Pathfinder: Kingmaker

[Zloth]

There are some aim related skills, aren't there?

 

[OsaX Nymloth]

After 310 hours I have finished Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Damn, what a uneven ride it has been.

There's no other game that would come so close to Baldur's Gate 1 vibe and at the same time have so many weird issues or design decisions. Such good writing in most cases and interesting characters, but not so many memorable quests or even locations. Game is a rough gem, can clearly see the passion and love the devs put into it.

At the same time, last 20h for me was a slugfest. When I reached

Spoiler

House at the Edge of Time

I lowered enemy difficulty to weak so I could just make progress without having to spend hours fighting the damn Wild Hunt.
Seriously, everytime I saw another room full of Wild Hunt + Nymph + Monarch I died inside a little. These are my most disliked enemies in whole game, together with Mandragora Swarms. Absolutely hating them.
But I wanted to know how the story can end, what decisions I can still make and well, I wanted to finish this journey. And last section was actually pretty cool and the main antagonist (no, not that one!) was imho very enjoyable.

In short I finished with level 19 - I believe I could reach 20 if I save scummed to get some tougher dialogue checks (these give a lot of EXP) and did the 1-2 quests I didn't do (like with the Impatient Pirates of Pitax, the item was too good to give away - but I couldn't be bothered fighting them solo, so I just ignored them).
Main squad: me rogue sorcerer + Amiri + Valerie + Ekundayo + Harrim + Nok Nok.

 

[Zloth]

Yeah, at the end...

Spoiler

... went on FOREVER! Fight my way to the H@tEoT and figure it will just be a quick dungeon and done. No. There's a store outside of this place for a reason. You'll be there for quite some time. And then there's a nostalgia phase. And then there's yet another dungeon to go through! And even a little gather-the-parts quest in there!

I'm thinking Tchaikovsky wrote that ending.

 

[drunkpunk]

There's no other game that would come so close to Baldur's Gate 1 vibe and at the same time have so many weird issues or design decisions. Such good writing in most cases and interesting characters, but not so many memorable quests or even locations. Game is a rough gem, can clearly see the passion and love the devs put into it.

Yeah I feel you on that. That's why I say I have a strange love/hate relationship with this game. Some stuff was so obviously crafted with love and care, other parts just feel.... I can't think of a better word for it than bad. I think I hated the dungeons more than anything. There are some quests and encounters that I absolutely love, such as the price of curiosity, and I loved most of the companion quests. The main storyline felt pretty jagged and rough at times, I still haven't even finished it but working my way towards the end.

I think the thing I dislike the most is combat. There are some good fights, but holy hell are there a lot of them. Obviously this is a byproduct of being designed for RTwP, as so many fights are pretty simple trash encounters. I'm pretty strict on my turn based preference, but I used the RTwP quite a bit to just steamroll through largely easy and irrelevant encounters.

I think where this game really shines, though, is the way they use alignment and decisions. It felt pretty well implemented, I mean alignment-driven decisions or dialogue checks are going to miss the mark sometimes but it opens up some pretty predictable but enjoyable ways to address the decisions and encounters. I'm one of the weirdos that really likes the alignment system, though. But going from a neutral good to a lawful evil run was quite the interesting difference.

 

[alaun512]

So it finally happened. I started playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker and after 12 hours, I can say that it fully meets my expectations. It's basically Baldur's Gate set in a different world. I'm still in Chapter 1, so I didn't have the occasion to manage my kingdom yet, but heard that this element is done quite well.

Believe it or not, but I've spent almost 3 hours on the character creation screen. And it has provided me tons of fun. In the end I've picked my favorite D&D class - Sorcerer, but even within this single class there are tons of things to decide about. Prologue was quite hard in the beginning due to the fact that all of my three characters were basically spell casters and there was no option to rest and refresh the spell list, but right now the situation is under control. I started the game on Hard difficulty setting and decided to drop it to Challenging. Right now the game is as hard as it should be for my liking.

I'm waiting impatiently for the turn-based mode. I prefer real-time-with-pause, but it might be usefull in harder battles. I know there is a mod which implements the turn-based mode. I prefer to wait for the official release however.

Looks like I'm going to spend a few dozens of hours in this game and I'm already sure it'll be worth it!

Is the character creation like an actual D&D game? Where you move the scores to needed slots to maximize your character.

 

[Sarafan]

Is the character creation like an actual D&D game? Where you move the scores to needed slots to maximize your character.

The character creation system is very similar to D&D games, but it actually uses Pathfinder system. There are some differences that mostly expand the D&D system. What do you mean by scores and slots?

 

[Pifanjr]

Is the character creation like an actual D&D game? Where you move the scores to needed slots to maximize your character.

The character creation uses a point buy system, if that's what you're referring to.

 

[Zloth]

Is the character creation like an actual D&D game? Where you move the scores to needed slots to maximize your character.

In D&D you roll 3D6 and make due with what you get!! (Though, I may be a tad behind on any rule changes made since 1980...)

 

[alaun512]

The character creation uses a point buy system, if that's what you're referring to.

Cool is it 35 point? I am a person that has played tabletop, but also remember Neverwinter from 20 years ago that used the D%D rules system. That is cool maybe I will see if I can run Kingmaker on my laptop?

 

[Pifanjr]

Cool is it 35 point? I am a person that has played tabletop, but also remember Neverwinter from 20 years ago that used the D%D rules system. That is cool maybe I will see if I can run Kingmaker on my laptop?

It's 25 points.