Hello everyone and welcome to the recruitment for my gestalt Kingmaker campaign!
Based on the number of replies and responses that were made during the interest check, I believe this adventure path needs no introduction. So, without further ado, here is the character creation guidelines!
CHARACTER CREATION
Level- Gestalt 1, with a caveat: One side of the gestalt may contain only ONE full class. This means that you may only multiclass on one side of the gestalt. You may, however, use parts of the non-multiclass portion for a prestige class, should you qualify for one. Obviously, this is only important after you get a few levels, but I felt the need to make it clear here.
HP- Maximum per level, based on HD.
Ability Scores- I will be using my usual 24 point buy, single point scaling method which I have used in my home games since I saw it in my early lurking days on these messageboards. Basically, each score is set to 10 and it only takes a single point to raise a stat by one. You may also, if you are needing a few points, may subtract up to -2 from a single score to gain that number of points that you can redistribute. No score may be above 18 or below 08 before racial modifiers. You may also 'buy off' a racial penalty to a stat by spending a respective number of points, such as paying 2 points to eliminate a Dwarf's CHA penalty.
Classes- All official Paizo classes are allowed with the understanding that 'techie stuff' is disallowed, so no Technomancers or similar things. Gunslingers and firearms are not considered tech for the purposes of this campaign, but they are exceedingly rare. Once the kingdom-building begins, you may hire a specialist to open a gun shop. Before that, you must make do with what you have and what you can craft.
*3PP Material- You may propose 3PP material as well. Assume that 3PP material is allowed unless it violates the sci-fi caveat above. Kingmaker is not a place for laser cannons or robots, even though they are super awesome in most other campaigns.
*Monster PCs- I will allow players to use monster classes, something that I will help them build, but I will ONLY allow two of these, maximum, with a strong leaning to only include one, should any even be submitted. That said, one of the people in my home campaign played an Ogrekin who the group rescued early on who became the Queen's crude and savage, but undyingly loyal, 'royal guard', so I know that an odd monster PC or two can be fairly cool.
Races- All official Paizo races on the SRD, apart from the androids and Lashunta, because of my no sci-fi rule. I require at least one Human character in the party, due to the patron which sends the PCs to claim the Stolen Lands.
Alignment: I would PREFER a group of non-evil PCs, because I'm already running 2 tables of Way of the Wicked. That said, I MIGHT allow one or two PCs with a murky morality, but no one who is blatantly a mustache-twirling, black cape wearing sociopath.
Feat- You gain a Bonus Feat at 1st level.
Skill Points- Running WotW in a home game and online, I have grown used to PCs having more skills. So you gain +2 Skill Points per level.
Traits: You start out with 2 Traits and a Campaign Trait. You may also reflavor Traits, so long as they make sense, and may take an additional Trait if you take a Drawback.
Starting Wealth- 500 GP, plus a single, non-magical, non-royal outfit of your choice, which must make sense with your character. You also have a free, nearly blank map of the Stolen Lands that just basically has it's borders, and small outskirts from other River Kingdoms. You also gain a bonus item based on your class. I will help you to determine what your class gains. To give some idea about what each class will get: in the case of Fighters and Rangers it is always a Masterwork weapon of whatever weapon they choose that they are proficient with (Firearms are excluded, if they somehow pick up said proficiency), whereas with Wizards it is 300 GP worth of unspecified spell components, and with Gunslingers, it is a free early firearm of their choice, along with 25 rounds of the sort used by the weapon. I hope that shows about what the 'class gifts' usually look like.
There are a few things in the campaign that I will want you know about before you even submit a character.
STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW
1. I'm an easy-going GM that is not above houseruling some things against the RAW, if it makes sense. RAW states that you cannot jump and attack, combining the two into an aerial charge, but I do allow it. RAW says that most cold spells cannot freeze liquids, but I say that they can in most circumstances. If you have a cool idea for one of your character's actions, and could conceivably do it within the limits of your character's statistics and such by combining actions or using something on a situational basis, then propose the idea to me. The worst I could say is no.
2. I will have the hex maps, area maps, and combat maps up on Google Drive. While this requires you to create a Google account, unless you can get myself or another to move your token later on, I find it better to have a map that exists outside the theater of the mind.
3. There will be a separate thread for handling kingdom-building. My lurker-fu has shown me that threads who focus on kingdom-building in the main gameplay thread are asking for the game to shrivel up and die a death worse than a heightened Horrid Wilting can do. The kingdom-building thread will have a OOC discussion thread for the actual talks AND a gameplay thread, so players can roleplay out what happened with kingdom-building before their characters set out on their next adventure. I know this requires a little more investment than is usual in PBPs, but I don't want the campaign to die due to people getting bored with the talks and dropping.
4. PCs chosen will roll 50d20 so that I can handle secret rolls SECRETLY and not tip PC hats that something may be up. Obviously, do not worry about this unless you are chosen.
5. I am adding several cool bits from Legendary Games' 'Kingslayer' line meant to supplement this AP, as well as excising a few encounters that I felt were just there are filler (4 encounters, if that tells you how much quality there is in this campaign!). I am also adding foreshadowing that solves the 'I don't know who the BBEG is until book 6' problem that was the main criticism of this AP by most who have played it.
6. I will allow the PCs the opportunity to make a 'sidequest' or two into other areas of the River Kingdoms in between adventures, should you all decide to do so. These forays will have real, lasting effects on your kingdom, should you choose to undertake them, and can do things like open up new trade routes, grow your kingdom via annexation, provide PCs with some pretty boss gear, and, of course, provide some golden roleplay opportunities. These are completely optional, of course, and if PCs simply want to assign the tasks to some of their scrubs, they can certainly do so.
7. The group essentially has a free 'Super Leadership' feat in effect. The group's kingdom will be their followers and they can bring along one 'retainer NPC', who shall either be played by my girlfriend or I. Said retainer NPC is an NPC that they have met and befriended, or at least somehow convinced to join them, and can be switched out in between adventures.
8. I will be adding 50+ building types to those normally allowed in the Kingdom-building rules, because I am not fond of 'let's make a rough approximation of this with this' type stuff. I have most of the kingdom-building expansions from 3PPs, so there should be a plethora of options.
9. Later on in the campaign the PCs will, undoubtedly, come across special locations that I will just call Legendary Locations. These sites, if a city is built around them and utilize them, can provide VERY awesome effects both on the PCs and their kingdom. These locations will be few and far between, with around 4-5 being present in the campaign, but they will add a massive sense of accomplishment once they are captured, for they will show just how legendary the PC's exploits have been.
10. Kingdom-building will be a group endeavor. I will not allow one person to make all the decisions, king or no, unless they have been clearly delegated the authority to by the other PCs in that instance. I have seen it on the threads where the king pulled the 'I'm king in-game, so I decide everything OOC' schtick and promptly caused several people to drop the campaign.
11. Throughout the campaign, there will be some set events for the king to make a decision on, with OOC discussion of course. These events will help shape the kingdom in pretty profound ways that can have lasting impacts. For example, you could choose to allow a Halfling member of the Bellflower Network to establish a community for escaped Halfling slaves, which gives you a thriving, productive community. It could possibly make Cheliax a bit miffed at you, should they find out, but that's the sacrifice that you would make for an instant community that helps your kingdom in several ways.
12. I am also allowing for PCs to open up negotiations with other River Kingdoms and, via carrier birds or couriers, invite those from outside the River Kingdoms for negotiations. You are building a kingdom and, as such, I see no reason why not to allow the use of diplomacy to forge alliances.
13. I will alter encounters in hexes should PCs hit one of the hexes that is beyond their level or if they go to one that is below their level. This fixes another problem that the original books had.
14. I will allow the PCs options of, in the few areas in later books featuring mass combat, the option to allow me to use their army while they take out key lieutenants to weaken the enemy army. I am willing to do this because Mass Combat is a pretty complex system, even if you use the Legendary Games version, and the PCs are already going to have to know the kingdom-building rules later on. I don't want PCs to get frustrated and quit because of the multiple systems to learn.
15. Read the Kingmaker Player's Guide! Just do it if you have not done so already, because it contains a lot of useful information that you may wish to know.
Okay, I think that about covers it! Does anyone have any questions? This post took roughly 3 hours to create, due to me double-checking what I wanted to say and saying it in as clear a manner as possible, but I may have missed something. I'm only human, after all!
