aiglos's page

As in the title!

I have just bought the Remastered Core Rules & GM's guide and am severely disappointed!

I was hoping for a couple of changes but of course was disappointed!

Why is Shield Block still a starting Feat for a Fighter, when it is only useful if you are not using two handed weapons, two weapons or single handed weapon and free hand?

Likewise Bastard Sword is still the only straight bladed sword or knife that doesn't have Versatile. Also the cost makes no sense either, four times the cost of a long sword or twice the cost of a Great Sword!

I have played in this campaign twice and GMed it once, and this new edition needs to right a number of wrongs that were done to the original edition.

1/ To reduce page count, significant amounts of useful material / information was left out in favour of stuff that was better covered by Gods of the Inner Sea etc. This material needs to be put back in!

2/ Book 6 never worked properly in any of the games I played in and I left it out of my campaign, in favour of the Brevic civil war. Personally, adding in Realm of the Fellnight Queen and Courts of the Shadow Fey, added much better FEY elements than Nyrissa ever did. Book 6 is crying out for the Brevic civil war to spill over into the Stolen Lands, particularly if the players have taken over Pitax. That makes the PC kingdom, a must have new ally for any side in the Brevic civil war.

3/ Personally this new edition is crying out for not only a new rewrite of the campaign, but a further campaign guide, dealing not only with the kingdom building rules, and suitable downtime activities for the campaign, but also a GM's overview of how the new Bandit Kingdom may affect the River Kingdoms, the Brevic Civil War, Numeria etc. The potential here for good writing is potentially endless.

I have recently bought both Horror Adventures and the Villain Codex on a whim. However both seem to be perfect for Kingmaker.

From the Horror Adventures, I would use a mixture of Dark Fantasy and Gothic Horror to spice up Kingmaker. If you include Carnival of Tears, Realm of the Fellnight Queen, and Courts of the Shadow Fey, and play them for Gothic Horror, it will only add to the fun. Whether you want to make the Stolen Lands cursed by Nyrissa may be a step too far but would be interesting. Perhaps the PC's have to find some cursed items in Book 1 culminating in the Stag Lords Fort to free their part of the Stolen Lands from the Curse. Each part of the Stolen Lands has it's own part of the curse, although Varnhold was already cursed by the presence of Vordacai. Book 3 is perfect for horror as is Book 4 if you make the Tiger Lords particularly vicious and gruesome.

As an example of what you could do, the opening scene at Olegs could actually start as the players arrive at the gates. The bandits are already there and are tasking Svetlana as a slave, because business has been slow and Oleg does not have the money for a few days. The Stag Lord could be a slaver as well as a bandit. I would replace Nugrah the Discrepit with the Experimenter from the Villain Codex to make the Fort even more horrific.

I would also use the Syndicate idea from the Villain codex to show how desperate things have got in Rostland. It would make the start of Book 2 much more interesting! The Regal Court could also be used for Nolski Surtova and his court, with his ambitious sister as the Queen. This would give a whole new political element to the game if you want to include some Brevoy politics.

I have got some questions on the Acquired Mutant Template in the Numeria Campaign Guide:

1. Celerity Mutation. The d4 roll, does that mean that you have to roll a d4 after every round of Haste to see when you can use it next, or do you roll d4 when you get the mutation and if you roll a 1 you can use the Haste every round as a swift action etc?

2. Multiple Arms mutation. If a Bloodrager has three or more arms can they wield a shield and not have the penalty on casting spells with somatic components?

3. Vulnerability Deformity. Can a mutant have this multiple times, so they are vulnerable to more than one type of energy? Also do creatures with innate energy resistance or immunity lose that ability AND gain the vulnerability or do they just lose the resistance or immunity to that energy?

It has struck me that Falcons Hollow from the adventures "Hollows last hope", "Crown of the Kobold King", "Revenge of the Kobold King", and "Carnival of Tears" would make a great replacement for Olegs Trading Post. You could still have Olegs Trading post in the gap in the walls on right hand side of the town map. The town will be just outside Brevic jurisdiction, under Lumbar Consortium control.

The PC's could be tasked, as well as dealing with the bandits and mapping the area, by the Lumbar Consortium through the Swordlords, but also by the Swordlords to keep an eye on reported malpractice by the lumbar consortium. It will allow PC's to be exploring wilderness one minute, and playing politics in Falcons Hollow the next.

The dwarven monastery could be in the same hex as the gold mine, the dwarves not realising that their iron mine was only half a mile away from the fissure where the gold is. Likewise the foam river can be replaced by a sizeable lake fed by streams too small to see on the map, hence the name of Falcons Hollow. The symbol on the map for Olegs is actually the size of a lake 2 miles in diameter.

Likewise it will be interesting to have two tribes of Kobolds on the map, one wholly inimical, the other potentially more friendly. Will the PC's realise the difference or just slaughter the lot. When the PC's start to set up their kingdom thats when the Lumbar Consortium can become even more of an enemy, and the PC's can have fun trying to get the town into their kingdom without a massive fight with the Consortium.

If you set Carnival of Tears in Falcons Hollow and not the PC's capital, if the PC's manage to rid the town of the Fey with few casualties, even the Lumbar Consortium may have trouble stopping its people transferring their loyalty to the PC's own new state. This will allow for extreme politicking without having to create Brevoy from scratch, and using existing Paizo products. If I remember rightly the Lumbar Consortium was one the options if a GM wanted to get the PC's to bargain for some of their starting build points in another thread.

What do people think on the idea.