Ivory Sanctum - unreasonable sub-boss fight at the bridge

[Wissper]

Guys. The mob levels in this game are stupid. At lvl 13, heading through the ivory sanctum, the boss at the bridge (mythic contaminator) requires a DC 20 roll for every hit, reflects most of your damage back to you if you cast spells, hits 5-7 times per turn, AND casts spells that can hit your entire squad. Then you get your turn, miss, because you only have a 5% chance to hit on any given turn, and then you die because you can't take her damage down. Buffs and debuffs don't help, demon slaves / paladin spirits / elementals hardly do any damage even level 6. Oh, and the boss is immune to enervation so you can't even get her DC down using that.

I haven't played the pen and paper version of Pathfinder, but if this game follows those rules exactly, then I'll take a hard pass.

Maybe I'm missing something - if so, feel free to chime in, but for where this zone falls in the game sequence, I feel like I'm an appropriate level to be there and the boss should be reasonably manageable at lvl 13. God only knows what kind of ♥♥♥♥ show I'm in for if I ever make it past the bridge .. can't imagine it's any easier.

[Vae Victis]

What party are you running and are you pre-buffing before hard fights?

[gmwaddington]

Lvl 13 should be sufficient. You definitely need to take this fight very seriously and buff heavily (Greater Magic Weapon, Prayer, Burst of Glory, Mark of Justice, Haste, Heroism/ (Greater Heroism if you have it). Guarded Hearth helps but is not required. If you need a 20 to hit, something is wrong. Summons can be helpful as well.
FWIW, my experience with this fight is on Core/Hard.

Your melee characters should all have Outflank and Seize the Moment, not to mention Shake it Off. Animal Companions should be buffed with Mage Armor, Barkskin, Shield of Faith, Magic Vestment and Animal Growth.

[Corbeau]

What difficulty are you playing on? Core is the closest to the pen&paper version, but it is not recommended for players with little experience.

Make sure that you are using turn based mode for more challenging fights. Otherwise, like people said - prebuff, use all your abilities, especially if you have Ember or some other witch in you party (as witches have hexes and can debuff enemies).

[gmwaddington]

Core isn't really comparable to the pen and paper version IMHO, due to the inflated enemy stats.

[onealone]

Originally posted by gmwaddington:

Core isn't really comparable to the pen and paper version IMHO, due to the inflated enemy stats.

I was wondering about this question. Never played PF but DM'd tons of 3.5.

Tried the Core option for WotR but found the difficulty far too high for what should have been a highly accessible level of gameplay.

Glad to see I wasn't completely misreading the difficulty settings.

[Corbeau]

Originally posted by gmwaddington:

Core isn't really comparable to the pen and paper version IMHO, due to the inflated enemy stats.

It is. Enemy stats were increased to be more or less in line with standard CR expected in P&P campaign. Developers couldn't use the exact P&P stats because of mythic system. There was a statement about it somewhere. Enemy stats in P&P weren't made with mythic system in mind so it needed some adjustment.

[Astral Projection]

Uhh the stats in this game are incredibly bloated compared to standard PNP.

Just look at the basic entry for Wight in standard PF1E:

Base Atk +3, Fort +3, Ref +2, Will +5

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/wight/

Now look at the basic Wight in WOTR:

https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Wight

Base Atk +8,+3, Fort +9, Ref +5, Will +9

Yeah the game has some crazy numbers compared to PNP but I enjoy it.

[Yannir]

Originally posted by Astral Projection:

Uhh the stats in this game are incredibly bloated compared to standard PNP.

Just look at the basic entry for Wight in standard PF1E:

Base Atk +3, Fort +3, Ref +2, Will +5

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/wight/

Now look at the basic Wight in WOTR:

https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Wight

Base Atk +8,+3, Fort +9, Ref +5, Will +9

Yeah the game has some crazy numbers compared to PNP but I enjoy it.

Well, it is a comparison between a lvl 4 opponent and a lvl 9 opponent.. Kinda expected tbh. Maybe they shouldn't have called it a Wight ingame though.

[Wissper]

It's possible that the 'autocomplete' builds for the NPC squad characters are just really bad. I retrained the paladin (Sheena or whatever her name is) to be a cavalier gendarme, and things seem to have improved quite a bit. Makes me wonder how bad the rest of the builds are.

[Aleddra]

https://youtu.be/l6dqcCgn2Dg
The video seems to cover everything. The begining is a bit simple but i think it gets more complex further on. Skip as needed.

I don't know about your party/build, but if you're willing to change it you can probably beat the guy.

[.O.]

Originally posted by Wissper:

It's possible that the 'autocomplete' builds for the NPC squad characters are just really bad. I retrained the paladin (Sheena or whatever her name is) to be a cavalier gendarme, and things seem to have improved quite a bit. Makes me wonder how bad the rest of the builds are.

the auto build is sub optimal, but perfectly sufficient for the lower difficulty settings. But yes on higher difficulties you need to know what you're doing and build your companions properly.

[Goilveig]

Originally posted by Astral Projection:

Uhh the stats in this game are incredibly bloated compared to standard PNP.

Just look at the basic entry for Wight in standard PF1E:

Base Atk +3, Fort +3, Ref +2, Will +5

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/wight/

Now look at the basic Wight in WOTR:

https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Wight

Base Atk +8,+3, Fort +9, Ref +5, Will +9

Yeah the game has some crazy numbers compared to PNP but I enjoy it.

Well, the mythic system plus the ability of players to carefully choose a whole party for maximum synergy really makes PC stats even more inflated. Just my level 17 animal companion alone has 60+ AC and 45 attack bonus with the buffs that we normally run at, and with Touch of Good / Guarded Hearth, it's possible to reach +70 attack.

If they didn't buff enemy stats, your mythic party would simply delete enemies by looking at them.

[Yannir]

Originally posted by Wissper:

It's possible that the 'autocomplete' builds for the NPC squad characters are just really bad. I retrained the paladin (Sheena or whatever her name is) to be a cavalier gendarme, and things seem to have improved quite a bit. Makes me wonder how bad the rest of the builds are.

Yeah, the premade builds are utter ass for any higher-than-Normal difficulties. Seelah in particular is actually fine as a Paladin on basically any difficulty but you do have to handpick the feats for her and do it competently, keeping her role in mind.

[Maple]

Oh, Owlcat's encounter design follows absolutely 0 tabletop design principles, no matter how they rationalize it. They have blown it up so bad, they would be shunned for being a killer DM at most tabletop tables. It is actively shocking how bad it is if you have any amount of experience being a Pathfinder GM. Yes, yes, you're one person controlling 6 party members with mythic powers, who can just reload a quicksave when the party tpks, but even with all that, the encounter balance is still so far beyond tabletop norms to be alien.

Which is fine, I suppose, it's a different game in a different medium for a different target audience, but the claim that Core is in any way similar to the tabletop experience is just false advertising, that raises false expectations, that causes people to get disappointed and bounce off the game.

[Goilveig]

Originally posted by pkdragon:

Oh, Owlcat's encounter design follows absolutely 0 tabletop design principles, no matter how they rationalize it. They have blown it up so bad, they would be shunned for being a killer DM at most tabletop tables. It is actively shocking how bad it is if you have any amount of experience being a Pathfinder GM. Yes, yes, you're one person controlling 6 party members with mythic powers, who can just reload a quicksave when the party tpks, but even with all that, the encounter balance is still so far beyond tabletop norms to be alien.

Which is fine, I suppose, it's a different game in a different medium for a different target audience, but the claim that Core is in any way similar to the tabletop experience is just false advertising, that raises false expectations, that causes people to get disappointed and bounce off the game.

It's interesting because one of the people I play Pathfinder with had previously DMd the tabletop version of Wrath of the Righteous and thinks the game balance is much better than the tabletop adventure path, because of how broken Mythic powers are. His experience with the TT game was "the most important roll is the initiative roll" because both players and enemies dropped so quickly that the characters acting first had a dramatic advantage.