Pathfinder: Kingmaker Is An Isometric RPG Experience

I've been quite excited to play Pathfinder: Kingmaker for quite a while. An isometric Baldur's Gate style CRPG using the Pathfinder 1st Edition rules, it launched yesterday.

"With the help of over 18,000 Kickstarter backers, Narrative Designer Chris Avellone and composer Inon Zur, Owlcat Games is proud to bring you the first isometric computer RPG set in the beloved Pathfinder tabletop universe. Pathfinder: Kingmaker puts you in the role of a brave adventurer fighting to survive in a world beset by magic and evil! Take on the role of a canny fighter hacking through enemies with an enchanted sword, a powerful sorceress blessed with magic by the hint of demon blood in her veins, a wise cleric of gods benevolent or malignant, a witty rogue ready to defuse even the deadliest of traps, or any of countless other heroes. The only limit is your imagination!"

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To the north lie the Stolen Lands, a region that has been contested territory for centuries. Hundreds of kingdoms have risen and fallen in these lands, and now it is time for you to make your mark—by building your own kingdom! To do so, you’ll need to survive the harsh wilderness and the threat of rival nations… as well as threats within your own court.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is based on Paizo’s award-winning Pathfinder Adventure Path of the same name. You certainly don’t need to be familiar with the story, but if you are, you will encounter characters you know and love as well as a host of brand-new events, companions, allies, and threats that expand and enhance the original Adventure Path. With help from Paizo and their authors, the story and quests have been expanded by RPG writer Chris Avellone and the Owlcat team, allowing for even more adventure in the already rich narrative of the Stolen Lands.

While Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a single-player game, you won’t be adventuring alone. "Kingmaker" features a diverse cast of companions and NPCs, including iconic characters from the Pathfinder setting itself. You’ll need to decide who to trust and who to watch carefully, as each companion has an agenda, alignment, and goals that may differ from yours. Your journey will become their journey, and you’ll help shape their lives both in the moment and well into the future.

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"We chose to adapt the Kingmaker adventure path because it features a host of open-world mechanics, allowing players to experience the story at their own pace as they explore the Stolen Lands, which will challenge you as both an adventurer and a ruler. Most importantly, the game allows you to claim these lands as your own, letting you carve your own kingdom from the wilderness. While classic dungeon crawling and exploration lie at the heart of this adventure, diplomacy, politics, and kingdom development are also part of the challenge. Choose your allies well, and keep them close while exploring ancient tombs and ruins — and while dealing with politics in your own court."
As you’ll discover, building a kingdom goes beyond simply building a stronghold: Your kingdom is a reflection of your character and your choices throughout the game. It is a living thing shaped by your alignment, your allies, and your ability to lead your people. Not only can your kingdom expand, opening up new territories and allowing you to build new towns and communities, but your capital city will physically change based on your decisions, your policies, and even whom you choose to ally with. As your kingdom grows, a number of factions and neighboring countries will come to you to seek favor—and to test your strength.

 

[Lefi2017]

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So How hard is it for people that have no colue about pathfinder
I bought the came so I any chance to learn by playing the game with out screwing up to badly?

 

[Morrus]

So How hard is it for people that have no colue about pathfinder
I bought the came so I any chance to learn by playing the game with out screwing up to badly?

It’s no harder to learn than any other new CRPG with its own system. Probably easier, because like D&D, Pathfinder has the d20 system as it’s kernel. Plus there are pregen options if you don’t want to make a character (though it guides you through that),

 

[smiteworks]

So How hard is it for people that have no colue about pathfinder
I bought the came so I any chance to learn by playing the game with out screwing up to badly?

It doesn't explain any of the "why" when you do zero damage. For instance, it might say you do damage and that it is (reduced) to 0. For the most part, all the rolls and results are displayed in full details as a hover-over tooltip from the dice results window, but there are those exceptions. Someone mentioned a fight with a bear like creature that was extremely difficult for my party when I encountered it. That creature has DR10, so a skilled tabletop player would know that it is useless to attack it with weapons that deal 1d8 damage. Another challenging area has you fighting swarms and there is one case where you encounter a demi-lich (floating head) with an AC 35, tons of immunities and great saves. In each case, I was able to re-load and plan a strategy to win or I was able to simply go away and come back at a higher level to defeat them. I have not gone back to defeat the demi-lich yet. Save often and don't be afraid to leave and area and return later.

The Pathfinder combat rules are derived from the D&D 3.5 rules, so you'll have some ideas but not the full idea. Damage Resistance (DR) is handled differently and there are Combat Maneuvers and Combat Defenses that manage whether or not you get tripped, grappled, bull rushed, etc. Some of the feats directly interact with that. The game doesn't include every feat and ability from Pathfinder but it has a ton. They are described in detail and they list the prerequisites, but someone unfamiliar with the RPG system might not realize that there is a feat combo-chain that builds in this order: Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave. There are tons of those examples. New players may want to stick with the pre-configured auto-leveling choices for characters to avoid picking useless or non-efficient combos. On the plus side, staying single class from 1 through 20 is very doable for pretty much all the classes.

 

[smiteworks]

I spend a decent amount of time on it last night and this morning. I'm enjoying it for the most part, but I must admit that I'm getting reeaaaalllllly tempted to dial the combat difficulty down to 'easy' (that tree-bear thing can go suck a fireball). I've never been too hot on isometric CRPGs for some reason, and I wish that they'd just made things turn-based as I'm pretty sure that's what's actually running under the hood anyway.

Here was my strategy that seemed to work:
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I tried around 5 or 6 times when my party first got there. I think I was levels 2 & 3 and I came close once but mostly got slaughtered. I came back with a level 3 or 4 Amira and the Magus guy, buffed up and was able to take it down. It has DR10, so it took hitting it with a raging barbarian, shocking grasps and inflict wounds while Valerie and my main character tanked it. I used mirror-image, mage armor, shield, shield of faith and fight defensively on my fighter/wizard and shield of faith + tower shield + fight defensively on Valerie. It seems to randomize who it attacks, so having 2 of the 4 front-line fighters play pure defense it helped draw the fight out long enough to dish damage from my main damage dealers that could beat DR 10. The claw, claw, bite still hit with some frequency for pretty heavy damage.

I also have the option set where characters don't die and they return to combat after the fight. It fits more closely with the death saves feature in D&D 5E IMO and makes the game much less brutal.
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[EthanSental]

I'm only 2 hours or so in and enjoying it so far. Only small quibble is the overly stylized first letters of people's name. Some don't make a small much sense with all the extra designs...worst is the elven inquisitor Jaethal. Reminds me of certain dice manufacturers that put so much design into the dice face that you can't make out the numbers easily

 

[Morrus]

One thing I never understand bout these games -- they have voice actors do all the NPCs, but when your character talks it's just text. I wonder why they don't have voice actors do that, too? You already have to select your character's voice during character creation.

 

[Larrin]

One thing I never understand bout these games -- they have voice actors do all the NPCs, but when your character talks it's just text. I wonder why they don't have voice actors do that, too? You already have to select your character's voice during character creation.

I'd rather not have my character read their lines, especially if its branching dialogue. I've already read the dialogue choice I want to make, I don't need to hear my character slowly drawl their way through a text I already read. I would only skip it anyway.

The Mass Effect series(several of them if not all) did full dialogue for all the main character's responses. It worked okay, but so often I would just skip it because I didn't need to here the whole line again. Then they did a thing where sometimes they'd just have a summary of the dialogue; you'd choose option that said "Doubt her" and your character would say a full sentence of two, thus removing the desire to skip the dialogue. That almost worked except that sometimes you'd see "doubt her" and you'd think "I'm going to politely disagree and we'll rationally discuss the truth" but what would really happen was you're character would call her a lying traitor and threaten her family. It solved the skipping problem but replaced it with a lack of really knowing what would happen.

In the end I think most people would end up skipping full dialogue heroes in this sort of game, and thus the game companies know that whatever extra money would be spent on that voice work and such could be better spent elsewhere.

 

[Mallus]

Is anyone playing Kingmaker on a Mac? I'm so tempted to add this to my backlog of games... I mean, play it. But it's a brand new release, so I assume there will be bugs and a lack of optimization. And optimizing for MacOS is usually last on the list. If it's on the list at all .

For comparison, Pillars of Eternity, BGII, and Planescape: Torment run fine on my MacBook Pro. Civilization V causes my laptop to heat up to George Foreman Grill-levels, but several hundred hours of this hasn't had a negative impact so far as I can tell.

 

[Morrus]

Is anyone playing Kingmaker on a Mac? I'm so tempted to add this to my backlog of games... I mean, play it. But it's a brand new release, so I assume there will be bugs and a lack of optimization. And optimizing for MacOS is usually last on the list. If it's on the list at all .

For comparison, Pillars of Eternity, BGII, and Planescape: Torment run fine on my MacBook Pro. Civilization V causes my laptop to heat up to George Foreman Grill-levels, but several hundred hours of this hasn't had a negative impact so far as I can tell.

I am. Had to turn the graphics down a bit but it works fine.

 

[Mallus]

I am. Had to turn the graphics down a bit but it works fine.

Thanks!