As a DM, my biggest gripe with the Kingmaker campaign is the kingdom building rules. Which is a bit sad, since a lot of the campaign is about it. They are cumbersome and quickly grows very broken, with the scores racking up high, the BP keeps flowing in and every kingdom building phase becoming a chore. I ultimately decided to remove it entirely and just narrate everything that happens, because the kingdom building was just a needless timesink.
However, I love my players being the lords of the place, and I enjoy introducing all manner of quests and events they have to take care of. Being kings and lords is good roleplaying, and that is why I enjoy this AP so much.
I'm not terribly experienced with running multiple encounter crawls, especially not high level.. Are players expected to be able to handle her entire realm in one go? From the start, all the way up to Nyrissa? How to handle resting, should they teleport out and try again?
also, some changes I made to Nyrissa's backstory:
I'm thinking to change Nyrissa's background a little, to make her appear more Fey. I thought her motives for stealing the Stolen Lands was far too mortal, for a powerful Fey being should be anything but mortal in their desires and plots. The Eldest took away her capacity to Love and made it into a sword, but they also took away her Ambition, and scattered it into the land that would became The Stolen Lands, binding it to the rocks, the rivers and the trees. So powerful was her ambition that the region would forever be a highly sought price, but so wild and difficult to master. So many have tried before and failed, but now someone has finally succeeded - and see how powerful they have become in such a short time, in the land strengthened by Ambition.
And Nyrissa has finally managed to gather enough allies and power to perform the ritual required to steal the Stolen Lands, and reclaim her Ambition. She has tried again and again to return Love to her, but has ultimately abandoned it. And when the sword Briar realises that, it will gradually try to help the players stop her, and ultimately out of its love of what Nyrissa once was, it will help them slay her. Should she succeed to recover her Ambition, she will become much more powerful, and the Stolen Lands will be no more.
I've also diminished the Neriad's role in all this, I want the players to find out more about Nyrissa through other sources as they try to figure out how to stop the Blooming, with a sense of urgency on them. Old songs that sings of her sad tale, so strong was the effect of her love and its separation, that musicians all over the world has unwittingly created songs inspired by that tale. Dusty tomes in libraries across the world, of various research on the First World and its mysterious inhabitants. Or if all else fail, Briar finally revealing some to them, as it grows steadily in conciousness.
The Rushlight Tournament looks really nice - too bad everyone except for the Paladin and a Rogue follower is a spellcaster! Though there will be some variation I suspect, the dragon disciple sorcerer has more Strength than the Paladin, and the druid is a better archer.
I'm tempted to include one more challenge that involves spellcasting. A straight up wizardly duel sounds a bit unwieldy, but it's very hard to create an event just for spellcasters. Perhaps an area blasting tournament to score as many target dummies as possible. Or an intelligence based contest of some sort. Has anyone tried something like this out in their game?
Our group has also done away with the kingdom building system, though I suspect they will want to have control over their armies in the defence of their kingdom. I'm trying to think out a good way to narrate it all, and perhaps some way to run a mass combat system based on that - with the caster heavy party they are, they'll be throwing spells left and right, and I'd rather avoid just ignoring their efforts.
So...how does that translate to "men should always be the head of the household"? Sure, I'd totally understand him being all for marriage and reproduction and strongly encouraging that, it's when he basically says "...and the men should hold the power!" that he becomes sexist.
And that's why I despise him, and even my good characters would rather see his churches burn that stop the goblins (contain them to keep from spreading, sure, but burn that cancerous faith out, you glorious green bastards!").
And this is why so many people dislike the modern day feminism. Those are some really extreme views you have, and seems like a very hardcore self-insert on your own characters. I like equality in many things, but equality is something that goes both ways.
Also, burning churches because of an unreasonable hatred for misogony would not make you good. Two wrongs does not make a right, etc. It's the same as a crazy witch hunter burning women he considers witches in the name of good.
Why would he be considered close-minded? This is not the 21st century where luxuries and technologies are common. Life was hard for the common folk. Women and young men needed to get wed early, form families, get children, and then wed them off. Else a population would just die out. ESPECIALLY in frontier and rural regions, which is where Erastil is most common to be worshipped.
Why should he be egalitarian? He is good god yes, because he values life, protects innocence, helps people. Good does not have to mean he or his church can not have preconceived notions on gender. In their eyes, it's what is necessary for a family, for life to grow out of a place, where women AND men have their place in life. And lets not even begin to talk about the dangers of the world which gives even a bigger sense of urgency into forming strong communities.
I find his more conservative and in my opinion, realistic view on medieval life to be somewhat refreshing. They don't apply everywhere, in the magic-aided society of the more urban areas, life is easier and then people don't hold to as conservative values.
There are some decent ideas here. Range is definitely a good idea, but this only defeats the Witch, rather than the Wizard. Eitherway, there are many encounters I can think of that can be very challenging. Any combination of demons/undead/golems will mess up their day. Problem is, it would become painfully obvious if I over-exposed them to that type of monster, as the campaigns primary focus is not those kind of enemies.
The problem lies in their heavy use of save or suck spells, a concern I have raised to them, though it does not seem to have stuck. I am neither as eager to use save or sucks right back at them, as it can be a percentile chance of outright dying in combat most cases. I much more prefer more balanced combats, that stretches on a bit.
I did not expect the system to have as many as it did, which unfortunately is its biggest flaw. I am considering some homebrew rules so far, making the slumber unable to effect creatures above the Witch's HD. Not sure what to do about say, the Wizards pit spell.
Edit: I will check out the Witch related thread, but my problem is, as stated in my first post, not only related to the Witch. Save or suck spells in general is a constant thorn in my games side.
I tried that a few times before, though it's not viable for every encounter. Also: they have a blastermaster dragon sorcerer, who will blow up any gatherings of lower level monsters/npcs.
In my current game, my players are level 11. While I throughly like Pathfinder, it still has the same problem of Save or suck spells, which are quite frustrating when designing encounters. It's fun when the players can pull a clever trick; a desperate banish on an enemy demon to save the day. But when you expect every encounter to go the similar way, it becomes very frustrating for me as the GM.
Witches are a particular problem here. Their hexes pass through spell resistance. Slumber has no HD cap and goes on will. Ice Tomb locks away an enemy until everyone else is dead, and goes on fort, with nothing what so ever that gives you immunity to it! Feats can make the witch drop several opponents a round, or try again should she fail.
The wizard is problematic as well. Pit-spells lock out opponents entire fights - those are a little easier to avoid than the slumber though, a lot of things can climb out, fly, teleport etc.
Does anyone have advice how to handle the abundance of save or sucks that my party has, aside from throwing nothing but golems at them?
I must mirror the statement a little on the kingdom building rules. While we have pushed through almost 4 books now, the kingdom building rules have been very messy to deal with.
Roleplaying as the rulers and making up fun events that only happens when you are the person of ultimate authority in an area is a very unique playstyle. But the endless grinding of making new buildings and rolling economy all the time gets boring very fast, as the rules are not that deep, and are quickly broken.
At this point, I am just going to stop using them, and handwave the kingdoms growth with my players. Not entirely sure how I will handle the army rules of the 5th book as it is tied pretty closely to the kingdom rules.
My players beelined through the Slough, to Fort Drelev and then straight to Armags camp, they're currently level 11(I have mostly myself to blame for this, as I'm an expert at making them feel the situation is dire). Though a well optimized party, I think they'll have a tough time in the dungeon.
I'm wondering whether or not one should allow resting in the dungeon, or if it's simply too dangerous a place for that. They could be beset by wandering skeletons every odd hour or so, or worst case scenario - Zorbrek and Armag comes out to fight them. I also think the dungeon should be teleport and scry-proof, so they can't just teleport out to gather supplies and rest(sort of ruins the entire mood of delving into a dangerous, ancient burial tomb)
So they've already spent some of their power rescuing the hostages, and are diving into the dungeon the next session. I'm curious whether they can handle it, but I suspect their powers will be next to spent when they come to meet Armag, and he's not an easy beast(especially not using the updated rules for 6 players)
A friend, and a player of mine has been hard at work coding a little app for Android, a spelldirectory which will let you easily keep track of spells memorized, as well as quickly look up spell descriptions imported directly out of the SRD.
This was originally built for our group, as we have a lot of casters(and programmers) with Android phones, so the mobility and ease-of-use really came in handy in our games and saved a lot of time flipping through books or fiddling with laptops. But I and some of the others urged him to release it on the market, so others could benefit from the work he's put down.
So he's done just that. I present to you the Pathfinder Spelldirectory, for Android version 2.2 and upwards. It will work on any Android phone as well as tablets, and is completely free with no strings attached.
It's an excellent resource for your games, if you have any android users I'd strongly advice you to tell them to look it up.
I can attest to that it's quite good for DMs as well, as it has features to let you keep track of several characters, which can be very nice for NPCs, or just to quickly look up spell effects.
Unfortunately, it's not available for Iphone or Ipad, as it would require a port, and we're not entirely sure if the Iphone market would even accept it, as it's quite restrictive.
Hope you and your groups can find as much use for this as we have!
You are absoloutely correct on the economy part - the best way to gain large income, and the best way to break the economy of the game very quickly, is just to get as many magic items as possible.
You'll need the income to be able to make the DC rolls, but get enough cheap low cost buildings and you can write that DC off very quickly.
It's not really hard to break the system if you really try(you don't really have to try even), which I do not suggest for the sake of your DM. He'll have to houserule things to make the game more balanced, in my opinion.
Something which has been bothering me is that Iorvetti gets namedropped several times in this book. The players will know the King of Pitax aided the Tiger Lord Barbarians, and subsequently lead to the attack on their homeland.
Of course, he was not directly involved in the attack, that being Baron Drelev acting out of his own self interest. But taking the fact that he helped to more or less annex their neighbour and his reputation as the Bandit King of Pitax, how will he ever convince them to travel to his castle in the next module?
I haven't read War of the River Kings yet, so I don't know if a viable explanation is given - because I know my players, and they'll be paranoid if they think he's after their lands.
Don't necessarily need charisma for the leader either, I houseruled in Wisdom as king stats together with Charisma. Kings can be charming and a good leader, or they could be wise decision makers, who'll have diplomats to handle the talking for them.
Hmm, that one is more expensive than the age resistance amulet that we made. Then again, I believe that was lesser age resistance only, so I'm sure we'd save money if we made that ioun stone from start.
Well, you'll never fit all your spells in one book unless it's a Blessed Book(lets assume it's not), so he'll have several.
What I just went with is that he had his lower level spells, as well as one level above what he could currently cast in his spellbook.
The other was hidden away in his dimension door room, where the players couldn't reach it.
The fight was quite epic, so he started ripping out pages and using them as scrolls, because he was completely out of magic after a while. In the end, they got it -mostly- intact, where he had expended goodies such as Dominate Person and Chain Lightning already.
Ripping spells for scrolls is in general a great tactic if you don't want to bloat your players with new spells. Other tactics involve I prepared explosive runes this morning, which will really mess up anyone trying to read the spellbook(along with the spellbook itself)
Those are really good ideas Luther, and I'll be sure to remember them when the time comes. Using scry as a clever way to present information is always a good idea, and as you say, there might be other things interfering with the scry such as guardian spirits and whatnot else.
I wasn't aware lead was used as such a common construction material, but I imagine at least many castles and well built houses has it.
Problem is, they aren't really covered in it. It doesn't specify how much lead is required to block scrying. Having all your walls and ceilings covered in sheats of lead would I imagine. Having a rooftop reinforced by lead? Not sure.
Well, there are several villains and people my players might be potentially interested in scrying after at this level. Having just defeated Vordekai, they are currently consolidating their power and growing their kingdom before I start book 4.
Meanwhile, Gregori the trolling bard has returned to cause unrest in their kingdom, though through subtler rumour-mongering means. The players are currently chasing after another of their party members who have been kidnapped from personal background reasons. And then there are some hostile nobles who plot against them and their fledgeling kingdom.
And in the future, we have the Bandit King of Pitax, as well as the Tiger clan barbarian lord and the Baron that sends his men to attack Tatzelford, all of which will eventually become readily availible names and personalities to scry and fry on.
Not to mention the hints they have gained about Nyrissa the Nymph, although if they start scrying her, I will make sure they know they are getting way above their heads.
@Luther, there isn't a specific supervillain that they are trying to scry at. Well... not that they know of yet. I am running Kingmaker, and put a heavy twists on the political and scheming type of enemies. So many are agents, minor villains, monsters of some power, and nobility.
What I'm curious about is how identity protection can help with Scrying. If you have a name, can you scry on a person, and what guarantees do you have that it will even get the same person? If you have a description/memory, will it fail if the person was disguised at that time? And if the person is currently disguised and you go on his original description/memory, will you still find him?
Provided you don't have a clear link to that person that is, such as possession or body part.
Detect Scrying seems rather handy, especially if you are expecting scrying - such as the players trying and failing to get through his will save once.
What I would want is a spell that could retroactively track a scrying. You get scried upon, the NPC suspects it, and gets meassures to find out. Is there anything that can do that short of a Wish/Miracle?
Perhaps a homebrew spell could do the trick, I would imagine spell level 5-6 could be appropriate, since its a bit more powerful than detect scrying. And could prompt a will save by the caster. So essentially, a counter-scrying that works like the scry spell, but can be used retroactively.
It's just an idea, I would prefer to have counter-scrying than block-scrying all the time. And it's just not realistic that most people(except the really powerful/important npcs) have mind blank or nondetection going all the time - but it's a fair bit more realistic that they can do something about it if they suspect themselves being scried upon.
All of those spells are relatively easy for a big bad villain, king, rich noble etc all to have, by either having that power level themselves or hiring wizards to do it for them. But that's for the more powerful of villains and NPCs
For the more mundane people, or those with limited resources, it seems like quite a pain. What can even a non-caster do? Lead is a good idea, but too bad you can't use a lead helmet to protect you. Or... could you...?
As for will saves, is that true? Do you ALWAYS know when you make a will save? And what exactly do you find out, can one detect a successful will save is an effort to ward off a scrying attempt?
My players have recently reached the mid-levels, and are a relatively caster heavy party. The biggest problem I've been facing as a GM is the amount of scrying that can be cast, and that combined with teleportation.
What precautions can villains and other NPCs take against scrying? I know it's possible to discover the scrying sensor, and the perception check is not too hard to beat. What exactly do they discover, and would they require spellcraft to recognize what exactly it is? Once discovered, I assume they can take physical precautions to hide, such as shutting off lights or stopping whatever they are doing.
What ways are there to combat scrying? Because the person scrying can just keep casting those spells, and eventually they will fail their saves. What methods / magic can be used in preventive measures(I assume most important NPCs would do something to prevent scrying, since it's so damn easy to use), and what can be done once they discover they are scried upon?
Right now I see few ways to actually put any kind of repercussions on overusing scrying. The person scried upon will not know who is doing the scrying, and thus can't scry back. I would like my players to use it more sparingly, as I imagine overuse of scrying against other powerful creatures/characters could lead to badstuff - but what exactly?
I just felt like I had to write my thanks to the authors of the conversions - these have helped me immensely, and saved me from having to do a lot of on the spot balancing!
Many thanks for all the hard work you've put down in making it possible to play this balanced for 6 players!
Why must there always be gods for everything? And more importantly, why would these gods if they exist as a lesser form of deity, be powerfull enough to grant boons to clerics?
I've always been a strong believe that gods gain their powers from how much faith they receive, which technically has been the modus operandi in FR as well. Then why are there gods of obscure concepts, such as -waterfalls-, -unicorns-, or the natural element of fire.
These are very specific concepts that is usually overshadowed by greater gods of nature and likewise. Leave specific concepts up to demigods, but I don't think they should have clerics of them.
I had this conflict arise in my game too, the Inquisitor and the hot-headed Dragon Sorcerer wanted to kill them all. But they made some deals with Kressle, information for her life - the two of them still wanted to off them or do something gruesome like cut off a hand.
I did tell them that if word got out they didn't keep their word, it could lead to potential troubles getting other denizens of the Stolen Lands to trust them in the future. Some of the other players agreed, and they decided against it.
Kressle is now in their employ and serves as the kingdoms Royal Executioner.
My players are raiding Vordakai's tomb right now, and they managed to find the hidden entrance, and managed to break through it's magical lock. They've just gotten part of the Hell Pit, and are now heading in the direction of Vordakai...
The problem is, they're missing out a lot of the dungeon, as well as a LOT of treasures. It's all well that they avoided the evil deathtraps on the first level though, but the entire shrine as well as the prison is a big deal. One of their NPC friends are there(aside from the Centaur), that got kidnapped by Vordakai.
The Hell Pit is not easy to get across, so they might not even try to head that way before jumping on Vordakai. With the updated encounter for 6 players(the one that adds an anti-paladin into the fight), I think it'll be hard without their NPC cohort support. As well as the additional XP/potential level before they tangle with Vordakai itself.
Golems are certainly a possibility, they would mess their stuff up major-league. But I can't have golems in every encounter.
More enemies are indeed better, one of the more diverse fights they've had was against a bunch of Spriggans that holed up in a castle and used blackpowder kegs to set traps for them. The battle was still a whack-a-mole as the witch dropped NPCs one by one with her slumber hex. But it's very problematic to create encounters like this, it takes a lot of time and you need to think about balance, as it can easily tip over if you're not careful.
I'm thinking I need to drop in a few more spellcasters perhaps. A wizard or cleric NPC in some of the fights could really make the fights more interesting, especially with plentiful uses of dispel magic.
More specifically, we have a Paladin(I suppose that's just a semi-caster), a wisdom-focused Druid, a Witch, a Kensai Magus, a Transmuter Wizard and a blastermaster dragon-disciple Sorcerer. And me as the DM.
Needless to say, battles are very flashy, and a lot of spells gets thrown around. A lot of powerful effects, and we're now getting up to a bit higher levels(level 8 at the moment), and I'm really starting to feel how problematic running encounters are for them. We're currently doing the Kingmaker adventure path, and it includes a lot of singular encounters throughout the world map. What's mostly problematic is:
The transmuter and the sorcerer isn't bad. The sorcerer deals a lot of damage with his fireballs and breath weapon, but anything from broken. The Transmuter is fond of those annoying pit-spells, which can lockout combatants for pretty much the entire combat.
The Witch, has a lot of powerful mind-effecting hexes and spells. She can essentially slumber most big monsters such as giants and the like, or illusion-trick most more mindless beasts. She also has the fortune hex, which leads on to the next point...
The Kensai Magus. It's a real monster in melee. With mirror image, the highest AC in the group, and access to greater invisibility, he's anything but a glass cannon. This magus fights with a Scimitar and always puts keen on it - resulting in massive spellstrike crits(using mostly frigid touch or shocking grasp) that range up to 50-70 damage. With the fortune hex, he'll be critting about 50% of the time, so even the toughest monsters will stand little chance, provided they aren't status-effected by the others. I suppose his damage is not sustainable in longer dungeons, but I'm not a fan of long crawls, and the adventure module doesn't have that many of them either.
How do I solve this situation the best? Some of my players feel unhappy by the fact that the Magus is doing so well, they've asked me to double-check that he's playing everything by the rules. So far I've not found anything conclusive on that part. And I'm fast becoming unhappy my encounters are becoming pushovers either by oneshotting magic spells or too much damage, and I don't think my players are feeling terribly challenged either.
I do not tell my players that I fudge, but we've all(my group) had our try at DMing for each other, we can all read between the lines and know that it can happen. Just never when, or where. They trust me enough that I don't fudge in order to make a situation unfavourable or less fun for them, which I never do.
But ultimately, DMing is a game of smoke and mirrors. How you lead on the adventure is up to you. You may create complex dungeons to let your players solve them in any way they wish, after all diversity is fun. But you may already know how the campaign will end, or that the players will eventually end up in this dungeon no matter what road they take - reflavouring it to fit in of course, or perhaps delaying it until later. Or you simply create a good enough reason for them to go there, something you know their characters won't say no to. All the cards are in your corner.
And this is all fine for most players, they want to believe that they are in control but in the end you set all the DCs, you decide where all the roads will end up, how all encounters will be designed, what people they will meet, what motivations they will be given and how the story will proceed and ultimately end. You may go with the flow as much as you can and try and pre-decide as little as possible, but there are always things you will decide secretly that the players will have no power over, and you will maintain the illusion that it was through their actions this came to pass.
I'm not saying you have to decide that the players will fail a roll or action before they even perform it, far from it. I enjoy leaving things up to chance as a DM as well, even important story elements such as a spy trying to infiltrate their group, and the only thing that stands between that is a few sense motive checks. But there comes times when you actually do decide something, perhaps you think the action they are trying to perform is too hard? Or you simply wish something to happen, because it would make the game more fun.
I never admit any of this to my players. I never tell them if I fudge a roll, I never tell them if a certain encounter with assassins would have happened if they went left instead of right, and I will be evasive or even lie to maintain that illusion. Why? Because ultimately, it makes the game more enjoyable for everyone.
I personally believe many of the aforementioned weapons were powerful for their time, compared to others of their time. The sling, the kukri, the roman shortsword, all were great weapons of the time.
But none of them would still compare with the knightly weaponry. Military picks, poleaxes, cavalry mace, lance and longsword became the superior medieval weaponry for a reason.
One has to take that into account if you wish to make the weapon more powerful.
Basically you're cheating and saying don't get caught.
And you realize what happens to the campaign should you get caught.
So why on earth would you wish to cheat? It's obviously not for your players as you've outlined above them knowing that you're willing to cheat destroys the game for them.
So you're cheating for yourself, for something that you want. And it should be viewed the same as if you were a player and elected to do the same.
-James
First of all, you're mixing up fudging and cheating. The DM is already the sole arbiter of the rules, and is(hopefully) not playing to win. How do you cheat at something you already control all the rules for, and is out to create an enjoyable experience rather than to win? To fudge is to change an outcome something more enjoyable.
You draw a poor conclusion though. The players will be unhappy if they think you're leading them on and their rolls mean nothing, the players will also be unhappy if you make too hard encounters or a streak of bad luck lead to the campaigns premature end. The players(mine at least) do not enjoy such equally much as they do not enjoy obvious fudging. So if I fudge, I do it for the enjoyment of everyone, not for my own sake. But I also know when a situation does not call for you to fudge, because doing so would make the game even less enjoyable. There are other ways for a DM to correct his mistakes, such as retroactively changing a stat for a monster. You use what tools are at your disposal to make the game an enjoyable experience.
Aside from that yes you're correct, don't get caught with the ace up your sleeve, no matter how good your intentions are. Sometimes it's better to roll with the punches, it all depends on the situation.
Well, it seems quite poor that you can't lunge out of stealth and get the drop on someone. Surely enemies should be considered flatfooted if you charge someone out of stealth?
Actually, the writing says: "If people are observing you using any of their senses (but typically sight), you can't use Stealth. Against most creatures, finding cover or concealment allows you to use Stealth. " Doesn't say you need total concealment or full cover to do stealth. Although it is sort of silly that you could hide behind a friend(and get a cover bonus) and thus stealth, hiding in his shadow. So something definitely up for DMs discretion there.
I've been running with that so far, just wanted to see what the RAW said, but it seems to say very little. Will keep my eyes on the blog though.
I think it's important to remember to -never- let your players on if you fudge a roll. If they smell even a hint of you changing your mind, you need to roll with it.
The reason to this is because, even if they accept it, they will start thinking that the DM won't let anything bad happen to them. This sort of happened in the beginning of one of our campaigns, where we were to test ourselves against a powerful ghost wizard. The DM made the encounter too hard, and when we were on the brink of losing we noticed we suddenly started doing a LOT better, why whatever could be the reason! The wizard stopped after a while when we called him out on it, and explained to us we fought valiantly and he doesn't find us wanting, gave us the magic item, and disappeared.
This was a poor decision by the DM, as it undermined his entire campaign, and gave us the impression that nothing we did really mattered, as the gameworld wasn't very dangerous. It proved to be just that, and I played an extremely reckless character that never died.
Subtle fudging should mostly be used if you(the DM) have made a mistake, like introducing too powerful monsters. I've secretly upped monsters stats when they've been made too weak, to make the fights a little bit more interesting.
I've some questions regarding the use of stealth in combat. The rules allow you to make stealth checks as soon as long as you are within concealment. Would this mean that a rogue could move out of a bush, hit someone with spring attack, and then head right back into the bush, rolling a new stealth check?
Another thing I've wondered is that it states you need cover or concealment to be able to use stealth, but in above mentioned example, would the enemy be considered flatfooted against any attack if the rogue moves out of the bush on them? Or do you NEED to use a ranged weapon to get sneak attack out of stealth, provided your enemy does not walk up right next to you?
I've a question about Vordakai's familiar. In his paragraph it says "Horagnamon may take a specific act against the PC, as indicated by the text".
Except I haven't found any of these supposed "specific acts" the raven familiar will do, aside from follow them around and give them the feeling they are being watched.
Eitherway, I'm thinking of having Vordakai appear a little before-hand, either to test their mettle in combat or to disguise himself as the professor Ervil Pendrod, and infiltrate their little group, trying to steer them down bad paths(misleading them and possibly trying to make them attack the Nomen). What other ways have you people managed to use him as?
Well we opted for a life oracle in the end, it's fluffy and fits as well. I chose to essentially give it heroic NPC stats and equipment, as well as avereged its HP. This makes it a lot weaker than the PCs, and squishier, but will still accompany them through their adventures.
Hello boards, one of my players have decided to pick the leadership feat in our Kingmaker campaign, which is very suitable since he's also the king. And it's good being king, right?
We haven't yet decided what the cohort is supposed to be, some form of divine caster, oracle or cleric most likely. I am mostly concerned with the feat partly out of balance issues, so I have a few questions:
Since your cohorts are loyal to you and doesn't ask for much, you can pull them with you on all your adventures. Does fights have to be balanced for an additional party member, and does the cohort require part of the loot to remain loyal?
Are stats rolled, or used standard/heroic NPC rolls? Or is that entirely up to me as the DM?
I'm mostly concerned introducing an NPC healbot to the group would skew up the balance of fights mostly.
Well, my group and I have tried many different ways of awarding XP, everything from flat XP per session to me just saying when they level. I never liked either of these as it doesn't feel as rewarding for a big effort.
I have a question to various DMs and groups out there regarding avoidable encounters and XP rewards. I realize this can probably vary from group to group, but I'm interested in what other people tend to run with.
I've been primarily playing adventure paths with my group, so this situation crops up more than in perhaps my own designed encounters. The players entered a lizardmen village which had several encounters of it statted up, most of them they would have to fight if they assaulted the village head-on. They opted for diplomacy however, and only managed to fight the lizardman king in a duel, plus an additional encounter after that.
One could argue that, because they didn't fight the other lizardmen, they shouldn't be rewarded with XP for the remaining combat encounters. But you could also say that the challenge was the entire village, and because the PCs handled it smartly(by being diplomatic), they shouldn't be punished. Though the challenge is definately lower than hacking through every single lizardman, it did effectively "solve" the encounter.
Similar situations include dungeons/locations and simply missing out certain areas. You end up fighting the boss monster before some of its minions, the minions figure out/hear/see their boss go down, they escape the dungeon, taking their loot with them. Or secret areas completely missed. You could say that them rushing to the leader without clearing out the dungeon properly makes it their own fault for missing out on certain encounters and rewards thus. The same if you miss secret areas.
How far should one go to award XP for encounters that were avoided, either by approaching it in another way, or missing it for one reason or another?
True, yet I would like there to be other benefits of having additional cities. Realistically cities sprang up in areas of resource, or where land were bountiful. Perhaps flat-out bonuses for raising up cities close to natural resources, as they will be more easily tapped.
I've also put additional restrictions on cities as well, so PCs can get access to some cheap buildings. For example I've put some restrictions on the amount of dumps and other inexpensive but effective stat-raisers they can have, at least in one district. I've also limited them for starting up another district before the first one is filled.
This will let them build additional of these cheap buildings, as well as start off a new district.
Another idea is that you could have a zone of influence, a city being able to influence grids at a distance of X. Grids further away would either not be able to support farmlands/roads and other important structures, thus new cities would be required to spread your nation far and wide. A little like the Civilization PC games, lands not used by cities is just empty land, buffer zones for your cities, and potential fortifications for your military.
We've played the last couple campaigns with a rule that whomever has the highest number of ranks is the primary for the skill check. Everybody else is aiding another. Basically what you described.
We did throw in a rule that if the aid another person has a higher result, you can take their result up to +5 your result (so, if I'm the primary and roll a 22 while the Aid Another person rolls a 25, I could take 25).
I never liked the "lottery" aspect of the skill check - let's just keep rolling dice until we get a success. The 20 STR barbarian didn't knock down the door? Have the STR 10 rogue try, then have the STR 8 wizard try.
Well in the case of the door, it's logical that you can keep trying as minutes pass by. Usually a take 20 can represent that effort, if there is no chance for failure(such as hurting yourself while the portcullis slams down), or on a time restrain. Knowledge skills can't be used untrained, and you usually only get one check.
My apologies then, I thought the idiot part was directed at me.
Eitherway it was not my intention to get this moved to the rules section, perhaps it had been better posted under the houserules board. I did not intend to discuss the RAW of the knowledge rules, but rather various ways to expand the use of it. Or know how other people use it.
My "house-rules" are only suggestions on how to use it. As it stands, I'm using skills as RAW, which I find to be somewhat lacking.
I like your ideas about pieces of knowledges, that would let several players making the roll feel useful, and anyone who really maxes it out can spew out information like a book, instead of everyone doing it.
Except that is out and out wrong. If you don't make a high enough knowledge roll, you don't know that much about the creature. You do not get wrong information. If one Wizard gets a 30 on dragon knowledge and another gets 20, they aren't going to argue about what dragons can do. They will both know the DC20 knowledge about dragons but the Wizard with a DC30 will know even more.
I don't dispute this as RAW, but I don't think that makes sense realistic or is consistent with how other skills usually work. Realism as in knowledge is not always a binary thing, you don't just know or not know, you have varying degrees of certainty. Many skills offer penalties for rolling low, usually a certain increment below the set DC.
Wouldn't misinformation be a logical side-effect if you roll too low against the DC of certain information?
The best way to combat that would of course be a longer and extensive brainstorming, which would represent everyone with the relevant skill using aid-another against one of them.
Also try to keep your petty insults to yourself, if you can't argue without them I suggest you don't at all.
I've always been a sucker for limiting the information my players(or at least their characters) should rightfully know, and enjoy using knowledge skills extensively, anything from identifying monsters to recall old knowledge, history, local information or lore.
But I've been at a loss for how to effectively use knowledge skills, and then how to spread that information around. For monsters in combat, I tend to rank them to a DC depending how rare they are, their more common abilities easier to know, rarer ones requiring a higher DC.
There are two ways I can see you rolling for knowledge, especially if you have several people with the same knowledge skill. The first one is the regular, everyone rolls a dice and whomevever rolls high enough knows this and that. I find this way to be somewhat lacking when several people have the same knowledge, one player rolls low and another rolls high, or perhaps one rolls high and another higher. Two experts in magical knowledge gets two different results, both are no doubt confident their training is extensive, the natural reaction isn't to bend to the roll of the higher dice, but I'd imagine the two would come to a twist of who's information is the accurate one. Imagine two wizards arguing over the weaknesses of Devils and Demons.
So the other way I thought could represent them putting their heads together and figuring out an answer would be an aid another roll, and the highest skill making the actual roll. I thought this would be a good idea to keep consistency of information, but it does take away the option to actually roll another dice. Two persons with the same skill is essentially two chances to get it right after all. And having aid another rolls would not work in combat encounters for example, when you make a roll to see what this sudden monster that jumped out at you is, and have no time to stand around and discuss.
Would an idea perhaps be to let them chose? They roll separate, but extensively low or widely different rolls can produce faulty information, or twists on who is right. Or they decide to think it through together, use aid another and get only one roll on it, which is guaranteed to be accurate(if they roll high enough).
The DM would have to do the knowledge rolls then. The problem of a stressful situation such as a combat remains, where three people can roll knnowledge religion to figure out what this strange decaying wizard is(a Lich), and all three get widely different results, potentially causing a LOT of misinformation being yelled out in the combat.
What's the point exactly of building several cities? Aside from the one per city buildings(which are really really expensive), I see very little reason(aside from realism) to create more than one city.
And even the cities they can get freely, what point is there to invest any BPs in anything but one city?
I'm the DM of our Kingmaker campaign, and it's been progressing fairly well so far. After the Stag Lords defeat, they formed the fledgeling kingdom of Medelia, and their first city Flodar. They've been keeping busy a year since after that, expanding the kingdom, building their city, and recently fending off several crises.
Ser Crofton, Lord of Medelia. Paladin, protector, noble. Ser Crofton was the leader of the expedition to the stolen lands, a destitute noble that had been promised a future for his house and name in the service of the Swordlords. He suspected that Restov would make a grab for the stolen lands, but never suspected to be given so much power. He formed the kingdom together with his loyal party, whom rule at his side and advice him.
Fiodyr, half-orc Inquisitor. Former royal assassin, now deceased at the hands of a barrow wight
Harold, Summoner and researcher, former Grand diplomat. After the death of Fiodyr, he left the kingdom realizing it was far too dangerous for him, and he had important research to report back to the university.
Kyras, Transmuter, crafter of magical items and Magister. He makes most of the magic items the party needs, and is an expert in magical matters. Killed by the morningstar of a troll warlord, but twice-born and reincarnated into a new body thanks to the help of Old Beldame's magic.
Leriam, dragon-blooded Sorcerer. Spymaster
Kressle, Royal Assassin. Kressle surrendered to the party and spilled a bit of information about the Stag Lord. She was disinterested in serving him and his descent into alcoholism and uselessness. The party kept her a prisoner at Olegs while they dealt with the Stag Lord, and afterwards she offered to serve them since they're the new movers and shakers of the land. She's loyal to their coin, and likes to antagonise them when she can.
Zach, elven druid, and Marshal of the land.
Kasteen Garess, Captain of the Militia and responsible for the training of the kingdoms military. Crofton had a few harsh but inspiring words to the also destitute noble, and managed to make him shape up a little in his behaviour, at the very least shave regularly.
Akiros, Warden and captain of the city watch. Akiros joined the kingmakers side in the climactic battle against the Stag Lord, and almost died by the bandits kings marksmanship. A stray(or ruthlessly uncaring) firespell from Leriam almost sealed his fate when bleeding from his wounds, but Crofton threw himself over the ex-paladin to take the blow.
Jhod Kavken, high priest of Erastil. With the temple of Erastil found, Jhod was somewhat redeemed in the eyes of his clergy. He called some of them to the Stolen Lands to join him in the restoration of their temple. When the kingmakers required a candidate for religious matters, they chose Jhod.
Councilor Kurt, Olof the treasurer and Edward the diplomat, three colonists that were picked to serve vacant positions
Alyssa, a witch with a patron of trickery and illusion. She found her way to the stolen lands running from her past and seeking a future, and a way to understand her strange powers. Old Beldame(which I made a witch instead of a sorceress) introduced her to the party, and demanded Kyras to take her as an apprentice, though they soon figured out their ways of approaching magic was very different. She hasn't taken any leadership position yet.
I've also kept a map of their kingdom updated, based on the map from the book.
