Kingmaker (Inactive)

Game Master Dreaming Warforged

Very nice explanation Javell! Very clear summary.

Now, I need two players to get involved in the kingdom building part. The story picks up only towards the Summer if we don't do the kingdom part.

I'm pretty sure Bokken' hut can be used. I'd have to check to see what it brings to the city that would be built there.

Every five points on an Economy roll represents +1 BP.

To 'buy' a +1 to Stability or Loyalty therefore 'costs' a -5 to Economy.

That throws pretty much the entire Edict subsystem into imbalance.

Okay, now I see what your saying.

You're definitely having to pay for it early on, if you choose to go the route I did. But eventually when you get your kingdom built up with hexes and farms, the farms can offset that in the end.

What I have currently, if I were to claim 3 more hexes and make them farms, that would bring the Consumption down to -2 for every turn. So you could then raise any of the Edicts up to zero that out,(thereby gaining an extra bonus to whatever), and--in a way--cover up the loss of Economy. And raising them is probably gonna be necessary seeing how your Control DC is gonna be higher with the extra hexes. You try and get whatever bonuses you can from somewhere, if you can manage.

Again, it was a no-brainer for us when we weren't using the other two. But when you do have to account for all of the Edicts, those +1's(or whatever) to Stability and Loyalty may make all the difference when it comes to down to rolling such checks.

As imbalanced as it appears, I think it still works fairly well. If you look at AK's group's numbers that I gave in an earlier post, they've done pretty darn well for themselves. And I thought I mentioned it but I can't seem to find it, they're using the AP rules as is. He's added in a few things himself, but nothing that alters what's been written, save for the Mansion.

Very nice explanation Javell! Very clear summary.

Thanks! I try to explain in a way that I would understand it. It's easier to explain in person than it is in writing, so, I try to make it as clear as possible.

Again, it was a no-brainer for us when we weren't using the other two. But when you do have to account for all of the Edicts, those +1's(or whatever) to Stability and Loyalty may make all the difference when it comes to down to rolling such checks.

Oh, I agree. The Loyalty and Stability checks will be important later, I just wanted to stress that Taxation is a trap.

Javell DeLeon wrote:

Again, it was a no-brainer for us when we weren't using the other two. But when you do have to account for all of the Edicts, those +1's(or whatever) to Stability and Loyalty may make all the difference when it comes to down to rolling such checks.

Oh, I agree. The Loyalty and Stability checks will be important later, I just wanted to stress that Taxation is a trap.

You mean...It's a trap!

I'm a little confused after the back and forth on the respective systems. Are we continuing with a modified rule set or are we reverting back to what was in the AP?

Personally, I would like to use the AP rules myself. I think they work well and I know them. The main reason is because I know them. :) But, regardless, if you all would rather go with the modified rule set, that's fine. I've already been through a big to do with the caravan rules in a Jade pbp which(among piles of many other things, the rules being the least. The rules equaling the straw and the camel bit) prompted me to leave, sadly. They really looked like fun. I don't want to go through that again.

So, I'll go with the majority.

But before we even decide that, DW's waiting on someone else to speak up on whether or not they want to help build the kingdom. If no one else decides they want to do it, then I guess it gets thrown to the wolves. Which would stink. Because I think this can be a lot of fun.

Just fyi, I've been doing Unrest wrong. Going back and reading under the 'Buildings' section, it speaks on how buildings only affect Unrest ONE time. And one time only. I've got it listed as permanent. There is no permanent. It's constantly in flux.

And for the record, I've been bugging the crap out of AK with questions such as these. Hopefully I can get as many answers out of him before he blocks me on the pm side. :)

Seriously, though, he's been a huge help in helping clear some of these issues up for me. The dude's like the Kingmaker AP KING or something.

Man it's mighty quiet around these parts. *tumbleweed bounds through the town as the only sound you hear is the wind*

Well it looks as if nobody actually wants to take part in the kingdom building, seeing how no one has responded. Ah well.

So, with that, for what it's worth--in regards to you Set--I think with this being new, and us not really knowing all there is to know on how it all works(me not knowing anything, obviously), it feels equivalent to jumping in head first into a pool, that we don't know is only 3' deep. I'm also gonna be honest about Barcas's rules. I don't like them. Like at all. I also think that had something to do with it as well. If we knew then what we know now, I KNOW it would've been a much better result. Bumps and bruises included. Still would've been prosperous.

Again, this is just my take on it. Nothing more.

Anyhow, DW is gonna be out until Monday, starting tomorrow. He mentioned it in our Carrion Hill game. I don't think he's mentioned it here, though. He might've and I just missed it.

Oh, I wouldn't say a lack of interest. I just wanted to understand which ruleset we would be using.

But I am not opposed to focusing on the adventure portion (as opposed to the kingdom building section) if it means leaving most of the players idle.

I will be away from Friday until Sunday night probably.

It looks as though there is not enough interest for the kingdom building part. Ain't no big thing, really. That part would be much easier around a table.

Javell, you did wonderful work to pick up the kingdom part, but it doesn't gather momentum. I say we move on. Good job though!

I'll move the story forward when I get back. We've finished the second book and will be moving in the third. The story will resume around the height or end of Summer.

You will have reached level 6 by then. Please level up and post the main changes to your character.

Man it's mighty quiet around these parts. *tumbleweed bounds through the town as the only sound you hear is the wind*

Well it looks as if nobody actually wants to take part in the kingdom building, seeing how no one has responded. Ah well.

Sorry about the lack of enthusiasm for the kingdom-building stuff. I feel like I fought the law (or, the rules, in this case) and the rules not only won, they dragged my corpse around Troy three times as part of their victory lap.

I wouldn't mind at all if you and markofbane could kick those rules' ass, though. :) These rules *do* work, for other people, to the point of boasting about how brokenly easy they are, so obviously I'm the moron, here.

I just feel like my own contributions have been handicapped by own poor understanding of the mechanics involved, and even if I had the motivation to give it another spin, I'm not convinced that my input won't be as stone-cold terrible as it was the first time around.

I've whined for decades that there aren't enough games about *building* stuff, as opposed to games that purely reward blowing stuff up or tearing stuff down, and here comes one, and I totally suck at it! Gah! So frustrating!

I wouldn't mind at all if you and markofbane could kick those rules' a$$, though. :)

THIS I would love to do. I totally understand your frustration, my friend. I'd have to put it's equivalency to Kriger waiting about 10 rounds before he decides to actually hit the Stag Lord. I was ready for Kriger to just die. It gets to a point where you just give up because it's so frustrating.

You're way to hard on yourself, though, bro. Honestly, even with the lack of understanding how it all works exactly, I think claiming fewer hexes would've been the difference completely.

You know, when Warforged asked me if I wanted to join in this pbp, I was like, "Heck yeah!" Mainly because it was a lot tougher for me to get in games. But, I never submitted a PC for KM when there was a million of them popping up, because I didn't like the idea of the whole kingdom building bit. I thought, "I don't want to have to deal with all that. That's senseless." You know, the whole 'judge a book by its cover' business.

So initially I was pumped to be joining another game, but I was skeptical because it was KM. And then when the kingdom building got here, as you all know I was just gonna let those that wanted to take care of it. But then it was only Set, and then I felt bad for the dude.

I like this AP and I like the kingdom building rules. Well, now anyway. :P But in my opinion, pulling out the kingdom building, pulls out the core of this AP. And I'm not interested in a kingdom being "built behind the scenes". That's lame. To me, that's equivalent to being a bunch of 2nd level pc's asking the 6th level NPC to help save the day. It's boring.

Haven't heard from Scranford. Are neither you nor Aron interested at all? If not, may I ask why? I think you, Aron, mentioned somewhere that this was your favorite AP. One would assume you'd be rarin' to go on the kingdom building, bro! :) (Especially since you're running a KM game).

So I ask: Without the kingdom building, what's the point of this AP? As Kriger, I'll continue to do what needs to be done to protect the people. Just like any other AP. But as I player, I'm more like, "Meh. Whatever. It's not my kingdom." That's what I thought the whole point of this AP was, to build your own and to protect it. To me, it just seems it would be a lot more rewarding, a lot more interesting, and therefore, a whole heckuva lot more fun.

Again, for the record, just my opinion.

Well I am certaily willing to knock out some kingdom turns. I am just looking for convirmation as to which ruleset we'd be going forward with. I could work on some over the weekend if we have that nailed down.

Well if you are willing then I'm willing, mob. I think we should go with the AP rules. I think they work well.

Now, having said that, what we have as a kingdom right now, is going to make things real difficult. We have too many claimed hexes and not enough money to support it.

To be honest(I seem to be saying that a lot here lately), if we could, it would almost be beneficial to "redo" our 10 turns. Especially since we've gone from one modified rule set, to another modified rule set. To throw in a third rule set, just equals chaos. I'm already confused with the two we have now. I really feel a clean slate would be beneficial. I know that sounds odd, but, I think the ending result would ultimately clear things up and equal far fewer claimed hexes. I think that would be the only difference.

Would the AP rules be an issue for you?

We played this a bit in real life, and it went a lot smoother there. Usually before we got into the real game we'd spend 20-30 minutes with Kingdom Building. It was fun for a while, but became kind of boardgame like after a few tries. Eventually we just let the GM do all the work behind the scenes with input from us on how to proceed. I just think this kind of thing doesn't lend well to PbP. Don't have time to really study and read the rules on how to do it. In the real life game the GM would tell us what we needed to roll, and offer options so it was made easy. Wish I had more time to research this but real life is very hectic right now.

Fair enough. As I've said, I'm not a fan of a GM making it easy nor for him to do all the work behind the scenes. That to me just isn't fun at all.

Just different gaming styles. No biggie.

While to an extent, I would agree that it doesn't lend well to pbp. But ONLY due to the fact that the game thread has come to a halt. Outside of that, I don't see it as a problem.

I think the way to solve that issue is if we were to have the kingdom building within it's own thread; that way the game thread won't be held up for any reason.

Hope things settle down for you, buddy.

In case any of you don't have the AP rules on Kingdom building, I have them listed in their entirety under my alias. (Javell's not Kriger's)

It wasn't a lot of work(in case it turns out I've done it all for naught), so that's why I decided to do it. Well, that and for any of you who may have questions about them. Mostly copy and paste.

In case any of you don't have the AP rules on Kingdom building, I have them listed in their entirety under my alias. (Javell's not Kriger's)

Holy crap, Batman! A country can make items and then sell them for BP!

Not sure if we can take advantage of that, 'though. The sell DCs would require us to roll a 20 (assuming +15 to the check) to sell a Medium Item, and, based on just the Wondrous Items chart on p 497, you'd only get an item worth BP on a roll of 58 or higher, and only get a sellable item on a 93 or better if you rolled up Armor... [Plus, none of us have Craft feats yet, and I'm not clear as to how those items get built. Do we need the Craft feats, or some sort of special investment, or do the items just 'appear?']

The ability to buy stuff in the Kingdom is also neat, although I'm not sure if I built anything that allowed us to do that, since I didn't know that was an option. No more 'let's go to Restov so we can buy some tanglefoot bags for Wisp-hunting!'

Ok, let's have a stab at it. I'll create a separate thread for the kingdom building. We'll start from month 1, AP"s rules.

Yes. There are certain buildings that add magic items to the kingdom. And no, we never built any buildings like this. And yes, these items just appear. Anything in italics at the end of a building description, immediately takes affect. But obviously you don't roll for the actual items until next turn.

Take this bldg for instance:

Caster’s Tower (30 BP): The home and laboratory for a spellcaster. 3 minor items, 2 medium items; Economy +1, Loyalty +1.

What you do next is place an X in 3 of the Minor slots and 2 in the Medium slots.

Then, you do this:

'During every Upkeep phase, randomly roll a magic item of the appropriate category for each empty slot.'

This is located at the very bottom of the AP RULES spoiler, under magic item availability.

I'm not sure I follow you on the DC's you've given, though.

There's this under KINGDOM BUILDING PHASES:

Step 3—Sell Valuable Items: You can attempt to sell items that cost more than 4,000 gp through your city’s markets to bolster your kingdom’s Treasury; these can be items you recover during an adventure or they can be magic items currently held by any of your cities. 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.

Is this what you're referring?

By the way, if you take a look at the Kingmaker player's guide, when I mention "slots", you'll see what I mean if you go to the very last page of it.

Edit: YAY! We're gonna give it a shot! :)

Kingdom thread is up!

Javell, if you PM me the rules with the formatting, I'll put them on the campaign info tab.

Will do. One moment...

Hey Warforged, sending it to you by PM just makes it like I have it under my alias.

If you PM me your email/gmail(whichever) I can send it to you in formatted form.

So, build Caster's Towers to get items to sell. Cool. 30 BP is a lot, so it will have to come later.

I'm not sure I follow you on the DC's you've given, though.

There's this under KINGDOM BUILDING PHASES:

Step 3—Sell Valuable Items: You can attempt to sell items that cost more than 4,000 gp through your city’s markets to bolster your kingdom’s Treasury; these can be items you recover during an adventure or they can be magic items currently held by any of your cities. 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.

Is this what you're referring?

Yeah, the bolded part lists a DC 35 for selling a moderate item, and we've got an Economy check of +15, so we'd need to roll a 20 to sell a moderate item. [I'm not sure if that +15 includes the +4 floating bonus for the King and one of the other Leadership positions, 'though. If not, we'd have a +23 ish, and that's around a 40% chance of selling a moderate item per month!]

Yeah, it's pretty expensive.

Yeah with our current stats, it'd take a natural 20. But you gotta remember, those numbers have been derived from a completely different set of rules. Which makes a ton of difference.

Also, I'm just about to mention this in the Kingdom building thread, the Ruler bonus is actually not floating. Only the Spymaster. If you read the descriptions of both the Ruler and the Spymaster, the Spymaster states it can choose which attribute to apply his bonus at the beginning of each Improvement phase. The Ruler states no such thing. I just noticed that like a few days ago. I'm like, "Really?"

Exotic craftsman, Herbalist, those are a couple of buildings that cost only 10 BP(13 if you count the house you have to build with it) and they add 1 minor item. Not much, but it's a little something.

Obviously for the big time stuff, it's gonna cost big time BP.

Exotic craftsman, Herbalist, those are a couple of buildings that cost only 10 BP(13 if you count the house you have to build with it) and they add 1 minor item. Not much, but it's a little something.

I haven't bothered to check every table, but I'm getting the feeling that minor items are going to have a *very* small percentage chance of being sellable (since the majority of them are below the 4000 gp. cap). It looks like items below 4000 gp. don't do anything, although I'm not clear on whether or not you can sell multiple items that add up to 4000 gp... (Like, if you roll a bunch of potions and scrolls and stuff individually worth hundreds or a thousand or so gp. over a couple of months, and can sell them all en masse in a 4,000 gp. lump.)

Minor Items
01-04 - Armor/Shield (80% below 4,000 gp, although there's also a chance of getting a special ability or specific armor / shield worth more)
05-09 - Weapons (70% below 4,000 gp, as above)
10-44 - Potions (100% below 4,000 gp)
45-46 - Rings (60% below 4,000 gp)
47-81 - Scrolls (1000% below 4,000 gp)
82-91 - Wands (60% below 4,000 gp)
92-00 - Wondrous Items (57% below 4,000 gp)

So, a Minor Item roll, just using Core (I'm too lazy to go look up the APG or UM lists!) gives us a 68% chance of a potion or scroll, which will never be sellable for BP, and even the rest of the time, it's a well below average chance off getting something sell-able.

Short-short version? I don't think Exotic Craftsmen or Herbalists or whatever are gonna get the job done, although, if there are other reasons to build them, that's cool. I think Shrines might be our best bet for Minor Items (which are a crap shoot), since we'll be wanting to build them anyway (at least 1 to Milani and 1 to Erastil).

Looking at the building types in your profile, it looks like Shrines are the cheapest source of Minor Items (and, uber-bonus, are things we are motivated to build anyway!), and Caster's Towers are the cheapest source of Medium Items, and Black Market's are the cheapest source of Major Items. LG Frieland doesn't thematically seem like the sort of place that would base it's economy on the output of a Black Market, so I'd want to avoid that, for RP reasons, regardless of the mechanics. (I know, I'm terrible, always eschewing min-maxing for aesthetics!)

I'm still not seeing how the Economy is supposed to work *without* magic item selling, but this may have been the quick and dirty solution to the otherwise unworkable numbers I seemed to be getting from my own struggles with the parts of the system I could find.

Aesthetically, I'm not totally in love with the idea of a 'magic item economy,' and was kind of expecting fledgeling nations to be able to get off the ground using mundane natural resources and agriculture and whatnot, but this is a fantasy world, and magic and monsters and magical items are all huge parts of it, so I suppose that designing an economic system that worked *without* the 'magic item economy' would just result in the system breaking all to hell when magic items are inevitably introduced. (Presumably Alkenstar survives on a gunpowder-and-firearm based economy instead...)

.

I was gonna post this to the new Discussion thread, but it looks like it was created as a new campaign, and not a new thread for this campaign, if that makes any sense...

I'm not sure if the new forum system for PBP campaign management allows for multiple discussion threads to be linked. Perhaps, if we want to keep kingdom-building out of the Discussion thread, we could use the old Recruitment thread? (Although that might confuse people into thinking that we are recruiting...)

.

Also, crap! I'm getting sucked back into it! Seeing these new rules (or old rules, or whatever) is getting me re-hooked, after I went and tore that first hook out of my cheek!

I'm just gonna use the gameplay thread. We can use that for all of it. There is no link to the Discussion thread. There's only the gameplay.

As far as selling magical items, it comes down to just selling them for what they are worth. Remember, every 4000g = 1 BP. So, selling 12,000g worth of minor items only = 3 BP. Doesn't sound so bad. It's when you can sell the ONE item for 4000g or more is when it starts to pay off.

I was just throwing those two examples out there. I agree with the Shrines. I also agree with the whole Black Market bit as well. Don't really see us building that.

Edit: Yeah, I like building things I think that would fit our crew as well. I'm a fan of theme building myself.

Don't forget this:

During every Upkeep phase, randomly roll a magic item of the appropriate category for each empty slot.

After it is generated, a magic item remains on the market until it is purchased.

Alternatively, ONCE per Income phase, a kingdom can make Economy checks to try to sell items; once the item is sold, its slot remains empty until the next Upkeep phase.

You can only sell one item at at time during a turn. So it'll take time. And when you're able to sell enough, that's money made. And when you've got 4000g worth, then you can put it back into your treasury for 1 BP.

Here's the Step 1 under Income phase:

Step 1—Deposits: You can add funds to a kingdom’s treasury by donating coins, gems, jewelry, weapons, armor, magic items, and other valuables you find while adventuring. For every full 4,000 gp in value of the deposit, increase your kingdom’s BP by 1. Items that individually cost more than 4,000 gp must be sold as detailed under Step 3 below.

Step 3 is what I posted earlier on Selling Valuable Items.

Well, I got to turn in. It's way too late. If you fellas start building, remember, don't claim but a couple o' more hexes for the first several turns. Around 7 or 8 turns, really. It really just depends on how well we prosper as we go.

What we want to do is build up our city and claim hexes gradually. I highly recommend NOT claiming a hex on every turn. That'll kill us. Remember, every hex claimed is 1 point higher on the Control DC. Which just makes it a harder roll to make if we don't have our attributes built up somewhat respectively.

At the rate we are going, I don't think it will take too terribly long to get caught up on the kingdom building and get to the point where we are running parallel to the in character game. Thanks to the rest of the players for bearing with us while we get caught up on this!

For the moment, could you update to level 6? Let me know the main changes.

Level 6: Paladin
BAB +1
All saves +1
Hit points +8
Add Mercy: cure diseased condition
Add one use of lay on hands per day
Damage +1 on Smite Evil
Skill points added to: Diplomacy, Knowledge Religion, Ride, Sense Motive.

Oh yeah, please make sure all the loot gets distributed and let me know if you're buying things.

Didn't we just level? Woot!

Servayn
+7 hp
+1 BAB
+1 Fort, Ref and Will saves
+1 2nd level spell / day
+1 2nd level spell known (lesser evolution surge)
Maker’s Call (dimension door eidolon to me 1/day)
+4 skill points (+1 spellcraft, +3 use magic device)

Ember
+1 HD (+7 hp)
+1 BAB
+4 skill points (+1 fly, +1 perception, +1 stealth, +1 survival)
+1 feat (power attack)
+1 evolution (magic attacks)

For the record, I've got all the items with Kriger's name next to it listed under his alias.

What are we gonna do with the stuff we don't use?

+7 skill points

+1 Perception, Stealth, Survival
+4 Craft(Weapons) I think it fits him. If we're gonna have a kingdom, somebody might as well help make weapons for it. :)

Combat Style Feat: Trying to decide between Weapon Focus and Vital Strike.

Purchasing Masterwork Artisans Tools. 55g (I actually don't have this much on me. Is there something I can sell? Take it out of the treasury? How does that work?)

You know, is there a total on how much money we have? If so, how much and where do we "keep it", so to speak?

You know, is there a total on how much money we have? If so, how much and where do we "keep it", so to speak?

I've got all my magic and cash loot under my profile. (Servayn's got 2260 gp. in coin, if you need 55 gp. for your MW artisan's kit.)

I try to get it updated as soon as possible, so that I don't have to worry about stuff floating around on other lists somewhere (although I'll admit I never had much idea what we had in 'store credit' from Oleg).

Yeah I'm not too sure about what that store credit entails myself.

Cool. Thanks. Kriger will most definitely pay you back. :)

Adjusting my sheet, just so I don't forget. 2205 gp. now. :)

Have to do this on the QT, don't want Ember to notice that we all get shares of gold, and he doesn't... He's a bit dragon-y about such things.

In the Campaign info, you have 10,000 gp left unspent, and some items you might wish to sell for half price.

Is Aron still around? Haven't heard from him in a while.

Hes still around, hes just had a busy few days. I'll nudge him to chime in.

Thanks and hello AK.

Regarding loot: what are your plans for the money and the unclaimed items? If some of you feel they got a lot less, you should make a claim for more cash.

Is Aron still around? Haven't heard from him in a while.

Sorry just not sure if my attention was needed just yet as I remember you guys were still discussing what rules for kingdom building and so on.

+1 HD (5-hp)
Skills: Appraise, Diplomacy, Knowledge; Religion, Nobility, Sense Motive, Spellcraft.

In the next day or so, I'll see if I can take a stab at spreading out the money in a fair fashion. There is some gear there without values attached (nails, burlap, etc.). Is that something Oleg can price out for us and sell?

Not really, more fluff for kingdom.

Regarding loot: what are your plans for the money and the unclaimed items? If some of you feel they got a lot less, you should make a claim for more cash.

Because of the wands, which nobody else could use anyway, I think Servayn has a more than fair share of loot. (Way over WBL!)

I added a couple points to his UMD skill this level so that he has an 80% chance (which will go up to 90% after the first successful use), and should be able to avoid mishaps entirely (since he can't 'fail by 10'). He can still roll a 1 and make the wand un-usable for a day, but that's not as dire as hitting another party member with a lightning bolt, or blasting himself in the face!

Because of the wands, which nobody else could use anyway, I think Servayn has a more than fair share of loot. (Way over WBL!)

I don't think you may be as far over every one else as you think you, especially if you count the folding boat as a party item (which it looks like both you and Kriger have claimed). Without that, I think you are just a little bit over WBL for 6th level. Kriger has two items (+2 ring of protection and +1 flaming greataxe) that give him that much toward WBL, and quite a bit more than that.

While we are on the topic of Servayn's gear, does he have a +1 chain shirt and a +1 mithril chain shirt? Or did he sell the one to get the other?