[spoilers] Lexicon of Paradox Act 4/Nocticula/Demon Path

[Quacksalber]

Do not read if you don't like spoilers, this is just for people who are wondering whether to give Nocticula the Lexicon.













Since I'm on demon path, I thought I'd try to give the lexicon to Nocticula. This is, it turns out, a completely pointless move. You get nothing from it besides her profane gift a bit earlier than when she offers it anyway, and if you can't pass a 40+ will check, she prevents you from picking up the nahandrian crystal from Baphomet. You probably aren't going for that ending if you give it to her, but it's still super unsatisfying, since as demon you will want to not do as told and being subdued by her as opposed to having her backtrack and offer you her gift anyway yields a super naff feeling.

Reloading and just not using the dumb arrow :P

[アンジェル]

Makes sense.
As a demon it would not cross my mind to give her the Paradox. The promise of power is too tempting. As angel I considered it, with the belief that she would keep it to prevent future worldwounds.

But then she is a demon. And demons are not to be trusted. Which kinda makes the whole quest like a trap decision you would not pick to begin with at any mythic path.

[Wraith]

Have you seen if giving her the lexicon
will potentially cause her to ascend when you ascend?

[Conquista]

on my demon run i gave one half of the book to galfrey and the other to nocticula, i just like my girls smart

[Erei]

As anybody, I wouldn't give her the lexicon. She make it clear from your first encounter she make it clear the reason she's in is self interest, and literally prevent Areelu from giving too much details to you.
And mention she can mind control through her gift.

She doesn't lie. She is literally manipulating you and make no secrets about it.

The secrets are the true reasons why, and the thing she prevents Areelu from saying, which is revealed a bit further away. The true reason can be revealed in the endgame slides, but deduced through the game.


There are no reasons to give her the lexicon, no matter your paths and alignement. As evil, it's giving away power. As good, it's giving a precious tool to fight the worldwound to a freacking demon lord.

[Wraith]

Well after you read the lexicon and pass all the checks it useless might as well give it to her

[Quacksalber]

This was just a FYI for anyone interested. I see no real reason to explain my motivation; it's an option in the game and hence people are gonna choose it, but since everyone knows better, here goes:

If I don't have knowledge as regards something hampering me being or pointless, I will try things that makes sense for my character, and imo it makes most sense to do this as demon. It has little to do with trusting Nocticula and more to do with wanting to stay on her good side, especially when in her domain and having done several things to upset her. And actually, given how everyone else behaves, there's little reason to distrust her specifically besides her being a demon - it's not like the queen or the Hand behaved in a way that makes one conclude only demons are not to be trusted - at this point Noctiicula's behaviour is a lot better - and maybe a character wants to get back at the queen who they know wants it - and so on. I fancied her profane gift (and was hoping for nifty extras ofc). Also, on a meta-level, I cannot read the book anyway and am unlikely to get the elven notes for it. Plus all it does is give you xp as far as I recall, which one hardly needs, especially when one has found all the required notes. So, plenty of reasons to give it to her.

In case anyone is wondering, I also tried the demon Woljiff option (yaya I'm sure this is a completely bonkers thing to try and only idiots would even consider it, especially on demon path, shame on me for trying it out and so on) : it sucks, so reloaded. He gets no special abilities. All that happens is that he's more jaded, less cute, gets a cool picture and you got to pick some more daft "evil" dialogues.

Originally posted by Wraith:

Well after you read the lexicon and pass all the checks it useless might as well give it to her

My character is too dumb to read it. He can only do perception and persuasion, and he's not even very good at the latter - lol :)

[mreed2]

That's rather disappointing, honestly.

However, i do have another question -- if you are on the Trickster path, can you give the Lexicon to Nocterina and get it back later? Given how sucky the reward is, I don't know why you would bother, but you do get to kill Nocterina on the Trickster path, so it makes a certain amount of sense that you could recover it at that point.

[corisai]

Originally posted by EH!:

but it's still super unsatisfying, since as demon you will want to not do as told and being subdued by her as opposed to having her backtrack and offer you her gift anyway yields a super naff feeling.

LOL?
Either roll a Will save or don't pick profane gifts. How you could believe that demon queen will give you a free power?
How you could trust anybody as a demon?

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by EH!:

This was just a FYI for anyone interested. I see no real reason to explain my motivation

There was never a reason to explain your motivation. I understood it as you just wanted to let other people know what you found out, and that it was unsatisfying. I consider your thread / post as useful.

If there is something to discuss, I would say it is a matter of all those "trap options". Red herrings? What is called like that? What I mean are all those optional decisions you can make which probably have little to no impact besides giving a grand illusion of freedom and decisions.

I personally see them as valuable, and I do not complain if something like that paradox decision leads to "nothing". It still served its purpose as giving me as a player the illusion "you can do it, if you want". How you act with it contributes to a grand role play feeling.

But based on the impression I got from you, I can also understand that strong urge and curiousity to explore if there is more behind those trap options. It turns out very interesting at times - sometimes with more satisfying results and sometimes with less, like in this case.

I am thinking of the Azata trap options when talking about "more". There I got the feeling most were trap decisions, just to see them turning out... to be more than surprising to me.

[Quacksalber]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by EH!:

but it's still super unsatisfying, since as demon you will want to not do as told and being subdued by her as opposed to having her backtrack and offer you her gift anyway yields a super naff feeling.

LOL?
Either roll a Will save or don't pick profane gifts. How you could believe that demon queen will give you a free power?
How you could trust anybody as a demon?

*sigh* Gratz to you for being so clever! As I explained at length above, there are plenty of RP or simple curiosity reasons to do this. Not every single character makes all the "right" choices all the time, nor are said "right" choices obvious to every character, plus aside from giving her the thing having no real benefit, there's no drawback I can think of for accepting her gift if you are not going for the secret ending or have RP motivations (I've accepted it later on on 2 other characters without any negative consequences), just as there's no reason to use the arrows, which is why I reloaded. Finally, I could have reloaded and buffed my way through the save, I just don't see the point as it doesn't matter.

[corisai]

Originally posted by EH!:

As I explained at length above, there are plenty of RP or simple curiosity reasons to do this.

As demon RP you should at least try to pursuit your own power & pleasure (Camelia is a nice example). Giving away a precious artifact only to "look what will happen" is more like Trickster playstyle or CN (and have several such scenes).

So you'd picked obvious NOT demon option (his scenes mention several times how angry you're from idea of submitting to someone) in dialogue and writting here how "unsatisfying" it was. I don't see any logic here, sorry.

[Conquista]

there are two demon paths
i think one was called freedom where you do whatever you want and rage all the time
and the other was something like tyranny where you follow the rules of the abyss

[corisai]

Originally posted by Conquista:

there are two demon paths
i think one was called freedom where you do whatever you want and rage all the time
and the other was something like tyranny where you follow the rules of the abyss

Second is not "demon" path, it's "devil" path (demons and devils are completely different creatures in Pathfinder and very antagonistic to each other).

[Quacksalber]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by EH!:

As I explained at length above, there are plenty of RP or simple curiosity reasons to do this.

As demon RP you should at least try to pursuit your own power & pleasure (Camelia is a nice example). Giving away a precious artifact only to "look what will happen" is more like Trickster playstyle or CN (and have several such scenes).

So you'd picked obvious NOT demon option (his scenes mention several times how angry you're from idea of submitting to someone) in dialogue and writting here how "unsatisfying" it was. I don't see any logic here, sorry.

I explained the RP reasons above -maybe read them? Curiosity is obviously a player reason, not a role play reason, hence I wrote OR.
I only posted this so other people who want to know what happens don't have to bother. I'm not seeking advice as regards how to play my own character. You can play your characters in your vastly superior way and more power to you.

PS - how is it not a "pursuit your own power & pleasure" to hand over a book that's entirely useless to me in exchange for a significant power boost, and which I know people want who I have less motivation to trust and plenty to want to annoy?

[Conquista]

devils live in hell not in the abyss

btw i played the tyranny path on my demon