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

So the Solasta devs had their stream announcing the subclass winners for Bard, Monk, and Warlock. Here's a rough summary of what was discussed (the dev that was streaming mentioned they would be making proper articles tomorrow since they aren't in the office right now, meaning they were streaming from home).

https://old.reddit.com/r/CrownOfTheMagister/comments/x2hbcj/wishing_well_2_summary/

Important bullet points:

- No combat footage from the stream itself, it's more of a slideshow going over the contest entries. As such, we don't know if College of Lore is in, or how they plan to address reactions from that subclass if it is.
- The upcoming DLC including the classes won't be out for another few months (IIRC the time it took between the previous contest winners being announced and the DLC for that being released was about 2 months)
- It will include 16-17 feats, 3 new backgrounds, and one new unannounced race
- They do not have any plans to officially implement multiclassing, though there are already mods for it. People have observed that many of the subclasses are stronger than the official tabletop ones, this is mainly to compensate for the lack of multiclassing
- No current plans to implement reach weapons due to them messing with the current animations
- They cannot implement Artificer since it is not SRD
- Warlock Pact of the Chain is being reworked, different familiars will give bonuses rather than summoning creatures (probably a dev time issue for animating the creatures, or the actual summons could be in a grey area that might not be considered SRD?)
- There is a new campaign in development but it's a long ways away (I wouldn't expect it until next Spring at the very earliest)

Personal comments:

- The winning light-themed Monk subclass sounds hilarious.
- Bard subclass seems really overpowered, seems similar to Valor but with much stronger inspiration options without the martial proficiencies (that we know of)

Hehe, you put it in the wrong thread.

Nah, I just use this thread as the general other RPG news dumping ground. I can’t find the original Solasta focused thread in this section, and I’m not even sure there was one in the General section to begin with. Not interested in bumping the one in the Suggestions section since I think there was a fight in there before, this news has nothing to do with providing any suggestions, and that section lately has a weirdass air of people preaching ‘any criticism = suffocating negativity!’. The megathread in the, uh, megathread section is more about mechanical design rather than actual news (which now that I think about it was the original thread in this section before it got moved).

Oh, apparently Tuco got banned for six months. No wonder it seemed quiet in this thread.

Here's the official post about the winning entries of the subclass contest. It doesn't mention much of the other things talked about during the stream though.

https://www.solasta-game.com/news/162-wishing-well-result-monk-bard-warlock-community-archetypes

Someone caught the names of all of the subclasses included in the upcoming DLC (3 subclasses for each new class, 1 extra if you already own Lost Valley too).

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrownOfThe...nOfTheMagister&utm_content=t3_x2hbcj

Actual stream link:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1577916672

Notes from the stream itself that hasn't really been mentioned anywhere else (relevant stuff not related to the contest, they show off some of the new stuff starting at 02:21:29):

- Showing off Deflect Missiles/catching and throwing said missiles back
- One Bard subclass has the ability to allow a party member to roll maximum on their next Bardic Inspiration roll (this feature appears to be separate from the actual granting Bardic Inspiration, meaning it's not going to be every die)
- An interesting case of Solasta actually taking an idea from BG3: Cutting Words is updated to work on all rolls that the enemy target makes for that turn. Functionally identical, except I think the Solasta version is still obviously a reaction, while BG3 is pre-cast using the reaction resource. The former implementation has one advantage in that you don't run the risk of the enemy not doing anything relevant for Cutting Words
- Warlock Hex changed to Malediction. No mention of whether the effect has changed too (most likely it did)
- Showing off one of the Timekeeper Warlock's subclass features
- Showing off Hellish Rebuke. The animation for it is rather neat, you throw a wave of fire at the enemy right as the triggering enemy attack lands (last time I checked, the BG3 version had a 1 second delay between the triggering enemy attack and the counter being launched as a small bolt of fire, though the animation might have been updated since I last saw it a year ago)
- (Mentioned elsewhere in the stream) The unannounced campaign in development might be the last DLC, the dev mentioned that they'll likely move onto something new soon. Warhammer and Pathfinder 2E were floated as possibilities for a potential new game if they don't work on a Solasta 2, but they would have to get familiar with the systems first.

Not a cRPG, but these days, my attention has turned towards the Megaman Battle Network Legacy Collection.

These games made up a huge part of my childhood, and had the most unique combat system I've ever seen, still not emulated by much of anything today. It was a weird ass mix of turn-based deck building/real time action RPG. Yet there was so much emphasis on personal skill that you had people doing challenge runs using nothing but the starting setups, and you were expected to get through fights without getting hit at all (and properly countering enemy attacks in the later games). It was formerly a GBA exclusive series, but I always held the belief that the series was a whole decade ahead of its time, though mostly for thematic reasons (the series premise was basically the modern world wired to the internet in nearly all aspects of life, though since it was a series targeted at children, it doesn't go too deep into the commentary).

Evidently, much of the fanbase held that belief too, but for other reasons, some people being crazy enough to set up a multiplayer scene on the PC and then later create rollback netcode from scratch. Now the fanbase is over the moon with Capcom announcing the collection is basically going to be on every platform minus Xbox with officially supported online multiplayer. Though now everyone wonders if the official multiplayer will have rollback netcode.

...

Also, let it be noted for the record that the Battle Network games also did field effects a whole decade before the DOS games did.

:P

I want to go on record saying that I as someone who adores Wrath of the Righteous, I am mildly miffed that this thread has drifted away from it. But I don't care in this instance because I too loved Battle Network and I'd never have known about this if you had not posted it here. So thanks a bundle Saito, that is awesome news!

Eh, I'm sure the thread will drift back once the WotR Enhanced Edition releases at the end of the month. I will admit I haven't actually touched the DLC, since I had been waiting for the EE to be released. I never even actually finished a playthrough since the last act just felt so awkward to play through.

For me, the DLCs haven't really drawn me back in, and the way Owlcat has been approaching the "patching/balancing" has sort of encouraged me to wait for the EE or till they're done messing with things before I do another run.

Now I'm not completely against balancing changes in single player games, but I do lean towards thinking they are far less necessary. There's been some big balancing changes in WoTR that I would consider completely respeccing a character for. For a game that encourages so much theorycrafting and build planning, it's pretty frustrating.

The Pathfinder WotR devs have been giving out small previews of the Enhanced Edition changes on Reddit over the past week. I think the main one I remember is that there's going to be a search function for items in your inventory.

There was also a patch earlier today that nerfed the Elemental Barrage mythic ability (or fixed it, depending on who you ask) by making it only apply to spells, meaning weapons enchanted with different elements are no longer eligible for the bonus damage. A lot of builds just got wrecked by this.

---

Solasta devs revealed the release date of the next DLC: November 14th.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2100430/Solasta_Crown_of_the_Magister__Inner_Strength/

Buying this DLC unlocks three new Classes (for a total of 9 new subclasses, plus 3 additional ones if you own Lost Valley) and one new Ancestry

The Warlock Class, with its 4 subclasses: The Fiend (SRD), The Hive (Solasta), The Timekeeper (Community), The Tree (Lost Valley)
The Bard Class, with its 4 subclasses: College of Lore (SRD), College of Hope (Solasta), College of Heroism (Community), College of Tradition (Lost Valley)
The Monk Class, with its 4 subclasses: Way of the Open Hand (SRD), Way of Survival (Solasta), Way of Light (Community), Way of Freedom (Lost Valley)
The Dragonborn Ancestry

With the release of Inner Strength, every player also gets the following content for free!

Three new Backgrounds: The Ascetic, The Artist & The Occultist (note: these new backgrounds do not have a background quest in the Crown of the Magister campaign)
17 new feats to give our martial classes some more love!
Gamepad support on PC is finally here <3
Boss monsters have now been activated in the Dungeon Creator! Use them at your own risk and peril!

Thanks for the updates @Saito.

What, there isn't going to be a whole new campaign included with this DLC?!?!!? How dare the devs; what cheapskates! /s

I will still likely buy the DLC even though I don't intend to play Solasta for a while (likely until a new campaign is released), if only to support the devs. I'm interested in seeing how the full mechanics of those classes function and feel to play. Full reaction/prompt party - Paladin, Bard, Sorcerer, ?? let's go!

I just tried Pathfinder Wrath of The Righteous. This really feels like a totally different game from the cinematic centric BG3.

Ironically?! It feels more like a modernized classic RPG style Baldurs gate game on Turnip steroids!
It has BOTH turn based and Real time with Pause to switch freely anytime depending on the battles.
The number of classes combinations is mind numbing. Tons of abilities but everything is clearly explained.
I have already ran into more playable NPCs than BG3 and I mostly like everyone with a few exeptions; but thats true for all these games including BG3.
Music and atmosphere is fantastic.
Story and writing is...alright. Nothing amazing nor awful FOR 2022 expectations. Everyone says it gets worst towards the later acts though...something Howcat is currently working on apparently? Big update at the end of the month.
Graphics are a bit too cartony for my taste. Still everything is well designed and fits the theme. I love the inventory and UI.

In general I am liking it. I feel I can design MY hero to play and get lost in this world...something I feel lacking in BG3. I feel the world building in BG3 is mainly designed for playing with the Companions. As it stands right now. Your original hero is just a side-kick.

Both Pathfinder games have me totally hooked right now. In Kingmaker, I have created Helyn, the Magus as the Baroness. Then I went to the Pathfinder mercenary recruiter and created Drym, the Half-Orc Ranger Beast master. Then, when I got the money, I returned and created 3 more: a dwarf cleric with red hair, a dark skinned Aasimar monk with golden hair, and a blonde elf fighter wizard archer. So I can still take "origin" characters with me 1 at a time but still have a party of 5 of my own making.

I will say, the kingdom management thing was frustrating because they didn't really teach you very well how to build villages and such, so I have played through a lot of act 2 without villages. That sucked. Now that I know how to build them, though, it's MUCH better. I love that you can actually visit towns you built.

WotR wins in a lot of ways. I agree with you about a LOT of what you said. I am pretty much through 2 acts, and I will say that I still love it. There are some Combat heavy parts that get a bit tedious, but being able to switch to RTWP for those really grunt mass enemy battles helps speed it up tremendously. I don't normally like RTWP, but there have been a few battles that warranted it. That said, 95% of the game I've played TB and I still think it's awesome. I even love that mounts and animal companions get equipment too.

I actually like the WoTR companions a lot more than the ones in BG 3. It's really long since I last played a game where I liked the companion ensemble as much. Itemization is pretty good as well - with the enchant weapon spells old gear can really remain relevant when it has good procs and extra effects even if it just +1 or +2. But it's a tough game if you don't understand the rule mechanics well.

Let's just hope that the feats and abilities become more stable after the EE launch. The Elemental Barrage nerf is really ouch for a lot of builds around it.

Wrath of the Righteous firmly established itself as potentially my favorite game of all time. There is so much to it, and I have played it for about 700 hours at this point. And when you do a second playthrough and see all the little points of reactivity that are unique to things like class, race and even your choice of diety, that's even more impressive.

Definitely. My poor Eldritch Archer is really going to be feeling that. Now there's zero incentive to use the elemental enchantment abilities since they'll just get resisted anyway. The old interaction had existed for so long that many people just assumed that Elemental Barrage existed to make the elemental enchantments actually do something against demons that would otherwise resist them, but a few really broken multiclass builds just extended Barrage into a near infinite loop of damage due to how it was coded.

I'm hoping the devs walk back this nerf and decide to just make it trigger once per turn or per hit or something. Because making it spells only makes it effectively useless, even moreso when considering party members can't proc Barrage as a team, it's on a per-character basis. There was a reason no pure spellcaster used Elemental Barrage to begin with, and that's because the game heavily discourages mixing elements in every other case with the across the board resistances enemies have in this campaign, and the feats allowing you to ignore said resistances are on a per-element basis.

Yeah Wrath of the Righteous was a clutch find. I probably would never have heard of it if it weren't my renewed interest in cRPGs when BG3 was announced. I'm pretty sure I first heard about it on these boards, but it definitely scratched that BG1/2 itch. I enjoyed it more than Kingmaker just for the driving plot and more interesting Companions. I had fun with POE also Deadfire and Tyranny too, but Wrath of the Righteous felt like more of a proper BG callback, just with 3.5 as the basis and a bazillion class builds lol. It's almost too build focus heavy for my tastes, just so frontloaded into those initial choices there, but it certainly gives enough options to make every new Character feel pretty unique at least. I think Pathfinder's heavy class build focus would probably be too intense if it didn't start at lvl1 again lol, but that's what they did for WotR so it works for me. I really liked the DLC that does the same story over again, but for the more regular folks and that perspective. I like the idea of a campaign series that's designed to have the player starting over at lvl1 again, rather than a sequel where it basically starts at say lvl 8 like BG2.

All it really needs is like 50 more portraits, maybe a dozen more avatar head options and soundsets, and I think they got it pretty much dialed.

I think WotR probably works a bit better overall, before the player has learned all the ins and outs of the Pathfinder class build alchemy. The approach to game balance is almost epistemological that way - you know like if you don't know that one thing (say one subclass, or one type of animal companion, or one spell focus) ends up being just objectively better than other choices and will sort of bust all the encounters at a given difficulty level and the game can hum along that way. To use an example from another game I like, in Axis and Allies (any version) the game tends to work better on balance before the first round scripted openers are all figured out, when the player is still just sort of casually winging it and doesn't yet know that the starting unit set up favors a certain side or a particular opening play pattern. WotR is a bit like that, where it's more fun before you got the min max all planned out in advance. But there's enough variability just in the choices on offer, and initial randomizers like that, that it pushes out the balance Qs pretty far to the point where it almost doesn't matter cause there's just much going on there. Easier to shake the bag and mix things up, when the bag itself is that large lol.

One thing WotR really nailed in my view was the full party dynamic with lots of companions to choose from. Also the gibbing of enemies! That first time you chunk a giant fly and watch it explode into little pieces or squash some random enemies into puddles of ooze, that just feels so Baldur's Gate! For me the only thing holding it back really is the setting. If it was set in FR and had that draw as well, then there'd be no contest. Still there are some things I feel BG3 does a bit better. Like within a given encounter/combat, I feel like there are often more options to resolve an encounter in interesting ways in BG3 with a bit less meta, whereas in WotR it's a bit more rinse and repeat once you know your ultimate combos and just use them constantly. In that sense Pathfinder can get a bit dry, but then it makes up for that quite a bit by just giving the player more to work with in other areas like visual/aesthetic progression, custom portraits/scripts, and even the little things like choosing colors or whether or not to wear a hood hehe.

Oh, no you almost make consider giving WotR a chance, even though I know I will most likely really dislike it. Probably some day I will break and boot it up.

I actually preferred that to the original campaign, found it much more fun. I was really bummed when it ended and am looking forward to the next "chapter" as it were....

Going back on the Megaman Battle Network tangent for a brief moment...

I was 100% serious about the Megaman Battle Network series doing field effects a whole 15 years before the DOS series did, by the way. A quick stroll through YouTube actually made me remember how huge the series was in Japan - while some of us were out here awaiting a collection, someone in Japan had been uploading skill showcase videos, some of which had managed to amass 1+ million views, long after the end of the series and long before the announcement of the collection. I mention him in particular because his showcase against the bosses of the third game incorporates a lot of usage of that game's field effects, and I now realize that future entries removed a lot of the niche effects that only worked under specific field conditions.

And I've been howling with laughter watching this guy pull off a bunch of shit in ways I didn't think was possible as a kid.


People who would have never played the series before probably wouldn't understand what the hell is happening in that video, especially since all the text is in Japanese, but tl;dr

1) Lots of use of the Sensor summon, which stuns enemies entering line of sight and pierces invulnerability/'mercy invincibility' activated by strong hits
2) Some usage of abilities that require specific field effects to activate, like the confusion pollen effect requiring grass on the field
3) Lots of taking advantage of field effects in general. For example, wood-elemental enemies can heal on grass panels, but fire can burn grass panels along with anything standing on them taking 2x damage (and 4x if they are wood element too). And ice panels cause characters to slide while moving across them (unless they are water elemental), while simultaneously doubling electric damage taken.
4) Plenty of usage of abilities that take advantage of objects on the field, like lightning striking objects and hitting all enemies next to them.
5) Some enemy attacks register as field objects while attacking, so the player actually uses those object-related abilities as counters in this demonstration

Though it's not like the series' focus on field manipulation completely disappeared after MMBN 3, it just made them less niche. MMBN 6, for instance, more or less went all the way with the concept (and the demonstration video of this player humiliating the 6th game's bosses is probably a lot more fun to watch, I suppose). It allowed water attacks to freeze enemies standing on ice panels, and breaking abilities also did double damage against frozen enemies, as seen here (at around the 1:53 mark).

Or this shooting gallery at 5:08. Normally you use the blocks to hide from fireballs coming vertically or behind you against this boss, but this guy just uses an ability to convert them into mechanical soldiers to wreck the boss immediately. That doll thrown overhead also counts as an object, and the player in the demonstration timed it so that it was flying over an otherwise empty panel, enough for it to count as an object for the purposes of summoning an additional mechanical soldier.

As one commenter put it: I love how in other games, people with this kind of skill would be topping leaderboards for kill times, but Battle Network is just a contest to see who can kill the bosses in the most ridiculous and cruel ways.

Honestly, the way the combat system works, I'm convinced it's the product of the designers having a crazy ass fever dream. Like wtf inspired all this a whole 16-21 years ago? Even after all this time, I haven't seen anything I can really compare it to.

I actually find both Pathfinder games very rewarding in terms of balance. Just when I am starting to think I'll just use the same tactics again, the game throws some crazy new enemy at me and I'm trying to figure out what works on it. I especially like that there are SO many more monsters, and the monsters are at appropriate levels, typically.

But, I will say this. The last couple of times I played BG3, I REALLY enjoyed it. It's definitely getting better and better. And little things are getting implemented - like they listened and changed Imps to Lesser Imps in order to explain why they don't act like typical imps and are weaker. It's those little things that we tend to overlook that they are doing. And they did fix some stealth things that were broken, indicating they are working on it.

Anyway, the point is that I love WotR and Kingmaker, but there is still just something about BG3 that really hooks me. I don't know why exactly, but every time I see even the icon, I want to play it. Yes, Pathfinder is awesome, but BG3 still wins out for me, even with all it's little "flaws".

I loved Kingmaker, and although I'm waiting on playing WotR I'm certain I will end up considering it the best cRPG ever. I backed both games and have WotR; just waiting on all the DLCs to be released before I wade into it.