Kingmaker - New Stretch Goal

Pathfinder: Kingmaker has a new stretch goal at 800K which will unlock Archetypes.

Magus is at your service, Baron!

Dear Pathfinders,

Thanks to your help, we have just reached our second stretch goal! The Magus is in the bag! Thank you, Pathfinders! We feel truly blessed to be supported by such an amazing community. Thank you for believing in us and for giving us the opportunity to make this game bigger and better. You are the force that drives us. And now that the Magus is an addition to the game, let's have a look at a new stretch goal.

New stretch goal - 3 Archetypes or alternative features for each class

A satisfying RPG experience relies heavily on your ability to create just the character you want, to bring your character concept to life as accurately as possible. But some character concepts are not conventional and stray away from well-trodden paths. Yet classes were made with specific, more general concepts in mind, and while they allow many different builds - some less conventional approaches are left unsupported. The Pathfinder RPG has a feature that covers those wishes: Archetypes.

Archetypes are not new classes on their own, but merely modifications of an already existing class, although the extent of modification varies greatly from case to case. Archetypes remove some class features from their base class, change others, modify existing choices and numerical bonuses of the class. In some cases, they just replace one feature with a feature of another class, and in some cases, they replace significant parts of the class, with an array of completely new abilities.

Sometimes you want your character to specialize in a certain specific part of their class far more than representatives of this class usually do. For example, let's say you want to play a cleric that concentrates on summoning monsters, but find that this specialization is hard to achieve with just the conventional cleric. There is an archetype that fits this purpose perfectly. The Cleric's Herald Caller archetype concentrates on summoning allies to fight for him. While he loses his ability to wear medium armor, equip shields and only has one domain, he can convert his spells into summoning spells in the middle of combat, and the creatures he summons are far more formidable and numerous.

Sometimes you want to take a different approach to a conventional role, for example, to create a tanking fighter that relies on his swordsmanship alone - yet every time you look up your abilities your conviction wavers. You see that equipping a shield would make your character a better tank, but you never envisioned him hiding behind a shield in battle. On the other hand, not using one makes you feel that you aren't using your character to his full potential. In this case, you may look for an archetype instead - and find one that fits your idea. For example, the Aldori Defender, a fighter archetype with his roots in the fencing school of Aldori Swordlords, prefers to master his parrying techniques instead of relying on shields.

And sometimes you want to go even further. For example, create a magus, who is skilled with a bow. There is simply no way to do that with the basic magus class - his abilities work with one-handed melee weapons, and the bow is neither. Only archetypes can help you with this, and there is one designed specifically with that purpose in mind. The magus' Eldritch Archer archetype allows him to use his abilities with any ranged weapon and, instead of charging his blade with close combat spells, this archetype allows the magus to charge his attacks with long range spells, shooting fiery rays from his crossbow or launching bolts of lightning together with a javelin.

And that's not the extent of possible archetypes - there are far more of them in Pathfinder. There's the Sword Saint, a magus archetype that abandons armor and some of his spellcasting to become a master of one chosen weapon. There's the Vivisectionist - an alchemist that replaces his signature ability to throw bombs with deadly sneak attacks. Ecclesitheurge - a cleric, favoring the perfection of his divine magic abilities over his martial prowess. Armored Hulk - a heavily armored barbarian. Sacred Huntsmaster and Mad Dog - inquisitor and barbarian with animal companions. And the list goes on and on.

Some classes, like Sorcerer or Wizard, while lacking these vast amounts of archetypes, have alternative class features that can replace them - subschools and wild bloodlines. We want to add even more choices, and depth to our game, to both, improve the base gameplay and provide replayability. Archetypes are a good way to do both, for they will add more meaningful choices to character creation and development, will allow us to add personalities to some companions in the form of archetypes, and to increase the variety of enemy encounters - for enemies will have archetypes, too.

What do you think about the archetypes listed above and which Pathfinder archetypes are your favorite? Let us know in the comments section!

Hail to the kings!

Owlcats.

More information.

I would love to see the archetype strech goal reached. Although, it might be just out of range.

I think they plan to do it anyway, but maybe not as many as when they had hit the SG.

All in all this is quickly becoming my most anticipated game after Battletech.

There have been Kickstarters that in the final 2 days collected as much as in the first 2 days. That would be >$200k in this case.
So it's still possible I think.

Kicktraq had it trending toward $789k currently.

Not likely though. But hopefully they'll deliver a really solid game and have larger funds and more credibility for the next one.

It would be awesome if they can hit 800k stretch goal. But I'll be satisfied with 700k as well

I wonder if they will turn to paypal after the KS is done. Maybe the stretch goals are still in play if they do.

I'd be down for an rpgwatch fundraiser. Maybe its a bit late to suggest one through.

Probably late, true, but it can be always planned for a sequel.

DnD-style kits, yes please!

Originally Posted by Silver
I'd be down for an rpgwatch fundraiser. Maybe its a bit late to suggest one through.

I suggested one when the KS went live, but I know a Watch fund raiser will take a lot of organisational effort so I won't push it. Though, if we did one, I'd be game!

Well if they open post KS paypal support one can be had that way.

I can support only via Paypal … Is this possible ?

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
I can support only via Paypal … Is this possible ?

I think they have to wait until the KS campaign is over before they begin paypal.

Ok, I pledged for this. Not because I particularly wanted to, but because it's struggling with initial stretch goals and because so many Watch members want it to succeed.

I hope they've prepared something for the last few days.

Originally Posted by DarNoor
I think they have to wait until the KS campaign is over before they begin paypal.

Always the same, always the same. This way some people won't be able to get anything from Kickstarter projects, if I understood this correctly.
As far as I've understood it, the things one gets for supporting can only be gotten during the real Kickstarter campain. Once this is over, people might be able to support the project, but will get nothing from that.
This means implicitely that people not using credit cards won't be able to participte.

I found this for several projects now, and I don't like it.

Correct me if I misunderstood things there, though.

You might not get access to the early bird tiers, Alrik, but even KS backers have that problem, e.g. I backed very early for $25 and people who back for the same tier now have to pay $3 more, i.e. $28. The rewards of these tiers are the same though, just the price is slightly different.

Anyway, if Owlcat decide to have a proper slacker backer campaign (like Obsidian for Deadfire) then you will be able to get all the same rewards as the KS backers. It all depends on how they are going to set up the post-KS backing but I don't think that they will intentionally try to piss off the slackers .

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Always the same, always the same. This way some people won't be able to get anything from Kickstarter projects, if I understood this correctly.
As far as I've understood it, the things one gets for supporting can only be gotten during the real Kickstarter campain. Once this is over, people might be able to support the project, but will get nothing from that.
This means implicitely that people not using credit cards won't be able to participte.

I found this for several projects now, and I don't like it.

Correct me if I misunderstood things there, though.

You can now pre-order the game including rewards via Paypal: https://owlcatgames.com/preorder

Sheeit, I love class kits in an RPG like this. I hope they make it.

I love how the kits remove some features from the class, too. Makes it more interesting when you have to consider pros/cons like that, IMO.