Video Game / Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous

Now you have the power.

"I never thought I would end up here. I believed we had it covered, with the Wardstones holding the demons inside the Worldwound. But here we are. The city of Kenabres lies in ruins; thousands are dead or wounded. The damned Deskari and his spawn took us by surprise. Now, I have the power to turn the tables. People who would never join the same alliance are fighting together by my side. Today we avenge the fallen and unleash our wrath upon the Demon Lords!"

Pathfinder: Wrath of The Righteous is a sequel to Pathfinder: Kingmaker, developed by Owlcat Games. It is an an isometric Role-Playing Game based on the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game's Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path.

The game was was announced in December 2019. A Kickstarter campaign for the game launched in February 2020, and concluded on March 11th of that year, having raised $2.05 million US dollars (more than double what the Kingmaker Kickstarter did). The alpha version was released in 2020, with the first beta going live in February of 2021 for backers and early adopters. The game received its full release on September 2nd, 2021.

A DLC, Inevitable Excess released on February 16th 2022, where moments before the Final Boss the commander is ripped from the material plane and needs to deal with a being seeking to curtail their power.

A second DLC, Through the Ashes released on April 21st 2022 has the player take the role of one of Kenabres' regular citizen. With no great powers, weapons or magic, the player must lead a band of survivors through the ashes of Kenabres following Deskari's attack to safety.

A third DLC released on August 30th 2022, The Treasure of the Midnight Isles adds a roguelite series of expeditions to players can get into for loot.

A fourth DLC released on March 7th 2023, The Last Sarkorians adds a new class, Shifter, alongside a new companion to the main campaign of said class, as well as several side quests revolving around him and the last survivors of Sarkoris.

Two more DLC planned include a follow up for the Through The Ashes campaign entitled Lord of Nothing alongside another DLC allowing players to resume the festival that got interrupted by the demon attack and Commanders following the Legend mythic path to have a party for all their companies and allies.

September 29th 2022 saw the game released on consoles (Playstation store, Xbox Store, and Switch) and the PC gaining the 2.0 patch "Enhanced Edition" which includes controller support, UI enhancements, the ability to change the cosmetic appearance and colors of armors, expanded epilogues, expanded reinforcements options in chapter 5 that tie into the mythic paths, a photo mode and a special party event for players who opt out of Mythic paths by using the Legend path.

The game is modeled quite heavily on the tabletop experience and in the style of classics such as Baldur's Gate, with combat both using Real-Time with Pause and Turn-Based Combat.

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Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous contains examples of:

• 11th-Hour Ranger: If Queen Galfrey survives Iz, its possible for her to join your party during the final assault on Areelu's fortress.
• 11th-Hour Superpower:
  • Though you lock into your overall Mythic path at the end of Act 2, you don't truly ascend until Act 5 after completing your mythic quest. And you have to be careful with the choices you make in your mythic path, if you make the wrong choices, you can fail to fully ascend (for instance, you must make sure that everyone connected to the Angel path survives to become a full angel and you must be neutrally Lawful enough to become a true Aeon. At this point, your appearance will potentially permanently change (Angels grow wings, Liches turn fully undead, etc.)
  • Every mythic path's 10th level ability is this. From 10th level spells for Angels and Liches, to Dragons getting a list of immunities, and giant boosts to spell damage, Devil getting access to demon and angel mythic powers, to Aeon's total bypass of spell resistance and damage immunity, etc... However, by the time you unlock them, you only have a few actual fights left in the game of any note. Specifically the final battle with Areelu, and then possibly with Baphomet and/or Deskari. However, they are also usable in the Inevitable Excess DLC that takes place immediately after the campaign.
  • Right before the final battle in the Inevitable Excess DLC you regain the temporary powers you wielded against Minagho at the end of Act I such as the extra attacks that unleash divine energy. This is fitting since the Excess is that surge of power separated from the Knight Commander and given form and life.
• Action Girl: You get (at least) four female party members in the base game. This especially applies to Seelah, a paladin of Iomedae who is almost certainly going to be a valued part of the player's front line. Among NPCs, Irabeth and Anevia Tirabade are a Battle Couple of a paladin and an archer, and Queen Galfrey of Mendev may fight on the front lines.
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts:
  • Anything you want to sell will always net you 25% of how much you would pay to buy it, even when buying back something you sold. On the bright side, market saturation isn't even a thing: you can pawn off the thousands of regular weapons and armor and low-tier magic gear you will be looting from the scores of mooks you kill and nobody will object.
  • You can purchase (but not sell) funding and materials for the war effort. They are rather expensive.
• Adaptational Badass: The original Adventure Path was balanced for four player characters (controlled by individual players) and not as a CRPG with six controllable characters. Most of its enemies (especially the Arc Villains) have drastically increased power as a result.
• Adaptation Expansion: The original Adventure Path was somewhat notorious for only being accessible to good characters, and for having a fairly linear storyline. The Computer Game adds substantial support for evil characters (with no less than three Mythic Paths that focus on an evil alignment), multiple highly compelling evil characters available for your party, and a branching story path based on the Mythic Path you choose to follow.
• Adaptation Personality Change: invokedThis game portrays Aeons as Lawful Neutral, as they are described to be in Pathfinder's Second Edition. This is despite the fact the game is otherwise built on First Edition's rules, where Aeons are True Neutral.
• Alchemy Is Magic: The alchemist (which also appeared in Kingmaker) is one of several classes you can choose from when starting the game or when leveling up your character. It focuses on infusing chemical reagents with magical energy, creating potions, poisons, mutagens, and incendiaries. Its ultimate (20th-level) ability is the "grand discovery", which can take numerous forms, including immortality or the creation of a philosopher's stone. Alchemists also take on a Jekyll & Hyde vibe by using transformative mutagens to power up.
• Alternative Calendar: The game uses the standard Golarion (the planet where the game takes place) calendar. Said calendar is just like our own, only with the names of the months changed (they are called after the main gods of the setting).
• Amazon Brigade: There's no shortage of female companions, so a female Commander can form one. In the early parts of the game a female MC will briefly form one with Camellia, Seelah and Anevia while fighting in the caves (and can continue to do so if Wenduag joins them in the Shield Maze instead of Lann). All told, a full 5/8 out of the available companions in Act I are female, just enough to fill all six slots including the MC.
• Androcles' Lion: Nurah on the Trickster path; you can sympathize with her and recruit her to your cause for real, this time.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • An unlimited (in size) shared party stash only capped by the amount of total weight that the party can carry.
  • When you leave a zone and there is loot that hasn't been picked up, you are given one last chance to pick up any loot that you may have missed from any source on a single screen.
  • A lot of skills have been consolidated or removed to ensure that new players won't wind up taking skills that have no purpose in gameplay.
  • When you attempt a skill check with your entire party selected, the most skilled character will be the one attempting it without need to select them individually.
  • Most notably, the widely-loathed swarm rules, a problem any veteran of Kingmaker will be familiar with, are now considered an advanced rule and by default are only active in "Core" difficulty and above. Below that, weapons work on swarms conventionally, making them much easier to deal with.
  • The game now flags if you have multiple bonuses that do not stack, making it easier to gauge what to use and not use.
  • Your quest journal flags the quests that will be automatically failed if you move on to the next chapter, preventing you from accidentally missing them.
  • Every character now has a button to dismiss active spells they've cast. You no longer need to sit and wait for wall or AOE spell you've cast to expire that might be blocking your way.
  • Likewise, lingering spells such as clouds or walls cast by enemies are automatically dispelled when the encounter has been defeated, saving up on time and dispel magic slots.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: You're limited to six characters in your party at once. Thanks to Leaked Experience, even those you don't take with you on every adventure stay viable (though this can be turned off for a more Baldur's Gate-like experience). Of course, this doesn't include animal companions.
  • Each army can only be made up of three battalions by default, with certain skills obtainable by generals increasing this limit.
• Arc Words: "I promise," as inscribed on the bracers the player character begins the game wearing. The words are Areelu Vorlesh's — everything that's happened, all the deaths, destruction, and betrayal, were merely a means to an end: a mother who promised to bring her child Back from the Dead, no matter the cost. First uttered when the Sarkorian inquisitors discovered her hiding place in the wilderness and killed her daughter/son, Areelu has given them several Meaningful Echoes over the last century, including as puncutation for her Pre-Asskicking One-Liner during her Final Boss battle ("I Promise" is also the title of the theme which plays during that fight). The commander is that child, or rather their reincarnation. Convincing Areelu that she has in fact finally fulfilled that promise because you are her long lost son or daughter is the first step in unlocking the secret ending.
• Armor and Magic Don't Mix: Like the tabletop game, using armor and trying to cast arcane spells (without the specific ability to do so) incurs a percentile chance of having the spell fizzle. Bards can cast in light armor, while magi begin able to cast in light armor and later gain the ability to cast in medium and heavy armor. Divine magic is not restricted in this way (Ecclesitheurges excepted), Hellknight Signifiers reduce spell failure chances to the point where it's possible for an HKS wizard to cast in mithral full plate without penalty, and certain mythic abilities can break the rules to fix this issue. Also, unlike Kingmaker, the game implements a common tabletop loophole in the form of haramaki armor, which is technically light armor but has spell failure chance and armor check penalty of 0, so even non-proficient characters like wizards, witches, and sorcerers can wear it without penalty.
• Artificial Stupidity: The enemy AI does not always act in its own best interests:
  • The enemy will attack the most vulnerable creature nearby that's coded as a player ally, including restrained prisoners that they want alive for story reasons. In one encounter you can discover a traitor working with the enemy around her, but if you see through the ambush and attack first the traitor is coded to be on your side and gets killed by her new "friends".
  • The Vampire Spawn in Drezen are scripted to do nothing but spam their Dominate ability until they succeed in gaining control of one of your party members. They will keep doing this even if you've got Protection from Evil or any other effect that grants immunity to Dominate, rendering them completely harmless and making the whole encounter trivial.
  • Balor Darrazand is a very powerful enemy for the time you encounter him and would be even harder to fight than he already is were it not for his tendency to cast Dispel Magic on his first turn (even if the only thing to dispel is his own True Seeing).
  • Crucially, the AI will keep targeting characters under the effect of Last Stand, which makes them immune to all damage or effects that'd knock them unconscious for 2 rounds. This makes the ability invaluable, but also as the enemy favors low-HP target, someone at 1 HP who can't go down further basically becomes a magnet to soak all the enemies' attacks.
  • The player's own allies aren't immune to the same behavior patterns and will die in droves to Attacks of Opportunity as they run past strong enemies to get at the one weak target hiding behind them. They also don't seem to take distance into consideration so they'll spend most of their time running from one end of the battlefield to the other and never attacking anything.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Arueshalae, Lann, Sosiel and Wenduag were just NPCs in the original Adventure Path (albeit Arue and Sosiel were explicitly companion-style characters who'd be equal or better than PCs in a standard adventure), but were promoted to full playable companions in the game. Lann and Wendu received some revisions to their backstories and designs, compared to the AP, to acommodate this.
  • Minagho the lilitu's role in the story is vastly expanded in the comparison to the original Adventure Path, due to her taking the place of Jerribeth as the main demonic antagonist of the story's initial arcs. By extension, however, Jerribeth was Demoted to Extra.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The Commander in the secret ending. The Commander convinces Areelu Vorlesh there is enough of her child's soul in themselves to focus her research on them. Then depending on certain actions, the option is gained to kill Baphomet and Deskari permanently and use their realms for the tranformation. The Commander can become a demigod themselves or, if they fulfill other requirements, bring Areelu and/or their companions with them.
• Atop a Mountain of Corpses:
  • When it's time to retake Drezen at the beginning of Act 5, the Commander will utterly demolish an entire army of mythic demons and stand atop their bodies to show their victory. How the Commander does this depends entirely on their chosen mythic path. Of special note is the Lich path, where they summon an army of the dead to butcher the demons AND the crusaders, along with almost everyone left alive in Drezen, leading to the Lich Commander standing atop a mountain of bodies of both demons and their former allies.
  • Just prior to this, if you've been friendly to Hal in previous chapters, you'll find him by the entrance of the keep, surrounded by dead, incinerated demons and cultists corpses who decided to charge the keep and ignore the Gold Dragon's offer to surrender.
• Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: If your armies are strong enough it is possible for an invading army to reach them and attempt to engage them, only to then immediately rout (effectively giving you an instant win without need to begin the battle) because of the sheer power difference.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Rare units such as silver and gold dragons, elementals and even pseudo-cyborg soldiers can be added to the crusader army. Sadly their rarity means that they're near-useless in actual battle compared to Boring, but Practical units such as Champions and especially Marksmen who can be bought en-masse and stacked to absurdly high numbers to augment their health and damage.
  • Yamah Azatas have Dispel Magic, which makes them great at eliminating annoying status effects. Their initiative is also so low they often go dead last, after the status effect they're removing has already done its damage.
  • Most mercenary units simply can't be recruited in any useful quantity. This means that for all the unit diversity built into the game 90% of them will never get used.
  • The same applies to the Lich path. In theory the idea is that the player can avoid having to hire soldiers in Crusade mode due to being able to raise enemy units for their own use. In practice the amount of Undead received is hardly worth the 50% increase in unit cost, meaning the player is better off just buying units than hoping to replenish from enemy ranks.
  • Using a Triceratops for a mount sounds awesome... However the creature being huge sized instead of large like most mounts gives it huge pathfinding (pun unintended) issues, especially when negotiating small doors, stairs, or corridors. Furthermore, the game has issues with the rider's reach when riding such a mount, making the use of a reach weapon or ranged weaponry almost necessary.
  • The Cavalier class in general is unfortunately crippled by bugs in both turn-based and real-time modes affecting its core ability, Charge. Charging is awesome when it works; an enormous number of bonuses can be stacked on the attack, allowing characters to potentially one-shot most enemies and even some bosses. The game often however refuses to recognize charging as a valid action, even when a clear path and line of sight to the target exists, and occasionally a character will successfully initiate a charge, only to inexplicably stop in front of the enemy and cancel their action. Pre-battle cutscenes will often randomly dismount you, meaning you'll be wasting a turn getting back on while all your allies are already attacking (and thus sometimes getting in the way of the charge!), and every now and then starting a cutscene while mounted will just flat-out break it, forcing you to reload. Also, due to lances not being implemented as a separate weapon type,^note In the tabletop game, lances are one of only two martial weapons in the spear group, and do double damage when used from the back of a charging mount. The CRPG has a single enchanted longspear (simple weapon), labeled a "lance". the best reach weapons in the game are classified as "polearms" rather than "spears" (a historically nonexistent distinction inherited from the tabletop game), which significantly weakens their damage output and cripples the spear-reliant Disciple of the Pike archetype. Finally, the aforementioned pathfinding issues still apply to medium and large mounts too, not just huge ones, just to a lesser extent. When it is able to use charge or other features without issue, it can be fun and unique to play as, but other classes are more consistent.
• Badass Army: You get to grow one in chapter 2. In chapter 3 you can pursue several projects to upgrade your units or recruit new ones entirely.
• Badass Boast: The Commander is given numerous opportunities to make them, often differing based on their mythic path.
• Bad Powers, Bad People:
  • The Mythic Paths are partly locked to alignment. If your character is not of an appropriate alignment, you get a quest to shift your alignment to one that fits the path you chose. While a player going down the Demon mythic path can be neutral if they choose (though they can't be good-aligned and will need to do some very evil things to progress down that path regardless), the Lich path outright requires the player to be evil.
  • Evil-aligned clerics can gain various necromantic powers and debuffing spells that curse their foes, drain their life energy, and summon undead servants to aid them from the evil deities they worship. Evil warpriests can do the same, as can evil-aligned oracles with the Bones Mystery. Evil necromancy specialist wizards can prepare and cast the same necromancy spells.
  • Infernal, Abyssal and Undead Bloodline sorcerers gain powers like conjuring hellfire, protecting themselves from good-aligned attacks, draining the life force of their enemies and conjuring undead servants from evil sources (a devil or demon ancestor or a pact with a devil for the former two, and a powerful undead ancestor like a lich in the latter case), and they can be just as evil-aligned as their bloodline flavor implies.
• Bad Powers, Good People:
  • The player can attempt this for most of the game if choosing the evil-aligned mythic paths like the Demon Path with a non-evil character, but choosing Mythic Path actions will pull them toward the path's morality, while apotheosis locks them to a required alignment. Refusal to change their alignment means they're kept from progressing their mythic ranks. Also, while dialogue choices labeled "Good" keep showing up even in the evil Mythic Paths to the very end of the game, the player's new allies on these paths (such as undead or demons) are not bound by your behavior. So while you can often avoid personally hurting anyone on these paths, it is all but stated that you are at the very least either turning a blind eye to the atrocities of your allies or incapable of controlling them.
  • It’s possible for a good-aligned character in a class with no alignment restrictions on spell access and the ability to cast necromancy spells like a sorcerer, wizard or oracle to cast Animate Dead and summon a group of undead warriors to aid them in battle. Notably, despite the spell descriptor specifying that casting the spell is an evil action as in the tabletop game, the spell will never cause a good- or neutral-aligned character to turn evil, even after repeated castings, unlike in the tabletop game. ^note The spell also conjures already-existing undead like a Summon Monster spell, rather than reanimating corpses as in the tabletop game. Similarly, there’s nothing stopping a good-aligned character in an appropriate casting class from casting potent debuff spells that use necromantic energy to drain a target’s life force or inflict curses like Blindness, Bestow Curse, or Enervation on their enemies.
  • Witches and shamans gain access to a variety of magical effects called hexes. Some of these, like Misfortune (target must take the lower of two rolls when rolling dice) and Evil Eye (target’s armor class and saves take a penalty) are implicitly curses, and there’s nothing stopping a good-aligned character from using them. In the lore, witches explicitly gain their magical abilities by making pacts with eldritch entities, the motivation or true identity of which may be unknown to the witch.
  • Infernal and Abyssal Bloodline sorcerers have a devil or demon ancestor, respectively, or had a relative make a pact with a devil or something similar. They gain powers like conjuring hellfire, fear auras, protecting themselves from good-aligned spells and attacks, and they can be good-aligned without issue despite this. Likewise, Undead Bloodline sorcerers gain a host of necromantic powers and debilitating curses from a powerful undead like a lich in their ancestry or some other death-related happenstance, and can also be good-aligned.
• Balance Buff:
  • On tabletop, the Zen Archer archetype has to spend a ki point before declaring an attack in order to apply their unarmed damage dice to ranged attacks. The CRPG makes this a passive power that is always active, significantly increasing their damage output beginning at 8th level.
  • The Assassin Prestige Class received a much-needed boost through a game update. He can now mark his target and ignore his damage reduction/resistance if he succeeds a knowledge check. A marked target can also be instantly killed if it fails a saving throw. He also receives improvements for his poison attacks and some bonus to his saving throws.
• The Battle Didn't Count: At the midpoint in the battle for Drezen the party faces off against a Balor which is a tough battle for the time (end of act 2) but isn't impossible to win. Unfortunately the outcome is always that after enough time (5 rounds) Greybor will intervene and the Balor gets away which can be very frustrating if the player has had the enemies' health at 0 and then had their obvious victory shrugged off.
• Behemoth Battle: The game opens up with a battle between Deskari, a demon lord, and Terendelev, a silver dragon, though it is a Curb-Stomp Battle in the favor of the former.
• Big Bad: Deskari, the demon lord of chasms, infestation and locusts, serves as the primary antagonist as the demonic demigod who rules over the demon invasion in the Worldwound. Though the grander narrative is more focused on his Dragon with an Agenda, Areelu Vorlesh.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • In the True Aeon ending, the Commander goes back in time to stop the Worldwound from ever opening, saving potentially tens of thousands of lives lost during the hundred years of war, and giving most characters a happy ending, however they get erased from existence and only their companions remember who they were. In addition, several characters end up having worse lives in the new timeline; Arueshalae never has the chance to begin her redemption, leaving her deeply embittered (especially if she retains her memories), and Anevia never meets Irabeth and ultimately dies disgraced and alone.
  • The Secret ending has shades of this. While Deskari and Baphomet are permanently killed and the Worldwound is destroyed, Areelu Vorlesh basically gets everything she wanted and gets away with everything she did, several of your part members struggle to come to terms with their newfound divinity, and, most concerning of all, Baphomet's permanent end releases Alderpash from his prison, and he gleefully returns to his evil, warmongering ways (assuming, of course, the player doesn't murder him in said prison first). Even in the Secret Ending, though, one can choose not to defend Areelu Vorlesh and Pharasma will turn her Deader than Dead.
• Black Comedy: The PC can find a chicken statue in the wild, along with a crumpled note from a sculptor named Floggy who kept making art pieces that unintentionally offended a different group of people each time (usually resulting in him getting beaten up). In an attempt to offend absolutely no one, he made a completely innocuous statue of a chicken, only to first attract cultists of the obscure infernal duke Iaoazrael, and then Knight Templars who killed the cultists and began looking for the creator of "the blasphemous chicken".
  "If you've found this note, I want you to know: art is pain."
• Bloodier and Gorier: While Kingmaker had plenty of blood, "dismemberment" was an actual Kickstarter stretch goal here, and it shows. Particularly strong blows can lead to piles of limbs being Blown Across the Room, complete with Ragdoll Physics.
• Bolivian Army Ending: Choosing to stay with Sendri at the end of the second DLC campaign shows the entire party about to be mobbed by a horde of demons before the screen fades to black with a To Be Continued message appearing soon after.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • The level 1 spell Grease. Enemies will trip and fall down on it and stay down for at least a round. Longer if they fail their save again. Yes, this includes several higher-powered demons including Balor. In addition it can be set up early around an NPC if you're obviously about to have a fight but the game expects you to have a conversation first. The grease takes effect as soon as they turn hostile.
  • The Legend Mythic path basically means you forgo a proper mythic path. Instead your level cap raises to 40 (though classes cap at 20 still) and you start leveling really fast. 20 extra levels worth of HP, BAB, saving throw bonuses and potentially spells is a huge boon. It's not as flashy as level 10 spells, or turning into a dragon, but one might argue it eclipses both in sheer raw power. Besides, the extra twenty levels lets you effectively go wild in terms of what kind of class you'd like to build. Enhanced Edition also adds an exclusive celebration party event available only to played who pick the Legend path.
  • From a gameplay standpoint, the Aeon Mythic Path is based around Anti-Magic and generally weakening enemies/removing their advantages while giving buffs to allies. It's pretty effective, but don't expect anything flashy. Of course, this is entirely in-character for Aeons.
  • On the Crusade side of things, while the player will be given access to a wide variety of cool and colorful units to use, most of them spawn too infrequently and in too low numbers to be relied upon. As such, you can expect your armies to be carried by huge stacks of generic units of archers, infantry and cavalry. They aren't as flashy, but they spawn reliably, are easy to recruit, and are inexpensive.
• Bottomless Magazines: Downplayed. While your bow and crossbow users don't need to keep track of standard ammunition, unlike in Kingmaker quivers with magical or special arrows are now much cheaper but are consumables which disappear once all their shots have been fired.
• Broken Aesop: Played with. The Condemned are a crusader group of criminals and outcasts, basically a penal legion. Most of the Crusaders don't trust them and even mock them, with every act of treachery being immediately blamed on them. Both Seelah and Irabeth will talk about how wrong this is and how they're still Crusaders like everyone else and you shouldn't automatically scorn them for their troubled past. Every named member of the Condemned betrays you. The writers seem to be aware of this since you have the option to call Seelah out on being too trusting after the second betrayal. Of course, at least one of said traitors, Staunton, betrays the Crusaders due to getting sick and tired of being mocked and scorned despite his genuine attempt to atone for his failure for seven decades, meaning that believing all the Condemned to be treacherous scum is something of a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.
• Butt-Monkey: Lilitus. Despite being one of the strongest types of demon, if a lilitu is involved in a scene you can bet they're about to have something very bad happen to them. Minagho is the most visible example.
• Call-Back:
  • Pass a few Stealth checks when confronting the dragon in Chapter 3 and you'll see the Storyteller pull out Tartuccio's signet ring - the same one Tartuccio gives the player in the Kingmaker prologue - and reveal its story to the dragon, complete with commentary on the whole starting party, a reprise of one of Tartuccio's first lines in the game, and his motivation for working for Irovetti.
  • Aivu can mention meeting Shyka the Many and a baby dragon who's implied to be the Kobold from the Inconsequent Debates in Kingmaker.
  • Similarly, Jubilost must have left a great impression since he implies that he's friends with Shyka.
• Canon Foreigner:
  • Camellia, Daeran, Ember, Greybor, Nenio, Regill and Woljif are all characters original to the game, possessing no counterpart in the original Adventure Path.
  • The Stygmatized Witch archetype is notably original to the game, being designed specifically with Ember in mind and not existing in the tabletop version of Pathfinder. Many other archetypes, including Camellia's Spirit Hunter class, are also original.
• Changing of the Guard: The game has an entirely different cast than Pathfinder: Kingmaker, save for a few cameos.
• Character Class System: Extremely extensive with 25 Classes, 11 Prestige classes, 6 Archetypes unique to each class, and 9 Mythic Paths available to any class.
  • Classes include: Alchemist, Arcanist, Barbarian, Bard, Bloodrager, Cavalier, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Hunter, Inquisitor, Kineticist, Magus, Monk, Oracle, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Shaman, Skald, Slayer, Sorcerer, Warpriest, Witch, Wizard.
  • Prestige Classes include: Aldori Swordlord, Arcane Trickster, Assassin, Dragon Disciple, Duelist, Eldritch Knight, Hellknight, Hellknight Signifier, Mystic Theurge, Stalwart Defender, Student of War, And Winter Witch.
  • Archetypes include (but are not limited to): Chiurgeon, Grenadier, Vivisectionist, Armored Hulk, Mad Dog, Invulnerable Rager, Archaeologist, Flame Dancer, Thunder Caller, Dirge Bard, Beast Rider, Disciple of the Pike, Gendarme, Knight of the Wall, Standard Bearer, Herald Caller, Ecclesitheurge, Crusader, Blight Druid, Defender of the True World, Feyspeaker, Aldori Defender, Tower Shield Specialist, Two-Handed Fighter, Dragonheir Scion, Armiger, Mutation Warrior, Sacred Huntsman, Monster Tactician, Tactical Leader, Dark Elementalist, Psychokineticist, Kinetic Knight, Overwhelming Soul, Eldritch Archer, Eldritch Scion, Sword Saint, Scaled Fist, Sensei, Traditional Monk, Zen Archer, Sohei, Divine Hunter, Divine Guardian, Hospitaler, Martyr, Warrior of Holy Light, Freebooter, Flame Warden, Stormwalker, Espionage Expert, Eldritch Scoundrel, Knife Master, Thug, Spirit Hunter, Possessed, Spirit Warden, Unsworn, Witch doctor, Battle Scion, Court Poet, Demon Dancer, Herald of the Horn, Hunt Caller, Deliverer, Spawn Slayer, Vanguard, Arcane Enforcer, Empyreal Bloodline, Sage, and Sylvan Bloodline, Champion of the Faith, Cult Leader, Disenchanter, Feral Champion, Shield Bearer, Hagbound Witch, Hex Channeler, Ley Line Guardian, Winter Witch, Stigmatized Witch, Scroll Savant, Arcane Bomber, Thassilonian Specialist, and Exploiter Wizard.
  • Mythic Paths are split between those available near the start of the game (Aeon, Angel, Azata, Demon, Lich and Trickster), and those introduced about halfway through the story (Gold Dragon, Legend, Swarm-That-Walks and Devil). The player can either stick to their starting Path, or switch to one of the latter Paths when the opportunity arises, but they cannot switch between any of the starting Paths (so you can switch from say, Angel to Gold Dragon, but not from Demon to Lich).
• Charles Atlas Superpower: One of the themes of the Trickster Mythic Path is perfecting your mundane abilities to the point of giving them Reality Warper properties, such as training your intimidation to a level of Terror Hero where enemies kill themselves upon spotting you, or becoming so perceptive that you can "find" powerful magic items where there are none.
• Chekhov's Gun: The items missing from their plinths in the Tower of Estrod museum. They can all be found in Leper's Smile. While the Vessel of Raellas and its lamp oil were used by the bandits to keep the vescavors at bay and the Helmet of Scroccia is not especially important the Wand of Zacharius and the Claw of Terendelev both unlock mythic paths.
• Chest Monster: Mimics appear as enemies, disguised as regular furniture. In the Azata path, a group of them even comes to you suggesting you weaponize them against the cultists.
• Collection Sidequest: There are a few relics scattered across the Worldwound, some of which are found whole, looted from enemies or earned as trophies for mass battles, and other which are broken into pieces. Finding them or having all the pieces lets your Archmage reforge them, this time choosing one of several options instead of just getting a fixed artifact.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Besides the Storyteller reprising his role and mentioning the barony in the the River Kingdoms he lived in for a few years, Shyka the Many also makes an appearance.
  • To distract a dragon, the Storyteller will read the history of Tartuccio's ring, recounting the attack on Jamandi Aldori's manor from Tartuccio's point of view.
  • Arsinoe returns as a cleric offering services in the player's capital.
  • At Elan's wedding, a fey-themed entertainer wonders why one in ten crusaders only answers "Tentacles" to his questions. Poor Sir Allfrey's misadventures seem to have become popular in Mendev...
    • You can run into Sir Allfrey himself, along with his squires, as a random encounter. The squires desperately try not to use the word 'Tentacles' around him. Unfortunately for him, the situation he's in is nearly impossible to describe without using that word; you can either play along and dance around the word or use it every chance you get.
  • And then of course, if you play as the Trickster, you have the option to lean on the fourth wall and claim you're the same person as the Baron from Kingmaker. Which, for the player, could technically be true.
  • Daeran mentions corresponding with 'the young Lord Lebeda,' one of the potential advisors from Kingmaker. Ask him the right question during a Diplomatic Council meeting and he'll coyly imply he slept with 'a certain Swordlord of high standing' who could easily form an alliance with Brevoy as well; a Kingmaker veteran will know Jamandi Aldori is the only one with that kind of pull.
  • The Skeleton Merchant is back and will tell you how his story has played out since Kingmaker. Arsinoe also turns up in Drezen and will reference the Barony. Talking to Kyado at the Temple of the Good Hunt will have him mention that he was inspired to join the faith by Jhod Kavken.
  • Jubilost has a cameo late into the game.
  • During one of the Diplomatic Council meetings, to resolve a crisis, Woljif will suggest calling upon Zarcie (The merchant added by the Arcane Unleashed DLC in Kingmaker) who he is friends with; Zarcie did indeed mention she was a smuggler from Mendev in the first game. Woljif suggests that Zarcie might be able to ask one of the Advisors from the first game's kingdom to provide diplomatic help. The reward for picking this option is the Elixir of Inconceivable Transmutations of Body, and Soul, and Also Mind, a potion which permanently buffs all attributes by +2 as a gift from the ruler of the nation, i.e. the previous player character, and the Masterpiece item created by the alchemist Bokken.
• Converted into a Weapon: In chapter one, the Player Character recovers an Empathic Weapon named Finnean who can transform into any weapon type the wielder is proficient with. Finnean is convinced he is human and has his own questline to discover his history: he was a Pathfinder during the Second Crusade who was captured by a cult that extracted his soul and placed it within the weapon.
• Cool Horse: Mounted combat including the cavalier class, paladin mounts, and a number of archetypes which grant mounts to other classes are implemented here, the better to create a playable Knight in Shining Armor to participate in the Fifth Crusade.
• Crazy Enough to Work: The Azata and Trickster mythic paths pretty much run on this.
  • Azata PCs can recruit all manner of non-stereotypical allies to the Crusade, from halfling and gnome knights to treants and mimics—the latter of which causes even your azata observer Early Sunset to comment that he must be going insane (a hint that he's not an azata). Not to mention causing plants to grow at seemingly random points of the Worldwound by singing. A lot of what they do works at least in part because the demons have no idea whatsoever how to handle a Chaotic Goodinvoked army that barely knows what they themselves are going to try to do half the time.
  • Tricksters, meanwhile, basically become Reality Warpers at higher levels, able to perform insane tricks essentially because they're starting to recognize that they're a character in a work of fiction and are taking advantage.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Using the auto level feature will tend to create a party which is heavy on healers, archers, and dual-wielders, discouraging tanky defensive playstyles in favor of charging in and piling on damage while heavily buffed. A few companions also come pre-specialized in extremely exotic weapon types. Surprisingly, Regill's specialization in the gnomish hooked hammer Double Weapon is well-provided for with several strategic drops, despite normally being very uncommon. Greybor gets hit hard, however, with dwarven waraxes being rare, and Woljif's favored magic daggers are unusually sparse compared to Kingmaker, meaning you'll likely end up having him stick with generic options. This can mean you're faced with the choice of either having the companion run around with an inferior weapon that fits their specialization or losing access to the specialization benefits but giving them a more up-to-snuff weapon which wastes their feat choices.
• Cue the Flying Pigs: If the player completes the Gold Dragon ascension paths, they can have a conversation with the demon lord Socothbenoth where the latter scornfully rejects the player's offer to join them on the side of righteousness by sarcastically remarking that "my sister will repent and give up her Abyssal realm before I become a goody-two-shoes like you!" In the background lore of the tabletop game, as already established by the time of Wrath of the Righteous' release as taking place a few years after the game's events, Socothbenoth's sister and fellow demon lord Nocticula does precisely that.
  • Pathfinder Second Edition indeed features Nocticula as a goddess of exiles and art, having abandoned evil entirely. In this game, if you properly guide Ember, you can make that happen in the Epilogue.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: The very first "fight" in the game is against Deskari, and it goes about as well as one would expect. However, if the main character tries to stand up to him, the crossbow bolt that hits him will at the very least annoy him enough to take notice. Justified when it's revealed to be loaded with a Midnight Bolt, expressly created with the purpose of drawing blood from him.
• Cursed with Awesome:
  • The Sorcerer class has Bloodlines which can stem from anything from dragons to demons to undead and more. They all give the Sorcerer awesome powers, new spells, and access to more feats.
  • The Oracle class, a fan favorite which was previously modded into Pathfinder: Kingmaker, finally makes its debut. Every Oracle has a curse that grants them some kind of penalty, but also some kind of benefit. For example, their curse might make their arms covered in burns that give them a penalty to attack rolls but also grant them some fire spells. The Stigmatized Witch archetype shares this mechanic.
  • A Lich or Demon Commander can rationalize their powers as such with their good-aligned allies, presenting it as a Necessary Evil to defeat the Worldwound invasion.
  • The Commander can regularly describe their Mythic Powers as being a burden they feel almost cursed to have thrusted upon them. Nobody, not even the Commander, can deny that said power is instrumental in fighting off the demons and stopping the Worldwound.
• Cutscene Incompetence: Your party will often stand still in cutscenes, letting people do as they want. This is especially true if an enemy needs to escape - you'll rarely try to stop them. Wenduag for example may escape your character, claiming you are too slow to catch her, even if you're actually faster than she is (for example, by being a Barbarian, or a mounted Cavalier).
• Cutscene Power to the Max:
  • Some cutscenes have the player driving off enemies that should be able to smear them in gameplay such as Savamalekh at the end of the Shield Maze. In act 5 they can also beat Deskari and force him to retreat even if in the actual fight he demolishes the party.
  • At the start of chapter 5, the commander will be confronted with an army of demons trying to retake Drezen. This is the first time you're presented with the advanced Mythic Path options. And all of the options are this trope:
    • The Angel response causes the commander to summon several Pillar of Light who vaporize the assembled demons.
    • The Gold Dragon causes the commander to shift into Gold Dragon form - notable because they cannot actually change shape till rank 9 of the mythic path, terrorizing some demons into running away and incinerating the rest of them with a single use of holy breath.
    • The Legend response causes all the generic NPC crusaders present to charge and slaughter the demons.
    • The Azata response sees the 'Valhalflings' and Cavalry Sculptors appear out of portals to help slaughter the demons.
  • A downplayed example: when recruiting Daeran, you see him casting Boneshaker at one of the demons who interrupts his party. When he joins the party after the resulting fight, he's only level 3, and Oracles can't learn Boneshaker until level 4 (though if you're already at level 4 or higher when you recruit him, you can immediately bring him up to your level).
• Cutting Off the Branches: Though Kingmaker's events are only addressed in vague terms and there's no Old Save Bonus, it's made reasonably clear through dialogue with some characters (mainly the Storyteller) that the Baron(ess) was successful in settling the Stolen Lands. Furthermore, Kingmaker companion Jubilost Narthropple has a cameo appearance in Chapter 5, meaning the Baron(ess) canonically didn't murder him (a Stupid Evil option at his first appearance) and that he survived the endgame.
• Darker and Edgier: Compared to Kingmaker, heavy themes such as sexual abuse, torture, mutilation, genocide and prejudice are way more featured, mostly thanks to demons (which are way more malevolent and violent than fey) being the prime antagonistic force of the story.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Aravashnial, an important NPC in the Adventure Path, turns up dead almost immediately.
  • Either or both of Irabeth Tirabade and Queen Galfrey die in most paths as the third act of the game begins.
• Death by Despair: In one area you encounter a severely wounded priestess of Sarenrae. She'll refuse healing, insisting others need it more. If you loot her after she dies you'll find she was carrying healing potions and could have helped herself, but her dialogue makes it clear she'd just lost the will to live. A nearby Hellknight will snark about how 'easily' she broke, but other bits of information you can gather suggest she was in love with the dead man she's found next to.
• Demon Lords And Arch Devils: A lot, given the setting. Deskari, Baphomet and Nocticula are all Demon Lords who are central to the story, while one can encounter the Archdevil Mephistopheles during the Aeon or Azata Mythic Paths; which in turn can lead to the Devil Mythic Path. Also, Demon Lord Socothbenoth shows up in the Trickster path.
• Demonic Vampires: Vampires appear as co-belligerents of the demons of the Worldwound. A vampire in a casket appears as an optional encounter in the fortress of Drezen when the Fifth Crusade retakes it from the demons at the end of Chapter 2, while in Chapter 4 there are several encounters with vampires in the Abyss.
• Determinator: Despite his slowness, hesitancy, and general overcautiousness, Chief Sull turns out to be one if you try to save the Mongrels. He's able to walk back to Drezen through the Worldwound alone despite being an elderly cripple who was repeatedly poisoned just to look for Lann and the Commander, something most veteran Crusaders can't survive when they're healthy.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • Not based on reactivity to the plot, but in addition to having multiple recordings of companions' various quotes for acknowledging player orders, spotting hidden objects, unlocking doors, and disarming traps, characters also have another set of those quotes which has them whispering while they're in stealth.
  • The random background NPCs have unique lines in Wintersun if you take Arueshalae with you due to how Jerribeth altered their perceptions. This is also true of a Demon-path Commander. If the party is just a Demon Commander and Arueshalae, they get a unique scene.
  • If you're playing as a Lich and recruit Kestoglyr, then bring him with you to the Ineluctable Prison, you'll get a different scene when you encounter his wife's ghost.
  • Pass a high Trickery check in the slums of Alushinyrra to get into the Rotten Guttery before a quest sends you there and you can clean the place out. Once you get the quest to go there and fight the mercenaries, the mercenary leader gets an extra line mentioning they needed the gold because someone broke in and stole all their stuff.
  • Most religions and many player races get unique responses and scenes where it would be appropriate (the lack of which was criticized in Kingmaker).
    • Sosiel and a Shelynite PC can commiserate over people questioning what role the followers of the goddess of beauty could play in a Crusade.
    • Worshippers of Cayden Cailean get a buff early on in the game during the siege on Defender's Heart because you're protecting an alehouse.
    • Followers of Calistria can declare and enact sacred vengeance where appropriate and will see swarms of wasps as an expression of the favor of the goddess, granting them a buff.
    • Followers of Gorum can occasionally dedicate a duel or battle with a particularly powerful foe to him, again granting a buff.
    • Followers of Lamashtu get signs of her approval if you go towards the Swarm-That-Walks Mythic Path.
    • While tracking down the three Desna followers for Ramien in Act 1, you'll get unique dialogue with the Inquisitors if you chose Desna as your deity.
    • You get specific dialogue with Ember, Nurah and a few other characters as an Atheist.
    • Lich Commanders who worshiped Pharasma get a unique event chain dedicated to Pharasma's reaction.
    • On the other hand, a character worshiping Urgathoa, goddess of disease and undeath, gets several explicit signs of divine approval when going towards the path of a Lich.
    • Commanders who worship Pharasma and aren't becoming a Lich receive signs of divine favor - including a powerful buff before one infamous fight - when fighting major encounters with undead.
    • A Commander that has Zon-Kuthon as their deity can reply to Anevia's off-hand mention dealing with his followers when she first met Irabeth by offering prayer to him in response, something Anevia will actively ignore you doing. Similarly, if the player passes the Perception check to notice the halfling that fell into the canyon while dealing with the vescavor at Leper's Smile, a Commander worshipping Zon-Kuthon gets a unique dialogue option to comment on the joy of enduring intense pain per his teachings.
  • When becoming a Lich you have to sacrifice your romantic interest, if it's Daeren and you haven't completed his companion quest the Other will attack you.
  • Tiefling PCs get a lot of unique options given the proximity to the Worldwound and their fiendish ancestry. You can bond with Woljif over shared experience of Fantastic Racism, succubi might make suggestive comments about things you can do with your tail, and some story events reference fighting against the pull of the lower planes.
  • Gnome PCs will initially think the nightmares from resting in abyss-tainted areas are a sign of impending bleaching. They'll also sometimes refer to the bleaching and their efforts to postpone it, especially in chaotic dialogue options.
  • At the start of the game, Hulrun will normally cast Cure Wounds to try and heal the player character. If you are playing a damphir however, since dhampir take damage from Positive Energy but are healed by Negative Energy, he instead casts Inflict Wounds.
  • Sometimes the player's class is explicitly referenced. For example, before the battle for the Defender's Heart, if the player is a druid, ranger, or hunter, Irabeth will comment that the Commander is likely more accustomed to fighting in the wilderness.
• Disaster Scavengers: When you're not fighting demons or their cultists, these are your main enemies especially in the first chapter. Most are people who are taking advantage of the situation for profit, or have defected and trying to survive.
• Disc-One Nuke: Finnean the talking weapon can be found almost immediately after starting Act I by following Woljif's quest. As a +1 Cold Iron Ghost-Touched Morph Weapon, Finnean is one of the better weapons available to you in the early game. The Kenabres Marketplace in particular has a few enemy encounters that are much harder without a weapon with these properties. Finnean is also an Evolving Weapon that can grow stronger if you follow his questline throughout the game.
• Dual Boss: in the secret ending, Deskari and Baphomet will team-up to face the Commander's party in a final battle.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?:
  • The player is sometimes asked to do work that is pretty blatantly beneath the Commander of the Fifth Crusade, usually involving quests from companions or subordinates to go to out of the way areas.
  • In an Evil-aligned path the reactions of good-aligned NPCs range from acceptance to outright refusing to help you, despite you being the only hope to turn the tide against demons.
• The Dreaded:
  • Areelu Vorlesh's mere presence is treated as a sign something terrible is imminent, even though she does nothing to impede the crusaders.
  • Focusing on Persuasion while on the Trickster path results in first making enemies shaken, then paralyzed with fear, until eventually foes will try to kill themselves rather than face the Commander.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Several characters that will matter in the game are at the festival plaza in the prologue. This includes future companions Ember, Seelah, Sosiel, Daeran, and Camellia. Also present are future major characters Ramien, Horgus Gwerm, Anevia, Jannah Aldori, and Curl.
• Early Game Hell:
  • In the early game enemies are statted up for a party of 6. You do not start off with 6 characters, and you also don't have the mythic abilities that make the game easier. A few classes that rely on Elemental damage, such as Alchemists and Kineticist, will also struggle against many of the demon enemies who are naturally resistant to the damage types those classes dish out in their early levels, until they can unlock their first mythic rank and use that to make their elements bypass elemental resistances. Martial classes don't have it much better since all demons take reduced damage from weapons that aren't either Cold Iron or Good-aligned, and Cold Iron weapons are in short supply in Act I. Fortunately, an item you can obtain in Act II at the earliest can grant your whole party's attacks the Cold Iron and Good-aligned properties, making this no longer an issue.
  • The army management, during the first act, suffers from this, as you only have access to 3 troop types. The basic soldiers you have are woefully weak and can easily get wiped by a group of 20 zombies even while themselves numbering in the hundreds.
• Easter Egg: In the cave where you fight the gargoyle attack with Regill, there is a spot that can only be reached with a DC 23 Mobility check. In there is a single sitting paladin of Sarenrae who, when interacted, proceeds to do an exact replica of the Praise the Sun gesture.
• Easy Logistics:
  • You can give orders to the Crusader armies no matter your distance from them or if enemies block the path between you, presumably via magic.
  • Your armies have an Infirmary feature that will automatically resurrect your troops after battle, to a limit based on their value.
  • In the more classic description of the trope, Armies do not require supplies, ammunition, etc... They do not have to worry about being cut off from the Crusader Camp / Drezen. The Crusades' logistical needs as a whole takes care of itself with the commander only ever called to make decisions regarding specific story events, with the implications that underlings are all taking care of the details and day to day.
• Epic Fail: Rolling too low when disarming a trap will set it off in the disarmer's face, no matter how far they are from its normal discharge.
• Escalating Brawl: On the Azata path Aivu's kidnapping turns into one. It starts as a simple rescue mission fighting a few demons and mercenaries and ends with you, your party, and potentially Mephistopheles taking on an entire district of Alushinyrra simultaneously. All because someone stole your dragon. Amusingly, if you put all the pieces together it becomes obvious that Mephistopheles himself hired the slaver to steal your dragon, then helped you get him back from the person he hired, precisely to cause this to happen.
• Evil Versus Evil:
  • Even an evil-aligned player character will be pitted against the demonic horde invading Mendev. This is especially pronounced if you choose the Lich, Swarm, or Demon Mythic Paths, the former and later allowing some degree of freedom to roleplay as someone who uses evil powers, but aiming at the demonic army.
  • It's implied, but not stated, that the person who hired Greybor to kill Kilas in the Tower of Estrod was a rival demon.
  • Jerribeth wishes for the death of Xanthir Vang as he's usurped her place as master of the Ivory Sanctum. She will try to convince the player to do this for her, and has primed her forces to betray his.
  • It comes up several times through the game that demons are hostile to one another, only cooperating under coercion and threat from a powerful leader. This is, after all, what separates them from Devils. In particular while Deskari and Baphomet lead the Demons out of the Worldwound, their forces are prone to turning against one another when no one's there to keep them in line. When visiting the Abyss, the demons' nature is on full display as they constantly turn on one another.
  • Nocticula explains that the "alliance" between her, Baphomet and Deskari is nothing so formal, and mostly just a pretense. The Worldwound leads to her realm, and she allows the two demon lords' armies to pass, so long as they abide to her rules while in the Midnight Isles. In practice both are trying to undermine her rule so they can kill her and claim her realm - she in turn wants to close the Worldwound so she doesn't have to deal with them and works with Areelu to give the commander his powers and make sure he's unleashed on the later two's armies. Later in the game she outright aligns with the commander to go slay Baphomet's servants.
• Evolving Title Screen: The main menu shows a table filled with notes and a Magic Mirror showing the screenshot from your latest save. It belongs to Areelu Vorlesh — if you open the game with no save files on record, i.e. before starting a single playthrough, her reflection is actually visible, though you are unlikely to recognize her at that point. The Commander can find the table in-game in her lab, although it goes unremarked upon.
• Excalibur in the Rust: In the first dungeon, you can find the sword Radiance hidden in a torture chamber. Seelah immediately recognizes it for what it is (or used to be rather) but notes that its power seems to have faded due to whatever the Baphomet cultists have done to it. Starting out, special model aside, it's little more than a Cold Iron masterwork sword (no stronger than a similar generic sword you can find within the same dungeon. But talk to a certain NPC and it can upgrade to a better sword, and later on it can be returned to its full brilliance as a holy sword (or corrupted into an evil sword).
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: The Commander can end up doing it when talking to Xanthir Vang, realizing the Midnight Fane, a demon fortress and portal to the Abyss, is right beneath Drezen.
  Xanthir Vang:Name the location of my laboratory before I was forced to relocate to the inhospitable Ivory Sanctum.'''
  Commander: "Drezen."
  Xanthir Vang:"Correct. [...] And now answer me this: why was my laboratory located there specifically? Why was Drezen chosen for my residence in the Worldwound?"
  Commander: "That's where the Nahyndrian crystals were being sent?"
  Xanthir Vang: "Oh, that sweet moment of insight - the moment when the final layers shrouding the mystery suddenly fall away."
• Familiar: There are somewhere around 10 different options for Familiars in the base game. This mostly helps out Wizards, but some other classes and archetypes can get one too.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: There are fewer in this part of the game world, but Mendev is akin to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, while old Sarkoris before the Worldwound was roughly a combination of a fantasy Finland with an imagined version of Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon culture.
• Fantasy Pantheon: There are twenty-three playable religious preferences: the core Pathfinder pantheon of twenty deities^note Abadar, Asmodeus, Calistria, Cayden Cailean, Desna, Erastil, Gozreh, Gorum, Iomedae, Irori, Lamashtu, Nethys, Norgorber, Pharasma, Rovagug, Sarenrae, Shelyn, Torag, Urgathoa, and Zon-Kuthon, Gyronna the hag goddess^note a non-core deity that replaces Groetus from Kingmaker's lineup for the benefit of hag-oriented Witch PCs, Godclaw polytheism^note pentamic worship of Abadar, Asmodeus, Iomedae, Irori, and Torag, and "Atheism".^note really alatrism Additional deities such as the empyreal lord Andoletta are mentioned, and the demon lords Deskari, Baphomet, and Nocticula all play significant roles in the storyline, with the demon lord Areshkagal and the archdevil Mephistopheles also featuring in sidequests.
• Fantasy Gun Control: The game does not include firearms or firearm rules despite the Pathfinder RPG system including a Gunslinger class and despite, once again, Numeria being a relative stone's throw away from the location of the campaign.
• Faux Affably Evil: In Act 4, one quest involves having multiple conversations with a very high ranking demon working for Noticula. She asks you your views on things such as life and love. She responds well no matter what you say, but if you make Good aligned statements, they seem to really hit home for her, and she seems like she is being swayed by your words and might be redeemable...that is until your third and final meeting where she has grown bored of you and your only option to avoid a fight with her is give her answers of the opposite alignment from what you initially generally gave to keep her interested at all. And even that is not enough to fully rekindle her interest in you, just enough for her to give you a trinket and tell you to never show your face to her again, unless your Mythic Path happens to be one of the three Chaotic ones, in which case you can use a path-specific option to turn her into an Optional Sexual Encounter and Tsun Dere who pines for you.
• Fighting a Shadow:
  • Killing a Demon Lord does not destroy them permanently, but rather sends them to the Abyss for one year. If they are killed during this time, they die permanently. This can lead to great loss of status as they will stay in their fortresses and not lead their armies against other Demon Lords who challenge them.
  • An interesting distinction from how things usually go is how normal Demons in the Worldwound are Called, not Summoned, meaning killing them is permanent. This is because the demons are physically travelling into the material plane via the portals opened by Areelu Vorlesh. (And of course it's permanent when you are in the Abyss)
• Fisher King: Your home-base of Drezen will change based upon your Mythic Path.
• Flaming Sword: A common Enchantment. The paladin and magus classes also both have the ability to give their weapons this ability as well.
• Fluffy the Terrible: The default names suggested for animal companions tend towards these, for attack animals like smilodons and velociraptors.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: One of the lich path advisors, Septimus, is a neutrally-aligned vampire who argues for peaceful coexistence between the living and the undead, and considers the lich's other advisors monsters. He brings a cohort of vampire crusaders who reassure people they won't eat them, despite their hunger.
• Forced Transformation: Baleful Polymorph, which transforms the target into a small, harmless animal, is implemented as a 5th level spell on the druid, witch, and sorcerer/wizard/magus/arcanist lists. The witch also gets a Grand Hex called Animal Servant, which transforms a target into an animal under the witch's control.
• Foreshadowing: Happens a lot, sometimes in obvious ways, other times in subtle ones:
  • Right at the beginning, you somehow manage to hurt Deskari with a regular crossbow shot. You find out later that Areelu Vorlesh loaded the crossbow with a special bolt and made sure it ended up in your hands.
  • When you wake up underground after the market square massacre, you have the last few seconds of a Featherfall spell still on you for some reason. Areelu did that, too. Wouldn't do at all if her investment was lost due to simple fall damage...
  • Exploring Nurah's tent you find out scrolls of Invisibility, Protection from Good, and vials of alchemist's fire. She later uses them to sabotage your march.
  • There is a reason Camellia often finds herself near mysteriously mutilated corpses...
  • In the very beginning you come across the mutilated corpse of Aravashinal and Seelah remarks that he didn't get those wounds from the battle. Whatever killed him, she warns, must be close by. Given the only other thing nearby is Camellia...
  • The narration in the game often presents some specific terms, such as "variables" and "specimen". In Chapter 3 you find out the narrator is Mad Scientist Areelu Vorlesh.
  • In Drezen you find Yaniel, seemingly kept there as a captive of the demons for 70 years. Further in the dungeon, you'll meet Stanton's brother Joran Vhane. If you bring up Yaniel's captivity as proof of how far Stanton as fallen, Joran is in utter disbelief — Stanton was friends with Yaniel, and no matter how far he's fallen he'd never allow her to be kept and tortured under his roof. He's correct. This isn't the real Yaniel, but Areelu Vorlesh masquerading as her. This is further hinted shortly after when Yaniel is suddenly mobile and capable of killing demons barehanded.
  • Early in the Azata path, savvy players might notice that Early Sunset's commentary and advice tends to be a little too Lawful for an azata and he shows a distaste for Cayden Cailean that's a bit out of character for someone from Elysium. As Act 4 will show, there's a very good reason for that.
  • In Act 4, The Herald casts a ward that prevents those with evil souls from perceiving him, a ward even strong enough to work on Mephistopheles. Later in the act, he impulsively abandons you during your conversation with Areelu. After Areelu leaves Nocticula comments on his sudden departure.
  • A subtle example occurs in Act 4, disguised as a party banter between Nenio and Greybor. Greybor asks Nenio what her "science" tells her regarding whether an assassination contract on the Commander or Queen Galfrey would cost more; Nenio responds that price on Galfrey's head is currently higher, but that the Commander would likely surpass her in a little over eight months. Given the six-month time skip that occurs between Acts 4 and 5, Nenio's prediction neatly aligns with events late in Act 5 that will potentially see Galfrey's kingdom collapse and/or her lose her life in Iz.
  • If you choose to save Regill, he's introduced both rewarding and punishing his subordinate Yaker for the same action, abandoning his post to get the Commander's help. This shows that despite being rigidly Lawful he understands exactly how the system works and isn't afraid to see rules broken if the reward is greater than the punishment. He'll do this himself in Act 5, going full Manipulative Bastard for the Commander's benefit, sacrificing his rank and status in the Hellknights to guarantee they stay on your side.
• Fox Folk: A backer goal and vote added kitsune as a new playable race, humanoid foxes from the Far East stand-in continent of Tian Xia, natural born tricksters who can shapeshift into human guise. In a First-Episode Twist, the seemingly human wizard companion Nenio discovers she is a kitsune. While her selective amnesia is not typical, her quixotic and mercurial nature are, to some extent.
• Framing Device: One whose extent is only revealed as the game progresses. Like Kingmaker, the player character's quest journal is being written by another character, the same one who narrates the chapter breaks. The identity of said narrator is not apparent at first, however, as the quest journal is quite dryly written. When you hear that character speak, however — whether during a brief, missable encounter at the Gray Garrison, in the subsequent flashback cutscene, or her proper introduction at the climax of the retaking of Drezen, the voice is that of Areelu Vorlesh, the Architect of the Worldwound and Betrayer of Humanity, a top lieutenant for the demon lords. You can also see her reflection on the opening splash, though only before starting the game and creating any save games, including auto-save files, making this easy to miss as well — that this is the demoness on the cover is also less noticeable, without the glow in her eyes or visible horns. At this point the entries in the journal become more acerbic, questioning the Commander's actions, at times almost as if Areelu is addressing them directly. The final twist is that unlike Linzi's book, this is not a work intended for publication, but rather Areelu recounting the story of the Fifth Crusade and her part in it to the goddess Pharasma, judge of the dead — either after Areelu's own soul is sent to the Boneyard upon death to answer for her actions in life, or after she ascends and is chosen as your emissary.
• Freak Out: If Queen Galfrey dies in Iz then Nerosyan almost immediately breaks out into riots. Your next diplomatic meeting will see Lady Konomi in the middle of a nervous breakdown as she tries to both comprehend and deal with the situation.
• The Friend Nobody Likes:
  • The inquisitor Hulrun, a Knight Templar who has killed many innocents, yet is also genuinely a great warrior who has saved the city from demons countless times. Nobody in your party likes him save for the idealistic Ember, and multiple characters comment how if he wasn't such a capable fighter, they'd likely do something about his extreme actions.
  • Wenduag, as in addition to being a power-hungry sadistic cannibal, she's a tactless braggart and bully. Very few characters like her because of her personality, which she doesn't care to change.
  • Regill. The Hellknights have such a poor reputation that it's entirely possible for your entire party to suggest not rescuing them when Taker comes for help, save for Ember who would literally help demons. After joining the Party Refill hardly gets more friends, only really gaining "respect" from some of your party for his dedication.
• Game Mod: The game provides in-game instruction during character creation on how to add custom portraits, and like Kingmaker it is compatible with the Unity Mod Manager, letting players add new features.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • "Book events" let you choose different kinds of action that will succeed or fail depending on your (and your companion's) abilities and skills. Similarly, some options are only available if you're a corresponding alignment - they'll be invisible and/or grayed-out, otherwise.
  • Some enemies are labeled more vaguely until they reveal their abilities.
  • When you rescue Ember from the Lost Chapel, she mentions the ghouls couldn't "make her stop moving" like the other prisoners. Being an elf, she's specifically immune to ghoul paralysis.
  • As soon as you regain control after falling in the underground of Kenabres, you'll have a few seconds left of a Feather Fall spell on you, hinting at how you didn't die from the fall. As to who actually cast the spell...
  • When your party and some of your army is kidnapped by Nulkineth's gargoyles and ghouls, some of your own men are encountered having already turned into undead. Only non-paladins and paladins of level 2 or lower are among them, since by level 3 all paladins become immune to ghoul infection as well as diseases altogether. High level paladins like Irabeth and possibly a disguised Galfrey are still healthy by the time you rescue them.
  • If you are a worshipper of Pharasma and attempt to become a Lich, she will not be happy with you to say the least (as Pharasma is the god of the dead and despises the undead) and will curse you.
  • If the player is a Paladin of Iomedae, they have access to some special dialogue options with Seelah acknowledging this.
  • The villagers of Wintersun see harmless outsiders as demons and vice-versa. If a Demon-path Commander visits the village alone (or with only Arueshalae) they are treated to unique dialogue and a warmer reception.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Using bite attacks, even against explicitly diseased undead who give you disease with a touch, does not subject you or companions to any negative effects.
  • There are times where your character has a mechanically suitable ability that should solve a plot problem but doesn't. For example, a cleric cursed to die a painful death via rats eating him from the inside out if he lets you go into a part of his temple will die even if you possess the ability to remove curses via the appropriate spell. There's neither the ability in dialogue to break the curse, nor does manually using it on him do anything. There are several such cases like this where you should be able to do things but you can't, other times the game will reference your gameplay abilities (for example by letting you heal someone). Even the Aeon-path commander cannot fix this, despite being able to cure the otherwise-doomed corrupted soldiers in Molten Scar.
  • Your character is always treated as having to get around by walking. This is even when you're someone who clearly should have the ability to fly, like a winged Aasimar or Azata or a gold dragon. And characters who can fly can still fall to their deaths in a Bottomless Pit by failing certain skill checks.
  • Taking the Kitsune racial feat that gives you extra tails and spells to go with them does not affect your character's model.
  • The pre-finale Logistics meeting has your advisor tell you the Crusade has no money and will have to requisition, which tanks morale. She says this even if the player has hundreds of thousands of every resource, fully fortified garrisons and multiple army units.
  • Casting spells labeled with the Evil descriptor like Animate Dead will never turn a neutral- or good-aligned character evil, unlike in the tabletop game.
  • Of course in classic videogame fashion, no amount of resurrection spells will let you raise someone who dies from a Plotline Death. And while sometimes the game will let you heal people with a spell or potions, other times people will be too grievously injured to save, but yet healthy enough to have long detailed parting conversations.
  • The Logistics council events in Crusade mode will always talk about how you're running out of resources and funds no matters what your actual campaign finances are like. You can be sitting on hundred of thousands of finance points, and your advisor will be talking about how they basically have to resort to robbery or draconian taxes in Mendev to finance the crusade.
  • Council events will sometimes discuss events that just don't happen. Hal for example will talk about how the good dragons in your army feel awful about repeatedly having to burn down encampments despite those enemies being unable to fight back against the dragons. This never actually is something you see, do or order, and you may never even recruit one.
  • Much is made of each mythic path having a "Transformation" where the player fully becomes an Angel/Demon/Lich/Dragon. And while in story this is true, in gameplay (aside from Lich as Lich is a template applied on top of the player's character), the player is never treated as such. They retain their original race, racial abilities, and racial features. In the case of Gold Dragon, their Gold Dragon form can outright be dispelled off them in combat by enemies, as it's treated as a buff, not the player's actual form.
  • Evil characters can still see and hear the Hand of the Inheritor during Act 4 despite the fact they shouldn't be able to.
  • Many tears are shed in Arueshalae's Romance Sidequest over the fact that she can't make love to the PC without risking killing them, since she's a succubus, never mind the fact that a dhampir PC should be mechanically immune since its a level drain effect.
  • If Arushelae is fully redeemed, she says that Desna has severed her connection with the Abyss and removed her demonic powers so she can finally have a physical relationship with the Commander. But a quick glance at her character sheet shows that she still has her Vampiric Touch and other racial features, likely because it would require changing Arushelae's gameplay usage drastically.
• Genuine Impostor: Shyka the Many attends a First World themed wedding by pretending to be herself.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: The shadow demon bard in Areelu's laboratory. It teleports away when you knock it to about 1/3 HP; you have to fight it about four times in different rooms to finally kill it.
  • Same goes for the Ashen Lady in the Ineluctable Prison: once you encounter her she places an annoying curse on your main character and forces you to chase her around and fight her several times.
• A God Am I: A Lich commander can eventually grant spells to undead warriors and clerics under their control, including a revived Staunton Vhane. The secret ending involves all paths but Legends achieving (demi-)godhood.
• God Was My Copilot: On the Azata path, once you fight the Arc Villain Early Sunset, AKA Mephistopheles then Olla Devara will reveal they were an azata the whole time, they just never saw the need to announce it to you like every other planar representative does.
• The Gods Must Be Lazy: Some of the less faithful characters (such as Ember) certainly believe so as the good aligned gods make no direct interventions despite the fact that the World Wound threatens all of Golarian. The Herald of Iomedae does give an alternate reasoning as to why the hosts of heaven cannot just sweep in and end the conflict quickly. As it currently stands, the demons are only being led by a "mere" three demon lords, the rest being too disorganized to particularly care to help. However, if Heaven were to directly intervene, it would rally all of the other demon lords to join in (as the light of Heaven and its forces are one of the few things that could get them to truly work together) and the resulting conflict would undoubtedly destroy all of the Material Realm. So Iomedae only sends a few of her angels including her Herald to even the odds. Another interaction even mentions a historical example: after Desna killed the demon lord Aolar to avenge one of her priests, only Calistria manipulating the demons into turning on each other again stopped a war between Elysium and the Abyss.
• Golden Ending: Subverted with the True Aeon ending. On one hand, you go back in time and stop the Worldwound from ever being created, which means the demon invasion retroactively never occurred, meaning all the suffering that it caused also never occurs. Most of your party get to live simpler happy lives in peace. On the other hand, most of your party is the operative word. While the demonic invasion caused a lot of suffering, it also allowed for many to find purpose and even redemption. In this new timeline, Anevia never found new purpose as a crusader and died unknown and unloved as a bandit and Arueshalae remains an unredeemed succubus since the events that led to her eventual redemption never happened. Oh, and the Commander is completely Retgone from existence. Taken further if you let your party members keep their memories of the old timeline. While some, like Daeran, remember you fondly, others like Seelah wistfully think of what used to be, knowing nobody would believe her. And Arueshalae in particular becomes even more evil, embittered by the fact that she could have been better than she currently is in another life and that opportunity was taken away from her.
• Gold–Silver–Copper Standard: Unlike most Infinity Engine titles (or even the tabletop ruleset), WotR simply uses one kind of coin for the sake of clarity.
• The Good, the Bad, and the Evil: If your main character is of Evil alignment, Mendevian forces and the soldiers of Heaven will still begrudgingly fight by your side, making you the Bad in the equation. In an extremely rare case for video games, you can also usurp the Evil through the power of becoming a Swarm-That-Walks.
• Gray-and-Gray Morality: The conflict between Forn Autumn Gaze and Kaylessa. Continuing the quest to its conclusion will see Kaylessa revealed as A Lighter Shade of Grey and Forn as a Knight Templar. Resolving the quest in Kaylessa's favor (which kills both Kaylessa and Forn) results in another gray-and-gray decision where you have to decide the fate of a piece of information Forn was trying to kill Kaylessa to stop the potential release of. Choosing whether to release it or not has potentially huge ramifications for Kyonin that are never explored since you're nowhere near them.
• Guide Dang It!: A few times:
  • The secret ending has numerous requirements, and players can lock themselves out of it as early as the game's prologue. Notably it has also a time requirement where the player must enter the final dungeon on a very specific week (That's not earlier, nor later than those specific 7 days). Which means the players have to plan their entire game around this time limit without knowing about it. And there's a 6 month time skip between act 3 and act 5.
  • The early game quest 'Feud of the Faithful' can be failed before you even encounter it. The opportunity to reconcile Hulrun and Ramien only exists prior to the assault on Defender's Heart. If you miss their first confrontation by not finding them in the market square on your first visit (or by occupying yourself with a task in a different direction, like Woljif's first companion quest) you will not be able to peacefully resolve the situation.
  • Usually Mythic Path dialogue options are there for flavor, or have slight benefits, but there is no penalty for opting not to use them. The problem is that if you do not pick the Aeon-Path option when deciding what to do with the wardstone then it results in you losing access to the Aeon permanently. You are not given warning of this in advance.
  • Wenduag's alignment can change. Accomplishing this, however, requires making specific decisions throughout the entire game. Additionally, if she is not recruited in Act 1 and encountered in Act 3, choosing to recruit her then will result in her unavoidably betraying The Commander in Act 4 and getting killed. The only way to avoid this is to pic a specific Evil dialogue option which will result in her not being recruited until Act 5.
  • Angel and Aeon aren't the only paths that let you keep your title as Commander of the Fifth Crusade, you can do it as an Azata too. If you take the Azata-specific option to attack the Fane early and take the Good option to let Minagho escape, Galfrey will be too furious with you for both of those things to let you keep it. If you wait for her before attacking then she won't mention Minagho's escape and let you keep the title.
  • Although Relationship Values exist in the game, how it works and what influences it does not get shown to the player. This can lead to accidentally romancing someone due to lack of signposting for less obvious choices, or cause characters to dislike the player character over something that on paper seems odd, and there isn't a way to know what the status of their views on your character are, unless you use a guide to see what choices cause certain things. Players wanting to romance Queen Galfrey for example have to make specific choices from as early as your first meeting with her, or else she never begins developing feelings for the Commander, while someone such as Lann can be accidentally romanced very early by simply picking the wrong option.
• Harder Than Hard: The aptly named "Unfair mode" which double the damage dealt by monsters and traps. Enemies will also have increased power and deliver critical hits more often.
• Healer Signs On Early: Played with. The initial 3 companions you fully recruit (Lann and Wendaugh both initially join but only one stays around) are not dedicated healers, but 2 of them do have some very basic healing capabilities to get you through the first dungeon. Once you start exploring Kenabres, the primary healer companion Daeran will likely be the final companion of act 1 that you recruit. But there are 4-5 more companions you recruit throughout the rest of the game.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Arueshalae, the Succubus companion, is currently in the process of going through one, forsaking her evil ways after an encounter with the goddess Desna. The player can aid her into fully transitioning into invoked Chaotic Good, or cause her to relapse back into Chaotic Evil.
  • Nurah Dendiwhar can be made to turn her back on the side of evil by a Commander who has unlocked the Trickster mythic-path but requires a fair amount of unprompted effort. The player must find her 'perfume', actually vescavor pheromones, in her tent and confront her about them. Later, during the gargoyle attack, they must head immediately west leaving their tent to encounter her with an incriminating flask of alchemist's fire. If both are executed properly the Commander can use a Trickster-path dialogue option after the Lost Chapel to have her change her ways.
  • Nocticula, a demon lord is dangling at the edge of a revelation that would set her on the path to becoming a goddess. The Commander, or Ember, can be the push that makes this happen.
  • Areelu Vorlesh herself has a Hazy-Feel Turn in the secret ending. She's not so much "good" as "got what she wants more than being evil." However it's played straight with the Gold Dragon ending. The point of Gold Dragons being everyone deserves a chance to repent.
  • A Demon or Lich Mythic Path Commander can do this if they choose to go Gold Dragon or Legend before they cross the point of no return. Arueshalae will even compare saving a Demon Commander this way with what the Commander did for her (Her presence also makes the Saving Roll automatic)
• Heroic BSoD: Hilor has a massive one if he reunites with his daughter Lourry, AKA the Spinner of Nightmares. It either results in Lourry fatally stabbing him only for him to break her neck before he dies, barely understanding his enemy and his daughter are the same person or you convincing Lourry to back down, causing her to leave; Hilor will then break completely and 'reset,' repeating his dialogue from the first part of the quest, which the game specifically points out and implies has happened several times already.
• Hero of Another Story: Yaniel, Queen Galfrey, Zacharius the wizard and other prominent crusaders are namedropped and often refer to their past achievements.
• Hobbits: Lawyer-friendly "halflings", as in Dungeons & Dragons.
• Honest Axe: One of the events happening in your fortress has a visiting blacksmith offering an old, rusty sword and a new, shiny one. If you have Nenio in your party, she will just reforge both into a new one.
• Honor Before Reason: Joran Vhane. In Drezen he will give you a scabbard he promised to make you right before attacking you because he knows you're there to kill his brother. There's no malice in him at all, and he doesn't even want to do it, but it's family.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The first fight with Minagho cannot be won, she doesn't die even if you get her HP to 0.
• Horrifying the Horror: Repeatedly. The player character is something so unusual and so far outside the boundaries of what the world is used to that nobody knows what to make of them, and that terrifies many of them. Minagho is the first one to be on the receiving end, but far from the last, and a high-Persuasion character gets plenty of chances to intimidate demons into not fighting. This escalates to both Mephistopheles and Baphomet being 'concerned' about the player's power; an Angel Commander can shock Baphomet so badly by killing him, that he compares them to Asmodeus.
• Horse of a Different Color: Non-equine mounts such as elk, giant dogs, big cats, mammoths, triceratops, and even velociraptors and centipedes for Small characters are available for some classes and archetypes, though most cavaliers or paladins are limited to a horse (brown or black) by default.
• Hub Under Attack:
  • Midway through Chapter 1, the Defender's Heart inn, which has been fortified by the Mendevian Crusader survivors as a base to strike back at the demons occupying Kenabres, comes under a full-scale attack by the Cult of Baphomet and an assortment of low-level demons. Repelling this attack inflicts enough casualties on the demon army that the Crusaders are subsequently able to retake the city. You can skip this if you're quick to move on the Grey Garrison, either by skipping lots of sidequests or through efficient route planning and limited resting, earning yourself a bonus.
  • The opening of Chapter 5 is retaking your hub city of Drezen.
  • Inverted in Chapter 4, especially as an Azata, since you become the thing attacking the enemy's hub. Killing the slavers in the Fleshmarkets deprives you of several merchants but also lets you avoid paying for the slaves they sell, or get your money back if you bought them. Azata players can clear out the entire market, rendering it a ghost town, while players on other paths can kill everyone except Ramisa.
• Hypocrite: During the defense of Kenabres, you can find someone looting a body. You can tell him off for it. But there is nothing stopping you from looting the body yourself immediately after and no repercussions for it.
• Idiot Ball: Certain times force the player to be kind of an idiot and not pick up on obvious clues for plot reasons. The writing sometimes indicates that it is entirely intentional as a form of Dramatic Irony, but it can seem to be at odds with a given player character's stats and personality. For example, the commander will never pick up on Camellia's activity until Anevia all but tricks them into walking in on her in the act of murdering a young crusader. This is despite the torture equipment in her room at the Gwerm estate, numerous bloodthirsty remarks, and her Character Tic of licking her lips excitedly at sights of gruesome violence.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: There are multiple difficulty settings in the game. As is not uncommon for CRPGs, the baseline Normal difficulty house-rules a number of elements to be less overwhelming to players who are not familiar with the tabletop game and/or some of its more esoteric rules. It is a notch below Daring, which still does not use the full rules as written, and two notches below Core, Owlcat's fullest version of Pathfinder so far (though still not absolutely complete), expecting an extensive knowledge of the rules and a certain amount of optimization and meta-awareness beyond them. The difficulty levels above that are tailored for minmaxing, powergaming, and theorycrafting, with the maximum difficulty flatly admitting that it is Unfair.
  • Story
  • Casual
  • Normal
  • Daring
  • Core
  • Hard
  • Unfair
• Improbable Power Discrepancy: A lot of the enemies you encounter, especially later in the game, have been drastically increased in power from their tabletop equivalents in order to provide a better challenge. Additionally, mythic monsters are much more commonplace than they were in the tabletop, and besides boasting increased stats they resurrect automatically when killed the first time, making them that much more durable. As an example: In the adventure path an ècorche is a powerful undead which is only encountered once as an NPC in one of the final dungeons of the story. In the game, depending on where you explore, you may encounter it as an enemy (which is also playing dead and gets the jump on you) as soon as Chapter 3 starts.
• I'm Standing Right Here: During the "Starward Gaze" quest, when you find Aranka at Daeran's party and ask her about her opinion on the count while Daeran is in the party, he will be amused at her not acknowledging he's standing right there as she talks about him.
  Daeran: Are you deliberately talking as if I'm not here? Excellent — like any polite host, I shall return the favor and act as if you're not here either.
• Interface Screw: If your main character gets Dominated, you will see enemies outlined as allies and vice versa.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • invokedCamellia's amulet of undetectable alignment doesn't hide the fact that she's able to use the Scrolls of Protection from Good/Law, making her Chaotic Evil. Additionally, whenever you level her up, if you select any class that has an alignment prerequisite, the game outright states her current alignment is Chaotic Evil. Not that it's hard to figure out otherwise based on her banter, but it makes the reveal less shocking.
  • The Reveal of Nenio being a kitsune happens during the first part of her personal quest in Act 2. Before then, it's easy tell that something's not quite right when viewing her stats on the character screen or leveling her up; she lacks the human bonus feat, doesn't gain the extra skill point from the human skilled trait when leveling up, and has two stat bonuses and one stat penalty instead of a human's single stat bonus and no penalty. In addition, when the event tracker constantly records Nenio equipping a Bite attack, it's all but stated that she's not human.
  • Using the Inspect option to look at one of the NPC paladins (always invokedLawful Good in Pathfinder rules) in the Kenabres Market Square reveals that he has a Chaotic Good alignment. It's one of several hints that he's one of the hidden acolytes of Desna.
  • In a few locations, a string of sudden "Perception Check Failed" messages can tip you off that there's something hidden nearby.
  • The camping interface spoils the names of two companions by listing their favorite recipes before you actually get them in your party.
• Invisible Wall: In Crusade Mode during Act 3, you'll eventually hit a point where roads no longer continue into the Worldwound. No in-universe reason is given for this; you, the player, have simply done everything and cannot continue. Come Act 5 you'll suddenly be able to continue down those roads to Iz and the fortress of Threshold.
• Karma Houdini: It's impossible to kill everyone in the Fleshmarkets. No matter what you do at least one of the slavers is going to survive and become this. Specifically only an Angel can kill Black Mask, who normally hides in a Soul Jar other paths can't destroy and only an Azata can kill Ramisa Shed-Skin, who is normally only present via Astral Projection and has to be tracked down by Early Sunset.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: On the Azata path, if you keep talking with Vorimeraak, the vrock sorceress in Molten Scar, she and her retinue get ambushed and subjected to a Curb-Stomp Battle by halfling Free Crusaders in the middle of your dialogue.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Barring the occasional Teleporting Keycard Squad or guard made to protect one specific stash, nobody will bat an eye at your characters freely invading private property and taking everything not nailed down, including your own troops.
• Knight Templar: The veteran inquisitor Hulrun has been fighting for Kenabres for decades, determined to keep Kenabres safe from spies and cultists at all costs — including rounding up suspects and hanging them or burning them at the stake with very little evidence, claiming to derive an infallible "all-seeing eye" from his goddess Iomedae. It's made clear by his fellow citizens, even those who sympathize with him, that he is paranoid and dangerous, and has killed many innocents — and even then, they are hesitant to write him off, as he has genuinely saved the city from demons on numerous occasions as well, and he's simply too strong of a warrior to arrest or execute. The player can make him their ally or murder him — if they manage not to provoke him into branding them as heretics. Displaying your Angelic power alleviates some of his suspicions, though you're only given the chance to do so the first time you speak with him, as he is so sure of himself, that he'll push back even if you invoke the Light of Heaven again on him.
• Last-Second Ending Choice: At the very end of the game, the Commander can choose whether to sacrifice themselves to close the Worldwound, persuade/force Areelu to do so, leave the Worldwound as is, or use their full Mythic power to attain their path-specific ending, with the added option to attain the Ascension ending if they gained Areelu's trust and gathered all the requisites for it. Downplayed in that it only determines the fate of the Commander, Areelu and the Worldwound, with every other ending slide depending on choices that span the rest of the game.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Grandma Gretlen, at the end of her play, may state that as a true comedian it's her job to provoke laughter and smiles... and not always on the stage. Her speech could be taken as talking about the entire quest chain, addressing either the Commander or the player.
• Lightning Bruiser: Barbarians have a bonus to their speed and are one of the hardest hitters in the game. Classes which give the Armor Training features, such as fighters, also become able to wear heavy armor and maintain their full mobility.
• Limited-Use Magical Device: Scrolls and potions which are single-use, as well as wands with limited charges and quivers with set ammunition. Some other magical items can only be used a few times per day, but reset upon resting.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Historically enforced by D&D and the games based on its mechanics. A late game arcane or divine caster can nuke entire demon squads from orbit while fighters need to physically take them down one by one. Mage generals can flatten whole armies almost singlehandedly.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: Be prepared to spend a lot of time watching long, long, long, long loading screens. It takes over a minute per load on console, regardless of how small the area is. Especially if you make the mistake of relying on autosaves, since they save before the loading screen, not after, which means you need to sit through two (the load to the area the game autosaved at and the area you want to go in) if you die.
• Louis Cypher: Melies is a devil, that much is clear already, but what makes it this is that he's named after Georges Méliès, who directed an early film version of Faust. He is himself Mephistopheles, not one of his underlings.
• Lower-Deck Episode: Through the Ashes takes place from the POV of a bunch of survivors just trying to make their way through Kenabres to the Defenders Heart in order to warn them of an impending demon assault. It also borders on "Shaggy Dog" Story since, as players of the main game know, the demon assault is already known by the characters there and can even be bypassed entirely if the Commander is fast enough.
• Loyal Animal Companion: A class feature for druids, rangers, hunters, cavaliers and paladins (in the form of a trusty steed), and certain archetypes for other classes. They are good for tanking.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Big hits cause enemies to explode in a shower of gore and bloody chunks.
• Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Parodied. If Daeran and the Commander are in a romance and he's in the party in the Wintersun area, there's an interaction where he suggests they fulfill one of his fantasies by making love under a waterfall. The PC has the option to shove him into the pool as a prank, whereupon he emerges dripping wet and complaining that those romance novel authors should be flogged because that water was way colder than he expected.
• Mascot: Headchomper the owlcat, a little familiar that backers of the Kickstarter campaign can get. Like other familiars he adds some minor stats and does nothing else, though he is visible on the screen.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The lilitu in Heaven's Edge caused two. The first is when she revealed she'd poisoned everything in the manor and everyone is going to die. The second is when she sensed the Other talking to Daeran and had a panic attack, causing the Crusaders to realize something extremely bad was about to happen.
• Medieval Stasis: Played mostly straight and also justified, despite the country of Numeria being right next door. Due to the Worldwound, Mendev has been in a state of war and crusading for nearly a hundred years, and almost all of the economics are focused on war, leaving the area underdeveloped as a result. Until you reach the Blackwater dungeon, an underground technological laboratory that wouldn't look out of place in Doom populated with augmented warriors and cyberdemons, and unlocks the option to enroll the cyborgs in your own army upon completion.
• Medium Awareness: The Mythic Tricks offered by the Trickster Mythic Path allow you to be so good at the various skills that you can do things that would normally be impossible, one of which is becoming so knowledgeable about the world that your character understands that their whole life is decided by dice rolls. This also means that your character realizes they can start using weighted dice, turning any nat 1 the party rolls into a nat 20.
• Memorial for the Antagonist: Downplayed. After killing Staunton Vhane during the recapture of Drezen, the Commander is given the choice of what to do with his remains. Two of the options are to either bury him as a knight, or just quietly put him in a tomb (In-Universe, it's knight's tradition to be put to rest in the Drezen Crypt). The other options are to dispose of his body with the dead demons, or, on the Lich Mythic Path, raise him as an undead servant.
• Mood Whiplash: Happens often, as solemn or dramatic scenes can flow into a string of humorous quips from your companions.
  • One document details the attempt of a man to have himself be recognized as Iomedae's chosen by writing "chosin" on his own forehead with tar and claiming the Herald (which he even fails to describe accurately) did it. It's rather funny as it leaves the priests so downright dumbfounded they opt for a token punishment and exile for him until Hulrun decides to have him burned for blasphemy instead.
  • Xanthir Vang's notes detail parts of the process of replacing his body with a swarm of locusts. After performing a trepanation on himself and replacing parts of his brain he notes an "unusual effect": "Extremely itchy scalp."
  • The wedding of Seelah's friends starts out very jovial and sweet with the player buying a ring with Seelah and playing games with the guests. It ends with most of the guests being possessed by demons, their catatonic bodies left soulless and Seelah feeling depressed with herself.
• Moon Logic Puzzle: The slab puzzles required for the Heart of Mystery quest border on this since you have to solve a puzzle or two before figuring out the logic behind how to solve them, which isn't exactly obvious and is easily overlooked. Good luck with the actual Heart of Mystery puzzle, though; the answer was pulled out of the game files and almost nobody understands the logic behind the solution. Many of the puzzles in The Enigma are just as bad.
• Morton's Fork: One way or another, the mongrel merchant Dyra will get killed by Wenduag. Directly, either because you didn't pick Wenduag at the start and she went absolutely Ax-Crazy without any moderating influence, or because you recruited her but didn't do enough to curb her brutality, causing her to murder Dyra for getting in her way, or indirectly, because a recruited Wenduag keeps dangerous demonic tomes around, one of which is stolen by Dyra resulting in a very messy death at the hands of an accidentally summoned demon.
• Mutual Kill: Hilor and the Spinner of Nightmares are likely to kill each other if you arrange a meeting. Only one dialogue option prevents it.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules:
  • Like Kingmaker before it, the games takes certain liberties with with various aspect of the Pathfinder ruleset. Enemies, even NPCs who are otherwise using PC classes, have bonuses to their stats. Particularly HP well in excess of what their level (and thus hit die) would imply. This is especially visible with Evokers encountered early in the game. Their HP should be so low that any but the weakest attacks should one shot them, yet you'll find them consistently taking an amount of punishment that puts the Player and companions to shame at level 1 and 2. They also have far higher initiative scores than they should have, making it even harder to focus them down before they get their spells off. Many enemies have incredibly high attributes, much higher than should be possible for NPCs of their classes/races, such as an aasimar slaver with a dexterity well over 40. Some enemies have also access to spells they do not qualify for at their levels.
  • Jhoran Vhane in particular has a whopping Armor Class of 37 as well as spell resistance and being, for some reason, a level 13 cleric despite in-universe being a blacksmith. When you defeat him the armor left behind isn't nearly enough to produce that kind of Armor Class. The spell resistance goes completely unexplained in-universe, but out-of-character it is almost certainly so that the party has a harder time exploiting his relatively-low touch-AC.
  • When refusing to give Shamira the info she wants, she'll hit the player with Mind Fog and begin trying to rip the info from their mind, necessitating to succeed some pretty harsh will saves while affected by Mind Fog. Notably, her version of Mind Fog does not allow the player a save, nor does it roll against any spell resistance present. Notably, Life Bubble works, something multiple party members can learn. You still have to make the will saves, but it's a bit more fair.
• Mysterious Informant: Crinukh the kobold bard, who leaves the player instructions to his camp, where he provides oddly apt, occasionally downright prescient advice for the Commander in the form of allegories. His information is solid, if you listen to it; how he comes by it is a mystery. Upon retaking Drezen, you gain the option of suggesting he relocate to the city, where he takes up residence in a back alley near Camellia.
• Mythology Gag: During the liberation of Kenabres in the original Adventure Path, players could hear a false rumor claiming that Deskari personally manifested to take part in the city's destruction. In the video game, it actually happens.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: After the Shield Maze, either Lann or Wenduag will offer to join your party depending on your actions in Neathholm and against Savamelek. You will later have a chance to recruit the other, though. Though played straight with Wenduag if you choose Lann first. You can make her join you in act 3, but she will inevitably turn on you during Act 4, forcing you to kill her. You can only recruit her permanently if you tell her off when you meet in Act 3, where she'll join in Act 5 instead.
• Narrator All Along: The narrator between chapters and the writer of the player's quest journal turns out to be none other than half-demon Big Bad Areelu Vorlesh herself.
• Nay-Theist: The tooltip for the "Atheist" religious preference explains that, denying the gods' existence being an exercise in futility on Golarion, the term "atheism" is technically what we would call alatrism. Ember and Daeran are both "Atheist": Ember specifically believes the gods are as lost and confused as everybody else and that people should be nicer to each other regardless, while Daeran is just generally irreverent and thinks the gods are as valid as targets for his snark as anybody else.
• Nerf:
  • Arueshalae's starting stats are significantly reduced compared to her tabletop incarnation due to her becoming a Player Party member. She's still Purposely Overpowered despite being adjusted stat wise, just not to such an extreme degree, in addition to her starting archetype being not that great.
  • On the tabletop, the Hellknight Signifier is one of the better spellcaster Prestige Classes, since its Catechesis feature directly addresses (for cleric, inquisitor, and oracle entrants) the most common issue with prestige classes in Pathfinder: missing out on too much of the base class's major features (a consequence of Paizo's efforts while reworking Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition to mitigate Empty Levels). The implementation in Wrath of the Righteous leaves this feature out, essentially costing a Signifier half their class levels in everything but spellcasting unless they raise the level cap via the Legend mythic path or a Game Mod.
  • On the tabletop, the Disciple of the Pike archetype for the Cavalier can use its features with both "polearms" and "spears" (a distinction that didn't historically exist). WOTR locks the archetype into spears only by removing Weapon Training (Polearms) as a choice of class feature. Combined with having not implemented any Martial or Exotic spears other than the trident, this limits the class's build flexibility and damage output.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Chapter 4, Queen Galfrey sends you on a special mission and takes over the crusade in your absence. By the time you get back, 6 months later, she's run the crusade straight into the ground — your armies are gone, Drezen is sacked again, and she's led what remains of the crusaders into a dangerous area and disappeared. It's not hard to see why the previous crusades ended in failure.
• No Canon for the Wicked: Jubilost's cameo in act 5 at the very least indicates that he wasn't killed by an Evil Baron/ess and had his quest resolved so he could survive at the House at the Edge of Time.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot:
  • The result of choosing one of the more exotic races at game start and then pursuing one of the transformative Mystic Paths. Bonus points for also choosing a class featuring permanent transformations (such as Dragon Disciple or Monk). Thus, you can become, for example, a kitsune-dragon-angel. Actually slightly encouraged in that a lot of the 'obvious' combinations (i.e. dhampir necromancer lich) would often give you the same benefits. But you cannot get duplicates, nor is there a replacement reward for when you would get a duplicate feat or spell. You simply lose out. So why not pick an esoteric combination instead and become more well-rounded?
  • Depending on your decisions, you might get the option to recruit some ninja pirate vampires for your army.
  • In the Azata epilogue, the mimic crusaders decide to form their own knightly order. Then change their minds, deciding to be pirates. Then they settle on being a group of Pirate-Knight-Acrobats.
• Nintendo Hard: Frequently noted on original release is that the game's boss encounters are spectacularly hard. Boss enemies tend to have extremely high AC, Spell Resistance, Saves and Attack rolls, to the point where all but the most optimized characters are unlikely to have the stats to match those numbers and struggle to hit enemies on anything short of critical hits, while getting constantly hit by everyone of the boss' attacks and spell fail to pierce SR and when they do are saved against. Now the game does have comprehensive difficulty options, and the normal difficulty levies stats penalty on all enemies and nerfs their damage by 20%. But it should be noted that even at this difficulty several bosses still feel overtuned. And things get way harder on "core" difficulty, which is supposed to be the difficulty where the rules most closely match the actual Pathfinder first edition ruleset and the one Pathfinder veterans might be most drawn towards, unaware they are basically entering into a game run by a Killer Game Master who has balanced the game around the idea that every character will use an optimal build, not necessarily one that makes sense roleplay-wise.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: Characters reduced to 0 hit points fall unconscious. They die when their hitpoints equal their Constitution score as a negative number, though on 'Normal' difficulty and below they will instead suffer a 'mortal wound' the first time and have to be killed again before they're down for good.
• Notice This: A chime and a quip will play when one of your characters find a hidden object. In the case of a trap the game will also autopause (by default) so you have time to stop before walking into it.
• Orphan's Plot Trinket: Although the player character isn't aware of it, late in the game it can be revealed that the Engraved Lucky Bracers are actually one of these if you keep them until Act four, Areelu will mention that she made them for you when you were a child and that the engraving actually says "I promise" a phrase closely tied to Areelu's attempt to use you to revive her child
• Once More, with Clarity: At the end of certain chapters you see the introduction again, where you find out the soldiers who dragged you into Kenabres were Vorlesh and her demons in disguise.
• One-Man Army: Taken literally with certain powerful enemies such as high-ranking demons counting as armies in mass battles. They are more than a match for a few hundred soldiers on their own.
• Optional Boss:
  • Many side areas have optional bosses that aren't necessary to defeat for completion but are guarding some decent loot and are worth a good chunk of experience. Some of them include Pain Taster the Incubus, Sinful Sinew the Ecorchè, Maugla the Nabasu in the Lost Chapel, and the trio of Mandragoras under the Wizard's tower.
  • It's self-defeating, but one can start the Devil Mythic Path via the Aeon path, have Melies set up a meeting with his boss, Mephistopheles (Lord of the 8th Circle of Hell) at the crossroads. Go to the crossroads, find out Melies is Mephistopheles and he has some of his head honchos with him to do a trial on you to see if you are worthy of becoming a Devil. One can at this point choose to fight them all. Obviously this will fail the Mythic Path, win or lose. Have fun, he's a level 39 Outsider, Level 20 Wizard! Something similar can also be done with Early Sunset in Azata path.
• Optional Party Member: Technically the case for all your default companions, as was the case with Kingmaker, where you had the opportunity to send them away if you disliked them. The player may also choose to simply kill some of them upon meeting. Most notably, certain Mythic Paths grant the Commander access to new, exclusive party members on top of your usual companions. The Azata Path gives you the baby havoc dragon Aivu, and the Lich Path allows you to raise certain characters, such as Staunton Vhane, as playable undead minions.
• Optional Sexual Encounter: Besides all the romance options, the player can visit a demon brothel. In addition, characters on the Demon Mythic Path are able to seduce Vellexia.
• Our Angels Are Different: The game is somewhat vague on what "Angels" are, seemingly specifying them as Lawful Good exclusively. In the original Pathfinder, "Angel" refers to several variants of Good Celestials; Archons or Planetars (Lawful Good) Devas (Neutral Good), etc. among others. The Angel Mythic Path would be better defined as the Archon Mythic Path. It was likely boiled down to The Theme Park Version for people new to Pathfinder.
• Our Vampires Are Different: There's a group of vampires in the Drezen citadel at the end of Chapter 2. The head vampire, Therak Nul, seemingly dies easily, his body crumbling away. But if you search the crack in the wall, you'll find his coffin. Clicking on it causes an explosion of blood and experience, plus you get his magic rapier.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: Wrath is a high fantasy epic, but the Blackwater area has you exploring a subterranean high-tech bunker filled with cybernetically enslaved humans and demons. It wouldn't be out of place in a Fallout game. Numeria is this for the world of Golarion as a whole, as might be expected for a nation built around a crashed starship.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Depending on your path you may end up in a series of encounters fighting alongside NPCs allies against hordes of demons. While some of them would be quite powerful by the standard of a regular campaign, they're downright trivial compared to the commander and their enemies.
• Permanently Missable Content: Mythic Paths need to be unlocked and are mutually exclusive once finalized in chapter 2. It's possible to miss unlocking criteria and thereby miss the mythic path. of course, that just means you get to embark upon a different path instead.
• Pet the Dog: If you're an Azata and you choose to let Minagho go every single time then in Act 4 her lover Chivarro will drop everything, even abandoning the famous brothel she owns, to find Minagho and help her. She'll also genuinely thank you, something almost unheard-of among demons, for being merciful towards Minagho. This is such an unexpected event that the city will gossip about it.
  • Jubilost has very encouraging words for a redeemed Arueshalae.
• Player Headquarters: Fairly early on, you liberate the city of Drezen. The Kingdom Building system from Pathfinder: Kingmaker has been adapted so that you can run your army from your snazzy new headquarters. However unlike Kingmaker, it does not stay your base. In act 4 your base moves to a camp in the Nexus. You get to return to Drezen later.
• Player Party: Your main character plus up to five other companions for a total of 6.
• Plotline Death: You come across a major character from the AP dead right at the start of the game...and immediately after you find an item that can raise the dead. You can't use it.
• Polyamory: Possible for most of the game. The player can romance and even sleep with as many of the available love interests as they like. However, in the final chapter, the companions involved will eventually get jealous of each other and demand you choose your one true love. Played straight for Daeran, who explicitly says he would be cool with sharing, just that everyone else isn't.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: The Wardstones are powered by angels who voluntarily imprisoned themselves and suffer constantly. Minagho's job was to sow discord and corruption among them to bring down the network, whereas you can end their suffering or cause them to sleep peacefully until the Crusades are over.
• Properly Paranoid: Hulrun is afraid during the festival that hordes of Demons and Devils have already infiltrated the town and are just waiting for the right opportunity to strike. He is absolute correct.
• Purposely Overpowered:
  • Most mythic powers are meant to be extremely powerful, acting as additional abilities to the core class functions. Even the lowest level mythic powers or feats tend to be so strong that they more than make your party able to fight traditionally harder enemies while still at a relatively low level.
  • The Gold Dragon mythic path will make you an overpowered badass no matter what you begin it as. For starters, it boosts all stats that are less than 18 before modifiers to 18, casters will recieve the Basic Attack Bonus of a melee class. And it has immunity to many status effects, resistance against elements, enhanced saves, and much more. Spellcasters get enhanced damage dice for their spells. Understandably, it is only obtainable late in the game near the start of Act 5.
  • If you take the Legend path and renounce your mythic powers, you're compensated by doubling your level cap to 40 and giving you most of those new levels right away, with all the increases to HP, BAB, feats, class progression, etc. that implies, taking you well into epic level territory.
• Puzzle Boss: Some bonus bosses are built this way. For example, Playful Darkness has very high AC, regeneration (cancelled by positive energy), and spell resistance. He however is affected by Revive Kills Zombie, and has a terrible touch AC. This makes him vulnerable to multiple characters using the damage undead channel energy ability, or Paladins (like Seelah) using lay on hands on him, both ability unaffected by spell resistance, and the later doesn't even allow him a save.
• Quieting the Unquiet Dead: During Sosiel's first sidequest a funeral is interrupted by an outbreak of your standard hyper-violent zombies under the control of a cacklingly evil Necromancer; once the initial wave is dealt with however, you can find a revived noblewoman thinking she was buried alive in her crypt. The hard part is convincing her that she's dead; once she accepts that fact, she politely asks that you return her to her eternal slumber and gives you a necklace she was buried with by way of reward.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: If you recruit all currently known available companions, your party will eventually include: a freewheeling paladin, a heavily burned, eternally optimistic child crusader witch, a wandering mad scientist kitsune wizard, a half-elf noblewoman of questionable moral character, an Only Sane Man cleric who believes that art and beauty are the way to sooth the souls of the crusaders, an intractable three-foot tall bastion of the harsh and unforgiving nature of law, a sarcastic chimeric mongrelman who has lived his whole life below ground (or his Ax-Crazy ex-girlfriend who is obsessed with becoming stronger), a "thiefling" eldritch scoundrel, a hedonistic aasimar nobleman who has been Cursed with Awesome, a succubus trying to redeem herself from her evil ways, and whatever personality you give to your main character.
  • This also applies in your army if you pick the Trickster or Azata path, as anyone from humans to treants to mimics will show up asking to be accepted in your ranks.
• Random Encounters: You are periodically ambushed on the road, or when resting.
• Raising the Steaks: Several areas contain "plagued smilodons", zombified versions of the sabertoothed cats that were indigenous to Sarkoris before the Worldwound opened.
• Real-Time with Pause: A combination of this and Turn-Based Combat. After the release of Pathfinder: Kingmaker Definitive Edition it was announced that Wrath would have access to both and be able to switch between both modes at will, this led to fans calling the system "Real Time with Turn-Based".
• Redshirt Army: Your Crusader troops, especially the fighters, who will often die en masse to enemy groups ten times smaller.
• Refuge in Audacity: Ramisa Shed-Skin, a slaver who is notorious for having killed a lot of demons and thus has a lot of enemies, won't trade in person, instead only talking through an astral projection. An Azata path player will discover her secret lair is the building her projection is standing in front of.
• Replay Value: Aside from the multitude of possible class options and other choices that can be made with varying alignments, a lot of the plot elements uncovered later in the game are nicely foreshadowed early on. Finally, since each Mythic path substantially changes the game and they're all mutually exclusive, a lot of replayability has been added.
• Revive Kills Zombie: Pathfinder does follow that healing and similar spells are derived from the Positive Energy Plane which is the antithesis of the Negative Energy Plane, which powers undead. So yes, healing spells do hurt them.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: When Grandma Gretlen finally performs her play, she mentions that the Commander freed Drezen by invoking a temporal paradox such that Drezen never needed saving at all. While she does it seemingly out of either laziness or comedy value, this is the signature gimmick of a True Aeon Commander.
• Romance Sidequest: Seven characters are available as romance options, with six being companions and one being an NPC.
  • Arueshalae, a succubus currently undergoing a Heel–Face Turn after an encounter with the goddess Desna, who is attempting to redeem herself for her past misdeeds. She is available for characters of either gender.
  • Camellia, a half-elf raised in a wealthy but strict household. She has the manners of a lady, the powers of a shaman, and enjoys her newly obtained freedom in the Commander’s company. Of course, she's also a Spirit hunter Shaman of ambiguous moral character. She is available for male characters only.
  • Daeran, a young Mendevian noble and an aasimar. Extremely handsome and filthy rich, he loves to scandalize noble society with extravagant parties and wanton behaviour. Of course, he's also a hedonist cursed with magical powers. He is available for characters of either gender.
  • Queen Galfrey, the semi-immortal queen of Mendev, kept alive by the church of Iomedae's desperation to hold the line against the Demons of the worldwound. You can secretly encourage her to join your crusade. She is available for characters of either gender.
  • Lann, a stoic and sarcastic mongrelman who seems more interested in a heroic death for a good cause than in finding a soulmate. He is availabe for female characters only.
  • Sosiel, a kind human cleric of Shelyn who sees it as his calling to help others preserve their humanity at war. He is available for male characters only.
  • Wenduag, a fierce and power-hungry mongrelwoman whose only interest is power and becoming stronger, regardless of the means to achieve so. She is available for characters of either gender.
  • Nocticula, the Demon Lord and Queen of Succubi, available only to a Commander with the Demon mythic path.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Not you this time, but Queen Galfrey can be encouraged to join your crusade as an "anonymous" member of your camp. Granted, your Commander can also have shades of this with a Noble background.
  • Daeran is the Queen's cousin, and he joins your party, although at first as a mere lark and then begrudgingly getting forced into it.
• Sadistic Choice: At very end of Act 4/beginning of Act 5, you return to Drezen. You have to decide whether or not to save Hilor and some NPC Crusaders in the prison, save Fye, One Eyed Devil, and Yaker in the Half Measure, or go to the Citadel to save Irabeth and the Storyteller. Whichever of the first two you go to first results in the other failing, and doing the third one first results in both of the others failing. So you either lose two merchants and a minor character, the questgiver who lets you respec and buy custom companions, or all four of them; you can't lose Irabeth and the Storyteller. It's possible to mostly subvert this by unlocking the Gold Dragon path from Hal, resulting in him saving Irabeth, then visiting Hilor first and taking the Evil option telling him to forget about the prisoners, before finally saving the others in the tavern; all the plot NPCs survive and there's no mechanical consequence for the prisoners' deaths beyond a small Evil shift. The choice between Hilor + prisoners and the Half Measure is also avoided entirely if you both resolved the conflict between Hulrun and Ramien peacefully and did not destroy the Wardstone back in Act 1. In this case, enough Crusaders will remain in Drezen to defend it, and the npc's in both locations are fine.
  • Later on in Act 5, You must choose between saving Queen Galfrey from Deskari's forces, recovering vital information from a library of stone tablets the cultists are destroying, or retrieving the Sword of Valor before the demons destroy it. You cannot do all three...unless you spared Hulrun during his feud with the Desnites all the way back in Act 1 and warn him about the attack, in which case his leadership and your warning allow the Crusaders to Hold the Line, and gave the first half of the Lexicon to Galfrey in Act 3, since then she'll be in the library researching it rather than fighting the undead Terendelev, letting you save all three by rushing to the library.
• Save Scumming: Perfectly doable, and in fact sometimes encouraged by the community. While a human Dungeon Master can choose to be merciful in the interests of keeping the game going and making sure the players have fun, the game cannot do this and thus relies entirely on the fickleness of the Random Number God.
• Schmuck Bait: At Daeran's estate, you learn that he is hosting a being from another dimension referred to as the Other who is extremely powerful and will kill anyone who knows of its presence (and Daeran if he reveals its existence). The inquisitor that you learn about it with tells you not to talk to Daeran about it. If you insist on doing so despite the game giving you a last chance to back out, you are warped to another plane of existence alone where the Other will likely make quick work of you. And if you do manage to escape or kill it, when you return to the material plane, Daeran will immediately fall over dead. Good job dummy.
• Sell What You Love: It's revealed that the half orc paladin Irabeth Tirablade sold her beloved sword to buy an Elixir of Sex Shift for her transgender wife Anevia. The player can find it early in the game and give it back to her, which can help restore her resolve after the events of the Lost Chapel.
• Sentenced Without Trial: Hulrun Shappok runs the inquisition hunting demons and their cultists in Kenabres at the start of the game, and acts as Judge, Jury, and Executioner in the city's martial law system. He's prone to unilaterally sentencing people to burn at the stake on the mere suspicion of demon-worship, including party member Ember and her Disappeared Dad, who were completely innocent and had just arrived in town. Ember was rescued from her pyre by an unnamed knight who had a Heel Realization; her father burned to death.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • The whole game in the True Aeon path. Because you go back in time and prevent the Worldwound from opening at all, nothing you did in the course of the game matters and several characters have their entire lives rearranged. Daeran never loses his parents and thus never meets the Other, Ember's father never goes to Kenabres and thus he and Ember are never burned at the stake, Sosiel's brother never goes on crusade and remains a paladin, Finnean never got changed into a weapon... This has a bad side to it for other companions and friends - Arueshalae never has her encounter with Desna meaning her path to redemption never starts and, because their ancestries are so closely tied to events of Crusades that never happened, the Commander never existed and it's likely Camellia never did either.
  • Through the Ashes ends up being this. The Survivor, Rekarth, Sendri and whatever people they bring along go through utter hell to fight their way to the Defenders Heart to warn them about a planned demon attack. Except players who go through the main game already know the characters are aware of said plot and one of the first objectives is to go to the Tower of Estrod to spy on their plans. It’s even worse if the Commander is fast enough since they can just attack the Grey Garrison without giving a chance for the demons to attack, meaning all the struggles the Surivor’s party goes through ends up being All for Nothing. And then the entire party sans the non-combatants end up being teleported to the abyss due to a completely unrelated problem from Sendri’s backstory.
• Shop Fodder: Gems, trinkets and various household items have no purpose other than being sold in bulk for some profit. Non-magical weapons and armor become this as well later in the game, and even magical gear can become this by the second act, especially as you get better equipment or if the magical loot doesn't fit your party and build.
• Shout-Out: Now with its own page.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: The "Grain of Sand" achievement, which involves rejecting the Enigma Puzzles so absolutely that you turn Areshkagal's nihilistic logic back at her, and having her shakingly justify herself.
• The Siege: If you take too long attacking the Gray Garrison in Chapter 1, you will have to defend the Defender's Heart, the crusaders' last safe haven in Kenabres, against a band of cultists.
• Sigil Spam: Lairs of cultists are plastered with the unholy symbols of the demon lord they worship.
• Simple, yet Awesome: The Magic-oriented generals. Contrasting other generals who learn an array of skills that lay traps or focus on boosting certain types of units, they simply gain spells they can use once per turn in battle to directly damage enemy troops, and eventually gain more powerful ones that can annihilate the entire opposing side of the battlefield in one blow. And since the power of those spells solely scales off the general's Power (squared) those generals can technically defeat any enemy by bringing a tiny contingent of tanky soldiers like Shieldbearers to stall the opponent until they can pop off enough spells to destroy them. It says something that in the community Setsuna Shy (who gets the widest area spell at the lowest level) has risen to such a status of Memetic Badass that not picking him as your first General is seen as putting the crusade in hard mode.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Darek Sunhammer features only in a companion quest you might not ever see. He's the real leader of the Templars of the Ivory Labyrinth you've been fighting for most of the first half of the game, not Xanthir Vang (mercenary Mad Scientist) or Jerribeth (the Keeper of the Sanctum).
• Spanner in the Works: If you try to help the mongrels, Chief Sull turns out to be one for Savamelekh. Savamelekh ditches him due to his age and terrible health in the middle of nowhere after failing multiple times to 'strengthen' him like he did the other mongrels. Savamelekh couldn't have expected a poisoned elderly cripple to successfully navigate the Worldwound alone and make it back to Drezen. Even if he had, he couldn't have known Lann/Wenduag and the Commander would be there to meet and heal them. And even then he had no way of knowing Chief Sull would remember exactly where Savamelekh took the mongrels. It potentially gets Savamelekh killed.
• Spiteful A.I.:
  • The battle AI has a tendency to follow a We Have Reserves strategy and prioritize units with lower AC and saves it can reach without triggering too many attacks of opportunity. This leads the AI to often target clerics and other melee healers first, which are fairly harmless units, even as your stronger units are tearing theirs to shreds. Justified example, in that you are facing demons, who do not necessarily have the same level of self-preservative instincts as mortals, and crippling your armies long-term makes sense on a strategic level, even if it means taking tactical losses in the short term, because they explicitly have access to Offscreen Villain Dark Matter, while you do not.
  • In the Lost Chapel mission, the torturer-demons will often aim to kill the helpless captured soldiers first rather than try to defend against the attack of your party. This gains them absolutely nothing, but it does serve to make the player feel bad.
• Spiritual Successor: Part of the Western CRPG renaissance. Successor to the Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, etc), and by extension Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 (which adapted the same D&D 3rd Edition ruleset that Pathfinder itself is derived from. Of course it's also an actual sequel to Pathfinder: Kingmaker.
• Spotting the Thread: Not the player who does it. When retaking Drezen you can free Yaniel from the torture chamber. Later, when encountering Joran, you can tell him about it. Joran immediately counters that both he and Staunton were close friends with Yaniel and as Lord of Drezen Staunton would have known she was there. Despite all the horrible things he's done Staunton would never permit the torture of one of the only people he actually cares about. This is your first clue that it's not Yaniel.
• Stereotype Flip:
  • invokedAasimar tend towards good alignments due to being influenced by the upper planes. Daeran Arendae is a Neutral Evil aasimar with a Lack of Empathy who is quite happy to let others die or suffer for his own amusement, joining the characters party to have some fun spoiling the demon's plans than anything. Subverted however as you go through his story and get to know him, it becomes more and more apparent that Daeran's maintaining a facade and deep down he's actually a fairly caring individual: it's best shown in his treatment of Ember, his support of the Crusade, and his reaction to seeing slavery in the Abyss.
  • invokedGnomes are stereotyped as whimsical Cloudcuckoolanders, with the Golarion setting justifying it with the fact that seeking out new experiences staves off the Bleaching. Regill Derenge, a Lawful Evil hellknight, is anything but whimsical, being a hard-nosed and pragmatic killer.
  • invokedHalf-orcs are often perceived as brutes and tend towards chaotic alignments. Irabeth Tirabade is not only Lawful Good but a paladin. Also unusual, her parents' relationship was consensual, rather than her being a Child by Rape.
• Storming the Castle: The siege of Drezen at the end of Chapter 2, where the crusaders (and optionally the Hellknights) attempt to take the fortress-city from the demons occupying it.
  • A lesser example with the Gray Garrison at the end of Chapter 1, which is just a single building but is still guarded so tightly Irabeth has to lead a head-on attack to serve as a distraction. Mongrels, wizards, priests and inquisitors may appear as reinforcements on your side depending on how you handled them.
• Story-Breaker Power: Be very careful with Dimensional Door, it will get you past the Insurmountable Waist Height Fences in the game. If done wisely, this can get loot that you either would not normally get in certain paths. Done poorly and you may render the game Unintentionally Unwinnable.
• Stupid Evil: Shows up a lot. The forces of the abyss are split into multiple factions that duke it out when not distracted by pillaging and murdering. Additionally, the evil choices the Commander is presented with often involve senselessly murdering people they just met or who were useful to them and being a jerk to their closest allies.
• Suicide Attack: Cultist clerics move into range and spam Negative Energy Channel - Damage Living. This tends to kill them and their allies, but it also allows them to multiply their damage across as many targets as possible before they die. They also use the same tactic in Crusade Mode, and a large enough stack of cultists can turn them from a low-level, minor threat to one which can easily fill your infirmary with casualties if ignored, potentially decimating a previously healthy army and routing its advance.
• Summoning Ritual: Not surprising in a game about fighting demons.
  • There's an uncompleted one in a house in Kenabres Market Square in Chapter 2. Messing with it will damage your party while finishing it properly will summon a Vrock. He'll compliment your form in protecting yourselves, but note the circle won't stop him from just teleporting away. He can be found in a nearby park area for parties that want to fix their mistake, though he is stronger than the normal mobs at that place and time.
  • There's a big one in the basement of Drezen at the end of Chapter 2. Villainess Chorussina and a bunch of Cultists are in a big circle, which very large demon named Blightmaw slowly materializing. Chorussina can't be targeted, but kill off the cultist before the ritual is finished and Blightmaw fades away and Chorussina fights you. Let the cultists ritually sacrifice themselves and Blightmaw will materialize, kill Chorussina, and then fight you.
  • It's also revealed that a High Priest or High Priestess of a Demon Lord cult can summon their Demon Lords with perfect accuracy, even if the Demon Lord doesn't want to be summoned.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity:
  • A larger scale example. The very first chapter is quick to throw high power armors and shields (for your level) at you, making it easy to get to an extremely high Armor Class for the tabletop game early on. This is a good sign that you'll need it: the enemies are much stronger here.
  • The first thing you find on entering the Blackwater dungeon is a Wand of Call Lightning. Sure enough, the place is full of enemies that can only be killed with electricity damage and you'd be extremely screwed without some source of zappy magic.
• Take a Third Option: Many dialogues will unlock extra options depending on various factors, from passing a hidden check to having certain class abilities or spells on hand. Not all of them are necessarily better than the others.
• Take That, Audience!:
  • One of Nenio's Party Banter lines has her state that the party's sexual interest in her has greatly increased since she turned out to be a kitsune.invoked
  • Shyka the Many makes a wisecrack about the silly-in-context level dips that optimizing players often make while Min-Maxing their characters, while discussing what sort of warriors the PC wants in a hypothetical martial order.
    Shyka: ...Or should it be a worthy paladin who mastered the secret techniques of the scaled fist, became a dragon disciple for a bit, and then was initiated into the eldritch knights? Believe it or not, this is not the most outrageous career a member of the Pathfinder Society has had.
• A Taste of Power: Not quite the beginning of the game, but at the end of the first chapter after deciding what to do with the Wardstone the player gets their first taste of mythic power as they curbstomp Minagho. They temporarily gain 10 points of unbeatable damage resistance and 20 energy resistance of every kind, plus 2 extra attacks which emit devastating blasts of divine energy. Needless to say, you won't be seeing that level of power again for quite some time.
• Thanatos Gambit: The True Aeon path features a multi-layered one that involves the initiator dying twice. The Aeon whom you get your powers from is revealed to be you from the future, meaning that you devised a plan to go back in time and die to Deskari to give your past self a chance to absorb your power and become you so that you could defeat Deskari in the present and close the Worldwound by killing Areelu in the past. You then cease to exist to prevent a temporal paradox because, without the Worldwound opening, neither present nor future you existed in the first place. This is considered par for the course for Bythos Aeons.
• A Thicket of Spears: The battle to defend the Defender's Rest tavern in chapter 1 features NPC crusaders under the command of Irabeth presenting a wall of longspears to any mooks that get past the Player Party. This frees the player up to deal with the more dangerous arsonists and fiendish minotaurs.
• Time Travel: The main gimmick of the Aeon path. NPCs get in on the act, too - In Act 5, pass a few skill checks during the conversation with Jubilost and you'll notice he speaks with conviction of things that haven't happened yet. Confront him about it and he'll mention he's from the future; he asked Shyka the Many to send him back in time to interview you.
• To Be Lawful or Good:
  • The Angel path in particular is split this way, with the player playing either as a righteous opponent to evil, or as a compassionate force of good.
  • Ironically because of how the Alignment system works, Paladin players in particular are constantly faced by this dilemma. As being too Lawful or too good can both shift them out of Lawful Good Alignment.
• Too Awesome to Use: Midnight Bolts are special ammunition which you only find a couple of in the entire game and instantly, unerringly deal 50 pure damage to whomever their target is. Because of that, they can quickly take out a good chunk of the health bar of a boss, but once spent they are gone forever. The secret ending requires using at least one on a demon lord. The better version of the secret ending requires using every bolt in the game on a demon lord.
  • At the beginning of the game you also find two of Terendelev's scales that were ripped off during the attack. They act as a free Raise Dead effect on a fallen character, but since you only get the two of them it's easy to just savescum when a character dies instead of using them up. If you hold on to them, they are also key to unlocking the Dragon path.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Chilly Creek is a quiet, peaceful fishing village at the edge of demon territory. Too quiet and peaceful, in fact, for being so close to the Worldwound. It's due to the villagers' pact with a hag coven.
• True Final Boss: while Areelu Vorlesh is the Final Boss for most endings, the secret one will pit the player against Deskari and Baphomet right afterward.
• Troll: You can be a kind or light-hearted one in the Trickster path.
• Turn-Based Combat: A combination of this and Real-Time with Pause. After the release of Pathfinder: Kingmaker Definitive Edition it was announced that Wrath would have access to both and be able to switch between both modes at will, this led to fans calling the system "Real Time with Turn-Based".
• Two-Person Pool Party: One of Daeran's romance interactions has him draw the Commander a bath. They can suggest he join them, although he turns them down at that time.
• Underground City: Several examples, used to hide from the demons near the heart of the Worldwound. Justified by the manner in which the opening of Wound ripped giant rifts across Sarkoris, causing large portions of the land to fall deep into the earth.
  • Blackwater was built by Kellids who reached out to Numeria in a bid to save their clan, and is a nightmarish high-tech base full of cybernetic zombies who have given up their individual humanity for the power to drive back the demons.
  • Pulura's Falls is a sealed vault where several generations of astrologers, historians, and their sworn protectors have been waiting out the end of the war, preserving the lost lore of Sarkoris and calculating the specific date When the Planets Align. They have achieved a semblance of normality — you see signs of everyday life and a recent celebration, now strewn with the bodies of the Pulurans and their demon attackers. You always reach the site just in time to save either the survivors or their research, but not both. Unless you managed to expose but also befriend Nurah Dendiwhar using the Trickster option in Act II.
  • Played for Laughs with the Old Sarkorian Mines — when the demons first invaded, a group of Sarkorian miners sealed themselves away in a mine shaft, near the heart of the Worldwound, waiting out what they assumed was the end of Golarion. With their blue coveralls and huge vault door in the shape of a giant gear, the whole quest is an extended Shout-Out to Fallout.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Can occur unintentionally as a Gold Dragon commander can keep playing the game, talk to NPCs, run the crusade, travel, shop, visit the tavern and inn, all while never leaving their gold dragon form. However NPCs are not coded to react to which of the two forms the commander is in at a given time. This means that several times people will just ignore that they are interacting with 25 foot long golden lizard with wings and firebreath.
  • You can end up with an advisor in Drezen who is a 15 foot tall Devil with four flaming wings. No one ever comments on how deeply concerning this is.
  • Averted with Ulbrig only, who will shift back to his human form to interact with NPCs in cutscenes and scripted dialogue. Fortunately he will shift back to griffon form afterwards if he was already in it and it won't count towards his daily limit of transformations.
• Useless Useful Spell:
  • Aside from inflated spell resistance and save bonuses, any spell that has a non-scaling hit dice cap on what targets it can effect (e.g. Color Spray, Scare) is almost certainly going to be a complete waste of a slot after Chapter 1 because of inflated enemy hit dice counts. Instantaneous casters like Ember and Daeran get this the worst because there's no way to trade out spells from their list without respeccing.
  • Spells with scaling hit die caps like Holy Word are this unless the caster is a merged spellbook Commander - in that case, they're quite useful to hose large numbers of common enemies, as the merged spellbook gives the Commander a high enough caster level to hit most common threats with them.
  • Scintillating Pattern is by far the worst offender, being an eighth level spell with a total HD effected cap. Sleep and Color spray and the like are good early game, and Holy Word is a way to thin the ranks for Angel commanders, but Scintillating comes late and is never good.
  • Due to the types of enemies the player is fighting being mainly undead, demons, and humanoids, any spell or class feature that doesn't focus around those tend to be outright useless, such as the Rangers favored foe being fey. Even if you do fight some, they tend to be so minimal, that it isn't helpful.
• Vancian Magic: As in the Kingmaker and the tabletop game, spellcasting classes are split into those with prepared spells and spontaneous casters, with the former following vancian magic rules and the latter instead simply getting to cast a certain number of spells of each level after each time the player makes camp in whatever combination they like. Generally classes that used prepared spells have access to more spells to make up for having to prepare specific spells in advance. Amongst the classes added in Wrath of the Righteous, Warpriests, Shamans, and all Witch archetypes except Stigmatized Witch use prepared spells, while Oracles, Skalds, Bloodragers, and Stigmatized Witches are spontaneous casters. Arcanists uniquely split the difference, preparing spells but being able to cast the spells they've prepared in any combination rather than preparing individual spell slots^exampleso while a Wizard with three third-level spell slots might prepare two fireballs and a lightning bolt, a similar Arcanist would simply prepare fireball and lightning bolt and could then cast them in any combination adding up to three spells cast, be it all fireballs, all lightning bolts, or anything in-between. Mechanically, Arcanists are still considered spontaneous casters however.
• Video Game Caring Potential:
  • Most invoked Neutral Good options veer on this theme, but resolving your companions' personal quests and bringing them closure on their problems is completely possible. The Angel and Azata Mythic Paths, in particular, are more or less built around the idea of the player/Commander being someone who Cares A Whole Lot™.
  • Slightly more unusually, it is the Trickster path, rather than the traditional "good" paths, that allow you to care properly for Nurah and turn her away from evil.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Comes hand in hand with the options to choose (and shift towards) an Evil alignment, and it's doubly reinforced by the Mythic Paths. Certain paths, such as Swarm-That-Walks (the "Ultimate Evil" path) are a cavalcade of cruelty.
  • You are completely free to corrupt Arueshaelae by telling her that her long-sought after dreams of redemption are meaningless and burning everything in her dream. The next time you see her, she's back to being a sex-addicted, bloodthirsty [1] hedonist who only cares about pleasuring you and killing everything she can.
• Video Game Delegation Penalty: Strategic decisions can be handed off to the computer to allow you to focus solely on adventuring, but doing so costs several potentially useful items you'd otherwise pick up. Crusade battles can also be automatically resolved, but at time of release this feature was almost completely unusable, penalized so greatly that a battle you could easily win manually without meaningful losses would result in your army being completely wiped out or taking crippling casualties.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: They escape with aggravating frequency even when you have time to attack them if it weren't a cutscene, particularly including the first two major opponents you're up against, Wenduag or Lann and Minagho/Staunton Vhane. The former you can even attack, they're just scripted to escape. One of the most annoying examples is the balor Derrazand during the assault on Drezen: even if you knock him to zero HP he refuses to die, only for Greybor to make a scripted appearance on round 6 and try and fail to stab him In the Back, whereupon he plane-shifts away.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind:
  • The Glabrezu Voetiel from Woljif's questline first confronts you early in Act 3 and is a fairly credible miniboss fight at that point. When you meet him again in Woljif's Act 4 quest he's still exactly the same upgraded Glabrezu he was the last time you kicked his ass while your party has gained significantly both in experience and mythic power, very likely turning the rematch into a Curb-Stomp Battle.
  • Minagho, though she is a justified case. Minagho is outright one of the strongest types of demon's that exist, but after she utterly trounces the player in their first meeting, the player character awakens their Mythic powers, which give them such a boost, that Minagho can't stop them and has to flee. By the time you can properly corner and kill her, she's been weakened by outside factors to the point that, with the players increasing Mythic powers, she is too weak to stand a chance.
• Villainous Friendship: Potentially between Woljif, Greybor, and a fallen Arueshalae, if the former comrades reunite as leaders of the Abyss. Her epilogue notes that the Abyssal inclination to betrayal and supplantation has not yet broken their bountiful alliance.
• Villains Want Mercy: Many of them do, and Regill consistently yells at them if he's present for whining about how it wasn't their choice to turn evil. If he doesn’t then Daeran will. By contrast Ember often advocates for it.
• Violation of Common Sense:
  • Due to events at the beginning of Act 5, which you won't know about until you get there, the Crusade side suffers from a good deal of this. Galfrey assumes command of your armies while you're away in the Abyss and will always lose them, making building up your army beyond what's needed pointless. Instead of focusing on your armies, level up your generals as high as possible, capture all the forts you can, and build and develop those as far as you can, since forts are unaffected. Furthermore, available resources do carry over, meaning it makes sense to stall as long as possible before going to the Midnight Fane. Knowing this ahead of time can save you a lot of headaches and give you a head start going into Act 5. The only time this isn't true is if you're going for the secret ending, as that's on a time limit.
  • Likewise, if you trigger an event that unlocks a decree to spawn free powerful units like paladins or marksmen, it is better to let them sit in the queue and never enacting them until Act 5, as they will carry over also.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: Since the PC is the source of mythic power for the party, if the main character dies, the game ends.
• With This Herring: Present in the main game and exaggerated in the second DLC. The player at least starts out with regular weapons and armor in the main campaign but in the latter they have to make do with torches and prop weapons for a while before actually finding a decent weapon. Armor meanwhile will either be damaged or has to be bought at exorbitant prices from rare NPC's, leaving most of the party to run around practically naked till they start killing human enemies in the graveyard area.
• What the Hell, Hero?: While the premise of the tabletop game is such that you are a shining pinnacle of honor and good, in the CRPG, the addition of support for Evil playthroughs means a lot of this can come through. For instance, you can decide to let the people attacking Ember when you meet her continue attacking her without interfering. While this does not lead to her death, you can also join in on the attack, which does. Needless to say, your Good party members will be outraged if you do this. In the same incident, Iomedae herself expresses her disapproval of the crusaders in question trying to use innocent blood to bless their weapons by making them burn red-hot when they attack Ember, forcing them to drop them.
• When the Planets Align: The Third Week of Gozran, year 4717, between the 16th and 21st is significant to get the secret ending.
• Wretched Hive: Alushinyrra, the setting of Act 4, is a city in the Abyss run and inhabited mostly by demons and a handful of foreigners who for one reason or another fit in with the general population. It is therefore no surprise that it's a violent hellhole with few rules beyond "Might Makes Right". Notably the slums of Alushinyrra are regarded as a Wretched Hive even by demons.
• The Worm That Walks:
  • One of the mythic path options is the Swarm-that-Walks, which entails your character becoming a ravenous humanoid swarm of locusts.
  • Villain Xanthir Vang is this (and the one who you get the mythic path from, indirectly)
• Year Outside, Hour Inside: In Act 4, while on the way to the act's final dungeon your airship runs into an Abyssal storm where this is in effect. By the time you escape it, six months have passed.
• You Shouldn't Know This Already: At several parts the game prevents you from discovering certain items or places until you've heard of them, such as not being able to open the secret passage in the Shield Maze until you pick up (reading alone strangely enough doesn't work) a note pointing it our, and Woljif stopping you from accusing the thiefling traitor (who is always the same in every playthrough) until you have at least spoken to Irabeth to get one of the clues.
• Zerg Rush: In the army combat system, it's entirely possible to defeat armies of èlite demons just by overwhelming them in numbers with cheap infantry or archers. Just beware, as they can do as much to you.
• Zombie Advocate: One journal you can find is from a wizard trying to tame a quasit, a tiny demon, claiming they're misunderstood. According to the journal he met with some success and had gotten it to happily co-exist with him, it even adopted a vegetarian diet . Unfortunately he is dead in the next room at the hands of a different demonic invader.

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Yes, the power... I wish somebody had told me of its cost...