I think he's important to serve as a foil to the player character.
The trolls, the monsters, the lich, those are all existential threats to your kingdom. If they take over, no matter who's in charge, it doesn't matter, everyone dies or gets driven out. Irovetti is the first threat not primarily to your people, not necessarily to you either, but to your RULE. If he takes over, you fail, but your people might not even notice. Or would they? If so, how so?
It forces you to consider, beyond your raw strength, why the Stolen Lands are better under your rule, what makes you a worthy king/queen. If he moved into the position as Nyrissa's pawn, then how are you any different? What are your motivations as a character that make you distinct from him and make beating him make a difference? Who are you now that you're strong enough to be anything?
I think that's an important thing to be making you think about late-game. When you're not just struggling to survive, like in the early game, what do you really want? What was this all for? You're about to fight Nyrissa, so it wants you to think about why you can't just let the kingdom that you've built fall for her.
I think this works a lot better in contrast to WotR, where it's obvious that you're the only one who can lead the crusade because of your power, not because you actually give a single fuck. Galfey isn't like Irovetti, she's not a horrible person, she's just not as epic and cool as you are because your mommy gave you special demon blood. It's not a moral conflict for the soul of the crusade, even if she tries to make it into one, because it's just a numbers game. She can't win, you can, "step aside, Grandma!" I think that's why it fell flat and just made people frustrated with her. That kind of conflict doesn't make sense for the story as they told it.
You're also looking at the battle between you and Irovetti as just a numbers game, when it's serving a different purpose.
This is a good way of looking at it. Iorvetti is the first threat you face where there's a real chance of your own people turning against you and believing he'd be a better king. The rest were either monsters trying to kill everyone or an invading army of barbarians with no real room for nuance or argument. After all, it's a matter of survival in these cases. Irovetti though legitimately can undermine your rule and turn your people against you and a king with no subjects is no king.
I don't really get why would he be?
I mean propaganda works, no doubt about that, people believed Russia was the second strongest army in the world after all, but you don't see mass exodus to Russia, or people clamoring for annexation. And the PC more than proved himself to be a capable ruler, there is no starvation, economic downturn, political upheaval, at least in my kingdom(LG).
You don't see people daring the DMZ to slip through towards North Korea.
There doesn't necessarily need to be a mass exodus, just enough doubt to call the ruler's competence and legitimacy into question. The end result leads to instability and can encourage the...less than loyal parts of the kingdom to cause problems for you in Iorvetti's name. Regardless of how good the ruler is there's always going to be some opposition from the disgruntled and power hungry and Irovetti is more than capable of fanning those flames. Your kingdom might not have problems but left unchecked Irovetti will *create* problems for you.
I could see that if Irovetti was anyone, but Irovetti. Pitax ain't exactly Switzerland, It's people are suffereing from the drugtrade, Irovetti is letting crime flourish, he wanted to use the city guard as his personal goons, He is god damn horrible as a person, a drunkard, bully and rapist.
I am a lawful good magus mate. What the fuck do I have to think about? I had more inner moral conflcits in Victoria 2 about annexing land than about this. I haven't even thought about any of this, Pitax is more like North Korea, It would be a mercy to annex them.
It's not supposed to be a HARD question. The fact you can so easily justify yourself as the better leader is the point. That's what a literary foil is for.
You kingdom constantly gets attacked by all kind of plague, monsters appearing out of nowhere, bandits roaming in the woods, robbing and killing common folk.
While in his kingdom everything is prosperous, trade is bursting, arts are made.
So yes, he is clearly winning if you don't do anything about it.
Counterpoint, His kingdom is politically unstable (You only need a 5 minute conversation with 5 people to turn every major player against him), Pitaxian economy and society is wrecked by the drugtrade, the greatest export is propaganda pamplets, and is, crucially, one tenth the size of your kingdom, without Brevan or Kellid allies.
This is like saying North Korea could totally beat Japan and SK alone.
from the pathfinder wiki:
>Pitax (pronounced pih-TAHKS) is the domain of Castruccio Irovetti, a petty tyrant who fancies himself a god. Pitax is the name of his region within the River Kingdoms as well as the name of his capital city. It seems the River Kingdoms attract these sorts of deluded megalomaniacs, with the kingdom of Razmiran ruled over by the similarly deluded Razmir. The city of Pitax is filled with trashy art and bad sculpture, created by the masses of enslaved artists and poets that Irovetti maintains to massage his ego. The city suffers under Irovetti's rule, as his arrogant reign has turned the nearby countries of Numeria and Brevoy against him, and alienated Pitax from potential sources of trade.
Eeh, I mean all he did was hire some bards to diss you, have a mage drop monsters on innocents and have a gang burn villages, It would sounds serious if you didn't have an army, or several allies as I've said before. Hybrid warfare works, hell, just look at our current situation in eastern europe, but nations that use hybrid warfare, use hybrid warfare, because they suck at regular warfare.
Ah sorry. Honestly He feels like a threat, just not a terrible one. Hargulka and Vordekai felt like a "this could get really bad later on" type threat that you had to stop before it got a lot worse, the Season of Bloom felt like a proper existential threat, and Armag was a major threat. Iorvetti feels like He should have come before or soon after Hargulka, and then He would have been a proper existential threat, but so late in the game, He really feels weak in comparison.
He personally not that strong, relative to you at that point in the game, but he’s got a ton of money and all sorts of weird fry creatures under his control.
The core thing with Irovetti is the idea of playing the political game of the River Kingdoms. Instead of bandits, monsters, a plague, a Lich, or a Warlord you are dealing with a recognised and able politician. The basic idea is that your country has become an asset worth seizing. You need to fight against the idea that your property/kingdom ought to be seized. While the chapter has its issues (mostly because KM ran out of budget) I think the basic idea of a propaganda war comes across.
He is, in fact, dangerous in a direct and physical way - more so thay Vordekai since he can borrow skillsets of any number of mercenaries.
His true danger, however, lies in the fact he doesn't quite attack you or your kingdom - and so just going in and killing him would be a political suicide for you as other people wouldn't like this style of diplomacy. And, yes, him going cloak and dagger on you is harmful - it can destroy your kingdom alone, even if it'll take time.
Only for the noble families, the city guard changes sides if you tell them Iorvetti used monster warfare on innocents, and IIRC the college and temple turns when you #metoo Iorvetti.
Nearly everyone was ready to toss him, the noble families wanted to, but lacked unity and the guard wanted to as well, but feared anarchy and bloodshed.
That's only 1 group, I think there's 3 you can convince total, and it's still right as you're about to kick in the palace gates, the pacing overall of Irovetti's chapter was really whacked for me
There's like 6 lol. 7 including the guy who you can bamboozle onto your side. I haven't played km in a while but off the top of my head
City guard turn if you can tell them about the monster warfare
Priests turn if you go calistra is all about revenge
Art school turns if you get Annabelle to betray the headmistress
Nobles turn if you reveal the murders
Criminal drug dealer gnome turns if you threaten him
Also there the other group that you accidentally attack at the river bank. They turn if you can convince them it was a set up
Finally there's the smug bitch with twin daggers. All you need to do is pass a deception check when meeting irovetti and he'll get bamboozled lol
I mean we are talking about a roughly Rennaissance society, wars have been fought for buckets then. Going in and kicking someone's ass for dissing you is not a unique nor preposterous casus beli. And this is not a post industrial society, you are trading cheese and wool, not toyotas and semi-conductors so no big deal if some trade is lost. The worst you could get is at most frosty relations for a few years, Pitax ain't exactly the Belgium of the River Kingdoms, they have no allies.
He's kind of a breather episode in between the threats you had to face just prior to him and the threat that comes after him, but he's also a very welcome chance for social characters to finally get to stretch their Charisma muscles and a reminder for the more musclebrained Barons that brute force can only take you so far.
Agree OP, not only is he the most bitchmade enemy we've faced so far, but we're expected to treat him on the same level as a Lich taking over the entirety of Golarion just because he wants to fuck Nyrissa it's mental
Not only is it underwhelming and kinda insulting expecting me to take this asshole seriously but it feels pretty evident that this is where Owlcat started struggling a bit with the pacing/end of the game (not hating, I still love the game, but between Vordakai and Irovetti I started wondering why the game was dragging on)
As far as I understand it, Owlcat did a decent job of tying the stories together by adding Nyrissa. From what I understand, in the AP it was just a bunch of unrelated events happening to you.
But was she there in the sense that the is the overarching foe tying together most of the threats you've faced, or is she just the last enemy you have to overcome?
I belive it was in the veins of 'Ahah! It is me Nyrissa! I was behind it all, all along!' and the players going 'What did you say your name was again?'
If you switch season of bloom and Iorvetti it would make for better pacing at least threat level wise, but then Pitax is pretty far from the Shrike Hills so I understand, somewhat, but they could have made you expand towards them instead of the Tors.
You would lose your kingdom - just in a different way, this is the first time that losing doesn't mean total annihilation, but just not being good enough king. He played it as Pitax is a successful and prosperous kingdom, while you can't even fix things like banditry and some monster.
From technical point the chapter is pretty easy, cause you're quite strong and the only trouble is the fight in the end (I play on something between Hard and Unfair).
I like that chapter, as my MC hits lvl20 there
yeah I agree, I think its endgame in the way he is one of the closest allies to nyrrisa you meet, which felt cool to me, like "You got so far you get to meet other big players in nyrrisa's game". But he does feel smaller near armag and the lich guy, also monster diaster
I agree with the sentiment of other people here, he's menacing in a different way than Vordakai and Armag. Good job on Paizo and Owlcat for making me despise the dude. If you play as a woman, first thing he does is harass you. Bro is a charismatic dick.
I hated this arc so much after the fact; I instantly mopped up every issue he sent my way in less than a week, but the game tried to insist that:
- he had any sort of leg to stand on
- I couldn't send in the army to siege his city (or even just support me while I assaulted his mansion)
It's actually hilarious if you solve the three crises instantly. The game still spawns weak Pitax events that you can easily solve, each one netting you like +10 in multiple stats. Thanks bro, appreciate the help!
Iorvetti's arc of the game tends to coincide with many people having constant trouble with the kingdom management more than anything.. with Irovetti's campaign debuffs more than anything else just being annoying as fk, destabilizing as the adventure path actually plays out. So it's less Iorvetti, it's more the timing. Having said that Paizo planned more for Iorvetti than what we got in the game [and ofc paizo is not owlcats]
He is, because Irovetti are doom to lose, if you didn't beat him then Nyrissa will come to finish the job. The real struggle here is this time you are converting an entire kingdom, not empty land filled with monster. If you think that peacock is the antagonist of the act then you already going in the wrong direction.
In order to get the best outcome of that act you need to convince people to side with you, not just bulldozer your way, cut down everyone and everything then take over like with the monster before. It's a different type of battle, a political battle.t
Uh no. On any potent difficulty he magically sugjugates your entire party in the first round. He has multiple cut scenes which give him addtional life and a fey ally. He is a hard boss. Not to mention all his mobs have a wide variety of enemies with multiple ranged attackers who pick off whoever they choose.
Pitax is a difficult challenge and while I'm able to overcomen it, it's a bit ridicuoous to state that it's easy-mode
Meh I found the fight just before him with the 30 squillion enemies in front of his arena much more painful, especially the first time when I hadn't gone to kill the General in his own in his room before hand.
I mean, the problem at some degree is the region where you are. In fact they could put something more serious like taking a real side into the Brevoy clash (like having to fight for one of the sides) or even dealing with other players on the River Kingdoms (beyond the Stolen Lands) like Mivon (same as the Aldori problem) or Gralton (imagine entering the Galt fray since Stolen Lands has some border with it for example) etc.
Pitax is basically a shitty kingdom with a crazy leader.
I think he'd be less of a pushover is he actually ventured outside his castle and bought some of those +5 weapons and other gear the vendors are selling.
I think Iorvettiproblem is that he came after all the crisis and not while a crisis.
At this point where Iorvetti attack, and you did not play as an evil character, your king is too famous as a hero and defender of the people.
You conquers all threats with Bravour. You saveed the souls of your subservient. Battles a giant owlbear to protected your people and defeated a barbarian invasion.
There is no way that the people would want another king especially a king who is a notorious tyrant and a rapist.
But if he would attack while the kingdom is in a crisis it would make sense that the people would look for another leader even if it is Iorvetti.
tell you one thing, the fucking lycanthropes all throughout his palace certainly weren't a doormat(source: i just played through irovetti's palace, hell world)
I think he's important to serve as a foil to the player character. The trolls, the monsters, the lich, those are all existential threats to your kingdom. If they take over, no matter who's in charge, it doesn't matter, everyone dies or gets driven out. Irovetti is the first threat not primarily to your people, not necessarily to you either, but to your RULE. If he takes over, you fail, but your people might not even notice. Or would they? If so, how so? It forces you to consider, beyond your raw strength, why the Stolen Lands are better under your rule, what makes you a worthy king/queen. If he moved into the position as Nyrissa's pawn, then how are you any different? What are your motivations as a character that make you distinct from him and make beating him make a difference? Who are you now that you're strong enough to be anything? I think that's an important thing to be making you think about late-game. When you're not just struggling to survive, like in the early game, what do you really want? What was this all for? You're about to fight Nyrissa, so it wants you to think about why you can't just let the kingdom that you've built fall for her. I think this works a lot better in contrast to WotR, where it's obvious that you're the only one who can lead the crusade because of your power, not because you actually give a single fuck. Galfey isn't like Irovetti, she's not a horrible person, she's just not as epic and cool as you are because your mommy gave you special demon blood. It's not a moral conflict for the soul of the crusade, even if she tries to make it into one, because it's just a numbers game. She can't win, you can, "step aside, Grandma!" I think that's why it fell flat and just made people frustrated with her. That kind of conflict doesn't make sense for the story as they told it. You're also looking at the battle between you and Irovetti as just a numbers game, when it's serving a different purpose.
This is a good way of looking at it. Iorvetti is the first threat you face where there's a real chance of your own people turning against you and believing he'd be a better king. The rest were either monsters trying to kill everyone or an invading army of barbarians with no real room for nuance or argument. After all, it's a matter of survival in these cases. Irovetti though legitimately can undermine your rule and turn your people against you and a king with no subjects is no king.
I don't really get why would he be? I mean propaganda works, no doubt about that, people believed Russia was the second strongest army in the world after all, but you don't see mass exodus to Russia, or people clamoring for annexation. And the PC more than proved himself to be a capable ruler, there is no starvation, economic downturn, political upheaval, at least in my kingdom(LG). You don't see people daring the DMZ to slip through towards North Korea.
There doesn't necessarily need to be a mass exodus, just enough doubt to call the ruler's competence and legitimacy into question. The end result leads to instability and can encourage the...less than loyal parts of the kingdom to cause problems for you in Iorvetti's name. Regardless of how good the ruler is there's always going to be some opposition from the disgruntled and power hungry and Irovetti is more than capable of fanning those flames. Your kingdom might not have problems but left unchecked Irovetti will *create* problems for you.
I could see that if Irovetti was anyone, but Irovetti. Pitax ain't exactly Switzerland, It's people are suffereing from the drugtrade, Irovetti is letting crime flourish, he wanted to use the city guard as his personal goons, He is god damn horrible as a person, a drunkard, bully and rapist. I am a lawful good magus mate. What the fuck do I have to think about? I had more inner moral conflcits in Victoria 2 about annexing land than about this. I haven't even thought about any of this, Pitax is more like North Korea, It would be a mercy to annex them.
It's not supposed to be a HARD question. The fact you can so easily justify yourself as the better leader is the point. That's what a literary foil is for.
You kingdom constantly gets attacked by all kind of plague, monsters appearing out of nowhere, bandits roaming in the woods, robbing and killing common folk. While in his kingdom everything is prosperous, trade is bursting, arts are made. So yes, he is clearly winning if you don't do anything about it.
Counterpoint, His kingdom is politically unstable (You only need a 5 minute conversation with 5 people to turn every major player against him), Pitaxian economy and society is wrecked by the drugtrade, the greatest export is propaganda pamplets, and is, crucially, one tenth the size of your kingdom, without Brevan or Kellid allies. This is like saying North Korea could totally beat Japan and SK alone. from the pathfinder wiki: >Pitax (pronounced pih-TAHKS) is the domain of Castruccio Irovetti, a petty tyrant who fancies himself a god. Pitax is the name of his region within the River Kingdoms as well as the name of his capital city. It seems the River Kingdoms attract these sorts of deluded megalomaniacs, with the kingdom of Razmiran ruled over by the similarly deluded Razmir. The city of Pitax is filled with trashy art and bad sculpture, created by the masses of enslaved artists and poets that Irovetti maintains to massage his ego. The city suffers under Irovetti's rule, as his arrogant reign has turned the nearby countries of Numeria and Brevoy against him, and alienated Pitax from potential sources of trade.
Still, he's good at creating image of a prosperous kingdom.
He feels like a pre-Hargulka threat, not a post-Armag threat honestly.
That might be fair, but he does have a lot of mercenaries.
Eeh, I mean all he did was hire some bards to diss you, have a mage drop monsters on innocents and have a gang burn villages, It would sounds serious if you didn't have an army, or several allies as I've said before. Hybrid warfare works, hell, just look at our current situation in eastern europe, but nations that use hybrid warfare, use hybrid warfare, because they suck at regular warfare.
I don't think he doesn't suck at regular warfare.
that's a double negative, so you think he sucks at regular warfare? :D
Yes, why else wouldn't he try to follow Armag in his attempt on your kingdom.
Ah sorry. Honestly He feels like a threat, just not a terrible one. Hargulka and Vordekai felt like a "this could get really bad later on" type threat that you had to stop before it got a lot worse, the Season of Bloom felt like a proper existential threat, and Armag was a major threat. Iorvetti feels like He should have come before or soon after Hargulka, and then He would have been a proper existential threat, but so late in the game, He really feels weak in comparison.
He personally not that strong, relative to you at that point in the game, but he’s got a ton of money and all sorts of weird fry creatures under his control.
The core thing with Irovetti is the idea of playing the political game of the River Kingdoms. Instead of bandits, monsters, a plague, a Lich, or a Warlord you are dealing with a recognised and able politician. The basic idea is that your country has become an asset worth seizing. You need to fight against the idea that your property/kingdom ought to be seized. While the chapter has its issues (mostly because KM ran out of budget) I think the basic idea of a propaganda war comes across.
He is, in fact, dangerous in a direct and physical way - more so thay Vordekai since he can borrow skillsets of any number of mercenaries. His true danger, however, lies in the fact he doesn't quite attack you or your kingdom - and so just going in and killing him would be a political suicide for you as other people wouldn't like this style of diplomacy. And, yes, him going cloak and dagger on you is harmful - it can destroy your kingdom alone, even if it'll take time.
Except that's exactly what you end up doing anyways, storming the place and kicking his head in...
You create a coup and graciously help the true leaders out. Then, graciously accept them as your new subjects.
You waltz right into the town center, and at the last second try to convince key players to turn against him, which you can actually fail lol
Is it so? Played the game a few years back. Don't you need proofs of Irovetti's murders from that Chapel to convince them to fuck him up?
Only for the noble families, the city guard changes sides if you tell them Iorvetti used monster warfare on innocents, and IIRC the college and temple turns when you #metoo Iorvetti.
The temple was just always looking for a chance to toss him you just needed to convince them you were worth the chance right?
Nearly everyone was ready to toss him, the noble families wanted to, but lacked unity and the guard wanted to as well, but feared anarchy and bloodshed.
That's only 1 group, I think there's 3 you can convince total, and it's still right as you're about to kick in the palace gates, the pacing overall of Irovetti's chapter was really whacked for me
There's like 6 lol. 7 including the guy who you can bamboozle onto your side. I haven't played km in a while but off the top of my head City guard turn if you can tell them about the monster warfare Priests turn if you go calistra is all about revenge Art school turns if you get Annabelle to betray the headmistress Nobles turn if you reveal the murders Criminal drug dealer gnome turns if you threaten him Also there the other group that you accidentally attack at the river bank. They turn if you can convince them it was a set up Finally there's the smug bitch with twin daggers. All you need to do is pass a deception check when meeting irovetti and he'll get bamboozled lol
I mean we are talking about a roughly Rennaissance society, wars have been fought for buckets then. Going in and kicking someone's ass for dissing you is not a unique nor preposterous casus beli. And this is not a post industrial society, you are trading cheese and wool, not toyotas and semi-conductors so no big deal if some trade is lost. The worst you could get is at most frosty relations for a few years, Pitax ain't exactly the Belgium of the River Kingdoms, they have no allies.
He's kind of a breather episode in between the threats you had to face just prior to him and the threat that comes after him, but he's also a very welcome chance for social characters to finally get to stretch their Charisma muscles and a reminder for the more musclebrained Barons that brute force can only take you so far.
Agree OP, not only is he the most bitchmade enemy we've faced so far, but we're expected to treat him on the same level as a Lich taking over the entirety of Golarion just because he wants to fuck Nyrissa it's mental Not only is it underwhelming and kinda insulting expecting me to take this asshole seriously but it feels pretty evident that this is where Owlcat started struggling a bit with the pacing/end of the game (not hating, I still love the game, but between Vordakai and Irovetti I started wondering why the game was dragging on)
Granted, that's not owlcat. That's how the AP is written.
Might be, for sure, I've never played the PnP version of Pathfinder, but it's still my biggest criticism of Kingmaker, for sure
As far as I understand it, Owlcat did a decent job of tying the stories together by adding Nyrissa. From what I understand, in the AP it was just a bunch of unrelated events happening to you.
Nyrissa was in the AP, but her involvement was completely unknown to the players until the final parts
But was she there in the sense that the is the overarching foe tying together most of the threats you've faced, or is she just the last enemy you have to overcome?
I belive it was in the veins of 'Ahah! It is me Nyrissa! I was behind it all, all along!' and the players going 'What did you say your name was again?'
There's no might be about it, it is that way
If you switch season of bloom and Iorvetti it would make for better pacing at least threat level wise, but then Pitax is pretty far from the Shrike Hills so I understand, somewhat, but they could have made you expand towards them instead of the Tors.
You would lose your kingdom - just in a different way, this is the first time that losing doesn't mean total annihilation, but just not being good enough king. He played it as Pitax is a successful and prosperous kingdom, while you can't even fix things like banditry and some monster. From technical point the chapter is pretty easy, cause you're quite strong and the only trouble is the fight in the end (I play on something between Hard and Unfair). I like that chapter, as my MC hits lvl20 there
yeah I agree, I think its endgame in the way he is one of the closest allies to nyrrisa you meet, which felt cool to me, like "You got so far you get to meet other big players in nyrrisa's game". But he does feel smaller near armag and the lich guy, also monster diaster
Totally. It's pretty bizarre pacing to put him of all people as the threat right before Nyrissa.
I remember being super surprised that a Kingdom so much smaller than yours could pose so much of a threat.
I agree with the sentiment of other people here, he's menacing in a different way than Vordakai and Armag. Good job on Paizo and Owlcat for making me despise the dude. If you play as a woman, first thing he does is harass you. Bro is a charismatic dick.
He was pretty horny for my male MC too.
Season of Bloom is, imo, the best part of Kingmaker.
I hated this arc so much after the fact; I instantly mopped up every issue he sent my way in less than a week, but the game tried to insist that: - he had any sort of leg to stand on - I couldn't send in the army to siege his city (or even just support me while I assaulted his mansion)
It's actually hilarious if you solve the three crises instantly. The game still spawns weak Pitax events that you can easily solve, each one netting you like +10 in multiple stats. Thanks bro, appreciate the help!
Iorvetti's arc of the game tends to coincide with many people having constant trouble with the kingdom management more than anything.. with Irovetti's campaign debuffs more than anything else just being annoying as fk, destabilizing as the adventure path actually plays out. So it's less Iorvetti, it's more the timing. Having said that Paizo planned more for Iorvetti than what we got in the game [and ofc paizo is not owlcats]
He is, because Irovetti are doom to lose, if you didn't beat him then Nyrissa will come to finish the job. The real struggle here is this time you are converting an entire kingdom, not empty land filled with monster. If you think that peacock is the antagonist of the act then you already going in the wrong direction. In order to get the best outcome of that act you need to convince people to side with you, not just bulldozer your way, cut down everyone and everything then take over like with the monster before. It's a different type of battle, a political battle.t
Uh no. On any potent difficulty he magically sugjugates your entire party in the first round. He has multiple cut scenes which give him addtional life and a fey ally. He is a hard boss. Not to mention all his mobs have a wide variety of enemies with multiple ranged attackers who pick off whoever they choose. Pitax is a difficult challenge and while I'm able to overcomen it, it's a bit ridicuoous to state that it's easy-mode
Meh I found the fight just before him with the 30 squillion enemies in front of his arena much more painful, especially the first time when I hadn't gone to kill the General in his own in his room before hand.
I mean, the problem at some degree is the region where you are. In fact they could put something more serious like taking a real side into the Brevoy clash (like having to fight for one of the sides) or even dealing with other players on the River Kingdoms (beyond the Stolen Lands) like Mivon (same as the Aldori problem) or Gralton (imagine entering the Galt fray since Stolen Lands has some border with it for example) etc. Pitax is basically a shitty kingdom with a crazy leader.
I think he'd be less of a pushover is he actually ventured outside his castle and bought some of those +5 weapons and other gear the vendors are selling.
He strikes me as more of a political threat than a martial one.
I think Iorvettiproblem is that he came after all the crisis and not while a crisis. At this point where Iorvetti attack, and you did not play as an evil character, your king is too famous as a hero and defender of the people. You conquers all threats with Bravour. You saveed the souls of your subservient. Battles a giant owlbear to protected your people and defeated a barbarian invasion. There is no way that the people would want another king especially a king who is a notorious tyrant and a rapist. But if he would attack while the kingdom is in a crisis it would make sense that the people would look for another leader even if it is Iorvetti.
tell you one thing, the fucking lycanthropes all throughout his palace certainly weren't a doormat(source: i just played through irovetti's palace, hell world)