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SirFozzie
Mar 28, 2004
Goombatta!

Welcome to Hell: The Worldwound

Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous is the latest from Owlcat, crazy Russian devs who came from nowhere with Pathfinder Kingmaker a few years ago and put themselves on the scene as serious competition for making the best crpgs on the market. Kind of. It’s complicated given their games were Kickstarter successes with all the good and bad that go with it. Anyways, back to the new game

Wrath of the Righteous is based on the Paizo adventure path of the same name. It’s not a sequel to Kingmaker and requires no prior experience beyond some understanding of how the Pathfinder system works. It’s the classic, roll a d20, ttrpg style game, where your goal is to be making your numbers go up in a way where you can crush your enemies numbers. Let’s take a look at the official material, taken from Owlcat themselves

quote:

The realm of Sarkoris was destroyed when Areelu Vorlesh, a scholar and practitioner of forbidden magics, opened a rift to the abyssal planes of existence, and hordes of demons invaded Golarion. Led by the evil Demon Lords Deskari and Baphomet, the abyssal forces crushed all who stood against them, turning Sarkoris into a demon-infested land now known as the Worldwound. It fell to the neighboring nations to assemble an army capable of withstanding the demonic assault to protect the world from the flames. Thus the Crusades began.

The war has been raging for over a hundred years now with little hope of victory. The enemy forces are numerous and their rage is unmatched. Defeat would be certain if not for the Wardstones—the obelisks of divine power placed along the borders of the Worldwound to hold back the invasion. Created under the guidance of Iomedae's herald, they form a protective barrier that prevents the demons from pushing through.

It is no wonder that the Wardstones were the demon armies’ first target. Those villainous forces launched a surprise attack on the frontier city of Kenabres, ripping apart its defenses in mere minutes, corrupting the Wardstone housed there, and scattering the crusaders. In the utter chaos of the burning city, one of the crusaders—to their own amazement—discovers a source of power within themselves. While the origin of the power remains unknown, and the form it takes depends on the person, the purpose is clear: this power may be just what the people of the ravaged city need to survive the assault—and to bring the fight to the enemy.

Facing the impossible, the name of the game is flexibility and choice. To make a character, you get:
Races: Aasimar, Dhampir, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-elf, Half-Orc, Halfling, Human, Kitsune, Oread, Tiefling. Some of those races have a selection of “heritage” that will affect their starting abilities.
Base Classes:

For each class, 5-6 archetypes, each with their own flavor and unique features. Some are restricted by race, but most are not.
In addition to the base classes, you also have prestige classes, which are usually the result of multi-classing or a certain specialization that introduces extra powers and skills you can’t otherwise get.

All this? This is just to start the game. Then the real choices begin.

Wrath of the Righteous introduces two new systems, the Mythic Path and the Crusade system, as part of your game experience.
Mythic Paths

After you start the game, a series of events ends up bestowing you with mythic powers granting you god-like abilities and new character customization potential. Mythic paths are the defining feature of the game, as you choose your path it will have effects on how the story plays out and how you progress with your crusade. The 6 main mythic paths are

Angel: The Angel is a mighty champion of good, leading the Crusade by example. They move across the battlefield on their mighty wings, smiting the demons with a sword of holy flame. Those who are fighting alongside the Angel are certain that they will be protected and healed—and even resurrected in the case of their untimely demise. In times of dire need the Angel can ask Heaven for help and celestial allies will join them in battle

Azata: When a war has been raging for over a hundred years such as the crusades have, one must be ready to make unexpected moves to achieve victory. Some may claim that Azatas act first and think later, but tell that to the demon hordes, trampled and fleeing in terror from this unstoppable force for good. The Azata trust their instincts and makes spontaneous decisions. They easily befriend those who don't fit well into even rows of the "official" crusade, and inspire their allies to fight rather than command them to do so. That makes Azatas the heroes these demon-ravaged lands so dearly need.

Aeon: The Aeon is a cosmic judge of balance—Judge Dredd meets Merlin on a cosmic scale. They can sense where the balance is broken and fix it, often punishing the perpetrator in the process. The cool thing about the Aeon is that they can detect places where the balance was greatly disturbed in the past and travel back in time to fix it. In doing so, they can change their current timeline, usually for the better.

Trickster: The Trickster is a Loki-type character. They are here to have fun and play jokes on even the mightiest creatures. One of their late-game abilities is an understanding that their fate is determined by random chance, like the roll of a die of destiny. Armed with such knowledge, the Trickster can manipulate those die rolls in their favor. Every time the system rolls a natural 1 for them, the Trickster changes it into a natural 20. And players will be able to see it happening before their eyes.

Lich: The Lich is an immortal creature, commanding their own army of undead. Even the mightiest adversaries the Lich defeats can be raised as slaves under the Lich’s command. Eventually, this master of undeath and necromancy can even replace their mortal companions with powerful undead minions they create. They master the art of magic—especially necromancy—and wield an armament of unique and especially powerful spells like death realm.

The other 4 are late change mythic paths that you may be able to change to that take it to even further extremes.

The Crusade System

No war of conquest can happening without armies, and this is the way you march across the land sieging enemy fortress and conquering land. As of writing this, the Crusade system in the beta has been spotty at best, and no one is expecting great things on release. It features a auto-win mode where instead of having to engage in the game system to progress the main story you’ll automatically conquer the area/region/city of interest when you need to.

This also ties in heavily to the mythic path, as the chosen path will determine what kind of troops you can field. Allegedly, the Trickster will get so weird that you can recruit munchkin npcs based on designs sent in by fans.

Check back in with the thread a few days/weeks/months post release for the most accurate take on the game. Hopes are high but Pathfinder Kingmaker didn't really reach the state it's currently in for the better part of a year post release.


(Thanks to Pentyne for updating my OP for Kingmaker. Much Appreciated

Hey I’ve heard about a Pathfinder game before this, what was that?


The previous Owlcat game was Pathfinder: Kingmaker. What you’ve heard was probably that it was released in such a broken and buggy state as to be unbeatable for several months. Once it was fixed, you might’ve heard it was full of save of die traps and impossible encounters that expected you to min-max your characters to hell and back. If not that, then that the game would punish you 20 hours later for a bad decision and cause you to lose the game out of nowhere.

So, yeah, those things were true for a bit, but it’s not the state of things anymore. Let me quickly address that



State of the game: Yes, there are some bugs still present, but by and large the game is feature complete and playable with little issue. Keep back-up saves just in case
Game Traps: There are a small number of sections where you get a new mechanic sprung on you that is extremely hard for your level and the context. Unfortunately, some of those will happen in the first few hours of play. There are easy workarounds and after that it rarely ever happens again in game.
Mix-Max Characters: Sort of, not really. You really need to be build your characters to specialized in something. Defense, DPS, Casting nukes, Casting control spells, etc. You also have the freedom to take classes levels however you wish, meaning if you want a sorcerer with 4 levels of barbarian, 2 thief, and 4 cleric, you can do that. The end result is going to be a unplayable mess, but it’s still possible. In general, any pure class built with a purpose in mind will be able to handle the game at normal without too much hassle.
Unforeseen Game ending consequences: This is heavily tied into kingdom mode that most people agree should be played on the easiest setting. There are some simple strategies to never worry about those problems.

So, yes the game has issues. Also yes, they are very easily managed, especially with the Bag of Tricks, a mod/cheat program with a clean UI that works to streamline and eliminate 99% of those game problems.

Why play this game?

Personally, there’s nothing like it. It’s the first modern crpg that captures that feeling over going from level 1 to godhood over the course of 50-100 hours. There’s incredible flexibility once you dig into the game systems and learn the tricks and exploits for powers and abilities. The UI for combat and casting is crisp and extremely easy to use and switch around to suit your playstyle. It’s an engaging saga of going from a random adventurer to conquering your own Kingdom and creating an empire.

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SirFozzie
Mar 28, 2004
Goombatta!
First opinions of the game is that it's a pretty good translation of the Pathfinder RPG system into a real time pauseable (you can set it to pause at the end of each round) game. However, things that are useful in the theater of the mind or battlemap do not always cross over well with computers that can take the hassle out of things.

(and I see someone else made the Baldur's Gate 2018 joke as well in the POEII thread, GMTA ... Goon Minds Think Alike)

DeathSandwich posted:

Alright, for my sake and the readers, I’m going to do this roughly in the order of familiarity for people starting from classes core to base 3.5e. I’m not touching all the variants otherwise I’m going to be typing this up all loving night, just know that each of these classes have variants that act and behave different-ish or borrow class features from other classes:

Barbarian - Kill your enemies with the power of anger! They specialize in going fast and swinging the biggest, fuckoff-iest weapon they can find. Core class mechanic revolves around going into a rage, granting them offensive bonuses at the cost of defense, and a smattering of rage powers that modify their attacks. While their defenses are low, they also have some of the highest hit point pools in the game and have lots of options to gain damage reduction, so they can soak a lot of punishment before they go down. Focus on Strength and constitution and traits and talents to increase your killing power.

Bard - A hard support class and a bit of a jack of all trades. They are a 2/3rds caster (meaning they cap out at being able to cast 6th level spells vs a cleric or Wizard getting up to 9th level, but they get some of the better support spells from both the wizard and cleric spell lists) but the true core of the class is their bardic performances - allowing them to bolster their allies and hinder their foes. Bard variants change up the various flavors of performances you have access to. Focus on Charisma to improve your spellcasting and Dexterity for offense - generally speaking you’ll be lightly armored using a ranged or finesse weapon of which both benefit from being highly agile. Feats can build in a lot of directions, but it’s suggested to focus on improving their performances or their ranged combat

Cleric - Literally god tier. Bolster allies and smite your foes with the power of your deity’s might. Heavily armored full spellcaster, their already good spell list is bolstered by additional spells keyed directly to your chosen deity’s aspects of control and giving them specialized avenues of spellcasting to play with. Core stat is Wisdom, which is tied to their spellcasting, with secondary stats depending on personal build, but think Constitution, Charisma, or strength in some combination.

Druid - Nature based caster. Another full caster, this one spell focuses move slightly more in the direction of summoning critters to help. Has access to animal companions and shapeshifting outside of their casting, allowing you to throw down as a bear with your other bear. Stat buildout depends on if you’re focusing on the spellcasting side of the shapeshifting side. The former wants straight wisdom, the latter wants a bunch of strength and constitution too. Either way get Natural spell as soon as possible and then focus on either your spellcasting or your melee fighting abilities respectively.

Fighter - Does exactly what it says on the tin. It is the prototypical armed and armored combatant designed to trade blows with anything on the battlefield. Has proficiency in all armor and most weapons. While it doesn’t have a lot of extra mechanics like the Barbarian, Paladin, or Ranger does, it makes up for it by having absurd feat growth, allowing them to have an incredibly robust presence in combat. Can be built like a frontline beat stick or can key up for ranged weapons and wreck up the place from the backline. Core stats are Constitution and either Strength or Dex depending on what weapons you’re planning on using - Dex builds for ranged or finesse fighting are completely viable. Typically not a class that most people mono-class, typically they only take a few fighter levels and then multiclass out into something else.

Monk - An unarmored combatant specialized in rapid, hard hitting unarmed attacks. Gets a lot of bonuses to their combat abilities so long as they are unarmored and unencumbered. At high levels can become Goku. One of the classes considered MAD (multiple ability disorder) because they need so much stats to function. Dexterity and Wisdom affect their defense and class features, strength affects their damage, and constitution affects their survivability (you are a frontline combatant, after all and need to be able to take a hit). Pathfinder monks have access to really powerful fighting style feats that are absolutely worth taking to goose up your offense and defense

Paladin - A holy warrior for good and holiness and goodness. Locked to Lawful Good explicitly and they lose most of their features if you fall out of alignment. They have access to rudimentary spellcasting - they get their first spells at level 3 and they max out at 4th level spells, but they make up for this by having the fighter’s arms and armor proficiencies as well as the full base attack bonus growth (though not the feat growth or the more specialized weapon talents) In Pathfinder they have a mechanic where they get to imbue their weapons with added effects, allowing them to turn even mundane weapons into holy ghost touching weapons of undead bane. Pathfinder Kingmaker’s Lawful Good dialog was largely insufferable, but they seem to have learned their lesson for Wrath of the Righteous, and Demon Crusades seem purpose built for Paladin fuckery. Strength is your primary fight stat with constitution for health, and Charisma is the stat most of your class features and spellcasting works off

Ranger - Think Paladin, but nature-y. Like paladin, they have the HP pool of a frontline fighter and have most weapon proficiencies, but unlike them are limited to light and medium armor. They pick a fighting style early (dual wield, archery, sword and shield, ect) and they gain access to bonus feats based around their style of choice, even if they don’t meet the normal pre-requisites so your full strength dual wielder can still get the dual wield feats that require absurd dex requirements. Has a special gimmick around favored enemies and favored terrain, getting pretty significant bonuses when fighting against his chosen quarry and in his chosen domain. Also one of the core classes that has an animal companion as part of their core kit, which in Pathfinder are Exceptionally Good. Has similar spell growth to a paladin, but working off the Druid spell list rather than the cleric. Stat allocation depends on fighting style, but think like a fighter with 14ish wisdom for your spellcasting and you’ll be in a good place

Rogue - Knives in the dark and the game’s premier skillmonkey - Probably the most changed from 3.5, mostly for the better. Their primary gimmick is Sneak attack, allowing them to do extra damage against unaware and flanking foes. New in Pathfinder is them getting special rogue talents, giving them access to special feats and ways to buff and modify their class abilities and adding debuffs and other effects to their sneak attacks (including dispelling sneak attacks, among other things). Compared to 3.5 more things are sneak-attackable in pathfinder, but keep in mind that there are certain classes of enemies that will still laugh your sneak attacks away like golems and oozes. Pretty explicitly tied to Dexterity for attack stats, and like most of the melee types Con is a good secondary, and your tertiary really just depends on what you want to focus on for skills.

Sorcerer - An arcane caster who learns their spells through innate talent or force of will or blood potency. Compared to wizards they have a narrower focus. They know less spells compared to their bookish counterpart and they advance in spell levels slightly slower, but they can cast what spells they do know more. Like Cleric gods - Sorcerers pick a bloodline at character creation that grants them extra spell access as well as some other in combat abilities. Primary spellcasting stat is CHARISMA

Wizard - Arcane spellcaster who learns their spells through intense focus of study. Their core mechanic is their wizards spellbook. You learn new spells on leveling up, but you can also add spells to your spellbook that you find in the world as well and can prepare any of them. Compared to 3.5e - you *have* to take a casting school specialization, generalist wizards get out. This is countered by the fact that the specializations come with extra class abilities and extra spell slots tied to the school of choice. Your primary spellcasting stat is INTELLIGENCE.



CLASSES THAT ARE NEW TO STANDARD 3.5 PLAYERS THAT ARE IN KINGMAKER:

Alchemist - BOOM, YEAH BABY
Alchemists are kind of a weird duck. They have access to up to 6th level spellcasting, but the spell pool is limited to support only and the spells can only target themselves (at least initially). They make up for this by having a certain number of alchemical bombs they make daily as their primary form of offense. Due to the way their skills scale, they are one of those classes that are best used as either a one level dip (Hi, vivisectionist), or going straight monoclass with no middle ground. They also get access to alchemical discoveries as they level, modifying their bombs and other class features. They do make for pretty potent attackers and can be built to be a good support caster as well. They need Dexterity and Intelligence in equal measure - the former for their spell and bomb growth, the latter for being able to hit with said bombs. They make for excellent skillmonkeys in a pinch if you don’t have a rogue because they have a wide set of class skills and a lot of skill points to throw around.

Inquisitor - Insert Monty Python Joke here. A Divine Spellcaster that exists somewhere between a Cleric and a Paladin. Another 2/3rds spellcaster like Bard, they walk a fine line of being fight-ier than a cleric, and cast-ier than a paladin. Their two core gimmicks revolve around judgements and banes to boost your melee prowess, and free access to teamwork feats that make them work better with their allies. Uses Strength or Dex for their weapon of choice and Wisdom for their spellcasting

Kinetecist - Another odd duck. The closest comparison I have for them is something like the Warlock from Neverwinter Nights 2, but elemental flavored instead of demonic. They are not quite a spellcaster and not quite a ranged martial attacker like a Ranger. Rather than using traditional spells they have access to kinetic blasts that grow in power and complexity as they gain levels. You can shape the kinetic blasts, forming cones, walls, and other sorts of spell effects as well as add secondary effects on it depending on the elements of blasts you use. Because your powers tap into your life force to power, your primary stat is Constitution with a secondary in Dexterity to better hit your enemies

Magus - A hybrid class of a Fighter and a Wizard. Another 2/3ds caster like Bard, the primary gimmick of this class is that they can channel spells through their weapons as part of their attacks. Like wizard, can add spells to a spellbook and get a broader variety of weapons, but due to the nature of how magus spell combat works, they really want to load up on melee touch attack spells like Vampiric Touch, Shocking Grasp, and the like as well as combat spells like Shield and Haste. Core class explicitly tied to using a one handed weapon with one hand free though some of the variants play with that. Like the paladin, they can imbue their weapons with elemental effects so even when they aren't casting spells they are still hitting for extra damage. Needs Strength (or dex, depending on weapon choice) and Int in equal measure, and they can often be quite squishy because of stat commitments.

Slayer - The Fighter/Rogue multiclass is such a popular option in 3.5 that they spun it out into its own class in Pathfinder. Better in a straight punch-up than a rogue, but trickier and more skillful than a straight fighter makes this an incredibly versatile martial class. Can pick a fighting style like a Ranger. Like all the other martial classes, stat out like a frontline fighter - STR/DEX/CON


For the new classes in Wrath of the Righteous, I’m really not near as well versed. A lot of the new classes are Like ______ BUT ______. Oh god don’t take anything below as any sort of gospel.

Arcanist is a go-between of Wizard and Sorcerer, they get the best of both worlds by both being able to learn every spell and also get the spontaneous casting prowess of a sorcerer (countered by their spontaneous casting pool being shallower than a straight sorcerer). They gain a pool of points they can use to power up secondary abilities. Another intelligence based caster, like a Wizard.

Bloodrager is like Barbarian, BUT instead of getting rage powers that beef up their melee, they get spell like abilities based on their bloodline that trigger when they rage. Have access to a modified Sorcerer spell list and gets up to 4th level spells like Ranger and Paladin. Still incredibly punchy though.

Cavalier is Like Fighter/Slayer, BUT more Knightly flavored, focusing on mounted combat and pole weapons and MASSIVE charges

Hunter is like a Nature flavored Inquisitor, fighty-er than a druid, casty-er than a Ranger. They are a 2/3rds spellcaster and while wisdom based, work off the same spontaneous casting rules as Sorcerer / Oracle, pulling from the Ranger and Druid spell lists. Focused heavily on an animal companion pet

Oracle is to Cleric what Sorcerer is to Wizard - They have a limited pool of known spells but can cast them more often, the river is narrower, but deeper. Rather than domains, they have revelations to give them extra abilities and boosts. Their primary spellcasting stat is charisma.

Shaman is another flavor of Divine spellcaster, this one focusing on debuffing hexes and gets pseudo domain spells and abilities via communes with spirits. Has a similar spell selection as a witch, but all his spells are keyed off his wisdom. Compared to Witch they are a bit beefier with better hit point pools, armor proficiency, and attack bonus, but doesn't get as potent of hexes as the witch. Stat spread is kind of a mess and all over the place, needs a lot of wisdom for their primary and a passable amount of most everything else.

Skald is an interesting departure from a Bard and is effectively a Bardbarian. It’s still a very support oriented caster, but it is a more aggressive support style. They get access to martial weapons and medium armor, so they are much better built to mosh pit up in the front line. Their core class feature is getting barbarian rage and being able to share that with the group, making everyone ripshit murder hobos. Get CHA to feed your powers and abilities and then build like a melee fighter.

Warpriest is going to be like an alternate take on Inquisitor. Another 2/3rds caster that falls somewhere in between the Paladin <-> Cleric scale of fighty-ness vs casty-ness, but this one is unique in that it does get access to some of the fighter specific combat feats. Incredibly beefy when fully combat buffed. but still skews more of a caster bent than traditional Paladin.

Witch is an intelligence arcane spellcaster who’s main gimmick is that like shaman, they get access to the same sort of debuffing hexes that the above class gets, but at a higher potency in exchange for no armor proficiencies and wizard-like durability. They get access to similar spell pool as Shaman, which itself exists as it's own weird middle ground between divine and arcane, but you get some choice picks in there like healing spells as an arcane caster.

Mad Wack posted:

fyi be sure to open books in the info screen and scroll their text down to the bottom, some of the books give you minor bonuses to skills and damage to enemies. you'll know because your character will say they learned something, then you can check their abilities screen to see what they learned from what book

i never encountered this in the beta so it's cool to see


Grinning Goblin
Oct 11, 2004

One thing to note is that if you wanted custom NPCs, they use a 20 point buy system instead of your main character's 25 point buy. You are also encouraged to keep your everburning torches you get at the beginning or get some reliable aoe damage early on.

This is also a game where you can't just pick up everything because there are weight limits, but it isn't that big of a deal because before you leave every zone, you get an option to loot all of the corpses on the way out, so that way you can sort through all of the padded armors and clubs you are fine with leaving behind once instead of a dozen or so times.

willing to settle
Apr 13, 2011
This game feels really bad. Between the sluggish pace of everything, the woefully balanced combat and the generic (so far) writing, there really isn't a lot to recommend it.

DrManiac
Feb 29, 2012

willing to settle posted:

This game feels really bad. Between the sluggish pace of everything, the woefully balanced combat and the generic (so far) writing, there really isn't a lot to recommend it.


eh I'm enjoying it so far. It's not nearly to the quality of a PoE/BG but it's no inquisition. My main problem is PoE 2 just came out a few months ago and it brought the genre forwards in a lot of ways that this simply dosen't. I'm missing a lot of little stuff like being able to speed up time to make walking not be a slog or the bestiary not having pictures or recipes not having descriptions. It also dosen't help that low level combat in pathfinder is loving terrible.



Is there any reason to ever put Jaethal in your party? She dosen't seem to be good enough of a character gameplay-wise to justify the annoyance of her only healing source being spells.

ccubed
Jul 14, 2016

How's it hanging, brah?
I'm liking this game a lot so far. But I have SEVERE re-rollitis. I've gotten to the first inn like 4 times and restarted with different characters.

I hope we'll start seeing more build theorycrafting soon. This reminds me of Neverwinter Nights and I LOVED the incredibly detailed, precise and powerful characters you could create in that.

King Doom
Dec 1, 2004
I am on the Internet.
Do you get to build your own player character in this, or are they all premade? What sort of roleplaying is there? are we talking more Planescape level stuff or Fallout 4 levels?

JamMasterJim
Mar 27, 2010

DrManiac posted:

eh I'm enjoying it so far. It's not nearly to the quality of a PoE/BG but it's no inquisition. My main problem is PoE 2 just came out a few months ago and it brought the genre forwards in a lot of ways that this simply dosen't. I'm missing a lot of little stuff like being able to speed up time to make walking not be a slog or the bestiary not having pictures or recipes not having descriptions. It also dosen't help that low level combat in pathfinder is loving terrible.



Is there any reason to ever put Jaethal in your party? She dosen't seem to be good enough of a character gameplay-wise to justify the annoyance of her only healing source being spells.

Inquisitor is a pretty good class and undead can shrug quite a few things the rest of your team cannot, so she can actually be a useful bait at times.

Zodiac5000
Jun 19, 2006

Protects the Pack!

Doctor Rope
I picked up this game and my initial review is as follows, for the four groups of people I see it mattering to:

People who don't know poo poo about 3rd edition DnD or Computer RPGs:
There is zero chance this game would convince them of the merits of either. They will hate this game. Avoid like it's plutonium.

People who know how computer based RPGs work but not familiar/interested in Pathfinder:
They will find the game horrifically poorly documented and lacking a lot of QoL stuff that comes from the modern design, plus questionable QA. Purchase in the future if it goes on a good sale and gets some QA patches, otherwise stick with something like Divinity 2 or Pillars 2, you can get better CRPGs for your money.

People who know Pathfinder but aren't super familiar with computer RPGs:
The game will be faithful to the source material, if somewhat clunky. The game is almost exactly what they played on the tabletop with some odd decisions regarding resting mechanics that make me want to never use wizards because gently caress having to rest more. (one way to solve for caster supremacy I guess, make players hate doing what they need to be good) Purchase if you have the patience to handle clunk, maybe wait a few weeks if you think you need less QA issues, but you wanted pathfinder, now you have it, so definitely buy this game at some point.

People who know both pathfinder and computer RPGs:
The resting mechanics will baffle you, not because you don't understand them, but because you'll be confused why this was choice was made at all. The combat is extremely swingy, like the beginning of Baldur's gate where a gibberling could tear your bhaalspawn a new rear end in a top hat (at least at the start, I'm only about level 4 so far). The storybook action sections are better than most games use of them, and this game *feels* a lot more like playing an actual tabletop RPG than many of the newer games I've played (looking at you PoE and Torment). You will desperately wish you could have the dungeon-be-gone mod from BG2 after doing your fourth reroll (of the ten you are going to do before you pick a character). It's a 'purchase now' if you really want a pathfinder game and have the patience to handle the jank and QA problems. 'Purchase in like a month' if you'll need a new RPG in your collection soon but you want some of the rough edges sanded down, and 'buy on sale' if you're neither here nor there on pathfinder but the idea of having a more tabletop-ey experience appeals to you.

Knowing what I know now, I probably wouldn't have purchased the game this soon from a value-for-money standpoint. I'd probably belong to a 'purchase on sale' group, but I wanted a 'tabletop' experience and was willing to let the hunger override my good sense. I wont' call it bad value, but I won't call it a great deal either. It's not a terrible or bad game, and it's not really a great game either. It's probably best described as 'fine, but QA issues are real and the documentation is weak.'

TEENAGE WITCH
Jul 20, 2008

NAH LAD
it was a real choice to have heavy rain slow u down and then to have it rain all the time

redreader
Nov 2, 2009

I am the coolest person ever with my pirate chalice. Seriously.

Dinosaur Gum
I played a lot of BG1/2, and Icewind dale. I loved those games but didn't like Pillars of Eternity quite as much.

I'm not far into this one but it seems fantastic. I definitely recommend it. The writing seems fine. I haven't played for more than about 7 hours but I'm really enjoying it. I'm playing on normal, I don't ever recommend playing stuff like this on a hard difficulty level. The game seems to auto-save enough, but as one of the tips says "if you are unsure, save".

If you wanted BG3 with all of the quality of life improvements that have happened in gaming since then, get this.

wjs5
Aug 22, 2009
Do you get to actually build a settlement though?

Grinning Goblin
Oct 11, 2004

Probably should point out: on the wiki there seems to be a page for traits, that is a lie, traits don't seem to be in the game. Also is there any information on future DLC stuff? They just seem to think that there will be several waves of DLC, the Season Pass only covers the first few(if any), and it TOTALLY ISNT CUT CONTENT.

redreader
Nov 2, 2009

I am the coolest person ever with my pirate chalice. Seriously.

Dinosaur Gum

wjs5 posted:

Do you get to actually build a settlement though?

The first main task is to kick out a bandit lord from the not-kingdom. Spoiler any answer you have to this, but I'm suspecting that his fort becomes your base once you kill him. That's probably like 10-12 hours into the game.

From what the tooltips/etc have told me, kingdom management is involved. I'm guessing his fort becomes your base, and you can probably improve it etc. Tooltips have mentioned to 'assign the correct person to the correct position, e.g. a treasurer will improve your economy' so I think it's probably another layer of gameplay.

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

The game seems fun enough so far, but the hot patch earlier today broke the ability to hire custom companions.

Nissin Cup Nudist
Sep 3, 2011

Sleep with one eye open

We're off to Gritty Gritty land




The whole kingdom building thing seems really cool and what drew me to the game from pre-release info

But I have to get through my backlog and poo poo and lack of time

wjs5
Aug 22, 2009

redreader posted:

The first main task is to kick out a bandit lord from the not-kingdom. Spoiler any answer you have to this, but I'm suspecting that his fort becomes your base once you kill him. That's probably like 10-12 hours into the game.

From what the tooltips/etc have told me, kingdom management is involved. I'm guessing his fort becomes your base, and you can probably improve it etc. Tooltips have mentioned to 'assign the correct person to the correct position, e.g. a treasurer will improve your economy' so I think it's probably another layer of gameplay.

Having actually played kingmaker if it takes 12 hours to even get to the part were you finally get to control your city, the loving game should be like 300 hours long as we always managed to get to that point faster in real life.

Merrill Grinch
May 21, 2001

infuriated by investments
I'm like really :mad: that passing time in the kingdom simulator doesn't rest up your party. It's been three days guys, get out of my throne room and go memorize your spells or something.

Also if you want to use the "slow leveling" Pathfinder rules, that's cool. But then the monster xp is shaved down to a fraction of what it should be too. I could have really done with fewer trash fights to slog through with the remainder having a better reward. Level 5 is gonna take forever to get 9000xp at about 20 a pop.

I really want to like this game but it needs some QoL patches.

lurksion
Mar 21, 2013
Has anyone said anything about / investigated how moddable this is?

Nix Panicus
Feb 25, 2007

Does the game make sensible use of Pathfinder rules in a CRPG environment, or does it slavishly stick to completely stupid things BECAUSE THATS HOW IT IS IN THE RULES?

I've also read a few things about the early levels being completely unbalanced, with completely unwinnable random encounters (e.g. werewolves before you have access to silvered weapons) you can't run from and combat based around reloading until the dice gods like you rather than rewarding planning and tactics. Any truth to this?

Finally, is there any kind of balance between martials and casters? I know that in Pathfinder if a class isn't at least a half caster its trash, and the half casters pale in comparison to full casters, but maybe they did something with that for the game?

A surfing dog?!
Apr 23, 2006

I've definitely done some reloading, but changing my tactics is usually what ends up winning the fights for me rather than hoping I get luckier dice rolls. Expeditious Retreat pulling works pretty well for the few fights I've tried it on.

Rookersh
Aug 19, 2010

Not a Step posted:

Does the game make sensible use of Pathfinder rules in a CRPG environment, or does it slavishly stick to completely stupid things BECAUSE THATS HOW IT IS IN THE RULES?

I've also read a few things about the early levels being completely unbalanced, with completely unwinnable random encounters (e.g. werewolves before you have access to silvered weapons) you can't run from and combat based around reloading until the dice gods like you rather than rewarding planning and tactics. Any truth to this?

Finally, is there any kind of balance between martials and casters? I know that in Pathfinder if a class isn't at least a half caster its trash, and the half casters pale in comparison to full casters, but maybe they did something with that for the game?

I'm most of the way through Act 2 ( ie I have the Keep, and am now level 10ish ) and didn't know poo poo about Pathfinder before this. Couple thoughts. Oh and I'm playing on the Core Rules variant, which is Challenging in game?

- Wizards and other Casters are useful, but this really doesn't feel like a BG situation. Both my main character ( half orc Fighter with 22 Strength ), Amiri, and Jaethal have significantly higher body counts/utility then anyone else. I've won a number of boss fights by just hitting the drat thing for 40ish damage with a Greatsword. I find my Wizards more then anything are still casting buffs/supporting rather then actually killing whole groups of enemies, especially with the resting mechanic. My two best casters are also both mixed martial. One is mixed sword/casting, one is mixed bow/casting.

- Apparently this barely uses the Pathfinder ruleset? People are saying everything has too high of AC. I notice especially early on a lot of fights have a lot of missed swings. Tactics are super important though, you need to be charging casters/archers, you need to be sleeping chaff, etc etc. Abusing stuff like sleep/color spray is super helpful to get around the early game AC stuff and get a lot of hits off.

- There are some dumb choices tbh. Around level 2 you'll meet some Technic? Slavers who are all in near full armor/plate, and the game will outright tell you it's dumb to fight them. They only ask for a single companion. If you fight them and lose, they take the first companion downed. Thing is the whole thing is scripted so your companion will escape and show you their camp, which leads to more companions ( and a pretty easy fight at their camp. ). So it's a "broken bullshit fight." everyone on the forums is complaining about, but with a lot of outs.

There is also a swarms mechanic, which can only be damaged by AoE stuff, with no indication this is true, so a lot of people are running in and attacking swarms and getting party wiped because the game didn't explain poo poo.

The end of Act 1 fight at a Temple is vs a level 5-6ish Bear that can easily crit for 20-30 per hit, and does a ton of damage if you go in low level. Lots of people are going in at level 2-3 and getting party wiped by this bear. Thing is if you complete the zone first the Bear is trivial cause you'll be level 5-6.

The entire western half of the early game map is tied to the random encounter pool for a lategame/late chapter region, which means you can very easily get an encounter with Elder Air Elementals/Werewolves/etc at level 1. That feels more like a bug then anything, since it's only along a certain road.

redreader posted:

The first main task is to kick out a bandit lord from the not-kingdom. Spoiler any answer you have to this, but I'm suspecting that his fort becomes your base once you kill him. That's probably like 10-12 hours into the game.

From what the tooltips/etc have told me, kingdom management is involved. I'm guessing his fort becomes your base, and you can probably improve it etc. Tooltips have mentioned to 'assign the correct person to the correct position, e.g. a treasurer will improve your economy' so I think it's probably another layer of gameplay.

Yeah it's fairly complex. Companions can be given kingdom roles, you are constantly building individual buildings out, you have a conquest map to other territories, dealing with political intrigue from neighboring countries, etc etc.

Grinning Goblin
Oct 11, 2004

Not a Step posted:

Does the game make sensible use of Pathfinder rules in a CRPG environment, or does it slavishly stick to completely stupid things BECAUSE THATS HOW IT IS IN THE RULES?

I've also read a few things about the early levels being completely unbalanced, with completely unwinnable random encounters (e.g. werewolves before you have access to silvered weapons) you can't run from and combat based around reloading until the dice gods like you rather than rewarding planning and tactics. Any truth to this?

Finally, is there any kind of balance between martials and casters? I know that in Pathfinder if a class isn't at least a half caster its trash, and the half casters pale in comparison to full casters, but maybe they did something with that for the game?

So far it has been very faithful to the tabletop rules and mechanics. There are some things missing here and there, and I think they are using some unchained rules or unchained inspired rules(it looks/feels like the skills went through the consolidated filter twice). Favored class stuff isn't in there, but some of the bigger parts are still intact.

I think the random encounters mostly put you into combat right away and don't give you an opportunity to setup that much, but yeah, I think the random encounter chart in the game is a bit silly earlier on. I sure as hell hope that I'm not fighting a pack of 3 normal wolves like when I'm 12 or whatever.

Casters still looking pretty strong, but plenty of mobs seem to understand that sending their arrows towards casters is a good thing, so be prepared to have to break line of sight from enemies firing with a -whatever penalty from two to three screens away.

Nix Panicus
Feb 25, 2007

So its basically a decent game with poorly thought out open world mechanics letting players encounter stuff way earlier than intended?

If you do sequence break and hit encounters like the bear way earlier are there signposts that you shouldn't be here yet? And can you back out from a fight or do you just need to keep a ton of saves to reload from?

I'm trying to decide between this or PoE2 as a CRPG game.

SirFozzie
Mar 28, 2004
Goombatta!
One of my twitch.tv streaming friends is 15 minutes into a rant because he took advantage of a free resting place and got attacked by Viscount Smoulderburn.

Those of you who know what that is, and why it would be a bad thing for Level 3 people to stumble upon with no/little warning.. can understand his rant.

Rookersh
Aug 19, 2010

Not a Step posted:

So its basically a decent game with poorly thought out open world mechanics letting players encounter stuff way earlier than intended?

If you do sequence break and hit encounters like the bear way earlier are there signposts that you shouldn't be here yet? And can you back out from a fight or do you just need to keep a ton of saves to reload from?

I'm trying to decide between this or PoE2 as a CRPG game.

Uh, both are very different.

I'd say there really isn't a lot of signposts. It autosaves constantly so it's no big deal just reloading the autosave and retrying/going to a different spot but it's pretty gleeful about letting you get in over your head.

It's a much stricter interpretation of the old games, and really does feel like a Baldurs Gate 1.5 kind of deal mixed with a much more fleshed out Crossroads Keep. Like the plot is pretty basic if well told, it's a lot of low level DnD, and it doesn't hesitate to gently caress you. But at the same time it's working that nostalgia button in the back of my mind in a way neither of the PoE games did at all, and I loving love Kingdom building in games ( and the kingdom here is complex, fleshed out, and easily a game within itself. ).

On the other side of the coin, PoE2 is a modernization of the genre in a way it genuinely needs, almost moreso then Original Sin 2. I loving loved the storytelling in PoE2, I loved the boat action, the world building, the factions, it all came together really well. And so far the DLC have all been bangers. But PoE2 to me is kind of easy in a way that I struggled to deal with, I rarely if ever encountered a fight I couldn't just beat by just leaning on my go to strategies. Either I absolutely rolled every encounter without ever having to adjust my tactics/work with nothing, or I was facing a boss and had to use every single thing at my disposal. Technically I could just up the difficulty, but that only just lead to PotD. Which was awesome in PoE 1 and felt like the way to play for me. But in PoE2 feels awful and I'm not sure why. They've since readjusted it and have been adding in additional difficulty modifiers, so ymmv of course.

Of the two I'd probably say PoE2? This could use a QoL pass or two.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'
How's the writing, roleplaying, reactivity, companions etc?

The Crotch
Oct 16, 2012

by Nyc_Tattoo
I'm the fighter who put all her points into constitution and charisma and has trouble carrying her starting gear.

A surfing dog?!
Apr 23, 2006

Not a Step posted:

So its basically a decent game with poorly thought out open world mechanics letting players encounter stuff way earlier than intended?

If you do sequence break and hit encounters like the bear way earlier are there signposts that you shouldn't be here yet? And can you back out from a fight or do you just need to keep a ton of saves to reload from?

I'm trying to decide between this or PoE2 as a CRPG game.

Some of the tough encounters give clear indications, but there's also some bullshit ones like that cave where you pick berries. It autosaves before you enter each area so you shouldn't ever really get yourself stuck fighting something that's too tough. I would feel much better about the tough encounters if you could actually run away and leave areas while in combat, but the one time I tried it wouldn't let me.

Rookersh
Aug 19, 2010

Milkfred E. Moore posted:

How's the writing, roleplaying, reactivity, companions etc?

Writing is based off an actual module, so it's pretty basic. They fluff it up decently enough, but it's still ancient evil stuff at it's core.

Roleplaying is huge, you are constantly checked against your alignment/choices and that poo poo adds up. I've seen multiple neutral only options during quests that would have huge effects on playstyle. Same with good/evil, or lawful/chaotic. While the or part of the either/or equation tends to involve throwing you into encounters you will struggle to beat, if you do go off crit path and beat those encounters the game totally changes around it. For example in Act 1 you are constantly asked to either go after your Rival or go after the Stag Lord. If you go after the Stag Lord you get a chance to kill/recruit his generals which takes them out of the final battle/helps you out later. But your Rival then gets to accomplish more of his plans. If you go after your Rival you can get more companions/gently caress with your Rival, but will likely have to fight all the Stag Lords generals at the final fight.

It just spirals exponentially from there.

A quick example, if you are true Neutral you can convince the local kobolds/mites that the bad guy is just loving with all of them, and they need to stick it to the bourgeoisie because they are all small. You then start a socialist revolution amongst both groups and they potentially worship your character, and will show up constantly later on to be your eyes and ears in the Stolen Lands. Or you can help one side fight. Or the other. Or just slaughter them all. Each of these options adjusts and changes future stuff. It actually -feels- like it's taking your choices into account. Another great example is the end of the tutorial, where your actions in the tutorial determine which companions you get.

Companions are good. I like all of them so far, even the evil ones. They have great personality, and some form of interesting backstory. You can also of course influence them with your alignment/choices as well, and eventually put them into Kingdom positions once you unlock that.

The Crotch posted:

I'm the fighter who put all her points into constitution and charisma and has trouble carrying her starting gear.

jesus loving christ, gently caress valerie.

Jaethal is absurdly overtuned however, as are Regongar and Octavia, so they more then make up for how awful Valerie is.

SirFozzie
Mar 28, 2004
Goombatta!
I think the way to describe pathfinder:Kingmaker and it's story/system is.. that it is a CONVERSION of the Kingmaker AP, and it might have been better as an adaptation.

Node
May 20, 2001

KICKED IN THE COOTER
:dings:
Taco Defender
This sounds like a game I could enjoy, since I like mediocre RPGs, D&D or D&D-like systems, and real-time-with-pause combat.

Although it might be smart to wait until the game gets a few patches and some cut-content DLCs first.

Node fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Sep 28, 2018

Nix Panicus
Feb 25, 2007

I like the idea of leading a kobold revolution and setting up my own personal fiefdom of the proletariat. I also like that 'just beat it to death' is a viable path to victory. I was worried the game would be balanced around summon tanking and spell cheese.

Little bit less enthused about the jackass DM running the show who thinks TPKs are essential for realism and immersion, but I guess reloading exists.

How soon can I ditch the starting characters and create my own custom kill squad, and how much of the game am I missing out on if I do? Please tell me that at least one dev played D:OS2 and noticed that letting players pick their companion's class and build meant you could have companion stories *and* characters that didn't suck at the same time.

Merrill Grinch
May 21, 2001

infuriated by investments

Rookersh posted:

- Apparently this barely uses the Pathfinder ruleset? People are saying everything has too high of AC. I notice especially early on a lot of fights have a lot of missed swings. Tactics are super important though, you need to be charging casters/archers, you need to be sleeping chaff, etc etc. Abusing stuff like sleep/color spray is super helpful to get around the early game AC stuff and get a lot of hits off.

Part of it is the character builds. Amiri and Valerie both start with a -2 attack penalty when you get them due to poor equipment choices. Also, both are built around taking an Exotic Weapon feat...for the same weapon. It's like some of the characters were designed by committee.

New players just starting out: replace Amiri's oversized bastard sword with a greatsword until she gets some more base attack and Valerie's tower shield for a heavy shield until at least level 5.

bandits
Jun 7, 2018
Once you wrap your head around it, this is quite a fun - difficult - but fun game.

Companions are mechanically a bit of a mixed bag, and the start is very rough for casters. I second dropping to a Medium Shield for Valerie and giving Amiri a new weapon for the their lower levels. The AI for Regongar is suicidal, so you're best to micromanage until you can move him into Dragon Disciple for the stat bonuses. Octavia is really useful as an Arcane Trickster, but I do find there's a bit of overlap with the bard. And with the way the game has been written it's hard to justify not taking Linzi.

I've been playing a DEX-based Fighter / Sorcerer (planning to move into Eldritch Knight) so far which has been an enjoyable build - the fighter level helps immensely early game - but the lack of anyone really resilient outside of Valerie is very noticeable. The magus is a serious glass cannon at the moment. May be better off changing to a straight up Sorcerer, dropping Octavia and taking Amiri instead... or dropping the difficulty down.

Eddain
May 6, 2007
My first test character was an Eldritch Archer and I couldn't figure out how to make use of his ranged spell casting. So if I have it correct, Magus can do melee spellcasting where you can cast your spell in your offhand or on your weapon, and when you attack in melee range the spell triggers? On the Eldritch Archer info page it says instead of melee spellcasting they get ranged spellcasting, where they use your ranged weapon to cast their spells. But there's no visual indicator that it's working and I still only see the basic Magus melee spellcasting ability (which if I try to activate disables all my casting ability since I'm using a ranged weapon).

Trizzdog
May 5, 2014
Original Proprietor of Space Dank



SirFozzie posted:

One of my twitch.tv streaming friends is 15 minutes into a rant because he took advantage of a free resting place and got attacked by Viscount Smoulderburn.

So that's what happens when you go OH BOY FREE RESTING PLACE beside the corpse? Dang, I should've gotten spooped.

So far I've been Punchmaster Flex, the half-orc Scaled Fist (or whatever) who's intimidation roles are absolutely absurd and his one mission in life is to make those with pants poop them. When he becomes king, he will be sure to mandate pants for everyone. As long as it poops, it gets pants. ( I swear this isn't a fetish )

On a more serious note, designers of these kinds of games should really learn that giving you weird /over-challenging encounters that aren't suitable for the beginning when your team is poo poo and you don't have the (natural) tools to deal with them sucks. I luckily had burning hands for the infamous spider cave with the berries in it but I agree everyone should be mad about it.

CommissarMega
Nov 18, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Can you still progress companion quests if you hire generics? As said before, Valerie sucks, and I'd like to get some actual front-line muscle before I go any further.

BurgerQuest
Mar 17, 2009

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Appreciate that advice, just reached Oleg and was struggling initially.

Liking the game so far, the pace seems fine for me and I find myself paying attention to the combat log more than I have in other similar games.

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Cavauro
Jan 9, 2008

Zodiac5000 posted:

I picked up this game and my initial review is as follows, for the four groups of people I see it mattering to:

People who don't know poo poo about 3rd edition DnD or Computer RPGs:
There is zero chance this game would convince them of the merits of either. They will hate this game. Avoid like it's plutonium.

People who know how computer based RPGs work but not familiar/interested in Pathfinder:
They will find the game horrifically poorly documented and lacking a lot of QoL stuff that comes from the modern design, plus questionable QA. Purchase in the future if it goes on a good sale and gets some QA patches, otherwise stick with something like Divinity 2 or Pillars 2, you can get better CRPGs for your money.

People who know Pathfinder but aren't super familiar with computer RPGs:
The game will be faithful to the source material, if somewhat clunky. The game is almost exactly what they played on the tabletop with some odd decisions regarding resting mechanics that make me want to never use wizards because gently caress having to rest more. (one way to solve for caster supremacy I guess, make players hate doing what they need to be good) Purchase if you have the patience to handle clunk, maybe wait a few weeks if you think you need less QA issues, but you wanted pathfinder, now you have it, so definitely buy this game at some point.

People who know both pathfinder and computer RPGs:
The resting mechanics will baffle you, not because you don't understand them, but because you'll be confused why this was choice was made at all. The combat is extremely swingy, like the beginning of Baldur's gate where a gibberling could tear your bhaalspawn a new rear end in a top hat (at least at the start, I'm only about level 4 so far). The storybook action sections are better than most games use of them, and this game *feels* a lot more like playing an actual tabletop RPG than many of the newer games I've played (looking at you PoE and Torment). You will desperately wish you could have the dungeon-be-gone mod from BG2 after doing your fourth reroll (of the ten you are going to do before you pick a character). It's a 'purchase now' if you really want a pathfinder game and have the patience to handle the jank and QA problems. 'Purchase in like a month' if you'll need a new RPG in your collection soon but you want some of the rough edges sanded down, and 'buy on sale' if you're neither here nor there on pathfinder but the idea of having a more tabletop-ey experience appeals to you.

Knowing what I know now, I probably wouldn't have purchased the game this soon from a value-for-money standpoint. I'd probably belong to a 'purchase on sale' group, but I wanted a 'tabletop' experience and was willing to let the hunger override my good sense. I wont' call it bad value, but I won't call it a great deal either. It's not a terrible or bad game, and it's not really a great game either. It's probably best described as 'fine, but QA issues are real and the documentation is weak.'

As part of the second group I appreciate the advice and will take it. I hope it takes a very long time for your life to end and that it doesn't hurt

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