How about changing chronicle loot to a series of one-time boons? Have the Society actively supporting it's agents by opening the vaults before a new adventure? Mindblowing notion, but try to entertain the idea.
The way I picture it, at the start of the session, you show the sheet to the GM, point out the item you want, then cross it out. You now have that item for that session, and then return it to the Grand Lodge. One item per session, no un-crossing for unspent items. Several scenarios already employ some sort of aid, be it supplies or a small cache of potions handed over at the start. All scenarios allow you to pick up and use items off of fallen foes.
Being one-time only, and dependent on the specific chronicle, this would not allow, say, the fighter to fight forever with free magical weapons. If the fighter in the example somehow managed to align an unending line of weapon-chronicles, the variation in the weapons found would cost him the specialization bonus. It would however allow a fighter with an expensive frost-blade to bring that one fire-axe he found once along for a single stint when he sees he's playing the scenario "Freezy Frost of There's Going to be Something Cold Going On", without dropping three chronicles worth of gold for the privilege.
Have occasional uniques (like Glorymane, Gamin) be unlocked for actual purchase on the chronicles, but otherwise leave to Fame what sort of items you can get access to in the local merchant district.
The GM and Player Sessions have had separate sections for a while. What changed is that the GM sessions no longer show up under the characters to which they are assigned. THAT makes it more difficult to keep track of what chronicles are on what character or to doublecheck offline records against what’s been reported. I’m hoping it’s a temporary situation as part of all of the updating they have been doing, and that the records will eventually show back up (like the My Pathfinder Society button). It’s been that way for a couple of months at least, I think.
This is my main issue. I was hoping I'd mucked up the settings somehow, and that an easy fix was available, but parsing the responses it seems it's presently system standard. An annoyance that's landed me in a minor bit of trouble by virtue of my assigning a GM sheet illegally.
MrBear wrote:
You should be relying more on your chronicle sheets than online reporting to keep track of your characters. The hard copy is what matters, and it's incredibly common for events to leave important seasons unreported. Of the four conventions I've attended this fall, one has shown up reported. The other three, which include GenCon, aren't listed at all. I'm not complaining, mind you. It's just not a perfect system.
The only way to be completely accurate is to have your physical chronicle sheets on hand. Otherwise you're crossing your fingers and hoping that every other gm you've played with reported accurately, every convention you've run at reported properly, and the computer hasn't eaten something that mattered. I don't like those odds.
I have ten living characters, in separate folders. There can be years between my airing out a given character. The local PFS community is pretty active, first table at the weekly event tends to fill out within an hour. As such, by the time I dig out every physical character folder and manually count the sheets, there's more seats filled in. This can mean I have to skip a play because I couldn't quickly assess if I had a character in-tier (I don't sign up with pre-gens). Also, correct reporting within a week is standard here, so checking my profile actually works. As such, Paizo is usually my go-to for that check-up, I'll open a tab with each of the characters I am reasonably sure could be in the picture, then count sessions. At present, Paizo's page shows the two "kinds" of credit separately, adding to the needed tabs, this is slowing down that check-up more than it used to when the values were listed together.
Recently noticed that my GM credits have been located solely under the GM Sessions tab, while the Character Sessions tab only shows the played sessions. As an irregular player, I often have to check on Paizo to determine the exact level of a character prior to signing up for a game. With sessions from both roles, this means I'm using two tabs in the current system. Is there some way to set your profile back to showing both GM and Player credit together, in the same tab? I've been poking around, but can't seem to find it.
my gm is on the fence with using
Alchemical Power Components .......
has anyone played in a game that allowed them? problems? the money spent and the benefits seem small, but my gm thinks they will turn the casters into walking spice racks.
thoughts appreciated
The necros keep returning. Society play allows power components, per the second printing of Adventurer's Armory. You're expected to have the Armory on hand for the GM to reference, as it is not core assumption.
A lot of suggestions of "drop it" or "make it bigger", a couple of "more patrols". What about regeneration? There are some fairly heavy fixer spells, and even if the wall only has one spell contingency on it, seeing their work undone once might convince the players to move on, which I gather is the intended effect. The Graven Guardian has an ability like this (for the right gods), certainly you could make a wall with a few shots of mending magics.
Another solution is to make that one chamber (that absolutely must be entered through the main door for the encounter to work) extradimensional. Why should the villain live in a dank dungeon just because that's his address? A permanent Magnificent Mansion linked to a dungeon doorway is a very classy villains lair (hell, a Tiny Hut beats most cellar barracks), and it cannot be dug into from the side. If the only way to enter for anyone but the master is the key his lieutenant holds, you get the added bonus of your players not getting to bypass No.2. Of course, the spell collapses with the death of the villain (or it is not permanent and must be recast frequently), so selling off the doorframe is not going to earn new armors for anyone.
Oh - and rule that there aren't hundreds of high level fighters available - but they can have loads of L3 warriors in heavy plate :)
Lacking a good source at the time, I made up that training troops up a level requires time=months*targetlevel^2. Thus, you can make civilians into warriors in a month, but must spend four months to tag a second level on them. Looking at real-world militaries (alas, instead of convenient levels, they use a confusing "rank" system), five months from civilian to lvl 2 seems about right, and it puts an inherent dampener on the ability of the kingdom to just pay-to-win. Of course, real combats still stack up experience, so the PCs have the option of playing win-to-win.
See if you can link several events logically together, then assign groups, NPCs, and places to them and voila, you have both kingdom events and new story threads. Mix in a few story threads that come from your character's backgrounds, a few of your own devising, some outright lies and false claims, shake vigorously, and serve in monthly doses to your players. You now have a much richer tapestry than you would get from random rolls countered with some hard to fail kingdom checks.
When I say I run it differently, I use the Ed Greenwood-Forgotten Realms style of GMing, where the world is full of active NPCs, factions, and ongoing events, and the players can interact or stand by and watch as they like. Due to this, I have a LOT more plotlines and events going on than most games, which sometimes confuses my players, but always results in something interesting going on in or near their kingdom. Here is the...
This. Especially that last part. There are a number of potentially friendly NPCs in the AP. Unless you have a lot of players or decided to allow double tasking for ministers, presumably some of them are already serving in government, or as generals in the armies, or maybe just living well on the growth of a new kingdom.
In my own game, one NPC required a Noble Villa as residence for signing up, he's living it up in a mansion, while the king and the crew crowd a single castle. As such, people consider him second to the king, rather than assigning that respect to a PC, the others of which are perceived as being less favored by the king.
That's a potentially significant mechanism if they ever decide to demote the NPC. I might not let them, see what happens. In the case of other events, his involvement can make a big difference.
Set up a quick flowchart with your NPCs, rating the relationships of those who know each other by friend-ally-acquaintance-rival-enemy. Remember this chart when something happens that could potentially involve any of them.
While there's options there, I preferred playing her as just a cranky old, green-tinted lady. We're up to Blood for Blood, and as yet none of my players have managed to roll a knowledge check well enough to determine whether or not she's a hag.
The only problem is the population model. You gotta be careful or your players will be rivaling neighboring countries within 5 years if they have 3-4 settlements.
There's some rules in materials outside the AP for population growth, I chose to handle the pop-per-building as capacity rather than total number. Also, there's a threat of civil war in Brevoy, and "free" land being offered, so migrating in a couple thousand people a year is not utterly ridiculous.
For the people asking about time-frames, with about a year or so in between books, a decent speed on your adventurers (40'+), and a bit of genre-savvy on their part, expect ten years at least.
First, slavers are far apart in the River Kingdoms, remember the River Freedoms!
As for events, I tried making more of a story out of it at first, but my players were more focused on the "real" events (the storyline, can you imagine?), than these random rolls. I played it by ear and now mostly use the events as call-backs to previous events, which is also great fun, and probably doesn't slow the game half as much.
My best one, in RRR, followed the eradication of a cell of Gyronna cultists, which the PCs handled on their own in the dead of night, without alerting their city guard (fearing infiltration, for some reason). The next day, I rolled "death of a notable figure". I asked all the players to roll bluff checks to keep straight faces at the funeral ceremony. Good times.
In addition to player feedback, also look at the time you have. If your group gathers on a bi-weekly basis, you have time to make events of the events. If it's more like bi-monthly because everyone but you seem to have children or weekend jobs, make anecdotes of the events instead, it's faster, and can be a good way to remind the players of the many things they failed to handle without leaving loose ends. Instead of making a separate story-line about every fled worg and brigand, integrate them in the events, so you and your players can get closure in a manner that makes the setting more alive.
I also second Lee Hanna, make a calendar. I made mine with the Golarion months, columns for Build Points, and a Y/N box for Events.
Currently we are making the transition from book 4 to book 5 and the PC's are building fourteen, yes FOURTEEN medium size (100 troops) armies.
Ok, if the PCs have way more troops than they ought to, you can add some extra forces to the enemies (not necessarily to Pitax). By book 4, your players have probably offended the clergy of Gyronna, that's a small group of undead climbing out of the water in an inconvenient location. There's a pretty good chance either kobolds or centaurs didn't end up on good terms with the players. If you have the Guide to the River Kingdoms you will know that goblins haunt the region south of the Stolen Lands, certainly a manipulative background force could motivate a goblin incursion. Getting a few of the kingdom armies running to the SE will even the odds for Pitax. Keep track of time for marching.
KwwB wrote:
In book four, part one, where Drelev attacks Tatzlford, I had to make a few things happen to make it so that the attack could even happen. First off, Tatzlford was already built out to a comprise a full district, which equates to a population of roughly nine THOUSAND people. For a reference, Pitax's population is just shy of six thousand per book five. This is just one of roughly 6-7 cities that are like this at that point in the game, with the capital being even larger. Gives you an idea of how crazy the kingdom is.
9000 is the capacity, but is the population? Ultimate Campaign from Paizo, Book of the River Nations from Jon Brazer Enterprises and Ultimate Rulership from Legendary Games could have helped, but it looks like you might be a bit past that. If the players have seven cities like that, I'd say you let too much time pass before saying "stuff happens" in books 2-3. A late save for you could be to say that Irovetti did the same thing in Pitax, build up the city, and add a line of fortresses to the Pitax borderlands.
KwwB wrote:
I figured that having a city such as Tatzlford burn to the ground would mean the kingdom would have a terrible time doing anything for the next LONG while.
I'm not sure I get why the Drelev forces burned Tatzlford in your game, it sound like a better place to live than Fort Drelev.
KwwB wrote:
I wish this is what had happened. It makes the MOST sense to me. Why have a city like Tatzlford with a population of 9,000 people, and not REALLY protect it. There was no standing army there, and IIRC the only defensive buildings were city walls, and possibly a barracks. There was a custom story driven DM and player constructed militia there comprising of fifty or so NPC's with minimal skills, but that is hardly what a city like Tatzlford should have.
Those fifty-odd people were a third of the city at the time, gathering to defend their home in the face of destruction. Why did the 9000 people in your game allow four trolls and a score of mercenaries to burn their homes down with them inside? The AP gives rules and ideas, yes, but they are not meant to be treated as rigid commandments.
KwwB wrote:
Essentially. They built way to quick, and built buildings and hex improvements that only helped with the kingdom roll checks, and nothing else. AKA power gaming the kingdom, which then bit them in the ass, or at least I wish it had if the rules had been followed...
I took two approaches to getting building variety. First, I made the buildings function as requirements for logical other things (fletcher before you make ranged armies, a fortress, barracks or garrison per army for housing, etc.)
Second, the Councilor position functions as liaison to the people, thus allowing the people (you, the GM) to make requests, which can become demands if the city stays dreadfully unbalanced. This function can still be introduced in your game, though it is a little late in the game for it.
You say "if the rules had been followed..." Why weren't they? Kingmaker takes a lot of winging it to be interesting, but as GM the final say is yours, not an upset player.
I know this thread is old, but for anyone scrounging the forums for Kingmaker tips in the modern age...
I started writing letters to the players from various characters early on, so I had used this letter early on in book 4:
Letter from Irovetti:
Greetings from his Supreme and Inimitable Magnificence, Castruccio Irovetti, by the grace of the gods rightful King of Pitax, Marvel of Numeria, Master of Mormouth, and Prince-Regent of the Sellen, to Zanzuket, my most favorite baronet-claimant of the contested Northern River Kingdom territories.
It is with great delight that I conclude you have declared a war of aggression upon that loud, laughable lout, the self-proclaimed Lord Drelev. It feels like it was merely yesterday that he chased Tiger Lord Tribesmen into Pitaxian lands, and I would have expected him to stay quite quiet for at least half a decade to come following the consequences of his actions.
It is a mighty shame, I am certain you will agree, when a conflict that ought by all rights to have stayed local none the less happens to spill across the borders of a neighbor with little patience for such troublesome trifles. I am delighted that at least one of the parties partaking in this pesky conflict has the wits necessary to avoid provoking the ire of their neighbors, even if this dedication to decorum prevents them from marching armies through territory with such a broad array of contentious claimants along the borders, which even mighty Pitax would likely not be able to guard them from, should the easily offended find themselves taking offense.
You will no doubt be delighted to hear that I gave serious consideration to the possibility of inviting you to the coming Rushlight Tournament, for the first time since I learned that you existed! A great honor, I dare say, to even be considered, and a true testament to your prowess, indeed, only an actual invitation would have been a grander praise for your fledgling realm. However, the realities of the political and military currents that flow through the River Kingdoms are forcing me to extend no such invitation at this point.
Your association with the Brevoy city of Restov is an ongoing source of concern, and an overt display of independence would benefit you greatly, whether against the country or that dog Drelev. I look forward to seeing how you act in this matter. Show the colors of the rivers that run in your veins!
-King Castruccio Irovetti of Pitax
This was mostly a response to the PCs considering the possibility of deploying armies in book 4, but it also set up the Rushlight Tournament as something to be achieved by impressing the other lords.
Bit late to the thread, but the heraldrically challenged might also want to visit www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil
It contains all the heraldry (I assume all, there are thousands) of the various divisions and squadrons of the US military. Some guys who've been in the service might object to seeing the heraldry used this way, so ask the group first. Guy I spoke to didn't see a problem with it, but I suppose that could vary. Also, if your group has THAT one guy, make sure to impress upon them that the images containing fighter jets and missiles are not appropriate (Assuming standard Kingmaker, homebrew could go anywhere).
There are tons of swords, patterns and flames to go around, so the only problem should be picking one.
Pathfinder Society GM. 17 posts. 1 review. No lists. 1 wishlist. 16 Organized Play characters. 