I’m not throwing shade at BG3; I’ve also enjoyed it, but something about the sheer amount of options and more widely diverging story paths in Wrath just does it more for me. I also like the art style more, but that’s strictly subjective and I accept that.
To a lesser and more personal extent, I despise Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro and their recurring attempts to monopolize and bully third party game developers and players alike and I don’t like to even indirectly trickle money their way compared to Paizo. Yes yes, no ethical consumption and all that, but Paizo’s way less fucked up with both distributing game materials and open licensing agreements.
https://www.polygon.com/23553389/dnd-ogl-paizo-orc-open-rpg-creative-license-announcement
That’s all I had to say. If you’ve already finished BG3 or it wasn’t quite to your liking and you’d like an alternative, give Wrath a try. 
I have so many mean things to say about BG3, but instead I’ll be positive and say that in my opinion, Pathfinder: WotR combines all the best parts of the old Baldur’s Gate games (well-told, if a bit generic, story; fantastical setting that doesn’t go too far overboard; interesting and sympathetic companions) with a ruleset that offers many options for character building and highly adjustable difficulty settings. There’s a crusade minigame which is a real drag, but that’s the only real bad thing about the whole game. Also, the different paths – the big ones at least – make enough of a difference that there’s some replayability. It doesn’t reach the narrative heights of Torment or Mask of the Betrayer, but neither does BG3 (not even remotely).
I’m not really sure how much replay value I’d personally find in BG3 considering I found some sections to drag so hard and still kind of play out the same way that I don’t know if I want to go through them, and where they differ tend to be in contained ways like “you move on to chase after more mind flayer stuff, but now the druids/goblins are dead instead of the goblins/druids.”
In Wrath of the Righteous, once the mythic path really takes off, the story can become strikingly different between, say, an angel run, a devil run, a necromancer run, or a Swarm that Walks or a trickster for that matter.
Exactly! I guess you can do an evil run in BG3 if you’re okay with losing parts of the game in return for some additional dialogue. The combat system of D&D 5e also doesn’t really entice me to try another playthrough as a warlock or something, especially as you can just respec everyone whenever, and let’s not even mention the romances. But the mythic paths in WotR really do make an impact on the game, especially mechanically, when it comes to your main character.
I’d rate BG3 a solid Hordes of the Underdark. Great but not earth shattering.
I’ve played both, and one thing I quite like about Baldur’s Gate is how there are fewer combat encounters but they feel more impactful. WoTR throws a lot of chaff at you, which can get pretty tedious at times.
All in all though, WoTR is a much more conceptually ambitious game, even if it’s rougher around the edges in places, it does swing for the fences much more. Also the inventory management in BG3 is dogshit in comparison
I’ve played both, and one thing I quite like about Baldur’s Gate is how there are fewer combat encounters but they feel more impactful. WoTR throws a lot of chaff at you, which can get pretty tedious at times.
I agree that BG3 has Wrath WoTR beaten there. It helps that pretty much every character that can be named is named, even if they’re just scouts/guards for an enemy camp.
Not played BG3 yet but played wotr.
WOTR is genuinely a great game. Far better than Kingmaker and feels like a true successor to old Baldurs gate.
The Mythic Paths really make it great. You can have so many unique playthroughs with that.
Hate the Crusade management though which is necessary to explore the map quickly.
The Mythic Paths really make it great. You can have so many unique playthroughs with that
minor spoiler
The fact that the game straight up lets you just be a lich even tho all your party members leave and then there’s back ups to continue the game is so cool lol
Far better than Kingmaker
I mostly agree, but I liked the kingdom management in Kingmaker. Juggling your different advisors and being forced to make hard choices was fun
wrath is very good imo. i find it hard to like many of the companions of bg3, the only ones that really pulled on me were astarion and minthara. i liked karlachs design but i feel like she didnt get many lines. and the rest were largely forgettable. the graphics and the mocapped conversations are what really makes bg3 good. if it was a top down isometric like WOTR i think everyone would call the game middling. its more just impressive how much they show and not tell with a blurb of text. also i kinda hate shadowheart and i feel like a lot of the plotline revolves around her and it bothers me.
i havent played wrath in a hot minute but i can tell you right now that i remember all the companions names, even the more barebones ones like sosiel (black guy that is angry trope?). arue, wenduag, woljiff, ember, and nenio are probably some of my favorite characters in any video game ever. daeran is pretty fun too.
wenduag is best girl, her romance/redemption plotline is fairly realistic imo. the lesbian relationship there really pulled at my heartstrings a bit
also im the resident pf2e stan here, its pretty much all i talk about.
liked karlachs design but i feel like she didnt get many lines
That’s interesting bc in my play through she interjects more than any other party member. Every time something happens she voices an opinion on it. To the point that, as much as she’s pretty much my favorite, I kinda wish some of the other people would chime in lol
This is just a theory, but does it have anything to do with the order the party is in on the hud? It may be random or based on relationship though.
yeah i’m not too sure, plausible bc ive done a few of her quests, but shadowheart and gale and i also have pretty high relationship and they dont talk too much so i’m not too sure
also i kinda hate shadowheart and i feel like a lot of the plotline revolves around her and it bothers me
I feel like I’m on a different planet sometimes when so much BG3 player chat involves how awesome that character is to them.
Woljiff in WoTR is an excellent example of a cliche done right. He’s chaotic neutral, a thief, a pathological liar, but he owns it in a way that makes him a must-bring pretty much everywhere.
Ember is an excellent example of stereotype breaking in a way that doesn’t feel contrived. She’s got few illusions, knows the world is fucked… but is so full of a painful level of love and compassion that it blows my mind.
I’m loving bg3 but there’s some elements of it that bother me a bit. Like… I’ve been at it for 20+ hours and I don’t feel like I’ve really been able to enjoy existing in the world bc the stakes are so dire and I’m rushed from one thing to another.
Granted, I get that’s more realistic than Bethesda being like “here’s a world ending narrative now off you go to faff about for 30 hours before coming back to it” but I wish they would have put some breaks in the story the way morrowind did bc it feels like every quest in the main line so far has had an air of urgency and hinted that some of it may be timed. I know Larian loves their “if you don’t do x by y time, one of the characters winds up dead” situations from playing some of their other games and the EA so I always feel really rushed to make sure I don’t miss something by exploring too much.
Personally the action economy is way more logical in PF than in 5e but I do like the way Larian realized it in the game it’s just a shame that I think a lot of their fights are kinda BS especially compared to wotr. I’m pretty tired of mundane fights having way more enemies than is honestly necessary (especially when the sleeping mechanic seems to advance aspects of the story a bit), like the big major fights with lots of enemies in wotr always feel bigger and more poignant bc they’re not as common.
I’m loving bg3 but there’s some elements of it that bother me a bit. Like… I’ve been at it for 20+ hours and I don’t feel like I’ve really been able to enjoy existing in the world bc the stakes are so dire and I’m rushed from one thing to another.
I rushed so hard, on purpose, on the first day of BG3 because I was aware of Larian’s usual shenanigans and that actually made some character moments glitch out. I didn’t long rest until the druids and the tiefling refugees were safe from the goblins and that caused some kind of story arc traffic jam where every rest after that had a confusing series of events.
Oh fuck, that makes so much sense. I’m only just past the druids. Thanks for the Rec, I will most definitely be checking it out.
I didn’t long rest until the druids and the tiefling refugees were safe from the goblins
That’s the power of bards, short rests taken carefully, and using a lot of potions and having a martial-heavy party with very few spell slots.
Getting rescued by a party of heavily armed adventurers that haven’t had a full nights sleep in weeks and are blitzed out of their minds on potions.
Basically like going on tour as a band; fits for a bard leader.
Elixirs also last an entire long rest and there some crazy powerful ones like Elixir of Bloodlust and Elixir of Hill/Cloud Giant Strength
Its urgency is pretty much entirely artificial. It does feel urgent in terms of the dialogue and events, but unless there’s a countdown timer on your screen or a warning popping up asking if you want to proceed before tying up loose ends you are basically not on a timer. There are a handful of time sensitive side-quests or side-quests that will expire if you proceed too far down a separate path, which is annoying because they don’t always tell you about these. My only suggestion is to explore wide before exploring deep if you want to be semi-completionist, and also just accept you cannot be completionist within a single playthrough as there are some exclusive forks that alter the world quite a bit and the quests downstream of it.
There are a handful of time sensitive side-quests or side-quests that will expire if you proceed too far down a separate path, which is annoying because they don’t always tell you about these
Yeah this is entirely the issue bc im aware of a couple of situations where if you dont save someone by a specific time they end up dead. Theres like 5 quests in a row throughout the first two acts that involve saving someone where its hinted that they may end up dying if youre not timely and it’s hard to know which is flavor text and which is actual warning to get your ass in gear.
It isn’t really about being a completionist, i dont care about choices changing things, Its that i want to explore and have some time to vibe but the main story feels like a lot of pressure to keep moving. i just dont love feeling like i’m always on 10 with the stakes. Thats just the way the game is, i was just hoping id have more time to hang or at the very least not have to play so long to get to a proper city/town (haven’t made it to baldurs gate yet)
I love both of them, but they do make an interesting contrast.
BG3 has pretty much only unique fights — WOTR has a huge enemy variety problem
BG3 has companions that are all mostly just ok, carried by production values and great voice acting — WOTR has some companions that are really bad, but a few that are way better and more smartly written than BG3, that I still think about once in a while
BG3 combat starts pretty boring, as low-level dnd tends to be, but gets to be pretty great — WOTR combat starts really fun but becomes kind of a drag with the late-game enemy resistance bingo, performance problems, and some fights I could swear were not playtested once
Pathfinder WotR had too much combat for me. There is the usual combat that BG3 has then on top of that you have do another set of those when your forces advance. My last remaining neuron cannot handle all that. I am playing BG3 on the easiest difficult and save scumming the hell out of it and having a nice time. Might buy it on PS5 depending on how good Act 3 is.
If it helps, you can make the battle spam trivial by playing in “Story” mode. It makes most fights breeze by enough where you can just enjoy the story and ignore the battles for the most part.
You can also turn the crusade minigame entirely off in the starting options, which in your case I’d definitely recommend.
You can also turn the crusade minigame entirely off in the starting options,
Jesus Christ I had no idea
I kind of wish I did in my first playthrough; I appreciate the ambition of putting it in there but I didn’t really enjoy it compared to the rest of the game.
i’m guessing it actually works now? i remember when it came out if you chose that the ai would absolutely fuck you over in the crusade mode. i just got a save editor and added like 1000 dragons into my army
i’m guessing it actually works now?
My current playthrough kept it on just to experience it, but I personally think that may have been a mistake because I find the crusade’s day to day operation an annoying distraction.
I really like the Pathfinder games and I think they tried something different and interesting with the crusade/kingdom systems but at the same time I feel these systems mostly dont improve the game by much. Which is a shame because im sure the devs spend a lot of time on these systems in otherwise amazing games.
It does work now, but you lose out on some story stuff if you’re completionist. Steam workshop also has a mod to just auto-win every crusade battle.
Oh sick, that’s good to know. Thank you!
I was looking for something to play after bg3. I’ll try it next.
Do you know if it has couch coop? Not strictly necessary, but I originally picked up bg3 to play with my wife.
If not, it’s turn based battles right? So we could hotseat?
Sadly, it isn’t co-op multiplayer.
The battles are real-time-ish, but can be paused at any time to give more elaborate commands.
Just so you know, you can switch from real-time-with-pause combat to turn based at any time. Slows battles down, but allows for proper micromanagement of actions.
Aww bummer. If anyone reads this and knows another turn based rpg we can hotseat, which might scratch the same itch, let me know.
I wish I could say otherwise; Wrath is a very good game but I’d be lying if I said it had co-op.
If you haven’t already played Larians other game, Divinity: Original Sin, that’s worth looking at.
For The King is more digital board game than RPG I guess, but it’s still a couch co-op turn-based RPG that’s pretty fun
There’s a turn-based mode that can be switched on at any moment. It doesn’t always work perfectly, but I found it more tolerable than that of BG3, not least because it has a fast-forward button for the enemies.
Oh, if it can be turnbased, we can just do that.
A fast forward button would make the combat in BG3 so much more tolerable
I’m enjoying the BG3 graphics and interface as much as anything. WotR and Kingmaker are perfectly fine, but the dated isometric perspective and walls of text storytelling is a lot. Also, my completion-ist instincts really war with any kind of 100-hour game.
But they’re all good games. I don’t know how I’m going to get through this stuff and still have any time to look at Armored Core 6 or Zelda: TotK. An embarrassment of riches after something of a quality-drought.
I remember people claiming that Elden Ring was going to be the Last Great Video Game. These releases are suggesting otherwise.
i like the pathfinder ones because they don’t make my pc sound like a jet taking off
I just want my THAC0 back.
I haven’t picked up BG3 yet but I plan to when the PS5 version drops. I picked up WotR to mess around with and hold me over until then.
I’m a ways into Act 2 and man, I’m so unbelievably divided on this game. Or, I suppose certain aspects of it. I adore some of the companions and I love PF as a system, but I just feel like I’m doing everything wrong. I’ve started over like 10 times trying to get a decent build and I read that auto-leveling companions leaves you missing out on some of the best stuff for them. So, I feel stuck because now I feel the need to go back and rework every companion. I’m a lifelong TTRPG player, too, and am very familiar with the system. I’m playing on normal so I’m not even pushing it, really.
Couple that with the crusade management stuff and the game just feels… tedious in certain aspects. I liked the scale and overworld of the first act and expanding it greatly for the rest of the game (except act 4, right?) just makes me worried I’ll end up banging my head against a wall before long. Of course, aspects such as pretty efficient inventory management and the fact that skill checks automatically use the party member best suited for it are great and should be standard across these CRPGs. I was surprised to hear the latter didn’t make it into BG3.
I suppose the big win here for me, though, is that the games are different enough that I’ll probably still come back to WotR. The “crusade” aspect doesn’t super work for me as a story hook, but I like the characters enough that I’d want to see some of their stories through. WotR is certainly ambitious, but I think that occasionally gets in the way of my fun.
That all said, great post, and great rec.
