Codex Review RPG Codex Review: Pathfinder Kingmaker

[Roguey]

What! I think he did a good job with the monk portrait! See:

That's fine, but I'm not sure if that's a different artist or if he put additional effort into that one because the companion portraits frequently have feet covered up, Rob Liefeld-style https://pathfinderkingmaker.wiki.fe...ion_pathfinder_kingmaker_wiki_guide_600px.jpg https://pathfinderkingmaker.wiki.fe...ion_pathfinder_kingmaker_wiki_guide_600px.jpg
And when he does draw them, they're hideously long monstrosities https://pathfinderkingmaker.wiki.fe...ion_pathfinder_kingmaker_wiki_guide_600px.jpg https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd....licy=Letterbox&imcolor=#000000&letterbox=true

Did you sing the goblin song? It occurs at chapter 3 during the season of bloom. It's pretty neat. Here's what I am talking about:

Yep.

Hey Roguey have you tried out the DLC Varnhold's Lot? Its short and features a fun dungeon. You start at level 5 too. There also isn't as many combat encounters compared to the main game.

Nope, just bought The Wild Cards. Unfortunately I'm not up for downloading a 21 gb patch and then Varnhold's Lot (also I saw a report that the latest patch broke The Wild Cards? so they better fix that too).

Limiting resting just made melee/ranged physical dps parties better than magical dps parties.

If you can use just 1 buff per combat and rely on weapons you need to rest less than when you do damage via spells.


So it is not so good choice. You just fuck up mage parties for no reason.

You don't need to restrict resting as much as I did, I believe you can get by if you rest after every 3-5 fights or so. Just not every time.

 

[Pink Eye]

Hehe. I one hundred percent agree.

I have never got tired of the starting animation. For me it is a deep breath before amazing experience that lies ahead. Like raising the curtain. AT this moment I usually have my last thoughts of what I am going to do, where my party is, and what I will see in this game session.

To each his own, I guess.

It gets tiring after seeing it for the one thousandth time. Trust me.

 

[Pink Eye]

I guess the feet do look weird.
>Unfortunately I'm not up for downloading a 21 gb patch and then Varnhold's Lot
Me either. I haven't downloaded the recent patch.

>also I saw a report that the latest patch broke The Wild Cards? so they better fix that too
That's Owlcat for you. First patch always ends up breaking stuff.

 

[LannTheStupid]

It gets tiring after seeing it for the one thousandth time. Trust me.

I will probably use this, then.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

I didn't notice any of the feet until you posted them out. My aunt Petunia the ranger used to have a thing for feet too. She even hunted down a griffin family just to collect their feet.

 

[Pink Eye]

Me either. I didn't notice that Harrim didn't have feet until they showed me his picture.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Bestiary monsters get a DM to control them.

There are many criticisms of the original AP, but with a few exceptions the encounter design is not amongst them.

A lot of Owlcat's changes to Bestiary stats are frankly arbitrary at best and completely nonsensical at worst.

Random owlbears of death in the swamp area

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

Me either. I didn't notice that Harrim didn't have feet until they showed me his picture.

Yet another victim of aunt Pentunia's feet fetish.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Too short for a review. Codex staff complains about difficulty. Doesn't even finish the game. This is not the kind of codex review I used to read...

Write your own review and submit it.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

Bestiary monsters get a DM to control them.

There are many criticisms of the original AP, but with a few exceptions the encounter design is not amongst them.

A lot of Owlcat's changes to Bestiary stats are frankly arbitrary at best and completely nonsensical at worst.

Random owlbears of death in the swamp area

I killed them on hard with some level 7 characters. So they're not too bad.

 

[Pink Eye]

You can cheese the Owlbears with range outside the area. However, you need to bait them to the sides by summons.

 

[jerfdr]

Ok what the hell?? Its a mostly positive review that ends with "i never want to play it again.....". If you don't want to play a big crpg for the second time despite all the new choices you can make, builds for your character or different companions then this game is absolutely mediocre. How can you possibly call it a "rough diamond" then?

It's very subjective. I personally never play RPGs for the second time, even my favourite ones which I consider to be amazing games (well, apart from a couple of cases when I replayed an RPG 10-15 years after the first playthrough, by which time I've almost completely forgotten the plot), since for me the story is always much more important than the combat, and if I already know the story even the most amazing RPG turns into a boring tedium for me. And speaking of choices, I always roleplay one sort of a character and I make all of the decisions according to that, which means that I'll still make the same choices I made on the first playthrough even if I'd do a second one. So yeah, for some people it makes perfect sense to consider an RPG a "rough diamond" (or even the best game ever made), but still to never want to replay it.

 

[Pink Eye]

Well the reviewer did comment on how there was a lot of combat encounters in the game. Eventually it will wear you down. Like I said. The game is a one hundred plus hour game. Its okay if they don't want to go through it again.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

You can cheese the Owlbears with range outside the area. However, you need to bait them to the sides by summons.

This is a good point too. The game lets you do things like this to help you deal with encounters you'd normally be completely overwhelmed by if you don't know how to deal with them. Even if they are death machines. I remember the same type of thing in Baldur's gate where there were some encounters with casters where I didn't want to get held so I was able to bait enemies away from the rest of the group and kill them one-by-one... Or fireball spam a large group to death with wands winning before combat even started...

 

[Pink Eye]

You can also go in, invisibility + vanish, grab the loot. Then run away. A lot of combat encounters are optional. Most of them don't even give you enough experience to warrant fighting them.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

The Lawful Good way is to smite all of the enemies. If they are hostile to you, they must be evil!

 

[Kalin]

Shillycuck Kikeytron enlists part-nigger Roguey to pen some autistic TL/DR that Pinkeye could've summed up in a brief and concise HotU style review.

This is the Cuckdex you got now with this edomite trash mod in charge. You only had to listen.

 

[Terra]

Ok what the hell?? Its a mostly positive review that ends with "i never want to play it again.....". If you don't want to play a big crpg for the second time despite all the new choices you can make, builds for your character or different companions then this game is absolutely mediocre. How can you possibly call it a "rough diamond" then?

It's very subjective. I personally never play RPGs for the second time, even my favourite ones which I consider to be amazing games (well, apart from a couple of cases when I replayed an RPG 10-15 years after the first playthrough, by which time I've almost completely forgotten the plot), since for me the story is always much more important than the combat, and if I already know the story even the most amazing RPG turns into a boring tedium for me. And speaking of choices, I always roleplay one sort of a character and I make all of the decisions according to that, which means that I'll still make the same choices I made on the first playthrough even if I'd do a second one. So yeah, for some people it makes perfect sense to consider an RPG a "rough diamond" (or even the best game ever made), but still to never want to replay it.

Yeah, I don't know where you guys find the time/patience for these 2nd and 3rd playthroughs so soon after finishing the first one. Ever since becoming time poor, as soon as I hit a poorly paced section on a too-soon replay of the game my attention starts to wander somewhat. There's loads of things I've found that can trigger that "yeah, bored now" feeling on a replay - a shit area/level design, bad pacing, lack of music, the list goes on.

In recent years, I loved my Witcher 3 and PF:K playthroughs and have 200+ hours on each, but it's gonna be years before I consider a replay of either, even if there are different choices I could make, is it worth a reinvestment of another 100 hours for some minor/major branching content variations versus that time going towards other games in my backlog? Usually the answer is no. Don't give much of a shit about different builds and I'll have strip-mined as much quest/companion content as possible in my initial playthrough. Heck, I only recently replayed the BG saga for the first time in probably a decade and I am glad I waited that long because it made that replay a much better experience.

 

[Pink Eye]

Ok what the hell?? Its a mostly positive review that ends with "i never want to play it again.....". If you don't want to play a big crpg for the second time despite all the new choices you can make, builds for your character or different companions then this game is absolutely mediocre. How can you possibly call it a "rough diamond" then?

It's very subjective. I personally never play RPGs for the second time, even my favourite ones which I consider to be amazing games (well, apart from a couple of cases when I replayed an RPG 10-15 years after the first playthrough, by which time I've almost completely forgotten the plot), since for me the story is always much more important than the combat, and if I already know the story even the most amazing RPG turns into a boring tedium for me. And speaking of choices, I always roleplay one sort of a character and I make all of the decisions according to that, which means that I'll still make the same choices I made on the first playthrough even if I'd do a second one. So yeah, for some people it makes perfect sense to consider an RPG a "rough diamond" (or even the best game ever made), but still to never want to replay it.

Yeah, I don't know where you guys find the time/patience for these 2nd and 3rd playthroughs so soon after finishing the first one. Ever since becoming time poor, as soon as I hit a poorly paced section on a too-soon replay of the game my attention starts to wander somewhat. There's loads of things I've found that can trigger that "yeah, bored now" feeling on a replay - a shit area/level design, bad pacing, lack of music, the list goes on.

In recent years, I loved my Witcher 3 and PF:K playthroughs and have 200+ hours on each, but it's gonna be years before I consider a replay of either, even if there are different choices I could make, is it worth a reinvestment of another 100 hours for some minor/major branching content variations versus that time going towards other games in my backlog? Usually the answer is no. Heck, I only recently replayed the BG saga for the first time in probably a decade and I am glad I waited that long because it made that replay a much better experience.

>I don't know where you guys find the time/patience for these 2nd and 3rd playthroughs so soon after finishing the first one.
Well I've been playing Pathfinder for about three years now. I don't understand people who can finish a game then quickly jump to the next one. If I find a game that I enjoy playing, I stick to it like glue. Only moving on when I finally get bored of it or the next installment comes out.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Those Westerners and their "time investment".

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Whisper]

You don't need to restrict resting as much as I did, I believe you can get by if you rest after every 3-5 fights or so. Just not every time.

1/ You are chaing subject. We talk that limited camp supplies just make phys.dps groups >>> magical dps groups.
Which is bad since it limits viable party setups, for no reason.


2. You also didnt play mage party on hardest difficulty. "Every 3-5" fights is a lot per rest for them. You are out of spells on hardest difficulty by end of 2nd fight. GL making 5 fights with 1 rest.

But for physical dps team 5 fights per rest is easily doable. Haste every fight and some heals after. Maybe throw 1-2 buffs more for hard battles, most of them last for full battle duration.



TL&DR
So it is bad idea to limit rests since it hurts some party setups and not even noticable for other party setups.

 

[Tigranes]

In my experience, people focus on one sentence in your last paragraph like it is the most important comment in the entire review

Because it's the conclusion paragraph? Writer with such big postcount should know how to form a paragraph better, actual conslusion of the text above. Especially when he was chosen to be the face of rpg codex.

The Codex isn't a newsroom, and there's no gladiatorial combat to determine which reviewer gets to post. You write a review, you submit it, if it's decent it probably goes up. As per rule of any community 101, 99% of people can't be bothered.

 

[Roguey]

Roguey does it mean that you got serviceable internet connection now?

Better bandwidth restrictions than there were before, but they're still present. Wasteland 3, for example, is something that would take me 3 months, 2 if I temporarily upgraded to the most I can get (though in that case it'd just be two days if I started on the last day of the cycle and continued on the next).

1/ You are chaing subject. We talk that limited camp supplies just make phys.dps groups >>> magical dps groups.
Which is bad since it limits viable party setups, for no reason.

The reason is that you're not meant to play this system as a spell spammer.

I've looked it up and the tabletop consensus appears to be 2-4 before a rest https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?256211-GM-Advice-Number-of-encounters-before-resting. D&D 5e explicitly suggests 7 encounters before a long rest with two short rests in-between.

2. You also didnt play mage party on hardest difficulty. "Every 3-5" fights is a lot per rest for them. You are out of spells on hardest difficulty by end of 2nd fight. GL making 5 fights with 1 rest.

But for physical dps team 5 fights per rest is easily doable. Haste every fight and some heals after. Maybe throw 1-2 buffs more for hard battles, most of them last for full battle duration.

Then don't play on the hardest difficulty? They call it "Unfair" for a reason.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Pool of Radiance review when?

This being RPG Codex, we would receive a review of Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor, instead.