Right on, time for our 3rd entry in my crazy plan of beating Wrath with every single Mythic Path. A couple of broad changes to my overall plan is that I am now going to specifically create saves for the late game paths (Legend, Devil, Swarm, Gold Dragon) from my current games, vs making a unique character for each.
And I wont be touching ANY of those late game saves till the Enhanced Edition, as there are already announced plans for those paths to get some love in regards to both mechanics and story.
This leaves me with Aeon, Lich, Trickster, Angel, and Demon to go in terms of straight playthroughs. I will say my Aeon is getting a full restart as I am unhappy with where it was going frankly. Aeon is such an odd Mythic Path mechanically, and it turns out its considered one of the weaker choices.
Unfortunately, because my Azata is already way past the point where it could go Devil (my only save being right outside the final dungeon), my Aeon will HAVE to also pull double duty down the road for Devil. My Lich run is going to handle my Swarm that Walks and is already in the process of making sure its unlockable. If you were unaware, Swarm is the hardest path to unlock, bar none, and its kind of a pain in the ass to be quite honest. Without a guide I am not sure how you would even manage it.
For Legend, I am thinking my Demon run will have a save for that, a sort of “repentant” moment there, giving up the power and rage to not doom the world. And for Gold Dragon, my Angel will have a save there! I might also try to go for the “secret” ending on one of these two runs as well as romance the hidden character. Yes, there is a secret ending AND a secret romance. The Angel would be the one to manage the secret romance if I pull it off.
To Sum Up future run plans:
- Lich (Current Run, Sylvan Sorc)
- Swarm That Walks built off this later
- Aeon (Elemental Rampager Druid is my class for this)
- Devil built off this later
- Trickster (Honestly might go Fighter and crit heavy as Tricksters can abuse Crits)
- Angel (Oracle of Nature / Scale Fist Monk build, with a Mount, Melee Combat and Buffs)
- Gold Dragon built off this later
- Demon (Bloodrager or Barbarian)
- Legend built off this later
For those who I will be building off, there may be respecs. For instance, with Legend I will prolly respec out of Bloodrager or Barb and do something like a Fighter/Rogue 20/20 setup or something along those lines. Maybe. Plans of course will change!
I have three more things I want to discuss now. First, lets talk about Toybox and how much fun I am having using it.
Toybox is a mod for Wrath of the Righteous (there is also a version for Kingmaker) and I could not IMAGINE playing the game without it now. It lets me customize the game to my liking, as well as occasionally fixing bugged things.
For example: I like to see companion dialog, but sometimes I want to use Mercenaries. Toybox has an option that lets “distant companions” speak during conversations. Meaning even if someone isnt “there” they can interject. This is really fun. Another option I have turned on is that my carry weight is basically infinite. I hate dealing with weight based inventory. I also turned off the corruption mechanic for resting because it annoyed me, I set mercenary hiring costs to zero, and Toybox will let you reset companions down to level 1 and rebuild them regardless of when you got them. Increased the games point buy too cause why the hell not have Heroic characters! Oh and I turned off alignment shifting, so my character can be as nice or as chaotic or as lawful as I feel they would be and I dont have to worry about alignment bullshit. I honestly hate alignment as a mechanic even in the tabletop setting so there ya go. Lets me play the character as a CHARACTER instead of a rigid “all things must be done this way”.
Oh, and I also turned on Multi Romance. Cause why the fuck not right? Honestly, I think Toybox makes the game infinitely more enjoyable. I do not use the options such as Kill All or anything crazy like that either. I just modify features to make it more enjoyable for me. And yes, there are buttons to literally kill all enemies on screen and whatnot. Technically I also use “Combat Relief” as a mod to skip the Crusade Combat system but thats a mod that does literally one single thing.
Second thing, lets talk about difficulty. I already went over this once but now I have some screenshot examples to show you all what I am talking about.
Lets show ya the first example: A Vrock from Act 1.
What we see here is the Vrock’s actual stats from the tabletop edition of Pathfinder 1st Ed on the bottom. On the left we have “Easy” difficulty / Much Weaker Enemies. Middle is Normal difficulty / Moderately Weaker. Right is Core Difficulty / No Adjustment.
And you will quickly notice that none of the stats match what the actual tabletop version has. Core difficulty, for the record, is billed as “Tabletop Accurate”. If you wanted to play this game as if it was the same as on the table, you are supposed to use Core.
But look. Tabletop, the Vrock should have 112 HP on average. Core has 128. The AC spread is correct, but the saves are all wrong. Fort and Will are off. For some reason, Fort is LOWER by 3 points, and Will is higher by 3?
And strangely enough, Spell resistance is unchanged no matter which difficulty you choose. Its freaking STRANGE.
Here is another example, again from Act 1.
So this time I only have 2 difficulty settings. Easy (Left) and Core (Right). Again, Core SHOULD be tabletop accurate. But again, its off.
HP is a point higher (no biggie at this level but still odd). Base AC and Touch AC are a point higher. And the saves are again completely wrong. Fort is lower and Reflex is higher then they should be. Why?
Its almost as if Owlcat sat down and said “We are going to homebrew every enemy in the game and adjust their stats in some fashion”. But no real discernable reason as to WHY they did this. And this is only Act 1. I didnt take a screenshot, but even on my current settings for instance, a Plagued Smilodon in Act 2 has 4 attacks, all of which have +15 TO HIT. Thats WILD at that level. There are some areas where you face 2 or 3 of those at once. And the attack bonus does NOT change when you alter the difficulty scale. Its bizarre as hell and I do not understand what is going on in the background of this game.
Ok thats enough ranting about the difficulty and stat adjustments in this game make no sense! On to the final topic for today: THE LICH!
SPOILER TIME!
Yes, I managed over the course of the weekend to finish Act 1, Act 2, and start Act 3. The end of Act 2 / Start of Act 3 is when you begin your ascension to Lichdom, or whatever path you choose. I did not expect, as a lich, to get a skellie friend but you do! Where as the Azata gets a cute Dragon, I got a boney friend. And its even a bit customizable. In my case its an archer.
Sadly I have not gotten too far into Act 3 nor the Lich Questline. The first thing my Master (yes, the Lich gets a Mentor for their quests) demanded I do was build a Zigguraut…which takes 30 in game days. I am going to be doing a bit of skipping days for that one to get it done tonight when I get home. Beyond that all I have done in Act 3 is beat up the rampaging dragon because I fucking hate the random encounters you get with it, and save the Storyteller. I have also, so far, managed to progress the Swarm that Walks steps properly, which is aces.
But what I really want to talk about is the Lich spells.
See, every Mythic Path gets access to spells, and 2 of them (Angle and Lich) get full spell progression up to level 9…and 10. Yes, 10th level spells. BUT there is a caveat. In order to get 10th level spells you must first be a full spell progression class (Arcane for Lich and Divine for Angel) and hit level 19 in that class, and level 9 in your mythic progression. AND you have to Merge your spellbooks. Now there are benefits and drawbacks to merging spellbooks but honestly I think I prefer them merged.
When you merge, your caster level for all your spell changes to be your Mythic Rank + Class level. So for example, my Sorcerer, who is level 11 and Mythic Rank 3, has an effective spellcaster level of 14. This means that I have access to 7th level spells! But, because of the way spontaneous casters work I dont actually learn any 7th level spells I just have the slots and my Lich Spells (of which I learn every lich spell automatically as soon as I can). Prepared casters would actually be able to access their usual 7th level spells. Its kinda weird.
So I have all Lich spells up to 7th level now. And boy howdy are Lich spells bonkers! Here are 3 examples. Again, I am effective Spellcaster level 14 for ALL of these.
I want you to notice something: Almost all of these have no save allowed and are unaffected by spell resistance. That means it doesnt matter what I am fighting, I am going to mess them up. And these are only 3! I have 3-4 per level starting at spell level 3 going all the way to spell level 10. Its amazing and already way more interesting then the Aeon was. Oh and Exsanguinate (the spell mentioned in Feast of Blood) is a great single target spell…that I can cast 11 times before I gotta rest. Yea. Sorcerers are baller with the Abundant Spellcasting mythic abilities.
Sadly, the one time I tried Repurpose…I kinda ended up crtting the enemy afterwards and turned em into chunky salsa which did not let me raise them so there is that hehe. I also want to point out just how powerful Eyes of the Bodak is. No save, just 1 negative level a round. That lowers every single thing an enemy can do. Their HP, their Saves, all of it. Just a constant lowering of those stats. And again, no save, no resistance, hell no duration on the negative levels. Its just…endless.
Honestly, I am looking forward to tackling Blackwater with this character, and turning my enemies against each other. Should be a good time.
Finally the other big thing Lich characters get are the Graveguard. These are 5 unique undead companions that you can use, all named and from characters in the game. The first one I can get is Stauton Vane, and if you have played any amount of Wrath of the Righteous you will know who that is. I can also get Ciar, Delemare, Kestolgyr, and Queen Galfrey eventually. Honestly, the only one I might not use is Kestolgyr.
I intend to use Toybox and the Respec mod to actually change their classes and things as well as right now I have 3 Mercs in my party and 2 Companions. One of the Mercs, my Mad Dog Barbarian, is gonna stay as they are based on my wifes old DND Character Grum. But the other two, and the two companion slots, will be replaced. Stauton for instance might end up as a Nature Oracle / Scale Fist Monk and take the place of that merc. Delemare is gonna stay a ranged Slayer but I might try to build her into Dual Throwing Axes. Ciar is gonna get rebuilt as a Gendarme Cavalier instead of the standard Cavalier.
Someone did suggest I just respec Kestolgyr into the Mad Dog barb due to a Lich Passive Power that buffs all my Grave Guard, but that would ruin it. Besides I can just…give those stats to my Barbarian and pretend they are a Grave Guard via Toy Box anyway LOL. And while you might say “Clay, you have all these undead and 1 living person, wont that fuck things up” the answer is NO. Cause I have a Lich Spell that lasts 10 minutes per caster level and causes a living ally to be treated AS UNDEAD. Meaning inflict will heal for instance. Just slap that on my Barbarian and any mounts that are not undead and BAM. Hell there a lich spell I have access to that just straight up heals all allied undead to max within 100 yards. Seriously, Lich spells are BONKERS.
I am still debating what to do with that last slot though. I kinda wanna use Galfrey, but if I did I have no idea as what. She starts as a Thundercaller bard. Might leave her as that for the buffage.
Oh and if you think those Lich spells are bonkers? The Angel spells are just as nuts. Seriously.
Thats all for this entry. Hopefully I will have more story progress to go over next time! As always thanks for reading, Stay Nerdy, and I will catch you all on the next one! Take care!