newtmonkey
Arcane
Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Once I discovered you can actually generate a full party shortly after the tutorial (just stay at level 1 before you hire mercenaries), I restarted and am now having a blast playing this. What a great game! I made three tanks (fighter, paladin, cleric), a bard, and two mages (sorcerer and wizard). I know absolutely nothing about the Pathfinder system, though I know it's based on D&D3... I also don't know the first thing about about D&D3, but it's close enough to AD&D from the Gold Box games that it's not too difficult to understand.
Right now I'm exploring the world a bit during chapter 1. It's really quite surprising how slow you gain levels in this game. In the Gold Box games, you get most of your XP from finding hidden treasure, but here everything seems to just hand out a couple hundred of XP at the most. On the other hand, your party is FAR more competent at level 1 here than in the Gold Box games; outside of at the inn in the fort, I've only rested once so far in the wilderness but have completed a few quests. You also find magical equipment pretty quick, so even if you don't level up you still gain some appreciable power quickly.
I am really enjoying the overall structure of this game. It's a "hex crawl" where you are given a certain objective that must be completed within a certain number of in-game days, but have the freedom to wander over the map and encounter locations and encounters. It feels a lot like a mixture of Baldur's Gate with Fallout, with a bit of Pool of Radiance mixed in.
I'm playing in turn-based mode, and unlike with Pillars of Eternity II, it feels pretty natural (at this point anyway). D&D3 really seems to up the tactical element of combat, so I feel that turn-based combat really fits well. It honestly just feels like playing a Gold Box game a lot of the time, and that's high praise indeed.
I also like that you'll run into encounters that are clearly too difficult at low levels, and more often than not the game will actually provide you with a warning (or at least make the difficult encounters non-hostile by default). For example, all the difficult encounters in the Sycamore Cave area are either non-hostile (tough wolves and shambling mound) or have a bunch of fireball traps in front of them (bandit camp and Sycamore Tree).
Really enjoying this! The interface also looks great, with sort of a parchment/book theme going. Really great looking game.
Once I discovered you can actually generate a full party shortly after the tutorial (just stay at level 1 before you hire mercenaries), I restarted and am now having a blast playing this. What a great game! I made three tanks (fighter, paladin, cleric), a bard, and two mages (sorcerer and wizard). I know absolutely nothing about the Pathfinder system, though I know it's based on D&D3... I also don't know the first thing about about D&D3, but it's close enough to AD&D from the Gold Box games that it's not too difficult to understand.
Right now I'm exploring the world a bit during chapter 1. It's really quite surprising how slow you gain levels in this game. In the Gold Box games, you get most of your XP from finding hidden treasure, but here everything seems to just hand out a couple hundred of XP at the most. On the other hand, your party is FAR more competent at level 1 here than in the Gold Box games; outside of at the inn in the fort, I've only rested once so far in the wilderness but have completed a few quests. You also find magical equipment pretty quick, so even if you don't level up you still gain some appreciable power quickly.
I am really enjoying the overall structure of this game. It's a "hex crawl" where you are given a certain objective that must be completed within a certain number of in-game days, but have the freedom to wander over the map and encounter locations and encounters. It feels a lot like a mixture of Baldur's Gate with Fallout, with a bit of Pool of Radiance mixed in.
I'm playing in turn-based mode, and unlike with Pillars of Eternity II, it feels pretty natural (at this point anyway). D&D3 really seems to up the tactical element of combat, so I feel that turn-based combat really fits well. It honestly just feels like playing a Gold Box game a lot of the time, and that's high praise indeed.
I also like that you'll run into encounters that are clearly too difficult at low levels, and more often than not the game will actually provide you with a warning (or at least make the difficult encounters non-hostile by default). For example, all the difficult encounters in the Sycamore Cave area are either non-hostile (tough wolves and shambling mound) or have a bunch of fireball traps in front of them (bandit camp and Sycamore Tree).
Really enjoying this! The interface also looks great, with sort of a parchment/book theme going. Really great looking game.