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Post by Munroe on May 12, 2019 23:21:03 GMT -5
I just got Pathfinder Kingmaker CRPG on Saturday.
Has anyone here played it very much?
I'm about 10 hours in right now.
My character is an angel-blooded aasimar rogue. (It has the standard NWN races plus aasimar and tiefling.)
I'm trying to decide which weapon to select for Finesse Training at level 3. (It uses the Unchained Rogue revision from Pathfinder Unchained.)
So far I get some serious Baldur's Gate vibes while playing it, but I'm not to the kingdom-building part yet.
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Post by DM Maleficent's Kiss on May 13, 2019 1:10:16 GMT -5
I haven't Munroe but I just looked it up and honestly it looks amazing, I want to try it and may purchase it at some point here - Maybe during the Steam summer game sale?(usually most games go on sale at some point).
If/when I manage to get it I'll post back here.
I caught myself watching several youtube videos of the gameplay and it really looks nice and fluid.
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Post by Munroe on May 13, 2019 5:39:12 GMT -5
Yeah, I caught it on a one day sale on Saturday, got the "Royal Edition" for 50% off and season pass for 25% off. (I bought the season pass separately, rather than getting the "Imperial Edition" as it saved about $3 over the sale price on the "Imperial Edition." Only difference between "Royal Edition" and "Imperial Edition" was that the latter came with the season pass.)
I ultimately decided to multiclass rather than picking my weapon for Finesse training at Rogue 3. I wanted to train a martial weapon but didn't have martial weapon proficiency. So I multiclassed ranger (flamewarden) instead. Now I have martial proficiency and access to the weapon I actually wanted. Now I just have to decide how much rogue and how much flamewarden I want. I took favored enemy (outsider) since I'm playing an aasimar and I figured their first favored enemy would be some kind of fiend. The description of the Favored Enemy skill said I'd have to pick a specific outsider if I selected outsider as favored enemy, but then it didn't prompt me to pick one. (It also said picking humanoid would require picking an individual humanoid subrace as well, but there was no option to pick "humanoid," the humanoid subraces were all listed separately on the list of favored enemies.) That's fine by me, I'm happy to have all outsiders as favored enemies. It may be that they just know there were actually very few outsiders in the game, so it might not make sense to make players pick only one kind of outsider.
The game has a few class archetypes available for each of the classes. For ranger it has standard ranger, freebooter archetype, flamewarden archetype, and stormwalker archetype. I don't remember what the archetypes were for rogue. I went with standard rogue, as I don't like to give up my standard rogue features.
I'm level 3 and Steam says I've played 18 hours. I probably should be higher level, but I kind of spend a lot of time wandering around. I encountered a worg that talked to me and my party barbarian was like "Is that wolf talking?" Silly barbarian doesn't read enough. Heh.
I'm playing on "Challenging" difficulty. It's the step just above normal, basically the standard Pathfinder rules, sort of like how "D&D Hardcore" is the difficulty above normal on Neverwinter Nights. I talked to my brother about the game a bit and he said he might get it and play it on an easier difficulty, but I don't understand that logic as he didn't like Baldur's Gate and it's very much in the same vein.
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Post by jensmann on May 13, 2019 6:05:59 GMT -5
I played it a few weeks after it was released. Assimar grenadir alchemist. Played to between chapter 4 and 5 i think. Character creation is a joy. So many fun options. Npc's are well written, kudos to actually having an interessting and believeable CE Character. I especially like the monster difficulty and Variety. Would love to see a dungeon based on thier big undead threat on frc.
All in all the only worthy game to compare to baldurs gate II imo.
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Post by Thrym on May 13, 2019 11:13:51 GMT -5
Played it a few weeks after it came out, shelved it somewhere during Chapter 5 because uh... that was pretty much how far they had gotten with fixing gamebreaking bugs at the time. I hear they're mostly done with that by now, so I might pick it back up in the near future. Despite the bugginess at the time, I found it quite enjoyable. Played an LG gnome sylvan sorcerer myself. A few non-spoilery tips I'd like to give folks who wanna try it... 1. Be sure to keep your skill checks high - and I mean really high. Not everyone needs to be good at every skill, but someone in your party must be good at any given skill. Compared to the xp you get for monsters, the xp you gain for high dc skill checks is ridiculously high (especially late in the game), and if you fail too many, you will be noticably underleveled. 2. If you know what D&D alignments mean, do yourself a favour and do not play LG. I did. Oh boy. The writers clearly played too much Warhammer 40k before writing LG dialogue options. You can keep your alignment by alternating between NG and LN choices and come across like a sane person, but the actual LG options are just ridiculous (and so is the way supposedly LG NPCs in the game act at times). 3. Once you get to the kingdom management, keep an eye on your stability. Once it drops, you'll never get it back up (unless you pick a very specific option later which ... basically locks your happiness at perfect forever by giving you +1 stage every month). Make sure you always keep some Build Points in reserve, because if you spend any during a dialogue and drop under 0, you'll loose stability. Also, note that the merchant in your Barony sells Build Points for gold. I think they might have made this a bit easier since I stopped playing, and I did fine even back then, but I've seen people on reddit say it can go south reeeeeeeally fast. 4. Later in game, there is an unavoidable quest with some Hellknights. That quest is horrible, railroady and buggy, and you will hate it. Everyone does (unless they fixed it since I last played!). Just power through and remember the rest of the game is much better written. Unless it involves anything LG, I mean. 5. If a fight is hard, Delay Poison, Communal and Stinking Cloud spammage are your friends.
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Post by Munroe on May 13, 2019 18:55:33 GMT -5
Played it a few weeks after it came out, shelved it somewhere during Chapter 5 because uh... that was pretty much how far they had gotten with fixing gamebreaking bugs at the time. I hear they're mostly done with that by now, so I might pick it back up in the near future. Despite the bugginess at the time, I found it quite enjoyable. Played an LG gnome sylvan sorcerer myself. A few non-spoilery tips I'd like to give folks who wanna try it... 1. Be sure to keep your skill checks high - and I mean really high. Not everyone needs to be good at every skill, but someone in your party must be good at any given skill. Compared to the xp you get for monsters, the xp you gain for high dc skill checks is ridiculously high (especially late in the game), and if you fail too many, you will be noticably underleveled. 2. If you know what D&D alignments mean, do yourself a favour and do not play LG. I did. Oh boy. The writers clearly played too much Warhammer 40k before writing LG dialogue options. You can keep your alignment by alternating between NG and LN choices and come across like a sane person, but the actual LG options are just ridiculous (and so is the way supposedly LG NPCs in the game act at times). 3. Once you get to the kingdom management, keep an eye on your stability. Once it drops, you'll never get it back up (unless you pick a very specific option later which ... basically locks your happiness at perfect forever by giving you +1 stage every month). Make sure you always keep some Build Points in reserve, because if you spend any during a dialogue and drop under 0, you'll loose stability. Also, note that the merchant in your Barony sells Build Points for gold. I think they might have made this a bit easier since I stopped playing, and I did fine even back then, but I've seen people on reddit say it can go south reeeeeeeally fast. 4. Later in game, there is an unavoidable quest with some Hellknights. That quest is horrible, railroady and buggy, and you will hate it. Everyone does (unless they fixed it since I last played!). Just power through and remember the rest of the game is much better written. Unless it involves anything LG, I mean. :p 5. If a fight is hard, Delay Poison, Communal and Stinking Cloud spammage are your friends. I'm playing Neutral Good. I haven't had a problem with the LG dialogue options so far, but I find that I tend to alternate between the LG and CG and occasionally LN and CN dialogue options because there just won't be one for Neutral Good at all. My alignment indicator started at the top, and it looks like it tracks each change in alignment, so it's kind of moved down a little and lists back and forth between Lawful and Chaotic. I'm a bit annoyed with some of the Neutral Evil dialogue options. I feel like those are more Neutral Bluff options than Neutral Evil sometimes. Like I'd say that kind of stuff so I sound less concerned than I really am. Some of the Neutral dialogue options seem kind of mean, like the in-game equivalent of saying "Cool story, Bro" after somebody just told you they were a slave and things were hard as a slave, or something. I did go with the Neutral option when dealing with the war between the mites and the kobolds though. It seemed the most legit option to me. I don't have access to Delay Poison, Communal yet (too low level), but I've been tossing Delay Poison on my lowest statted NPC so she doesn't die. Giant centipede venom was wrecking my progress for a bit. My NPCs in my party right now are LN fighter, CN barbarian, CG bard, CG rogue/wizard, and CN cleric. (And I have an NE inquisitor and CE magus that I keep leaving at the tavern.) Inquisitor is one of my favorite of the newer classes, so I'd like to get one of those in the party, just not the NE one I have available. I considered playing an inquisitor initially, but I wanted my rogue stuff. Right now I'm just trying to find the kobold shaman somewhere under the tree, but I feel like I've been everywhere down there. I hope it's not like when I played Vampire: The Masquarade -- Redemption back in ~2000. I played that game and spent 17 hours in the first dungeon, then I got a new monitor and saw I was missing an obvious turn--that dungeon only took 3 hours to complete, I just couldn't see that I was actually going in circles because my screen was too dark. (And no, I don't know how I managed to wander around the same dungeon for 17 hours. I'm sure some of that was going back to town.)
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Post by Thrym on May 14, 2019 1:23:20 GMT -5
I dimly recall that area being somewhat silly - while it's one big game-map, the mite and kobold areas are actually kinda separate - if you go back outside, the northern entrances (near that big tree) should lead to the mite area.
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Post by Munroe on May 14, 2019 8:45:33 GMT -5
I dimly recall that area being somewhat silly - while it's one big game-map, the mite and kobold areas are actually kinda separate - if you go back outside, the northern entrances (near that big tree) should lead to the mite area. I figured it out. I just needed to talk to {{an NPC}} and she pointed me in the right direction.
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Post by Southpaw on May 25, 2019 13:41:20 GMT -5
I am playing this game off and on, and I love it. It does have its bugs, but my biggest issue is how long it takes to load into an area, even those I’ve been in before. Installing the cleaner mod and cleaning every area I leave probably cut the time it takes for me to play through by about 2/3.
I also think the alignment of dialogue choices can be silly, and it’s very frequent that large swaths of the alignment spectrum don’t even have a representative option. There is one instance where killing a given set of NPC’s is both LG and CE, but allying with them is somehow NG, with no CG option. There’s another monster where attacking it is automatically LG, because not only are CG characters apparently not offended by sentient monsters that eat people, but CE psychopaths won’t kill it for a lark, either.
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Post by Munroe on May 26, 2019 21:04:58 GMT -5
I am playing this game off and on, and I love it. It does have its bugs, but my biggest issue is how long it takes to load into an area, even those I’ve been in before. Installing the cleaner mod and cleaning every area I leave probably cut the time it takes for me to play through by about 2/3. I also think the alignment of dialogue choices can be silly, and it’s very frequent that large swaths of the alignment spectrum don’t even have a representative option. There is one instance where killing a given set of NPC’s is both LG and CE, but allying with them is somehow NG, with no CG option. There’s another monster where attacking it is automatically LG, because not only are CG characters apparently not offended by sentient monsters that eat people, but CE psychopaths won’t kill it for a lark, either. I haven't experienced the long load time issue, and I have the game installed on a hard drive, not a solid-state drive. My experience is that I don't have enough time to read the paragraph of character background that it puts up for the NPCs on the loading screen. I like how all the loot on the ground is persistent. That means I can come back and get the rest of that loot later when I'm not encumbered. I'm playing version 1.3.3 of Kingmaker, if that makes a difference. It's true that not all alignments are represented as choices in all dialogues. That hasn't generally bothered me. And yes, I can see how killing them could be both LG and CE. It's not just about killing them, it's about the intent behind doing so. The LG character does it because they're evil little monsters. The CE character does it because they're CE and like to slaughter things. I'm playing NG, so I liked that the NG option was to sue for peace until you could figure out who was really at fault between the two evil sides. The game tracks your character's alignment shifts over time on the alignment wheel, so think of it more as alignment being a result of your actions, not just your actions being dictated by your alignment. You may enjoy the experience more if you turn off the setting that shows which dialog options are which alignment. That is an option. You can just turn off the game telling you the alignments of dialogue choices before you select them. That might give you a more immersive experience. Though I do like playing with them on because sometimes it's hard to tell which alignment the creators think goes with which option. (I've picked the Neutral option a few times knowing it would shift me toward TN, because I still felt it was the most NG option.)
I played through the Varnhold's Lot DLC. I think it took me about 30 hours, but it reports that it took 18 hours on my final save for the DLC. I reloaded a lot, so I was constantly rolling back saves. Sometimes during my playthrough of the Varnhold's Lot DLC I was shocked by how unfair the game felt with the numbers of enemies and difficulties of enemies that it threw at me, but I did beat Varnhold's Lot without lowering the difficulty, so I guess they were relatively fair fights after all. I mean, I reloaded after dying a whole lot, but that seems to be part of the experience. It's like "OK, they just tore me apart. What can I do differently this time?" In the main campaign, I'm a bit annoyed with the NPC Tristian, the cleric of Sarenrae, because he's an ecclesitheurge cleric. As an ecclesitheurge gives up armor proficiencies and gains the ability to prepare his primary domain spells in any spell slot, and cast spells of of any of his deity's domains in his domain slots. I played an ecclesitheurge cleric of Sarenrae in Varnhold's Lot but my primary domain was the Fire domain. That means I could prepare scorching ray as a level 2 spell in any level 2 slot, and fireball as a level 3 spell in any cleric slot. But Tristian has the Good domain as his primary domain. That's basically useless since he has Protection from Good as a domain spell and as a cleric he can already prepare Protection from Alignment (not just Protection from Good) in any of his level 1 slots. I don't know what spells Good domain grants at higher levels, but I'm guessing it's going to be more cleric spells he can already prepare in any slot. One good thing about him is that he has a special property where Sarenrae saves him from death with a divine intervention whenever he would have died and instead he's teleported back to your base. That means he's one less NPC I have to worry about raising later. Anyway, at this point I've played to a higher level in Varnhold's Lot (which starts at level 5) than I have in the main campaign. So maybe Tristian will have some redeeming benefit from that Good domain that I'm not seeing yet. (You play a different PC in Varnhold's Lot than in the main game since you serve the neighboring baron Maegar Varn in Varnhold's Lot.)
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Post by Munroe on May 26, 2019 21:10:48 GMT -5
I just saw an announcement on Twitter about Pathfinder Kingmaker Enhanced Edition being a free upgrade to existing owners. It's set to come out on 06 June.
It's going to add the Slayer hybrid class from Advanced Class Guide. I'm tempted to restart my main game and play as a slayer instead of a rogue/ranger(flamewarden) multiclass. I love the slayer class. It's a hybrid of rogue and fighter with reduced sneak attack progression but full BAB.
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Post by xeneize on May 27, 2019 5:14:51 GMT -5
I played this game. It is fun but a little weak on the story in my opinion. I might go back to play the varnhold expansion.
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Post by Southpaw on May 27, 2019 5:37:20 GMT -5
The loading time issue grows over time. In Act One, I was totally fine. By Act Three, I actually got to the point of using a clock to time how much of my life I was wasting sitting around waiting for a game to load, and it was taking 20 full minutes to load a screen. (That's not an exaggeration, it was 20 full minutes.) The cleaner cut that down to around 1-2 minutes on a long instance to this point.
I also like having items remains around until I pick them up later, but the cleaner mod also supposedly cleans out all kinds of other files. For instance, as I've been told on a discussion of the cleaner mod, the game actually keeps track of every location that every item has ever been in for the entire time you've played them game, even after you pick them up and sell them, and not just their current locations, as well as other totally useless information that isn't even valid or usable anymore, and has nothing to do with items. It gets ... really ... slow.
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Post by Munroe on May 27, 2019 6:05:34 GMT -5
The loading time issue grows over time. In Act One, I was totally fine. By Act Three, I actually got to the point of using a clock to time how much of my life I was wasting sitting around waiting for a game to load, and it was taking 20 full minutes to load a screen. (That's not an exaggeration, it was 20 full minutes.) The cleaner cut that down to around 1-2 minutes on a long instance to this point. I also like having items remains around until I pick them up later, but the cleaner mod also supposedly cleans out all kinds of other files. For instance, as I've been told on a discussion of the cleaner mod, the game actually keeps track of every location that every item has ever been in for the entire time you've played them game, even after you pick them up and sell them, and not just their current locations, as well as other totally useless information that isn't even valid or usable anymore, and has nothing to do with items. It gets ... really ... slow. Well, hopefully this issue is resolved already or resolved soon. They are still patching the game.
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Post by Munroe on Mar 4, 2020 0:15:07 GMT -5
I haven't posted in this thread for awhile but I thought I'd give it a bump because I still really like this game. I'm still playing Pathfinder Kingmaker intermittently, alongside The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, for a very different experience. Steam reports that I've played Pathfinder Kingmaker for 182 hours and The Witcher 3 for 125 hours. I'm not very far in either game because I play them kind of like I play NWN: I just run around like a tourist 70% of the time. But anyway, I am really still enjoying Kingmaker so I thought I'd post a Twitch video here of when I was playing recently: Pathfinder Kingmaker. Isle in the Candlemere, from Chapter 2 (I think.) It's mostly just fighting Will-o-wisps on an island that has been overgrown by extraplanar plants, but it shows the combat and interface and stuff.
This footage is on the "Challenging" difficulty, which is Kingmaker's equivalent of the "D&D Hardcore" difficulty from NWN. In other words, the difficulty most authentic to the tabletop rules.
My character is a Neutral Good aasimar (azata-blooded) slayer 9 (deliverer archetype) that worships Sarenrae (NG goddess of the Sun, Truth, and Healing). The current NPC party are: CN human barbarian 9 CG halfling bard 9 NG human cleric (of Sarenrae) 9 (ecclesitheurge archetype, no armor proficiencies) CG half-elf rogue 5/transmuter (wizard) 4 LN gnome alchemist 9
Slayer class was added in the "Enhanced Edition" update last June. It's a hybrid class that originally appeared in Pathfinder RPG Advanced Class Guide. It's a hybrid of the rogue and ranger classes. It has full BAB and d10 hit dice, +1d6 sneak attack every 3 levels, ranger specializations (mine is two-weapon specialized), and Studied Target. Studied Target works similarly to ranger's favored enemy if it were combined with assassin's Death Attack. Basically, by studying the target, the slayer can declare the target as their studied target and get bonuses against it. The bonuses are more like a ranger's favored enemy bonuses than death attack though, and it's also faster to study a target, and becomes even faster as the character levels. (At my character's current level, any target my character successfully sneak attacks becomes her studied target.) My slayer and my NPC rogue/wizard companion both have the feat that adds +1d6 to their sneak attack, but their total sneak attack dice cannot exceed half of their character level. This feat helps a lot with the loss in sneak attack progression from slayer (only +1d6 every 3rd level) or from multi-classing.
When I played through Varnhold's Lot (a side-plot mini-campaign DLC that is a prequel to some events I haven't encountered yet in Chapter 3), I had a rogue NPC in my party with an archtype (Eldritch Scoundrel) that granted her wizard spells at a magus-like spell progression, at the cost of a reduced sneak attack progression. I sometimes still forget that my rogue/wizard NPC companion in the main campaign isn't that eldritch scoundrel NPC companion when I'm in combat. The rogue/transmuter wizard is one of the named campaign NPCs, as all my current NPC companions are, but there is the ability in-game to hire your own custom-built mercenary companions as well, so perhaps I'll eventually hire an eldritch scoundrel mercenary companion. I don't know though, I talked to the mercenary captain recently, and hiring a custom NPC companion at my level currently costs 40,500 gp.
I also have the Under the Stolen Lands DLC that adds a random (changing?) multi-layered dungeon, but I haven't played that at all yet. It strikes me as more "optional' than the other DLC.
The playable races in the game are all the same standard races from NWN plus the aasimar (including multiple aasimar bloodlines).
Tiefling is also available to be added as a playable race in the Wildcards DLC, which also includes the kineticist class (from Pathfinder Occult Adventures), and adds the tiefling kineticist NPC companion and her questline to the main campaign.
Owlcat Games, the makers of Pathfinder Kingmaker cRPG are working on their follow-up now, the Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous cRPG. Where Kingmaker focused on kingdom building in addition to adventuring, Wrath of the Righteous is going to focus on army building to beat back the demonic hordes of the Worldwound (a gaping portal to the Abyss that allows demons to flood out into what used to be a kingdom of the setting). The Pathfinder Adventure Path Wrath of the Righteous (both Owlcat games are based on existing adventure paths) was designed so that the characters would gain mythic powers, which is sort of Pathfinder's replacement for epic level adventuring, and the Wrath of the Righteous cRPG is going to incorporate mythic powers as well. They've already announced that one mythic path players can pursue is lichdom. Basically, mythic is an overlay system that doesn't add more levels beyond 20 but instead grants additional ... basically super-powers ... at lower levels. So anyway, I'm looking forward to Wrath of the Righteous even though I know I'm over 100 hours into Kingmaker and I'm only in Chapter 2.
Anyway, check out the linked video so you can see me being bad at fighting will-o-wisps.
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Post by Munroe on Mar 21, 2020 23:11:03 GMT -5
I really enjoy this game....
So I figured I'd give you guys a heads-up that the base game is on sale on steam for the next ~35 hours for $16.00. (The add-ons are marked down too.)
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Post by Munroe on Mar 23, 2020 4:30:51 GMT -5
Sale ends in 7 hours. Did anybody buy it on sale? I know I sound like I'm shilling for OwlCat Games/Deep Silver/Paizo, but I really enjoy this game and I want others to have a chance to enjoy it too. I recommended it to my tabletop Pathfinder players as well. Only response I got was "I don't PC game at all, but this is super cool." store.steampowered.com/app/640820/Pathfinder_Kingmaker__Enhanced_Edition/
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Post by malclave on Mar 23, 2020 5:51:53 GMT -5
I bought it yesterday, but haven't tried it yet.
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Post by ShadowCatJen on Mar 23, 2020 7:39:17 GMT -5
Got it in my library now. Got one of the bundles cause I do love a bargain. Thanks for giving the heads up on a game I'd been intending to get for a very long time now. ^_^
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Post by lucesi on Mar 23, 2020 7:59:14 GMT -5
Thought I'd give it a go as was so cheap, yet to play but looks pretty cool.
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Post by Munroe on Mar 23, 2020 9:38:44 GMT -5
I'm super excited to hear what you guys think whenever you get started.
For those who are unfamiliar with the setting, the game loves to put mouseover tool-tips on proper names of deities and countries and stuff when they appear in conversation, so you won't feel like you're too lost in a new setting, I hope.
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Post by styxxbone1 on Mar 23, 2020 10:21:39 GMT -5
Post screens you Noobs!
styxx
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Post by Munroe on Mar 23, 2020 17:33:03 GMT -5
Post screens you Noobs! styxx I don't have any screenshots posted (because I hate dealing with picture hosting services) but I do have another Twitch Video of the game. Pathfinder Kingmaker Talon Peak Roc Egg QuestIt's shorter than the other one I posted (this one is only 30 minutes) and possibly more interesting since there's a bit of monster variety. Plus the characters are higher level so there's more spellcasting and such to show. No commentary since I don't even keep a microphone plugged into my computer. This is for a side-quest so I don't think it's particularly spoilery, except for that side-quest, I guess. The entire adventure segment of the side-quest is shown. I wrote details about my character and my NPC companions in the video description, including alignments and classes, so if you don't want to know that stuff, mind the description. Of course the sale is over now, but I'm still eager to hear what people think of the game.
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Post by styxxbone1 on Mar 23, 2020 21:35:52 GMT -5
Looks a lot like the Infinity Engine from Bauldur's Gate... Noob!
styxx
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Post by Munroe on Mar 24, 2020 12:46:48 GMT -5
Looks a lot like the Infinity Engine from Bauldur's Gate... Noob! styxx Technically, Pathfinder Kingmaker is built in the Unity Engine and is fully 3D, but in a fixed camera angle to simulate the Baldur's Gate (Infinity Engine) experience. (Though the follow-up game, Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, is going to have a rotating camera.) I played a crap ton of Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast expansion back in the day (1997), and it was my first exposure to D&D. Never got into Baldur's Gate II though because I bought it after I started playing NWN, and couldn't get back into my Baldur's Gate character because it had also been my first NWN character. (Now I play a "unique" character in every game so that doesn't happen.) I never finished Baldur's Gate, but I fully explored the overworld map. I got stuck in the fight with Sarevok in the main game--which I assumed to be the final boss fight, but I don't know--and got stuck in Durlag's Tower in Tales of the Sword Coast. Durlag's Tower seemed a lot harder than the rest of the game to me. Yes, Pathfinder Kingmaker gives me HUGE Baldur's Gate vibes. However, at this point, I may have actually logged more hours in Pathfinder Kingmaker. There's no way for me to know since playtime tracking wasn't really a big thing back then. (I don't remember if the BG savegames saved the time played on them, but I'd have a Hell of a time tracking those down, if I even can.) I remember one of the hardest fights I had in Baldur's Gate that I actually succeeded on was a random encounter (or it seemed random to me) with a vampire wolf in the wilderness. Later, when I got into D&D 3.x, I was like "Huh, the vampire template says it can only be applied to humanoids. What was Baldur's Gate thinking?" In hindsight, Baldur's Gate probably just meant it as a vampire in wolf form. Though the Ghostwalk Campaign Option also included the Monstrous Vampire template and it could be applied to animals and magical beasts, as well as a whole host of other creature types. (Its sample creature was a vampire wolf.) Pathfinder's vampire template is also a bit more liberal in what types of creatures it can be applied to. Side story, Pathfinder RPG doesn't have the dracolich template from D&D, as that was apparently never released under the OGL, but they just made their lich template a bit more liberal, since dragons can cast as sorcerers anyway, and a dracolich equivalent can be built with the standard lich template. They also have their own kind of intelligent dragon undead template called a Ravener that works differently, and is surrounded by a vortex of swirling souls that grant it defensive bonuses.
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Post by styxxbone1 on Mar 24, 2020 15:18:22 GMT -5
I did some HEX Editing of the Infinity Engine's BG files with the TeamBG Guys. Made some custom playable Characters like a Winter Wolf and a Gnoll, even an ogremaji. All you really had to do was edit the appearance code in HEX or later in an editor and assign weapons. The Winter Wolf used a melee and a missle weapon. One was it's bite, the other it's breath. Care had to be taken otherwise you could bug the game if you put the wrong items in the wrong slots. There were codes to allow the edited creatures to accept join invitations or to be just NPC/Monsters.
So the Vampire wolf, which I remember being in the coastal area south of Candlekeep was probably a vampire that had it's appearance code changed. A pretty simple edit. Each creature had a two didget appearance code in it's file.
We also edited and imported maps and animations from the other Infinity Engine games like Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment. There was a way to play BG I in the BG II engine via an app that imported the entire BG I game into BG II. It was nice to be able to dual wield and use some upgraded Class Templates in the original game.
Sarevok was pretty tough, but so were some of the Durlag's Tower fights. And the one with the demon on the Island after you completed Durlag's Tower. I would still give the edge to Sarevok though. Alone he was bad enough, but with his minions in the Temple Under the City he was probably the hardest battle.
Using cheat codes you could pit Saravok against Drizzit. Sarevok won about 8 times out of 10.
styxx
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Post by Munroe on Mar 24, 2020 16:52:51 GMT -5
I did some HEX Editing of the Infinity Engine's BG files with the TeamBG Guys. Made some custom playable Characters like a Winter Wolf and a Gnoll, even an ogremaji. All you really had to do was edit the appearance code in HEX or later in an editor and assign weapons. The Winter Wolf used a melee and a missle weapon. One was it's bite, the other it's breath. Care had to be taken otherwise you could bug the game if you put the wrong items in the wrong slots. There were codes to allow the edited creatures to accept join invitations or to be just NPC/Monsters. So the Vampire wolf, which I remember being in the coastal area south of Candlekeep was probably a vampire that had it's appearance code changed. A pretty simple edit. Each creature had a two didget appearance code in it's file. We also edited and imported maps and animations from the other Infinity Engine games like Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment. There was a way to play BG I in the BG II engine via an app that imported the entire BG I game into BG II. It was nice to be able to dual wield and use some upgraded Class Templates in the original game. Sarevok was pretty tough, but so were some of the Durlag's Tower fights. And the one with the demon on the Island after you completed Durlag's Tower. I would still give the edge to Sarevok though. Alone he was bad enough, but with his minions in the Temple Under the City he was probably the hardest battle. Using cheat codes you could pit Saravok against Drizzit. Sarevok won about 8 times out of 10. styxx Yeah, the Sarevok fight I mean was deep under the city. I remember the closest I ever got to beating him was when I gave Imoen Arrows of Immolation. Man, those were scary. I tried to play Baldur's Gate II a little bit, and I was excited to see that it included dual-wielding proficiency, but I never could get my character to actually equip two weapons, and I was already playing NWN and immersed in the 3.x system, so that, combined with the fact that I couldn't get back into my character, who had a fully realized alternate life in a NWN multiplayer server by then, meant that I never got far in BGII. I never even made it out of the starting prison. I never did figure out why I couldn't equip two weapons when my character had two weapon proficiency, but I found most of AD&D mechanics did not work the way I expected, so that didn't surprise me. It sounds like you were really deep in the scene. All that being said, think you'll try Pathfinder Kingmaker?
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Post by styxxbone1 on Mar 25, 2020 23:11:27 GMT -5
The starting dungeon was kinda tedious even if it set the stage plot wise. I made a generic save game on exiting the prison. Then you could skip it with a new character.
I started with Basic, then we went to AD&D, but 2nd Edition is what we played most. 3.5 is tolerable, but I heard things get stupid after that. Dual classing in 2nd Edition was a lot different. For Imoen to be effective as a rouge mage you had to start her mage class at lvl 6. Where upon she lost all rouge skills until she got over lvl 6 as a mage. Dual classing was one of the biggest flaws in 2nd Ed. Fixed in 3rd Edition.
BGII Dual wielding was limited to certain weapons. You might have had one that was classed as two handed maybe? You had to put the larger weapon in the right hand weapon slot and the second in the shield slot.
Regarding Sarevok, I found swarming him with summons and using spells and arrows, webs and vines to tie him up, keeping him away as long as possible worked best. He's a munchkin. Wands of monster summons and undead, slow him down.
No I have not played Pathfinder, but I might look it up.
styxx
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Post by Munroe on Mar 26, 2020 0:15:06 GMT -5
No I have not played Pathfinder, but I might look it up. Well, if you're looking it up, be aware that "Pathfinder RPG" is the name of the tabletop game (a system based on D&D 3.5e), and "Pathfinder Kingmaker" is both the name of an adventure path in that game and the name of the computer game based on that adventure path. So if you're looking up the computer game, specificity is your friend. Otherwise you might get some less relevant results. (There's also a Nissan Pathfinder and a movie called Pathfinder about vikings.)
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Post by Munroe on Aug 19, 2020 19:08:55 GMT -5
Just bumping this to say that the Pathfinder Kingmaker Definitive Edition came out and the PC version on Steam (most recently the "Enhanced Edition") and other game services now has all the mechanical upgrades of the Definitive Edition.
The two major changes to the game are the ability to play with a controller (since the "Definitive Edition" is also coming out on consoles) and the ability to toggle turn-based mode off and on any time in combat.
Turn-based Mode is awesome, making it feel more like Pathfinder TTRPG than ever before. You can toggle Turn-Based Mode off and on at any time, even mid-combat. It's a new button on the HUD.
The controller support is implemented by either pressing the A Button or Any Key on the keyboard during the game loading. Whichever you press loads the interface and HUD for that kind of control. The controller interface is completely changed from keyboard/mouse control. Switching between the two means of control requires restarting the game. There isn't means to use keyboard/mouse and a controller at the same time since the interface is completely different.
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