Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Kalas
Jul 27, 2007

Ryuujin posted:

The Witch seems capable of both Healing and Fire based blasting.

In the last campaign I played in someone ran a Pheonix bloodline sorc. We all agreed afterwards to never let that be allowed again.

I can only hope that witches are not half a broken as that crap. No one has played one in a campaign so far.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Captain Oblivious
Oct 12, 2007

I'm not like other posters
Nothing in Phoenix bloodline looks particularly amazing. Good but nothing noteworthy in the face of how broken full progression arcane casting is to start with.

Kalas
Jul 27, 2007

Captain Oblivious posted:

Nothing in Phoenix bloodline looks particularly amazing. Good but nothing noteworthy in the face of how broken full progression arcane casting is to start with.

You get to take a full line of fire based nukes and selectively choose to turn them into healing.

One Wall of Fire can heal an entire fricking army between battles.

Captain Oblivious
Oct 12, 2007

I'm not like other posters

Kalas posted:

You get to take a full line of fire based nukes and selectively choose to turn them into healing.

One Wall of Fire can heal an entire fricking army between battles.

Yeah, I’m aware. Lol at the notion of wasting time healing the plebs as an arcane caster.

Kobal2
Apr 29, 2019

Captain Oblivious posted:

Yeah, I’m aware. Lol at the notion of wasting time healing the plebs as an arcane caster.

A quickened healing Burning Hands, Scorching Ray or Fireball certainly seems like a fun thing to do once in a while though :). "Oh no, the meatshield is down, NUKE HIM !"

Captain Oblivious
Oct 12, 2007

I'm not like other posters
It’s a fun party trick but you’re better off ending the fight with limitless cosmic power than healing generally.

Kobold Sex Tape
Feb 17, 2011

arcane bloodline reigns supreme with astral as its second in command. and then everything else just sorta hangs out being Whatever, except for the ones that inexplicably want you to be a melee sorcerer. those die.

Hoboskins
Aug 31, 2006

there is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist
I am sad that I only just installed the call of the wild and rotating camera mods. The latter being essential in turn based mode. While I won't be using any of the added classes. The extra spells, feats and changes are great. Especially for my MC who is a druid. Actually, if you want to play a druid and do anything besides buff your animal companion and watch it kill everything this mod is essential. If nothing else being able to click a button to deactive AoE spells like web and grease is a godsend. Dressing up my animal companion right now :). Thankfully I am in chapter 2 and have just started Troll Trouble so I have plenty of game left to enjoy.

Trebuchet King
Jul 5, 2005

This post...

...is a
WORK OF FICTION!!



I finally got around to doing the backer portal thing, and decided for $15 I might as well get alpha access on top of my existing pledge. I guess I fatfingered it on my phone, though, and hit it twice, because now my "order" has two of them and I can't seem to figure out how to change quantity. I can't find a support/contact link, either.

JamMasterJim
Mar 27, 2010

Trebuchet King posted:

I finally got around to doing the backer portal thing, and decided for $15 I might as well get alpha access on top of my existing pledge. I guess I fatfingered it on my phone, though, and hit it twice, because now my "order" has two of them and I can't seem to figure out how to change quantity. I can't find a support/contact link, either.

Well, you could ask for a refund on the add-on at refund@owlcatgames.com. Or try reaching for advice in the discord.
https://discord.com/invite/syqGPZH

SuperKlaus
Oct 20, 2005


Fun Shoe

Lord Koth posted:

As for the difficulty, it's mostly people bringing up issues that were tuned back to reasonable levels long ago - at normal, the vast majority of enemies absolutely have reasonable stats, with any exceptions being outliers.


Oh, is it no longer the case that you want to set "somewhat weaker enemies" to get stats closer to the by the book numbers?

Trebuchet King
Jul 5, 2005

This post...

...is a
WORK OF FICTION!!



JamMasterJim posted:

Well, you could ask for a refund on the add-on at refund@owlcatgames.com. Or try reaching for advice in the discord.
https://discord.com/invite/syqGPZH

I hadn't actually paid anything yet, so I didn't think refund would be the way to go. Thanks for the discord heads-up though!

Nissin Cup Nudist
Sep 3, 2011

Sleep with one eye open

We're off to Gritty Gritty land




Do any of the magic classes in this game (or Pathfinder in general) not use Vancian Magic? Something along the lines of the PoE Cipher?

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

SuperKlaus posted:

Oh, is it no longer the case that you want to set "somewhat weaker enemies" to get stats closer to the by the book numbers?

I'm pretty sure that's the default setting now.

Kalas
Jul 27, 2007

Nissin Cup Nudist posted:

Do any of the magic classes in this game (or Pathfinder in general) not use Vancian Magic? Something along the lines of the PoE Cipher?

Kinetcists can nuke all day long. They are sorta like Avatar:TLA Benders.

Sorcerers have known spells, but can freely cast whatever spells they know as long as they have castings of those spell levels per day.

Zurai
Feb 13, 2012


Wait -- I haven't even voted in this game yet!

Nissin Cup Nudist posted:

Do any of the magic classes in this game (or Pathfinder in general) not use Vancian Magic? Something along the lines of the PoE Cipher?

Kineticist doesn't even use spells in the traditional sense and there are several classes that have spontaneous spellcasting (ie, you don't have to prepare the spells ahead of time). Sorcerer, Oracle, Bard, and Inquisitor are all spontaneous casters and in Kingmaker and/or Wrath of the Righteous. There are lots more once you get into the tabletop game, especially with third party materials—all of the Dreamscarred Press Psionic classes are non-Vancian (they essentially have a spell point/mana system rather than spell slots) and then there's the Path of War classes which are martial magic users, etc etc.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

So, WotR observations:

1. I'd previously missed it, but Mythic Vital Strike is in the game in all its absurdity so plan potential melee builds accordingly. It's hardly a required build, and there are certainly cons to it as well, but that much damage as a standard action will always be a tempting choice.

2. Angel/Lich mythic spells only get added to your current spellbook if you're running a full divine/arcane caster (so Cleric/Druid/Oracle and Arcanist/Sorcerer/Wizard/Witch, respectively). Partial casters, as well as non-casters or the wrong arcane/divine spellcaster variety, just get a separate spellbook for them with caster level advancement seemingly at a flat double your Mythic tier (so you'll be trailing well behind your character level until the very end). I'd been wondering if secondary/tertiary casters maybe had the spells added to their current book, with higher than normal spell levels just limited to the new spells, but nope. There are some absolutely brutally nasty spells in them though.

3. Humorous note: Obviously a lot of the art is still using placeholders (or just plain missing) as they continue working on it, but a recent one I ran into was fairly funny - the Hand of the Inheritor is currently using Harrim's picture. That is just all kinds of hilariously wrong.

Ryuujin
Sep 26, 2007
Dragon God
How does Mythic Vital Strike work? What kind of builds would it work best for? Would something like a Two-Handed Weapon Fighter using Wide Sweep be hilarious? Or sad? I assume Vital Strike/Mythic Vital Strike doesn't work on a Kineticist/Kinetic Knight, and I assume the extra damage doesn't get multiplied on a crit?

Hmm not sure what would be a good Mythic Path for a Fighter. Maybe Azata?

That was my experience with Lich, I need to go back in and try and progress further to get to Mythic 4/Lich 2 and also find more undead companions. I still want to build a skill monkey Trickster but I feel like Trickster is no longer selectable as a Mythic path, unless there has been an update since the last time I played Alpha 2.

JamMasterJim
Mar 27, 2010

Ryuujin posted:

How does Mythic Vital Strike work? What kind of builds would it work best for? Would something like a Two-Handed Weapon Fighter using Wide Sweep be hilarious? Or sad? I assume Vital Strike/Mythic Vital Strike doesn't work on a Kineticist/Kinetic Knight, and I assume the extra damage doesn't get multiplied on a crit?

Hmm not sure what would be a good Mythic Path for a Fighter. Maybe Azata?

That was my experience with Lich, I need to go back in and try and progress further to get to Mythic 4/Lich 2 and also find more undead companions. I still want to build a skill monkey Trickster but I feel like Trickster is no longer selectable as a Mythic path, unless there has been an update since the last time I played Alpha 2.

Trickster is definitely still in Alpha 2 proper. Maybe hit a bug or messed up the flag in that one case.

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

mitochondritom posted:

The system in Pillars 1 was great, it grouped weapons into a sort of Archetype so you weren't hamstrung into one damage type or position, if I recall each had a ranged, a few melee and then a longer reach one. I enjoyed that more than Pillars 2 where anyone could use anything without penalty, but specialising in a weapon gave you a modal talent for it.

Even so both are Infinitely better than finding a cool dagger but having to vendor it because I specialise and focus in short swords. How is a dwarven war axe so different than a battleaxe that nothing you learned carries over? It's a really dumb system and I think it really carries poorly to crpg where unless you play with a guide open, you have no idea what the killer loot is. Holy Redeemer is a two hander in this game? Tough poo poo you specced into longswords.

I'm still in early chapter 2 with my sorceror, and I abandoned my paladin before facing the Stag Lord, but I did notice the pre-made paladin rocking a big two hander in his portrait, and being specced into two hand swords. So I guessed that the holy avenger would be a two hander.

But you're still right that the system is dumb. At least you can respec, in contrast to like Baldur's Gate, where you were stuck with your bad choices. But I too vastly prefer the PoE system.

Kalas
Jul 27, 2007

Torrannor posted:

mitochondritom posted:
Even so both are Infinitely better than finding a cool dagger but having to vendor it because I specialise and focus in short swords. How is a dwarven war axe so different than a battleaxe that nothing you learned carries over? It's a really dumb system and I think it really carries poorly to crpg where unless you play with a guide open, you have no idea what the killer loot is. Holy Redeemer is a two hander in this game? Tough poo poo you specced into longswords.

Redeemer is in fact a longsword.

Torrannor posted:

I'm still in early chapter 2 with my sorceror, and I abandoned my paladin before facing the Stag Lord, but I did notice the pre-made paladin rocking a big two hander in his portrait, and being specced into two hand swords. So I guessed that the holy avenger would be a two hander.

But you're still right that the system is dumb. At least you can respec, in contrast to like Baldur's Gate, where you were stuck with your bad choices. But I too vastly prefer the PoE system.

Paladins in Pathfinder don't actually need their 'holy avenger'. With sacred Bond they turn whatever weapon they use into something better. You very specifically don't need to spend a feat on Improved Crit as you can add Keen to any main hand weapon you are using for 1 point from their bond pool. Weapon Focus for it's +1 tohit while nice, puts you into the mindset of using a specific type of weapon. Paladin's don't actually have to bother with this. If you want to use a fancy Exotic that's another story, but those are exotic for a reason.

So there's three ways you can make an offensive paladin that uses melee weapons.

One is a generic 2h paladin. You don't need to specialize in a weapon, you use whatever you find. Reach weapons here are better then on pen'n'paper because there's no minimum range.
You'd take Power Attack, and possibly Cleave/Cleaving Finish and the rest of the feats are for whatever. You can take Great Cleave / Improved Cleaving Finish but those are less useful and it gets expensive on feats.

The second is a two weapon paladin. This is very tricky as you are limited on feats but powerful because you get your Smite Evil on every hit. You hit 4 times a round with a big 2h, you do up to 80 points of bonus damage. You dual wield and hit 7 times, that's upwards of 140 points of bonus damage before crits. You may not be able to pull this off as a pure paladin. Splashing 2 fighter levels for extra feats would probably be good, or 4 rogue levels and use light weapons. Halfling would be a good option here for the stats, size bonus, etc. Human for the bonus feat is a common choice.

The third build is technically the strongest but by far the hardest to pull off, especially as a pure paladin.
Sword and Board with two-weapon fighting and the shield bash line. TWF/Improved TWF/Greater TWF + Shield Bash/Shield Mastery/Bashing Finish. You also want Shield Focus and Double Slice.
You get all the benefits of attacking at least 7 times a round, the defense of the shield and every time you crit with your mainhand you get a 'free' extra shield bash.
There's an archtype of paladin that gives up spells for several extra feats and that can work. Again splashing 2 fighter levels would go a long way (and you'd probably do Alderi Defender and use a Dueling Sword for the amazing late game Bloodhound or else a Rapier, Scimitar or other 3 threat range weapon.)

MonikaTSarn
May 23, 2005

Is there no turn-based combat yet in the Wrath of the Righteous Alpha ? I can't find any settings for it, guess that's 15€ wasted until they add it.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Ryuujin posted:

How does Mythic Vital Strike work? What kind of builds would it work best for? Would something like a Two-Handed Weapon Fighter using Wide Sweep be hilarious? Or sad? I assume Vital Strike/Mythic Vital Strike doesn't work on a Kineticist/Kinetic Knight, and I assume the extra damage doesn't get multiplied on a crit?


All right, let's talk Mythic Vital Strike.

To start at the beginning, the (Improved/Greater)Vital Strike feat line is designed around increasing the damage of single hits, and it does this by multiplying weapon damage dice by the tier of the feat (x2/x3/x4), but ONLY the actual weapon damage dice (2d6 for a Greatsword, for example) - static damage numbers such as STR are still calculated normally. It's an interesting idea, but generally falls off hard as you get later in the game because those modifiers provide a huge chunk of your damage, bar some builds that aren't really doable here - namely stuff like Druids Wild Shaping into something with only a single attack, but one with a very large number of dice (something like a Behemoth Hippo with its 4d8 bite).

Mythic Vital Strike turns this all on its head, as that feat now makes every single modifier that would be multiplied by a crit now get multiplied on the Vital Strike standard action. This leads to very big damage numbers as a single standard action.

Just to do a comparison for a 6th level Fighter with a Greatsword...
Baseline
-2d6(Greatsword) + 6(STR 18) + 1(Weapon School) + 6(Power Attack) + 2(Weapon Specialization) = 2d6 +15 per hit. Can make 2 attacks on a full attack.

Vital Strike
-4d6(Greatsword) + 6(STR 18) + 1(Weapon School) + 6(Power Attack) + 2(Weapon Specialization) = 4d6 + 15 on a standard action.

Mythic Vital Strike
-4d6(Greatsword) + 12(STR 18) + 2(Weapon School) + 12(Power Attack) + 4(Weapon Specialization) = 4d6 + 30 on a standard action.

Looks good, but not too out there. Now let's look at that fighter at 16th...
Baseline
-2d8(Enlarged Greatsword) + 12(STR 26) + 5(Enhancement) + 5(Weapon School w/ Gloves) + 21(Mythic Power Attack) + 8(Mythic Weapon Spec.) =2d8 + 51 per hit. Can make 4 attacks on a full attack.

Greater Vital Strike
-8d8(Enlarged Greatsword) + 12(STR 26) + 5(Enhancement) + 5(Weapon School w/ Gloves) + 21(Mythic Power Attack) + 8(Mythic Weapon Spec.) = 8d8 + 51 on a standard action.

Mythic Vital Strike
-8d8(Enlarged Greatsword) + 48(STR 26) + 20(Enhancement) + 20(Weapon School w/ Gloves) + 84(Mythic Power Attack) + 32(Mythic Weapon Spec.) = 8d8 + 204 on a standard action.


So now the issue should be more obvious. As a single standard action, and thus not having to worry about such silly things as the attack penalty on iterative attacks (it combos wonderfully with Furious Focus for ignoring the Power Attack penalty as well), you're doing the same damage as the base Fighter's ENTIRE attack routine. Other bonuses that get multiplied include stuff like Favored Enemy and Smite Evil.

There are a few caveats. The big one is that you'll note the reference to damage that gets multiplied on a crit. So this means stuff like elemental weapon enhancements do not get multiplied... but the big miss is Sneak Attack. The Vital Strike chain does effectively nothing for any sort of Sneak Attack build. The other main caveat is that once you start getting more attacks, and have a way to actually get those attacks consistently, its relative value falls off (though is still good because it only being a standard action gives you flexibility with your turn). So enhancements like Speed, or the Haste spell, start eating into that advantage since it gives you higher theoretical damage. This is why Vital Strike is basically pointless for ranged builds, because between Manyshot, Rapid Shot, Haste and the easy ability to constantly get full attacks you're actually churning out far more theoretical damage than what Vital Strike would give you - if you have those 3 feats/effects, you actually fully match even Greater Vital Strike with just your second iterative attack, still leaving 2 more attacks to go; or even more than that for Zen Archers.

As mentioned in the other post, don't take this as Vital Strike builds being mandatory, as even aside from those caveats there are other disadvantages - super high ACs where even your first attack is a crapshoot (so you want to be tossing as many as possible) or miss chances, for instance. And normal melee builds can still work perfectly fine, this can basically head into the realm of uneeded super optimization.


For crits, the proper calculation should be to just increase the multiplier (so Vital Strike would move from x2 to x3 for a Greatsword crit).

Regarding Kineticist, Vital Strike actually does work with the class if you're using the Kinetic Blade line of infusions.

MonikaTSarn
May 23, 2005

Path of the righteous looks quite fun so far, even without turn based mode. So many races and classes, and I've taking the boring human two-handed fighter again for my first try.

Did somebody solve that puzzle with the 4 coloured buttons in the shield maze ? Can't seem to find any clue to it.

Nevermind, found it - 4 coloured pictures of women on a wall somewhere show the solution. drat, kind of nice to play a game without being able to look up solutions on the internet.

MonikaTSarn fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Oct 13, 2020

JamMasterJim
Mar 27, 2010

Kalas posted:

Redeemer is in fact a longsword.


Paladins in Pathfinder don't actually need their 'holy avenger'. With sacred Bond they turn whatever weapon they use into something better. You very specifically don't need to spend a feat on Improved Crit as you can add Keen to any main hand weapon you are using for 1 point from their bond pool. Weapon Focus for it's +1 tohit while nice, puts you into the mindset of using a specific type of weapon. Paladin's don't actually have to bother with this. If you want to use a fancy Exotic that's another story, but those are exotic for a reason.

So there's three ways you can make an offensive paladin that uses melee weapons.

One is a generic 2h paladin. You don't need to specialize in a weapon, you use whatever you find. Reach weapons here are better then on pen'n'paper because there's no minimum range.
You'd take Power Attack, and possibly Cleave/Cleaving Finish and the rest of the feats are for whatever. You can take Great Cleave / Improved Cleaving Finish but those are less useful and it gets expensive on feats.

The second is a two weapon paladin. This is very tricky as you are limited on feats but powerful because you get your Smite Evil on every hit. You hit 4 times a round with a big 2h, you do up to 80 points of bonus damage. You dual wield and hit 7 times, that's upwards of 140 points of bonus damage before crits. You may not be able to pull this off as a pure paladin. Splashing 2 fighter levels for extra feats would probably be good, or 4 rogue levels and use light weapons. Halfling would be a good option here for the stats, size bonus, etc. Human for the bonus feat is a common choice.

The third build is technically the strongest but by far the hardest to pull off, especially as a pure paladin.
Sword and Board with two-weapon fighting and the shield bash line. TWF/Improved TWF/Greater TWF + Shield Bash/Shield Mastery/Bashing Finish. You also want Shield Focus and Double Slice.
You get all the benefits of attacking at least 7 times a round, the defense of the shield and every time you crit with your mainhand you get a 'free' extra shield bash.
There's an archtype of paladin that gives up spells for several extra feats and that can work. Again splashing 2 fighter levels would go a long way (and you'd probably do Alderi Defender and use a Dueling Sword for the amazing late game Bloodhound or else a Rapier, Scimitar or other 3 threat range weapon.)

You could also make a Monkadin (whether the Paladin or the Monk is the splash, both can work). A decent monk weapon and crane style for defense , dragon stance for quartestaff bopping. Though you will have to be naked.

Kalas
Jul 27, 2007

JamMasterJim posted:

You could also make a Monkadin (whether the Paladin or the Monk is the splash, both can work). A decent monk weapon and crane style for defense , dragon stance for quartestaff bopping. Though you will have to be naked.

Been there done that, holy staff bashing works quite well. There's 2 good +5 staffs from what I remember and you can stick speed/crit on via Sacred Bond.
(Though I think Dragon Style is unarmed only)

Kalas fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Oct 13, 2020

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

MonikaTSarn posted:

Path of the righteous looks quite fun so far, even without turn based mode. So many races and classes, and I've taking the boring human two-handed fighter again for my first try.

Did somebody solve that puzzle with the 4 coloured buttons in the shield maze ? Can't seem to find any clue to it.

There's a set of four portrait paintings in one of the rooms that have colored backgrounds - that's the order. Specifically it's the room where the split between the basement and the rest of the complex is.

I just happened to be spinning the camera around and thought they looked fairly suspicious, then tested the sequence and it worked. Specifically, the proper sequence is: Yellow, Blue, Red, Yellow.


And for the full game, assuming you are on any sort of good/neutral-aligned path, you're really going to want to get back there. It's the storage location of Radiance, a depowered named Holy Avenger that you'll slowly restore over the course of the game.

JamMasterJim
Mar 27, 2010

Kalas posted:

Been there done that, holy staff bashing works quite well. There's 2 good +5 staffs from what I remember and you can stick speed/crit on via Sacred Bond.
(Though I think Dragon Style is unarmed only)

It adds further strength bonus to unarmed rolls, but it gives a boost to saves and lets you charge through ally squares regardless of weapons, which can be handy.
Though the combo still feels a bit feat starved. I barely got together my Monk/Knifemaster with sais to work.

Nissin Cup Nudist
Sep 3, 2011

Sleep with one eye open

We're off to Gritty Gritty land




Kalas posted:

Kinetcists can nuke all day long. They are sorta like Avatar:TLA Benders.

Sorcerers have known spells, but can freely cast whatever spells they know as long as they have castings of those spell levels per day.

I guess I was referring to the "X spells / rest" mechanic of Vance Magic. I hate that so much

Kinetcists sound cool the

Kobal2
Apr 29, 2019

Kalas posted:

Redeemer is in fact a longsword.


Paladins in Pathfinder don't actually need their 'holy avenger'. With sacred Bond they turn whatever weapon they use into something better. You very specifically don't need to spend a feat on Improved Crit as you can add Keen to any main hand weapon you are using for 1 point from their bond pool. Weapon Focus for it's +1 tohit while nice, puts you into the mindset of using a specific type of weapon. Paladin's don't actually have to bother with this. If you want to use a fancy Exotic that's another story, but those are exotic for a reason.

So there's three ways you can make an offensive paladin that uses melee weapons.

Or you can make a paladin with a bow, who a) is sure to find good weapons because there's only one (1) type of bow that's worth anything b) can poo poo out a million arrows per round and yes they each benefit from whatever Smite bullshit you're cooking. Also you're doing full attacks every round.

It's a bit feat heavy and probably requires Human (so you can get precise shot from lvl 1, then rapid shot at 3 and deadly aim at 5, you could be another race and get some Fighter up in there but the early paladin levels are SO GOOD...) but DPS-wise it's the best bang for your buck.
And sure, it'll be forever until you get the "fire from melee range without taking AoOs", but then you can eat some AoOs in return for making GBS threads out massive damag, you have great AC, lotsa hit points and self heals ; and whatever you smite stays smitten should you switch to a big sword as a last resort.

It'll be even better in Wrath, because mounted archery is ridiculous when you have even a modicum of space to gently caress around in (to say nothing of flying mounts, but that's in PnP)

Kalas
Jul 27, 2007

Kobal2 posted:

Or you can make a paladin with a bow, who a) is sure to find good weapons because there's only one (1) type of bow that's worth anything b) can poo poo out a million arrows per round and yes they each benefit from whatever Smite bullshit you're cooking. Also you're doing full attacks every round.

It's a bit feat heavy and probably requires Human (so you can get precise shot from lvl 1, then rapid shot at 3 and deadly aim at 5, you could be another race and get some Fighter up in there but the early paladin levels are SO GOOD...) but DPS-wise it's the best bang for your buck.
And sure, it'll be forever until you get the "fire from melee range without taking AoOs", but then you can eat some AoOs in return for making GBS threads out massive damag, you have great AC, lotsa hit points and self heals ; and whatever you smite stays smitten should you switch to a big sword as a last resort.

It'll be even better in Wrath, because mounted archery is ridiculous when you have even a modicum of space to gently caress around in (to say nothing of flying mounts, but that's in PnP)

Paladins have no way of getting Point Blank Mastery without taking levels in Ranger, 4 fighter levels, Zen Archer Monk, etc.

But yes, archery works fine as well, there's even a ranged archtype for paladins in Kingmaker.

I can't wait for Wrath. Mounted Archery is even more feat hungry though.

Chevy Slyme
May 2, 2004

We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.

Nissin Cup Nudist posted:

I guess I was referring to the "X spells / rest" mechanic of Vance Magic. I hate that so much

Kinetcists sound cool the

So, I understand why people dislike the memorization element of vance magic, wherein, you have your x spells/rest and you have to pick them when you rest, and sucks to be you if you chose the wrong ones or cast the only one of the one you need earlier in the day.

But, this is a problem that the 'spontaneous' casters (i.e. Sorcerers, Bards, Inquisitors, Oracles), solve, because you have your whole repertoire available, but you still have limited slots.

The main alternative to this, is usually some sort of Mana system, but... mana is just spell slots by a different name really. You still only get a fixed number per rest. It's just abstracted out into a point system.

Unless you just hate having a class with a resource management mechanic at all, in which case, just play a fighter or a rogue I guess?

Zurai
Feb 13, 2012


Wait -- I haven't even voted in this game yet!

CaptainPsyko posted:

The main alternative to this, is usually some sort of Mana system, but... mana is just spell slots by a different name really. You still only get a fixed number per rest. It's just abstracted out into a point system.

Yeah. The Dreamscarred Press psionics stuff uses psi points (just like the 3rd edition psionics) and if you do all the math, it's really just a slightly more flexible version of sorcerers where you can trade a bunch of lower level spells for higher level ones or vice versa. And built-in metamagic, which is admittedly pretty cool. But in the end, you're still limited to the same general magical guidelines as a wizard or sorcerer where you have to decide whether it's really worth spending a max-level spell on this encounter or if you can slide by with a weaker one, etc.

Nissin Cup Nudist
Sep 3, 2011

Sleep with one eye open

We're off to Gritty Gritty land




CaptainPsyko posted:

So, I understand why people dislike the memorization element of vance magic, wherein, you have your x spells/rest and you have to pick them when you rest, and sucks to be you if you chose the wrong ones or cast the only one of the one you need earlier in the day.

But, this is a problem that the 'spontaneous' casters (i.e. Sorcerers, Bards, Inquisitors, Oracles), solve, because you have your whole repertoire available, but you still have limited slots.

The main alternative to this, is usually some sort of Mana system, but... mana is just spell slots by a different name really. You still only get a fixed number per rest. It's just abstracted out into a point system.

Unless you just hate having a class with a resource management mechanic at all, in which case, just play a fighter or a rogue I guess?

If I'm Sorc or w/e, I know 5 lv 1 spells and cast any of them as I please, but I still only get to use 3 lv 1 spells a day. Which I find to be kinda lame

I just gone done playing a Cipher in PoE and a cipher's MP resets at the end of every fight. So there's no risk in using running out of higher end spells as they come back for the next encounter. So I was asking if there's a class like that in PF

JamMasterJim
Mar 27, 2010

Nissin Cup Nudist posted:

If I'm Sorc or w/e, I know 5 lv 1 spells and cast any of them as I please, but I still only get to use 3 lv 1 spells a day. Which I find to be kinda lame

I just gone done playing a Cipher in PoE and a cipher's MP resets at the end of every fight. So there's no risk in using running out of higher end spells as they come back for the next encounter. So I was asking if there's a class like that in PF

No. Even Kineticist has a pool that enhances his basic blasts (accumulating burn).

Chevy Slyme
May 2, 2004

We're Gonna Run.

We're Gonna Crawl.

Kick Down Every Wall.

Nissin Cup Nudist posted:

If I'm Sorc or w/e, I know 5 lv 1 spells and cast any of them as I please, but I still only get to use 3 lv 1 spells a day. Which I find to be kinda lame

I just gone done playing a Cipher in PoE and a cipher's MP resets at the end of every fight. So there's no risk in using running out of higher end spells as they come back for the next encounter. So I was asking if there's a class like that in PF

This is just a really fundamental element of how Pathfinder does resources. Everything is x / per rest to some extent or another, other than just "I Cast Sword."

It''s the core element underlying basically all of the systems resource management.

Zurai
Feb 13, 2012


Wait -- I haven't even voted in this game yet!

Nissin Cup Nudist posted:

If I'm Sorc or w/e, I know 5 lv 1 spells and cast any of them as I please, but I still only get to use 3 lv 1 spells a day. Which I find to be kinda lame

I just gone done playing a Cipher in PoE and a cipher's MP resets at the end of every fight. So there's no risk in using running out of higher end spells as they come back for the next encounter. So I was asking if there's a class like that in PF

Dreamscarred Press's Paths of War classes are encounter-based. They're based on the old Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords that came out right at the end of 3.5, which was an obvious testbed for 4E mechanics.

Those are not available in the video games at least by default. It's possible there's a mod that adds them, though I'd be a little surprised.

Roadie
Jun 30, 2013
Re: Mythic Vital Strike, in the tabletop any character that gets access to the 3rd-tier mythic ability Fleet Warrior doesn't need to even bother with Vital Strike stuff, though I don't know if it's been included in the bideo jame.

quote:

When making a full attack, you can move up to your speed either before or after your attacks. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal.

Kalas
Jul 27, 2007

JamMasterJim posted:

No. Even Kineticist has a pool that enhances his basic blasts (accumulating burn).

Honestly you shouldn't be taking burn as a Kineticist unless you want to. That's the entire point of Gather Power.
Normally you'd use your defense / buff abilities to reach the burn you want for the bonuses, then use Gather power for the rest of the day to avoid further burn.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

FuzzySlippers
Feb 6, 2009

I like paladins mechanically but I can never get past the rp element. I wish paladins worked more like in Pillars because I find the LG holy warrior thing a bit tedious. Like if you could be a neutral Paladin waging a war on behalf of nature (like a more fanatical druid) or a NE fighting on behalf of monster races that'd give some fun rp room. Even Blackguards are tedious and suffer from the same issues.

Though I guess now I'm just complaining about the alignment system. Especially with classes as I hate monks have to be lawful when the alignment system generally makes it seem like lawful is more about society and not your own personal creed. So a monk can be true to a creed that would place them non-lawful by that perspective.

FuzzySlippers fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Oct 13, 2020

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply