Pathfinder: The Dragon's Demand - Rules Implementation

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Pathfinder: The Dragon's Demand is now is now over 78% funded; learn more about the implementation of the rules:

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Update 5: Pathfinder Rules Implementation

The project is now over 78% funded with over 5,600 backers!

Greetings Demanders!

I'm Kevin Smith, lead programmer on Pathfinder: The Dragon's Demand, and in this update I'll be getting into more detail about about the remastered Pathfinder Second Edition rules implementation we've been working on.

At Ossian Studios, we know that there are two types of RPG players: those who want to spend at least six hours on the character generation screen, and those who want to jump into the story as quickly as possible. Consequently, we have designed our character creation screens to seamlessly support both styles of play. You can pick from a variety of fun pre-generated characters, or you can create a completely custom character and drill-down into all the details by selecting from hundreds of options, including Feats and Spells. As many of you already know, the Pathfinder character generation process can be extremely complicated, but we are working hard to make it both fun and easy to understand by providing a highly flexible sheet-based user interface that rivals any other CRPG on the market today.

After character creation, as your party gains experience from adventuring, you'll be able to level up any party member using just a single mouse click. Alternatively, you can delve deeply into any character's details and hand select every level up option imaginable.

As part of a robust level up system, we hope that our backers help us unlock the Multiclass Archetypes stretch goal because this will unleash a vast array of powerful and highly customized characters! Pathfinder's Multiclass Archetypes can be used to create exciting combinations of different character classes. You'll be able to customize your own character, and all of your party members. But remember that all of the enemy NPCs also benefit from Multiclass Archetypes, so expect more unique and exciting new challenges during strategic combat encounters.

Behind the scenes, our Rules Engine orchestrates everything in the game, from Exploration Mode to Combat Mode. The Rules Engine directly loads a huge amount of tabular data that was extracted directly from the official Paizo rule books (thank you Archives of Nethys!). Supporting the Rules Engine are our generic frameworks for Feats, Spells, and Actions. We have tested both the Rules Engine and the frameworks by implementing hundreds of Feats, Spells, and Actions up to tenth level. The frameworks can support the addition of new Feats, Spells, Actions, and even Character Classes with relative ease.

From the very beginning, we knew that this would be a Pathfinder Second Edition game, rather than a converted First Edition game. Although we began developing this game long before the Remastered Pathfinder Rules were invented, Paizo graciously provided us with very early access to the new rules. Consequently we've had a significant amount of time to adapt our custom game systems to support the new remastered Second Edition rules.

Developing a game of this size and complexity is certainly extremely challenging! What are some of the things we tangle with on a daily basis? The sheer quantity of Feats and Spells that we are implementing is a huge challenge (I actually love implementing these!). The Pathfinder Rules, although very well designed, have many unique edge cases, which are not well described. We often have to pause and debate exactly what should happen in various complex scenarios. As much as possible, we stay true to the Pathfinder rules-as-written, but also adapt where necessary to make a better CRPG experience.

Despite these many challenges, we have already implemented all Second Edition core Ancestries, Backgrounds, Classes, Deities, Heritages, the vast majority of Class Features, and all level-up benefits including gained spells and spell slots.

After the game is funded, we're looking forward to interacting directly with our many backers to help prioritize key game features, and even debate how to resolve some of those tricky rules edge cases! Please help spread the word about the game so that we can attract more backers! Thanks for all of your help so far!