Posted December 16, 2021
This is intended as a discussion on game design decisions that I take some issue with, rather than glitches or story complaints (the version I am playing is fairly stable, and I quite like the story).
I have issue with several things, some of which might be issues with Pathfinder itself.
For starters, when you cast a spell within melee range of an enemy, they get an attack of opportunity. That is fair, and goes back to D&D. What I consider unfair, is when I cast certain spells, like Scorching Ray, that give multiple ranged attacks, the enemy gets multiple attacks of opportunity. In my opinion, this is wrong. One spell, one attack of opportunity per enemy in range. That should be the rule, at least at normal difficulty. It wouldn't be so bad if I were able to take a 5 foot step out of melee range like I could do in Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but that feature seems to be disabled. Why? It was extremely useful for keeping casters alive.
For another thing, I really hate how it takes an opposed roll to cure conditions, like curses or enchantments, out of combat. I had a problem with the fight with Baphomet, where he would continually use Baleful Polymorph on one of my party members, and after combat was over I would have to memorize Remove Curse, cast it, fail to dispel, rest, cast, fail, etc. over and over again. Why? I can see requiring an opposed roll while in combat, but I shouldn't have to save scum to remove a curse out of combat. It feels like a giant "**** YOU!" to the player. It doesn't help that it's one of those spells that's only really useful against the player character, and useless against any enemy powerful enough that you might want to use it on them. Is there a good reason why you can't just cast the spell, and have it remove the condition, at least on normal difficulty? If it must have an opposed roll, can the DC at least be reasonable? I shouldn't have to min/max like a bastard to be able to cure it. In a similar vein, I had an encounter in Areshkagal's pyramid with the Master of Undead where he casts a spell that lasts for, no joke, 20 minutes real-time. Every turn, for 20 minutes, half my party took cold damage, and the DC was so high that I had no chance of dispelling it. Long after the spellcaster was dead, my party was still taking damage and being hindered by this spell. Why? There's no good reason the game should be so punitive.
I've also noticed that Protection from Arrows just doesn't seem to work. That might just be a bug, though.
Overall, I quite like this game, and I hope the issues I mention get fixes, or failing that, that it can be modded to fix them. I don't like having to tone down the difficulty to fix these things, since the difficulty is otherwise reasonable on normal.
I have issue with several things, some of which might be issues with Pathfinder itself.
For starters, when you cast a spell within melee range of an enemy, they get an attack of opportunity. That is fair, and goes back to D&D. What I consider unfair, is when I cast certain spells, like Scorching Ray, that give multiple ranged attacks, the enemy gets multiple attacks of opportunity. In my opinion, this is wrong. One spell, one attack of opportunity per enemy in range. That should be the rule, at least at normal difficulty. It wouldn't be so bad if I were able to take a 5 foot step out of melee range like I could do in Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but that feature seems to be disabled. Why? It was extremely useful for keeping casters alive.
For another thing, I really hate how it takes an opposed roll to cure conditions, like curses or enchantments, out of combat. I had a problem with the fight with Baphomet, where he would continually use Baleful Polymorph on one of my party members, and after combat was over I would have to memorize Remove Curse, cast it, fail to dispel, rest, cast, fail, etc. over and over again. Why? I can see requiring an opposed roll while in combat, but I shouldn't have to save scum to remove a curse out of combat. It feels like a giant "**** YOU!" to the player. It doesn't help that it's one of those spells that's only really useful against the player character, and useless against any enemy powerful enough that you might want to use it on them. Is there a good reason why you can't just cast the spell, and have it remove the condition, at least on normal difficulty? If it must have an opposed roll, can the DC at least be reasonable? I shouldn't have to min/max like a bastard to be able to cure it. In a similar vein, I had an encounter in Areshkagal's pyramid with the Master of Undead where he casts a spell that lasts for, no joke, 20 minutes real-time. Every turn, for 20 minutes, half my party took cold damage, and the DC was so high that I had no chance of dispelling it. Long after the spellcaster was dead, my party was still taking damage and being hindered by this spell. Why? There's no good reason the game should be so punitive.
I've also noticed that Protection from Arrows just doesn't seem to work. That might just be a bug, though.
Overall, I quite like this game, and I hope the issues I mention get fixes, or failing that, that it can be modded to fix them. I don't like having to tone down the difficulty to fix these things, since the difficulty is otherwise reasonable on normal.
