Yet Another Alternative Kingdom Building Rules (Very Different)

[bmcdaniel]

vip00 wrote:

One thing I'm confused about - the granary is supposed to help during sieges? Maybe I'm not finding the rules, but where are the siege rules during which the granary will help?

I originally was going to write siege rules, but eventually decided that the topic was too complex and if a siege ever came up, I would use GM's discretion to adjudicate it.

However, I left in granaries as a way for the kingdom to stockpile food against the possibility of sieges.

[Hassy]

vip00 wrote:

One thing I'm confused about - the granary is supposed to help during sieges? Maybe I'm not finding the rules, but where are the siege rules during which the granary will help?

Unlike bmcdaniel's rules, my house rules do include siege warfare. However, we aren't yet using them (too early in the AP) and the rules are still in flux. In case it gives you ideas, below are the siege rules from my current draft, but they haven't seen any playtesting:

Sieges:

Instead of assaulting a fortified position, the attacking force may decide to lay siege. Unless the defenders interrupt the siege, the besieging army gets a +1 Defense bonus after 24 hours of preparing field fortifications. This bonus increases to +2 after a week. They may build more advanced fortifications normally, if they have the time and resources.

The defenders will have to pay consumption as normal for both their army and any citizenry that have not been evacuated. The supplies they have depend on the level of fortifications: 1 BP for each +1 Defense bonus. Each granary in a town adds +2 BP of supplies. This means an army with Consumption 1 can hold a fort (+3 Defense) for three months without problem.

After the defending force has run out of stored supplies, each week reduces the army’s morale by two as normal for unpaid Consumption, but the commander can halve this penalty with a DC 15 morale check. Each month a town’s citizens are denied supplies adds 1d4 Unrest. If this is because supplies have run out (as opposed to the commander only supplying his troops), a Loyalty check reduces this to 1 Unrest.

[vip00]

Thanks for the input guys!

I'm working on a modified version of the rules, based heavily on Hassy's edition. I've simplified it down by eliminating a few choices and skewed it heavily towards rural development vs urban. My group has a tendency to build up cities instead of exploring, so I feel like creating more incentive to settle new land instead of building up a single city makes more sense for a feudal-style kingdom.

To that end, I made every 250 population cost 1 consumption, which means that every explored hex or every 10 units worth of modifiers built in a city costs 1 consumption. This puts a huge cost on expanding because you constantly cripple yourself with extra consumption - to counter this, I reduced prices on almost everything across the board, since BP will be hard to hold onto at this point. Also, most economic developments in rural hexes are more cost efficient than building them in the city, which means that most developments in the city will be towards loyalty and stability, which is fine with me - cities become a cultural and military focus, with most of the country's economy generated in the countryside. This seems appropriate for a feudal-style country.

Here's my modified set of rules for anyone that likes to actively discourage overbuilding towns. These will likely change with more playtesting!

Kingdom House Rules v3

[Hassy]

I have the initial version of my mass combat house rules ready. I've playtested it outside actual play only, as our group is still not quite at that point in the AP. Also included below are updated kingdom building rules; mainly minor rewrites and fixes.

Kingdom Building: v.1.1 (16 pages + license)
Mass Combat: v.1.1 (8 pages + license)

(If you want to use them as is, you'll want to use Print directly from Google Docs. Downloading in any format breaks layout. You can use "print to file" to get a pdf, if supported by your browser and OS.)

Changes from the OP kingdom rules were detailed in a previous post. Changes specific to mass combat follow.

Mass Combat Changes:

Attached Characters

Important PC or NPC characters can be attached to units to improve their performance. Typically only one character per unit has an effect, and characters cannot affect the performance of units with CR higher than their level to a significant degree. The effect of an attached character depends on character type and must be chosen before battle.

(Rationale: Encourages players to create one unit for each character. Consumption rules discourage this. The benefits are mostly balanced, but which is best depends on unit CR and enemies.)

Size and Type: [Unit sizes are approximately x3 for CR +2.]

(Rationale: Avoids steep CR increase for small units. Allows truly large units that a small kingdom cannot support due to population. Matches unit sizes to descriptive names.)

A successful attack in mass combat deals damage depending on the margin of success, but always at least one and never more than twice the CR of the attacking unit.

(Rationale: Low CR mass combat was way too swingy.)

If after a successful attack the defending unit’s hp is below half its original hp, its commander must immediately succeed on a DC 10 Morale check to keep the unit from routing.

(Rationale: Morale checks are more common but easier. Many defeats are due to routing.)

After the battle, make a DC 15 morale check for each routed unit. On a success the unit can be reformed with -1 morale and hit points equal to either what it had left or its CR (if higher). On a failure, reduce the unit’s size by one (and thus CR by two) and its morale by -2 instead.

(Rationale: Morale checks make commanders matter.)

Challenge Rating: The challenge rating (CR) measures the unit’s effectiveness in battle. It is calculated using the individual soldier’s CR and adding the modifier from the table above. For these rules CR for commoners is level-2, other NPC classes level-1 and PC classes level.

(Rationale: Avoids high level NPC class characters (professional soldiers are fighters), and makes advancement clearer.)

Fortifications adjust the defending army’s DV and Tactics. The bonus depends on the level of fortifications, as listed in the table below. As normal, bonuses of the same type don’t stack. [Fort +3 Defense, Stronghold +6, towns up to +10]

(Rationale: Fort is worth about +1 CR, Stronghold over +2 CR, towns up to +4 CR. This makes sieges often the best way to deal with fortified enemies.)

Improvement Bonuses
Certain town improvements grant bonuses to armies raised in the town. At the GM’s option some may also be available if an army is raised near the town.

(Rationale: A more interesting way to make towns matter than fiddly equipment purchases.)

Notes on Balance:

I've mostly balanced things, and actually tested that they are in balance. However, different things are good in different situation, which is IMO fine.

Archers have ranged attack and -2 DV. Assuming a single ranged round, they are slightly ahead at low CR, but slightly behind at high CR (i.e. large armies). Add or remove a ranged round and the costs and benefits become clear.

Cavalry is expensive. Very expensive at low CR. However, the main benefit is that you get more oomph out of a limited population. They are still less expensive than mercenaries, usually. They are also good at harassing - attack the enemy and if things go south, retreat.

Generally, a unit has a 10-20% chance of winning against a unit one CR higher in a straight battle. However, it has a 30% chance of only being routed, even if it doesn't retreat. Winning Tactics is worth about 2/3 CR as is having an attached PC.

[Red Ramage]

Just chiming in that I've been using these rules for my group. They've completed 16 months of kingdom building and are loving the rules. They had a shaky start, and got through the first winter with a mere 6 BP in the treasury on the first day of spring. They did additional side adventures to bring in money for the kingdom, found a mithril mine in the very first hex they assayed (1% chance... first roll. wow), invested heavily in lumber camps, and are now prospering at kingdom size 11 hexes, and 18 auto income per round, with an auto-succeed on the economy check. Just in time for me to spring the army building rules on 'em and make them waste money fighting the troll kingdom!

My heartfelt thanks to bmcdaniel!

[Thrund]

I've been doing some playtesting to see how many of these changes I want to implement. I've removed the magic item economy (though I will still generate a list of available items so the players get some ideas to spend their money on), adopted the Logging Camp for forests and a Quarry/Mine as a single development for hills or mountains. I've cut down the number of options for town buildings, but not to the extent the OP did.

Interestingly, the hexes with free buildings all seem to be traps in this model because of their locations. Here's where I'd start instead:

Spoiler:

The best place to build the first town seems to be the Spider Nest. It's next to the Radish Patch (which is at least a logging camp and maybe a resource if the DM is feeling generous), the Gold Mine and several grassland hexes for cheap farming.

So, claim and build the Logging Camp and the Gold Mine first. Then claim three grassland hexes for farms (that's about the right number to get Consumption manageable) but don't claim Oleg's yet.

Now hunker down for a couple of months and let the Treasury build up. As soon as you can afford it, build a Mint in your town. This boosts the economy and also lets you raise the tax level to boost it further. In my playtests this happens in about month 9 or 10, so by the 1 year mark they should have made some of that investment back and be ready to expand further. For example, into Oleg's or the Temple of Erastil for a second town, saving the Stag Lord's fort until they've explored more of the Southern Greenbelt.

Of course, there isn't a chance that my players will run it this way, though if they surprise me and actually consult an expert or make knowledge rolls, I'll at least drop some hints. One of the players is going to be running a Diviner wizard, so his character (if not the player) should see the sense in doing some research.

[bmcdaniel]

I made some minor tweaks to some of the numbers, resulting from in-game play. Updated version is here: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B7OlweVB0wi_eUxSbl9jXzZUUktxNjNsR1MyS2ZvUQ

BMM

[bmcdaniel]

While I'm here, I'll add one more note. In practice, I've been fairly liberal about making ad hoc changes, either as a result of special hexes, or as a result of kingdom events. For example:
* A vinyard built in the fangberry hex yields 1 additional automatic income.

* When the kingdom is connected by roads from capital at Stag Lord's fort to Olegton (and thence to Restov), +4 economy bonus. I plan to do something similar (but bigger) when they control the East Sellen River and the trade routes into Brevoy.

* +2 loyalty bonus for 6 months for eliminating the trolls. +2 loyalty bonus for 1 year for killing the Big Bad at the end of the second module; fading to +1 for as long as they display the skin in the guildhall of the order of knights founded in its name.