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Pathfinder: Kingmaker

jmotivator

jmotivator

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Anyone else playing this?

It is actually a rather well done game. I started it after completing SC:O as a change of pace.

The game has a huge amount of granular difficulty settings for the campaign, which I think should be a standard in any such game. Everything from NPC permadeath to Crit multipliers, to enemy difficulty, tool tip detail and on and on is pre-cofigurable. The race and class and subclass choices are probably the most complete of any AD&D game I have ever played, as is the Feat list.

Even with the kingdom management turned off (so I can say how detailed that side it) there is plenty of great Pathfinder detail built into the game. The camp function is very detailed, with a management screen that allows you to divide up the chores (hunting, camp cammo, cooking, special skill and guard duty) to get a hole slew of special bonuses and special penalties based on how successful you are during your rest at the various tasks.

The RPG elements are just a smoother, flashier Baldur's Gate style iso view... but it is very pretty.

If I had any knock on the game it is probably just that spells effect seem pretty stale and lifeless compared to other modern games, so you lack the pyrotechnics you'd expect from magic attacks. But it is really only a minor annoyance.

And I think the ting that is most welcome for me is that they have done away with individual inventories, beyond what individuals have equipped, and have opted instead to have a weight-based inventory and is based on the aggregate carrying weight of your whole party.. so no need to constantly **** weights, or search individual inventories looking for something.

So far the story has been top notch, and the moral decisions you have to make constantly have a real impact on how the game plays out. I will say, though, that I am able to get away with a lot more as a Paladin than I would have thought possible... but usually if a choice is Lawful neutral or above it doesn't seem to adversely impact me... not yet, anyway.

If I had to categorize this game by heredity I would say that it is the child of Baldur's Gate and Fallout Tactics.
 
jmotivator said:
Anyone else playing this?

It is actually a rather well done game. I started it after completing SC:O as a change of pace.

The game has a huge amount of granular difficulty settings for the campaign, which I think should be a standard in any such game. Everything from NPC permadeath to Crit multipliers, to enemy difficulty, tool tip detail and on and on is pre-cofigurable. The race and class and subclass choices are probably the most complete of any AD&D game I have ever played, as is the Feat list.

Even with the kingdom management turned off (so I can say how detailed that side it) there is plenty of great Pathfinder detail built into the game. The camp function is very detailed, with a management screen that allows you to divide up the chores (hunting, camp cammo, cooking, special skill and guard duty) to get a hole slew of special bonuses and special penalties based on how successful you are during your rest at the various tasks.

The RPG elements are just a smoother, flashier Baldur's Gate style iso view... but it is very pretty.

If I had any knock on the game it is probably just that spells effect seem pretty stale and lifeless compared to other modern games, so you lack the pyrotechnics you'd expect from magic attacks. But it is really only a minor annoyance.

And I think the ting that is most welcome for me is that they have done away with individual inventories, beyond what individuals have equipped, and have opted instead to have a weight-based inventory and is based on the aggregate carrying weight of your whole party.. so no need to constantly **** weights, or search individual inventories looking for something.

So far the story has been top notch, and the moral decisions you have to make constantly have a real impact on how the game plays out. I will say, though, that I am able to get away with a lot more as a Paladin than I would have thought possible... but usually if a choice is Lawful neutral or above it doesn't seem to adversely impact me... not yet, anyway.

If I had to categorize this game by heredity I would say that it is the child of Baldur's Gate and Fallout Tactics.
Click to expand...

Hey, jmotivator. Kingmaker looks really beautiful and I am definitely in the market for a good Isometric role-playing game. I was rather disappointed with games like Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny. While I loved the lore, did not much care for the extremely granular in-combat micro-management. Plus it helps that I actually play the Pathfinder tabletop RPG with my friends regularly, and this looks like it would be an nice diversion for casual gaming.
 
Felis Leo said:
Hey, jmotivator. Kingmaker looks really beautiful and I am definitely in the market for a good Isometric role-playing game. I was rather disappointed with games like Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny. While I loved the lore, did not much care for the extremely granular in-combat micro-management. Plus it helps that I actually play the Pathfinder tabletop RPG with my friends regularly, and this looks like it would be an nice diversion for casual gaming.
Click to expand...

The combat is as granular or hands off as you need it to be, but the AI does a pretty good job when left to itself. You will run into fights where you need to focus down the biggest threat (ie. caster, healer) and will need to pause and manually issue new orders, but the more run-of-the-mill fights can just be left to run in real time without input most of the time.

There are certain fights that you will need to micro manage though, if you want to complete certain tasks in a reasonable amount of time.
 
I'll definitely play it once it goes on sale.

I've actually DM'd the Kingmaker adventure path for a tabletop Pathfinder group, so it'll be interesting to see what's the same and what's different.

I'm going to be disappointed if you can't same-sex marry a dragon and have an heir to the kingdom with it.
 
I've been pondering getting that but I really ought to stop buying games on Steam, those bastards. I need to at least finish playing through a bunch of others...

Adulting pisses me off.




Is "Pathfinder" based on a TV show? I ask because there's this English company that does audio-only newly written episodes for other British shows, popular and otherwise, and they have a "Pathfinder" range.

https://www.bigfinish.com/ranges/released/pathfinder
 
I'm playing it, but am still early into it. Huge file sizes. I hope that's relative to its content. It took a bit to get into it, but it's decent so far.
 
Mr Person said:
I've been pondering getting that but I really ought to stop buying games on Steam, those bastards. I need to at least finish playing through a bunch of others...

Adulting pisses me off.




Is "Pathfinder" based on a TV show? I ask because there's this English company that does audio-only newly written episodes for other British shows, popular and otherwise, and they have a "Pathfinder" range.

https://www.bigfinish.com/ranges/released/pathfinder
Click to expand...

The game is based on Pathfinder RPG which was a spin off of Dungeons and Dragons.
 
I am still in act I, and found I should have been paying more attention. I have 3 days to complete the main quest for Act 1. I have no idea what happens when time runs out.

I guess I will let you all know...
 
OK, so the time limit is hard on Act 1... pay close attention to it or you will find yourself unable to finish. :(
 
Well, I blame myself for not paying closer attention to the quest log and wasting too much time, but it turns out that it's easy to "fix" with a game editor. There is an entry in the save that has essentially a julian date that counts up from zero with the format DD:HH:MM-????, and my last autosave was at 89:18:00... meaning that I was 6 hours away from game over. Reducing the DD digits directly impact the time you have left on the clock.

So the clock management game goes like this: When you rest you can either use rations, or hunt. Hunting can take up to 20 hours to feed everyone, so rations ensure a more efficient rest. the draw back is that rations are absurdly heavy (10 lbs per ration) so you will not be able to carry as much loot, and the added weight means your team gets tired quicker... meaning you need to rest more often. It's an annoyingly elegant system that seems to be design specifically to rush you through Act 1 and force you to forgo loot hording.
 
jmotivator said:
Anyone else playing this?

It is actually a rather well done game. I started it after completing SC:O as a change of pace.

The game has a huge amount of granular difficulty settings for the campaign, which I think should be a standard in any such game. Everything from NPC permadeath to Crit multipliers, to enemy difficulty, tool tip detail and on and on is pre-cofigurable. The race and class and subclass choices are probably the most complete of any AD&D game I have ever played, as is the Feat list.

Even with the kingdom management turned off (so I can say how detailed that side it) there is plenty of great Pathfinder detail built into the game. The camp function is very detailed, with a management screen that allows you to divide up the chores (hunting, camp cammo, cooking, special skill and guard duty) to get a hole slew of special bonuses and special penalties based on how successful you are during your rest at the various tasks.

The RPG elements are just a smoother, flashier Baldur's Gate style iso view... but it is very pretty.

If I had any knock on the game it is probably just that spells effect seem pretty stale and lifeless compared to other modern games, so you lack the pyrotechnics you'd expect from magic attacks. But it is really only a minor annoyance.

And I think the ting that is most welcome for me is that they have done away with individual inventories, beyond what individuals have equipped, and have opted instead to have a weight-based inventory and is based on the aggregate carrying weight of your whole party.. so no need to constantly **** weights, or search individual inventories looking for something.

So far the story has been top notch, and the moral decisions you have to make constantly have a real impact on how the game plays out. I will say, though, that I am able to get away with a lot more as a Paladin than I would have thought possible... but usually if a choice is Lawful neutral or above it doesn't seem to adversely impact me... not yet, anyway.

If I had to categorize this game by heredity I would say that it is the child of Baldur's Gate and Fallout Tactics.
Click to expand...

I saw some gameplay video and it reminds me of neverwinter nights
 
Crovax said:
I saw some gameplay video and it reminds me of neverwinter nights
Click to expand...

It is. Neverwinter nights was one in a long line of Isometric AD&D games that started way back in the 1980s with the SSI Gold Box games.
 
So if anyone decides to play this game, I'd suggest not doing "Automatic Kingdom Management". Kingdom Management doesn't start until Chapter 2, and by about halfway through it became clear to me that automatic management doesn't actually do anything.

This is bad because there are quests that are tied directly to Kingdom management that the "automatic mode" won't complete for you, leaving the only option to be cutting out the Kingdom Management aspect entirely by setting your kingdom to "indestructible" and just skipping a ton of content.

Still, even without that content it is a rather good game if you like isometric AD&D.
 
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