It was painful ;) TB actually started as a mod, that was later with permission taken by Owlcat and improved for the enhanced edition. During the development, there was almost an even split between devs preferring TB and RTwP, and RTwP barely won. So with the mod having laid some groundwork and it being extremely popular, it was easier to pitch the addition.

And yeah, I’m an old school RPG fan, I love TB. I actually stopped playing RPGs just before RTwP became popular with the Infinity Engine games, and only returned to them with NWN2.

decided to start with Kingmaker

Yeah, it was a good idea, as usual, for the reasons you mentioned. I just wanted to shill the successor a bit just so you won’t skip it because some things with PF:KM irked you ;)

(I’m playing on the recommended difficulty for someone new to the Pathfinder system)

You are smarter than 90% of people playing the game ;) It’s crazy, their games have super detailed difficulty settings, and presets with explanations. And yet people go, play on the brutal because they like Dark Souls and then complain it’s too hard. It’s like there’s some mental health pandemic with gamers. /rant

but you can pretty comfortably win against

Besides the difficulty, TB vs RTwP also influence this. I play on Core (actual setting in WotR, requires manual changes for KM, essentially as close to tabletop as possible; then some mods to bring it even closer to TT), but a lot of fights I could not do with RTwP, but they become far easier once I play the game in the way the system was designed.

Ohhh, one of my favorite all-time games, only surpassed by the successor.

So first off: Wrath of the Righteous is far more approachable. Better tooltips, better tutorial (including a dynamic one that pops up when relevant), better interface. Just in case you feel like more pathfinder. Note that the powerlevel is far higher in WotR because of mythic powers.

Right after the short tutorial, I went to pick up some berries in a spider-infested cave, which wasn’t too bad, just that the spiders have poison that reduce your stats. I

Fun story: This encounter was heavily nerfed (twice actually, once shortly after release, and then overhauled a few months later). It used to be mandatory and much more brutal :D It literally made some people stop playing :D

Consumable items to remove them exist, but for some reason, drinking a potion can fail. I guess your character just spills everything over the floor.

Hah :D So essentially the potion is a spell in a bottle. Wait, not essentially. That’s what it is. It has a caster level that depends on the creator of the potion. So with that caster level when drinking it, the spell casts Remove Curse against the DC of the curse. And that is what can fail.

After those two experiences, like an hour into the prologue or act 1, I was ready to get fucked at every turn

Sounds like you didn’t encounter the overleveled undead random encounter on the western side ;) Owlcat generally overhauled quite a lot of the encounters to remove difficulty spikes.

My only other gripe with the game is the Kingdom Management.

That is a very common complaint. I liked it, and the time pressure it added. Though only for the first few hundreds of hours (1283h played in total, and without beta testing), later I did what you did.

Went back to wishlist it. I played the demo, but it was pretty buggy. The “Very positive” is encouraging.

I’m a bit in a not-yet-released slump. “Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous” gets a new DLC in late November, so not playing that until then. The same company releases their new game “Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader” in December, so I’m not playing the Beta until then. “Vagrus - The Riven Realm” gets a new DLC some time this year, so also waiting there. “Colony Ship” gets out of EA and releases November 9, so obviously not playing EA either.

I had enough of BG3 for now (finished it only twice, it’s not as captivating as the Pathfinder games) and will only eventually replay it with one of those “make it like actual D&D5” modpacks. Regarding D&D5, I should some time check if there are updated fan campaigns for Solasta that use the higher DLC level cap :D

I did plan to replay Wasteland 2, but that will take quite some time, and as I mentioned, upcoming releases.

So after telling you what I have not been playing, what I currently do play is alternate between my typical fallback games: Stellaris (a game I never once finished despite 1080h of time played) and Civ V with the amazing and mandatory Vox Populi mod.