OWL CAT Games; Pathfinder Kingmaker, Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, Rogue Trader

The Goblin’s Tale

The goblins of Golarion have a bad reputation, to be sure. Of course, that’s usually the perspective of someone who hasn’t spent much time around goblins and has never seen the positives goblins have to offer.




For example, goblins can be especially devoted. Whether to their four goblin hero-gods, or to you. Of course, their attempts to earn your favor can be much like the family cat leaving dead animals on your door step, except it might be someone’s fingers. Such is the way with our goblin hero Nok-Nok, which is much like the sound his skull makes when his tribesmen beat it with clubs. (Which happened enough that he was mistaken for a drum at times.) He’s not only eager to help, but he’s incredibly effective in tormenting your enemies until they beg for mercy – or a swift death.




At the start of Kingmaker, however, Nok-Nok’s fallen on difficult times – very difficult times, as his tribe intends to use him as a sacrifice. You’re the only one who can save him… and as far as Nok-Nok is concerned, your arrival is divine proof that he’s destined for greatness. He should know, because as he explains, he’s the fifth goblin god, and you’ve earned his favor.

As it turns out, Nok-Nok aspires to be more than a warty, scabby head-drum – he is convinced that he is a deity-to-be. He’s just having some difficulty making anyone else realize it. He can recite many tales of heroics and can expound at great length on how he’s bravely fled from dogs, how he set fire to his own hair when he couldn’t find firewood (he neglected to cut it from his head first), and how he’s learned how to block kicks and punches by using his head as a shield. And that’s just the beginning of his legendary journey to greatness.




Nok-Nok is a skilled thief. He excels in scuttling about, valiantly stabbing enemies in the back, and setting off every trap in the area (so much so, Nok-Nok’s attempts to disarm a trap come very close to being literal – the trap usually threatens to dis-arm him). He does, however, have an incredible resistance to pain, attracts an unusual coterie of “pets,” and embraces various junk and trinkets you find on your journey as if they were hard-won trophies of his heroics.

If you lend him a helping hand, Nok-Nok’s quick to call you family – play your cards right, and he might even let you be among his worshippers of Nok-Nok (the Fifth, or in his words “the Fith” or sometimes, in other’s words, “the Filth”).

It will be our pleasure to work on the companion from the race that Pathfinder made so unique and so delightfully twisted. Their imagery became somewhat iconic to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and Golarion. But there is another outstanding image, or should we say, the order in the Inner Sea that also became synonymous with the Pathfinder. Yes, we are speaking of they who are the weapons of desperate times and soldiers with the force of will to do whatever must be done. They are intimidation, relentlessness, and unwavering conviction. They are the black-gauntleted fist of absolute order. They are the Hellknights!
For far too long the Stolen Lands were the den of thieves and murderers, sanctuary for those who ran from the Law, home of the chaotic and capricious fey, the embodiment of everything Hellknights abhor. They arrive in this lawless land with the important mission, and it will be up to you to decide whether they are friend or foe. Befriend them, prove that you are worthy, that your rule is the lawful one, that your country is the beacon of stability in the region and you will be welcomed into their ranks. Help them complete their mission in the Stolen Lands, and you will be taught secrets and mysteries only a few are privileged to know. Antagonize them, and you will find them to be a powerful and extremely well-organized adversary, vanquish them to seize their relics and discover the truth behind their appearance in the Stolen Lands.

This stretch goal will provide your character with even more options to choose, with unique abilities for Hellknights and Hellknight Signifers and specific items thematic to the Hellknights, as well as new quest line dedicated to the Hellknight presence in the Stolen Lands. Face them on the field of battle or fight side-by-side, it is your choice to make.

Hellknights is our next stretch goal, they will be unlocked when funding reaches $1.1M

Battles are essential to the experience of Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Some of them are quite easy while others are very challenging. Many systems, such as character generation and leveling up, equipment and spells are part of the decisions you make about every character, and combat is where you feel the results of these decisions. It is the place to put your heroes to the test and understand what went right and what went wrong. For that, combat needs to have a very clear feedback about every aspect of the game mechanics. In order to solve this we are (as many other games in this genre) using a combat log. Our usual disclaimer applies to all of the pictures here, it is work in progress and does not represent the final state of the product, all specific names are used only as reference to the original Pathfinder Roleplaying Game (R) entities and could be subject to change in the Pathfinder: Kingmaker CRPG.



Every action in combat has a representation in the log: initiative rolls, to-hit, and damage rolls, saving throws or any appropriate checks. Each has its own line in the log. And for each of the lines, you will be able to see detailed information in the tooltip. For example, if you are attacking a wolf you will be able to see all of the bonuses and penalties for the to-hit roll and their sources. Starting from a simple bonus, like the strength modifier, and up to temporary effects, like being shaken. And you will be able to see your roll for this attack. Additional information will also appear in the tooltip if circumstances call for it. For example, on a critical threat roll, a confirmation roll will appear with same detailed information, or if a target has concealment there will be a mention of the miss chance.



All the information mentioned thus far is about your party's actions. But of course you will also want to know about how your enemies do. We have thought of two options here - one we will definitely have, the other one is an idea right now, and currently in discussion and development. We are not promising the latter will appear in the game, but we are very interested to hear your opinion about it. The first option is providing all the information about the enemy - AC, saving throws, the battle log will show it all. This is clear and concise and gives you all the information you need to understand what happens in battle and what changes you need to make to tip this fight into your favor.



The second option does not provide you with this information for free; it is based on the party's knowledge and lore checks. If you are successful, some information is provided, better results lead to more stats revealed. But if your fail those rolls – you will learn that information in the same way you do on the table. If you hit 34 AC and missed against 18, the creature’s AC in the tooltips will be shown as ?19-34 – meaning, that your highest miss was against AC 18 and 19 could be hit, while your lowest hit was 34, so in the worst case scenario that creature's AC is 34. Same goes for other statistics, like showing that you dealt damage, but some DR was applied to it. Along with this goes showing the creature's health condition only after a successful check. This approach is a bit more hardcore and a bit more faithful to the tabletop experience.



But back to the log. Not only combat needs to have detailed information presented, but we also have dialogs and special events, kingdom and exploration. So we are expanding the log (as a lot of games before us) into those areas of the game as well. And to make it more readable, we separate information into several tabs: combat will have everything we discussed above, while a dialogue tab will have a history of all conversations as well as special events, along with choices and checks you made. Events tab will summarize everything that happens while skipping on detailed information on combat and dialogue represented in other tabs. There you will find information on the traps you encountered or items looted, orders you have made during a kingdom turn or new areas discovered on the global map. And all of these events will have additional and detailed information available via tooltips, with some information hidden if you so desire (like hiding DCs of the skill checks).



This concludes our approach to the log in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. While our solution may be similar to a lot of games in the genre, we are trying to provide even more information to you, and make it a bit more interesting and closer to the tabletop experience.