Tag: Pathfinder Online

Let’s Talk Pathfinder’s Bounty System


At the beginning of the month, I did an article on Dominus, and their advertised bounty hunter system, making the point that it was woefully prone to abuse, not unlike many other bounty systems MMOs have attempted to incorporate over the past decade or so. Well the folks at Pathfinder Online must be after my own heart, because they’ve detailed their own bounty system that addresses many of my concerns.

First off, players are given the option to place a bounty when they are murdered (killed unlawfully) and apparently only at that point. Not only can you put a bounty on the person who murdered you, but anyone else who damaged you or assisted that person. So let’s say you are ganged up on by a fighter, a ranger, and a healer. You’ll be able to put a bounty on the heads of the fighter who murdered you, the ranger who stayed afar and pelted you with arrows, and the healer who healed the two.

In addition, you can specify who can redeem the bounty. The idea is that bounty hunter guilds will form up, and players can essentially contract a specific guild/player to be able to collect the bounty, preventing the killer’s friend from collecting it. But death isn’t the end: When your bounty is collected, you are given the option to re-issue it. Want to make a griefer pay? Keep resubmitting his bounty until your coffers run dry or he rage stops logging in.

This also raises a heavy risk for players who like to role play as red (criminal) gangs. Kill the wrong person, and you could find yourself on the receiving end of a very long manhunt. Granted, this whole system does not apply in cases of declared war, where killing is lawful. The hope is that this will prevent players from running around killing each other for no reason and to make a murderer’s life that much more dangerous.

Granted, there are still some ways to exploit this system, including the murderer being in secret cahoots with the mercenary guilds, but the Pathfinder solution is one of the best I’ve seen.

Pathfinder Online Invokes Everquest/RuneScape Death Mechanics


Pathfinder Online almost sounds like a cheap title one might use to parody an MMO with poor AI. That being said, the folks over at Goblin Works have piqued my interest with the announcement that death in Pathfinder will function similar to the old Everquest corpse walk, and yes I just used the words “upcoming MMO” and “old Everquest corpse walk” in the same sentence in 2012.

In a blog on the Goblin Works website, the team describes the mechanic in more detail. When a player dies, they can be resurrected by a nearby friend. If no one comes to their rescue, they will respawn at their bound location with everything they had equipped still on them. Anything in your inventory, however, is now in the possession of a soulless husk lying dormant on the ground of some creature-ridden cave. Should another player come across your fresh carcass before you do, they will be able to loot a random selection of your items with the rest being destroyed in the process.

According to the website, this is to ensure that players don’t just have friends loot them and give their stuff back, as part of your inventory is destroyed for good. It also means that players in groups can defend that person’s stash while they run back, even if no one in the group is capable of resurrection.

Pathfinder Online is an upcoming sandbox/themepark hybrid MMO with open world PvP based on the pen and paper RPG. Expect more articles coming up on Pathfinder, including how Goblin Works shoved my own foot in my mouth over a bounty system.

(Source: Goblin Works Website)