for its cult like behavior, soft totalarianism, hypocrisy, dividing the working class, selling out to big tech, etc..., but I'm not seeing anything particular woke in either WotR or BG3.

Yes in both games you have same sex parties, but that just a progressive element, which is NOT the same as being woke.

You can have racial, sexual, and other forms of diversity without being woke.

I didn't read every post, but I'm left baffled as to how OP thinks Larian Studios went woke?

Despite being leftwing, progay, pro multiculturalism, etc...., I'm very critical of the woke movement for its cult like behavior, soft totalarianism, hypocrisy, dividing the working class, selling out to big tech, etc..., but I'm not seeing anything particular woke in either WotR or BG3.

Yes in both games you have same sex parties, but that just a progressive element, which is NOT the same as being woke.

You can have racial, sexual, and other forms of diversity without being woke.

A little bit...? A much worse turn based dragon age origins maybe

I would say it is already much better then DA:O. Then again, I have a very low opinion about that title.

Never actually played Origins. Thought about it often though, no less as when it was announced it was still a bit of a different game apparently. That title came out during a period when I didn't play all that many RPGs. Looking at it now, I'm not in a hurry to try, though I may enjoy it. It seems a "stream-lined" (e.g. simplified) Baldur's Gate given the inevitable cinematic coat of paint (then again, you could already say the same about Kotor years before). And as of the sequels, there's probably a reason key Bioware staff left.

In a sense, it's only when Kickstarter "kickstarted" the renaissance of more complex RPGs, that I got back to it all big time. I'm also grateful that they found their own way of telling things, as opposed to mimicing movies. E.g. the adventure book sections made somewhat popular by POE (and also copied by Owlcat) vs. cinematics. The former grabs my imagination a good deal more (and is closer to the RPGs I've grown up with and loved), whereas the latter just spoon-feeds everything to the player. That, mind, is a preference. It's probably no coincidence that my favourite "AAA" RPG of that era is New Vegas, which unlike most of its peers has little in terms of cutscenes, but is strong on player agency all throughout.

At best, BG3 could build a few bridges here and there between the "then" and the "now".

So long I'm still enjoying WOTR. Upped the difficulty though, as outside of optional fights, things seem significantly easier than Kingmaker so far.

It had additionally only recently occured to me that you can actually switch between real-time and turn-based even during combat. Next-genâ„¢.

Dragon Age Origins has more in common with old school RPG's (like BG) than it does with more modern games. It was certainly transitional, but most of the streamlining occurred later. I liked it.

The systems for Origins were built from the ground up for a computer game, rather than adapted from a pen and paper RPG, so it was more sophisticated that Kotor in many ways. It also had a fairly powerful mini-programming language that allowed you to fine tune to a great degree how your companions (or the MC) would act when you are not controlling them directly. Other games have done this too, but I think the system in Origins was the best, and I'm quite irked that Bioware gave up on it.

Final Fantasy XII had a gambit system and it pre-dated Origins's tactics system by 3 and a half years. The only worse thing about it was that because for some godawful reason, you had to purchase the gambit options from a shop instead of it being something you could completely customize from the start. I distinctly remember an interview where Bioware devs even said that their tactics system was inspired by XII's gambit system.

The only reason DA Origins took all the credit for it was because the FF fanbase had a legendary meltdown over XII's very existence, namely it having a more mature open ended narrative that completely flew over most of the fanbase's heads at the time compared to the usual JRPG teen angst writing present in most of the previous entries, and the combat/gameplay loop being very different from the linear experiences of most other entries. Condemning the main series into being helmed by hack writers for the next 15 years, while most of the actual good writers went to work on FFXIV instead. At least XVI actually has a chance to have a coherent story since it's being helmed by former XIV staff, while the usual suspects are working on the 7R trilogy and whatever the hell FF Origins is supposed to be instead.

At the very least, XII is getting some actual respect from an aging fanbase now, and some have woken up to how brilliant the gambit system was. Both SE and Bioware abandoned their respective systems because people don't know what's good for the long term.

I adore FFXII's gambit system. I think it's a wonderfully powerful and flexible system, with the freedom to automate as much or as little, of each individual character's AI as you want, while still giving you complete control to overrule it at any instant for something in particular if you want. It's excellent. Just as an aside...

DAO was the first rpg I ever played. It started my addiction to the genre (so I played the oldies like BG and Planescape after). Sadly, I have not seen satisfying tactics options like those in DAO since then…it was one of my favorite parts of that game. One actually felt like they could set up their party AI instead of relying on some blackbox mystery (and could keep them from running around all over the battlefield like baffoons). Sort of like old Windows operating systems versus the modern version where you can’t control anything anymore.

I never knew the tactics system was originally from FF (did not play FF…it seemed geared to a very young audience, so I never got into it). But regardless of where it came from, I wish they would have kept it in subsequent DA games. They got reallllllly watered down combat wise (and arguably story-wise as well).

Nowadays, I prefer turn-based games so I can carefully control the tactics of my party myself. I am personally glad BG3 is turn based (although I recognize many folks dislike it). But I would very much like to see an updated version of that old FF/DAO tactical set up in a future rtwp party-based game.

FFXII's gambit and Origin's tactics systems were so far ahead of their time. If the FF fanbase didn't have a meltdown to the level where almost everything XII represented was ejected from the main series, JRPGs probably wouldn't be in such a dire samey state where only the already established big franchises in that genre really get any attention now. And had the Dragon Age series actually retained their system, the combat in the later entries probably wouldn't be second-guessing themselves about what it even wants to be these days.