TRUTH ABOUT BLACKWATER

[GloriouSin♪]

Pro tip from a real DM:
Drop this area entirely. Extremally, extremally poor combat design, as in you obviously allowed a 7 year old design this place cos the balance is all over the place, it doesn't fit the game and plot, poor writing, lack of puzzles, pointless fights with crap that takes forever. While also it literally does not add anything to the game, you and me know it.

And to everyone: honestly just turn on story mode for this place, it offers no complex challange it's just the same enemies as always but with +50 to AC and generally tons upon tons of various resistances making the fights slowly and poorly paced; absolutely pointless place out of so many reasons that it would take a year just to post HOW bad this place is ;p

[Amoc]

I cleared the area on Daring difficulty and mostly agree. It was a dumb dungeon. It didn't fit the story very well nor the setting. I understand Numeria has all sorts of random future trash laying around, but we're not in Numeria and it was all very far-fetched, even for Pathfinder.

I went through it and found it poorly designed as far as encounters go, with most of it being fine other than the demons near the end with untouchable AC that only got hit on a prefect roll and regenerated. Had to reload that half a dozen times and didn't feel like i accomplished anything when I finally beat it.

It was a completely forgettable dungeon and outside the XP, I'm not really glad I went through it.

[Sid Icarus]

Since it's an optional challenge dungeon, I don't see anything wrong with it. If you dislike it you're free to skip over it. I thought it was pretty funny because it's clearly designed as a Doom reference. Like the Fallout dungeon in chapter 5.

[Amoc]

Sure. You can skip it. That doesn't mean people can't critique it :P

[Sid Icarus]

Originally posted by Amoc:

Sure. You can skip it. That doesn't mean people can't critique it :P

True! Personally I liked it, but I didn't play it on a challenging difficulty. I'm sure the stat bloat was bananas. But I enjoyed that it put my game knowledge to test, figuring out how to get around regen, immunities, and high AC all at once. I believe it's been nerfed since then though.

[EastCLiff]

The worst spot I've seen in Act 3. I agree that. I usually playing with monster difficulty - 'none' and all monsters are having DR except adamantine, fast heal 10 with "AC ~40 WTF" ??

I couldn't even scratch them normally. At least, I've never seen adamantine weapon before in the game. Thunder magics to prevent fast heal are only needed in this spot. Enemy AC is more than 20+A bonus. Completely sucks.

Average Level is also making me feel bad on this game. I cleared all spots and quests except 4 riddles. Party level is almost early 13 but monsters have at least 14 and more than that. Stats of monsters are not matched with number of level. Fake level, fake stats. It's an inferior joke or mocking on player. Level design is completely broken. Now I'm beginning from the start and it's almost 5 times returning from the act 3 because game experiences are not so satisfied.

They are cheating to players. Boss fight is more annoying because area effect skills are fully poured on party and there is no chance to stop it except preparing resist spells on them before the encounter. It requires superhuman prediction, not for game characters but for player. Why do I have to do that?

[EastCLiff]

Originally posted by Sid Icarus:

Since it's an optional challenge dungeon, I don't see anything wrong with it. If you dislike it you're free to skip over it. I thought it was pretty funny because it's clearly designed as a Doom reference. Like the Fallout dungeon in chapter 5.

I don't like that idea in other games too.
I can accept in some cases but not in WOTR. My story and level up process were all stopped more than hours from this point. OK I can wait the quest 'queen's coming' and game says it would take 30 days. What ?
Progress of game was just stopped at this point. Just wandering and boring, even after clearing Black Water. Rest in castle is also boring because memory management of this game is not good, loading, loading and loading.
I agree that it's just hidden quest for challenge. But you must understand that blames like I'm saying are not related to whatever it is challenge difficulty or not. Balance is broken and there is no fun because this dungeon cannot be breached by natural game progression. It says to player you need to use weird and unnatural plays like glitches and exploit weak point of system itself. For example, using bug like problems of bad movement AI, getting success actions of glass cannon by infinite save-load(getting bless of dice god), camping/resting and other activity spam, etc.

[Nihi]

Oh god, I can't wait for OP to explode with rage once he gets to the fallout map, please keep us updated on that.

This dungeon is okay, I don't think locking the player team inside it is a good decision tho, we should be allowed to leave and come back later especially given how hard it can be.

[T.W. Hamill]

Originally posted by Erei:

It's a backer dungeons. Apparently, there is another backer dungeon later in the game based on fallout, and you have a forced turn based mode fight (with infinite waves ?). Didn't play myself, but I heard it's equally bad.

What Dungeon was this?

[Herr Glaube]

Originally posted by Nihi:

Oh god, I can't wait for OP to explode with rage once he gets to the fallout map, please keep us updated on that.

This dungeon is okay, I don't think locking the player team inside it is a good decision tho, we should be allowed to leave and come back later especially given how hard it can be.

Bring somebody with Use Magic Device at a decent value, and you can just unlock the entrance.

[Deviant]

this area was clearly overpowered and unbalanced it was ridicilous i throwed everything i had in my arsenal just to get deleted in few rounds while i couldnt even kill half of the enemy monsters so i was forced to put story mode for this but once i got out of blackwater everythin else felt like kindergarden

[T.W. Hamill]

Originally posted by GloriouSin♪:

Pro tip from a real DM:

Ahh, you're a "real DM". That announcement basically means you're NOT a "real DM".
But, cool, you call yourself whatever.

the balance is all over the place,

No, its roughly the same in the entire place, with one encounter that sticks out simply because of the sheer number of bad guys. Is it harder than anything else up to that point in the game (as an area, as there are more difficult single encounters, potentially). Yeah, it is.

Thats a feature, not a bug. Its not supposed to be easy.

it doesn't fit the game and plot,

K. Numerians (who live literally just south of the Worldwound) coming to fight the Demons makes no sense. Gotcha. You're wrong, but duly noted.

poor writing, lack of puzzles, pointless fights with crap that takes forever. While also it literally does not add anything to the game, you and me know it.

It added quite a bit to the game, like a reminder that, oh, by the way, there are Spaceships and high technology on this world, too. And an interesting plot about what said high tech folks would do against the Demons. Turns out, its pretty effective.

And to everyone: honestly just turn on story mode for this place, it offers no complex challange it's just the same enemies as always but with +50 to AC and generally tons upon tons of various resistances making the fights slowly and poorly paced; absolutely pointless place out of so many reasons that it would take a year just to post HOW bad this place is ;p

Cringe whinging about how your auto level up'ed party with trash class and build choices cant handle a dungeon.

Cool story, bro.

Originally posted by GloriouSin♪:

Freeking futuristic garbage in fantasy,

Fantasy merely means there is magic. Fantasy can also have high technology. Star Wars is Fantasy. Thats it. thats literally what defines "Fantasy" in literature. The presence of magic/supernatural forces.

needles content vomited with no sense. Spaceships were not tech, they were magic, this is tech here, and from a magic ship they got tech...

Uhh.. no. Its not magic. It was never magic. The Divinity is a high-tech space ship from an entirely different galaxy, from a planet that repudiated magic and threw down their own gods. https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Divinity

Its not a "magic spaceship" a-la AD&D 2nd Edition's Spelljammer. Its a High-tech spaceship from another galaxy that had a literal space fold drive. With literal lasers and plasma guns and railguns and nanite swarms and robots and androids and people wearing powered armor.

Soooo... maybe if you werent completely ignorant of the lore and the setting, you wouldn't look so foolish? (Also, Golarion exists in the "real" universe - at least a fictionalized version of it - as Earth exists in this Universe and you visit it (circa WW2) in at least one AP.)

Blacwater and tech is just a stupid thing shoehorned in to an already overcrowded system and has no bearing on the plot of this game. And it doesn't change the fact that the area is abolutely amateurish, i can imagine how they laid stoned ass hell and were like:
"DUDE! dUUUUDDDeeee. Wee need to make a place for tomorrow, for job ya know, doood!"
"Dood i know but what do we do?"
"Dood... DUDE! Spaceships! ALIENS! WHAT IF IT WAS ALL ALIENS?!"
"Dudeeee! Ughhh but what enemies?"
"Duuud. Just slap cyber parts on daemons! And like... robots are haaard to kill man so.... so like give them +40 AC and +20 all resists!"
"AWOGHAH Aw maaaaan duuud wow that's such a cool idea duuuuuuuueeeeed!!!!"

...
Adding garbage just for the sake of adding it without consideration has poor effects on the overall finished product.

Yeah, its really weird and doesn't at all fit that a nation that literally is on the southern border of the Worldwould, and whose people were cousins of that nation's people... would like.. try to fight the Demons.

Makes no sense at all.

I think you were high when you wrote this. Also, its a nod that quite likely, the next AP they are going to adapt is Iron Gods, which takes place in Numeria.

Originally posted by Cloudhunter:

Its an spoiler on the next games they produce. Because the next game is a game, located in space.

Facts not in evidence. Its FAR more likely that they are adapting Iron Gods., a well established AP for PF1.

Owlcat doesn't like the PF2 system, their devs have been clear about that, and Starfinder is basically PF2 (it was the test-bed for all the changes that made it into PF2).

Originally posted by Lardblood69:

The problem on higher difficulties is that spell resistance

You can have a higher BONUS to the spell Pen roll than the enemies SR by the time you get here. The number of people that cant seem to figure that out is weird.

plus the regen turns what should be a tough fight to, near impossible. some enemies were still alive after coup de grace, which is supposed to end any sleeping or disabled enemy,

That is NOT what Coup De Grace does. Maybe read the ability. Its an auto-crit, and if that doesnt kill them, they get a save to not die.

but with the asinine regen it doesn't work.

Yeah, except that isn't why it doesn't work.

Also, there are electrical swords as loot in the first room. Simply swap one into Seelah's hands after they are down and SPLOOT. Dead. No Coup De Grace required.

That combined with higher enemy numbers and crits, was a hell march. aru even got straight up disintegrated a few times and i had to load a save, because you cant revive a disintegrated party member AFIK. Basically, i believe the encounter is overtuned, especially at high difficulty, and trying this at anything above daring is an exercise is masochism. The area itself is kinda boring and a door maze, if it wasnt for the xp, id probably skip it. The juice doesn't seem worth the squeeze.

The game isn't balancd at anything above Normal. Complaining that hard modes are hard is just the height of cringe.

Originally posted by GloriouSin♪:

Frankly; on normal enemies here have 41+ armor; you come here around lv 12 which means your MAIN WARRIOR will have about 30% chance to hit with MAIN ATTACK which means you will have at best a 30%/5% melee hits and the enemies have ramped up HP to the moon. It's the poorest typical noob design: just smash tons of AC and HP on an enemy.

So, you just revealed that you're simply terrible at the game here, Mr. Pro DM.

41 AC is nothing to hit at level 12.

Your "Main Warrior" should be rocking ~+32 to hit or more.

12 BAB
Focus (+1)
Greater Focus (+1)
Flanking (+4) - if you didn't take Outflank, thats a you fail.
Greater Heroism (+4 - Bard 5, Mage/Oracle 6, avail at level 11)
Magic Weapon - at least +3 (just from GWM if nothing else)
Attribute Bonus - +8 (at 12 you should have at LEAST 20 base in the stat +4 from a belt, or from the relevant stat buff)
Prayer - +1
Bless - +1 (incorrectly stacks with Heroism, even though it says it doesnt)

Thats +35 and we haven't even busted into anything esoteric yet like food buffs, using consumes (divine favor and divine power scrolls/pots), unique class buffs, shared buffs (like Slayer target sharing, etc) or using debuffs to lower AC (like Dazzling Display into Shatter Defenses, which every physical DPS should have, making the enemies permanently flat footed, a rogue applying the -2 AC debuff (-4 vs the rogue), and others.

Thats a 75% hit rate before you add in anything esoteric or debuffs.

TL:DR - quit being bad.

Like with their stupid idea number 2: a strong enemy is one that spams free AOE CC with high DC every turn...

Whats a "high DC"? Mid 20s are passable with rolls in the 3-5 range on most toons at this point. A lot of the CC can be immuned. (Freedom of Movement, Death Ward, Paladin's extended Aura)

It's not even combat design, that too strong of a word. This seems like some 9 year old kid got the area, monster list and just put them and modified the data after "testing" the area with a lv 40 sorc and deeming it too easy ;p
Honestly im shocked they even allowed us to use CC here; in Act 4 all enemies are resistant to all conceivable useful CC (all the enemies that matter; all the others you wont cc cos why cc something that is a 1hit mob...)

What are you even on about? I never had any issues using CC on Act 4 mobs. Dont build your characters like potatos.

The takeaway here is that you're bad at the game and blaming the game.

Originally posted by Erei:

Originally posted by DarkFenix:

Alternatively I'd foreshadow it appropriately, such that players could easily know lightning damage was going to be required... then if they ignore my hints, ♥♥♥♥ 'em.

You have 2 lightning wands, a multitude of shock longswords and a few shock bows in the instance. And all arcane caster have the jolt cantrip.
The first fight have a big electric traps nuking the mobs.

Dont forget the caster bracers that turn all magic into lightning when you turn them on.

Originally posted by Erei:

While I'm not a fan of mixing all genre into a big bowl "because it's fun" (do you mix chocolate, guacamole and beef because they are all tasty ?),

Uhh.. yeah. Any mexican dish with a good Mole (Mole-Ay, im not looking up the code for the accent) that also has Guac is exactly that.

Exactly. That.

So... maybe not the best analogy. Though the point isn't a terrible one.

Numeria is part of the game.
I'm OK with weird reference, like the nanite ring or belt in pathfinder, but an entire dungeon ? Meh.

Then you will probably not like the next entire game, as it is very likely to be Iron Gods which takes place in Numeria and follows the literal rise to divinity of three of the AIs on the the spaceship.

I don't mind individually. But mixed together it's weird. Like why Numeria don't send their giant robots with lazerz and nanite to nuke the demons ? They are neighbors and if the worldwound expand, they are f*** to.

Because there simply aren't that many of them and they dont want the Demons to capture them. And the Technic League controls the tech, not Numera at large.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Originally posted by GloriouSin♪:

Originally posted by Cloudhunter:

Its an spoiler on the next games they produce. Because the next game is a game, located in space.
And why should it not fit in the game? Its from old Numeria, which is already mentioned in Pathfinder: Kingmaker.
Read the backround story, then you would know, that this whole story is related to the starfall-incident, where some big spaceship was fallen down. The leftovers were things like you see in this level.

Freeking futuristic garbage in fantasy, needles content vomited with no sense. Spaceships were not tech, they were magic, this is tech here, and from a magic ship they got tech... Blacwater and tech is just a stupid thing shoehorned in to an already overcrowded system and has no bearing on the plot of this game. And it doesn't change the fact that the area is abolutely amateurish, i can imagine how they laid stoned ass hell and were like:
"DUDE! dUUUUDDDeeee. Wee need to make a place for tomorrow, for job ya know, doood!"
"Dood i know but what do we do?"
"Dood... DUDE! Spaceships! ALIENS! WHAT IF IT WAS ALL ALIENS?!"
"Dudeeee! Ughhh but what enemies?"
"Duuud. Just slap cyber parts on daemons! And like... robots are haaard to kill man so.... so like give them +40 AC and +20 all resists!"
"AWOGHAH Aw maaaaan duuud wow that's such a cool idea duuuuuuuueeeeed!!!!"

...
Adding garbage just for the sake of adding it without consideration has poor effects on the overall finished product.

Numeria[pathfinderwiki.com] and its entirely-technological starship that crashed there thousands of years ago has been a part of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting since at least 2008. It is not a new element by any stretch and the nation of Numeria is right next door to Mendev. Within Numeria's borders are rogue robots[pathfinderwiki.com], androids[pathfinderwiki.com], aliens[pathfinderwiki.com], and a hell of a lot more.[pathfinderwiki.com]

Numeria being right next to Mendev, I can easily see someone from Numeria bringing some of the cybernetics tech that they've managed to understand up to help with the early Crusades against the Worldwound. Regill and Seelah both came to the Worldwound from much further away than Numeria. Here's a map of the Inner Sea region[i.imgur.com] so you can see the proximity I'm talking about. The Worldwound is way up near the northern edge of the map, it also notes the locations of Kenabres and Drezen and you can see that Mendev's capital city of Nerosyan is basically right on the border with Numeria.

EDIT: Also Numeria, or more specifically the Technic League, hasn't sent any major tech north to help with the Worldwound because their knowledge and control of the tech is still incomplete and they're more interested in hoarding the tech for themselves to control Numeria (the actual ruler, Kevoth-Kul, is basically a puppet king for the League at this point in the timeline, the Technic League won't be over thrown until the events of Iron Gods which is set years after the Worldwound is closed by the heroes of WotR).

[DCRWrites]

To be honest I had more trouble figuring out the doors than fighting the augments. By that point in the game I'd already encountered Abysmal Huntresses who drop shock bows so I just equipped my archers and went to town on them. Even with a relatively low hit chance I'm getting 10 or so attacks a round between them so I get some hits regardless. Meanwhile my magus has shocking grasp and the dimension strike feature so he's going against their touch AC. Plus Ember is sheer murder with scorching ray.

[Planeforger]

For reference, Android is a playable race in Pathfinder 1e and 2e. Numerian technology is an established part of the setting.

[Herr Glaube]

I thought they'd nerfed it pretty hard already. Had a way harder time when i first did it before they patched it.