What in the Actual Hell is With Owlcat's Balance?

[Wyzilla]

I've been extensively playing this game for a while now and I am both unsurprised yet extremely disappointed that Owlcat remains frankly, a terrible developer judging by just the sheer amount of bugs present in a game that has been out for a long time. But additionally, the balance remains absolutely godawful, with the two combining to

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/627175370818453514/1076862571124117504/image.png

What the ♥♥♥♥ is the justification for this on NORMAL? I had to do a double take when seeing the stats on a supposed mere level 13 demon which somehow has a total AC over ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 40 when the actual pen and paper version only has... 27 at roughly the same difficulty scale. Having 'easier' difficulties (lmao when 'actual stats from the books' is "easy mode") doesn't excuse this ♥♥♥♥ when easier difficulties also completely cripple bossfights and leave demigod level demon lords easy for level 15's to whip while bringing the rest down to the threat level they should be at per the book.

Once again I looked into this game because I thought 'oh hey, maybe this is a good way for me to get a pathfinder jam while being without a group myself', and yet again I am horribly mistaken because Owlcat doesn't seem to even pay heed to the rulebooks in the first place. Have any modders take it upon themselves to ♥♥♥♥♥♥ this atrocious state of balance and bring it in line as a faithful adaption of the PnP because I am sick and tired of having to slog through fight after fight, REQUIRING the use of a caster armed up to the gills with web, grease, and command esque spells to ensure victory. I shouldn't have to munchkin my way through ♥♥♥♥ just to be able to play normal without reloading saves.

[Raikon]

Sensei true strike though is a pretty massive buff. A party wide +20 attack bonus that ignores concealment. Thats like the mother of all buffs.

[Mravenrocks]

Origineel geplaatst door Malaficus Shaikan:

Origineel geplaatst door BlueBangkok:

I don't want to spark this debate all over again but you are wrong. You can have heavy armor users with 80+ AC which is more than enough on most difficulties. You just need to know how and properly support them.

I'm not saying that it's "better" than wearing pyjamas and adding your entire DEX, WIS, CHA, INT, whatever, to AC, I'm just saying that it can be done.

How?

-Mithril full plate +1 = +10 AC and it allows +3 DEX (16) so +13 AC (armor + dex) total
-Be a halfling for the bouns to fighting defensively, take Crane Style, have 3 in Mobility and that's a +6 AC when FD.
-Dodge +1AC
-Combat Expertise +5 AC (Dodge)
-The ring of protection +7 AC (deflection)
-Barkskin +5 AC (natural)
-Small size +1AC (size, halfling)
-Tiny size +AC (reduce person)
-Shy Lily's Helmet +2 AC (profane)
-Foresight +2 AC (insight)
-Engraved Lucky Bracers +1 AC (luck)

That's 54 AC without anything crazy and you can easily buff that up to 80 or more since you can still get morale/sacred/competence/dodge (more)/untyped/reduce enemy AB/more natural armor/wear a shield/wear a better armor.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Origineel geplaatst door Mravenrocks:

Origineel geplaatst door Malaficus Shaikan:

How?

-Mithril full plate +1 = +10 AC and it allows +3 DEX (16) so +13 AC (armor + dex) total
-Be a halfling for the bouns to fighting defensively, take Crane Style, have 3 in Mobility and that's a +6 AC when FD.
-Dodge +1AC
-Combat Expertise +5 AC (Dodge)
-The ring of protection +7 AC (deflection)
-Barkskin +5 AC (natural)
-Small size +1AC (size, halfling)
-Tiny size +AC (reduce person)
-Shy Lily's Helmet +2 AC (profane)
-Foresight +2 AC (insight)
-Engraved Lucky Bracers +1 AC (luck)

That's 54 AC without anything crazy and you can easily buff that up to 80 or more since you can still get morale/sacred/competence/dodge (more)/untyped/reduce enemy AB/more natural armor/wear a shield/wear a better armor.

Thanks.

[Nero]

Origineel geplaatst door Mravenrocks:

Origineel geplaatst door Malaficus Shaikan:

How?

-Mithril full plate +1 = +10 AC and it allows +3 DEX (16) so +13 AC (armor + dex) total
-Be a halfling for the bouns to fighting defensively, take Crane Style, have 3 in Mobility and that's a +6 AC when FD.
-Dodge +1AC
-Combat Expertise +5 AC (Dodge)
-The ring of protection +7 AC (deflection)
-Barkskin +5 AC (natural)
-Small size +1AC (size, halfling)
-Tiny size +AC (reduce person)
-Shy Lily's Helmet +2 AC (profane)
-Foresight +2 AC (insight)
-Engraved Lucky Bracers +1 AC (luck)

That's 54 AC without anything crazy and you can easily buff that up to 80 or more since you can still get morale/sacred/competence/dodge (more)/untyped/reduce enemy AB/more natural armor/wear a shield/wear a better armor.

While this is ofc true its much easier for a naked tank to achieve. And they can reach like 120.

The heavy armor needs a feat (and actually others as well, armor training) and you actually need to find a decent one.

It would be easy to do something like adding the mythic feat for heavy armor (it's in the PnP, why isn't this in the game?) and add a permanent bonus item like a book that grants armor training (1) or something different if the character already has this feat or so.

Naked tanks will still be stronger but heavy armor won't be that bad

[Raikon]

Heavy armor wont be that bad huh. How effective do you think a heavy armor build with all those feats will be?

[Immortal Reaver]

Lvl 20 Fighter
10 Base
14 Heavy Mithral Armor +5
9 Tower shield +5
1 Armor Focus
2 Shield Focus
1 Dodge feat
7 DEX
7 Ring +7
6 Amulet of Natural Armor +6
3 Embroidered Gloves
3 Fighting Defensively
5 Combat Expertise
2 Shy Lily's Helmet
2 Shield Wall
3 Morale AC Helmet of Comradery
77 AC
Optional - Halfling +3, Mythic Dodge +1 / 79 AC
Spell buffs -
4 Legendary Proportion (6 Natural-2 Size)
2 Foresight
1 Haste
84 AC with buffs. / 88 AC

Then you can do more with abilities, you can get from companion (Aroden's Wrath + Mark of Justice = Charisma modifier as Sacred AC). Even more with mercs. Demongrafting. Mythics abilities/spell can grant you AC. Crane Style (Martial Artist Background).
Using scribed scrolls with UMD you can get Frightful Aspect, Transformation, Seamantle for +18AC.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Origineel geplaatst door Immortal Reaver:

Lvl 20 Fighter
10 Base
14 Heavy Mithral Armor +5
9 Tower shield +5
1 Armor Focus
2 Shield Focus
1 Dodge feat
7 DEX
7 Ring +7
6 Amulet of Natural Armor +6
3 Embroidered Gloves
3 Fighting Defensively
5 Combat Expertise
2 Shy Lily's Helmet
2 Shield Wall
3 Morale AC Helmet of Comradery
77 AC
Optional - Halfling +3, Mythic Dodge +1 / 79 AC
Spell buffs -
4 Legendary Proportion (6 Natural-2 Size)
2 Foresight
1 Haste
84 AC with buffs. / 88 AC

Then you can do more with abilities, you can get from companion (Aroden's Wrath + Mark of Justice = Charisma modifier as Sacred AC). Even more with mercs. Demongrafting. Mythics abilities/spell can grant you AC. Crane Style (Martial Artist Background).
Using scribed scrolls with UMD you can get Frightful Aspect, Transformation, Seamantle for +18AC.

Damm.

[Njorl]

Origineel geplaatst door one_plus_one_equals_window:

...

When in doubt snowball is your friend. Snowball + ascendant element + metamagic feats (empower, maximize, quicken) + true seeing are your best friends. Become the snowman!

Hope this helps!

Do they still have the True Strike bug? You used to be able to cast extended true strike and it wouldn't end with a spell attack. You could use a metamagic rod of quicken to get 6 snowballs off with +20 to hit over 3 rounds.

[Mravenrocks]

That bug was fixed at least two patchs ago if not 3 or 4. But the advice about Snowball is still good.

[echoes222]

going through last 5 pages of this discussion, I find it sooooo funny how powergamers and min-maxers pretend that Pathfinder games weren't created specifically for them ;) again - Owlcat created challenge as inflated mobs stats that can be defeated ONLY by specific builds that makes no sense rp wise, because you'll need specific combination of skills and spells. In the meantime, if you aren't a min-maxer, you need to stick to easy or normal. Which is massive b/s. NWN2 did't forced me to min-max on higher difficulties. PoE didn't as well. But Pathfinder requires you to do so. Or you have to stick to auto-attack in easy/normal, because you don't need tactics or min-maxing on these difficulty levels. Damn, you don't even need spells ;D So again - yes, Pathfinder games are powergamers wet dream.

[Babbles]

Origineel geplaatst door echoes222:

going through last 5 pages of this discussion, I find it sooooo funny how powergamers and min-maxers pretend that Pathfinder games weren't created specifically for them ;) again - Owlcat created challenge as inflated mobs stats that can be defeated ONLY by specific builds that makes no sense rp wise, because you'll need specific combination of skills and spells. In the meantime, if you aren't a min-maxer, you need to stick to easy or normal. Which is massive b/s. NWN2 did't forced me to min-max on higher difficulties. PoE didn't as well. But Pathfinder requires you to do so. Or you have to stick to auto-attack in easy/normal, because you don't need tactics or min-maxing on these difficulty levels. Damn, you don't even need spells ;D So again - yes, Pathfinder games are powergamers wet dream.

I think you still have to be pretty focused in PoE1 & 2 on Path of the Damned ...

[DarkFenix]

Origineel geplaatst door echoes222:

going through last 5 pages of this discussion, I find it sooooo funny how powergamers and min-maxers pretend that Pathfinder games weren't created specifically for them ;) again - Owlcat created challenge as inflated mobs stats that can be defeated ONLY by specific builds that makes no sense rp wise, because you'll need specific combination of skills and spells. In the meantime, if you aren't a min-maxer, you need to stick to easy or normal. Which is massive b/s. NWN2 did't forced me to min-max on higher difficulties. PoE didn't as well. But Pathfinder requires you to do so. Or you have to stick to auto-attack in easy/normal, because you don't need tactics or min-maxing on these difficulty levels. Damn, you don't even need spells ;D So again - yes, Pathfinder games are powergamers wet dream.

You don't need specific builds, that's pure fiction. Yes, there are a lot of 'trap' builds, but the same is no less true in pnp (I'd go so far as to say the majority of PC-available content in pnp is effectively worthless outside of a single extremely specific rp scenario).

Was WotR created with powergaming in mind though? Absolutely. 25 point buy, mythic levels, various extra feats/features/rules that power up the player more... To make a character that isn't an absolute monster you have to try pretty hard.

As for NWN2, poor analogy, the NWN games gave you a single character plus... I forget whether it was one or two AI companions with extremely basic AI. The player was comparatively weak, therefore it was appropriate to keep the monsters fairly weak too.

WotR puts the player very much at the "power fantasy" end of the balance scale. For better or worse. It then dials up monster stats to 11 to compensate for that enough that the player can't just slam their face on the keyboard to win. It does make something of an arms race between the player and the game, which is somewhat unfortunate to those unfamiliar with Pathfinder rules. It's a complicated game system, a random casual isn't going to pick it up overnight.

But that is what difficulty settings are for, WotR giving a lot of sliders to adjust different aspects of difficulty to suit the individual. The only thing stopping players turning down those settings is pride. And that's really the crux of this whole argument, prideful players are having their delicate feelings stung by the idea that 'normal' is too hard for them.

[BlueBangkok]

Origineel geplaatst door Immortal Reaver:

Lvl 20 Fighter
10 Base
14 Heavy Mithral Armor +5
9 Tower shield +5
1 Armor Focus
2 Shield Focus
1 Dodge feat
7 DEX
7 Ring +7
6 Amulet of Natural Armor +6
3 Embroidered Gloves
3 Fighting Defensively
5 Combat Expertise
2 Shy Lily's Helmet
2 Shield Wall
3 Morale AC Helmet of Comradery
77 AC
Optional - Halfling +3, Mythic Dodge +1 / 79 AC
Spell buffs -
4 Legendary Proportion (6 Natural-2 Size)
2 Foresight
1 Haste
84 AC with buffs. / 88 AC

Then you can do more with abilities, you can get from companion (Aroden's Wrath + Mark of Justice = Charisma modifier as Sacred AC). Even more with mercs. Demongrafting. Mythics abilities/spell can grant you AC. Crane Style (Martial Artist Background).
Using scribed scrolls with UMD you can get Frightful Aspect, Transformation, Seamantle for +18AC.

Yes, also optionally you can get the tranquil whisperer song for +4 morale instead of the helmet. Also still viable with a two-handed weapon / dual wielding and shield spell from UMD/infusion, you only lose 6 AC, so still above 80. Another +2 sacred from blessing of the faithful.

With two-handed you can still take crane style feat chain (without monk dips) for +7 dodge when fighting defensively. Crane style + two-handed still works together afaik. It shouldn't, but it does. You should be around the same AC value as described above with that, but higher offensive power without the tower shield - at the tax of several feats for IUS + crane style + crane wing.

Pyjama-wearing monks really only have the advantage of potentially infinite DEX + WIS/CHA stacking at lesser feat tax. So, they better have some great stats and archmage armor.

I'd also say that armor-based tanks are more viable here than they were in Kingmaker, because at least here you don't have a bunch of enemies targeting touch AC every late game encounter.

[Mravenrocks]

Exactly, just because unarmored tanking is easier to achieve and takes less feats doesn't meant armor tanking is bad or unviable. And as you said, I think doing it with a two handed weapon instead of a shield is the stronger choice.

One can also make armored characters that follow RP logical builds for the people that like to whine about "non RP compliant" build.

[Jean-Maurice Nya]

echoes222, I made really bad builds (my azata elemental winter witch + seelah as a mix paladin/stalwart defender with a useless horse + Nenio with just selective metamagic + the succubus with only her espionage expertise which is probably not the best for a bow user + Sosiel with mostly a glaive and no enchantment specialization and Wolfij with a weird dual-weilding magic build) and I'm pretty confident that 80% of fights are doable in core with it. Maybe 15% of others require metagaming more than powergaming, and maybe 5% are "legendary fights" you can find in most RPG.
I just didn't because I experienced Kingmaker and I know the game will be long, fighting focused, and as I want to explore most in the first playthrough to do more specialized ones afterwise, I just lowered the difficulty to make most fights trivial. But early game I did most in normal-core without sweating. Until Act 4. So, from the moment you're not in the Abyss, it's pretty simple. Then, well, you're in the Abyss, I'm not shocked by the increased difficulty.