Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Fextralife's Tips and Tricks

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Fextralife has made an introduction video for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, for players who are new to the Pathfinder system and for veterans who would like a quick refresher and know what to expect in this new game.

If you want to explore ahead, their wiki is up-to-date with all classes, races and mythic paths. Be aware that there are spoilers in the mythic paths section though, since they are all exposed and some should have been discovered in the game...

You will also find pointers to class guides from Mortismal Gaming and older ones from Fextralife in our forums, along with spoiler-free mythic paths guides - don't hesitate to add any precious information you find. No excuse for not being ready on release day ;)

Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous Beginner's Guide: Tips and Tricks to Survive



In this Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous Beginner's Guide: Tips and Tricks to Survive, I'm going to go through essential beginner's tips that will help you understand the game better while surviving challenging encounters. I'll be discussing the basics of combat, the best beginner classes to start with, optimal party composition, and general tips.

Timestamps:

  • 0:00 - Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous Beginner's Guide
  • 0:33 - The Basics of Combat
  • 1:38 - Attack Rolls
  • 3:49 - Damage
  • 4:52 - Critical Hits
  • 7:04 - General Tips
  • 10:32 - Combat Tips
  • 12:26 - Final Tips
More information.
 
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Very nice video. Gets to the relevant info without a lot of needless chatter like other videos.

Most of it I remember from Kingmaker, but it served as an excellent refresher.

Thank you.
 
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-Are Pathfimder's rules the same as D&D 3.5 Edition ?
-Did they do a similar Begginer's Guide video for Pathfinder: Kingmaker?
 
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-Are Pathfimder's rules the same as D&D 3.5 Edition ?
Sort of. It is based on an open source version of D&D 3.5 released quite a few years ago by Wizards, but has been changed quite significantly. There are a lot of new classes and such, and each class typically has more unique feats.

This is both an advantage and a disadvantage: Almost any type of character build is possible, even more so than in D&D 3.5, but it can also be overwhelming and somewhat difficult to realize just what is flavor and what has an impact.

For example, Oracle (Pathfinder) vs Favored Soul (D&D): They're both spontaneous, divine casters, but the Oracle has a thousand options (curses, mysteries, revelations etc) and the Favored Soul only gets a few unique things on top of the divine casting.

Personally, I actually prefer the more "pure" approach of D&D, as it's easier to map it all out in my head without getting lost in tiny details that are mostly flavor. A specific example would be the fact that Pathfinder has way too "divine fighters" (decent at combat with divine spells up to level 4-6) for my taste, so I keep spending too much time on tiny differences between the various classes, despite the fact that the end result often plays more or less the same.

Also, because of the incredible amount of options, class dipping (taking a few levels of a class to get a specific set of feats) is much more prevalent in Pathfinder than it ever was in D&D, and I didn't even like it in the D&D days. I'm just not a fan. It's fine to grab something simple like a few Rogue or Fighter, levels as that just implies the character has had some training in a certain style of combat, but almost every build in Pathfinder is 1/2/4/13 or something crazy.
 
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-Did they do a similar Begginer's Guide video for Pathfinder: Kingmaker?
Here's a beginner's guide for Kingmaker :) (link)
They made build guides for the companions, if you don't auto-levelup (link)

To add to what @Maylander; said, note that what Owlcat Games have implemented in their games has some differences with the Pathfinder 1st Edition ruleset. For example, they're simplified the skills by regrouping them. And the cleric/divine domain spells are not exactly the same. But overall it's very close, I'm using the Pathfinder Core Rulebook and it's a good support.

The mythic paths are significantly different than the tabletop version, so you may find similar names, for ex on https://www.d20pfsrd.com/, but it won't be the same.
 
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Sort of. It is based on an open source version of D&D 3.5 released quite a few years ago by Wizards, but has been changed quite significantly. There are a lot of new classes and such, and each class typically has more unique feats.

This is both an advantage and a disadvantage: Almost any type of character build is possible, even more so than in D&D 3.5, but it can also be overwhelming and somewhat difficult to realize just what is flavor and what has an impact.
And in WotR you have the Mythic path on top which (to make it even more complicated) work differently than in Pathfinder PnP.
 
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To those who are not familiar with Pathfinder: the game has a very good "interactive" tutorial! :)

Throughout the prologue and first chapter, regular pop-ups teach you the important new notions when they present themselves, and warn you when you do something wrong.

For example in the prologue, the first times you face combat, it explains the attack / damage rolls, and a few other basic mechanisms. The first time I made a ranged attack in a melee, it told me about the infamous -4 penalty and how to overcome it.

The first time my character used Mage armor on a character wearing an armor, it told me that wouldn't stack (and displayed a little warning mark on the spell effect).

Even later in chapter 1, party members were repeatedly missing a nasty enemy because of a protection spell, it told me that, how to dispel it and how to use alternative attacks. With concrete examples of available spells for the current characters!

(and yes, you can turn those off)
 
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Thank you all for your time answering my doubts! I'm used to play D&D 3.5 Edition tabletop here, so I know the terminlogy used (attack of opportunity, feats, spells, the "use magic device" skill the narrator spoke of, etc). When I watched the video all that sounded too familar that I had to ask here.

I hope the knowledge of a similar ruleset (I mean, D&D 3.5) helps me. :)
 
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To those who are not familiar with Pathfinder: the game has a very good "interactive" tutorial! :)
That's really cool, especially for newbies.
 
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Sort of. It is based on an open source version of D&D 3.5 released quite a few years ago by Wizards, but has been changed quite significantly. There are a lot of new classes and such, and each class typically has more unique feats.

This is both an advantage and a disadvantage: Almost any type of character build is possible, even more so than in D&D 3.5, but it can also be overwhelming and somewhat difficult to realize just what is flavor and what has an impact.

For example, Oracle (Pathfinder) vs Favored Soul (D&D): They're both spontaneous, divine casters, but the Oracle has a thousand options (curses, mysteries, revelations etc) and the Favored Soul only gets a few unique things on top of the divine casting.

Personally, I actually prefer the more "pure" approach of D&D, as it's easier to map it all out in my head without getting lost in tiny details that are mostly flavor. A specific example would be the fact that Pathfinder has way too "divine fighters" (decent at combat with divine spells up to level 4-6) for my taste, so I keep spending too much time on tiny differences between the various classes, despite the fact that the end result often plays more or less the same.

Also, because of the incredible amount of options, class dipping (taking a few levels of a class to get a specific set of feats) is much more prevalent in Pathfinder than it ever was in D&D, and I didn't even like it in the D&D days. I'm just not a fan. It's fine to grab something simple like a few Rogue or Fighter, levels as that just implies the character has had some training in a certain style of combat, but almost every build in Pathfinder is 1/2/4/13 or something crazy.
I think that's only important if you're playing on harder difficulties and need to min/max.

I will play on normal or just above and I doubt I'll need to maximise my builds like that. Just build what you think is fun and play on a difficulty that doesn't completely punish you for it.
 
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To those who are not familiar with Pathfinder: the game has a very good "interactive" tutorial! :)

Throughout the prologue and first chapter, regular pop-ups teach you the important new notions when they present themselves, and warn you when you do something wrong.

For example in the prologue, the first times you face combat, it explains the attack / damage rolls, and a few other basic mechanisms. The first time I made a ranged attack in a melee, it told me about the infamous -4 penalty and how to overcome it.

The first time my character used Mage armor on a character wearing an armor, it told me that wouldn't stack (and displayed a little warning mark on the spell effect).

Even later in chapter 1, party members were repeatedly missing a nasty enemy because of a protection spell, it told me that, how to dispel it and how to use alternative attacks. With concrete examples of available spells for the current characters!

(and yes, you can turn those off)
Yeah I loved that when I played through it. They really put a lot of effort there and it's great to see for people like me who aren't intimate with all these rules.
 
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