Ultimate Rulership (PFRPG)

4.40/5 (based on 5 ratings)
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A fantastic expansion to the kingdom-building rules for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game!

If your characters are building a kingdom, you cannot miss this 40-page product! Designed as a perfect complement to the newly revised kingdom-building system, Ultimate Rulership contains a dazzling array of new options including new Edicts for royal commissions and endowments, espionage and festivals, and militarism and recruiting new armies. Add nearly 20 new buildings for your cities from Aeries to Tunnels, Hanging Gardens to Crematoria. Guidelines for population and military recruitment, and for integrating settlement attributes, kingdom events, and danger levels; naturally advantageous sites and exotic city locales from cliff dwellings to treetop towns to cities under the sea!

We hope you enjoy the first product in our line of Ultimate Plug-Ins and look forward to upcoming products supporting not only the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Campaign hardback but other hardback rulebooks. Players and GMs alike will find fantastic rules support from the best authors in the business, delivered the creativity, flair, and imagination that will Make Your Game Legendary!

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4.40/5 (based on 5 ratings)

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If you like Kingdom Building... you want this.

5/5

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I'm a huge fan of the Ultimate Campaign Kingdom rules, as well as Legendary Games, so when a complementary product is released, I'm quick off the mark to buy it (but not too quick to review, it seems).

This book is the perfect expansion for people who want more depth and options for their kingdoms, written by the maestro of kingdom crunch, Jason Nelson.

The Good
If the introduction didn't sell it well enough, here's some broad details:
New edicts, covering things like festivals, espionage, and military recruitment.
New buildings, offering greater variety in benefits (and building tiles for your settlement sheets).
Population revised, which gives a more detailed approach to the size of your settlements.
Events revised, accounting for the kingdom's danger level.
Titles. Lots and lots of titles, drawn from the real world, you can find the perfect noble title for your ruler (and rules for how proclaiming yourself Emperor if you only rule a single hex makes you look like an idiot).
And lots more... (and I don't mean "just one more bit", this book is packed with options and rules.)

The Bad
As usual, I find it hard to find fault with this product. One thing that springs to mind is that the Windmill is missing from the new building tiles.
Layout-wise, I found having the titles taking up several pages in the middle of the book a bit odd (could have been an appendix).
One thing that might put people off is that there is simply So. Much. Crunch. This is not a negative for me, but if you're not after detail, detail, and more detail, then you might feel overwhelmed.

The Conclusion
If you're looking for more Kingdom rules, this book is a must. It perfectly works alongside the Ultimate Campaign rules, and bits of it can be plugged in (Ultimate Plug-ins, who'd have thought it?) with impunity.


An Endzeitgeist.com review

5/5

The first proper supplement for Ultimate Campaign’s innovative crafted by Legendary Games is 48 pages long, 1 page front cover,2 pages of editorial, 1 page SRD, 1 page ToC, 1 page introduction, 2 pages of advertisement, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 39 pages of content, so let’s take a look, shall we?

I’ll do it similar to the introduction of this book and go off on a slight tangent: I LOVE Ultimate Campaign. It’s not perfect, but the sheer fact that the rules allow for PCs to properly influence and guide the fortunes of organizations, cities etc. is glorious and helps much with the concept of immersion. So what does this expansion offer?

The first component introduced herein would be edicts, of rather modifications of edicts: Alternative expansion, taxation and holiday edicts are provided and offer more variety and control than their default versions: Weekly holidays may for example cost 1d12 BP, but they also offer +2 to economy and +4 to loyalty… Nice modifications for the standard edicts and ones that should not overexert anyone’s ability to implement them. We also are introduced to a series of special edicts that can be grouped in 5 fields – commission, endowment, espionage, festival and recruitment edicts. The respective edicts are smart and make sense: For example, take the endowment edict – it may result from the noblesse oblige event and provide +1 loyalty and fame, but also increase consumption by +1 – and if you fail to pay for the endowed building, you run the risk of gaining 1 point of unrest on a failed loyalty check… Espionage is also rather awesome, if I may say so – from the alignment and levels of vital players/rulers of nations to general levels of unrest, there is a lot that can be gleaned and options to support organized crime, ferment unrest, bribe merchants – it’s all there for the taking!

What also deserves special mentioning in my book is the fact that all PC-classes can be “built” as elites by providing the adequate prerequisite buildings. Now one personal minor gripe I had with the basic kingdom building rules seems to have been shared by LG’s design-team and we thus also are introduced to a variant rule that eliminates the attribute modifier from the respective ruling positions and instead makes a value of 13 a prerequisite. Instead, skills count for more in the respective area of expertise, which, at least to me, makes infinitely more sense – so kudos for that and making magical items with attribute boosts matter less in the grand scheme of things.

Now with all this talk about kingdom building, it should come as no surprise that we also get a variety of basic premises that are the foundation - getting a land grant results e.g. ina different starting BP-score than getting a fiefdom – and yes, taking the conan-route and gaining control via a coup (not that unlikely, taking PC prowess into account!) also provides for an option, albeit a challenging one – having to start with only 20% of a kingdom’s former BP is a harsh restriction, but if the rulers-to-be manage to pull it off, they’ll have no authority above them to answer to…

Now on the fluffy side, having kingdoms, land and vassals also entails a certain amount of status and thus, titles – mostly neglected in the basic rules, we get a nice, concise breakdown of kingdom sizes, domain names, typical titles of the respective rulers and honorifics: Beyond European-inspired lists, we also cover middle-eastern, asian, ecclesiastic and Greco-roman titles and finally, even a collated table.

Now every realm requires cities and similar settlements – and some places are safer than others. Hence, we get a neat table to modify population-size by terrain and factor modifications of danger by terrain type into account as well – and yes, settling in the underdark is damn dangerous. Via farms, fishereies, watchtower etc., these can further be modified and sample settlements,. Once again, we get optional rules as well and oh boy, do I like them: Where limiting exotic goods seems logical, the second one provided is gold: We actually get a concise way of limiting consumable magic items – which is awesome. Why? Well, if you haven’t noticed, their pricing tends to be balanced with costly material components that don’t fracture into the GP-limit-determined availability, resulting in powerful magic being potentially available in ridiculous breadths. Well, with some concise rules and a small table that particular jarring blemish is gone., especially since part two of that issue, the restriction of caster levels, is addressed as well. Compared to those optional rules for secret markets for magic items and a smart limit on spellcasting services available may be less interesting, but still welcome – at least on my table.

Speaking of cities – building them was never as easy as with this book: With the extremely helpful massive table of buildings tec. by base-cost and how long construction takes etc. – duplicate buildings, restrictions, different building qualities – all in here. As is advice for luring the lines between city-building and customizing buildings to represent their neighborhood. Have I mentioned the new types of buildings? Tunnels and thankfully, finally also bordellos may now be constructed. Oh, and want to go kingdom-building Geb/Hollowfaust-style? What about having your own deathless labor force? Permanent Animate Objects? What about forbiddance or (un-)hallow effects? Or peculiarities like fertile land, natural crossroads and the like? There is quite an array of potential at your beck and call, if you choose to make use of it. Now where the pdf goes above and beyond is with uncommon settlement-types – cavern cities, cliff-side settlements, barge cities, treetop villages – all come with their own restrictions and challenges to make sure that your exotic settlement does indeed reflect its uncommon nature in the rules as well as its fluff – two thumbs up!

Another expansion herein that we imho were in dire need of would be danger-levels by area and thus kingdom and settlement events – events are now grouped as beneficial or dangerous, modified by danger modifiers and come with their own tables that make determining proper events much faster and also more logical. We also get a broad range of different settlement qualities that allow for e.g. the settling in old ruins to be possible and civic attributes also feature in a concise, massive table – which btw. includes e.g. sacred animals, anthropomorphizing auras, a magical aura that makes animals talk, existing in a pocket dimension, being unaging/eternal (great to build e.g. ancient bastions akin to Anor Londo) or make your settlements wild magic zones or bureaucratic nightmares –all can be found herein.

Beyond this vast amount of options, we also get lavishly drawn building tiles in full color as well as an index of tables.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn’t notice any glitches of significance. Layout adheres to LG’s two-column full-color standard studded with thematically fitting graphical elements. The pencil-drawn artworks by Frank Hessefort and Mike Lowe in full color at first took me a bit to get used to, but their sheer amount of detail and precision let them develop a nice, unobtrusive flair that complements the supplement rather nicely. The building tiles are top-notch. The pdf comes fully bookmarked and in two versions, with the second being more printer-friendly than the default pdf.

Jason Nelson has delivered a supplement with this pdf that is all but REQUIRED for Kingmaker and any supplement using Kingdom-building-rules – this pdf provides options upon options, many of which allow you address some of the weaker aspects of the base system. Furthermore, the added content, with all its options and iconic possibilities does quite a nice job at providing a myriad of possibilities. If this pdf made one thing clear, then it would be that these rules not only can use expansions, they provide fodder galore for even more supplements. Ultimate Rulership is an awesome, if not particularly cheap supplement that is worth every cent for its well-crafted amount of crunchy content, with my one gripe being that there is still quite some ground to be covered – perhaps a sequel is in order? My final verdict will clock in at 5 stars + seal of approval for a glorious supplement indeed that should make any kingdom-building experience more rewarding and which should be considered all but required for any prolonged use of Ultimate Campaign.

Endzeitgeist out.


Can't Complain.. At all

5/5

I bought this shortly after it was premiered on the home page of Paizo.com. I read through it before I read Ultimate Campaign, then read it again after reading Ultimate Campaign. It accomplishes what it set out to do. It adds to the Ultimate Campaign without even compromising it. I think in my humble opinion this piece is part two of the Ultimate Campaign. I wouldn’t use Ultimate Campaign without it.


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

Great to hear. I'd love to see your thoughts on Jim's adventure!

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

And for anyone interested in this product, it's on sale today ONE DAY ONLY!

Webstore Gninja Minion

Print/PDF Bundle available!


Thank you, Jason.

Already had (and absolutely loved) the PDF for Rulership...so I just ordered the rest. :D

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

Liz is correct - both the print and PDF bundle are both available on Paizo.com. The one-day sale is just a special discount we are running on our website for Cyber Monday.

I should also announce that I've ordered a new batch of these books (as well as our other print products) from our printer and will drop them off at the Paizo office once they arrive, so those will be available here soon as well!


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Rolls up to this thread again.

Jason, unless I'm very much mistaken (which does happen), the building tiles seem to be missing the Windmill from the new buildings added in Ultimate Rulership.

Is this an oversight, error, or just me not noticing an update?

Thanks as always for your work!

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

Chemlak wrote:

Rolls up to this thread again.

Jason, unless I'm very much mistaken (which does happen), the building tiles seem to be missing the Windmill from the new buildings added in Ultimate Rulership.

Is this an oversight, error, or just me not noticing an update?

Thanks as always for your work!

Certainly not intentional. Alas, a minor oversight by us. :(

If we eventually do a hardback compilation, that's something we'll probably try to update.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Thanks, Jason!

Now, in the interests of cross-pollination, I've hosted a (Definitely-Not-Final) Release Candidate version of the kingdom tracking spreadsheet, updated for Ultimate Rulership. There several known issues, and it doesn't have full functionality yet (Jason, you've given me a lot of work, here!), but there should be some new updates coming in the next few weeks.


Jason Nelson wrote:
Chemlak wrote:

Rolls up to this thread again.

Jason, unless I'm very much mistaken (which does happen), the building tiles seem to be missing the Windmill from the new buildings added in Ultimate Rulership.

Is this an oversight, error, or just me not noticing an update?

Thanks as always for your work!

Certainly not intentional. Alas, a minor oversight by us. :(

If we eventually do a hardback compilation, that's something we'll probably try to update.

Hardback compilation? Yes, please! This would be greatly appreciated by those of us that use this rule set to have them all in one handy dandy book. I would take it in PDF format. I would even volunteer my spare time to create such a compilation (I have a copy of Adobe Pro) to submit back to LG for publication (to include adding errata and any other updates or missing material that was "left out" even though I am not a pro). I have just under a year left in pergatory before I get back to the US and acquire a new game group...

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

5 people marked this as a favorite.

It's on the drawing board, but it has to wait for me to complete Ultimate War, which with my newfound status as a full-time author/publisher (instead of just doing it in my spare time) is finally on the way to getting accomplished!


Jason Nelson wrote:
It's on the drawing board, but it has to wait for me to complete Ultimate War, which with my newfound status as a full-time author/publisher (instead of just doing it in my spare time) is finally on the way to getting accomplished!

Hooray! (My group just took their first couple of Ult-Rule-assisted kingdom turns.)

(And as I figured, we're in need of farm/mine/etc. icons...)


Jason Nelson wrote:
...Ultimate War, which with my newfound status as a full-time author/publisher (instead of just doing it in my spare time) is finally on the way to getting accomplished!

Woot!

This week's only just getting started and I can already guarantee that this is the best bit of news this week.


Sweeeet!


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Jason Nelson wrote:
It's on the drawing board, but it has to wait for me to complete Ultimate War, which with my newfound status as a full-time author/publisher (instead of just doing it in my spare time) is finally on the way to getting accomplished!

Having bought soft copy of URule and UBat (heh), and fully intending to get UWar as soon as it's available, a hard copy compilation is even then on my list of must-have products.

[Insert 'Shut up and take my money' meme image here]

Damn, these spreadsheets are going to get tricky.


Jason Nelson wrote:
It's on the drawing board, but it has to wait for me to complete Ultimate War, which with my newfound status as a full-time author/publisher (instead of just doing it in my spare time) is finally on the way to getting accomplished!

Good news! Rest assured that I will be getting a copy! I'm really eager to see the rules for sieges, naval warfare and that modular system for making 'mixed arms' units. Heck, I'll do my absolute best to get that hardcover compilation too if it ever happens, and I hope it does.


I'd happily buy a combo version of your Ultimate series, in dead-tree format too. :)


Jason Nelson wrote:
It's on the drawing board, but it has to wait for me to complete Ultimate War, which with my newfound status as a full-time author/publisher (instead of just doing it in my spare time) is finally on the way to getting accomplished!

Yes Yes Yes! Does a little happy dance!


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I was wondering, and figured i'd voice a thought. Have/had you considered a way to add seasonal impact to economy or hex production? for example Farms during Winter Months would theoretically be less productive and add another optional layer of management to the system.


I do not quite understand the neighborhood rule.

Does this mean that I could get 8 buildings into one square as long as four of them are houses?

If I build a building that deals with unrest does that mean that reduces or adds that every month or just once?


Also I was wondering why their is no discount for building a small building then upgrading?

Also why do big giant builds give discounts on small things and not the other way around?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Mathius wrote:

I do not quite understand the neighborhood rule.

Does this mean that I could get 8 buildings into one square as long as four of them are houses?

If I build a building that deals with unrest does that mean that reduces or adds that every month or just once?

It's best to just use the game rule term "lots" (one of the small squares on the city grid), since that helps differentiate things, but yes, in a four lot block, as long as you have 4 houses, you can build up to 4 of the listed buildings in that block as well under the neighbourhood rule.

All modifications to unrest occur instantly and once only. All settlement and Kingdom modifiers apply instantly, but are removed if the building causing them is destroyed. Modifiers from events are still under discussion (I personally believe that they apply instantly as permanent modifiers, but there is some question regarding continuous events).


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Mathius wrote:

Also I was wondering why their is no discount for building a small building then upgrading?

Also why do big giant builds give discounts on small things and not the other way around?

There sort of is, since you only pay the cost of the upgrade, rather than the full cost of the improved building, which allows you to spread the cost of upgraded buildings out over more Kingdom turns. As for why, I can only cite game balance.

On the discount question, it's because the existing infrastructure in the kingdom makes constructing the discounted buildings easier.

The Kingdom rules are an abstraction, not intended to realistically model how settlements and kingdoms actually grow, but to help tell and drive stories. To make them interesting, and to make a kingdom a risky proposition, there must be a balancing act between allowing a kingdom to succeed, and having a kingdom fail. The rules from UCam and URule do that, quite well.

If, as a GM, you feel the rules aren't meeting your expectations, then houserule them. You probably won't break the game if you allow upgrades to get an additional reduction of, say, 50% of the cost of the building being upgraded. On the other hand, past a certain point, BP are incredibly easy to come by for a kingdom, so making it even easier to improve could be counterproductive.

Likewise, if you want to add discount lines to some of the smaller buildings, that probably won't break anything, either. I'd suggest things like a smithy giving a discount on exotic artisans and garrisons - remember, each building only applies the discount it offers to a single building constructed later. Be conservative to begin with, see how it goes, and if you're happy, expand your discounts. You could even set conditional discounts, like letting a caster's tower offer a discount on a magic shop in settlements of city or metropolis size only. That would add another level of "what do we build first?" to the decisions. Just be wary of making things too easy.


Wow thanks for the fast response.

A house costs 3 to build. A house cost 1 to tear down and only 2 to rebuild. Since your first house can be free this essentially means that you can spend 3 BP per settlement to drop an unrest.

Now that I think about that is not really a bad thing. Basically you renovate the neighborhood and kill some unrest.

Also means tenements can make a buffer for you. Just tear them down if an event give you a bunch of unrest.

Edit:Just realized that demolition uses a build edict.


I was just doing some math.

I am I doing something wrong with the population by building or are the figures to low?

A town is supposed to have more then 200 residents and take up more 2-4 squares

We start our settlement as a village and build a monastery, library, and brewery. That is a village of 35 monks.

Lets say the beer the brew is quite good and someone wants to build a bar to sell it. We add in a house and a tavern. We are now in "town" with only 140 population.

This is much worse at the town/city boundary. A city is supposed to have more then 5000 residents. The only way I can find is to abuse the heck out the neighborhood rules. If you build 16 tenement/jails you end up with 2400 residents in your town. Since population is doubled for cities that will be 4800 once you expand. In order to qualify by population you would need build a building that add at least 100 population base. There are many that do not.

With the jail/tenement combo a district has maximum population of 10800. Even if we wait until the first district is totally full of this crazy combo we still end up with a metropolis of less then 11K residents.

Also the figures for many things seam quite low since they are not just 1 store but a whole district. The numbers seam to better represent just 1 or 2 such establishments.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I generally agree, and I'm going to do some number crunching of my own, but one thing to mention is that settlements should get the river/coast population multiplier, which is likely to bring many settlements up to more appropriate population levels for their "type" (for example, if your 140 population town is on a river, the population should double to 280, which is more in line with the core game's settlement sizes, and if it's on the coast next to a river it trebles to 420).

This post brought to you by the guy who keeps pestering Jason Nelson about these rules.

(If I haven't said it in public before, huge thanks to Jason for his patience with my ongoing questions on a project he finished a long time ago.)


I tend to dig into the math as well. Since the river and coast multipliers are in effect then the numbers make more sense.

Thanks Jason for a great project.

New question: how is a the lumber mill supposed work? I understand the price drop part but how is the extra BP supposed to work?


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Basically, for every 2 sawmills in hexes adjacent to, or containing, a settlement with a lumberyard, you get an additional +1 BP per turn during the taxation step of the income phase. This is in addition to the +1 BP that each sawmill provides.

So, if you have a settlement with a lumberyard that is surrounded by hexes with sawmills (and there's a sawmill in the settlement hex, too), you're getting +7 BP for the sawmills, and another (7/2 = 3.5, round to 3) +3 from the lumberyard. Each sawmill can only provide this bonus to one lumberyard.


That's what I thought. Makes the brickyard and the lumberyard incredibly good investments since terrain improvements are already the best bank for your buck. A foundry is nice but but more limited because it only effects one mine.

Is there any reason to have a stability or loyalty greater then your control DC?

It seams that maximizing economy while just getting but on the others is your best bet for fast safe growth.

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

I put in the coast/river modifiers to help address the population issue, since the math never quite added up in the original rules. Then again, population was assumed to be completely abstract and had no fixed number attached in the official rules. Ultimate Rulership makes population more relevant since it ties things like Manpower to a percentage of total population, based on your level of militarism.

As far as demolishing and rebuilding a house, I'd have to look again at the cost. I don't have the book in front of me, but it does seem a little cheesy to just grind and rebuild to eliminate unrest at no BP cost. The build limit is there as a cap on how much recycling you can do with your city squares, but it's not unreasonable to say that rebuilding houses and tenements always costs full price if you think it's important to stop that loophole.


While I can't find the rule right now, I seem to recall that demolishing a house lot increased unrest by 1D4?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Nope. Demolishing does nothing, and rebuilding the same building in the lot is done at half cost. Buildings destroyed by events or armies cause 1 unrest per lot.

So, you demolish a house for 1 BP, and rebuild it for 2 BP (if we assume rounding up on the rebuild cost), so for 2 building edicts, and the cost of a house, you reduce unrest by 1 for no increase in settlement size.


Now that I think about the house trick does not actually work. I would build then only when i have unrest and then slowly demo them and kill the unrest with stability checks. The main issue is that houses and tenements have no long term benefit so I would rather use that space for something that does.

The neighborhood rule helps with that since you can use the lot for other things.

I really like the idea of population tracking. It really bothered me that it did not exist in UC. The hex modifiers are great.

I am not sure about using them in settlements. It does solve the problem for river or coastal cities but a city with out those has very hard time gaining population. I am thinking about using your half and doubled building values based on squares but you will not get the higher item availability or spellcasting or modifiers until you have the population.

Conversely you can benefit from being a town or city sooner if you can get your population up before you fill the grid.

This would be a reason to leave tenements up. They really would boost your population.

I really like that hex improvements are far better then city improvements. This encourages expansion.


Chemlak that assumes that the reduction in unrest does not go away when you demolish the house. It does not seam all that awful to allow 3BP and 1 build (and your free build) to be used to reduce unrest by 1. All it does is save you a lot. Of course if tearing in down does not cause an increase in unrest then only reason to not tear them down is save on build edicts. I guess the 1 BP can mean something as well but in general I think I want my lots to actually do something.

That means that tearing down a tenement would not reduce unrest. I think I am okay with that to. People would not be happy to have their house torn down.


I have thought about mass combat in pathfinder but always seams to me that a 11+ level party can simply just tear through any amount of level 1-3 characters.

Liberty's Edge

Is there any chance we will see Herolab support for this book? I realize it will likely not be Lone Wolf themselves that are doing it.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I think that depends on if Legendary Games decide to Kickstarter the Ultimate Kingdom compilation and throw in HL support as a stretch goal.

The buildings would be fairly straightforward, but some of the more esoteric rules might be tricky.

Translation: I'm having enough difficulty with the spreadsheet, let alone using HL scripting to build the rules.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Could I resist the opportunity to review this? Nope.

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

Chemlak wrote:

I think that depends on if Legendary Games decide to Kickstarter the Ultimate Kingdom compilation and throw in HL support as a stretch goal.

The buildings would be fairly straightforward, but some of the more esoteric rules might be tricky.

Translation: I'm having enough difficulty with the spreadsheet, let alone using HL scripting to build the rules.

HeroLab is a funny beast, because it's not simply a matter of saying, "Hey, here it is" and popping it up on our website for sale. The HeroLab system is massively complex, and each new chunk they add to the system multiplies that complexity because of how (on the coding side of things) it interrelates with everything else. When a company compiles the HL code, the LoneWolf people still have to go through and see how it interfaces with the existing system and whether it would bog down the system. There comes a point at which the increase in complexity or unwieldiness is more trouble than the value added by additional content.

They also very much favor adding large chunks of content that can be packeted together, rather than many smaller units, because it's easier to keep things together in that way. A 200-page compilation makes much more sense from their end than a 30-40 page supplement.

That's not to say that HL can't add more content; they're working continuously to upgrade and improve the system, but that LoneWolf is pretty choosy about what they add to make sure it's a good addition to the system. 3rd party stuff is always a bit of a gamble for them, as for good or ill it's a niche market within the broader Pathfinder crowd.

Ultimate Rulership has sold around 1200 copies, so clearly there's a pretty interested market for it, but it's not 100% certain whether LoneWolf wants to significantly build out the HL system in terms of rules subsystems like kingdom-building and mass combat. It's definitely an area that we're looking into, but nothing is imminent on the HL frontier for the Ultimate line.

We added our Gothic Campaign Compendium content back in January and will be adding the content from our Mythic Mania books later this year. Getting the coding done is a lot of work, so it's a relatively slow process, but as we are relatively new on the HeroLab scene it's also an area where you can make sure we make a positive impact in the HeroLab market by picking up those product bundles. The more Legendary Games products sell through HeroLab, the more inclined LoneWolf will be to add more product from us in the future!


Chemlak wrote:
Could I resist the opportunity to review this? Nope.

That's a great review. Concise and yet it gets the point across why anyone would want to buy this; much better than my usual work.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Does it have classic quotes such as this one from Queen Elizabeth the Tenth?

"I'm the bloody Queen, mate, and I rule!"


Mathius wrote:
I have thought about mass combat in pathfinder but always seams to me that a 11+ level party can simply just tear through any amount of level 1-3 characters.

That's why the troop subtype exists.


Does anybody know if there's a HeroLab plug-in for this?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Yes. There is not.

The buildings would be easy* to put in via the editor, but the edicts would be much harder, let alone the mechanics around settlements (the very thought makes me cringe) without being ShadowChemosh or Aaron from LWD.

See my post on March 29th and Jason's reply April 7th above.

* Well, as easy as anything in the HL editor is.


I just ran into a weird situation from using the Base Settlement Statistics presented in Ultimate Rulership. I like the starting Base Value for each settlement type and how they can be improved upon through specific buildings, but what about the Purchase Limit?

Right now, the capital city that my players have built over the course of 5 years (in game time) has a current population of 5,560, with 54 lots, making it a Metropolis (since it is at least 2 districts; I have no concerns about these numbers since their capital city is more like a downtown core that is the greatest collection of the nation's economic power but not the highest population density). Thanks to some of the buildings within the city, the highest spellcasting level is 7th and the current Base Value is 9,500.

The problem (from a common sense point of view) that arose is that there are no other suggested alternatives for the Purchase Limit. In lieu of suggested alternatives, I went with the chart in the Gamemastery Guide book, which sets the Purchase Limit to 100,000 gold pieces for a Metropolis settlement.

That feels drastically off to me for a settlement that has a diverse spread of economic development with just the minimum number of people living there to make it work. The Purchase Limit of the settlement feels way too high when you compare it to the Population and Base Value numbers. Any suggestions on how to make a starting value for the Purchase Limit based on settlement type?

Cheers!

CB out.

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

Canadian Bakka wrote:

I just ran into a weird situation from using the Base Settlement Statistics presented in Ultimate Rulership. I like the starting Base Value for each settlement type and how they can be improved upon through specific buildings, but what about the Purchase Limit?

Right now, the capital city that my players have built over the course of 5 years (in game time) has a current population of 5,560, with 54 lots, making it a Metropolis (since it is at least 2 districts; I have no concerns about these numbers since their capital city is more like a downtown core that is the greatest collection of the nation's economic power but not the highest population density). Thanks to some of the buildings within the city, the highest spellcasting level is 7th and the current Base Value is 9,500.

The problem (from a common sense point of view) that arose is that there are no other suggested alternatives for the Purchase Limit. In lieu of suggested alternatives, I went with the chart in the Gamemastery Guide book, which sets the Purchase Limit to 100,000 gold pieces for a Metropolis settlement.

That feels drastically off to me for a settlement that has a diverse spread of economic development with just the minimum number of people living there to make it work. The Purchase Limit of the settlement feels way too high when you compare it to the Population and Base Value numbers. Any suggestions on how to make a starting value for the Purchase Limit based on settlement type?

Cheers!

CB out.

Sure. The simple solution is to assign the settlement type based on the Settlement Population Ranges on p. 203 of the GMG. At a population of 5,560, they're just barely over the line to "Small City," which would give a purchase limit of 25,000 gp.

The "two districts equal a metropolis" concept is a weird one, and I think it ends up attributing more game-mechanical meaning to the word than it should have. Go with population and let it rock.


Thanks, Jason! It was what I was leaning towards when I was examining it but I wanted to see if anyone else had a different idea for it.

Cheers!

CB out.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I basically agree with Jason, and the numbers from the GMG set the purchase limit at roughly 5-6 times the base price (with thorps being an outlier at 10x).

So, for a more granular feel, try this:

1) Determine the settlement type using the GMG population numbers.
2) If it's a large town or smaller, use 5x base price. For small city or larger, use 6x base price.

Something else to chuck into the spreadsheet when I get the chance.

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

Spreadsheet FTW!

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

The 5th Edition version of Ultimate Rulership is now off to layout, for your 5E fans and friends to share the love!

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