Zor D'Lan's page

Here are a few suggestions;

First, we roll the EVENTs at the start of a kingdom month so players can focus some efforts to better resolve them.

Second, I also "pre load" a building into each settlement for the CIVIC phase ... saying its what their locals and/or advisors are asking for. This gives me a chance to help them make a viable kingdom. Plus its just a suggestion, so they can always build whatever they want.

Advice on skill usage for players;

(phases)
COMMERCE
- collect taxes (this can provide a +1 or +2 bonus to all ECONOMY checks for this and possibly next turn!)
- improve lifestyle (as above, but for any CULTURE checks ... which includes a lot of magic related checks)
... and if they do skip collecting taxes, they get a "free" DC:11 roll and if successful, can reduce Unrest by (1).

LEADERSHIP
- Celebrate Holiday (this can provide a +1 or +2 bonus to all LOYALTY checks for this and possibly next turn!)
- Focused Attention (the DC is 20 and never goes up. Players should be using this if nothing better to at least aid in resolving events)
- Prognostication (chance to choose which Event occurs and bonus to resolve events)
- Hire Adventurers (gives a chance/bonus to resolve events)

REGION
- Claim Hex (this might be obvious, but more hexes means more resource dice each turn but a higher DC)
- Establish Farmland (its the only way to counter consumption)
- Go Fishing (RAW; its the only way to earn FOOD commodities since farms merely reduce consumption)

CIVIC
- always be constructing (there is a limit on completed constructions per month, but no limit on buildings under construction and some take months to get enough resources.)

Hi all, I just wanted to offer an alternative perspective with the updated Kingmaker Adventure Path, based on my personal experiences so far.

STORY
We are about 70% through the updated AP content, enjoying ourselves and making it work w/o too much effort.

My group is currently at kingdom level 12 / party level 13.

What we learned;

XP
The XP was definitely a mess until the kingdom hit around level 6 or so ... then they easily had enough with events and such to keep the kingdom leveling alongside the players.

SKILLS and House rules
We have a few house rules in place - based on things I read in these forums.
1. non-trained skills add (level +0) but still "gate" access to some buildings.
2. skills every level (rather than 1/2) and players could still spend feats to unlock additional skills.
3. Capital (only) - we ignored the size limits on capital, so they were able to more quickly get farms up -- and so it was always expanding as the center of their kingdom.
4. Item bonuses to actions. To simplify this, we ignore location and instead limit it to a stack of 3 buildings. This results in a +3 max bonus until 9th, then +6 maximum until 15th were it increases to the max +9. This way, players are encouraged to build structures in ALL their settlements and not simply place everything in their capital while ignoring the rest.

With these options … the party tends to have a 40% success chance on untrained skill checks. And by stacking the building bonuses and those from other actions, they often double those chances for trained checks. If not, they find alternatives and/or use their fame to re-roll as needed.

FAME ... My players were sad it wasn't a cumulative total of all the fame their kingdom has earned. Instead it's more like “hero points” (for kingdoms). Regardless, the kingdom starts with (1) Fame each new kingdom turn and any left over at the end is "lost" (resets to 0). So encourage players to use it up every month.

FARMS ... were a big concern early on, but once they hit level 5 or so it was not as much a concern. they could then afford the 5 RP / consumption to avoid starving their citizens.

ARMIES ... in hindsight, it would have been interesting to introduce them earlier. But younger kingdoms often can't afford the consumption and other costs associated with fielding an army.

Kingdom TURNS ... it was a mess when we started, trying to understand the phases and order of operations. Adding armies only made it more confusing. But now (with help of automation) we complete a turn in about 10 minutes - rather than a couple hours.

When starting, it was very helpful to slow each phase down, so everyone understood what was happening and how their choices impact the kingdom.

Phases -
UPKEEP - start of the turn; income and expenses; leadership changes
COMMERCE - collect taxes, trade commodities, manage trade
LEADERSHIP - these actions have biggest impact on events
REGION - players always forget they can do (2 actions as 1) in Heartland hexes.
CIVIC - Besides "gated behind skills" ... the only limit is "1 constructed building per settlement". So we end up with lots in progress at once and track the resources spent each month until successfully constructed.
EVENTS - At the early levels, we did events every month. This added some flavor and earned them lots of bonus XP. If players lacked a specific skill to end an ongoing event, they usually solved it with another leadership action such as Focused Attention, Hiring Adventurers or skillful use of Magic. Or they just failed gloriously, endured the outcome and moved on ;-)

ACTION ECONOMY ... something that was not obvious initially, was the action limits per kingdom turn.

UPKEEP, COMMERCE (no limits)
LEADERSHIP (2 per PC, so 8 initially... 12 with a castle)
REGION (3 per turn, never changes)
CIVIC (1 construction per settlement, gives crazy at high level with dozen or so settlements)
ARMY actions (1 per kingdom army)
EVENTS (varies)
... so the only variable is the number of leadership actions per month. And these can impact all other phases.

TIP #1: CIVICs ... As a GM, between sessions ... to prepare for the next kingdom turn ... I go through the Settlements and add 1 or more buildings the townsfolk and/or advisors are requesting. This greatly helps speed game play up when dealing with many settlements. Players can still choose to build something else, but it helps keep things expanding. And it gives me a chance to suggest other buildings to improve their kingdom stats, where it might help.

TIP #2: LEADER actions ... Over time, action economy is very important with this step. I'd limit it to 8 actions initially and 12 with castle ... regardless of the number of PCs. Also, I tend to be flexible with things like hiring adventurers for things the players roleplay well, such as clearing a map hex for the PCs.

TIP #3: EVENTS ... My players enjoy these events as it adds color to each kingdom month. So I will often roll them up ahead of time and give them vague clues at the start of the month. This way the players can prepare for these events with specific leadership actions or perform other actions to help offset the potential impact of the pending events.

More CONTEXT
However, a few things to add more context that may differ from others' experience.

PF1e
We are also running this using the original pathfinder ruleset, not pf2, which has made things more challenging as a GM … but thankfully, it has no direct bearing on the kingdom side of things.

VTT … FGU
First, we are playing over a virtual table table using Fantasy Grounds Unity … which does help a lot with common tasks and provides the means to automate further (with extensions, see below).

AUTOMATION
Second, we are using an extension toolset I put together over the last year or so of running this adventure path.

With the toolset, we don’t have to track all the details in spreadsheets and swap in/out of context constantly. Instead it organizes our gameplay along the phases listed above (including the un-mentioned “army” phase) … and lets us focus on the story and playing the game itself.

For those interested, here is Link to the automation toolset created for Fantasy Grounds;
FGU Extension: Nation Builder

thanks all for the interesting things to consider while running this AP ... as GM, im the only one of my group with actual military background

And I feel the need for a solid grounding in logic and tactics ... so I had to take upon myself to draw up actual maps the region from the start

so the players being sent out on their first mission can understand the lay of the land ... and encouraged them to try resisting the cold without armor protection at first, so they get a feel for it

as for the rank structure, the players squad included;
an outlaw who enlisted to get a pardon
a mercenary grunt who has survivor guilt
a phentomite scout/mechanic the excels at tracking
and lastly, a wild warden technomancer "plant creature"

so ... we role played up their "2 weeks of basic training" prior to the start of the story ... and each was provided a "score" (based on arbitrary things I added up, but players dont know that)

And the mercenary scored highest ... and was promoted to Squad Leader ... aka PRIVATE FIRST CLASS ... enlisted rank 2

and the other (2) were close behind in points and promoted to PRIVATE (each) ... enlisted rank 1 ... and each given a few special items for their class role (which works out best anyhow, since they are new to star finder and the real life youngest of the group)

finally, the "convict" was singled out as "beneath" them on rank structure ... rank 0 ... with no chance for promotion, just a full pardon ... and other team members were warned to "watch out that he doesnt turn on you or try to run off" (which fits his Lawful Evil alignment very well)

so far, has made for some interesting inter-party gossip ... and added to the realism and "internal conflict" for the players

I'm working on creating maps / handouts for the players before they head off on their overnight Patrol ... and another for the Long Slog

thinking of letting them move across the map in (1 hour) increments or something relative ... so they can choose to stick to the roads (reduced to 75% movement due to clogged roads) or risk following their wild warden or scouts advice, and venturing off the roads on trails to try and get better speed and avoid the random swarm patrols harassing those on the road ways

.. all the while doing cold weather checks each hour ... survival checks to avoid loosing their way in the blizzard(s) ... and trying to manage their fatigue before they are all exhausted.

We're playing through the Kingmaker series of adventures and were looking for ways to track our progress over time. And to simplify the math involved with managing a kingdom.

NOTE: Rather than use the stock kingmaker rules, we are using the updated Ultimate Campaign rules.
These tools are all available on the internet for free - but to use them, you would need to host it locally or on the cloud somewhere.

I have setup a "hosted" version of each on the cloud so you can see easily how it works.

Thought I'd share this info in case others find it useful as well.

-- Kingdom HEX Map --
Rob's map tool was perfect for this - and already includes base maps of the Green belt. This made it easy to mark the cleared hexes and track anything of interest.

You can

• tap/click a hex to remove it to reveal the map underneath
• drag icons onto the map from the panel on the left
• move around the pawn icon to represent the current party location
• make other customization's from the drop-down menu.

My example S3 hosted - Kingmaker Map URL

original source

-- Kingdom manager --
Rob already some great work on this tool - but I found it incomplete and so made these changes;

• now displays/calculates the attributes for each Settlement.
• removed the requirement of farms <= roads (nothing in rules say you HAVE to have roads).
• Also added/updated the list of improvements to account for the updates Kingdom Building rules in Pathfinder Ultimate Campaign. (from Paizo site)
• working on adding Government types (currently has no impact)
  

My example S3 hosted - Kingdom Manager URL

original source

NOTE
I'm happy to share the hosted versions of these apps ... but keep in mind it costs $ based on usage in AWS - so I can't guarantee that I'll be hosting it forever. But so long as its not abused, I'll keep hosting it for all to use.

Credits:
Rob Rendell started all of this work. He gets all the credit. I just updated the resources a bit to fit our needs.