Galeazzo's page

Excellent fan development on Kraggodan can be found here. And even more here here.

The article on the Greathammers from that site describes the ruling family and contains:

Thanks, there is some good stuff I could use there!

Hi everybody, it's been a while from my last post.

Little is known about Kraggodan, except that it's a Sky Citadel and its third prince is Gorm Greathammer. I'm ignorant about noble titles (especially about dwarves), so I ask you: what does exactly third prince mean: does he have 2 older brothers, and his father is the current king? Are those brothers dead for him to be called prince? Or maybe he is the third ruler in the recent history who calls himself prince?

Moreover, if anybody has any info about Sky Citadels (official or not) I would be happy if he could share them!

I took a break from RPG and I want to store my books the best way I can. Anybody uses plastic sleeves (like for comics) to store Player Companions and Campaign Settings issues? Do you know which size format would be best for them?

Friendly Fire Maneuvers

You and your teammates can anticipate one another's ranged attacks and stay out of each others' way.

Prerequisite(s): Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot.

Benefit(s): Allies who also have this feat cannot provide soft cover to enemies, allowing you to make attacks of opportunity against an enemy even if those allies grant you soft cover against that foe's attacks. If an ally who also has this feat casts a spell that targets the area you are in as it allows a Reflex saving throw to avoid the effect (such as fireball), you gain a +4 dodge bonus on that saving throw.

So now allies do not provide soft cover to enemies in any circumstances? Or does this only apply to attacks of opportunity? It is weird they mentioned AoO in a teamwork feat specifically designed for ranged characters, maybe it was an error?

Nice job Helaman. We already have a website, taccuinodigaleazzo.it but we mainly use it to write stories about characters. I will ask the GM if he would like to have a Wiki though, it may be useful (I'm the webmaster). The website is perfect to read outside the session, what I am looking for right now is something more useful during the session.

This is a spoiler free thread

Hi, I have a lvl 1 Inquisitor who just showed up in Ravengro last Sunday. Carrion Crown looks like a nice AP with a lot of interactions and investigation. I really like this aspect of the game but I'm afraid it can be easy to lose some details of the story during the game — temporary distraction, tiredness, missing a session are inevitably part of the gaming experience; and, in my experience, when a plot becomes too complicated for the average player these distractions tend to increase, leading to a loss of interest in the plot itself; people stop to use their head and the game becomes less satisfactory. I'm planning to build something to help all the players to keep track of the NPCs, the locations, the investigation details and the mysteries in Ravengro and beyond. I need your help to evaluate the ideas I had today and I'd love to hear some suggestions too, I'm sure many people here came up with good thoughts concerning the same issue.

Ideas so far:

• A Players Communal Binder containing all the data we find during the sessions: I already planned to put maps, notes, letters, NPC faces, a timeline, a calendar and party funds in it. Every player will have access to it when he will need to remember something, add some details, check the inventory or just give a look at the past. I'm planning to build my own NPCs face cards with pictures from the AP that can be found on google. I may even teach my master how to build them in advance and give them to us when we meet new people — he already knows about it. These cards will be stored in cards sheets (like those for Magic the gathering). During the investigation the cards will be put on…
  
• A magnetic board on the wall: All suspects faces may be put here with magnetic pins, along with every information we need. In the current situation one player has the job to keep track of these things, but he does it in his personal diary which is obviously inaccessible to the others. Keeping everything in sight may really improve participation and rational thinking for everyone.
  

The assassin's sight is great, even if a bit specialized. I was actually looking for something more "mundane", for a low level character. I didn't think what it could mechanically do, but negating some range penalty would be great. With another research I found out there are some sights on the Ultimate Equipment, but they are designed only for fireguns. What a shame!
A spyglass may be somewhat useful, anyway.

Do optical sights (or any other device which has the function to improve aim) exist in Pathfinder? I've seen a beautiful art in the Ranged Tactics Toolbox with Ezren holding a crossbow with three sights on it — page 18. It would be cool to create something similar!

Thanks everybody for the appreciation. Sorry kadance, I don't think it was one of those posts, even if our maps look very similar. I remember the guy who posted it thanked his wife/gf for cutting the paper hexes one by one, if I recall correctly. Btw, awesome job, the hex improvements are a great idea.

Beware of spoilers ahead

Our Kingmaker campaign terminated this month, after one year and a half of battles, kingdom sessions, intrigues and fun. We are moving on towards Carrion Crown (we rotate as GM after every adventure).

My thoughts, confessions and considerations about the entire campaign - aka what I did get right, what I did wrong, considering my players and their responses.

1 - Stolen Lands: One of my favourite books, with a great villain and a good hook for the campaign.

• Ask your players to give their character noble intents as motivations for this path. This is because the path is very long, very dispersive, and in many situations you may feel like fighting in first line for the people (or even non human creatures) in these lands may not be worth the effort, especially if you should defend the weakest side in the conflict. Being altruist is important, even in this path. My players had some internal conflicts when it came to take generous decisions and when the most 'noble' half of the party remained trapped in the House at the Edge of Time, the other half could not lead the mission anymore.
  
• Most (if not all) of the Brevoy background is lost during the path. If you like it and if your players want to connect with it you will have to create some sort of subquest or other stories to keep it alive.
  
• Don't make them rush against the Stag Lord: they'll die. Remember them their primary goal is to explore the land, the bandits should be a growing presence. The typical problem with players used to railroad campaigns is that they will rush against the first enemy they will hear of.
  
• Rolling random encounters is boring. Create some good encounters with good terrain features in advance and make them happen as you like. Make the encounter worth of it, create clear and evident substories that can lead to further encounters. Don't be afraid to create some invisible railroads: sandbox doesn't mean out of control.
  
• This fey pranks pdf is gold.
  
• 6 players conversion helped a lot when we had 5 players.
  
• Following suggestions from this forum (I don't remember where I read it) I downloaded all the maps of the lands (sorry, not sure if I can really do it), I edited them in a single big map (170 x 60 cm), I printed it and I plasticized it. I covered it with little paper hexes, and we hanged it on the wall, taking off the hexes and showing the map during the exploration. It was great!
  

2 - Rivers Run Red: One of the worst books of the saga, forum material can make a difference.

• Kingdom rules work pretty well in this book. We used Ultimate Campaign rules, along with some of the Ultimate Rulership (Legendary Games) rules in the later stages of the game. Kingdom building works better if you have at least one player who is interested in the intense bookkeeping required. I suggest to use this excellent excel grid as soon as you can. Here you can find some good material for this part, especially if you want to keep Brevoy alive.
  
• Again, don't be too fussy with exploration. You will probably be tired of it at the end of the second book, so don't be obsessed with exploration time and tables, go easy on it and give your players opportunities to explore the boring parts of the map through other ways (exploration edicts, informations by NPC, maps found around).
  
• Dudemeister created this beautiful expansion for this book that really enhances the adventure. Give it a look.
  

3 - The Varnhold Vanishing: Solid book, Vordakai is a great enemy and his dungeon is very cool.

• I suggest you to delay the meeting with Vordakai as much as you can, to avoid the “rush against the enemy” problem mentioned earlier. Dudemeister got this covered too.
  

4 - Blood for Blood: Nice book, Fort Drelev offers a lot of fun.

• You should revive the fey background at this point. Make it clear something is happening to the area, the First World presence should be more violent but not so dangerous to require immediate action: a weird presence, just to remember them the Stolen Lands are not common wilderness. Otherwise, Nyrissa may look out of place at the end of the adventure. Faerie Mysteries by Legendary Games is a good addition to the game.
  
• Kingdom rules gave me a headache at this time. Maybe because my players power played their kingdom, there was no Kingdom check they could fail, their Kingdom was extremely rich and their armies were unbeatable. There was nothing they could not do (by rules), no event could shake their reign (by rules). This made all the Kingdom subsystem useless for roleplaying purpose: if I wanted to challenge their kingdom I had to do it in a non-standard way, which could make all their work to raise kingdom statistics useless or, worse, they could feel cheated because the other kingdoms did not work according to those rules that made them clearly superior. My suggestion is to dump kingdom rules by this time, if you fear this situation may cause you problems. Explore Kingdom rules in the second and third book when they are still fun to play, and ignore them by now; or make Kingdom sessions more occasional (i.e. once every 6 months to decide the kingdom course); decide with your players what is important for their kingdom and give them missions and quests to reach that specific kingdom goal; you can even create simplified kingdom rules, but don’t get stuck in the mud of the classic rules when the kingdom becomes too big.
  

5 - War of the River Kings: My favourite book. Irovetti was such a badass.

• Jason Nelson really did a great work here, providing even his own original work to anybody who asks him.
  
• I liked my tournament so much I want to share it: In my game I moved Whitehorse Abbey close to the tournament, the midnight joust took place in the afternoon, while at midnight I placed the Midnight Toast (like in James version). When the PGs have been invited, Irovetti asked them to bring a bottle of their finest wine, as tradition: the winner’s bottle would be poured in the barrels destined to the nobility at midnight toast. Since the players won the tournament they felt very bad when they heard rumors about Gaetane (professional poisoner) meeting with Irovetti and heading to the nearby Abbey: was Irovetti framing them in a conjure against the other River Kingdoms? They run to the abbey, fought against Gaetane but they could not solve the mystery of the Abbey nor understand Irovetti’s plan. Back at the tournament, they awaited the Midnight Toast with great fear, just to realize after midnight that Irovetti was playing with them all the time, keeping them busy while his armies attacked.
  
• Most of the army battles will be played in this book. Ultimate Battle by Legendary Games can be a nice addition. This kind of battles can be a little long and may not involve all the players. On the other hand, even if very complex, battles may be a little boring. When I added some PCs vs. NPCs tactical fights during the main battle to achieve goals and change the outcome of the battle I always had more involvement and fun.
  

6 - Sound of a Thousand Screams: A real hack and slash adventure. My players didn’t like this part and preferred to stop it instead of keep fighting when they have been defeated (even if not killed); this part contains most of my regrets for them to abandon the adventure and my considerations may not apply to you.

• When my players understood their Kingdom was falling apart due to the First World invasion, they almost lost interest in their kingdom. I felt bad about it because I could not make them love the Stolen Lands and their inhabitants enough to defend them, nor hate Nyrissa enough to defeat her, even after kidnapping the Ranger’s son. Make them realize Nyrissa was behind almost everything bad happened to their Kingdom as soon as possible and that she already hurt them before.
  
• At the beginning of the book I warned them I would have played seriously. In the past I held back some enemies if they were too strong, but then it was time to wear off the gloves and see who would have ruled the Stolen Lands. This was OK until they fought in the glades, but they suffered a lot when they had to fight more than one enemy. Kingmaker is famous for 1/day encounters and this may cause your party to think they are unbeatable, taking risky decisions and going nova as soon as they can. CR may be a little misleading, so keep this in mind and try to understand that the party may arrive at the House at the Edge of Time without a good action economy experience. They were astonished by the number of enemies in this place.
  
• Remember them they are not in mission for themselves but for a greater cause. If this has no effect, remember them the people they left home and that may die if they lose. Should their kingdom fade, Nyrissa must not win or the consequences may be even worse than the loss of the Stolen Lands.
  

I don’t know if I wrote this for you or for me to read, the end of an Adventure Path is always emotional to me. I was sad they didn’t care to save the Stolen Lands at last; but maybe I am a little egoist, fun is the only important thing and if an adventure doesn’t provide enough entertainment it’s OK to stop it. I had a lot of help on this board when I started and I hope I can give back some of the matured experience with this post.

We will begin carrion Crown in a couple of weeks and I'm planning my new PC: he will be an Inquisitor for Pharasma. I already have in mind great part of the fluff background (I actually thought about it for some months, I really enjoy that part). Now I have to write down some of his mechanics so he won't suck in combat. Here are the ingredients:

• 20 points abilities.
  
• He is ~40 years old, so the stats are modified by age.
  
• I don't care if he is sub-optimal. Some intelligence is required in an investigative environment and I want an experienced PC who knows some good tricks. Plus, he will probably be an important (if not THE) face of the party.
  
• I want him to have a typical Pharasmin characterization in combat, possibly with ranged tactics to keep him safe while buffing, casting and coordinating the party (intelligent PCs stay back; right, wizards?).
  
• Spellcasting is a secondary ability, mainly for buffing and defensive tactics than for offensive purposes, so high WIS is probably useless.
  
• My party is composed by a Paladin (Iomedae), an Arcanist and an Investigator.
  

My ideas until now (human +2 bonus to DEX; age modifiers applied):
STR 13
DEX 17
CON 12
INT 10
WIS 15
CHA 9
Primary combat style: crossbows! I know that crossbows are considered inferior to bows in mechanical terms, but I hope to get a good result, especially with the help of Ranged Tactics Toolbox I just bought. Moreover, this choice would allow me to dump STR in favor of a higher DEX. I don't know if Pharasmin inquisitors have a typical combat style. Inquisitors seem to be pushed towards ranged tactics by weapon proficiencies, but are they really good at it or would they be better at melee?
Secondary combat style: dagger? This is tough, I'd like him to use a typical Pharasmin weapon, it's sad that the dagger sucks so much. The clergy probably use it just for ritual purposes. Albeit this would allow me to take Weapon Finesse and use my high DEX to hit. I feel the need of a secondary weapon, especially to gain advantage from the powerful Teamwork Feats, but I fear that it will be almost useless without a good STR score. Other ideas are a longspear (reach!) or a morningstar (cool!). I like the longspear because it would give the PC a smart tactical characterization even in melee.

I'd like to hear your thoughts about it. Do you think he may be effective in combat? Ability bonuses during the campaign would allow me to grow his STR, DEX and WIS during the game, allowing me a sufficient spell casting ability, a good ranged hit and some strength for melee combat. Do you think I should go full ranged/melee and completely dump STR/DEX? My greatest fear is to build a ranged inquisitor who looks very beautiful on paper but is frustrating in combat.

But there is (trolls for example), and you know that.

You are right, it's better if I merge my previous posts:

Prismatic Spray Poison: The text states there is a secondary effect with Con damages, but there is no way (neither failing nor succeeding the initial saving throw) to suffer from this condition. The only exceptions are some corner cases (eg. trolls with regeneration) which may suffer from the secondary effect after failing the first save. This looks far away from what the developers had in mind when they wrote the spell for 3.5 rules. Should the poison of Prismatic Spray need a rewrite according to Pathfinder poison rules, or should we consider this phenomenon as intended?

Regeneration and some kinds of resurrection are the only possible ways to suffer the secondary effect, but they look like a corner case which would hardly be what the developers had in mind when they wrote the spell.

Make a better FAQ post and we will click it.

If I should FAQ it i would consider something like this:

Should the poison of Prismatic Spray need a rewrite according to Pathfinder poison rules? The text states there is a secondary effect with Con damages, but there is no way (neither failing nor succeeding the initial saving throw) to suffer from this condition.

I don't think this poison is a death effect. The closest definition of death effect I found in the PRD is "death attack".

Death Attacks:

In most cases, a death attack allows the victim a Fortitude save to avoid the effect, but if the save fails, the creature takes a large amount of damage, which might cause it to die instantly.

• Raise dead doesn't work on someone killed by a death attack or effect.
  
• Death attacks slay instantly. A victim cannot be made stable and thereby kept alive.
  
• In case it matters, a dead character, no matter how he died, has hit points equal to or less than his negative Constitution score.
  
• The spell death ward protects against these attacks.

This definition may be a little vague, but from many posts in this forum (here) and considering that Death Ward should protect against these attacks we should consider death effects only spells with the [death] descriptor and effects specifically stated as such. So, I wouldn't say that a Scarab of Protection would protect you from a failed save, in this case.

I'm sure Starbuck_II is right, it's some unfortunate copy and paste from 3.5, but shouldn't it be addressed properly on FAQs? The poison blog Paulicus is referring to states that failing the first save makes you suffer from the poison effect immediately, killing you in this case. No Death Ward can save you. If you make the save, then you get no poison at all, making those Con damages impossible to get.

So what about prismatic spray and green ray #4?

Poison (Frequency 1/rd. for 6 rd.; Init. effect death; Sec. effect 1 Con/rd.; Cure 2 consecutive Fort saves)*

How can anybody suffer from a secondary effect when he is dead?

This makes me think about a scenario where poisons with secondary effect cannot actually be avoided. If a character makes his first save when he contracts the affliction (initial effect avoided) he must keep making the following saves to avoid the secondary effects on his turns. Is it possible?

Ok, this is quite big, unless I completely misunderstood UR or your sheet. I noticed the Kingdom sheet (Ultimate Rulership) makes a big mistake when it calculates kingdom population outside the city: the big matrix counts the same hexes multiple times.

Example: if I have 2 hill hexes (one empty and one with a farm and a highway) instead of counting 50 people for the first and 175 for the second (50+25+100), with a total of 225, the matrix counts 50 for the empty one, 150 for the farm and 75 for the highway (total 275), making it 3 hexes.

Suggestion: I added in the overview panel a simple taxes calculator, one that makes the math once given the taxes dice roll. My players enjoyed it a lot! :)

Cheers!

Of course. The target is "magically isolated". Good or bad… depends on the situation. Now I really like this spell

Good work Chemlak! Minor bug: hanging gardens should reduce consumption of the city by 1 (it can happen only once per city, since you can have only 1 garden per settlement) according to UR.

Special: Reduces Consumption in the city by 1

Thanks for your point of view! A SR is a SR, no matter what, and it is also logic that a curse that negates magic negates any form of magic that involves the subject.

I'm using this calendar with great success! I'm playing Kingmaker and I needed many years of calendar, so I ended up using the overview calendar most of the time — I just made screenshots of the various years and put four years on a single page.

The weather generator idea was great, I'd love to see it implemented, it would become the calendar killer app. As an alternative, a sheet where you can select the weather for each day — and see the result on the calendar — would be nice too.

I appreciated the possibility of creating my own events (birthdays!). I would like to see events highlighted in the overview calendar too — no need to be specific, just a symbol or background-font colors inverted.

Apart from Kingmaker, for another adventure I'd like to have an easy and nice print layout available — so I can skip the screenshot passage —, 4 months per page should be nice.

Thanks Nickolas, this calendar has been fundamental for my campaign, and i'm sure it will be even more important in the future. I'm excited to see the webapp!

One of my players used the Curse of Magic Negation (UM) on a wizard. Since this spell procures a spellblight which gives a SR to the target I assumed that this SR applied to every spell, even those directed against him. My player stated that, since the spellblight interferes with the ability of the spellcaster to manipulate magic, this SR should be applied only to spells casted BY the target, not incoming spells against him.

According to the Negated spellblight in UM:

Negated: A negated spellcaster has his ability to manipulate magical energies disrupted. He gains spell resistance equal to 10 plus twice the highest spell level he can cast. This spell resistance cannot be voluntarily lowered. In addition, anytime he casts a spell, he must make a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) against this spell resistance. On a successful check, the spell is completed and the spellcaster's spell resistance is removed until the start of his next turn. Failure indicates he failed to muster up enough magical energy to cast the spell, but the spell is not lost and may be attempted again. Any feats or abilities that aid in bypassing spell resistance help with this check.

I can see it can be interpreted in both ways (RAW/RAI) but my question is if this spell (Curse of Magic Negation) was meant to have a drawback for both the target and the caster. How do you normally rule it?

Its possible we just found some old stock stashed somewhere in the warehouse and didn't realize the issue. I've passed your comment along to our warehouse to investigate further and customer service will be emailing you shortly to resolve this for you.

Thank you Sara, customer service contacted me and already shipped a replacement. I overlooked it since it was a minor issue, but this is a super service!

I purchased this product May 3, 2015, when the "add print" button became clickable again and I received an old deck (no "roleplaying game" writing on the box, just "pathfinder cards") with errors on the two incriminated cards. Not sure why Paizo still prints and ships old products.

there's a level of 'Crazytown' that Pathfinder has that makes me not want to shut that door.

Sometimes I look back and I ask myself «how did I get here?». Repeating the same steps seem impossible now, so I really hope to keep the group I've grown with because I fear it would be such a pain to go back teaching everything. It would be so cool if every GM could build his own modular rulebook to give to the players.

Any players/GMs for whom the CRB would have been "enough" when it first came out, the CRB is still "enough" now.

Except when you are introduced in a formed group playing with stratified rules. I'm not talking about UM or UC which build "horizontally", but "vertical" building.

The fact that other books exist has no more bearing on whether or not the CRB is sufficient than does the fact that other RPGs exist.

True.

Apart from 5e, Unchained is not only a book of options but something many many players (and developers) waited to upgrade some dull (in my opinion, at least) aspects of the game. I don't know if more similar books will be published, but it can't be negated that a new group who wants to play a new "unchained" and more streamlined Pathfinder has to work harder than a group who started years ago. I'm a bit worried by the gap that may be created between "old" players and "new" players, but… I hope my concerns are unfounded.

I'm quite confused by Paizo strategy to attract new players. This is not a direct criticism because I would never dare to teach them how to lead the company, but pure curiosity. I was thinking about it few days ago. When I started playing Pathfinder everything I needed was just one book, opposed to 3.5e: the Core Rulebook — a revolution! Now new players (and GMs) face a more complicated path. They will have to buy the core rulebook, for sure. Maybe they will be pushed to buy the strategy guide, it will help a lot to understand core rules. But, probably, many groups will soon be converted to Unchained rules (they are so exciting) as soon as they can, so here is another rulebook to buy/read that may invalidate a big portion of the previous books already bought.

So — again, not provoking —, as a new player or — this is probably more substantial since we spread the game — as a GM who wants to introduce a game to a new group, I realized it would be easier to have something similar to 5e: just one book, at least for players — see any analogy?

If you should introduce new players to RPG, what would you do? Would you just stick to Core rules? Or you would risk to scare new players with multi-rulebooks, no matter what?

Maybe I've missed it in the myriad of posts followed by Unchained announcement, but… what will happen to the rest of the publishing line? Will we see new options for core classes alongside unchained classes in future books — like player companions? Or everything will remain unchanged, relying on a conversion system presented in the unchained book?

Jester David wrote:

Items that level are pretty awesome, especially for a character's iconic equipment.

But it doesn't really satisfy the desire for low or no magic campaigns. I want to see something official for that.

Why do you need something official to restrict options?

[…]

The problem of low magic or high magic environment is not so easy since magic items bonuses are hardcoded, on PF, in the character advancement, just like low magic is hardcoded in 5e. The entire CR system is based on that, so if you change the magic level in a PF game, especially in published adventures, it takes a lot of work for a GM to foresee every possible variation in the game equation. A system with "independent" magic level, which can appeal everyone, is unknown to me, I don't even know if it is possible to create, probably a utopia.

That said, I also think official options may be useful for some reasons:

• Some GM don't have time to do all the required math: they need an easy, ready solution for their problems, written by professionals, with their suggestions. I don't know if Unchained addresses this issue particularly (want to talk about WBL, anybody?), we'll read more next week, as Mark said.
  
• A shared rule/option among players all over the world creates a common ground which helps spreading ideas, sharing experience and advice, reduce fragmentation and isolationism. Homerules are good, but common experience is better.

Thank you for your answers! I won't be the GM of our next adventure but I will definitely point this to the master.

Hi, Tales readers, I will play Carrion Crown AP in a few months and, apart from the usual campaign settings, I was wondering if tales like Prince of Wolves may be useful for a player in order to create a better background, bond the PC to the area and the adventure, know some secrets of the place and, in general, improve the setting.

I have never read any Pathfinder novel — I didn't even know their existence until yesterday — but I'm curious to know if they can really help me to get more from my usual PF game. I've read some pages of the preview from Prince of Wolves and they seem quite easy to read — I think they are intended as a light lecture —, even if I'm not native English speaker.

This was not even a question. It was just funny to me to see that even among Paizo people there are different views, since different products describe different things. I assume designers have decided for it now, as described in the FAQ, but expect to see this question asked more, since these two products are clearly aimed to new players; I hope everybody will be nice with them.

Strategy guide provides a nice diagram for diagonals and threatened areas for medium characters, medium characters with reach weapons and large creatures. Too bad it contradicts this card and this FAQ:

10-Foot Reach and Diagonals: I’m confused about reach and diagonals. I heard somewhere online that you don’t threaten the second diagonal with a 10-foot reach but that you somehow get an attack of opportunity when opponents move out of that square, but the Rules Reference Cards show that you do threaten the second diagonal. Which one is correct?

The cards are correct. As an exception to the way that diagonals normally work, a creature with 10 feet of reach threatens the second diagonal. These changes will be reflected in the next errata.

posted Dec 19, 2014

No offense, but you guys should plan a nice meeting to coordinate. Waiting for next errata, as you wrote!

Ok I fixed some flaws and now consumption is higher. Feel free to take a look.

Note that armies' consumption in the Overall sheet is handled manually and that number represents reserve armies; the income phase in the same sheet already subtracts consumption from the total. One of the best things I'd love to throw at them is a long war, so their enormous armies can drain their huge treasury

Something I noticed (URulership 5.4 n on OpenOffice:

• Academy should increase Fame
  
• Note that using Fame rules kingdom consumption should increase
  
• Cities consumption should consider settlement type as per page 17
  

I own Inner Sea Gods, which is a really good book, it is very dense with informations and I always have to read it again and again to remember important details. My gaming group always kept religion in the background. Recently we started to give it more importance, also because of our first cleric — of Urgathoa!

I think I will handle religions as I always did with other political parties. Religions with a temple will immediately begin to act as a political force, with a "political score". Shrines may attract people, even if more slowly. I'd say 3+1d6 months to create some sort of cult that may compare to the others. I will make clear to the players that they have been able to create a district with very tense relationship with inhabitants. Gozreh, according to what I read, is one of the least happy with the current situation: a reign which developed every single square meter of land, and the presence of obscure shrines will make the clergy unhappy. Abadar and Gozreh visions may be not compatible. Erastil clergy will surely react to the construction of a shrine for Urgathoa. Calistria seems to be more neutral in her relationships.

Looks like they put a Fishery in every hex with water.

Yes, they put a fishery in every hex with a river.

Foundries only improve 1 Mine.

I will fix this, thanks!

Buildings that generate Fame also increase Consumption.

I don't know this rule, could you be more specific?

You really should use Jason Nelson's Errata of no asterisk(*) on the Farm improvement

I probably should have done this before, now it is a bit late to do it. I may put some limits to their accumulated treasury. I admit cities have been initially built with min/maxing, now they just do whatever they want, see this post for fun.

Let me explain better my situation: I almost feel embarrassed by these statistics while I expose them, but I don't see this excessive kingdom as "bad". Kingdom rules had a success in my case: players are having fun. Two of them are really invested, they also meet out of the game to catch up with some skipped kingdom phases when I want to flash forward during a session. Others partecipate passively, but in general they like ruling a kingdom. They really like to have unbeatable scores, a perfect kingdom where they are absolute rulers. On the GM side, these rules are a complete FAILURE because they don't allow me, as GM, to create balanced challenges for the players on the base of their kingdom statistics. Those numbers, that should represent their strength, are actually a useless appendix of rules with the only purpose of gratifying the players. In my game real kingdom challenges are created ad hoc by me, with political parties, interests, demands, favors. Kingdom events are not part of the real challenge, so I'm not too worried to keep statistics balanced, apart from some sort of realism — they don't appear to have to be balanced in the first place.

So the real question is: what is the meaning of Kingdom rules? Are they a way to simulate kingdom building — keeping it detached by the real challenge? Or are they a way to misure the players in a different area than the usual one, a system that the GM can use to challenge them like the Challenge Rating system for monsters? How does it work with your game?

Queen, the result of an income phase in this case is:

( dice(7) + economy(196) ) / divider(4*) + income from terrain improvements (87) = 138 BP.
*we are using taxation edicts from ultimate rulership

It took about 8 years of reign to get to this point. They can even throw away food in excess. Armies are not counted in the version I posted, but you can see that even with them, when they are in reserve, their consumption is 0. (-55 is an error of the formula)

Even if I put some limits to their treasury (and I think it would be weird to add such a rule at this point), their kingdom statistics are so high they can build anything. To limit their power I should rewrite important sections of Kingom rules because, as written, they perfectly allow this kind of kingdom. And I feel this would not be well accepted in the middle of the campaign, after all the work they have done, especially after learning so many new rules from Ultimate Campaign/Rulership/Battle. I feel they power played the kingdom, actually, but… it is quite easy to do so. Is it possible nobody optimized the reign up to this point?

It's difficult to summarize the entire kingdom, but if you want to look at it I uploaded a copy of our spreadsheet from the latest session here.

They created what they call the "religious district" in the capital. A district of the city with:

• A cathedral of Abadar
  
• A temple of Erastil
  
• A temple of Gozreh
  
• A temple of Calistria
  
• A temple of a LN organization (see spoiler below)
  
• A shrine of Asmodeus
  
• A shrine of Serenrae
  
• A shrine of Desna
  
• A shrine of Urgathoa

They are avoiding chaotic evil deities. Building shrines is actually smart to avoid priests of the "problematic" religions, but may raise some eyebrows anyway, attracting cults and so on.

I run Hargulka's monster kingdom. It doesn't seem to me that opponents would have stopped them.

They basically built every hex improvement they could in each hex, they have one big city with 5 districts and 3 smaller cities (1 district), Varnhold included. hex improvements with a lot of farms help them with consumption, but their strength, in their opinion, are the buildings that boosted their stats to these levels.

Result: Kingdom is not a challenge anymore. I'm curious to know if big kingdoms out there have similar characteristics.

I started mastering Kingmaker some months ago. I started using Ultimate Campaign rules for the kingdom. Initially the kingdom turns were interesting, with events and difficulties along the way. Planning was necessary and money was sometimes a problem.

Then the kingdom became too big. One Kingdom turn was 40 minutes of play and nobody liked it. We started using the spreadsheets from this forum (thanks!) to save some time. Money was not a problem anymore: I had to houserule that the party had to use the major part of the money they could subtract from the kingdom treasure to sustain their lifestyle. An ingame solution to overcome infinite money.

Slowly all the kingdom attributes exceeded kingdom checks, so that only a 1 could mean failure. Kingdom events became a formality (this is what makes me think the kingdom is unbalanced now). We started to use Ultimate Battle rules to balance the unbeatable troops of the kingdom, an army that may defeat entire countries. Still unbeatable, maybe, but at least I can create better armies for the events that are going to happen very soon. We converted the spreadsheet, going full Ultimate Rulership too (which I think is slightly more balanced and realistic than a vanilla UCampaing).

Here is my players' kingdom as we are starting Blood for Blood. We are following the rules, I can confirm. How do these number compare to your kingdoms? Too strong? Comparable?

Hexes: 101; Population: 71770
Control DC: 129; Treasury: 2400 BP
Economy: 196
Loyalty: 158
Stability: 189

In my Kingmaker campaign we are just starting Blood for Blood, with a reign of 101 hexes. The kingdom is very rich (thousands of BP, but I'm going to talk about this in another post), and they decided to build every kind of temple in their capital. Abadar is a strong presence since the beginning, with a cathedral. Gorum is the second deity worshipped.

In the last couple of kingdom turns they went crazy and started to build temples for every deity, including Asmodeus and Urgathoa. In particular, the cleric of the group is a worshipper of Urgathoa. I'm not against his develop as a character, I understand his need to build some sort of cult around him, but this is such a mess, with so many religions in the capital all together, many not compatible and my initial thought is that they would hunt each other. Unfortunately my knowledge about deities and religions in Golarion is very limited and i'm trying to improve it in this period. Any advice? Somebody expert with religions? My players surely expect something from this, and i would like to present them a consistent outcome.

Note: I'm using a "trust score" point system like the one you can find in Carrion Crown (I learned of it from dudemeiste's Centaur Graves) to keep track of the political satisfation of each organization or church in the kingdom. Apart from Abadar and Gorum, the other religions have a very low score right now (evil churches not even considered, yet!).

Thanks wraithstrike.

If you find that your players heavily prefer very generalized items (cloak of resistance, ring of protection, etc) then I would recommend throwing in some very specialized challenges for them to help them reconsider more interesting items that don't appear to have the variety of uses they prize so highly.

I really like this idea. We run only published adventures, sometimes I write short pieces of adventure but it's quite rare. Published adventures have this kind of behavior, sometimes, to make some item special. When they do it, they also ensure that the magic item is good enough that PC don't throw it away. I don't use many tables, I like printed treasures, they have a good balance of usual "big six" stuff and more random and unusual things. My only regret is seeing all the treasure soon converted in stat boosting items...

More ideas I ran across that I should flesh out before full introduction in the game:

Without rewriting any rules, I could make the act of selling magic items more challenging. Nothing too complicated, a couple of checks to see how long would it take to sell an item and how much of the original price would be earned. This would discourage players from selling everything, encourage them to make use of unsold items, or just delay the progression towards an ad hoc dull equipment. I thought my players would have seen it as a forcing, but they almost proposed it after a little talk.

Talismanic components (Ultimate Campaign) may be a nice idea to control item creation in a campaign such as Kingmaker where time is not a problem. They need to be implemented in a simple system though, because what is proposed in the book is not easy to use.

I'm waiting for Pathfinder Unchained scalable items: I've read about them from other sources, they are a way to personalize treasure hoards with very special stuff, now I would like to see what Paizo suggests.

What does "OP" mean? Sorry but acronyms still puzzle me sometimes.

When I started this topic I thought I would have initiated an original discussion. Then I understood (actually "realized", since I unconsciously knew) that my problem with "special items" was rather a problem with a very well known technical aspect of PF (and 3, and 3.5), which has been widely examined on this and other boards: WBL + Big Six (thank you guys for pointing me in the right direction).

The discussione is very technical and intersects with personal tastes, so it is difficult to keep it objective. I illustrated this issue, bringing the alternative WBL chart I linked above, with my players, and between the two more "technical" ones I found two different opinions: one, like me, preferred a rare magic items environment, the other preferred a big six scenario. Everybody agreed enriching magic items would be good, even if their PC are rich and well equipped.

Someone at Wizards of the Coast must have my same tastes on this matter because I really like their interpretation of magic items environment. Still, this is not the final solution of the matter because someone who enjoys going around like a Christmas Tree may prefer a PF setting.

Final thought: I will probably keep magic items environment "standard" for this campaign, but I will keep thinking about it and try to integrate those 3.5 rules in my view. Maybe they will come useful in the future. in the meanwhile, I will try to add details to the magic items in current adventure (Kingmaker), enriching their description with unique details as some of you suggested. I know there are tables for these minor characteristics in the 5e DM guide. Do you know any other sources?

Malag, I looked around and I found some good discussions on low magic campaigns. I also found a good set of 3.5 rules, with a table in particular that redefines WBL with inherent bonuses for the PCs. This is very interesting and I'd like to implement it but this is a big change: I will talk with my players and try to understand what they really prefer.

Anzyr, these are interesting items, good work. But I recognize my limits and I think I wouldn't be able to create many magic items which are slightly better and unique without being "too good": on the long run, some of them would be flawed. Sometimes I create magic items, but they are usually secondary items, almost never useful in combat. I would love to find a way to make all the published material, especially from niches like some campaign settings that I like, worthy, unique, with a dignity that goes beyond their gold value (that's why I buy them). I understand, though, that such a change would make my style look "low-magic" to many, and not everybody enjoys it. As Jiggy pointed out, WBL is something so pervasive that it is not easy to change something like this without making someone feel outraged.

You can't make magic items special until Pathfinder's second XP track stops calling itself magic items.

So either you rip the entire WBL/gear element out of the game (downsizing encounters to compensate), or you dress that particular aspect of character progression as something other than gear (such as a literal second XP track, or fixed level-based bonuses, etc).

But one way or another, you make magic items stop being a baked-in element of character advancement. That's your best shot at making room for rare, special, flavorful magic items in your game.

I don't think I would rewrite WBL charts only because characters have difficulties spending all their money in magic items. They may accumulate, buy more weaker items, buy commercial activities, spend their money in a more "human" way and still keep growing as characters. Encounter difficulty wouldn't be affected in a significant way neither, at least at my table. Sure, the success of a character would be more dependent on his abilities.