Pathfinder: Kingmaker now on Kickstarter

It's weird to think that there hasn't been an attempt to make a true Pathfinder CRPG until now, but here it is. It's being made by a Russian Studio of ex-Nival Interactive employees (They of Heroes of Might and Magic V, Silent Storm, and Etherlords fame) with official backing from Paizo's very enthusiastic CEO and writing support from a very tired looking Chris Avellone (dude looks like he might need a hug or something) and seems to be fairly well-along in development. Unsurprisingly given Pathfinder's roots as a D&D offshoot, it seems like they're going for an isometric, real-time with pause system in the vein of the Infinity Engine, which in concept sounds pretty great. Even I wouldn't have minded turn-based Temple of Elemental Evil-esque combat instead.

However, don't take me bringing your attention to this as an endorsement. I like a lot of what these guys have done in the past, but given the well-earned reputation of Russian developed RPGs, the volume of mechanics in the Pathfinder Ruleset, and the seeming scope and ambition of the Kingmaker adventure module, I think it's fair to say that this thing could be a broken jank-fest. As always, backer beware on these sorts of things, though I still might end up supporting it at a low level out of curiosity.

It does look pretty interesting. I love Silent Storm so that got my attention a bit. I am someone who will gladly buy a finished product and pay more vs Kickstart though.

Chris Avellone looks fine the man is working and seems to like doing it solo. I just heard him on Dev Game Club talking about Planescape Torment (good episode) and he seems to be doing well with having more freedom to work on whatever comes his way.

I backed this at a modest level. The game concept looks fine, if very familiar. The pedigree of the team behind looks solid (I liked Silent Storm and HOMM V a lot). And this project looks competently run, so I'll give it some support.

I was a little surprised by how much it looks like a clone of Pillars of Eternity, especially with regard to UI. It also appears to be running on Unity, like Pillars. I wonder if they've licensed Obsidian's Pillars engine for this game like InXile did for Torment.

So for someone who doesn't have much knowledge of Pathfinder, what would the differences be in a cRPG based on it do people think?

Looking at the pitch closely too I think the ideas and design of running the Kingdom look promising and fun. It's something I have liked in other cRPGs but it's usually kind of an afterthought (certainly was in PoE).

@artisanbreads: Pathfinder is more-or-less an expanded and tweaked D&D 3.5, so I think it'll make the transition to CRPG format just fine given stuff like Neverwinter Nights 2. Where that might get tricky is the sheer number of class specific abilities and mechanics that can be thrown in, especially if they add stuff from outside of the Pathfinder core rulebook.

As someone who has been actively playing Pathfinder for 5-6 years now (and is currently getting ready to run the Emerald Spire Superdungeon campaign), I think this looks cool.

As someone who eagerly backed Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numera but has yet to put any real time into either game, I don't know about backing it just yet.

I... don't know. I like the Pathfinder setting and all, but anyone remember the Pathfinder MMO?

I think there have been a lot of CRPG kickstarters lately, and they just haven't clicked with me for some reason.

Now, if this were NWN1 (Could just be the toolset, DM, and player client) but with the Pathfinder setting... I'd be throwing vast amounts of money at the screen.

@zelyre: All I know is that there was a Kickstarter for it? Actually, the introduction to the Emerald Spire book says that the book was apparently a stretch goal for the Pathfinder MMO Kickstarter. I remember there was supposed to be one, and a card game by Obsidian I think.

As a pretty long time Pathfinder player I am happy we're getting story content inside Golarion. They kept hinting for a long time that Obsidian would be working on something but they only have done the card game...and its bad.

@bladeofcreation Technically that entire thing exists because of the (absolutely horrible) mmo. That entire dungeon is supposed to physically be in the game as well.

I'd also like another D&D CRPG with a turn-based system like ToEE; it allowed them to bring a lot more aspects of the pen-and-paper rules into the combat in a way that the real-time combat systems never really did. Also still fairly bummed we never got to see 4e given proper CRPG treatment, and it's not really looking like we'll ever get anything substantial for 5e, either. With any of the developers I'd trust to make good on the license busily pursuing their own IPs now, maybe it's for the best.

Even though I still haven't found the time to play through any of the other CRPGs I've backed on Kickstarter (Pillars, Wasteland 2, Divinity, Numenera), I'll go ahead and throw some money at this; looks like it could end up decent, and might make a good way to familiarize myself with the Pathfinder setting. (Never actually got into Pathfinder, though I have a bunch of PDFs from Humble Bundle that I still haven't looked through.) If nothing else, I'd like to encourage the continued creation of this style of game.

@sammo21: I just looked it up. I had no idea the Pathfinder MMO was in a playable state. Apparently the card game is available as of June 15.

Have you done the Emerald Spire campaign? I picked up the book a couple years ago and our group is finally getting around to it!

Eh, I dunno. Talking up the setting and "kingdom-building" makes me think it'll be similar to Pillars of Eternity in that you're kinda just playing dudes and the world is supposed to be the draw. I prefer character-focused RPGs.

I follow/stalk Obsidian pretty closely and haven't heard anything about this, so I doubt it. The unique part of the Pillars engine is mostly their 2D environment art process. The backgrounds from that Kingmaker demo vid don't look much like Obsidian's.

A CRPG that really focusses on Kingdom-building and the related decision making is very interersting in concept. Though going back to the bland good & evil dichotomy is a steep price to pay for that. But it could easily be worth it if the fantasy nation-building actually works out and ends up having a lot of depth, while Owlcat still delivers a quality RPG base.

I'm pretty neutral to the Pathfinder license itself. I wonder how much this'll make by the end but I suspect they might have to triple or quadruple their main goal (and stay conservative with stretch goal promises) to achieve a game that is as good as I'd like. I'm keeping my eye on this!

@bladeofcreation: Technically it is playable but its so rough I never had a good time in it.

I've ran maybe...3 levels of Emerald Spire? The first level was...not fun. There's a caveat with the material the walls are made out of that was a pain in the butt and the crew I ran with in the campaign was totally unhelpful and allowed me to be down for the majority of the encounter. Thornkeep was a dungeon that they gave out with the mmo...its fine, not awful. I've done maybe two or three levels of that as well, mostly when GMing for PFS.

I played through about half this adventure path, and it's a good choice for a computer game.

The most basic story is that in Act I you gain a license to start a fiefdom if you are able to rid an area of bandits, and then you build up from a hamlet to a small kingdom with several cities over time.

The early part is mostly about trying to make your local area safer, but as you grow you start attracting unwanted attention and if you grow large enough, you become an unwilling political player with the nations that surround you.

The combination of base building, sandbox, random events (that could play out a bit like event chains in CK2), and the long term move from "bandit killer" to "political player" gives it a nice path outside of the standard heroes story in most RPGs, where you usually just gather loot and become stronger until you can defeat the big boss.

It is at least interesting, though it remains to be seen how they'll implement the Pathfinder rules.

@sanderjk: It sounds fun. I really like both genres (city building/management stuff and RPGs). It actually makes me think about King of Dragon Pass (which is doing it without the direct gameplay in ways).

Like I said I don't think this has been done well in RPGs in the past where they had some kind of element like this but I hope it translates if they really make it the main thrust of the game.

@sammo21: Sounds like a bad group you were with. That sucks. :-(

While I still have reservations, they've at least been doing all of the right things that a kickstarter in 2017 should do, with detailed, daily updates, quick feedback, and reasonable stretch goals (they're going to add Archetypes, Pathfinder's equivalent of AD&D kits, at $800k.) all of which makes me feel alright about backing this at a low level.

They're also going to be streaming gameplay from their twitch channel at 9PM PDT today, so I figured that was worth a bump during the last 24 hours of the campaign if anyone's interested.

@arbitrarywater: Thanks for the bump to remind me about this!

They just hit $900k, which is the stretch goal for the goblin companion. I dunno, but that sounds super amusing to me. I hope this little guy is written as well as Deekin was.

Just being based on a pen and paper thing doesn’t make it interesting to me. If that’s all they are relying on to make it interesting or marketable I don’t expect much will come of the game. Unless they finally try to capitalize on the more unique elements on pen and paper vs video games.