It’s time to get out your pocketbook because the Pathfinder: Kingmaker Kickstarter has launched! Create an exciting group of adventurers and tame the Stolen Lands of Golarion in this isometric single-player RPG based on the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Kingmaker Adventure Path.
Owlcat Games is made up of veteran coders with narrative design by Chris Avellone, known for such titles as Planescape: Torment, Fallout 2, and the Icewind Dale series.
I had a chance to play a fully functional demo of Pathfinder: Kingmaker at PaizoCon. The real-time with pause (RTWP) combat was easy to manage, allowing me to either let the characters attack on their own, or pick each character’s actions to run the combat as I saw fit.
I’ll send you over to the Kickstarter for all the details, but what is most important to me, and what I got from playing the demo and talking with the developers at PaizoCon, Pathfinder: Kingmaker is true to Pathfinder. Character generation had all the elements necessary to build characters just like I do in the table-top version. Current funding includes all the core classes, feats, and other options, but a funded Kickstarter will allow them to add more. Pathfinder: Kingmaker will give us the option of allowing the companion characters to advance on a preset path, or allow you to change all the fiddly-bits of leveling up for each one yourself.
You’ll be able to create most any character you could make using the core rules. A successful Kickstarter will add to our options.
There will be around 10 variants of animal companions, and the same goes for familiars. There will be more than 300 feats, including large feat chains. Some of you asked about deities – there will be at least the Big Twenty. There will be combat maneuvers. There will be blood… lines. Domains. Specialist arcane school powers. Alchemical discoveries and bardic masterpieces. Metamagic and combat styles. Lots and lots of spells. And, of course, prestige classes will also be there.
Further, gameplay difficulty is adjustable. On the basic side there’s story-mode, which is simplified and easier play allowing the player to focus on the story. Features such as attacks of opportunity (AOO) are turned off for the enemies in this easy-mode play. I am likely to focus though on the more difficult “core rules difficulty” which matches the tabletop rules as closely as possible for a RTWP game, incorporating AOOs, friendly fire, and and critical hits! There will be settings to make the game even more difficult by buffing the foes, and for toggling various game mechanics such as AOOs or friendly fire, allowing you to set the gameplay how you want.
Just as with the tabletop version of Kingmaker, kingdom building is a focus. Owlcats goes into this in depth in the third Kickstarter update, but suffice it to say that their goal is that the kingdom is like another companion, one that you can grow and build, and whose character changes based off your many choices. Read the post to see the great potential in the kingdom building mechanics.
Pathfinder: Kingmaker is scheduled to launch in summer of 2018 with or without the Kickstarter. With hours of content already in the game, the Kickstarter, with a goal of $500,000, is intended just to add more great content, more character classes, and options, for example.
Every pledge made toward our initial funding target will result in more features, more content, and more polish for your growing nation. Our goal is to let you build a kingdom that fits your play style. Perhaps you want to control every single activity in your kingdom by yourself, or perhaps you are more of a top-level ruler who wants to spend time exploring the wilderness and fighting dangerous beasts. Either way, we will give you the life you want to live. You are a king, after all!
Again, I just touched the surface of their plans for Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I’m happy to know that the game will be built regardless of the success of the Kickstarter, but ecstatic to see that the Kickstarter is, just a few of days in with almost 30 days still to go, already 4/5th funded from 8000 pledges. I want to see Pathfinder: Kingmaker overfunded so we can have more character options, a more robust kingdom building game component, expanded story line, and more.
This Kickstarter is on track to be wildly successful, and I anticipate Owlcats will generate a full featured computer based role playing game true to the Pathfinder System. It’s about time!
