Pathfinder Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition - now with turn-based combat

[Tytus]

Interesting. Now do the rest of the female companions, and nyrissa

I'll do one more I would have think more about the rest.

Linzi:

Spoiler

Linzi is my favourite character in the companion roster so I will be probably biased, but at first Linzi is presented as this very energetic, spontaneous, quirky and very positive character. Bioware had a lot of those. She falls right into Mass Effect's Tali archetype, right? In my opinion no. Linzi is incredibly petty, spiteful and vengeful at times. For example I mentioned that Valerie was unloading her stress onto her. Ok, sure I can understand how this can be annoying. But if you take Linzi with you for Valiere's trial where for all you know Valerie's life is at stake. Linzi will still try to point out how Valerie was mean to her, how Valerie is impolite, how Valerie is a bad person. Linzi is basically taking revenge. Valerie is down and she is kicking her metaphorical teeth in. The same thing happens with her bully. If you convince her to write a book about the Academy with the whole truth in it, she will expel the poet that tormented her when they were much younger. No forgiveness. No understanding. No consideration what he will do now or what will happen to him. And because of that it gets him killed. And all of this stems from the fact she is really self-centred and egoistic. And when he dies. The lesson she takes out of it is not that she should care about what her actions can do to people around but, that she must become the paragon of honesty in her work. Not to mention she steals the money for a printing press - because she always wanted one. No thought whatsoever how this money could've been used for the sake of the Barony. Linzi is so spiteful because Linzi is basically a narcissist. "She" will write the best book. "She" will change the world. "She" will have the best printing house etc. That really contrasts with her "Tali-like" behaviour making her an actually interesting character. Western RPGs would never present a "positive" character from the group like that. Though it can also make her unlikable

So yeah - this is the kind of writing I like about Kingmaker and want in Wrath. Thing is in my opinion

Characters being interesting > Characters being likeable.
I'm not playing a dating sim to collect waifus and husbandos. I'm playing an RPG and I would like to get some interesting stories.

 

[Yosharian]

Now you're misrepresenting my point. I'm not interested in simply collecting waifus either. Brienne of Tarth is not a waifu.

They are not interesting stories to me. They are badly written, ham-fisted characters.

 

[fantadomat]

Amiri
She is the strongest character in the group arguably

LoL no,she was maybe the most useless companion of the group,tho a pretty good general strangely. I have the feeling that she was written by more than one writer. Also i fond it amusing how most of the quests i had to cheese my way to win. As a fighter she was extremely useless. She couldn't hit stone statue and was going down from a few attacks.

As your analogy,well i do agree,but it this was not only part of the game. There was plenty of sjw garbage,but in the end you had freedom of choice and was balanced by other based writing.

 

[Ontopoly]

Now you're misrepresenting my point. I'm not interested in simply collecting waifus either.

They are not interesting stories to me. They are badly written, ham-fisted characters.

I am. The more fantastical or impractical in real life they are, the better. Can't wait for Rune factory 5 but until then I'm finding what I can where I can.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Now you're misrepresenting my point. I'm not interested in simply collecting waifus either. Brienne of Tarth is not a waifu.

They are not interesting stories to me. They are badly written, ham-fisted characters.

Dude stop trying to be high quality romance writing critic while you are simply complaining that the content in pfk just doesn't suit your view. So any character with modern values and social issue is garbage but strong woman who actually want to be muh princess and romance is interesting. Bugger off, your bias is showing.

If you are going to refute by saying I am SJW for tolerating such writing then bugger off because I agree with Tytus analysis pretty much. They are written with certain chracteristic in mind and are pretty much deconstruction of "strong woman"trope. They are well balanced writing wise with maybe Amiri as exception.

I find Briene of Tarth infatuation with Jammie and romance to be fucking dumb but it doesn't mean she is badly written, just she is a character that doesn't appeal to me.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Tytus Another interesting thing is that default stats and classes of the characters support the story of those characters. I wrote it before, but I think it's worth repeating myself. Look at strong, independent Amiri. Her enormous and unwieldy sword gives penalty to BAB, she is a barbarian with too low strength, and she is almost unable to take a punch. So on high-ish difficulties her main role is to use her high speed to get to the backline and sneaky kill mages and archers. Or to stay enlarged behind the front line and cut throats from afar. I think it's very nicely merges with her story of how she acquired the sword of the giant.

The last time I saw such sinergy between game lore and game mechanics was when my blood mage in Dragon Age: Origins dealt with Templar's Smite.

 

[The_Mask]

Valerie is actually not a strong woman. Ironically, you have to pump STR into her with pretty much every chance you get, to make sure she stays afloat.

Also... the way Valerie is portrayed, with her "amazing charisma", she should be in the realms of 20 CHA or higher, but she is - in fact - just a 15.



You couple that with a high CON, for a companion, and you should be getting the picture: she's a woman that is very fit, who decided to go for a bowlcut, thinking that would be wise.



Turns out, it isn't. Adventure ensues. Decisions can be made. Consequences can be had. Fun.

Spoiler

Also when she gets the scar, there is no CHA drain - which was a nice touch on the "test" she will have to go through.

 

[fantadomat]

Valerie is actually not a strong woman.

Ahhh i disagree,she becomes the strongest after a few levels in. She is a damage dealing tank mate,she is normally the last one to fall. Dwarf on the other hand was the most disappoint one,he was pretty mediocre in everything. You get the expresion that he will be good tank,but in the end he is underwhelming at best,still better than muh barbarian woman.

20 CHA or higher, but she is - in fact - just a 15.

I do agree with this,it is shame that they missed that part of it. Tho it could be argued that charisma and beauty are different stats. Charisma is more about persuasion and leadership,and she did suck at both of those.

 

[Nerevar]

Jaethal did nothing wrong.

 

[Yosharian]

Now you're misrepresenting my point. I'm not interested in simply collecting waifus either. Brienne of Tarth is not a waifu.

They are not interesting stories to me. They are badly written, ham-fisted characters.

Dude stop trying to be high quality romance writing critic while you are simply complaining that the content in pfk just doesn't suit your view. So any character with modern values and social issue is garbage but strong woman who actually want to be muh princess and romance is interesting. Bugger off, your bias is showing.

If you are going to refute by saying I am SJW for tolerating such writing then bugger off because I agree with Tytus analysis pretty much. They are written with certain chracteristic in mind and are pretty much deconstruction of "strong woman"trope. They are well balanced writing wise with maybe Amiri as exception.

I find Briene of Tarth infatuation with Jammie and romance to be fucking dumb but it doesn't mean she is badly written, just she is a character that doesn't appeal to me.

I didn't once reference her infatuation with Jaime Lannister. In fact, the show writers pushed that angle far too hard, and completely ruined her arc. But I digress.

I didn't say that characters with modern values and 'social issue' [sic] were garbage. What I said was, I am not interested in being lectured to by writers that are practically incompetent, and certainly incapable of crafting an arc that manages to address such issues while not reducing the character to a cardboard cutout.

That's why I referenced Brienne, who definitely has modern values and whose arc definitely comments on social issues affecting our society. The fact that she secretly longs to be more feminine (you misrepresent my point by using the term princess, that's not what I said) is incidentally interesting, it is not the reason I like the character.

I also didn't use Brienne as an example of a romantic interest. Broadly speaking, I would simply like the female romanceable NPCs to be likeable. That means having at some redeeming features. Victoria is an absolute bitch, but she has some redeeming aspects which you discover if you dig deeper. None of Kingmaker's romances have such depth, and none of them are written with sufficient quality to carry the stories they're attempting to tell.

 

[Yosharian]

Tytus Another interesting thing is that default stats and classes of the characters support the story of those characters. I wrote it before, but I think it's worth repeating myself. Look at strong, independent Amiri. Her enormous and unwieldy sword gives penalty to BAB, she is a barbarian with too low strength, and she is almost unable to take a punch.

Making her a fucking shit character, thanks for proving my point.

 

[Yosharian]

Valerie is actually not a strong woman. Ironically, you have to pump STR into her with pretty much every chance you get, to make sure she stays afloat.

Also... the way Valerie is portrayed, with her "amazing charisma", she should be in the realms of 20 CHA or higher, but she is - in fact - just a 15.



You couple that with a high CON, for a companion, and you should be getting the picture: she's a woman that is very fit, who decided to go for a bowlcut, thinking that would be wise.



Turns out, it isn't. Adventure ensues. Decisions can be made. Consequences can be had. Fun.

Spoiler

Also when she gets the scar, there is no CHA drain - which was a nice touch on the "test" she will have to go through.

Also none of this makes her a person you want to bring along in your party

Also she has the personal charisma of a dung heap and is far from the beauty she thinks she is, yet has a 15 charisma score - this is supposed to be incline?

 

[The_Mask]

Also none of this makes her a person you want to bring along in your party

De gustibus...

 

[Yosharian]

Also none of this makes her a person you want to bring along in your party

De gustibus...

You must be the ultimate storyfag if a fighter with a shit strength score and a needlessly high con/cha is your idea of a great character to bring in your party.

 

[LannTheStupid]

De gustibus...

"Jedem das Seine". Has a nice smell of gas and smoke, doesn't it?

 

[The_Mask]

"Jedem das Seine". Has a nice smell of gas and smoke, doesn't it?

I'm Latin, so we express ourselves a bit differently. Also... my particular brand of Latin, likes people on top of sharp sticks.

... but I appreciate the comment.

 

[fantadomat]

Also none of this makes her a person you want to bring along in your party

De gustibus...

You must be the ultimate storyfag if a fighter with a shit strength score and a needlessly high con/cha is your idea of a great character to bring in your party.

Have you even played the game??? She is the best fighter by far. The undead chick has good dps but it is glass cannon,the dwarf is meh all around,the goblin was also pretty good melee fighter if you build him well. Focus her on longsword and shield,and the bitch fucks up everything lol.

 

[Desiderius]

Also none of this makes her a person you want to bring along in your party

De gustibus...

You must be the ultimate storyfag if a fighter with a shit strength score and a needlessly high con/cha is your idea of a great character to bring in your party.

Have you even played the game??? She is the best fighter by far. The undead chick has good dps but it is glass cannon,the dwarf is meh all around,the goblin was also pretty good melee fighter if you build him well. Focus her on longsword and shield,and the bitch fucks up everything lol.

I've played four different builds with Val that all dominated the game in their own way, but in none did she do so via DPS, with the possible exception of Kinetic Knight.

Her CHR ends up base 17 through her companion quest and there's a fairly common Bastard Sword that boosts it up into the mid-20s. Nor is the CON needless, as it gives her high enough Fortitude to save vs. early poison and is the main attribute of one of her best builds (Kinetic Knight).

Inspiring a beautiful woman to follow your lead is one of the best things in life and brings out the best in a man. That's how Val's CHR functions in this game and is her strongest role.

The Dwarf is not meh all around. +4 AC vs Giants (Troll and Zombie), Touch of Chaos (no save!), and Destructive Aura are all unique effects, and he has very high base WIS for Archon's Aura (and survives better in the middle of the fray which is where you need it).

 

[Desiderius]

This is entirely the same problem that Obsidian had with the Pillars series. They were, and still are, entirely too obsessed with lecturing the player with smartass social commentary and pseudo-intellectual horseshit. That stuff can be fascinating if a writer with actual talent does it, but please, give me a fucking break. Tolstoy you are not, you pretentious fucks.

In the land of the blind...

They are exactly our Tolstoy, but point taken. Would like some likable, feminine wimmenfolk for a change.

 

[Desiderius]

I wonder how the writers feel when the stat people tell them that 0.01% of players explored the male NPC romances

Everything has to be 50-50 these days, gotta have equal amounts of female, male, hetero, gay, bi, dwarf, midget, furry, blah blah blah. Alright, whatever. But can we get fucking real for a moment, there is no fucking way that there is as much demand for manlove and hunky NPC mans as there is for some big-titted elf waifus, for a game whose playerbase is 99.9% male.

Alright, just had to get that out my fucking system.

50-50 would be a vast improvement, as Trashos pointed out.

 

[Desiderius]

Yup. I think Trashos had a fairly nuanced take on it in the kingmaker thread... a lot of characters are presented as a particular trope of SJW note and then that trope is deconstructed throughout the game. I think some people just bounced off that stuff at the beginning and never delved further.

Which is not to say the companions are all amazing or anything... just that some of the criticims of them as mouthpieces for a particular agenda are overblown.

For what it's worth, I was the one who talked Trashos into that take after he was initially trashing what he took to be the usual Poz.

But yeah, four Anna Kareninas were a bit much. Should have worked a Natasha Rostova or two in there as well.

 

[santino27]

Yup. I think Trashos had a fairly nuanced take on it in the kingmaker thread... a lot of characters are presented as a particular trope of SJW note and then that trope is deconstructed throughout the game. I think some people just bounced off that stuff at the beginning and never delved further.

Which is not to say the companions are all amazing or anything... just that some of the criticims of them as mouthpieces for a particular agenda are overblown.

For what it's worth, I was the one who talked Trashos into that take after he was initially trashing what he took to be the usual Poz.

But yeah, four Anna Kareninas were a bit much. Should have worked a Natasha Rostova or two in there as well.

I think you more talked him into giving the characters a chance and continuing to play, at which point he could see for himself, but maybe that's just semantics.

 

[Desiderius]

I think you more talked him into giving the characters a chance and continuing to play, at which point he could see for himself, but maybe that's just semantics.

Yes, the chance was "wait and see how they're ackshually deconstructed."

To Yosh's point, it's not a perfect fit for a game but since we don't read novels anymore it's the only place this shit does get deconstructed, which it desperately needs to be for the benefit of all involved.

 

[LannTheStupid]

But yeah, four Anna Kareninas were a bit much. Should have worked a Natasha Rostova or two in there as well.

Why do you have to bring up this horrible doorstop that gave me trauma during my school days?!

 

[fantadomat]

Also none of this makes her a person you want to bring along in your party

De gustibus...

You must be the ultimate storyfag if a fighter with a shit strength score and a needlessly high con/cha is your idea of a great character to bring in your party.

Have you even played the game??? She is the best fighter by far. The undead chick has good dps but it is glass cannon,the dwarf is meh all around,the goblin was also pretty good melee fighter if you build him well. Focus her on longsword and shield,and the bitch fucks up everything lol.

I've played four different builds with Val that all dominated the game in their own way, but in none did she do so via DPS, with the possible exception of Kinetic Knight.

Her CHR ends up base 17 through her companion quest and there's a fairly common Bastard Sword that boosts it up into the mid-20s. Nor is the CON needless, as it gives her high enough Fortitude to save vs. early poison and is the main attribute of one of her best builds (Kinetic Knight).

Inspiring a beautiful woman to follow your lead is one of the best things in life and brings out the best in a man. That's how Val's CHR functions in this game and is her strongest role.

The Dwarf is not meh all around. +4 AC vs Giants (Troll and Zombie), Touch of Chaos (no save!), and Destructive Aura are all unique effects, and he has very high base WIS for Archon's Aura (and survives better in the middle of the fray which is where you need it).

I agree with you mate,she doesn't have the biggest DPS but it has the biggest Damage per encounter. Shield and sword + high str late game make her very reliable at hitting shit,which is the most important thing in kingmaker with the very high enemy ac .

The dwarf is not meh,but ahhh medium at everything. He is worst than Val at tank and melee fighting,he is worst than the angel dude at cleric shit and +ac bonus is against low level enemies that are not really a threat. He is still better than the gender study barbarian and last more than the undead chick. My point is that he is not a specialist but a rounded up character that you take for balance. The black dude and the goblin are your dps people,tristan and mage harlot are your magic shit,val is your carry,undead chick is you specialized dps. The dwarf is just there,his cleric shit is downright useless compared to tristan's.