I agree with kanisatha. The sheer volume of options is impressive. I can't think of another D&Dish game that offers SUCH a variety of character creation options. It's awesome.
As far as druids go, I love my druid character. She's not the strongest, but she's still quite good and an absolutely necessary member of the team. Her dino companion is one of the strongest members of my party, dealing 7 attacks per turn with sometimes staggering results. Meanwhile, she's shooting her bow at a distance and casting Holy Fire, Storm spells, summoning manticores, elementals... And healing...
I LOVE Pathfinder character options A LOT. I was even able to create a Cleric of Nature that is like a druid but also a cleric. Very diverse teams you can create.
Yes exactly. I easily spent a good half a day (this is just me and not indicative of what it should be for everyone) creating my character. And I LOVED every second of it. Because yes, creating MY character is the foundation to a fun and enjoyable and satisfying RPG playing experience. And then on top of that you also get the utter joy of developing your companion characters in whatever direction you want to take them! And you get to do all of this with six characters instead of the extremely limiting four characters. Such pure JOY!
I agree with this completely. I think it wasn't actually ONE week, but TWO weeks that I took to settle for my main character. And I liked that tremendously. I was merely pointing out that there's a huge load of overlaps in between options to the degree that one option is but a slight variation of the other; and that quite a few of those options aren't any more impactful than gaining a whopping 5% advantage on an attack roll or saving throw. As said though, that's Pathfinder. You can't blame them for doing this.
Plus: It's refreshing to play games with options. In particular in the big budget space (Skyrim et all), outside of appearence and a few cosmetics, you barely have any. And that's what they call "RPG" these days.... Still, the more options, the more ressources you need to make them stand out. I doubt that Vampire Bloodlines could have made most its vampire clans to chose from as unique had they needed to implement 50, rather than a fistful. The disfigured Nosferatu (forcing you to move through L.A. via the sewers and feeding on rats) and Malkavian (being literally insane, having completely rewritten dialogue, including one with a stop sign) naturally being the standouts. WOTR is like a box of candies: full of more or less differently flavoured sweets. They're all sweets. And thus perhaps just a different kind of fun. (For me too, as said).
RE: Difficulty options. Due to Pathfinder being so "imbalanced", you could argue they are an absolute necessity. It's possible to create characters who quite literally can't hit shit. And vice versa making characters that borderline break the system and are what Neo was to the Matrix. Both Kingmaker+WOTR are super combat heavy games too. This is, in particular for min/maxing, all part of the fun. However, it means they have to take all of that into account. There's a warning for reason as soon as you pick any of the higher levels of difficulties: "Pathfinder n00bs beware." In particular since defensive stats in Owlcat games tend to be bloated in general, in particular armor classes. Whereas your standard early game lvl1 goblin in say, Neverwinter Nights, would have an Armor Class of 10, making him regular to hit for even the worst character builds -- in Kingmaker he could have 20 -- on default difficulties (the higher ones bump that some more).
Unless you characters are tweaked to hit: No dice. Whereas all you need to hit that goblin in NWN/BG is a bit of a luck with the Dice 20, for even ~50% of the blows to hit that same Goblin in Kingmaker, you'd need an attack bonus of ~10. All the while it's technically possible to have characters that at that point are actually in the minus range. There were a lot of complaints about perceived unfairness when Kingmaker hit for reason. Previous D&Dish games, actually BG3 as well, weren't as severe on that (and when I first started BG1 in 1999, my only experience with D&D also was Eye Of The Beholder rather than any indepth ruleset knowledge). Speaking of which, it's oft forgotten that KOTOR was based on D20/D&D systems too. But D&D games had been an attempt to bring a D&D game to the masses (BG3 being no exception), whereas the Pathfinder games are Kickstarters primarily targeted at Pathfinder fans first -- and the rest via tweaks and options second.
Currently playing the "Lost Valley" DLC in Solasta, which starts quite promising (outside of the repeat pushing of trees and stones in the jungle, no matter why they force that so often, it's just busywork). But once I'm done, I think I'm back to WOTR.
Whereas all you need to hit that goblin in NWN/BG is a bit of a luck with the Dice 20, for even ~50% of the blows to hit that same Goblin in Kingmaker, you'd need an attack bonus of ~10. All the while it's technically possible to have characters that at that point are actually in the minus range. There were a lot of complaints about perceived unfairness when Kingmaker hit for reason. Previous D&Dish games, actually BG3 as well, weren't as severe on that (and when I first started BG1 in 1999, my only experience with D&D also was Eye Of The Beholder rather than any indepth ruleset knowledge). Speaking of which, it's oft forgotten that KOTOR was based on D20/D&D systems too. But D&D games had been an attempt to bring a D&D game to the masses (BG3 being no exception), whereas the Pathfinder games are Kickstarters primarily targeted at Pathfinder fans first -- and the rest via tweaks and options second.
