Ultimate Rulership Part 1: Kingdom Basics Alignment: UR adds Alignment back in which I'm fine with but others might not like. Focus: Ultimate Rulership uses the term Focus instead of Kingdom Skill and renames 3 of the Skills. I do like the UR names a little better but this is minor regardless. RP & Attributes: In UR, instead of having a single pool for RP, you have 5.
When rolling resource die, each individual die is assigned to a specific pool. Resource Dice assigned to an attribute pool add that Attribute's modifier to the RP gained for each die assigned to that Pool. Dice assigned to the reserve pool do not add the attribute modifier. In practice having 5 different RP pools to keep track of was annoying and adding unnecessary complexity. The Kingdom Rules are tedious enough as is, having to keep track of 5 different RP buckets just made it worse. Even worse though, the amount of extra RP generated this way by adding the Attribute Modifier to RP gained was simply astronomically too much RP. In our sim we had enough RP to do absolutely everything we want and it made development go way too fast. The base rules have room to add a little more RP but UR's system here was just way too much. New Kingdom Abilities: I didn't have an issue with any of the new Kingdom abilities specifically but didn't really like the way UR implemented actions. Gaining Kingdom XP: Ultimate Rulership replaces the Base Rules Kingdom Milestones with a smaller list with bigger XP rewards. Adding more milestones to the base rules is a good idea but UR's XP rewards being so large resulted in uneven leveling. In our sim when we got UR's milestone rewards the Kingdom sometimes leveled in only 2-3 turns whereas otherwise it could take 4 or 5 turns. It's not a bad change, just resulted in uneven leveling. Having more total Milestones, but with smaller XP rewards works out better. Building Kingdom XP: UR also adds XP for building things. I think this is a great idea though UR only includes XP for Regional Improvements. Ultimate Cities has the XP rewards for building Structures. One minor nitpick though, I don't think Roads and Roads with Bridges need to be separate entries. The Kingdom Turn: Ultimate Rulership removes the commerce phase and separate Leadership/Regional/Civic action phases and replaces it with a single action Phase. UR gives the Ruler 3 actions and each other Leader 1 action, adding more actions and improved action economy as the Kingdom levels. I really love removing the different phases and having only a single activity phase. This is UR's single best idea. I don't really like the Ruler having more actions than the other Leaders in a game where party members are supposed to be equal. UR's rules also give the Kingdom a Reaction but gives barely any reactions to use so is an after-thought at best. Unrest and Anarchy: UR says that if your Unrest gets really high you can lose points of your Kingdom Attributes. In practice it's really hard to even get Unrest and functionally impossible to get Ruin. Collecting Taxes: UR offers an alternate version of Collect taxes that generates GP instead of RP. This GP cannot be used directly by PCs so I'm really not sure what the point is. Taxation Levels: UR tries to bring Taxation Levels from Kingmaker 1 back but doesn't really provide enough information on how to use them. For example there's nothing about what Tax level you start at. It's also tied to the new Collect taxes action which is pretty pointless already. Changing Government: The Regime Change action is fine but will likely never be used. Expanded Fame and Infamy: UR replaces the Fame/Infamy system. Fame is now a score that increases and can be spent with no limit of 3. Infamy only goes up. I like the idea of the Kingdom having Fame that can simply increase but in practice the bonuses it gives don't matter much. UR's system allows fame to be spent in a few ways but in practice only using it for rerolls is actually worthwhile.
I've probably actually tested the rules more than anyone and I've never heard anyone say they like them as written. James Jacobs has said they weren't playtested and it really shows once you try and use them. The basic ideas are solid though, they just needed a few rounds of playtesting, not a full rework. Kerenshara and I spent months doing sims and playtesting before we shared our fixes, I'd recommend doing a sim and testing them out yourself to see how you feel about them.
We didn't consider any for our basic rules as we wanted to add as little as possible. For future expansion we're considering having more settlements reduce the effective size of the Kingdom for Size Penalty to DC. (reducing the Kingdom size based on some formula related to Hexes that are in a settlement's Influence)
Ultimate Rulership for PF2e from Legendary games is now available but it doesn’t look like it has an entry in Paizo’s store. As such I thought I’d create a thread for discussion. I was fortunate enough to be able to help with the editing and development of this book some and even got my name in it! The book has a lot of ideas and systems for use with the 2e Kingdom Building Rules. It has so much that Legendary Games actually needed to split it into 2 books, with Ultimate Cities likely out sometime this fall. I thought I’d share my initial thoughts on the various sections. Please note that Ultimate Rulership is very Modular, it’s designed for you to be able to use whatever parts you want. That said, let’s dive in! Kingdom Basics (Page3):
Attribute checks: (Page 5)
Resource Dice and Resource Points (Page 5):
Kingdom Abilities (Page 6):
Gaining Kingdom XP (Page 7): Slow leveling of the Kingdom is one of the biggest issues in the base rules, it’s nice to see UR address it. I don’t actually know if UR’s system here provides enough XP in practice, I still need to playtest this. I do know that Ultimate Cities will have more ways of gaining Kingdom XP. The Kingdom Turn (Page 8):
Taxes (Page 9): The taxes system here is similar to how UR did it in PF1e, a welcome return. Expanded fame and Infamy (Page 10):
Leadership Roles (Page 12):
Noble Titles and Forms of Address (Page 15):
Focus Pool (Page 19): Focuses are the same as Kingdom Skills (but 3 are renamed). I like one of the renames, don’t like one of them, and am neutral on the third. The Focus Pool/Focus Bonus option is very different from the base rules. Essentially, you slowly raise a Skill by using that Skill to do things. You get a Focus Bonus which is another new type of bonus, and you need a certain threshold of Focus Bonus before you can use a Focus Increase (ie a Skill Increase) on that Focus. I like the basic idea but I’m very worried that introducing yet another new type of Bonus will make the math trivially easy. The math getting too hard at higher levels was one of the biggest issues with the base rules though. Ultimately, I need to playtest the UR system to see how it does. Overspending (Page 22):
New Activities (Pages 23-25):
Kingdom Feats (Pages 27-37):
Advanced Rulership (Page 37):
Kingdom Events (Page 44):
Anyway that’s my thoughts, I’d love to hear yours! And if anyone is interested in following along with my playtesting of UR shoot me a PM!
I wasn't aware they ever had actually updated APs. I'm happy to hear otherwise. That said it's still highly unlikely they'll do anything further for Kingmaker itself based on some of James Jacob's statements. I'd love it if they did. I'm hoping that Legendary Game's plugin for the 2e Kingdom Building rules fixes a lot of things.
Collect Taxes, and Improve Lifestyle would need to be limited to 1/Kingdom turn but beyond that should be fine, Celebrate Holiday is similar and already a Leadership activity. Tap Treasury and Manage Trade agreements should probably have the 1/Kingdom Turn too but I think they'd be fine as Leadership activities. Trade Commodities as a Leadership activity allows you to Purchase Commodities and sell them the same turn. I don't think I'd make Trade Commodities a Leadership activity. You could move it into the Upkeep/Resources Phase though.
That is not correct. Kingmaker Player's Guide page 18:
That said, assuming the Party chose 4 roles that cover each of the 4 Ability Scores, having more Roles invested doesn't actually do anything. The Status Bonuses from two invested roles targeting the same Ability Score don't stack. So really, the only affect of NPCs being invested in their Leadership role is freeing up the Party to choose Roles they like better thematically.
Reconnoiter Hex doesn't require you to pre-plan anything nor does it take away exploration. The party is still free to explore hexes under the Hexploration system if they want to. Reconnoiter Hex just means there is a way to reconnoiter under the Kingdom building rules. Nothing forces the group to use it. Personally I don't like the idea that at higher levels the Rulers of the Kingdom have to go out and explore hex # 127 themselves. As for encounters, if the Hex doesn't already have one you can just roll for a Random Encounter when they choose to use reconnoiter Hex if you want to. When it comes to encounters it's no different than the party exploring a hex themselves. Regarding your Research Building Action what do Blueprints do in this case?
So you have a couple options then. 1.) Run it truly in the background and don't use the Kingdom Building rules at all. 2.) Do the Kingdom Building turns entirely yourself outside of the game. 3.) Do the Kingdom turns yourself outside of the game but ask your players for a few specific inputs. Like what Hex should we claim, which of this short list of buildings should we build etc? 4.) Use discord or something equivalent to do full kingdom building but outside your normal sessions.
Oh it's definitely easier than adjusting all the Control DCs manually! Removing the Kingdom Size DC penalty is a +1-4 depending on Kingdom size. Since the rest of the math only resulted in roughly a -2 for the kingdom your group will actually wind up +1-2 ahead of regular PF2e math. But you've indicated you don't mind if Kingdom rolls are easier so that should leave you in a good place. I definitely wouldn't give more Ability Boosts then. You could probably do a few more skill increases without things feeling too easy if you wanted. If you like that solution then it'll probably work for your group!
Having the NPCs form their own group is actually a cool idea but I agree they wouldn't really all get along. In my game they have enough to recruit Amiri, Linzi, and Harrim. If they choose not to they'll form their own group. I'm going to have Jaethal go with Tartuccio and have Maegar Varn invite Valerie to join him. I'm also impressed your group managed to get close to full Influence with Maegar Varn, he had really high DCs for first level characters to hit.
Losing a few resource dice worth of RP at high levels won't even really feel like much of a drawback. Your change will make things feel MUCH easier. As it is the Status Bonus already offsets all but 1 point (on average) of the Control DC increase. If you use your idea I wouldn't give more ability/skill increases.
Is the Control DC Modifier just equal to the Size Modifier?
Still I recommend you post the above in the thread specifically about the Math/High DCs. That way anyone else who encounters the issue will be sure to see your ideas alongside ours.
In our testing we found a minor issue with Terrain Features. The Kingdom Building Rules state that a single hex can only contain one Terrain Feature but this is clearly not the case for all of the features. (as an example the hex that the PCs are encouraged to start their first settlement in is a Landmark hex, this shows you can have both a Landmark and a Settlement) Our Solution: These Terrain Features can overlap with any and all other features: Bridge, Landmark, Refuge, Resource A hex can have at most one of these: Farmland, Freehold, Ruins, Settlement, Structure, Work Site. A Settlement can be built in a hex that contains Ruins or a Structure. The Ruins/Structure are incorporated into the Settlement and once a Settlement is built the hex ceases to have the Ruins or Structure feature. A Free Hold can be brought into your kingdom in which case it becomes a Settlement instead. To switch between any of Farmland, Settlement, and Work Site, the existing Feature must first be removed with the Clear Hex Activity before the new Terrain Feature can be constructed.
What works for every table will be different. Heck my own group wants to use Automatic leveling for the Kingdom! There's going to be a lot of groups that will want to do Kingdom Building outside of Face to Face sessions and likely plenty that just use Kingdom in the background. Our goal was simply to fix things enough so groups who do want to use the system as closely to written as possible can do so. The Control DC is just using PF2e math though. The Size Bonus raises it but the Status bonuses a Kingdom gets makes it so you only need to roll 1 higher on the die compared to regular PF2e. We think it's more fun to give the Kingdom more bonuses rather than change the Control DC. If you do go with different DCs though let us know your DC chart!
Assuming this is in regards to the Status Bonus from Kingdom Feats. You could do that but the results are the same either way. I'd rather borrow language that already exists in PF2e than invent a whole new type of Bonus.
That's a reasonable solution too.
Even with that change you'll wind up with a lot of turns where all the Capital's lots are full but you can't expand. The Capital can fill 16 lots long before Level 7. With our changes a Kingdom will reach level 4 in roughly a year (12 turns) and then level every 6 months or so after that. So that'd be somewhere around 30 turns to level 7. Even if you fail a few structure builds that's easily a whole Year between when the Capital fills 16 lots and it reaches Level 7.
Solution 2: Increase the Influence of the Capital at the lowest Levels: This isn’t strictly necessary but we saw a lot of complaints from people on message boards about being unable to use Establish Farmland until Level 3 when you have a Town. If your group wants to be able to have Farmland before level 3, we recommend simply stating that the Capital’s influence is minimum 1.
Major Problem #5: Low Level Urban Grid Restrictions on the Capital:
Like Major Problem 4, this is not an issue for any groups using automatic or Milestone leveling for the Kingdom can ignore this problem. As written Kingdoms cannot Build towns until 3rd level, Cities until 9th level, and Metropolises until 15th level. Our tests showed that this can easily result in a settlement filling all of its allowed lots long before reaching the level requirement to grow a higher category. Filling 4 lots in the Capital can easily be done after the 2nd Kingdom turn if the Capital starts with a Town Hall. This would leave the Capital unable to build any structures until 3rd level, which is simply not fun. Filling 4 lots can easily be done by Level 5, leaving 4 whole levels of being unable to build structures in the Capital. The issue wasn't too bad in later settlements, we only filled one up around level 8 so waiting until 9th wasn't too bad there.
Solution 4: Adjusted Kingdom XP rewards: RAW, Random Kingdom Events award a flat amount of XP. Instead of a flat amount, award XP for random Kingdom events based on the event level and the Pathfinder 2e XP rewards by level chart (Table 10-2, page 489 CRB). James Jacobs has even stated on the Paizo boards that he wishes he had done it this way.
Solution 3: Increased RP to XP Conversion: RAW, leftover RP at the end of the turn converts RP to XP at 1 for 1 with a max of 120. Increasing this ratio allows a Kingdom to level up faster. Since having 12 RP is almost inconsequential for a high level Kingdom, we decided to make the ratio decrease as the Kingdom levels. This way the Kingdom will need to put more planning into how it spends RP if it wants to get maximum XP each turn. RP to XP Conversion ratio
Solution 2: Increased XP from Claiming Hexes: RAW, each claimed hex awards 10 Kingdom XP. Increasing the awarded amount allows a Kingdom to grow faster. The chart we settled on ties XP per Hex to Kingdom Size, on the grounds that a newly claimed hex matters more for a smaller Kingdom than a larger one. This also allows a newly founded Kingdom to quickly catch up to the party's level. Size 1-9: 100 XP per Hex claimed
Solution 1: More Milestones: Kingmaker includes some Milestones already and they’re a great way to help a Kingdom catch up to the party’s level. We’ve introduced a lot more milestones that come in two flavors. We’ve added a bunch that represent significant achievements for the Kingdom, similar to the existing Milestones. We’ve also added some that help encourage players to try out the various different Kingdom Skill Activities and learn the Kingdom rules better. Milestones
Problem Analysis #4: It's clear that the intent is for the Kingdom's level to be at most 1-2 levels behind the party. RAW, Kingdom XP is awarded so slowly that it will take multiple years for the Kingdom to level even at the earliest levels. While a lot of downtime can pass in game, the party is unlikely to wait years for the kingdom level to catch up. This is also an issue mechanically as the Kingdom Size modifiers to Control DC will come into play before the Kingdom's Status and Item bonuses can go beyond +1 to balance out the increased control DC. A group using automatic or milestone leveling for the Kingdom can ignore this and that’s the only reason this isn’t ranked as Major Problem #1. It’s a major problem for any group that wants to actually track Kingdom XP and use the system.
Solution 4: New Kingdom Feats:
Solution 3: Making other feats more useful:
Solution 2: Fixing an Over Powered Feat:
Practical Magic is flat out brokenly good though and NEEDS to be nerfed. It gives 3 things, a +1 to a skill, replacing one skill entirely, and reducing the RP cost of a leadership activity. It's the only feat that gives +1 to an entire skill but by itself that just makes it a really strong feat. Many other feats give the same +1 to a specific action or a few actions, this is just a more broad bonus.The reduced cost to Hire Adventurers is fine. The problem is allowing Magic to replace Engineering. By design Pathfinder 2e doesn't allow Magic to eliminate the use of skills. The Knock spell doesn't eliminate the need for Thievery checks. Invisibility doesn't outright negate the need for Stealth. Allowing Magic to flat out replace Engineering breaks one of Pathfinder 2e's core design principles. To fix this, change the text “and you can use Magic checks in place of Engineering checks.” to “and if you have Expert Magic you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to Engineering checks. If you have Master Magic, this bonus increases to +2.”
Solution 1: Fixing the Status Bonus:
Problem Analysis #3: Kingdom feats as written don't actually work. RAW, a status bonus granted by a feat won’t actually do ANYTHING! A kingdom already has a status bonus to everything and status bonuses don't stack. Beyond that there's a few feats that are very good while the rest are barely worth taking. This doesn't result in a lot of fun meaningful choice when choosing a Kingdom feat.
Solution 3: More Social Opportunities
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