Yes you are right.
Can you actually end a binding just by opening up the jar or do you have to dispel it?
I'm not the least bit certain. It says it cannot be dispelled, and that the caster decides the release conditions, if any.
EDIT: Started a thread on it.
If I'm not mistaken, if we leave the tower now, by the time we return to Allania, we would have spent no less than 9 days out in the wilderness (~3 days traveling and ~6 days exploring). Feel free to double check me on that.
Should we do some downtime activities? Or do you guys want to explore the tower and/or surrounding areas some more?
Can we make a second check to learn more on the tower using Riva's library?
Yes.
Alright, Riva is heading back and I'm going to start filling out the calendar days for the coming month of Neth. It looks to me like the first two days of the month were used up while adventuring. Be sure to account for that when you start filling it out.
Do you guys want the GM to go ahead and start the Kingdom phases for the month of Neth as well? If so, what decisions shall we be making on behalf of our people?
If we start the downtime activities, I'd be happy to craft wondrous items for you guys at cost. If the book says it takes 1,000gp to make, I will make it for you for 1,000gp. :D
I'd say that we should definitely begin the Kingdom phases. I know we discussed building a stockyard last month, and based on what we've learned recently we may want to begin that as a first step towards building an army.
Looking that the downtime calendar I think the newer players might not be aware that time spent ruling can also double as time working for influence.
Upkeep Phase for Neth
During the Upkeep Phase, you adjust your kingdom's scores based on what's happened in the past month, how happy the people are, how much they've consumed and are taxed, and so on.
Step 1—Determine Kingdom Stability: Attempt a Stability check. If you succeed, Unrest decreases by 1 (if this would reduce Unrest below 0, add 1 BP to your Treasury instead). If you fail by 4 or less, Unrest increases by 1; if you fail by 5 or more, Unrest increases by 1d4.
Step 2—Pay Consumption: Subtract your kingdom's Consumption from the kingdom's Treasury. If your Treasury is negative after paying Consumption, Unrest increases by 2.
Step 3—Fill Vacant Magic Item Slots: If any of your settlement districts have buildings that produce magic items (such as a Caster's Tower or Herbalist) with vacant magic item slots, there is a chance of those slots filling with new items (see the Magic Items in Settlements section).
Step 4—Modify Unrest: Unrest increases by 1 for each kingdom attribute (Economy, Loyalty, or Stability) that is a negative number.
The Royal Enforcer may attempt to reduce Unrest during this step.
Step 1 — The -4 for unrest is included in the final +22 modifier. We'd have 26 otherwise, GM, so we actually passed by 1 point.
Step 3 — I think all of the item slots are full. Currently, a pipe of the sewers and wand of magic missile (37 charges) are up for grabs currently for anyone with the money to buy them.
Step 4 — There are risks to the enforcer attempting to reduce unrest. If you attempt it, you must succeed at a Loyalty check or Loyalty decreases by 1.
I personally would not recommend it unless under dire straights or near automatic success is assured.
For those of you still learning the Kingdom building rules, you can find a refresher on the Kingdom turn rules here.
Looking that the downtime calendar I think the newer players might not be aware that time spent ruling can also double as time working for influence.
Yes, a logical house rule.
We'll definitely want to decrease Unrest. We should probably spend one BP to grab the hex east of the city and another 4 BP (or 2 BP) (those are hills or plains?) to build a farm in that hex to pay for its own consumption and then some. We'll need extra consumption if we want to worry about an army.
We can also build a Stockyard (23 BP currently -20 to build stockyard) to increase the consumption reduction of three adjacent farms.
That takes up the maximum we can build and explore for the month.
Does anyone vote Nay?
Nearly all the adjacent hexes are hills, or even less favorable terrain.
Please remember that, unlike most normal maps, North is NOT the top of the Kingmaker map. Please don't ask me why the cartographers decided to orient it the way that it is.
If we can afford the BP costs, I say we go for it, but I'd also like to make sure we have enough funds at the right times before giving a final "Yay." We'll take it step by step, phase by phase. Currently, I don't think we have enough funds to do all the above (since we get the new BP influx towards the end of the kingdom turn sequence).
Also, don't forget that claiming new hexes makes the Kingdom DCs harder. I would probably take steps to reduce unrest (such as by building houses or similar buildings) rather than expand at this time. A month or two of that and our unrest will be 0 again and our numbers will be much more capable of handling the kingdom DC. If we expand too quickly, everything will fall apart. Stability first, then expansion, I say.
Edict Phase
The Edict phase is when you make proclamations on expansion, improvements, taxation, holidays, and so on.
Step 1—Assign Leadership: Assign PCs or NPCs to any vacant leadership roles or change the roles being filled by particular PCs or closely allied NPCs (see Leadership Roles).
Step 2—Claim and Abandon Hexes: For your kingdom to grow, you must claim additional hexes. You can only claim a hex that is adjacent to at least 1 other hex in your kingdom. Before you can claim it, the hex must first be explored, then cleared of monsters and dangerous hazards (see Steps 2 and 3 of Founding a Settlement for more details). Then, to claim the hex, spend 1 BP; this establishes the hex as part of your kingdom and increases your kingdom's Size by 1. Table: Improvement Edicts tells you the maximum number of hexes you can claim per turn.
You may abandon any number of hexes to reduce your kingdom's Size (which you may wish to do to manage Consumption). Doing so increases Unrest by 1 for each hex abandoned (or by 4 if the hex contained a settlement). This otherwise functions like losing a hex due to unrest (see Step 4 of the Upkeep Phase).
Step 4—Build Terrain Improvements: You may spend BP to build terrain improvements like Farms, Forts, Roads, Mines, and Quarries (see Terrain Improvements).
You may also prepare a hex for constructing a settlement. Depending on the site, this may involve clearing trees, moving boulders, digging sanitation trenches, and so on. See the Preparation Cost column on Table: Terrain and Terrain Improvements to determine how many BP this requires.
Table: Improvement Edicts tells you the maximum number of terrain improvements you can make per turn.
Step 5—Create and Improve Settlements: You may create a settlement in a claimed hex (see Founding a Settlement). Table: Improvement Edicts tells you the maximum number of settlements you can establish per turn.
You may a building in any settlement in your kingdom. The list of available building types begins. When a building is completed, apply its modifiers to your kingdom sheet. Table: Improvement Edicts tells you the maximum number of buildings you can construct in your kingdom per turn. The first House, Mansion, Noble Villa, or Tenement your kingdom builds each turn does not count against that limit.
Step 6—Create Army Units: You may create, expand, equip, or repair army units (see Mass Combat).
Step 7—Issue Edicts: Select or adjust your edict levels
The EDICT PHASE is one of the more important phases, as it is where many of our major decisions are made.
I say we build that stockyard, as previously planned. If you're willing to take the risk of emptying the treasury, we could also build a house to lower unrest (though this may cause problems if we get a negative event during the EVENT phase). I say we hold off on the house, or on making any additional purchases, for now.
I feel i should mention that building a house and reducing unrest will make you more like to pass any checks brought on by events. Also the Stockyard will have the side effect of reducing Stability by 1.
I'd still say that we should build the stockyard, and wait to see what else we need to do later.
Currently we have a Stability rating of 23 after our successful Stability check above (since Unrest decreased by 1).
Provided we don't expand just yet, that means we only fail Stability check on a 1, and we'd fail on a 1 anyways.
I think we can afford to lose one point for what we get in return.
Well that seems like enough agreement for me the go on. You build a stockyard you do not build a house.
Income Phase
During the Income phase, you may add to or withdraw from the Treasury as well as collect taxes.
Step 1—Make Withdrawals from the Treasury: The kingdom-building rules allow you to expend BP on things related to running the kingdom. If you want to spend some of the kingdom's resources on something for your own personal benefit (such as a new magic item), you may withdraw BP from the Treasury and convert it into gp once per turn, but there is a penalty for doing so.
Each time you withdraw BP for your personal use, Unrest increases by the number of BP withdrawn. Each BP you withdraw this way converts to 2,000 gp of personal funds.
Step 2—Make Deposits to the Treasury: You can add funds to a kingdom's Treasury by donating your personal wealth to the kingdom—coins, gems, jewelry, weapons, armor, magic items, and other valuables you find while adventuring, as long as they are individually worth 4,000 gp or less. For every full 4,000 gp in value of the deposit, increase your kingdom's BP by 1.
If you want to donate an item that is worth more than 4,000 gp, refer to Step 3 instead.
Step 3—Sell Expensive Items for BP: You can attempt to sell expensive personal items (that is, items worth more than 4,000 gp each) through your kingdom's markets to add to your Treasury. You may sell one item per settlement district per turn. You must choose the settlement where you want to sell the item, and the item cannot be worth more than the base value of that settlement.
To sell an item, divide its price by half (as if selling it to an NPC for gp), divide the result by 4,000 (rounded down), and add that many BP to your Treasury.
You cannot use this step to sell magic items held or created by buildings in your settlements; those items are the property of the owners of those businesses. (See Magic Items in Settlements for more information on this topic.)
Step 4—Collect Taxes: Attempt an Economy check, divide the result by 3 (round down), and add a number of BP to your Treasury equal to the result.
Woohoo!
Our consumption is -3 per turn (meaning we owe nothing each month, and have 3 points of leeway in addition). Sadly, an army costs 4x BP/month, where x is half an army's ACR (rounded down).
EXAMPLE:
A medium army of 100 human 3rd-level fighters (CR 2) is ACR 2. An army has a base consumption rating equal to 1/2 its ACR, or 1 for the aforementioned human army.
So a medium army of 100 human 3rd-level fighters will cost us 4 BP per month, raising our consumption rating to 1 (net loss).
We can use any race or class we want to represent the army, but for the above-numbers to add up, the individual member of the army should be CR 2.
A medium army of 100 kobold 5th-level barbarians, for example, would be ACR 4, with a consumption rating of 2 (or 8 BP/month; net loss of 5 consumption/month).
This assumes we don't outfit said army with magical weapons, potions, high-quality armor, etc.
I've uploaded an updated Exploration Map. It includes markers for some of the places we've explored recently as well as a new "red diagonal" pattern to denote areas that have been explored, but not yet cleared.
I've also uploaded an updated Kingdom Sheet.
All of the old links for them should continue to function, so there's no need to update your bookmarks or whatever.
No random event this month.
Toran, I noticed you are marking the calendar with "2.2 Influence." You're supposed to round down with each check. You can't keep the remainder (excepting gold, which can be rounded to the nearest silver).
Especially since you have to do it by the day...
Ah, my bad.
Does anyone want me to craft anything for them, or else give me gold for item crafting? If not, then I will have no choice but to fill out the calendar month with capital earning entries instead.
We haven't found enough gold for Aer to drequest anything with yet.Sorry!
I get significant discounts on item crafting thanks to all the magic capital I've collected though, allowing me to craft a lot more than you'd expect.
I've finished filling out my calendar month for Neth. Riva earned a little gold (and then promptly spent it), crafted a blessed book (finally!), sold her old spellbook (after transferring the spells of course), and purchased 2 new spells (alter self and invisibility).
I just filled out my calendar month. Toran made a little bit of gold but spent far more in his efforts to build a bedroom for his ongoing project, bringing a herbalist business to town.
Is your building completed, or are you adding more to it, Dragonflyer1243? If it's done, give me the info (rooms, teams, etc.) and I will apply its stats to Toran's PDF character sheet for you.
Does anyone else have any completed buildings/businesses they would like added to their sheets as well?
No it's not done yet. I'm afraid that it's going to take a while to finish the entire things.
Once we get the unrest to a more manageable level, we may be able to tap the treasury a little to give your business a boost. Alternatively, we can go adventuring some more and hope to get money/treasure that way.
That was what I figured I'd have to do, hopefully we find something valuable the next time we go out.
Maybe we can find some more ruins in the Narlmarches? Those tend to have treasure. We will have to watch out for the trolls though. Maybe we should get a few more hexes/farms built up, then get that army going and then assault the trolls' fortress?
(We could get that army now, but we will be at a net loss on consumption for a while, which might be fine with a 20 BP buffer.)
That sounds like a pretty good plan to me.
When should we set out again? I have a lot of downtime activities that I'd like to complete first (as already marked on the calendar).
Selling my ring of protection for 1,000gp. Using that money to pay for 20 of the magic capital I've already earned. Using that magic capital to craft a cloak of resistance +2 worth 4,000gp. Selling said item for 2,000gp. That money helps to pay for my blessed book and new arcanist spells.
Here are my crafting rolls:
; DC 22, includes +4 bonus from library and +2 bonus from aid another from Tarka Firefang.
; DC 20, includes +4 bonus from library and +2 bonus from aid another from Tarka Firefang.
EDIT: Crap. Looks like I've spilled over into the next month a little.
Toran has a lot of downtime stuff to do, but he also needs gold to do it with, so he'd be okay with either staying in town for a while or adventuring more.
Should we run through another Kingdom month then?
Sorry haven't had a day off of work lately and haven't had much time to go through the downtime rules to figure out what/if Maer can build anything else. She's going to spend most of it trying to get money to pay off capital to add to her scriptorium + office and build a proper embassy/home for herself.
Embassy to what exactly? Aren't they generally linked to outside nations? I'd be happy to walk you through it if need be.
First, tell me how much money and payed for capital you have, as well as any rooms/teams you've already acquired, and what your specific goals are, and we'll get started.
Also, you're all leaders of a community, with a castle. It's assumed you guys already have homes in said castle.
Also, if you intend for your business/building to have an effect at the Kingdom level*, then you should probably check the Castle District map to see if there is space for it.
If there is no space for it, then we need to start a new district, which will take one month to prepare, cost us 2 BP, and raise the Kingdom Check DCs by 1. Alternatively, we could start a whole new settlement with it's own district(s).
* Remember the GM's house rule: When you create a building using downtime capital and/or gold, it does NOT apply towards Kingdom scale statistics unless you spend half its listed BP value (the other half having already been represented by the downtime resources you've already invested). Such buildings are marked on the district maps with a large "C" for "under construction." You may still use the building/business to receive non-kingdom level bonuses. If you never intend to upgrade your building to have an impact on the kingdom-scale, then we don't even need to put it on the district map (though it still exists within the settlement).
EDIT: Gah. I keep forgetting about that Taxation house rule. Adjusting my business gold amounts...
Next edict phase, we're getting rid of kingdom taxes entirely. That ought to increase the Kingdom's loyalty substantially.
Now that it looks like the Education Edict house rules have been finalized, I've implemented them into the Kingdom's statistic sheets for all months going forward (starting with Kuthona, 4707 A.R.). Currently, it is set to "Secondary Education" (which is the second to the highest education level offered).
This has the following effect on our Kingdom Stats:
+3 Stability, +2 Consumption, +1 Crime/Lore to all settlements; 15% of NPCs in our kingdom possess 1 or 2 heroic class levels, an additional 3% possess 3-5 heroic class levels (all others are assumed to have only NPC class levels).
Overall, a positive effect for our nation, though the additional consumption may delay our ability to build an army.
What would you guys say to building the following in the month of Kuthona?
Town Hall (11 BP)
Kingdom - Economy +1, Loyalty +1, Stability +1
Settlement - Law +1
Discounts - Barracks
I think we should claim hex H38, adjacent to Allania (1 BP), and put a farm and fishery on it* (8 BP) to reduce consumption by 4 in preparation for the creation of our army at the start of the new year (which can be housed in the now discounted barracks we will also build in the following month of Abadius).
* In hindsight, we probably should have claimed this hex during the month of Neth.
That sounds like a good use for Kuthona.
I'm afraid that I don't understand how to determine whether or not a building should apply to the Kingdom level, could you explain how we determine the BP value of a building?
That sounds like a good use for Kuthona.
I'm afraid that I don't understand how to determine whether or not a building should apply to the Kingdom level, could you explain how we determine the BP value of a building?
All of the sample buildings that you could construct from the Downtime rules (shown here) also appear in the Kingdom Building rules (shown here), so you would just have to find the matching building from one rule set in the other rule set.
For example, if you are building a temple (or something closely resembling a temple) using the downtime rules, you would likely spend 28 Goods, 2 Influence, 29 Labor, and 2 Magic (or 1,400 gp) to build it. However, if you also wanted it to have an impact on the Kingdom as a whole (as opposed to just being your personal business) then you would need to spend an additional 16 BP (half of the 32 listed for the temple under the Kingdom Building rules).
However, if you are building a wholly unique building that doesn't correspond well with any of the existing buildings listed in the Kingdom rules, then you should probably ask the GM what he thinks the BP cost should be.
Note that your downtime building doesn't have to exactly match those given in the examples (a temple to Cayden Cailean may well have a bar and common room, for example). Use your best judgement when deciding the primary purpose of your building (and thus what kingdom-level equivalent it most resembles), or else ask the GM if you are uncertain. Also, try and have the resource expenditure be approximately the same. Don't go abusing the rules/house rules/GM's good nature by building a one-room bar for (125gp), calling it a Cathedral to Cayden Cailean, and then saving yourself 28 BP on your new cathedral at the Kingdom scale. (Which would normally be equivalent to ~112,000gp!)
It's already quite generous of the GM to allow us to start said cathedral using the Downtime rules for 4,960 gp (or half that if you earn capital and build it yourself) in order to get the 28 BP discount later on.
I hope that helps. :D
Thank you for the explanation. Since it says that 1 BP is worth roughly 4,000 gold, it would cost me roughly 20,000 gold to make my herbalist(10 BP) affect the kingdom level, is that correct?
Yes, though if you construct the building using downtime capital first, you only need to pay 5 BP.
Also, if you can convince the other town leaders to go along with it (that is, us), you can just use BP from the Kingdom's treasury rather than paying for it out of pocket. Currently, at the end of Neth, we have 20 BP in the treasury, and we generally gain several more points each month.
So you can make an Herbalist shop using the downtime rules/with capital, in which case it is your character's business. You own it, run it, can LOSE it, etc. If you follow the example Herbalist shop, this will cost you 2,030gp (to buy the building outright), or half that in earned capital (to build it yourself). From that point forward you can use its facilities however you like, including to get various bonuses (see the individual Rooms in the Downtime rules) or to earn capital (which can help with item crafting, calling in favors, or expanding your business empire).
If you were to create one using the Kingdom Building rules/BP, then it is NOT your business. You don't own it. In fact, it likely belongs to some unnamed NPC. Creating a building or business this way is more like a ruler saying "We need an herbalist shop" and then creating incentives to make that happen. It benefits the kingdom, not you. However, you do indirectly benefit since you are a ruler. Also, since you are a ruler, you might be able to persuade or bully an NPC into allowing you to use their business' facilities, but that might have a unintended consequences as determined by the GM.
Starting the business yourself with downtime resources AND BP (which is a gray area in the rules, which is why our GM set up the above house rule) gets the best of both worlds. Not only is it YOUR business, but as ruler, you were able to pull strings to get it that normal people wouldn't have been able to (such as pulling from the royal treasury or throwing your weight around to lower prices just for you). The result is a government-funded business that you also own. Kind of like former President Bush and how his family is big into oil.
Okay, then I think I'll just stick to keeping the herbalist a personal thing, as the benefits to the kingdom don't seem worth the cost. Thanks for explaining all this to me, it probably seems pretty simple to you by now.