PJ's page

Somebody posted a useful map of the Kingmaker maps posted over the map of the River Kingdoms. From that I created my own map of Pitax. It comes to a total of 127 hexs including Mormouth and Sarain.

I would limit Pitax to two or three districts. Mormouth should also be bigger because it was once the capital of Corvenn and so there will quite a lot of ruined or dilapidated buildings which can be revived.

The state would have one or two quarries at most and no mines according to the River Kingdoms Guide. It should have a lot of farmland with quite a number of agricultural resource hexs representing the vineyards around Sarain and the orchards between Sarain and Pitax.

I have a new group that have never played Kingmaker, so I've had to reread all of these good nuggets. Thanks again all for sharing.

Jurgen Dark wrote:

Redcelt32 wrote:

Here is the link to the spreadsheet for all the lesser houses of Brevoy and their mottoes. Note that the family names and mottoes are a mishmash borrowed from books, movies, etc, with a few originals thrown in, though most were borrowed from GoT or inspired by it. Enjoy!

This looks great! This will work wonders for me as names are nearly always a challenge for me to come up with.

Thanks again.

The best part about laying out all the noble house names in Brevoy is having the party meet various nobles before they understand the Brevoy hierarchy in depth. I had several nobles assist the party and several others really cause problems. Once the party moved more into the political arena (kingdom size 10+ and character level around 5-7) they understood why the different houses acted the way they did towards the party.

Thanks again Red for sharing.

I know this comes way later than it should be, but thanks for this. It looks awesome and well done!

Thanks again Silke!

Ryan Dancey wrote:

Everyone who has a Guild package (or a Buddy) package will need to distribute those invites on paizo.com, so the Guild and Buddy invites get the PDFs and such.

They need to also distribute invites from goblinworks.com so those Guild and Buddy invites get Early Enrollment access and can vote in the Land Rush.

Do that now if you can.

What happens to the physical rewards associated with a buddy pledge?

Do they goto the original person or to the buddy?

If its the buddy how can that be changed back to the original person?

I'm glad I'm not the only one having issues trying to link my paizo backed account to the goblinworks account.

You are correct, Jadeite, and with the exception of the Adventure Path, which by its very nature has to take place over an extended amount of time, we are working on all those items as we speak. The first Thunderscape Nights is out, the first Thunderscape Vistas is almost ready for release, we've uploaded the first AP module and we're just waiting on POD proofs, and the first class guide is due out at the end of this month, with another (the second of four) to follow in the summer.

So make no mistake, we're hard at work on everything from the Kickstarter. We're just considering additional bits here and there. For instance, we have recieved a lot (and I mean a LOT) of interest in adventure modules based on the two original PC games. I have considered a very low-target Kickstarter to get those produced in PDF form, but I cannot in good conscience do so until we have most of the original KS out. At least then backers can see that we are serious and that we deliver on our promises.

Is there away to get both the hardcover and pdf other that spending the $$ separately?

Stay tuned: something big is coming.

Ok... Dudemeister we're waiting impatiently.

I'm kinda excited about these. They look great.

Edit: Kingmaker Adventure Log

Thanks for sharing Craig I always enjoy reading other groups games.

Tonight i start a kingmaker/reign of winter/tales of the old margreve mashup.

My old game is still going just on a mini hiatus and the new one looks to be an interesting mix.

For starters:
-Heldron from RoW is in the hex between the barbarian cairn and the frog pond hex and starts as a mere hamlet.
-Levoca is a thorp from tales of the old margreve and starts in the hex beween the trap filled glade and Olegs.

The Swordlords are putting up serious incentives to get the Stolen lands explored and settled and Kesten Gares sees an opportunity to escape his troubled past. While he has no ambition to actually take a throne he does want to be a part of the group that does, he wants a fresh start. The charter however is open to all willing to undertake the mission and unfortunately a mercenary group from Irrisen has decided to investigate the charter.

Kesten has the 6 hexes in the upper right corner of the map already chartered but fears losing his lead to winter witches as the snows of winter are a full month from thawing. He hires the adventurers partly to make sure he has a second perhaps more powerful group should the Irrisen mercs decide to try something bold.

The opening fight is dialed to 11 with their being double the normal bandit count 2 dudes with Haps stats and a dual short sword weilding half elf with kessels stats. This is partly because they will have Jhod, Kresten, and his men along.

After the fight Oleg points them to Levoca and we do "Hollow" from tales of The Old Margreve. I'm kind of eager to see them squirm a little on that front.

sounds like it will be fun. Keep us posted Solspiral.

Holy shamolies! Cool!

great recap! waiting for more!

Each of the names I chose for each house is tied to the symbols for the them. Buchev literally means Bull. And Zhuralev means Crane. If you want I can come up with Anglized versions like GoT. I'm chill with sharing too. When I get a bit more done I'll put up a thread.

Hey Othaniel, do you have more about Mivon?

OK Red, your due for an update. I'm a fan if you haven't figured it out yet. Lol.

Timothy Withem wrote:

Hate to resurrect a dead thread and all, but my current Kingmaker campaign is just finishing up book 4. Could anyone provide me with the additional Rushlight Tourney events Mr. Nelson mentioned above? I emailed him a little while ago, but I'm sure he's quite busy and I haven't heard back yet.

** spoiler omitted **

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help out.

i too would love a copy, rayous @ hotmail . com

My campaign just got resurrected so hopefully this thread will too. Dudemeister where's your juicy bits to the Rushlight and Pitax in general. My email is in my profile or better yet your may just post it for posterity sake. Thanks in advance.

The beauty of Kingmaker is that no two games are alike. I have plenty of changes over in my Varnhold Vanishing Thread. Maybe they can be of use to you! :)

Keep it coming this is awesome!

Not in Kingmaker.

I'm running a Kingmaker game with my friends, first campaign I've run or played and first for them as well. First random encounter, one hex away from Oleg's, 4 trolls. I say they spot them in the distance. The druid did get a 26 on her perception after all. Party avoids. Well, a session or two later, I again roll trolls, and again it's 4. I report such the the players. Now they're getting nervous. While trying to figure out how to deal with the Stag Lord, I rolls trolls again. Don't even bother rolling, just tell the druid she sees the same group of female trolls. They appear to be tracking them. Panic ensues. The party is level two after all.

Finally, someone, I don't remember who, gets an idea. If they can't shake the trolls, and by this point everyone is convinced there is a herd of trolls relentlessly tracking them and their tasty herd of a dozen horses, across the wilderness and they will never stop. Then the best the party can do is to led them to the bandit fort. It works.

Chaos, fire, and bloodshed insue. PCs and bandits, who think the pcs are bandits, vs trolls. Party gets to see how dangerous trolls really are and has a reason to believe why the Stag Lord has been able to establish himself here. Critcal hit with bow + sneak attack means he takes down a lightly damaged troll with a single arrow. (His attack did something around 45 points of damage!)

Ye're off the map my friends. Here there be monsters!

Seriously that's fantastic Lloyd. Did you tie them to book 2?

My group ran into a Shambler right after Tuskgutter and a Wisp right after the Thorn River Camp battle. Ended up getting the two together, then ran into the electric Shambler two or three times before finally standing and managing to kill them both. Learned pretty quickly to flee from encounters they couldn't win, though: they fled from the Shambler as well as a pack of trolls they'd encountered earlier, only just now have they gotten confident enough in their ability to stand and fight trolls. Good thing too since we're starting Chapter 2 tonight.

Yeah, I had to teach my group the same lesson.

In three weeks' time, I march forward to begin my conquest! Soft-skinned, brittle-boned interlopers in my lands! Too soft, too weak! These wild lands will crush you. By my hand, your blood will stain red the rivers that once ran blue.

Humans Not Welcome. Monsters Only.

This sounds like it will be a blast keep us posted.

Well done Olwen, Kingmaker is a big campaign and it sounds like you've done it justice.

Grats Olwen and group. I wish I could get my campaign to conclusion.

Okay,

I decided I would sort of narrate the events that have happened so far in my game so anyone interested can read, borrow, laugh at, or ridicule the story as it progresses.

Political Backdrop:

Brevoy
Regent Surtova wants to be King Surtova. To do that, he needs 5 of the 7 votes by the Dukes. He can count on yes votes from Surtova, Lodovka, and probably Lebeda, as long as he agrees to marry her daughter. He needs two more votes, since Orlovsky and Medvyed are against him. Garess will fence sit until the last minute, to get as much out of his vote as he can. This means that Surtova needs a supportive Duke in place in Rogarvia and he needs to figure out what Garess will want for his vote before he can make his move and call for a vote. Until then, he is frozen from acting against anyone proactively like the Swordlords, a rogue baron in Rogarvia, or House Orlovsky.

Rogarvia

Houses in Rogarvia are Manning, Reyne, Brunwald, Westerling, Poole, Valyrion and Aelyrion. Manning and Reyne are major houses, Brunwald and Westerling are medium size houses, and the rest are very small.

Baron Manning was the strongest Baron and vying to be made Duke. He also granted the charter to the party to settle the Stolen Lands. He currently resides in a coma after an assasination attempt, and has been usurped by his younger brother, Darren (see posts above for more details).

Since he is out of the picture House Reyne is now the leading contender. The PC ruler hates Darren and wants to kill him. She just heard he plans to become a vassal of Lord Reyne in return for rewards (unknown to the party), allowing Lord Reyne to be named Duke of Rogarvia, spelling the end of House Manning, and likely the death of the Baron and his family.

Vallis(PC Kingdom)
Currently the Baroness is trying to decide between two suitors for her hand, both Swordlords. One is a Mivonese Lord, whom she likes best. The second is a very strong Restov Swordlord. Both have promised her armies to aid...

Red, thanks again for sharing. I really do enjoy reading your campaign journal. Unfortunately my campaign is under a hiatus as work and school for everyone involved has reared its ugly head. Keep up the great work.

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

Are the PCs trapped in the bottle? There's an amazing adventure to be played.

yes they are, as is a big part of the North of Golarion!!

Bottle is sat on a shelf, pride of place in the throne room of some as yet un-named First World Elder, as the now re-united with Briar 'Nyrissa' tries to gain influence once more....

WOW! :-)

Nipin wrote:

Lemmy wrote:

There are 1st level spells than can still be pretty strong if lasting for 24h.

While I agree (for example, Shield is an excellent spell), by the point you can get the ring I don't think it'll be THAT more powerful than simply getting a few wands of the spell.

Two words, Action Economy. If the spell lasts all day it does not need to be cast in combat which frees up a standard or swift action (at the level you'd have this ring your swift actions will be used nearly every round most combats).

Exactly what Nipin said. Imagine True Strike, sure, it's dispelled on the 1st hit, but it also basically garantees you'll land that first hit. At higher levels, that 1st attack may very well be the deciding factor between victory and defeat. Why would a Magus not cast true strike after every combat? That +20 for his next attack and he gets to ignore concealment. Hey, it's better than Furious Focus!

And that is only a 1st level spell. But there is more!

1st: Even if they limit the max. spell level the ring can hold, it's unlikely to be level 1. I'd guess 3 or 4. If it happened.

2nd: With each new book released, the chances of having a spell that can be abused through this ring increases significantly.

This ring, even if not broken as it's now, is a keg of gunpoweder floating on a lake of nitroglycerin. (Okay, that may be a little of an exaggeration, but I like the way it sounds... heh)

It's one spell away from being very, very broken. If it's not already.

Spell duration and action economy play a big role in balancing spells. Discard them with a "extend whatever spell's duration to 24h anytime you want" and we can very realistically expect thing to go downhill from there.

tl;dr. If this ring is not OP, it'll be. Unless it's errataed/nerfed to death.

no word yet on status of this ring yet huh? I can go either way. I can see the where this can be abused but so can a few other items. I do believe it is priced to cheaply though.

Epic Meepo wrote:

Either way, you only get 1d4+1 rounds worth of actions. In the second case, those actions just take a full 24 hours to complete.

I like that interpretation :)

I like that interpretation much better. I'm making that raw in my group.

My players have gone for 12 festivals per year. At the top of my head :

- Tax Day : Religious day for the followers of Abadar
- Archers' Day : Religious day for the followers of Erastil.
- Beer Fest : In honor of Caydan Caelian.
- Fey Day : Kind of an April's fool, where feys are invited to trick people.
- Aldori Duelling Festival.
- Choral Games : It's similar to the highland games.
- Foundation Day : To celebrate to founding of the nation.

Keep it coming guys!

Well, now my PCs are about to assault the Spriggan-held fort, but the spriggans know they're coming. I need to figure out what they'd do in order to prepare. Simply treating it as if the alarm was sounded doesn't seem sufficient, since they should be able to attack the PCs as they're tring to climb up. In addition, the spriggans as-written (or even as modified by the 6-player conversion, which gives the a fighter level and crossbows), aren't really going to pose a threat without a major terrain advantage and decent tactics.

Anyone have suggestions or successful modifications to this encounter area?

I'd use a strength bow add more traps. Be careful if they are the spriggans all attack with bows at the wall and gate it can be a tpk if your pcs don't witdraw.

My PC's kingdom is LG and run by a pally and a cleric - no withdrawing.

The topic of getting paid has occured a couple of times at my table as well, makes me laugh every time.

Ruyan.

Are you saying they are not allowed to get paid? That seems counter intuitive. Just don't let them go crazy. A grand each a month or something like that. Even their subjects would expect their leaders to get paid for crying out loud. Most leaders aren't supposed to 'adventure'. That's what adventurers and mercenaries are for!

A question has been addressed obliquely on a couple other threads, and I thought I warranted discussion on its own.

I'll admit to changing up some things on some modules or scenarios I've run. For example, this past weekend, I ran:

Master of the Fallen Fortress
** spoiler omitted **

Goblinblood Dead
** spoiler omitted **

Cyphermage Dilemma
** spoiler omitted **...

Honestly, a GM has carta blance on just about everything that you run. You know your players like no one else does. I change everything I run sometimes just a little sometimes you may not even recognize it as the same module. Who cares! If the module helped you if just to spark your creative juices then it did what it was supposed to do. I thought everyone makes everything 'their own' don't they?

PJ wrote:

So, you haven't ran this yet right? Tell us how the cost adjustment goes. It looks good though. Thanks for sharing and your time.

Thanks for the feedback! :)

That's correct. We haven't even started playing yet. Right now I'm looking ahead and trying to smooth out any major wrinkles before they become problems. Here's hoping that the wrinkles caused by the new solutions are smaller!
-blarg

Keep us posted Blarg!

So then, all of this being said, there would be no problem with the following:

1) Sub-terrais: in one hex just outside the hollow I have the terrain showing hills. I intend to place a small mountain range with a handful of peaks spanning a few miles, but MOST of the hex then is the foothills of these few heights.

2) Multiple adventure sites: I've made Bloodthorn hollow a place to fear, a place where monsters tread. I can't do that if there's only 1 or 2 places for the party to adventure. However if you're saying a single, 15 mile radius hex could conservitavely hold 6 separate large "lairs" like the ruins of large forts, then I should have no issues.

3) Multiple settlements: Per the Domesday I could have settlements every 10 miles roughly. That, coupled with other sources I've read which basically say it takes about 3 villages to support a decent sized walled town or city means that each hex that shows a town in the Hollow could be expected to have anywhere from 3 to 5 small villages around it, w/in a days travel, producing the raw materials that make civilized life possible.

Sounds good. I know Kingmaker tries to limit what you have in a hex. I understand why they want to limit what is in a hex but trying to tell my pcs that wasn't fun.

I'm reworking the rules for building kingdoms and armies in Kingmaker right now. My players seem pretty stoked about using mass combat, so I want to make sure I'm providing a fairly robust system. I've been reading as much as I can in these messageboards to learn from your compiled wisdom and experience. As a result, I've picked up Warpath and I'm planning on using it as the engine for our battles.

One of the things I want to change is the ability to field armies of almost arbitrary size and (more importantly) level. I did some research into the demographics of historical and modern populations and armies. I also took the demographics info from the 3.5 DMG into account, as well as Kingmaker's kingdom info. The end result is a chart that tells you how many soldiers you can hire based on the number of hexes you have claimed. This is further broken down by class and level.

Here's the chart of maximum recruitable soldiers.

Next step, recruitment! I came up with a set of fairly simply formulas to determine how much it costs to recruit and equip an army.

Cost to recruit an army or maintain it for 1 week (active) or 1 month (inactive):
i) Cost in BP (round up) = number of soldiers * CR of a soldier^2 / 50
ii) Mercenaries count as 1 CR higher when determining cost, but give you limited access to powerful races like lizardfolk or trolls.

Cost to equip an army:
i) Cost in BP (round up) = number soldiers * cost of 1 soldier's items / 2000
ii) Price mounts as part of equipment
iii) Equipment maintenance = 10% of initial purchase cost

I've still got a few pieces to put together, but this is the core of it.
-blarg

So, you haven't ran this yet right? Tell us how the cost adjustment goes. It looks good though. Thanks for sharing and your time.

Name: Luthor

Race: Human
Classes/levels: Wizard 2 (Conjuration Specialist)
Adventure: Stolen Lands
Location: Out in the Greenbelt exploring.
Catalyst: Trying to prevent more party members from falling.
The Gory Details: We were exploring the Greenbelt when we came across two Trolls. They were pretty far away but we decided to fight them as we felt that we could handle it and got off our horses. Three of our five members were knocked down by the Trolls and we knocked down one of the Trolls. So we tried to take out the last one. Had a rogue on one side of him in melee with him between two of our horses so I decided to help him out and set up a flank so he could sneak attack it. He hits it but does not do enough to drop it. Then on it's turn it hits me 3 times and does enough damage to kill me twice over.

lol low lvl mages should not go into melee with trolls. :(

PS - My summer project is to finish the last few sections and do a final clean draft of the whole thing. Once I do, I'll double checks fair use policies and, if I can, I'll be happy to share.

Looking forward to the finished product.

Yeah I couldn't find said thread either.

Psst Kilcoyne, where is it? :-)

Michael Radagast wrote:

...Did anyone else just get the Flash Gordon theme song stuck in their head? Just me?

That's my humor for ya.

I was originally going to call this thread Queen.

Ahhhhh!

LOL... sounds like the GM decided who he wanted to be king. TBH, I would not be happy if NPCs got to pick the ruler of the kingdom. It is not called president maker, its called Kingmaker. However that being said, leaders who are elected because they are nice typically have a short rule, at least in my world. To wit:

“The world is built by killers” – The Hound

“You have what you hold” -The first River Freedom. The Stolen Lands have been uncivilized for hundreds of years because of the failure to heed this “law”. If you leave any of your power laying around or fail to protect something you value, someone will notice and take action.

None of these say whoever kisses the most babies should be the ruler. :)

That being said, you should be an awesome diplomat.

me neither. Friggin npcs :-)

The cast

• Human Wizard (Enchanter)
  
• Human Wizard (Evoker)
  
• Human Cleric (Erastil)
  
• Elven Oracle (Battle)
  
• Elven Druid

We went around the back during the night and triggered the shrieking zombies. The Enchanter cast sleep on the lone guard who was watching our direction, but not before the guard called out to his friend. The Druid than ran up and hid flush against the wall while her tiger killed the zombies. The Battle Oracle and Cleric beat at the zombies while the Wizard used Fire Breath twice before falling unconscious. The Druid cast warp wood on the palisade.

A guard came to see what was going on and saw his comrade asleep. He woke his comrade up, watched the fight for a bit (they briefly saw a mountain lion but the night sky was keeping the rest of us hidden). I cast sleep on the same guard and then we all ran up to the wall.

We broke in and the Cleric and Oracle went to go fight the two guards on watch. The Enchanter Wizard peered through an open gate and saw a big bad guy and a few other people. Not wanting to get attacked from the rear he cast web into the complex, isolating the Staglord (by accident) and entangling a big guy. The Staglord got up, got his bow and then tried to hit the Enchanter's flat-footed AC. He missed.

We fought off the mooks while the Staglord slowly made his way out of the webbing. The other guy near the Staglord came out and suddenly Akiros turned on the bandits and started fighting the big guy. We quickly dispatched the rest (enchanter throwing putting hideous laughter on the mentally handicapped fighter, glitterdusting Dovan).

Before Dovan was glitterdusted he released the Owlbear just in time for the Staglord to get out of the webbing. The Owlbear fought the Staglord until the Staglord retreated (having burnt away a substantial portion of the webbing), so we killed the owlbear rather quickly. We then killed the Staglord with the NPC barbarian helping us quite a bit. We wanted to keep the Staglord alive so it was quite difficult for us...

Sometimes those are the rolls. Sometimes the baddies crit like crazy.

The real difference of opinion is we're looking at "economic activity" differently; I don't equate BP-to-cash; but I also don't equate "all economic activity = treasury activity," along the lines of "any time anyone does anything in the Kingdom, it becomes a resource available for the characters to command."

Admittedly the way things are described it certainly can lead to that interpretation, but, IMO, then you're more of a Queen of an ant hive than ruling a Kingdom.

Plus, if things really worked the way you describe, then there would be some income for even all the unsold magic items your cities have: cretinous NPCs come in, paw through the waerz, generating economic activity which equates to PBs directly and exclusively available for the PCs to develop their kingdoms with.

I tend to think there's more (arguably much more) going on in the Kingdom's economy and activities than is directly accessible for the PCs to control in building their kingdom; the BPs they get are just the "skim" available to the rulers, their "cut of the take" in the form of taxation, *some* in-kind services owed to them as liege lords (which isn't 100%), and the like.

If it's not, then the PCs are running a Kingdom unlike that of any other(s) in Golarion, and certainly not one they would want to spend any time in whatsoever if they weren't in charge of it. Look at it as you would if the players *weren't* the rulers, but instead were engaging in normal activities - and everything they do (everything, not just, say, 20-30% or so) - gets directed by some guy with a crown.

Furthermore, if you look at the rest of Golarion (or anywhere else for that matter), not nearly every action everyone takes gets transformed into resources available for the rulers to direct into new infrastructure construction projects (or armies); "'Shovel-ready' was not as shovel-ready as we expected," as Obama put it.

BP that the characters receive available for them to use as inputs into developing their Kingdom is just some fraction of...

Great argument. What would your recommendation be to the Kingdom Building rules of Pathfinder.

3.5E BRCS is available at www.birthright.net downloads here: http://www.birthright.net/forums/downloads.php?do=cat&id=6 (which includes many Feats and some Regent-specific skills)

Some of the more variant rules that are currently being used in a PBeM are here: http://voltumna.cjb.net/legacyofblood/reign/rules.php

And a PBeM using more traditional 3.xE characters is here: http://brpbem.net/

A lot of that stuff could be mixed & matched with Kingmaker to create various Actions characters can engage in with monthly Rounds (which fits well with Kingmaker's monthly resolution system, too).

P.S. I hope I didn't sound too critical in my initial post. While I originally looked into the AP for the Kingdom-running rules specifically, I found the AP as a whole to be very very interesting and well crafted, and the RAW for building a Kingdom in the Stolen Lands works very well with the AP, and I'll certainly be among those interested in seeing a revised & expanded version of the rules, suitable for wider use.

I'd also be keen on seeing Golarion's cities in "Kingmaker" City District style - what Absalom, Korvosa, Oppara, Westcrown &tc look like as "Kingmaker" cities - especially since at the end of, say Council of Thieves path, PCs might have some influence if not governance in such a city or region.

Ditto! and Thanks for the links.

James Jacobs wrote:

Dungeon was (and still is) my favorite print magazine. I remember back when it was announced in, I believe, Dragon #111 or thereabouts, and immediately started sending in adventure proposals at the age of 11 or so. "Scepter of the Underworld" was my first published credit—it got into Dungeon #12 (aka the one with the green cows).

That bit of proof that you could make money doing something you love hit me at a pretty impressionable age of 13 or so, and it's what made me want to some day work as a game designer. I went to college and majored in creative writing, then moved 800 some miles north after college in order to be nearby a game company I admired so that I might get a job there. When that company bought D&D... I was pretty stoked. Eventually I got a job there, and eventually I moved on from WotC to work at Paizo, and eventually got to be Editor in Chief of my favorite Magazine for a year.

My sentiments more or less exactly echo Erik Mona's. I'm immensely proud to have had a chance to work on Dungeon magazine, and I miss it like hell to this day.

I was SO going to bring my 'green cow' issue for you to sign this year... :(

PaizoCon 2013!

I'm already a huge fan -- I didn't think it could grow any larger! Great installment. I love Paizo!

Porphyrogenitus wrote:

Dale McCoy Jr wrote:

Which of the following would you like to see in an expansion? More building? More castle customization options? More environmental options (i.e. desert, planar), More kingdom events? Other?

Originally I looked into the Kingmaker AP because someone recommended it as a more recent "D&D Rulership" rules than Birthright.

I'm a member of a dwindling but hard-core band of Birthright PBeM players, and was/am hoping to find something to expand the hobby, enrich the concept of "D&D/Pathfinder with Lords and Ladies."

I think the Kingmaker rules as they stand are good for the AP, but even in your modified/expanded version, so far, somewhat campaign-specific.

1) They rely, especially early on, in the PCs facing a situation that will rarely obtain - the ability to start a kingdom by gradually expanding in unclaimed (under-claimed) land. This isn't something characters could do in, say, Andoran, or even elsewhere in the River Kingdoms - outside the Stolen Lands, unclaimed hexes are going to be rare.

2) The rules as written focus too much on construction. While arguably the Birthright rules that form my basis of comparison pay too little attention to constructing buildings (such that over the years various of us have tried fan-created monumental buildings, and the like), the Kingmaker rules pretty much boil down to constructing buildings - IMO, too much "Sim City" and not enough "Civ" - and this from someone who loves building & detailing cities.

3) It's too easily "gamed" - the rules were created as a backdrop to an adventure, with "flaws" the designer admitted too because they were made for a one-off and not as part of an ongoing game. Once players get familiar with the Kingmaker Kingdom-creation rules, I think they'll find them a bit monotinous and simple.

4) Having read up on things, Kingdom-building is hard early on but then becomes a fairly simple matter. While this might be realistic, it's not good for characters to face their biggest

...

And Sir, I did get your email thanks. I'll make use of them.

Dale McCoy Jr wrote:

Which of the following would you like to see in an expansion? More building? More castle customization options? More environmental options (i.e. desert, planar), More kingdom events? Other?

Originally I looked into the Kingmaker AP because someone recommended it as a more recent "D&D Rulership" rules than Birthright.

I'm a member of a dwindling but hard-core band of Birthright PBeM players, and was/am hoping to find something to expand the hobby, enrich the concept of "D&D/Pathfinder with Lords and Ladies."

I think the Kingmaker rules as they stand are good for the AP, but even in your modified/expanded version, so far, somewhat campaign-specific.

1) They rely, especially early on, in the PCs facing a situation that will rarely obtain - the ability to start a kingdom by gradually expanding in unclaimed (under-claimed) land. This isn't something characters could do in, say, Andoran, or even elsewhere in the River Kingdoms - outside the Stolen Lands, unclaimed hexes are going to be rare.

2) The rules as written focus too much on construction. While arguably the Birthright rules that form my basis of comparison pay too little attention to constructing buildings (such that over the years various of us have tried fan-created monumental buildings, and the like), the Kingmaker rules pretty much boil down to constructing buildings - IMO, too much "Sim City" and not enough "Civ" - and this from someone who loves building & detailing cities.

3) It's too easily "gamed" - the rules were created as a backdrop to an adventure, with "flaws" the designer admitted too because they were made for a one-off and not as part of an ongoing game. Once players get familiar with the Kingmaker Kingdom-creation rules, I think they'll find them a bit monotinous and simple.

4) Having read up on things, Kingdom-building is hard early on but then becomes a fairly simple matter. While this might be realistic, it's not good for characters to face their biggest challenges when they're noobs and...

Porphyrogenitus, I too am a huge fan of Birthright. Can you point me to a link or send what you have converted to 3.5 or Pathfinder to my email which is in my profile. I'd greatly appreciate it.

Ramarren wrote:

I'd say no. A Control DC is more in line with a Save than a Check (for instance '1' is an auto-fail, which is not the case with a check. Further, it is not a 'Charisma-based Roll', Charisma is just one part of the components of the roll, and an increasingly small part as the Kingdom gets larger and it is overshadowed by modifiers from Buildings.

Although, a leader should find himself making a multitude of Charisma based skill checks on a regular basis that have nothing to do with Kingdom Rounds.

A Circlet of Persuasion would certainly help with these.

That's what I meant. Not for the Control DCs, just for the bonus on Charisma based checks. There are so much social interaction - at least in my game.

I don't see why the Circet wouldn't work, so I'd say yes.

As for spells, they will work, if you maintain the spells for at least 8 hours per day. That means if anything happens during a 'normal work day', like a kingdom event, those spell slots will be used up. So it's beyond the resources of a low level (<8) party, and by then they would probably have items than increase their key stat already, so castings would not give much, if any, benefit.

Absolutely!

Dale McCoy Jr wrote:

Do you allow your players to use a copy of the kingdom building rules as presented in the Book of the River Nations: Complete Player's Reference for Kingdom Building? If no, why not? Are you using some modification to the rules? If so briefly describe these modifications?

Which of the following would you like to see in an expansion? More building? More castle customization options? More environmental options (i.e. desert, planar), More kingdom events? Other?

How many players do you have in your group? How many actively take part in kingdom building/mass combat? How many actively do not participate in kingdom building/mass combat? Any particular reasons those players choose not to participate?

How much of a threat is Unrest to the players? Is it a regular problem they have to take into account or do the players view it as "our Assassin will reduce unrest to 0 next month?"

How important is magic items to your economy? Do you view it as a problem?

1. I gave my players everything except for the random events. There are some modifications. First is population. I ruled that a city's population is actually the sum of its Economy, Loyaly, & Stability scores x 25. The hex pop remains at 250. Second is mass combat. We do not use the mass combat rules at all. Instead we use the 3pp Warpath. My players wanted far more complexity, tactical, and strategy usage than what was available. We tried it once as written and didn't like it. It was quick, true, but it didn't 'feel' like mass combat to them. As a result, I've completly removed the Defense mechanic. I also use a Manpower mechanic. An army of 100 units takes 1 Manpower from the city. Manpower equals kingdom population divided by 1000. That was something someone posted here.

I also changed a little bit of Magic Item Availability. A city needed a specific...

Sir, would you be willing to share your notes? I definitely would be interested in how you used these new rules. MY email is in my profile. Thanks!

Greetings, fellow travellers.

You might wanna check Reaper Miniatures Finder.

Ruyan.

Cool link Ruyan thnx.

With 35 point buy and max hp for first 3 levels, you shouldn't have to worry about survival unless you have some real morons in your group. Just play what you want to play. The AP isn't that hard. Most TPKs I've read about were due to player error/stupidity, not the lethality of the campaign. With 35 point buy and max hp for 3 levels, you should be able to faceroll through the first book at the very least.

Absolutely! Just don't be a stupid as a group.

Most recent session was this tuesday, work has been keeping me unbelievably busy and I didn't get a chance to post till now.

Following the battle of the Cascade Locks, the spotlight shifted to Olegton, where battle was joined the following day. As all the PCs were tied up at the Locks (or in one's case, in the hold of a pirate ship), I ran it as a straight mass combat encounter. Oleg had repaired his four catapults and had his compound counted as a guard tower. The PCs had deployed their unit of Sootscale sappers to fortify the rest of the village and set traps. I had given their kobold troops the abilities Rapid Fortification (if given one day to prepare, give all allied troops in the battle +2 DV) and Trapsetting (straight d20 roll vs enemy DV as bonus damage every melee phase), as well as Sneaky (kobolds may not attack unless they are the only allied unit left, and enemies may not attack the kobolds unless they are the only allied unit left). With their 100 kobolds, 300 level 2 warriors, and 50 level three fighters (knights raised from estates), Olegton was attacked by 1000 level 2 fighters from the Surtovas' armies. My players rolled extremely well, and I poorly, with the result that Olegton was victorious, with the PC kingdom suffering only the loss of the knights.

Encouraged by this victory, the PCs assembled their forces at the Locks. Left behind to guard their capital was a skeleton force of wood-cutters. These had been provided by Axemaster Armanci, a midlevel manager in the Brevoy Lumber Consortium who was sent to expand that company's operations into the new kingdom, and who has been steadily creating a monopoly on the lumber trade. He has been a thorn in the side of my PCs, obeying the letter of their decrees while completely ignoring their intent to keep him from getting his monopoly. In return for ennoblement and an estate on the shores of Candlemere Lake, Armanci levied some rough and tumble lumberjacks to form a militia at the disposal of the PCs. These men were the sole forces...

I'm really enjoying reading your story unfold.

The Kobolds in my KM game sued for peace when they saw how powerful the PCs were. They offered Mik Mek as their liaison to Stagsfall (The Kingdom name), and he quickly took to annoying and mimicking the Cavalier.

I made Mik mek LN, instead of LE, and ,thus, he never really quite fit in with the tribe. Anyways, the Cavalier eventually took him as a Cohort, and now (After one death/Resurrection as well), he is 11th Level :Rogue(Scout)5/Cavalier 6(Order of the Dragon).He also serves as the Marshall.
Oh, he rides a medium-sized Thylacine, btw (Named Snapdragon).

When the PCs ca,e calling one day, they saw no sign of the Sootscale Kobolds, and I remarked 'You heard something about them dying off from disease last Summer). They have hidden away, and perhaps I'll bring them back somewhere else in the campaign.

-Uriel

cool thnx for sharing.

I am only about a third to halfway done with the first book, but the very first thing my party decided to do was strike up a truce with the kobolds and attempt to get them to help fight the bandits. They also ran through the radish patch immediately on their way to find the kobolds (as they only were told they were somewhere south). The rogue who is the only one who speaks draconic called out to them. After some tense talk, the kobolds agreed to take them back to their tribe, since the players offered food and rolled decent diplomacy.

They were asked to go to the mite layer and retrieve the idol to open negotiations to a truce, so they went and attempted that - they almost died to the giant whiptail centipede (they were still level 1) and retreated immediately, though they did rescue Mikmek.

Currently, they are working on getting better gear by continuing exploring.

It is looking like the kobolds will become allies to them, and I imagine that they will do something special with them once we get to the kingdom building stuff. Right now, I only intend to have a hidden entrance to the nesting grounds for the kobolds, but I think I will be expanding on them a little more, maybe have a rival tribe or something show up a bit later down the road.

Cool thnx for sharing.

DMFTodd wrote:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/16544/Tournaments%2C-Fairs%2C-and-Taverns?it= 1

This was an extremely useful book when I was putting together my Grand Tourney of Brevoy. I recommend it for coming up with games, events, and the rules for running them. Mostly it was helpful for inspiring new ideas by reading it and getting a feel for the environment of a faire. All you have to do is add in a giant knight in armor getting pissed and chopping off his horse's head over a lost joust and you are all set for Kingmaker...

might as well order it from paizo it's from EN.

I am not always that creative, but evidently after reading and watching enough Game of Thrones, "WWWTLD (What Would Tywin Lannister Do?) seems to come to mind fairly readily. Perhaps its the fact that my alarm clock is set to play "The Rains of Castomere". I am still trying to figure out a way to work that song into my game storylines, but no luck so far so that it has some special significance to the PCs.

The fact that NONE of my players has read or seen Game of Thrones almost makes my diabolical plotting seem unfair, if it wasnt for the fact that I gave it to them as recommended reading.

I thought I would mention another source of political intrigue, a set of books called Brother Initiate and Gatherer of Clouds, which is set in a fantasy version of Feudal Japan. The entire plot revolves around a huge kingdom spanning double cross and plots within plots. The coolest part is that everyone has multiple agendas and only the reader can see them all and guess how they will come together.

Who's the author?