Recent reviews by Runeforged

Brilliant game. I had a lot of fun with Owlcat's Pathfinder games, and Rogue Trader is even better. The lore and atmosphere feel authentically 40k. Character building and the combat system are a lot of fun. The story is good. It's worth noting that in the grimdarkness of the 41st millennia I wasn't expecting the characters to be very likable. But surprisingly several of the characters, though loyal to the emperor, are more than just 1-dimensional zealots.

For crpg fans that also love 40k, this might just be the perfect game.

Fool me into buying overpriced DLC once, shame on you. Fool me into buying overpriced DLC 19 times or more, shame on me.

No peace! Just DLC.

I've got Baldur's Gate 3 installed and ready to go. But I’d rather play Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Hear me out.

1. It’s more fun building characters in Pathfinder. I’ve played a lot of 5E, and I like many things about it, but 5E is oversimplified. You don’t get many choices beyond race, class, and subclass. Pathfinder has more subclasses and feats, and you get many more feats to customize your character with. Add to this the mythic paths, and there are just a lot more options for creating interesting character builds. Some people might want it simple. But if you like strategically optimizing characters, there’s a lot more of that in Pathfinder.
2. There are better pets and actual mounts in Pathfinder: WotR. Your pets level up and get classes. You can ride your animal companions (and it is actually a huge advantage in combat to do so). Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t seem to have mounts.
3. There are a lot more spells in Pathfinder: WotR. WotR has a higher level cap (20 compared to Baldur’s Gate 3’s 12) so you can get to higher levels with more powerful spells.
4. Multiclassing is more interesting in Pathfinder. Now it is true that there are a lot of multiclassing options in Pathfinder that aren’t a good idea. But if you know what you are doing you can create some very effective and interesting builds by multiclassing. In 5E, it is generally not optimal to multiclass.
5. I only really played what was available in Baldur’s Gate 3’s early access so far, but from that experience, I feel like the story and characters are more engaging in Pathfinder WotR. Baldur’s Gate 3 writing does seem good though, and I like its tie-ins with tabletop adventures like Descent Into Avernus, but to me, it seemed like Pathfinder: WotR is more story driven.
6. I like that Pathfinder WotR has both turn-based and real-time combat. I like turn-based combat a lot… when it makes sense. When it’s just dungeon encounter #8 of 40, and the stakes aren’t very high, I don’t want to micromanage it. It’s nice to roll through lighter encounters in 30 seconds instead of 5 minutes.
7. I can read faster than voice actors can talk. Pathfinder WotR frequently gives you a lot of exposition in text blocks without fancy voice acting. And that’s fine with me. Most of the time, I was going to finish reading the text before the voice acting was done and cut it short anyway.
8. Pathfinder WotR is a very in-depth classical isometric crpg. It’s got what I like. A world map, where I can choose where to explore in what order, quests, dungeon crawling, character development, etc.
9. I like the strategy game features in WotR, I was a big fan of HOMM 3 and I like city management games. Pathfinder WotR feels very much like a continuation of the old-school crpg tradition with some nice strategy/management game features added.
10. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a crpg too, but it leans really heavily on interacting with the environment. That’s kind of its big appeal, doing creative, maybe absurd, things in the environment. You can throw a gnome at a goblin, knocking the goblin off a cliff or into a puddle of oil which you then set on fire. There’s certainly something to like about that kind of game play, but it wasn’t really present in any crpgs before BG 3’s predecessor, the Divinity games. Baldur’s Gate 3 also has great graphics. But despite these neat features, Pathfinder WotR is the deeper crpg in a lot of ways. I guess it depends on what you are in the mood for, old school crpg quests and dungeon crawling, detailed character building, and city and army management, or creative choices in a very interactive environment.
11. First-time players of Pathfinder WotR may find it surprisingly difficult. But its encounters, at least the serious ones, aren’t really calibrated for you to just trade blows with the demons. You are expected to use a lot of spells and items, especially to buff up before the fight, and sometimes to counter the particular dangers of a special foe. If you don’t want to buff up before fights or figure out what counters dangerous enemies, you can also just turn the difficulty down on the fly. Personally, I don’t go in unhasted.
12. A lot of the character customization in Baldur's Gate 3 is adjusting hairstyles and other aesthetics. And BG 3 does have very nice graphics and if you don't spend at least 30 hours playing with all of the hair color and makeup options, you haven't really gotten your money's worth. But I actually really like that you can import portraits in Pathfinder WotR. Midjourney can make really cool-looking fantasy portraits, so even with all the tools in BG 3, I still like the look of my Pathfinder WotR character better.
13. Finally, please note that Pathfinder: WotR removed the spyware. So now no tech companies will get your data. Narrator voice: The tech companies would, in fact, get all of your data anyway.

I love the asynchronous mode for multiplayer. Very dad friendly. Can play 40k between doing stuff around the house.

Fizban's Treasury of Dragons is a new D&D supplement which includes useful options for both players and DMs.

Features in this book include:

Two new class options:

• Monk: Way of the Ascendant Dragon
  
• Ranger: Drakewarden

Three new variety of dragonborn racial options, each with several ancestry options:

• Chromatic: Black, Blue, Green, Red, White
  
• Gem: Amethyst, Crystal, Emerald, Sapphire, Topaz
  
• Metallic: Brass, Bronze, Copper, Gold, Silver

Many new magic items including varieties of:

• Amethyst Lodestone
  
• Crystal Blade
  
• Dragonhide Belt
  
• Dragonlance
  
• Dragon Wing Bow
  
• Emerald Pen
  
• Flail of Tiamat
  
• Gold Canary Figurine of Wondrous Power
  
• Platinum Scarf
  
• Potion of Dragon’s Majesty
  
• Ruby Weave gem
  
• Sapphire Buckler
  
• Topaz Annihilator

Seven new spells.

Eleven new feats.

Details & lore about dragons and their lairs and hoards.

Draconic gifts (sort of like boons from the DMG I believe).

A variety of new dragon related monsters including:

• Greatwyrms
  
• Gem dragons
  
• Crystal dragons
  
• Elder brain dragons (illithid dragons!)
  
• Draconians (evil draconic humanoids that I believe first appeared in the Dragonlance setting)
  
• Eyedrake (beholder dragon!)

This DLC is amazing.

I guess when it first came out, it wasn't quite polished, so it got some bad reviews. I didn't play it at first because of that. But now, in August of 2021, the devs seem to have added some really cool stuff.

Actually, when the main game, Conan Exiles, came out a few years ago, the game seemed to have a lot of potential, but it was still a bit rough.

Now this game lives up to its full potential. It has become an incredible romp through a dark fantasy world of building bases and killing demontrogs. The graphics are amazing. There are some incredible scenes in this DLC. When the meteors are falling on the central tower of evil, it looks really impressive. There's some dark island in the south and it's like wow, this island is spooky. Even at max level it feels like there is still a lot of fun stuff to do. Build your base, go out searching for even weirder demontrogs to slay, go into the evil dungeons, tame a rhino, get your beloved tamed rhino killed by a giant rockguy demontrog, stuff like that.

It is a game fit for true warlords. But you have to be a true warlord, in your heart and soul, to really feel drawn to it. If you are not really a warlord, like you are just some lame fancy pig who can't conquer the hyborian age, you probably wouldn't even be able to install this game.

This has to be one of the best D&D adventures ever made.

+ vast world map to explore (the continent of Chult)
+ lots of interesting encounters and areas to find
+ some really interesting writing, fresh yet iconic
+ very little railroading -- players basically have total control in where to go, how to resolve problems
+ the final dungeon has a lot of great puzzles and deadly traps -- feels very d&d

A must have for 5E fans.

Ratlings? Nice.

I got it in 2021. They added a tracker that automates a lot of stuff, making character creation a snap. There is still a little stuff you have to do manually, but it makes sense. It's the things that require special attention, like training your skills or picking feats.

Personally, I think Pathfinder 2 is superior to D&D 5e in almost every way. (You do need most of the books to get the full effect though.)

Pathfinder 2 has a really interesting game system. It's based off D&D but they made some really good choices in game design that make it more strategic. The combat dynamic of having 3 action points instead of 1 move, 1 action, and 1 bonus action opens up a lot of fun creative ways to use your action points on your turn.

The depth of designing your character is better than D&D. I love the backgrounds (of which there are many), races, heritages, feats (of which there are many), spells, etc.

I have not encountered a single change to the standard version of D&D that didn't make me say "this is a better way to do it."

The world is great with a lot of depth and detail. Official Pathfinder adventures are exceptionally well designed.

The benefit of the combat tracker and automation definitely makes it better on Fantasy Grounds than on a real table, at least in my opinion.

Reviews that say that the automation isn't good may be out of date. In 2021, the automation seems pretty good.

This game is just a better version of D&D.