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Hello everyone and welcome back. We somehow survived our first encounter with a demon lord. If you didn't read the encyclopedia entry on them, then let me get you up to speed... demon lords are practically demigods. They possess power on a scale that's unfathomable. We not only shot one in the chest with a crossbow and managed to hurt him, but we survived to tell the tale!
Let's break narrative for a moment and take a look at the game's mod manager. I'm using a fair few.
The one we're interested in is the Toybox mod. This is basically the developer console, but in mod form. It's incredibly powerful and can be used to outright cheat if you want. It also lets you further tweak the difficulty of the game. Call it homebrew rules if you like.
Some options are also quality of life changes. Stuff like letting companions not in your active party comment on the situation at hand. The option isn't quite right and will break scripting in a couple of edge cases, but for the most part it works wonderfully.
Down here in the "cheats" section is what I'm more interested in however. I've got four two options toggled here - Unlimited Modifier Stacking, Spontaneous Caster Scroll Copy, Highlight Hidden Objects, and No Equipment Weight. Allow me to explain...
Modifier Stacking - In base Pathfinder, you can't stack modifiers that have the same description. Armor bonuses are particularly common. So if you have a +1 armor class amulet, you can't wear +1 armor class bracers. Any other game system in existence would let you stack the modifiers, and this game is difficult enough (and the computer enough of an asshole DM) that this is just making the playing field even.
On reflection, I have removed this because it's not the intended experience and the game is designed around only non-alike modifiers stacking.
Spontaneous Caster Scroll Copy - I don't think this does anything. Really. It's supposed to automate copying scrolls to your spellbook. But it just doesn't work. And, for some reason, the button that copies all unlearned scrolls to the spellbook doesn't exist on my copy.
TeeQueue" post="524698176 posted:
From the wording, I think it may let Spontaneous Casters copy scrolls into their own spellbook, letting them grow their list of spells known to choose from? That's a huge buff to spontaneous casters like Sorcerers/Bards/etc, if so.
I have also removed this because this is way too cheaty and removes the only downside spontaneous casters have!
Highlight Hidden Objects - This is mostly moot if you have a character with high Perception (like we do), because you'll see all the hidden shit anyway. But this lets you see where it is. Handy and not really broken because, like I said, high perception.
No Equipment Weight - Nobody cares about inventory weight limits, and if they claim they do, then they're lying to either you or themselves. Wrath of the Righteous also isn't Skyrim or Fallout where having a cheated carry weight lets you break the game's economy. The only time we're gonna be hurting for money is early on. By the time we get to the midpoint of the game, we will be rich beyond the dreams of avarice. And that's with weight limits enabled! So the system is completely pointless.
Anyway, that's it for the Toybox portion of the game. Now back to the update already in progress...
First off, here's Lisbeth's portrait. See that little icon there?
Apparently somebody was looking out for us! I hesitate to think what might have happened had that spell not been in effect, because Lisbeth woke up lying face down.
The intro is scripted to end after you finish two out of the three objectives on the tracker.
I'm never going to remember to look at the journal every time it updates. But luckily we can see all the previous entries when we finish a quest. So we won't miss anything!
Let's get a move on.
Ouch. Looks like we really did catch a lucky break! And a little further past them...
We get thrown into a conversation. Anevia here is one of the people we met twice in the intro. She's the lady who was complaining about not being able to relax while downing a beer. She's apparently "a small woman" despite her model being the same size as every other female character.
She's also a trans woman whose wife bought her an elixir of gender change as a wedding gift. None of this ever comes up unless you pass an extremely difficult skill check in act 5.
Also Anevia's portrait (and her wife's portrait) are both ones you can use for your own character.
Seelah is another familiar face from the intro. This is the woman who barreled off through a crowd to get the dragon, Terendelev. I would have transcribed copied this text, but you can also see that we finished the current quest objective at the same time.
"I feel 'em all right, wouldn't say no to a little less feelin' in 'em... My ankle's killin' me. But my back seems to still be in one piece. My head, too."
Lisbeth is not a dick, so she's not gonna question why helping someone is a good idea, nor is she going to demand payment like the evil option is suggesting. See what I mean about evil being stupid in this game? So let's look at the options in green. If we mouse over the green bits...
These are the skill prompts I mentioned in the last update. Athletics is not a tagged skill, and its bonus is running off of Lisbeth's strength bonus. If you don't remember, her "bonus" is -1. So she takes a -1 penalty to every strength check. Because of both her low strength, plus athletics not being tagged, the skill's "bonus" is a -2. Thankfully these maluses aren't cumulative. The strength penalty has already been applied, in fact. On a DC12, we'd need to roll 14 or higher to win. While it's theoretically doable, this is probably not the smart pick.
Knowledge (World) is not a tagged skill either, but it has a +1 bonus, so we would only need to roll 11 or better to beat the DC12. These dice checks, that's what DC means by the way, are off a D20. So we would need to roll 11 or better on a D20, to give you an idea of how likely or not the outcome is.
The funny thing is, the diplomacy check would be the most likely to succeed. But again - Lisbeth isn't an asshole.
[Knowledge (World) 12] "We don't have to rely on brute strength for this. I'll try to find something to use as a lever."
[Failed a Knowledge (World) check] Either the sticks you've found aren't suitable or you're just not using them correctly, but your efforts come to nothing.
For purely illustrative LP-related purposes, this is probably the optimal outcome. Failed skill checks aren't the end of the world. The game has to continue. Anevia is a major NPC in the game, so she can't just be left rotting down under Kenabres because we were playing a rail thin half-elf.
"I don't think you're going to get anywhere with that. Why don't I just..." Using all of her strength, the knight moves the boulder and drags the wounded woman out from under the rubble. After making sure her charge is all right, the knight allows herself to catch her breath and wipe the sweat from her brow."
Seelah will come through like this if you fail like we did, or just refuse to help. She's about to join our party after this conversation, however, and she'll probably never leave it outside of extenuating circumstances. So if she's gonna be around for the rest of the game, may as well get off on the correct foot!
The woman feels her leg. "Damn it all! I think it's broken. Ah well, I've had worse — I'll just make myself a splint outta something..." Fishing a piece of twine from her pocket, she gets to work. "Thanks for the help. I wouldn't have lasted long on my own stuck under there. I'm Anevia Tirabade, of the Eagle Watch. I was overseeing security at the festival square — I thought maybe spies or demon worshipers might have something nasty planned... What actually happened, though, now that I did not see coming. I don't think anyone could've been prepared for that..."
"Well, I'm Seelah, paladin by the grace of Iomedae. I crossed the whole continent to come to Mendev and fight demons... And well, I've been fighting for a while now." Seelah's expression darkens. "I don't even want to think what might be happening up there in the city. Kenabres has lost the protection of Terendelev, and of the Wardstone too, looks like! It's a relic without equal, it was placed here personally by Iomedae's herald with the goddess's blessing. I really wanted to go see it, to pray before it... But there's no point worrying about a stone when there are people dying in the streets."
"Yeah, things are lookin' grim enough, but don't lose heart. Wardstone or no, dragon or no, Kenabres will never give in — simple as." Anevia's eyes shift to you. "Well, we've introduced ourselves, what about you?"
Our decision here doesn't change anything as far as I can tell. Wrath of the Righteous is an ambitious game, but it's nothing quite like NWN2 or KOTOR2. So while a character might disapprove of one answer or another, you're not gonna get fucked out of a good ending for them because you said your name and nothing else, for instance. So, in keeping with Lisbeth's nature as a ninja, let's just give an answer in that vein.
"One person's war is another person's opportunity. I'm in the city to seek my fortune."
Seelah frowns. "Yeah, we've seen plenty of your type before..."
"If I'm here to kill demons, what does it matter that I'm doing it for a paycheck?"
Seelah dislikes mercenaries, but fuck it, may as well get paid! This world is caught up in a Hellwar that has been going on for over a century at this point. Anevia and Seelah are both young, probably in their twenties, so they grew up in a world where this war and the associated Crusades are a stark reality. And while Lisbeth is a half-elf, I like to think she's similarly young. So it makes no sense why anyone would be distrustful of mercs at this point in history.
"At least it's an honest answer." Anevia tightly ties off the twine on her improvised splint and, leaning on a stick, hauls herself to her feet. "Now then, I'll hobble my way outta here somehow. The city ain't far, only thirty paces or so... That's if you're going straight up, of course. I'm afraid we're gonna have to go the long way round."
"To summarize: there are three of us, with five working legs, three pairs of decent hands, two clear heads and one made of wood — that's mine. Underground monsters, beware!" Seelah winks. "Anevia, you stay behind us. You're in no fit state to fight. If we do come up against anything, the two of us will try to manage on our own first. Well, onward! May the good deities lead us back to the open sky soon!"
Anevia is an extremely well-trained archer. She is gonna hard carry us for this first section of the game.
Anevia is also a guest party member. She follows behind us, and can't be hurt, but she's also not controllable. But here's Seelah!
She's got a permanent fatigue debuff because we didn't pass the skill check. Pathfinder Permanent is different from real world permanent. In Pathfinder, "permanent" buffs/debuffs just mean they don't have a set duration. Like the tooltip says, fatigue gets cleared by rest. I think we can live with a -2 malus to strength for this first part of the game.
We also need to fix the game's formation. I'm not sure what automatic is going for here, but this is kinda useless for two melee characters. So let's just fix it up some.
My personal preference is the wedge formation. Anyway, I didn't think to grab a shot of her stats, but Seelah is a Paladin. She joins at level 1, so you can do pretty much anything with her, though her stats are built to be a physical fighter. In pretty much every play through I do, I turn her into my party's tank.
Monsters tend to attack whoever they see first, so putting her at the lead is a good way to get enmity. She can also wear heavy armor out the gate, making her even more ideal for the role. As a Paladin, she also very slowly learns divine magic, so she will eventually be able to buff the party. I've got a build more-or-less in mind for her, one we'll be able to start pursuing in the next couple updates.
Spoilers, nobody levels up in this update because I have XP gains set to 1x.
One of my games in progress has XP gains set to 3x. My characters in that are early-mid act 3 and are a full act ahead in terms of relative power. It's really fun as a power fantasy, but levels in this game are pretty deliberately paced for a reason.
"Look, Hulrun put all the confiscated weapons in this chest. Take a look — maybe your things survived the fall."
Weapons in red are ones we don't have the proficiency to use. Ones in blue are magic. I want to get my hands on a really good dagger, but we'll have to make do with something else until then.
A resistance bonus is different from armor bonus, and so on. Normally similar bonuses don't stack. So two resistance bonuses, for example, don't stack. But you can stack a resistance and a mutation bonus.
This +1 is a handy bonus to have, and so it's going on Lisbeth. The 375 (Target Logo) is the monetary amount for the cloak. +1 cloaks are a dime a dozen, and by the end of the game we'll likely be drowning in them.
This shuriken would be an ideal starter weapon, but take a look at the tooltip again. "1-1 damage when equipped" is kinda shit. It uses strength to damage as well, and is not finesse, so it doesn't qualify for dex to damage. A pity, because masterwork and cold iron are both handy qualities to have. I don't know what they do, but they're more modifiers so they have to be better. Right?
I grabbed everything. Even if we did have carry weight enabled, this tutorial section is so short that there's no downside to doing so. In fact, it's free money! Also we'll be using this short sword because we can finesse wield it.
Lastly, we have some magical bracers on hand. Curious... Who promises what? Oh well, mysteries for another time!
Just past the chest we find another item.
This is an extremely rare item. In fact there are only a small handful in the game, all found in this little "dungeon". This resurrects someone back from the actual dead instead of a KO state.
Full tooltip if you're curious! Permanent negative levels can be dispelled by a cleric. I'm not playing on Core or above, so we will not need these. Just as well, because if I'm not mistaken, these scales will be possibly needed for something else later on. And if not, at least we have a memento of the nice dragon that saved our life before getting decapitated.
Past another bend, we find Camellia (also from the intro) in a strange position. She's covered in blood, standing next to a mutilated dead body. :thunk:
"Relax, friend, we're not demons or cultists! Don't poke my eye out with that thing, all right? We fell down here during the attack. I'm Seelah, that's Anevia and Lisbeth. We're looking for a way back to the surface."
"Really? I'm so ever glad to hear it..." The girl relaxes slightly, but she keeps her hand on her sheathed weapon. "Allow me to introduce myself: I am Camellia. I was also in the square when... when..." Her self-control falters for a moment and you glimpse the fear beneath her mask of perfect placidity. She licks her lips nervously. "I can scarcely believe it. How did all those demons get into the city? I thought — naively, it now seems — that the Wardstone protected us from attack. And Terendelev? I can't wrap my head around it."
"What happened to that poor man? Who is he?"
"I don't know. He must have been in the square when disaster struck. I tried to revive him, but he was already dead, sadly."
"He didn't get these wounds from the fall..." Seelah's eyes warily scan the area. "Be on your guard. Whatever killed him likely hasn't gone far."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, stick close. I'll make sure it doesn't hurt you."
You roll your eyes. "Thanks, Seelah."
Anevia peers at the dead man's face. "Hang on, I think I know him. His name's Aravashnial, the egghead from the library. He was a good lad, even if he was kinda stuck-up... May his soul rest in peace!" She catches your eye and ever-so-subtly shakes her head.
"Not many could withstand a strike from a demon lord - not even Terendelev."
"I can't argue with that. We're fortunate to be alive, albeit underground."
"Deskari himself has come to Kenabres... There's no mistaking that ugly mug. Terendelev tried to fight him, but what could she do against a near-deity? Even the Wardstone was no help. Our city used to be protected by powerful forces, but now..." Anevia shakes her head.
"...we've seen how powerless they truly are." Camellia finishes Anevia's thought with ruthless precision. "Henceforth we shall have no one but ourselves to rely on, I suppose?"
"Tell me about yourself."
The girl gives an elegant shrug. "Who am I? Just an ordinary citizen who decided to take a stroll through the square on the day of the festival. But that's not what you wish to know, is it? You most likely wish to know whether I'll be a burden should you ask me to join your group. No need to worry about that. I can assure you that I am skilled with a rapier, and I also possess some knowledge of magic." She touches the polished snake skull amulet that hangs around her neck.
"We need to keep moving. There must be a way back to the surface somewhere around here."
"That's right. It would be the height of foolishness to survive a demon attack only to perish under a pile of rubble."
"Are you coming with us then? The more the merrier. And that blade of yours is nothing to sniff at."
"Certainly. Survivors should stick together, it's only sensible. Who knows what else could be prowling about in these caves."
"Let's see if this poor bloke has anything useful on him. Not to sound like a heartless brigand or nothin', but we kinda need all the supplies we can get right now."
Gained 125 Experience
We need to do something to make Camellia useful.
Pathfinder, for some reason, introduces dual wielding penalties for holding a shield in your offhand. Despite having just as much Dex as Lisbeth, Camellia won't be able to hit anything while holding her shield. (Yes this applies to Seelah too.) So we need to unequip her shield.
Her amulet can't be removed. It's an amulet of hide alignment. So to recap, Camellia was found standing near a dead man covered in blood, she claims to be skilled with her rapier, and she's hiding her alignment from the party.
:thunk: :thunk: :thunk:
She's definitely trustworthy.
Anyway, Camellia is a Spirit Hunter, which is a subclass of Shaman. She learns spells primarily from the Druid trees, but also has some early game crossover with divine casters like Clerics or Paladins. She also gets access to hexes from Witches, which means she's technically one of the more useful party members. She can also off tank with her shield if need be. She can cover a lot of niches, it just depends on what you need in any given situation.
I never used her in my first play through because she couldn't hit the fucking broad side of a barn with both hands and a bat, no matter how much I leveled her up and gave her feats to counteract that. So she became the first permanent bench warmer in the party. That kind of colored my impression of her, and so despite how useful she can be, she will always, to me, be the worthless dipshit who couldn't do anything right.
Moving on, Aravashnial has a masterwork dagger on him. It's technically lower damage, but we can make some miracles happen with daggers.
A little further on, we come across the first encounter. Fitting for a level 1 party, it's against bugs. While I could show off the turn-based system, I don't really care for it too much. So we're just gonna kinda steamroll these suckers.
Like I said, Anevia has got this shit handled.
Another group later, and she's definitely hard carrying us. There were two flies. She killed both of them.
A dead body down a dead end has some equipment. Those are +1 AC bracers, and the potions are low level healing potions. Finally the scroll is Inflict Light Wounds.
Inflict Light Wounds posted:
When laying your hand upon a creature, you channel negative energy that deals 1d8 points of damage + 1 point per caster level (maximum +5).
Since undead are powered by negative energy, this spell cures such a creature of a like amount of damage, rather than harming it.
The Inflict Light Wounds scroll would be handy if we had a spell caster in the party. A proper spell caster, I mean. Camellia technically counts, but she's got the stats to be a front liner.
Cure Light Wounds posted:
When laying your hand upon a living creature, you channel positive energy that cures 1d8 points of damage +1 point per caster level (maximum +5). Since undead are powered by negative energy, this spell deals damage to them instead of curing their wounds. An undead creature can apply Spell Resistance, and can attempt a Will save to take half damage.
The potion doesn't technically have a caster level, outside of specific feats, so I think it's just 1d8+1. So it cures between 2 and 9 HP. Given most of the party has around 10, that's pretty good!
berryjon" post="524698453 posted:
1d8+1 is a range of 2-9, not 1-9.
Several unremarkable encounters later, we arrive at an underground structure. I know it feels like I'm skipping through these updates, but this is more focused on the story than the combat. Legitimately all I've done for combat is put it on Real Time With Pause mode and just let Anevia turn things into paste. The encounters end in like 10 seconds this way, it's pretty great.
Anyway, I'm cutting the update here because there's about to be a shitload of talking going down. Originally the next update and this one were planned to be one huge whole. But the next one is longer than this one while covering about the same amount of ground.
Also it would have gone over the post limit by somthing like 10,000.
Encyclopedia Golarionnica
Wardstones