paizo.com Recent Reviews of Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Pathpaizo.com Recent Reviews of Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path2024-03-02T01:21:44Z2024-03-02T01:21:44ZPathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path (5 stars)UlfenTraderhttps://paizo.com/products/btq02e0d?Pathfinder-Kingmaker-Adventure-Path2023-12-28T12:26:47Z...UlfenTrader2023-12-28T12:26:47ZPathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path: Great story, poor execution (2 stars)DawidIzydorhttps://paizo.com/products/btq02e0d?Pathfinder-Kingmaker-Adventure-Path2023-10-20T15:23:11Z<p><b>Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path</b></p><p>The story and everything releated to it is 5/5 without any complains, can recommend it blindly.</p>
<p>BUT (and it's a big but)</p>
<p>The kingdom management system is broken. There are many homebrew rules for fixing it but as is it gets 0/5, getting an average of 2.5/5 (and in Pf2e we're rounding down).</p>
<p>What doesn't work in management?
<br />
Basically everything. Kingdom turns take way too long of session time, the whole process is tedious, and frankly, boring. It's such a wasted opportunity because this could be the best system, exported to all games all around. I hope that it will be reviewed and fixed in the future but for now either don't use these rules or implement Vance and Kerenshara fixes for it. </p>
<p>When Paizo fixes the kingdom management system, I'll be more than happy to give this game 5 stars, but for now I just can't. This game is about building kingdoms and this is an essential part of the adventure</p><p><b>Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path</b></p><p>The story and everything releated to it is 5/5 without any complains, can recommend it blindly.</p>
<p>BUT (and it's a big but)</p>
<p>The kingdom management system is broken. There are many homebrew rules for fixing it but as is it gets 0/5, getting an average of 2.5/5 (and in Pf2e we're rounding down).</p>
<p>What doesn't work in management?
<br />
Basically everything. Kingdom turns take way too long of session time, the whole process is tedious, and frankly, boring. It's such a wasted opportunity because this could be the best system, exported to all games all around. I hope that it will be reviewed and fixed in the future but for now either don't use these rules or implement Vance and Kerenshara fixes for it. </p>
<p>When Paizo fixes the kingdom management system, I'll be more than happy to give this game 5 stars, but for now I just can't. This game is about building kingdoms and this is an essential part of the adventure</p>DawidIzydor2023-10-20T15:23:11ZPathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path: Beautiful Product (5 stars)Ironsideshttps://paizo.com/products/btq02e0d?Pathfinder-Kingmaker-Adventure-Path2023-06-01T02:27:51Z<p><b>Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path</b></p><p><b>Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path</b></p>Ironsides2023-06-01T02:27:51ZPathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path: just here to offset the guy 1- & 2-starring all the PF2E products (5 stars)King Wedgiehttps://paizo.com/products/btq02e0d?Pathfinder-Kingmaker-Adventure-Path2023-03-11T17:33:07Z<p><b>Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path</b></p><p><b>Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path</b></p>King Wedgie2023-03-11T17:33:07ZPathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path: Amazing adventure, shitty subsystems (4 stars)demlinhttps://paizo.com/products/btq02e0d?Pathfinder-Kingmaker-Adventure-Path2023-01-03T21:30:12Z<p><b>Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path</b></p><p>This product has so many things that I think we need to split up the rating into two pieces: the adventure itself and the rules.</p>
<p>The adventure itself is an epic story, lots to explore and very easy to customize. Nothing more to say here, it's the best 2e adventure by a mile. 5 stars!</p>
<p>The rules consist of armies and kingdom management.</p>
<p>Armies at their base level are incredibly uninteresting: you engage the enemy, then roll to attack. There's no strategy, no choices, no relevant positioning. You can't even flank armies out of the box. Many buffs are hard to keep track, some are relative (Guarding against a single army for a +2 to AC). Yes, you can give them Tactics, but those don't add enough to make it fun or interesting.</p>
<p>The feats and actions themselves are riddled with mistakes which makes it very hard to figure out how it should actually work. Recovering and moving armies takes way too much time in kingdom turns (e.g. 1 turn to recover 1HP of 4-6, moving 5 armies together can work out to 2 arriving on time while 3 get lost on the way). Balancing and encounter difficulty is on the GM and often not straight forward, especially because healing isn't free as in the base game. I just can't see how this system is supposed to evoke any sort of fun, even if heavily house ruled. 1 Star!</p>
<p>Kingdom Management suffers from being riddled with mistakes, bad balance and hard to track bonuses:</p>
<p>• Some feats and activities give you "useless" status bonuses
<br />
• Way too many kingdom activities that barely do anything interesting.
<br />
• Leadership activities don't scale below/above 4 players
<br />
• Structure item bonuses are basically impossible to use at the table without automation. You'll be dealing with 30+ different modifiers that apply only for certain activities and are overridden by capital bonuses if these are higher and some activities just don't get any at all, most notably the companion ones
<br />
• Kingdom XP rules are designed in a way that it takes ~13! rounds (4x 3 hour sessions) to level from lv 1 to 2
<br />
• No opponent or pressure that keeps things interesting
<br />
• No interesting, strategic choices. The CRPG gave you projects that competed with keeping the kingdom under control, this system has none of that push your luck.</p>
<p>At least the kingdom events are fantastic. 3 Stars. </p>
<p>Overall, the systems lack fun and take way too much time. Can we like get an official community play-test if an AP ships 50+ pages of rules?</p><p><b>Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path</b></p><p>This product has so many things that I think we need to split up the rating into two pieces: the adventure itself and the rules.</p>
<p>The adventure itself is an epic story, lots to explore and very easy to customize. Nothing more to say here, it's the best 2e adventure by a mile. 5 stars!</p>
<p>The rules consist of armies and kingdom management.</p>
<p>Armies at their base level are incredibly uninteresting: you engage the enemy, then roll to attack. There's no strategy, no choices, no relevant positioning. You can't even flank armies out of the box. Many buffs are hard to keep track, some are relative (Guarding against a single army for a +2 to AC). Yes, you can give them Tactics, but those don't add enough to make it fun or interesting.</p>
<p>The feats and actions themselves are riddled with mistakes which makes it very hard to figure out how it should actually work. Recovering and moving armies takes way too much time in kingdom turns (e.g. 1 turn to recover 1HP of 4-6, moving 5 armies together can work out to 2 arriving on time while 3 get lost on the way). Balancing and encounter difficulty is on the GM and often not straight forward, especially because healing isn't free as in the base game. I just can't see how this system is supposed to evoke any sort of fun, even if heavily house ruled. 1 Star!</p>
<p>Kingdom Management suffers from being riddled with mistakes, bad balance and hard to track bonuses:</p>
<p>• Some feats and activities give you "useless" status bonuses
<br />
• Way too many kingdom activities that barely do anything interesting.
<br />
• Leadership activities don't scale below/above 4 players
<br />
• Structure item bonuses are basically impossible to use at the table without automation. You'll be dealing with 30+ different modifiers that apply only for certain activities and are overridden by capital bonuses if these are higher and some activities just don't get any at all, most notably the companion ones
<br />
• Kingdom XP rules are designed in a way that it takes ~13! rounds (4x 3 hour sessions) to level from lv 1 to 2
<br />
• No opponent or pressure that keeps things interesting
<br />
• No interesting, strategic choices. The CRPG gave you projects that competed with keeping the kingdom under control, this system has none of that push your luck.</p>
<p>At least the kingdom events are fantastic. 3 Stars. </p>
<p>Overall, the systems lack fun and take way too much time. Can we like get an official community play-test if an AP ships 50+ pages of rules?</p>demlin2023-01-03T21:30:12ZPathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path: Sandbox Greatness (5 stars)NerdOver9000https://paizo.com/products/btq02e0d?Pathfinder-Kingmaker-Adventure-Path2022-11-25T12:34:00Z<p><b>Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path</b></p><p>This book starts with one of the greatest APs Paizo has ever written and with clever additions turns it into something even better. </p>
<p>As a player, it is perfect. It is a good mix of roleplaying, combat, and intrigue, with an extra layer of complexity with the Kingdom rules. And come on, who doesn't want to be King?</p>
<p>My only difficulty with suggesting this for everyone is that as a gamemaster sandboxes can be a bit more difficult to run. When the players can go any direction (and trust me, they will), the GM has to know what lies in every direction. Kingmaker does a wonderful job in making sure a good GM is ready, but a novice GM may struggle in staying ahead of their players. </p>
<p>Should you buy this? Absolutely. If you're a first time GM, maybe pick up a few shorter adventures to practice first, but every group ought to experience the magnificence of Kingmaker at least once in their gaming experience.</p><p><b>Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path</b></p><p>This book starts with one of the greatest APs Paizo has ever written and with clever additions turns it into something even better. </p>
<p>As a player, it is perfect. It is a good mix of roleplaying, combat, and intrigue, with an extra layer of complexity with the Kingdom rules. And come on, who doesn't want to be King?</p>
<p>My only difficulty with suggesting this for everyone is that as a gamemaster sandboxes can be a bit more difficult to run. When the players can go any direction (and trust me, they will), the GM has to know what lies in every direction. Kingmaker does a wonderful job in making sure a good GM is ready, but a novice GM may struggle in staying ahead of their players. </p>
<p>Should you buy this? Absolutely. If you're a first time GM, maybe pick up a few shorter adventures to practice first, but every group ought to experience the magnificence of Kingmaker at least once in their gaming experience.</p>NerdOver90002022-11-25T12:34:00ZPathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path: Should keep you busy for a few weeks... (5 stars)KefkaZhttps://paizo.com/products/btq02e0d?Pathfinder-Kingmaker-Adventure-Path2022-10-26T23:26:52Z<p><b>Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path</b></p><p>So, I was one of the lucky folks who got into the Kickstarter on the ground level. That process was... challenging, but if you're reading this, you don't have that problem. What you're looking at here is a distilled campaign in a book. Paizo does books very well and you're getting a quality item. The campaign is an enhanced version of the original which (from what I can tell) matches the Owlcat CRPG version pretty well. While I have not digested the entirety of each and every encounter, what I can tell you is that this seems even more packed with campaign-y goodness than the usual 6 book APs. I have not had the chance to run this yet, but as a GM, my group that meets ~monthly for 4 hours is likely to get at least 2-3 years out of this book. While yes, you are looking at a steep upfront cost, you are getting a significant amount of game out of it. Ultimately, is what you're getting worth the price? Yes. </p>
<p>The one challenge that I see is that because the CRPG version is so known that finding a group interested in playing this that hasn't been exposed to the CRPG version may be a challenge. So, know your group.</p><p><b>Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path</b></p><p>So, I was one of the lucky folks who got into the Kickstarter on the ground level. That process was... challenging, but if you're reading this, you don't have that problem. What you're looking at here is a distilled campaign in a book. Paizo does books very well and you're getting a quality item. The campaign is an enhanced version of the original which (from what I can tell) matches the Owlcat CRPG version pretty well. While I have not digested the entirety of each and every encounter, what I can tell you is that this seems even more packed with campaign-y goodness than the usual 6 book APs. I have not had the chance to run this yet, but as a GM, my group that meets ~monthly for 4 hours is likely to get at least 2-3 years out of this book. While yes, you are looking at a steep upfront cost, you are getting a significant amount of game out of it. Ultimately, is what you're getting worth the price? Yes. </p>
<p>The one challenge that I see is that because the CRPG version is so known that finding a group interested in playing this that hasn't been exposed to the CRPG version may be a challenge. So, know your group.</p>KefkaZ2022-10-26T23:26:52ZPathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path (5 stars)Winkie_Phacehttps://paizo.com/products/btq02e0d?Pathfinder-Kingmaker-Adventure-Path2022-10-26T20:20:59Z...Winkie_Phace2022-10-26T20:20:59ZPathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path: The Kickstarter Wait Was A Slog, But The Product Is Good (5 stars)Lord_Duskhttps://paizo.com/products/btq02e0d?Pathfinder-Kingmaker-Adventure-Path2022-10-12T01:20:10Z<p><b>Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path</b></p><p>While not a 1-for-1 update of either the CRPG or the original Path, this version is an excellent update that encorperates the best of both predecessors. The Kingdom rules are fairly intuitive, and if you enjoy the civ-building -which I do- they're a good option.</p>
<p>The Nymph doesn't really get much mention after the The House, which I feel is a bit of a mistake, but I suppose it leave it more flexable for GMs and parties to shape her fate.</p><p><b>Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path</b></p><p>While not a 1-for-1 update of either the CRPG or the original Path, this version is an excellent update that encorperates the best of both predecessors. The Kingdom rules are fairly intuitive, and if you enjoy the civ-building -which I do- they're a good option.</p>
<p>The Nymph doesn't really get much mention after the The House, which I feel is a bit of a mistake, but I suppose it leave it more flexable for GMs and parties to shape her fate.</p>Lord_Dusk2022-10-12T01:20:10Z