Kingdom Building


Kingmaker

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Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Okay! Let's use this thread to ask questions and get rulings for building kingdoms and cities using the rules in Pathfinder Adventure Path #32. These rules could impact more than just "Rivers Run Red," so it deserves its own sticky thread.


In this thread you stated that the Graveyard Econ bonus may be a typo. Just want to add the link.

Two questions. Clarifications, really.

The number of buidings in a turn is limited only by the Treasury, correct?

What do you do with the Edict Penalty reduction in the case of multiple cities having Cathedrals, Arenas, or Waterfronts? Do you halve each time?


Number of Buildings per city is limited by Kingdom Size as well..apart from the one house per turn you can automatically build


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DM Wellard wrote:
Number of Buildings per city is limited by Kingdom Size as well..apart from the one house per turn you can automatically build

Ah, the ubiquitous table on another page... we meet again, my old foe.


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Highlights from the other thread, just so we have everything in one place:

Exploration

James Jacobs wrote:

The effects of roads and rivers on travel time are covered in the Pathfinder Core RPG, in Chapter 7. (These factors weren't really talked about in the exploration phase since you can't build roads until a hex is claimed, and you can't claim a hex until it's explored.) By building roads, you're making it easier to move around in your kingdom, which is why you gain those bonuses to Economy and Stability.

Rivers do not count as roads for farms, and they actually can cause more problems than they solve for travel, since you can't cross them easily at most locations. Again, rules for river travel itself are found in Chapter 7 of the Pathfinder RPG.

James Jacobs wrote:
Ninjaiguana wrote:
I'm assuming that the players start out by deciding on their starting hex, and then must expand out from that hex at the usual speed and BP costs? Basically, they don't get any 'free' hexes added on, even if they've explored and subdued them, right?
Correct. No free hexes. First you have to spend the time to explore the hex, and then you have to claim the hex; two steps.
James Jacobs wrote:

Claiming hexes are indeed the point at which you start sending settlers and citizens and soldiers into that hex and they start building homes or whatever. Your PCs can certainly say that they rule over all of the hexes on the map, but until they're officially "claimed" during the proper point during kingdom construction, the PCs are just blowing hot air.

The king of Pitax is essentially doing just that. He claims to rule a lot of the land north of the city of Pitax, but he hasn't had the time or resources to clear and explore and claim any of those hexes yet. They're still techniclaly no-man's lands.

And as for increasing consumption when you add hexes... not only is Jason right about the fact that you have to support the settlers who live there, but you also have to pay for patrols through the region to prevent banditry and monsters, pay for tax collector and other government worker wages, repair roads or buildings or things, and pay for longer amounts of travel time.

Basically, the size of a kingdom is directly related to the cost to keep it up and running. It costs more to run a larger kingdom than a smaller one, and since Consumption is the number of how much it costs to run a kingdom, increasing a kingdom's size by adding hexes also increases total Consumption.

James Jacobs wrote:
Erik Freund wrote:
The existance of Pitax/Mivon brings up another question. How far south can the PCs travel or settle before things start to get dicey?

The maps we provide in the adventures of the Stolen lands pretty much conform exactly to the borders of how far the PCs can expand their nation before things get dicey. The top row of hexes in part 3 are technically part of Brevoy (and that adventure explains how to handle things if the PCs claim those hexes) and the bottom rows of hexes in part 5 are technically part of Pitax, but that adventure is all about a war between the PCs and Pitax.

So in short, the adventures have you covered. As long as you don't expand the maps in size, you won't need to worry about things getting dicey at all until the adventures themselves take that into account.

Cities & Buildings

James Jacobs wrote:

I suspect that graveyards having a bonus to economy is a typo. They're really cheap to build, and giving them 2 bonuses for only 4 BP is an error. They should only grant a +1 bonus to Loyalty.

And tannerys, mills, and smiths are different buildings for 2 reasons.

1) So we could get more buildings on the list.

2) Because they have different needs. A tannery smells TERRIBLE and shouldn't go next to a house. Mills need rivers. Smiths have neither of those requirements, and are a significantly common building to see in RPGs. So, three different buildings.

James Jacobs wrote:
The "buildings" are meant to be representational. A single "block" in the city grid is 700 feet to a side or something like that, so there's a LOT of buildings in there. The purpose of the "house adjacency requirements" is to ensure that your players actually build houses in their cities and to make it a bit more tricky to build the structures that actually increase your nation's stats. They're also to give places for everyone that makes a building function places to live, be those people employees, guards, street sweepers, customers, or whatever.
James Jacobs wrote:
Majuba wrote:


For the buildings that are required to be "Adjacent" to a house, what counts as Adjacent?

Anything counts as adjacent; left, right, above, below, diagonal, or even across streets.

But you can't "double duty" a house. Once it's used as a prerequisite for another building, it can't serve as a prerequisite for a second building.

James Jacobs wrote:
DM Wellard wrote:
Is there a limit on the number of districts you can have in a city?

Not really. A GM can certainly limit the number of districts a party puts in a single city if he wants, but multiple districts would be the only way you'd ever be able to model a really BIG city, after all. A city the size of Westcrown would take, IIRC, nearly 30 city grid districts.

Of course, your kingdom needs to be able to AFFORD all of those districts!

James Jacobs wrote:

I originally had the structures take one month per square, so that a castle (for example) would take 4 months to build. The reason I chose to abandon this was twofold:

1) It really slows down the startup of a city. And if your players decide to build a 2 or 4 square building, the fact that they'll need to wait 2 to 4 months before they can see a return on their investment could well put them DEEP into the hole on their Build Points. That's not something you want to hit the players with at the very very very start of the kingdom building experience, because they'll just get frustrated and aggravated.

2) Because it's simpler to say that buildings are finished quickly so that you can quickly apply the modifiers to the kingdom. If they're delayed, you run the risk of forgetting to apply the modifiers.

Buildings that upgrade is a cool element. We had this in there at one point as well, but had to cut it for space reasons and because it felt weird (in the way we had it working) that a busy merchant town, for example, would have a waterfront but not, necessarily, a marketplace (assuming your marketplaces upgraded into waterfronts). Also, by not allowing buildings to upgrade, you make the land in a city grid all the more important; you can't "save space" by stacking effects, basically.

In the end, it does start to stretch verisimilitude to have a castle or an arena built in a single month, but keep in mind also that magic can speed things up considerably... and if you want, you can even say that even though the castle only got placed on the city grid in a month that the town's been planning to put that castle there for months or even years. In the end though, it's a sacrifice that I think is necessary in order to ensure that the game is fun and moves quickly enough to keep the attention of all the players.

Economy

James Jacobs wrote:
Tem wrote:
The one detail I'm still missing is the classification of items that the PCs want to sell (and thus convert directly to BPs). If they've found a +1 sword while adventuring, is it a minor or medium magic item? It appears on both lists so can they choose or is it automatically the lower (or higher)? I can see circumstances where each of the two options might be better.
An item that appears on both lists should always default to the lesser. So a +1 sword would count as a minor magic item.
James Jacobs wrote:

We've specifically NOT assigned direct gp values to how much a mine or any resource can bring in, since the game's economy has some disconnects between things like society economy and PC magic item economy.

Mines do nothing more than add to a kingdom's economy score, and when you make economy checks that helps you earn more Build Points. Mines aren't intended to fill PC pockets with gold, and they won't "play out" unless you want to houserule even more realism into the system.

...

TRY to resist allowing the PCs to mix gp and BP. Things will get messy if you do.

If the PCs want to buy an item that shows up for sale in one of their cities, they just buy the item with their own gp and that's that. Doesn't impact the kingdom at all, beyond opening up an empty item slot.

But you really REALLY should try to convey to the PCs that "BP" and "gp" are two different systems. We included methods to translate the two back and forth out of necessity, but if you can get away without crossing these streams, your campaign, I suspect, will be the healthier for it.

James Jacobs wrote:

If you want gold mines to be worth more, it's a pretty simple thing to just change the economy bonus it grants up to +2 or more.

And here's the secret: we DID playtest these kingdom rules, but they're really still brand new. The longer a kingdom runs, the higher its scores are gonna get, and the more into weird unexplored territory you'll get. I'm REALLY curious (and a little nervous) to see where things end up in the long run at the end of the campaign. I'm relatively sure it's going to end up having kingdoms that are pretty stable and successful, but that's sort of the goal and the point. We don't want building a kingdom to be SO TOUGH that folks give up. And by the time "War of the River Kingdoms" begins, you'll probably be needing a LOT of BP to fund those armies and keep them going...

So what I'm saying is that if you think that a building or a resource needs to have different numbers... try out some changes! If things get to a point where you think things are getting too hard or too easy to run the kingdom, you as the GM have the power to have some event like a famine or a sudden run of good weather adjust the stats for the kingdoms any way you want to bring things back in line with what you want. As long as you couch these adjustments in the form of descriptive events during the Event phase, the ultimate success of a kingdom should be pretty easy to adjust.

James Jacobs wrote:

You can attempt to sell a magic item once per Income phase per district.

So if you only have one city, you can only try to sell one item per Income phase. But if you have multiple cities (or a city of multiple districts) you can try to sell a magic item from EACH district.

Other

James Jacobs wrote:
Command DC and Control DC are the same thing.

I think that's everything...

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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9jack9 wrote:
What do you do with the Edict Penalty reduction in the case of multiple cities having Cathedrals, Arenas, or Waterfronts? Do you halve each time?

Nope; one four-square building is enough to halve the cost of edict penalties. Multiple arenas, cathedrals, or waterfronts don't further reduce overall edict penalties (but multiple arenas, cathedrals, or waterfronts DO have a cumulative effect otherwise).


James Jacobs wrote:
9jack9 wrote:
What do you do with the Edict Penalty reduction in the case of multiple cities having Cathedrals, Arenas, or Waterfronts? Do you halve each time?
Nope; one four-square building is enough to halve the cost of edict penalties. Multiple arenas, cathedrals, or waterfronts don't further reduce overall edict penalties (but multiple arenas, cathedrals, or waterfronts DO have a cumulative effect otherwise).

Gotcha, the reduction is a "once per kingdom" effect.

The Unrest increases and reductions on buildings, are they one time effects on the build turn, or are they ongoing? The K.I.S.S. design vibe of this system would indicate the former, but I want to make sure.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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9jack9 wrote:
The Unrest increases and reductions on buildings, are they one time effects on the build turn, or are they ongoing? The K.I.S.S. design vibe of this system would indicate the former, but I want to make sure.

Unrest reductions and increases from buildings occur once only, when the building is created.

Unrest can get out of hand REALLY fast, so a recurring unrest effect is really bad.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I read somewhere that some rules for hiring low-level adventurers to take care of problems around the nation were cut for space. Any chance we might see those rules here?


Can the consumption of a kingdom be negative?
If a kingdom has many farms and not so many non-farm hexes and cities, it would be possible that 2 times the number of farms is bigger than the size plus the city districts.
In this case, would the kingdom actually gain BPs from consumption?

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Zen79 wrote:

Can the consumption of a kingdom be negative?

If a kingdom has many farms and not so many non-farm hexes and cities, it would be possible that 2 times the number of farms is bigger than the size plus the city districts.
In this case, would the kingdom actually gain BPs from consumption?

Nope - can't go below zero.

You COULD think about allowing some kind of kingdom improvement to be built that allowed you to bank BP from consumption, but overall I think building farms would be a very cheap way to earn BP for your kingdom compared to other ways to get there.


Jason Nelson wrote:
You COULD think about allowing some kind of kingdom improvement to be built that allowed you to bank BP from consumption, but overall I think building farms would be a very cheap way to earn BP for your kingdom compared to other ways to get there.

Farm Surplus, but then you'd have to have an event that covers the spoiling/bugs/market tank for those surplus goods


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For the Kingdom rules, I created an excel file which does most of the calculations for you. It might be of use to some of you:

Kingmaker Kingdom Sheet

For the vacant penalties to apply you have to use "Vacant" as a character name.

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

TheChozyn wrote:
Jason Nelson wrote:
You COULD think about allowing some kind of kingdom improvement to be built that allowed you to bank BP from consumption, but overall I think building farms would be a very cheap way to earn BP for your kingdom compared to other ways to get there.
Farm Surplus, but then you'd have to have an event that covers the spoiling/bugs/market tank for those surplus goods

Exactly. Granaries aren't a terrible idea as something that could give you bonuses vs. events like plague or bad crops or that kind of thing, but I'm not sure I'd want to make it a blanket "BP bank" kind of system.


The other thing you can do is adjust your edicts to cover the extra BP that would be "lost"

Increase Festivals to boost loyalty - Bump taxes to decrease loyalty but improve economy. The surplus then works for you to provide potentially more BP

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:
I read somewhere that some rules for hiring low-level adventurers to take care of problems around the nation were cut for space. Any chance we might see those rules here?

Sure! During the event phase, you can...

Hiring Adventurers: By hiring adventurers, the PCs can effectively purchase one time bonuses to any Economy, Loyalty, or Stability checks made as a result of a kingdom event. A group of low-level adventurers (level 1–2) grants a +2 bonus on the check but costs 4 BP. A group of mid-level adventurers (level 3–5) grants a +5 bonus on the check but costs 8 BP. A group of high-level adventurers (level 6 or higher, but never higher than the PCs’ Average Party Level) grants a +10 bonus on the check but costs 16 BP.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

I tinkered with having a surplus and a heartier debt system for BP, but it got too complicated too quickly. Feel free to do something with your game if you wish, but be warned; it can get out of hand fast.


Ok

So I've been thinking about the rights of rulers, etc.

What are people thinking for how to handle the seizure of items or property.

for example the city is created and the magic shop ends up having an item a particular Ruling PC wants but doesn't want to pay for, I mean after all he is the King/Ruling Elite and he and his friends created this Kingdom. So he demands it or demands half price for himself.

What are the possible ramifications of this for the kingdom? Is there citywide Unrest?A special Event?

Considering the Six River Freedoms practically encourage this type of behavior I'm very curious to see what level of unrest people think this might create.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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polyhedron wrote:

Ok

So I've been thinking about the rights of rulers, etc.

What are people thinking for how to handle the seizure of items or property.

for example the city is created and the magic shop ends up having an item a particular Ruling PC wants but doesn't want to pay for, I mean after all he is the King/Ruling Elite and he and his friends created this Kingdom. So he demands it or demands half price for himself.

What are the possible ramifications of this for the kingdom? Is there citywide Unrest?A special Event?

Considering the Six River Freedoms practically encourage this type of behavior I'm very curious to see what level of unrest people think this might create.

First of all... there's a basic assumption that the PCs are playing good guys. And that means that they shouldn't be treating their kingdom like a bank or a treasure chest.

Seizing property like this is, I would say, a chaotic act. Stealing property like this (which is the same as seizing but not even bothering to promise to pay the owner back) is, I would say, an evil act. Either one of these acts, first and foremost, could have alignment ramifications for some PCs.

On top of that, the perception of the citizens of a kingdom if their rulers or government officials seem to think that they can simply come in and take things that don't belong to them will QUICKLY change; the PC "king" will start to look like a PC "tyrant" pretty quickly.

The first time the PCs do something like this, I would probably have the kingdom start to get nervous; +1 Unrest and a –1 penalty to Economy (since now merchants would start to get hesitant about showing off their wares) and a –2 penalty to Loyalty (since why be loyal to a bandit?).

If the PCs do this a second time, I'd double the penalties: –2 Unrest, –2 Economy, –4 Loyalty.

If the PCs do it a third time, I'd probably switch gears and change from a Kingmaker campaign into a Civil Uprising campaign. AKA: Their kingdom will start falling into anarchy and their enemies will become their citizens and fellow NPC rulers.

ALTERNATIVELY: I would change it from Kingmaker into Tyrantmaker, and rebuild the kingdom building rules as needed to work for an evil Tyrant who uses his nation as a bank or treasure chest. I'd probably change "Loyalty" to "Fear" and do more with unrest and civil uprisings and the like. Could make for a really interesting campaign, to tell the truth... but it's not the one we're presenting in Kingmaker.

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

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Just treat withdrawing items from the public the same as withdrawing money. The rules are already there in the Economy phase.

+1 Unrest for the cash grab, regardless of amount.

Then, a Loyalty check equal to +1/2000 gp withdrawn.

If the check fails, you gain 1 unrest/2000 gp withdrawn.

This came up in my campaign, when this verrrrry nice magical axe (worth a shade over 50 grand) came up.

It would have required a DC 60 Loyalty check (which they could not succeed on even with a natural 20), and if (when) failed it would generate 26 Unrest.

Since your kingdom falls into anarchy at 20 Unrest, it would have been kingdom suicide.

All of the above said, PCs might be able to get away with petty strongarming of small-scale items, though each time is an automatic 1 Unrest regardless of whether they succeed on the Loyalty check. It's only when they try it with a big-ticket item that they are asking for big trouble.


1) Why is the Tenement an option?

I get that not all options have to be optimal. That isn't what I am getting at. What I mean is, all it does is make the city worse. It doesn't even make sense to use it to "upgrade" to a House since the upgrade ends up costing you the same amount over all.

2) Was the Tenement supposed to act as a house?

3) From the way it is written, it looks like magic items that cost 4000 gp or less can not be sold. Is this the intent?


Disenchanter wrote:

1) Why is the Tenement an option?

I get that not all options have to be optimal. That isn't what I am getting at. What I mean is, all it does is make the city worse. It doesn't even make sense to use it to "upgrade" to a House since the upgrade ends up costing you the same amount over all.

2) Was the Tenement supposed to act as a house?

3) From the way it is written, it looks like magic items that cost 4000 gp or less can not be sold. Is this the intent?

There are some situations I've run into where it's useful to build a Tenement. For instance, if you want to build a castle and have at most 2 unrest then you can also build the tenement and be left with 0 unrest at the end of the phase. Now you have the equivalent of a house for prereqs but it only cost you 1 instead of 3. Later on, if you need to decrease unrest, it'll only cost you 2 to upgrade to the house and get the -1 unrest bonus.

Regarding cheap magic items, the way I read it you can sell them without having to make an economy check (for half-price as usual).

Grand Lodge

James Jacobs wrote:
Hiring Adventurers

I like this. Definitely going to use this one. Was anything else cut do to space constraints?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Disenchanter wrote:

1) Why is the Tenement an option?

I get that not all options have to be optimal. That isn't what I am getting at. What I mean is, all it does is make the city worse. It doesn't even make sense to use it to "upgrade" to a House since the upgrade ends up costing you the same amount over all.

Cheap housing (see below).

Disenchanter wrote:
2) Was the Tenement supposed to act as a house?

Yes. Tenements act as houses for the purposes of fufilling the requirement; they're basically a good way to build cheap houses since the unrest only hits you on the turn you build the house.

Disenchanter wrote:
3) From the way it is written, it looks like magic items that cost 4000 gp or less can not be sold. Is this the intent?

I'm not sure what you're getting at here...

If you're wondering about buying cheaper magic items, remember that all cities have a base value and that cheap magic items can be bought if they're under this base value without having to roll them up. If you're talking about PCs selling unwanted items, they can always sell items to a city for gold; this doesn't affect your city's Economy since you're only doing this to sell off items for your PCs.

Or I might still be confused by the question...

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Aberrant Templar wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Hiring Adventurers
I like this. Definitely going to use this one. Was anything else cut do to space constraints?

Some events were cut, I believe, but mostly they were just condensed (rather than have multiple types of natural disaster, we condensed it into one "natural disaster" result, for example.)

I'm actually pretty hesitant about going through the original draft and posting all the stuff that was cut, because I have no real way aside from rebuilding the article of really telling/remembering what got cut for space and what got cut simply because it was bad design and poor ideas. I'd rather not re-introduce errors like that.


James Jacobs wrote:


First of all... there's a basic assumption that the PCs are playing good guys.

i dont see that as none of the 4 pre-gens are, and going forth and conquering the new world isnt 'good'?

id say the assumption should be the PC's are lawful guys

hmm..not the right thread for these kings of thoughts, may raise this elsewhere

john


thenovalord wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:


First of all... there's a basic assumption that the PCs are playing good guys.

i dont see that as none of the 4 pre-gens are, and going forth and conquering the new world isnt 'good'?

id say the assumption should be the PC's are lawful guys

hmm..not the right thread for these kings of thoughts, may raise this elsewhere

john

(I put in spoiler tags for off topic discussion)

Regarding good guys:
In my opinion being the 'good guys' does not mean the characters need a good alignment.

The wizard in my group is neutral evil basically because he lacks any empathy and will use any means necessary to get what he wants. He's still interested in clearing out and building a stable nation in the Stolen Lands.

He might be more interested than the other two in the party to invade neighboring nations once the opportunity presents itself though.

edit: Guess it's another thing if your party wants to build a tyranny..

Dark Archive

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here are few more questions:

1) how do we start a kingdom ? Looking at the phase description, we should start with a control check that is absolutely impossible to succeed as there is no leadership, thus I assume the very first turn start with the improvement phase, right ?

2) exotic craftman don't have an economy bonus, isn't it a typo ?

3) in the kingmaker, Oleg's outpost might become the very first building of the new city, and thus it can be incorporated for free as a new building. But wich one ? inn ? shop ? market ?

--

my xlsx kingdomMaker sheet


Answers are provided in the rules:

1) how do we start a kingdom?

Upkeep Phase
During a kingdom’s Upkeep phase, take the following actions. [u]If your kingdom currently controls 0 hexes, skip this phase and proceed to the Improvement phase.[/u]

2) exotic craftman don't have an economy bonus, isn't it a typo ?

I will leave this one to one of the Paizo People. (Although I guess that two +1 bonusses and a minor item are enough for 10 BP)

3)In the kingmaker, Oleg's outpost might become the very first building of the new city, and thus it can be incorporated for free as a new building. But wich one ? inn ? shop ? market ?

"Oleg’s Trading Post: The trading post is a versatile structure built to serve as a place of business. If the PCs decide to found a city in this hex, they can incorporate Oleg’s as a free Shop, Stable, or Watchtower in their city grid (once chosen, the function of Oleg’s within the new city cannot be changed)"


Alignment in DnD has always been a bit wonky. You can have evil characters that work for or build a basically good government (dude from Elizabeth?), vice versa, a group of good characters can end up establishing what is essentially an "evil" society if they aren't careful. Best laid plans and all that...
Also, the PCs aren't so much conquering (which implies taking over from another kingdom, usually violently) as they are "expanding" into a vacuum. Granted the Stolen Lands has its own stuff going on, but it is basically unclaimed land. I keep visualizing a cross between Lewis and Clark and the Westward Expansion of the US as a thematic template. Definitely not Rome. At last not yet...
Hope none of the worms from that can I just opened crawl away... :)


James Jacobs wrote:
Disenchanter wrote:
2) Was the Tenement supposed to act as a house?
Yes. Tenements act as houses for the purposes of fufilling the requirement; they're basically a good way to build cheap houses since the unrest only hits you on the turn you build the house.

Okay. It makes sense now. Just note that it isn't written anywhere that a Tenement acts as a House for building prerequisites.

James Jacobs wrote:
Disenchanter wrote:
3) From the way it is written, it looks like magic items that cost 4000 gp or less can not be sold. Is this the intent?

I'm not sure what you're getting at here...

If you're wondering about buying cheaper magic items, remember that all cities have a base value and that cheap magic items can be bought if they're under this base value without having to roll them up. If you're talking about PCs selling unwanted items, they can always sell items to a city for gold; this doesn't affect your city's Economy since you're only doing this to sell off items for your PCs.

Or I might still be confused by the question...

Okay, let me try this one again.

If you have a magic item slot open, and roll a 3rd level potion for the random item. It is worth 750 gp. In the Income Phase, it says that items that cost greater than 4000 gp can be attempted to be sold off.

As written, there isn't anything to cover selling items of a lesser value - other than the PCs buying it up to open the slot.


Anything a PC sells with a value under 4000g is sold. with ttl value of 4000g = 1BP

City items sell on an Economy check:

RAW wrote:
To sell these items, make an Economy check (DC 20 for minor items, DC 35 for moderate items, and DC 50 for major items). A failed check indicates the item doesn’t sell. Success indicates that the item sells and you can increase your kingdom’s treasury by 2 BP (for minor items), 8 BP (for moderate items), or 15 BP (for major items). You can make one Economy check per city district during each Income phase.

As a minor item the potion mentioned would give you 2BP

Grand Lodge

What are the rules for wearing more than one 'hat'? For example what if a pc wants to be the High-priest and Councilor? Or Ruler and General etc?


PJ wrote:
What are the rules for wearing more than one 'hat'? For example what if a pc wants to be the High-priest and Councilor? Or Ruler and General etc?

The RAW is the PCs can only be in one role.

If you want to house rule they can take on multiple roles that's up to you.

Grand Lodge

TheChozyn wrote:
PJ wrote:
What are the rules for wearing more than one 'hat'? For example what if a pc wants to be the High-priest and Councilor? Or Ruler and General etc?

The RAW is the PCs can only be in one role.

If you want to house rule they can take on multiple roles that's up to you.

Ahh, Thanks. I'm sure my peeps will want to roll up secondary characters then.


The one role per char was made so that the PCs would have to gather allies in their quest to rule. There are a lot of potential NPCs. Letting them rock secondary charecters can be a way to negate those interactions. Or liberal use of the Leadership Feat.

I'd play that up by having the "B" team take on some of the random encounters. So they can be more than just place filler.


TheChozyn wrote:

Anything a PC sells with a value under 4000g is sold. with ttl value of 4000g = 1BP

City items sell on an Economy check:

RAW wrote:
To sell these items, make an Economy check (DC 20 for minor items, DC 35 for moderate items, and DC 50 for major items). A failed check indicates the item doesn’t sell. Success indicates that the item sells and you can increase your kingdom’s treasury by 2 BP (for minor items), 8 BP (for moderate items), or 15 BP (for major items). You can make one Economy check per city district during each Income phase.

As a minor item the potion mentioned would give you 2BP

I am familiar with that passage, but you are leaving off the sentence directly before it, the one "these items" refers to:

RAW wrote:
You can attempt to sell items that cost more than 4000 gp through your city's markets to bolster your kingdoms Treasury; these can be items you recover during an adventure or they can be magic items currently held by any of your cities.

You will see that, as written, the only items that can be sold cost more than 4000 gps.

((Also note, the potion can be rolled up as a major item.))


Ok but the donating up to 4000gp is mentioned only as items the PCs hold. Then specifiaclly brings them to step three.

I view it as City held items are only mentioned in step three, so follow those rules. Player donated items of of 4000gp worth follow step threes rules, after beign directed from step one.

We'll have to see how James meant it to read.

I agree where it can get a bit confusing.


Disenchanter wrote:
((Also note, the potion can be rolled up as a major item.))

James noted earlier you go with the lowest point on the chart the item can be attained from. So for a third level potion it would be a Medium Item. I said minor before. Was thinking caster level.


TheChozyn wrote:
Disenchanter wrote:
((Also note, the potion can be rolled up as a major item.))
James noted earlier you go with the lowest point on the chart the item can be attained from. So for a third level potion it would be a Medium Item. I said minor before. Was thinking caster level.

I saw that as well, but that was in response to an example of a found item.

If you roll up magic items and, say go through all minors then move to medium then move to major, if you roll a potion for a major item it is "stuck" in the major item slot.

Which makes me now ask if this is the way it was meant to be handled?


While we are still on the subject of Items I'll have to add a few points from my views as a player and DM:

If there is any campaign in which a PC could get away with demanding an item for free this would be it in my mind. You can make any moral justification according to your alignment for this action. A good character can see a threat to his kingdom nearby and see a powerful item that would without a doubt aid in the defense of the common good, at that point it could become an evil act to not take the item(perhaps he just wants to borrow it for a month). Neutrals and evil PCs could act in the same way.Furthermore the Sixth River Freedom is "you have what you hold" in a land where even the common people may have taken a turn a banditry to survive, the disloyalty factor does not make a lot sense to me.Lastly merchants usually don't care what happens to the competition unless they are a consortium/incorporated monopoly.

So my alternative would be to let it happen once or even twice, after that it's clear this may be a habit of the new king and slam a -2 penalty to the economy or send an assassin. If it continues increase the penalty or simply use the existing rules.

As for the Kingdom erupting into civil strife because the King seized the Uber Axe +1. That sounds like a fault with the system and very hilarious.

"How dare the King seize that axe I could never hope to afford, off with his head!"

Either way it seems like a tricky issue that will most likely come up for a few people. I don't even want to think about PCs merely requesting discounts or free mundane items.


Disenchanter wrote:
Okay. It makes sense now. Just note that it isn't written anywhere that a Tenement acts as a House for building prerequisites.

Of course, just now when looking in my print copy... There it is in black and white that Tenements count as a House.

Carry on...

Grand Lodge

James Jacobs wrote:
I'm actually pretty hesitant about going through the original draft and posting all the stuff that was cut, because I have no real way aside from rebuilding the article of really telling/remembering what got cut for space and what got cut simply because it was bad design and poor ideas. I'd rather not re-introduce errors like that.

That's cool. I only asked because I was curious if there was anything that you (or anyone else) liked that ended up on the cutting room floor. I guess Special Edition extra features & deleted scenes are a weakness of mine. I like seeing what was cut and learning why.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

thenovalord wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:


First of all... there's a basic assumption that the PCs are playing good guys.

i dont see that as none of the 4 pre-gens are, and going forth and conquering the new world isnt 'good'?

id say the assumption should be the PC's are lawful guys

hmm..not the right thread for these kings of thoughts, may raise this elsewhere

john

I should have realized that saying "good guys" would sound the same as saying "good-aligned guys."

What I should have said was, "Kingmaker assumes that the PCs are not actively destructive and cruel, and that they want their kingdom to succeed."

Just as playing a party of city-hating anarchists is not a good choice for players who play an urban-themed campaign like Council of Thieves or Curse of the Crimson Throne, and just as playing drow is a bad idea for Second Darkness, it's a bad idea to play tyrants in Kingmaker. It's a sandbox game, but even sandboxes have edges.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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r-Kelleg wrote:
1) how do we start a kingdom ? Looking at the phase description, we should start with a control check that is absolutely impossible to succeed as there is no leadership, thus I assume the very first turn start with the improvement phase, right ?

This has been answered in a previous post, but yeah, your first kingdom round skips the Upkeep phase because there's nothing to upkeep (this is stated in the second sentence of the first paragraph under "Upkeep Phase.")

r-Kelleg wrote:
2) exotic craftman don't have an economy bonus, isn't it a typo ?

Yup; typo. Exotic craftsman should grant: 1 minor item, +1 Economy, +1 Stability.

r-Kelleg wrote:
3) in the kingmaker, Oleg's outpost might become the very first building of the new city, and thus it can be incorporated for free as a new building. But wich one ? inn ? shop ? market ?

This is detailed on page 8 of the adventure.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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Disenchanter wrote:

If you have a magic item slot open, and roll a 3rd level potion for the random item. It is worth 750 gp. In the Income Phase, it says that items that cost greater than 4000 gp can be attempted to be sold off.

As written, there isn't anything to cover selling items of a lesser value - other than the PCs buying it up to open the slot.

Ah. Yes. Items that cost less than 4,000 can't be sold off. It's just too cheap to really have much of an impact on your national economy to make a difference; it'd be like the US government selling a single TV to try to make a dent in the deficit. Doesn't really help. Only selling items that are worth 4,000 gp or more can help bolster your kingdom's treasury.

If you have a low-cost magic item that's "clogging" a magic item slot, and you want to get rid of it but no PC wants to buy it, you can "sell" it during the Income phase by making the Economy check; if you're successful, the kingdom's treasury doesn't increase but you do open up the item slot.

Of course, if you prefer to just ignore the 4,000 gp limit, that's fine too. The system can bear that kind of hand-waving, I suspect. ;-)

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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PJ wrote:
What are the rules for wearing more than one 'hat'? For example what if a pc wants to be the High-priest and Councilor? Or Ruler and General etc?

Yup; only one hat per character. This is partially because there's a sort of balance of power thing; if one character wears too many hats, then suddenly he has too much power. It's also to help prevent a calamity in case your kingdom loses that character; if a leader dies or quits or whatever, you have only one vacancy. But if he was in multiple spots, suddenly you have lots of vacancies.

The MAIN reason, though, is that we want to have NPCs in there as fellow leaders. This makes for a more entertaining gameplay experience if not all of the slots are taken up by players, and gives the GM a chance to exert some influence over the kingdom as NPC co-leaders. Also, there are lots of events that involve leaders having problems or scandals or the like, and it's usually better to just say that a scandal involves an NPC than forcing some sort of situation on a player.

And also, by limiting the roles to one character, this forces the players to actually have to make some choices.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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polyhedron wrote:

If there is any campaign in which a PC could get away with demanding an item for free this would be it in my mind. You can make any moral justification according to your alignment for this action. A good character can see a threat to his kingdom nearby and see a powerful item that would without a doubt aid in the defense of the common good, at that point it could become an evil act to not take the item(perhaps he just wants to borrow it for a month). Neutrals and evil PCs could act in the same way.Furthermore the Sixth River Freedom is "you have what you hold" in a land where even the common people may have taken a turn a banditry to survive, the disloyalty factor does not make a lot sense to me.Lastly merchants usually don't care what happens to the competition unless they are a consortium/incorporated monopoly.

So my alternative would be to let it happen once or even twice, after that it's clear this may be a habit of the new king and slam a -2 penalty to the economy or send an assassin. If it continues increase the penalty or simply use the existing rules.

As for the Kingdom erupting into civil strife because the King seized the Uber Axe +1. That sounds like a fault with the system and very hilarious.

"How dare the King seize that axe I could never hope to afford, off with his head!"

Either way it seems like a tricky issue that will most likely come up for a few people. I don't even want to think about PCs merely requesting discounts or free mundane items.

It's up to you, really, how to handle things. I don't really think that an entire kingdom would collapse because a king demanded the tribute of a single +1 battleaxe... but then again, that's no the type of item that most PCs would care about. It's cheap; they would just buy it. I was more thinking about the fact that it's technically possible to randomly roll up something like a +4 flaming vorpal falchion or some similar SUPER awesome and expensive item. I think a king who basically robs one of his subjects of a 200,000 gp or so item WOULD cause an uprising.

It IS a tricky issue. And as far as Kingmaker's concerned, it's the same flavor of tricky as interparty strife or PVP. It's not something that the adventure really covers or WANTS to cover, so like PVP, if it's going to be a problem in your game and you don't like it, you'll need to talk with your players about expectations.


James Jacobs wrote:
Disenchanter wrote:

If you have a magic item slot open, and roll a 3rd level potion for the random item. It is worth 750 gp. In the Income Phase, it says that items that cost greater than 4000 gp can be attempted to be sold off.

As written, there isn't anything to cover selling items of a lesser value - other than the PCs buying it up to open the slot.

Ah. Yes. Items that cost less than 4,000 can't be sold off. It's just too cheap to really have much of an impact on your national economy to make a difference; it'd be like the US government selling a single TV to try to make a dent in the deficit. Doesn't really help. Only selling items that are worth 4,000 gp or more can help bolster your kingdom's treasury.

If you have a low-cost magic item that's "clogging" a magic item slot, and you want to get rid of it but no PC wants to buy it, you can "sell" it during the Income phase by making the Economy check; if you're successful, the kingdom's treasury doesn't increase but you do open up the item slot.

That is what I expected. Just trying to point out the little cracks in system that will be constantly questioned if the system were to see the light of day, as written, in a more "general" product line (I think I can guess which product).


James Jacobs wrote:


It's up to you, really, how to handle things. I don't really think that an entire kingdom would collapse because a king demanded the tribute of a single +1 battleaxe... but then again, that's no the type of item that most PCs would care about. It's cheap; they would just buy it. I was more thinking about the fact that it's technically possible to randomly roll up something like a +4 flaming vorpal falchion or some similar SUPER awesome and expensive item. I think a king who basically robs one of his subjects of...

How I might handle this is allowing a Loyalty check rather than an Economy check. The DC would be reduced by 20, but the item has to be returned by the start of the next turn. Failure to do so means the people think you have claimed the item for good, and adds that +20 to the Economy check to try to counter the Unrest.

...so, yeah, better hope nothing happens to the uber-axe you asked to borrow from one of your subjects in good faith.

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