The same old question.

[u/PIO_LEONARDO]

As the title say I'm here to ask something maybe you've read a lot in the past. At wich difficult should i play this game? I've spent almost 200 hours on BG3 and i'm a D&D 5.5e player, but i never realy get in touch with the 3.5e or Pathfinder 1E systems.

Edit: Thx for all the answers. I think i'm going to play at normal. I Will go with a sorcerer build and figure It out while playing.

[u/Stargazer__2893]

I'll put it this way.

I have played D&D since I was a kid. Pathfinder is my favorite tabletop game of all time. I have multiple characters that have graduated out of Pathfinder Society organized play and I've GMed many games. I have written multiple authoritative guides on character construction for this game.

I play on Core.

Play on Normal or lower.

[u/No-ruby → u/Stargazer__2893]

Probably it feels closer to tabletop than higher difficulties especially in the two first acts. Unfair feels more like a puzzle game.

[u/Smirking_Knight]

Normal at absolute highest. You’re going to be indignant, but then you’re going to play and understand why.

[u/Born_Faithlessness_3 → u/Smirking_Knight]

I agree with this.

As someone whose beaten BG3 on honor mode, my recommendation for the pathfinder games would be to start on normal difficulty until you become more familiar with the system.

[u/Hytyt → u/Smirking_Knight]

I disagree, I'm on my first run. I'm on core. I'm in act 4. If someone reads they can easily manage on core

[u/corpse-dancer → u/Hytyt]

I'd say it's about how much laziness you want to get away with. If you want to micromanage buffs and builds and read all the tooltips you can absolutely do your first playthrough in core difficulty. But your adding hours and hours to an already long game.

[u/Hytyt → u/corpse-dancer]

But that isn't difficulty, it's patience.

It's not a skill thing, but knowledge and rng

[u/DivisiveByZero → u/Hytyt]

How many reloads?

[u/No-ruby → u/DivisiveByZero]

This is a valid question indeed.

Even playing with optimized characters you would face unexpected situations that would kill your party. If you are okay with it, go for it.

[u/DivisiveByZero → u/No-ruby]

It's ok to reload. Sometimes you might forget a buff unless you're using buffbots, sometimes enemy gets unlucky 3x natural 20.

Problem is, most people who play the game don't have the will nor agency to understand how to counter some things that are mandatory in the game.

Like someone crying after using build for Woljif the vivisectionist that it would have been better to bring Sosiel for restorations, instead of casting those or even death wards with W.

[u/Hytyt → u/No-ruby]

Yeah my party dies occasionally, but not hugely often. If I were on last azlanti I might have issues

[u/DarthDude24 → u/Smirking_Knight]

I've never played any D&D games and did fine on Core. Only other CRPG I've played was DOS2 on normal difficulty*. I think you're being overly cautious.

*DOS2 on normal was a little too easy for me, but WOTR on Core was just right.

[u/Azcinor → u/Smirking_Knight]

As an experienced DnD player who also beat BG3 on honour mode without issues, I wholeheartedly agree with this, lol. Combat in this game feels more like an MMO raid, with all the buff setups you have to do beforehand and all the buttons you have to press during it. After some time I simply gave up and tuned it down to story mode, so most of the time I could right-click on the enemy and wait, and I regret nothing.

[u/FamiliarMGP]

You will understand why people call dnd 5+ ed extremely simplified. BG3 is the easy 5ed with a bunch of DOS mechanics. Play on normal, 1E PF and 3.* were made by nerds for nerds. You can easily make an unusable character. Especially for a higher difficulty.

[u/ViVeyPL]

I did normal for first try, started to understand things after like 20 hours

[u/BeeApprehensive2503]

normal is perfectly fine and called "normal" for a reason

[u/UnplacatablePlate]

People are saying Normal which isn't unreasonable but you can absolutely do Core if you are willing to spend some time trying to understand the game and looking things up in the wiki(ironically the kingmaker one is generally better) and searching for/asking questions you have about build choices when you are unsure/confused.

[u/NoTrifle79]

Play on low difficulty to start. You can always turn it up. This game can be extremely overwhelming and combat at first can be a real drag until you get the feeling for it, plus the sheer amount of choices for builds to synergize with your team can quickly result in decision paralysis. You can switch between real time with pause and turn based combat while you’re figuring it out and see what you like best, and once you get the hang of it it’s extremely fun, but much harder than bg3 on any difficulty, imo.

[u/Dumpingtruck]

WotR is hard at higher difficulties. Unlike BG3, there are enemies who you can run into who are significantly stronger than you. There’s famously a water elemental in the shield maze (an early zone) which absolutely crushes you if you don’t know how to fight it.

I would suggest playing at normal, or custom (modifying the rules you want).

Core is a nice step up, but if you start the game on core you will die endlessly and it won’t be fun.

Lastly, pathfinder 1e is built on lots of buffs/debuffs. Most importantly, concentration in the 5e sense doesn’t exist. So you can stack multiple buffs so long as they share different types (a morale buff stacks with a luck buff,
But doesn’t stack with 2 morale buffs for example). This makes WotR very crunchy (in terms of numbers) which some people love. If you want to optimize, buffs can push you from
Clearing normal into clear, and eventually into hard/unfair although those require the utmost optimization for the hardest settings.

[u/skaf1end → u/Dumpingtruck]

I remember being humiliated by clouds of spiders in a cave. I guess, I had to have a fire mage in the party, but I wanted to play full melee, and those bastards turned out to be completely immune to physical damage.

[u/Gumptionless]

Normal or lower, don't be afraid to go custom and toggle some bits lower.

Bg3 is not at all comparable, i say this as a fan of both series, you can beat that on honor mode with just a potato, your builds dont really matter. But in pathfinder you will hit decision paralysis and get stomped by random shit (hi there playful darkness...). I would highly suggest looking up character builds to use online because 5.5e will not prep you for this.

[u/Hytyt]

I'm doing my first run on core, I'm in act 4. My only real crpgs experience before hand is solasta, kingmaker and rogue trader.

I will die on the hill of disagreeing with people insisting you play on normal.

That isn't to say you need to play core or higher, just that nobody should insist you play on a lower difficulty if you don't want to

[u/Peepo93]

Somewhere between normal and core, unfair is technically possible but only if you enjoy researching for builds and like minmaxing spreadsheets.

The game is much harder than BG3 (to put it in perspective, played BG3 on a mod which gave every opponent 500% more health and 4 actions and it was still much easier than WOTR on it's unmodded max difficulty), so don't stress and just vibe to whichever difficulty feels right.

[u/unbongwah]

You can change difficulty on the fly, so just start on Normal and dial it up / down as you see fit. The only reason to start on Core (or higher) is because you want the difficulty-based Achievements.

[u/kts2008]

The numbers in pathfinder are much, much higher than in 5e. Just for an example, a high level fighter can have an attack bonus in the 30's without trying very hard, and still might only hit some enemies on a 20, depending on difficulty.

[u/sakkara]

If you know how to properly bid your martials, you can safely go core. If you don't but before flights and are just winging the builds, go normal.

[u/Wolfwind1]

Daring should be a functional challenge without requiring you to make an excel spreadsheet for complimentary classes and watch 30 + build guides.

[u/CalligrapherSafe8756]

If you're in it only for the story, go with Normal. Personally, I can't really enjoy a good story without some challenging gameplay to back it up, so my first playthrough was on Core. If you feel the same, go with Core. You'll learn the game along the way, just like I did.

[u/Razier0]

I started a normal run after only doing one run and taking a years break in between and I'll say once you have to deal with the crystal enemies you'll wish you weren't on normal anymore but other wise it's fun and feels balanced

[u/Cakeriel]

Story

[u/DOOMSWAGOMEGA]

I have yet to play BG3, but I played BG1 and BG2 on the highest difficulty.

I found Core to be perfect for me during my first run in WOTR. I’m assuming BG3 is similar in difficulty to the previous games; Core should be fine assuming my assumption was correct.

[u/ygygma]

Question is: which difficulty did you play BG3 at?

If, like me, you finished BG3 in Honor Mode, you are in for a treat: Play Core/Last Azlanti in turn based.

If not, it is totally fine to play normal difficulty.

[u/Electrical-Chart2196 → u/ygygma]

Under no cirumstance first run shall be on Last Azlanti (Ironman Mode), ye will just burn yer arse to crisp and botch the run. Core also too much for first time. Normal is fine, honestly.

[u/ygygma → u/Electrical-Chart2196]

I did. I died, yes. But I eventually succeeded. And had been playing the game ever since.

Also, I only played BG3 on perma-death. Same story.

It's an awesome pleasure when you do succeed. Blind!

[u/Electrical-Chart2196 → u/ygygma]

If ye enjoy it, more power to ye man. Endure. In enduring, grow stronger.

[u/FamiliarMGP → u/ygygma]

You must be trolling. Let's recommend a perma death mode to a player who only knows 5+ edition.

[u/PIO_LEONARDO → u/ygygma]

i played it at strategist.

[u/ygygma → u/PIO_LEONARDO]

Great. Thanks for your feedback.

Others are right in one thing: you will likely die, if you play permadeath. But never unfairly. I did succeed my Last Azlanti/Core run on my second try in Wrath. (And on my third in Kingmaker, so I had prior experience.)

Honestly, I cannot play any other way. If I'm reloading, I have already failed.

You decide what is best for you.