Stay of Execution Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has many difficult battles, and one of these, the Stay of Execution, is particularly difficult for a number of reasons. Your task here is to protect the Defender’s Heart from waves of enemies – both human and demonic – which is no easy feat to accomplish. After the Water Elemental in the prologue, this is the first time that the game really goes all out on you. As such, odds are good that you won’t be prepared for this battle and will be at a loss of what the best strategy is here. Not to worry, our Stay of Execution Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous guide will show you how to get through this long fight.
How To Win The Stay of Execution Fight in Pathfinder: WotR
After spending several days running around the city of Kenabres solving quests, you will get a random encounter while travelling. A messenger will inform you that you need to return to the Defender’s Heart inn in order to mount a defense. You don’t have to go there immediately, but if you ignore it and take too long, the quest will fail. This won’t result in the game ending, but it will make the last quest in this chapter significantly harder. Likewise, if you want to make this Stay of Execution battle a bit easier, you should complete the Spies Amidst Our Ranks quest beforehand.
In any case, return to the Defender’s Heart. Be sure to stock up on all supplies and spare no expense. Scrolls of Web and Grease are especially useful for crowd control here. Once you are ready and completely rested up, speak with Irabeth to start the battle. Your job here is to protect the Tavern Defenses from being destroyed. The choice to play either in Real-Time With Pause or in Turn-Based Mode comes down to preferences and how much time you have. It’s more manageable in TB, but it can also take dozens of turns until the end. Whatever mode you choose, you should focus the Arsonists, as they can do the most damage. After several waves of enemies from all sides, a Minotaur will appear. It’s best not to directly engage it in melee, but to pepper it from afar in ranged combat and to disable it with Web or other such spells, beforehand.
Once it goes down, the fight will be over soon. The worst part about this battle is that it can quickly devolve into a battle of attrition where you burn through your spells and other supplies. So, like we said, being prepared is the most important thing here. If everything else fails and you simply cannot get through it no matter what, you should lower the difficulty for this fight.
I just played through the battle on the normal difficulty, but with Death’s Door turned on and Dead companions rise after combat options turned on and Moderately weaker enemies setting for Enemy stat adjustments. I did not have the recommended crowd control spells, but nevertheless managed pretty well until near the end. I lost all companions except Selah, and my character and Selah both seemed to be spared when they took damage while they had 1 hp (that may have been the Death’s Door setting intervening?). Selah attacked the minotaur demon at the end with a cold iron weapon and the result was surprising. While in play, I was thinking I’d have to play through it again on an easier setting, since the enemies were hitting just enough to make it hard to stay healthy, even using all healing potions and magic healing available. It was challenging but fun.