Beneath the Stolen Lands vs. Treasures of the Midnight Isles

[SentosKarum]

Everyithing here is subjective but even so, a comparsion.

For the very new here, Beneath the Stolen Lands is the equivalent DLC for Pathfinder: Kingmaker, the predecessor of Wrath of the Righteous.

Having recently played / started to play both as a standalone experience I think the following is true:

XP from killing monsters is / feels way better in Beneath the Stolen Lands (BSL from now on). In Treasure of the Midnight Isles (TMI from here on) you kill a ghoul and get 2 XP. In BSL a basic kobold is worth 35 XP.
This gets even starker with bosses / elite monster. BSL has corrupted monsters which act as mini or even floor bosses. Killing them results in hefty chunk of XP, on par with reaching the end of level for a floor boss, and good loot.
In TMI the boss at the end of chain not only doesn't feels as though, the XP reward is pitful.

Combat / Floor modifiers - I am mixing these together because BSL does it differently than TMI and I think BSL is the more difficult approach. Instead of TMI's undertows BSL applies additional feats to a floor's enemies. Combine this with the Corrupted template and fights can get a lot dicier.
This if course to take with grain of salt, BLS lacks the mythic paths and as such has more mundane monsters. I do think using BSL's method in TMI might result in downright impossible fight.

Traps, and I realize this is Wrath change and not exclusive to TMI, do not give XP on disarm and that is a shame. Personally I feel traps in Warth are more challenging and should result in an increased reward for solving them instead of no reward.
(Yes, arguably not being harmed by the trap is the reward but come on)

"Secret" loot or otherwise are another difference where I found BSL more satisfying on reflection because I didn't notice it in TMI until I started BSL again. It is very simple: BSL has secret chests you can uncover with perception, their loot is about as random as normal chests but they are a nice surprise that seems to be totally absent in TMI.

Difficulty wise I feel that BSL doesn't feel as arbitrarily using resistances, immunities and DR to make monster harder. This results in me playing BSL with a higher monster stat adjustment than I do TMI because despite being harder the monsters in BSL don't feel as maliciously overpowered as TMI's would feel with, going by the text description on the difficulty slider, the same adjustment.

Reading this over I realize that it sounds like I'm very down on TMI. But that isn't actually true. I do enjoy it - but perhaps not the same degree as I did BSL and I feel that is a shame. The disappointing XP for killings monster / bosses in particular feels bad because it doesn't feel rewarding and I do not understand why it was implemented.

[Maple]

I have gotten way more into TMI than I did BSL. I found the level design of BSL really boring, maybe it gets better later on but the first 6-7 floors were basically all the same thing just with different colors. TMI has ~5 different dungeon types and they *feel* different. The desert island map tends to have bigger arenas, the poison apartment maps have very claustrophobic fights, the blue rooms have height differences that can cause problems, etc.

More enemy variety in Midnight Isles, though still not quite enough early on. Importantly, way better enemy variety in Midnight Isles than it's main game, less endless demon fights, really feels like a relief- BSL didn't have that contrast.

Shoutout to the Gelatinous Cubes, they force me to change my strategy up since I tend to use swords and bows a lot- it's the first time I've felt a proper Pathfinder challenge in the game vs just pumping up the ability scores. A monster is immune to your main strategy, but otherwise isn't a super big deal- how do you deal with it? That's classic tabletop goodness.

Being able to buy most of the core gear is also really nice. I hated the lack of shopping in BSL beyond the limited set the one guy sells, and felt entirely at the mercy of the rng if some of my builds would work out.

It just kind of also has a natural advantage in how many more classes there are to play around with in TMI vs BSL (never mind the mythics!). There is *so many* fun builds to try out, and it's much more efficient to do so in the dlc than replaying the main quest for the nth time.

But, again, I never got past the first 6 floors of BSL because it just didn't hook me, while Midnight Isles I am a good 20 islands into the second set, and it's the best time I've had with the game.

(With all that said, shout out to the elemental pillars for being actual crap, lol. Also find the pirate's gimmick obnoxious. Wild Magic, on the other hand, is hilarious fun that reminds me of the silliness that can happen when playing the tabletop game)

tl;dr - big fan of Midnight Isles, didn't click with Stolen Lands

[glenn3e]

Midnight isles also lets you choose your path through the levels, and the difficulty(peril). Its also stricter with the resting due to corruption which requires you to plan ahead which I like. Unlocking new uniques for the shop is better as well. I hope they expand upon the roguelite mechanics more.

[SentosKarum]

Personally dislike the corruption in TMI and like the instant rest dropped by boss fights in BSL more.
Simply because I feel that corruption actively punishes me for relying on magic during standard fights, reducing my magic casters to buff bots who maybe get to cast offensively once or twice a expedition.

For me, valid class choices feel more restricted in TMI, particularly at low level, because corruption is much more punishing for classes reliant on abilities or spells. And that is before talking about how inflated stats have rendered most damage spells below 4th level into nerf darts.

I also dislike the implementation of making my own path, but that is because I want to kill every monster and loot every chest on the map and deciding on which islands to miss out on doesn't feel good for me.

[mk11]

Originally posted by SentosKarum:

...

"Secret" loot or otherwise are another difference where I found BSL more satisfying on reflection because I didn't notice it in TMI until I started BSL again. It is very simple: BSL has secret chests you can uncover with perception, their loot is about as random as normal chests but they are a nice surprise that seems to be totally absent in TMI.

...

There are secret rooms in TMI that you can discover with Perception. May be they are too easy to spot?

[SentosKarum]

Nah, secret rooms are also featured in BSL. But sometimes perception can also uncover a second chest in addition to a first, visible one.

If anything rooms in TMI are too easy to spot because a "secret" rooms seems to be always there (There is a visual glitch going on that makes secret doors not block vision sometimes) and it is a random chance if the trigger object to open the door spawns.
Once you know what these objects looks for each floor type you spot secret rooms before your characters do.

[Mailim]

I feel these exact same problems, no "perception check" extra chests, and minimal experience gain from killing. I'm exploring potentially finding a simple tweak in the code somewhere to make kills give experience. I'm 100% a novice at such things though, so we'll see.