7-day link to the Legendary Games Discord - most of our discussions and interaction happen there.
I can't answer all of the questions, but I do know it's not yet available to the general public - version 3 with a bunch of fixes and corrections was made available yesterday to the KS backers, so I know it will definitely be soon™. It's definitely PDF, and if I've followed the plan correctly there will be a print option (I'm certainly looking forward to getting one). So while I'm not privy to LG's marketing strategy, please be patient, it won't be long!
To quickly answer those as best I can... Don't actually know.
Like many PF1 players and fans, we recognise that the game's numbers require the impact of stat items and save increase items, we'd much rather have those item slots available for actual flavourful items rather than "ooh, another +1 to some numbers on my sheet". Magic items should let you do cool magic things, not just be there to let you keep up with the monster stats. And as a side-effect, anything that makes anti-magic easier to deal with at the table is a really good thing.
Dragon78 wrote:
It does feel a bit weird coming from a PF1 position, but it's there to hide a multitude of sins (which aren't really sins) caused by the consolidation of bonus types, changes to Power Attack, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I've forgotten. There were a number of conversations about it, and a good deal of number-crunching, and the bottom line is that it works pretty darn well to keep the number-scaling in line with what you see in PF1. Quote: Resistance is a little strange, personally it was easier before. This one was a tricky one. We want all types of "resistance" to work the same way. So we want Damage Reduction and Fire Resistance to have the same mechanics, and we have so far settled on Resistance and Reduced Resistance, and it will boil down to word count as to how any given creature's Resistance/RR will be written out. Mechanically, there is no difference between Resistance: 10 Slashing, Piercing versus Resistance: 10 Weapon Damage/RR 0 Bludgeoning (if I've remembered the format right). Nor between Resistance: 10 Fire, Cold, Electricity; 15 Acid versus Resistance: 15 all energy/RR 10 Fire, Cold, Electricity; 0 Sonic, Positive, Negative. It will all come down to whichever is shorter to write. I'm aware that both of those examples actually favour the version closer to the existing version. The important thing for us is to allow for some of the more bizarre and crazy resistance combinations and vulnerabilities that exist out there without needing to write out every. single. thing. every. time. That said, it's an experiment, it might not work, we may revert back depending on feedback, so thank you for the input.
I think Thedmstrikes has covered it pretty well. Completely new that I don't think get covered anywhere else in the Ultimate line are: Logistics rules expansion (1 page) Mythic Kingdoms (8 pages) The Troop Template (3 pages) Sample Kingdoms & Organisations (32 pages, lots of flavour) Sample troops (18 pages, including fantasy, sci-fi, modern, and pirate troops) There might be a few extra bits that I've missed, but those are the things I know about.
Playing catch-up a bit... @magnuskn, we're definitely paying attention here, and I really appreciate the points you have raised upthread - while I definitely can't promise that we're going to give you your dream system, I think you'll be pleased with the direction we're going with a lot of the things you've brought up. Please keep checking here for updates and the design digests, and if you want to have a slower-paced discussion about anything, post here, or hit me up with a private message. If you do PM me, please leave a note here so I can see it on my everyday Paizo account (I don't check this one all that often, and Paizo were nice enough to agree to keep my accounts separate).
I've had a look at this, and from the perspective of the scale of a kingdom hex, a dam would have zero effect on the kingdom rules mechanically, because you are unlikely to be able to alter the course of a river enough to even be noticeable at that scale, and a lake has no effects that a river doesn't already have. Given that such a change would be purely aesthetic, 1 BP to divert a river, 2 BP to create a new lake wouldn't be unfair. For dikes the hard part is that coastlines are considered the adjacent terrain type for the purpose of terrain improvements, so you can already build anything you want. You'd need to cost up actually changing a 93 mile squared change of terrain type, and that would be expensive. Not an unreasonable houserule, though, so I've discussed with my players and we crunched a few numbers. We think that it taking 2 turns to complete and using up an edict in both of those turns, with a cost of 12 BP would be a not-unreasonable amount. For those interested in the crunching, for the purpose of this, the increase in population the kingdom sees has negligible effect, the true benefit is from changing a hex from water to land and the ability to build farms on it. Given that the sea bottom is by definition low-lying, only allowing the hex to become a plains hex makes sense, which then has a cost of 2 BP to build a farm on it. So far, you've spent 1 BP to claim the hex, 12 BP to turn it from water into land, and 2 BP on a farm, so 15 BP. A farm reduces consumption by 2 BP per turn, which effectively means a hex with a farm in it reduces the kingdom's consumption by 1 BP per turn, because the hex costs 1 consumption. So, the farm starts to provide actual benefit to the kingdom 16 months after it's completed. That seems pretty fair to me. Feel free to play with that 12 BP cost, but that's the theory to help out.
Thedmstrikes wrote: Huh, this is the first I have read about doing a redesign of the bestiaries aside from the fans postulating what they think it should look like. The specifics I had recalled was that only the player side was getting reworked so GMs did not need to reaquire more books. Not really a problem in my opinion, just did not realize it was on the table. There's very little that's not on the table. What actually makes it into production is another matter entirely. I'm certainly not saying that we're definitely going to publish a CF Bestiary, for example. I happen to think it's a good idea, since PF Bestiary entries have some stuff that's not going to matter in CF, and don't have some stuff that will matter quite a bit. The essence of the backwards compatibility is to be able to look at a PF1 statblock and know that the numbers that are in it are fine to use, but to be a full CF statblock some new numbers need to be derived (but you'll be able to use the info in the PF statblock to derive those numbers without much work). So when I say that I'd love to see all of the PF Bestiaries updated, I mean that's a personal desire, not anything Legendary have decided. Quote:
No plans to include a pantheon that I know of. I don't know everything, but I've not been told to shut up and stop talking yet. One idea that sprang to mind for me, though, was to use the Pantheon created for the Legendary Planet AP as our Core Deities. I've not suggested this to anyone officially, yet - this is the first time I'm writing it down anywhere.
JoelF847 wrote: My vote in the non-democracy decision making process is to have your conversion guide on how to change PF creatures at launch, but to make a CF Monster Book which can fully re-design all the monsters and monster rules as you want. I know I'm looking for a system which is a full, self-contained update to PF 1st edition, not something that just is a core book plus genre books. My interest level drops off precipitously if it's just a single rule book and done. Sorry, seems like I failed at explaining some stuff. Corefinder has two primary goals at launch: To create a game system that Legendary Games can support that is suitable for any genre; and to publish a cleaned up version of Pathfinder 1E as our fantasy offering for that game system. Top priority, and it's seeing the most discussion and work, is essentially the Core Rulebook for Fantasy, so that on day one someone can replace their Pathfinder Core Rulebook with the Corefinder one and have a (relatively) seamless transition from one game to the other. We are simultaneously having some very vibrant discussions about monsters and how we want to treat them. Will we see a Corefinder Bestiary on day 1? I have no idea right now. A lot of what follows will depend on sales, but the team are really excited by the prospect of updating all of the PF1 classes and providing ongoing fantasy support. I'd love to see all the PF Bestiaries updated. I'm also excited by the prospect of Advanced Fantasy and something like Mythic Fantasy (no insider information here, just throwing that out as an idea). We want to provide a living ruleset that we can support on an ongoing basis to scratch the 3.x itch for anyone who wants to use it.
Office of Expectation Management time. Corefinder as a concept is meant to be a genre-agnostic RP system built using the existing d20 rules and adapted from PF1. There are going to be different modules (oh, we have plans...) covering Fantasy, Science Fiction, Modern and probably a billion more that I'm not aware of. We're looking to have CF Fantasy launch simultaneously to CF itself (whether they're two books or a single book is still a topic for debate as far as I know), and it's CF Fantasy that will have all the fun craziness like wizards and elves and metamagic feats. Prestige classes are an interesting case, and I know what my opinion of them is, but I'm also aware that I'm not the only person with an opinion. On the topic of monsters... there's a LOT up for grabs there. One of the design goals is to be able to grab a PF statblock and with a few tweaks here and there (mostly for things like "everyone can use the CF version of Power Attack, so that's not a feat any more") just use those numbers, they'll be fine, you won't break anything. Does that mean that we're not going to just merge Animal and Magical Beasts into a single creature type? Dunno. Sounds like a great idea to me. Will we separate BAB/Saves/Skills from creature type in our own monster creation rules? Dunno. Sounds like an interesting idea that has merit to discuss. Are we going to provide guidance on what changes need to be made to a PF creature to make it work like a CF creature? Yes.
JoelF847 wrote: I tried the discord server for this, and like my previous attempts to try discord, didn't at all like the experience. I'll stick to my preferred Luddite email and message board communications. I'm confident that if LG is following 1000 discord messages a day, they can follow 5-10 message board posts a day as well. Yeah, we can.
I'd also like to say that if anyone feels put off by the format of Discord but still wants to let their thoughts be known, you are more than welcome to PM me here, but this is my author account on this site, not the one I use for day-to-day Pathfinder forum-going, and I don't check it particularly frequently. If you do send me a PM, let me know in this thread and I'll see it much faster.
Anguish wrote:
Official answer: Anguish is 100% correct. My own input: The Discord is certainly the place we're getting the most interaction and feedback with the public about things, and is absolutely the right place to come and present your thoughts and opinions. While I can't speak for everyone on Team Legendary, I am making a point of reading everything on the Corefinder discussions (both the public ones and the team's internal communications). While I can't promise that your pet thought or idea will happen, I can promise that it has been read and considered. Regarding tempering expectations: We're very passionate about this project, and we want to do the best job we can, the best way we can, and refine the 3.x/PF1 d20 system to be the best it can be to tell any kind of story. We can't respond to everyone, and things are still subject to a lot of change. When we have solid information, we will shout it from the rooftops. We're all fans of Pathfinder, and we want to create a game that we want to play. We're not going to rush this. We are going to do it the best we can.
Interesting point there, actually. As part of writing Ultimate Strongholds, I actually started completely rewriting the rules for materials, to account for hardness, tensile strength, resistances to different energy types, and so on, and so on. Every material was going to have a different “hardness” rating for different types of damage. It was going to be beautiful! Comprehensive! The most detailed material analysis ever performed in a fantasy RPG! And a colossal waste of time and effort. It very quickly became apparent that the table required would be huge (and Ultimate Strongholds already has its materials table split in two), and that, actually, the hardness numbers already in the game are pretty much on the mark for an average-ish approximation of the materials in question versus different kinds of forces, so I stopped writing that up, but when my beautiful lady wife pointed out that I hadn’t included gingerbread in the original text, I used what I’d learned to approximate the hardness of the strongest gingerbread recipe the research paper I’d found had used. I am therefore very comfortable in the knowledge that if someone actually decided to make a house out of gingerbread, for the purposes of Pathfinder rules, it has a hardness of 6. I cannot, however, comment on gumdrops.
In case anyone’s interested: Gingerbread walls are 6 inches thick, have a hardness of 6, 4 hp per inch of thickness, and cost 4,400 gp per 10-foot by 10-foot wall segment. This was based on the costs for the components of a gingerbread recipe and a research paper I found about the strength of gingerbread. Oh, and here’s the footnote for thatch walls from a Ultimate Strongholds: “At the GM’s discretion, wolves and dire wolves may make a breath attack as a full-round action against thatch walls, automatically destroying them.”
I made a point of not touching the Stronghold Builder’s Guidebook while I was writing Ultimate Strongholds, just because I didn’t want to risk being accused of violating the OGL. I’ve just pulled if off my 3.0 bookshelf for the first time in a couple of years to remind myself of some things while I respond. Firstly, if you’re not including the Downtime rules as a whole, don’t bother with them for building construction. All rooms in the Downtime rules have a gp cost as well as a capital cost, just use that. Secondly, rooms in Downtime are functionally equivalent to Components in SBG, and are meant to be fitted together in a similar way, just that the size of rooms is in 5-foot squares rather than 20 by 20 “stronghold spaces”. I tried to very carefully write the new rules in Ultimate Strongholds as an addition to the building rules in Ultimate Campaign, but they’re also as thoroughly researched as I could to fit in with other existing rules, so that if a player without UStrong works out how much a 10-foot by 10-foot by 1-inch piece of adamantine is worth, they’ll get the same answer. I won’t pretend Ultimate Strongholds is somehow perfect (there are 3 materials missing from it, for example), but I did put a lot of effort into not making arbitrary choices, and keeping costs consistent, while allowing the flexibility of integration into other PFRPG subsystems. And please, don’t get me wrong, I love the Stronghold Builder’s Guidebook, it is a beautiful piece of work, and converting it to PF would be a very worthwhile method of getting building construction rules into your game. Go with whatever you think will be easiest and work best for you.
Perfect opportunity for me to mention that Ultimate Strongholds by myself and Jason Nelson includes Downtime-compatible rules for walking/rolling/floating/hovering/flying/teleporting buildings.
David knott 242 wrote:
It was a spam post that I flagged and got removed by Paizo, not an answer.
BPorter wrote:
This looks like a conversion blip from Ultimate Factions into Star Intrigue. In Pathfinder a BP can be purchased for 4000 gp, and a WP is intentionally 1/10th of that, so 400 gp. Since there’s no really clean gp to credit conversion, it’s really tricky to convert over, but if you’ll take a very unofficial errata, WP should be purchasable for no less than 2,000 credits, and I’d seriously consider putting it up even further.
As mentioned up-thread, Legendary Games might be able to do an “Ultimate Kingdoms” compilation next year, but there’s still at least one (possibly more) book in the pipeline (Ultimate Armies, I’m looking at you) and other important projects that Jason has to manage, so the best answer right now is “maaaaaaaaaaybe”.
Thedmstrikes wrote:
I stand (well, sit in a comfortable chair) corrected. My copies are in storage and I was at work so couldn’t check before posting. This from a guy who found a scientific research paper on the breaking stresses of gingerbread so that he could work out hardness, hit points per inch of thickness, and cost of walls made of gingerbread.
Hi there folks, sorry for the silence from me about this. The short version is that it’s happening, and I really want to gave it done before the Pathfinder Playtest (and quite a bit sooner if possible). The long version is that I have two maths problems, a lot of words left to do, and a day job. Ultimate Strongholds is my passion project - I want it done as well as possible, and I want it to do everything I expect of it. I won’t make excuses (I’ve deleted loads of this post where I was doing just that), the time it’s taking are me and my life, and that’s my problem, and I apologise for letting this drag out as much as it has.
*Blink, blink, blinkety-blink* Did... did I read that right? I’m... almost speechless. Yes, this is my first ever book. Jason took a real chance on me with it, and... Wow. I didn’t expect that, Thilo! I can’t figure out whether to scream, cry, or whoop with joy, because that is so much more than I ever hoped for. Ahem. Professional decorum. Thank you so much for that detailed (as always) and generous review.
Well, there's still Ultimate Armies to come out, too, we're not done with the Ultimate Plug-Ins yet. Just stream-of-consciousness musing, here, some of this is a bit outside my design expertise, but would the following sound like the kind of things people would like to see for nobles and nobility: Feats, archetypes for PC classes, magic items, spells, traits, a PC version of the noble NPC class, and rules for social climbing, intra- and inter-family dynamics, and change of noble rank within a kingdom? Now I'm putting some serious thought into this...
Hark wrote:
Yes. Not sure about the nobility and noble characters bit (I'd love to see it, but I'm not writing it), but I'm tackling Ultimate Strongholds, which has been in progress for some time and I can't wait to be able to share it with you all - when it's eventually finished (I have another project to finish for Jason, first).
Ideas, ideas, he's giving me ideas... Maybe something like a noble family being a micro-faction with holdings which generate downtime capital which can be up-and-down converted to and from WP. I've already got my eye on "how much capital equals a BP and how much does +10 gp capital from a building mean as a bonus to kingdom Economy?" This is getting complicated. But soooo much fun!
Real life kicked me pretty hard for a while, so I've not been doing much on Ultimate Strongholds which Jason tells me he'll take a look at when it's further along. On the plus side, real life has just calmed down to the point where I can pick this back up again. The elevator pitch for Ultimate Strongholds is: "Downtime rules expansion for all types of construction from Ultimate Campaign, cross-sub-system compatibility. Think Stronghold Builder's Guidebook from 3rd Edition, but for Ultimate Campaign." There's some extras and nuance, but I'm hoping to cover what you're looking for, Eric.
Queen Moragan wrote:
This post is full of excellent advice.
Sorry for the delay, I forgot the golden rule to never promise something you're not 100% sure of delivering on that promise. Goals are and have always been a tricky thing. They are purposefully left very abstract - the mechanics of them are designed to handle "does it work?" in response to the faction controller asking "can I do X to advance my goal?", where X can be pretty much anything you can think of. It's for that reason the Mage's Guild and Secret Society example factions have complex examples of Advance Goal operations - I didn't design those factions or their goals, I borrowed shamelessly from Ultimate Intrigue and the Villain Codex for the flavour and some of the mechanical details. The Mage's Guild was quite literally run through the "converting Organizations" rules, and the Secret Society was probably the hardest bit of the whole book because the Villain Codex doesn't really say anything about how big the Secret Society is, it just describes members and the group as a whole, and I had to create something which fits as a possible example of that villain group. You are absolutely correct that it is possible for a goal (not likely for the Major Goal, though) to have variable DC dependent on the effect the faction tries to achieve through advancing that goal. So, yes, if a faction decides to use the Advance Goal operation to (borrowing the Secret Society example) place members in positions of power within a single settlement, that's a lower DC than doing so in the entire Kingdom, and it's even easier to do it in a single faction. Regarding using an Operation to increase a faction's attributes - there was one in there for THE longest time. I removed it because the cost balance became either irrelevant or too high (a fixed cost quickly becomes pointless, but having it scale with the bonus just makes acquiring wealth more important than it should be). I ultimately wanted to avoid the kingdom "problem" of +146 bonus to Stability, +184 Economy, +138 Loyalty, Control DC 52. The DCs are very purposefully on the hard side, but the penalties for failing a check are almost nonexistent - while you might not be able to ramp up your faction's size hugely quickly, you're not completely screwed by failing that or any other check, and there's always next turn. If you really want a goal to increase attributes, something like 4-6 WP per existing point of bonus as a scaling cost might be appropriate for an active Operation - it'll be there or thereabouts, anyway. Thank you for that observation on the start being recruitment focused - that's really useful, matches my own experience, and it's a feature rather than a bug - brand new factions will be trying to recruit (unless they can secure large quantities of wealth), and things will be volatile for them to start with. The rules of creating factions for existing kingdoms are purposefully generous with size to allow them to avoid that initial wobbly period, but even if a faction splinters early on, allowing either a child faction or a completely new faction to fill the gap isn't a bad thing.
Absolutely my pleasure to answer any questions (though I would be very interested in seeing how other people would deal with these things). Reviews are always welcome (please consider copying any review written here to DriveThruRPG and Amazon, and if you didn't buy through DTRPG and hit their "only if you bought from us" policy, please PM Jason Nelson or email him at makeyourgamelegendary@gmail.com, and I'm sure he'll arrange something), and I'm really just stunned that so many people like this product. So, please keep asking, and help make this book even more useful, and help me avoid pitfalls for Ultimate Strongholds!
2) There's a new edict on page 18 which is for kingdoms supporting or suppressing factions, but it appears I missed how much effect it has. Each BP spent should apply a +/-3 modifier to the target faction's checks until the start of the next Edict phase. Something else to send to Jason, it seems. Factions trumping kingdom was also intentional, since the aim was to make factions work against each other to influence the kingdom (one reason for a "rulers" faction) overall. That said, your solutions are fine, I like them.
1) Tension requiring another faction's involvement was a conscious design choice to reflect conflict between factions, however your point about it serving other purposes is extremely reasonable. I agree that Abandon and New Goal are good places for added tension, but you could even go as far as also saying that any faction check which fails by 5 or more adds a point of tension. That wouldn't unduly affect the overall balance, considering how cheap removing tension is, all it would do is very mildly slow factions down. I'm just about to start work, so I'll give my answer to 2 later. Thanks for the questions, Amanuensis!
There's actually an Income Phase, but it got lost during layout (I've already sent this and a typo I found to Jason). The Income Phase occurs after the Operations Phase. On p11 insert the header "Income Phase" before the sentence that starts "Based on its activities, size, and patronage..." 2) I wavered both ways when writing it. The intention is certainly meant to be that a roll of one fails, which is why I didn't specifically include an exception. However I'm fully aware that it may seem a bit wrong, as you say, so there is absolutely nothing wrong with just letting the result stand even on a natural 1, and it's unlikely to break anything except bringing the ability to perform some Operations forward a month or two in the future. Not a huge deal. I have it on very good authority that Chemlak will be either incorporating Ultimate Factions into the existing Kingdom Tracking Spreadsheet, or will write a sheet just for factions. It just might take some time because I believe there's still a lot of work getting Ultimate Rulership up to scratch, and then there's Ultimate Battle and Ultimate War. And Ultimate Armies. Oh, and any reviews are always welcome!
It would probably be possible to create some sort of complex unified simulation subsystem that could be tweaked into behaving like any of the AP subsystems (most subsystems are something along the lines of "Aquire points. At certain thresholds, results happen", and everything else is just window dressing). The hard part is coming up with the unique point acquisition methods and results that are appropriate to the adventure. Now, you mention trading rules, and that's something I can get behind (detailed rules for resources, supply and demand, import and export taxes...), but I (and Jason) have very carefully not yet violated one of the unspoken rules of the Kingdom Rules: You only need the players' kingdom to run the game. The only exception to this is Diplomatic Edicts, and if I were expanding on trade rules I'd probably look at carefully integrating variants for diplomacy, too. Definitely worthy of future consideration.
You're not wrong. There were a few things along those lines that I considered incorporating - I decided not to for a number of reasons that I won't get into right now. Once I've done my next book I might be able to see about appropriate adaptations and conversions. No promises, I'm afraid, but I think it's quite possibly a good idea.
Third party. They're part of the Legendary Games Ultimate Plug-ins line, which started with Ultimate Rulership (practically a must-have expansion to the Ultimate Campaign kingdom rules), and continued with Ultimate Battle and Ultimate War, all of which Jason wrote. Then there's Ultimate Commander, which presents a base class with a troop-like companion class feature (it's seriously good). Ultimate Factions by yours truly finishes off the kingdom-based Ultimate series so far (lest we forget the a-a-a-amazing Ultimate Relationships and its extensions, by Mark Seifter, but they're party/individual social scale, not kingdom). Ultimate Armies has been on the cards for a looooong time. A really long time. I believe Jason is getting closer to finishing it. It's a book about armies (look up Jason's "what's in it" post for way better details than I can give). Until I dreamt up Ultimate Factions, it might even have been the anticipated end-point of the series. Then people in some forum threads started asking for a Stronghold Builder's Guidebook type book to fill out the kingdom rules, which I realised I could expand the downtime rules to do that idea justice, and Jason said it sounded like a good idea with some demand. So I'm doing Ultimate Strongholds. (No pressure...)
Callous Jack wrote:
PMing: This is Jason's thread, not mine, and I'm sure he won't mind me hopping in every now and then to be helpful, but it's not about me and my work.
DungeonmasterCal wrote: I'm far more interested in Ultimate Armies! Me too! No, that sounds wrong. I've been looking forward to Ultimate Armies since it was first announced and I can't wait to see it. I'm excited for Ultimate Strongholds because it's something I can get my own design teeth into. I'm excited for Ultimate Armies as a fan.
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