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![]() Disclaimer: I practice criminal defense IRL. In fact, I had a particularly depressing jail visit on Friday, which has kind of been on the back of my mind all weekend long. So on Saturday, I get my hardcopy of Trial of the Beast, and I'm sitting through it (having ignored the PDF in anticipation of the hard copy), with a big ol' grin on my face. I totally want to run this for the (non-gamer) folks at the office (though since I've slated Carrion Crown for the next AP I'm running for my weekend group after Kingmaker, I've got the gamers in the office covered) sometime. So first off - big ups from the legal perspective of investigating a case. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the adventure, and I appreciate the central tenet of the eponymous trial itself. Though I must deduct a point for the portrayal of the (court-appointed) defense counsel as a stuttering incompetent. (Reference to My Cousin Vinny aside.) If do end up running for some of the folks at the office, I'm thinking of changing the entire structure, including making the role of the barrister's one of the PCs. And then watch the craziness ensue! ![]()
![]() Okay... so page 461 of the Core Rulebook states that, when randomly determining the available magic items for the magic item slots in a given settlement, one should: R.A.W. wrote: Reroll any items that fall below the community's base value. However, such a statement is left out of the Kingmaker Kingdom Building Rules. However, it's pretty clear to me that the intent of the Kingmaker rules are to mimic the magic item availability rules for Pathfinder (IE, 75% if the item is of the base value or lower, otherwise check the magic item slots.) So the question (And I'm leaning towards 'yes' on this one): Are we, in the context of Kingmaker settlements, supposed to be rerolling magic items that come up as lower than the base value of the given settlement? (While I don't belong to that group of players that believes the magic item economy completely wrecks Kingmaker, I can see why having a race to building your city's base value up to 4,000 gp might get annoying, in that now all cities automatically produce at least 2 BP per turn. So I could see this being a problem, I'm just curious what everyone's interpretation might be, and what the original intent was, if the designers care to comment.) ![]()
![]() So one of my players recently complained that, while they're enjoying both parts of the campaign - IE, the adventuring and the kingdom building - the two parts have felt a little too disjointed for him. He doesn't really have a feel for what his character's role, as Baron, might be. So I thought it'd be fun to take a break from the adventuring side of things, and have a few sessions where the PCs just do in character kingdom interaction. The basic setup is that the PCs are throwing a festival - Erastil's Harvest Feast to be precise - as a backdrop to some diplomacy (they've invited several delegations - a Mivoni trading barge, Baron Varn and his retinue, a group of Aldori swordlords from Restov, and a delegation from Kyonin, as the baron is a forlorn elf who wants to reconstruct ties to the Viridian Crown.) So a part of the diplomacy will be selecting the proper level of decorum and activities for the festivities, which I'm treating as a kind of interactive event. (The PCs are also dealing with the two distinct group of their citizens - the rough and tumble River Folk, and the slightly more refined, if dour, Brevic colonists that they initially brought with them.) If the PCs manage to please a particular group, they'll gain some temporary (or perhaps permanent) bonus to their kingdom stats. With that in mind, I drew up the following rules, which I thought might be helpful to someone else out there. (Hidden behind a tag because it's rather long):
Spoiler:
THROWING A PARTY Rules for Festivals In order to have a successful festival, you must plan the events and budget the details of the festival exactly. Your kingdom has been gathering resources for festivals on a yearly basis, drawing from a pool of Consumption points already accounted for each month (hence, the festival will cost you nothing from your treasury.) A festival consists of four basic elements:
Budget: Your budget is measured in festival points (FP). You cannot draw a negative pool of festival points. You can acquire more festival points by digging into the Kingdom’s Treasury, however. You can withdraw 1 BP for 4 additional fp.
LOCATION
FOOD
PROPAGANDA
ACTIVITIES
We haven't playtested it yet, but the math is more or less solid. Each of the groups they're catering to has certain Likes and Dislikes, and interactions that occur with them in a particular location will be impacted by those Likes and Dislikes. The festival itself will be mostly RP, with some opportunity for skill checks which will impact how the groups react. (Similar to the 4E Skill Challenges, but nowhere near as limited or structured). I'm also looking for ideas for more activities, if anyone can think of some. ![]()
![]() Hey all - my group's finally defeated the Stag Lord after a couple months' play time (and a large, computer-crash related hiatus) and is about to receive their charter from Restov to settle the Stolen Lands. As such, I ran them through the kingdom building rules and was immediately beset with requests and questions on how PCs could tailor their characters to improve their kingdom - so I figured some feats might be a cool idea! So I sat down and worked out some feats I thought were interesting - at least one for each leadership role, sometimes two depending on function. What do you guys think? (I'm especially interested in hearing from more experienced groups who already have kingdoms up-and-running and could foresee the effects of some feats more readily than I, who have only tinkered around with the rules on paper.) (And also, I've been reading the Song of Ice and Fire, so many of the feats are... inspired by certain characters. Feel free to shout them out if you spot 'em.) SOLOMON’S WISDOM (KINGMAKER)
VOICE BEHIND THE THRONE (KINGMAKER)
ARTISTRY OF WAR (KINGMAKER)
WARRIOR KING (KINGMAKER)
FOREIGN MINISTER (KINGMAKER)
THEOCRATIC RULE (KINGMAKER)
DIVINE RIGHT (KINGMAKER)
ARCANE HEADMASTER (KINGMAKER)
FRIENDS IN THE WILDS (KINGMAKER)
SECRET POLICE (KINGMAKER)
EYES AND EARS (KINGMAKER)
RUMOR MONGER (KINGMAKER)
MASTER OF COIN (KINGMAKER)
ORGANIZED WATCH (KINGMAKER)
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