Pathfinder Adventure Path #31: Stolen Land (Kingmaker 1 of 6) (PFRPG)

4.20/5 (based on 19 ratings)
Pathfinder Adventure Path #31: Stolen Land (Kingmaker 1 of 6) (PFRPG)
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Chapter 1: "Stolen Land"
by Tim Hitchcock

A Realm to be Tamed

Enter the Stolen Lands, a wilderness claimed by nobles, bandits, and beasts alike. Into this territory the fractious country of Brevoy sends its emissaries, tasking them with subduing the lawless folk and deadly creatures that have made it a realm of savagery and shame. Beyond the last rugged frontier stretches the home of voracious monsters, capricious fey, wily natives, and bandits who bow to the rule of a merciless lord none dare defy. Can the PCs survive the Stolen Lands, bring their dangers to heel, and lay the foundations of a new kingdom? Or will they just be one more fateful band, lost forever to the ravenous wilds?

    This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path launches the Kingmaker Adventure Path, and includes:
  • “Stolen Land,” a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 1st-level characters, by Tim Hitchcock.
  • A gazetteer of Brevoy, a country of ancient grudges and noble rivalries, by Steve Kenson.
  • New rules for turning exploration into a different kind of adventure, by James Jacobs.
  • A new misadventure for disgraced noble scion Ollix Kaddar in the Pathfinder’s Journal, by James L. Sutter.
  • Five new monsters, by Ed Greenwood, David Hill, Steven Kenson, Rob Manning, and F. Wesley Schneider.

Pathfinder Adventure Path is Paizo Publishing's monthly 96-page, perfect-bound, full-color softcover book printed on high-quality paper. It contains an in-depth Adventure Path scenario, stats for about a half-dozen new monsters, and several support articles meant to give Game Masters additional material to expand their campaign. Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes use the Open Game License and work with both the Pathfinder RPG and the standard 3.5 fantasy RPG rules set.

ISBN–13: 978-1-60125-229-6

"Stolen Land" is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure Path and Chronicle sheet are available as a free download (606 kb zip/PDF).

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Archives of Nethys

Note: This product is part of the Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscription.

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This product is non-mint. Refunds are not available for non-mint products. The standard version of this product can be found here.

Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at store@paizo.com.

PZO9031


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Average product rating:

4.20/5 (based on 19 ratings)

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Good but a bit of a grind... Recession Review added to end

3/5

My review format is bullet points if you want to read a book, well read the book :)

The Good: -Great first encounter.
-NPCs are well written with rich backstory.
-Sandbox style is interesting and feels homebrew which is good.
-Rewards are balanced yet cool.
-First act hints at many mysteries, which is great.
-Tickleback, nuff said.
-End boss fight can be a puzzle and easy or an epic encounter, good fun design.
-Amazing forum community if you are a GM and want to customize your own spin.

The Bad: -Hexploration gets old and a bit of a grind.
-Bad random encounter roll can absolutely murder everyone.
-Ally NPC Jhod is poorly designed.
-Dire Boar adventure and a few other side treks feel about as WoW as you can get.

The Ugly: -Not for novice DMs, the DC is too high for you go with a railroad save your sanity.
-Those great pieces of backstory are never really exposed to PCs as written.
-Smart players have too easy a time.

Overall: There's allot to love, plenty to complain about I give a neutral 3 star rating based on the fact that this AP is for the most part entirely what you make of it.

Read the recession review here The Flying Pincushion


One of the best adventures I've ever played through

4/5

Stolen land introduces an open-world sandbox exploration with plenty of adventure and perils to keep anyone interested. From the first read of the player's guide to the opening plot hook I was involved! I loved the exploration, the simple, but compelling motivations and the obvious but not overdone threats.

The only thing that keeps this book from a 5 star rating is the lack of strong female NPCs. As with many fantasy products, the game designers seem to have felt that they need to keep it "realistic" or "historically accurate." In any case, there's only one female protagonist and she's quite cliche. Fortunately, our DM made a few changes and improved things.

Overall though, I liked the concept of the sandbox exploration so much I want to add it to every game I ever play in. I'd even play through Kingmaker again just for this.


Just BARELY missed the perfect mark

4/5

I'm gonna try and make this brief. I LOVE this adventure path. The location is great, the encounters are fun, the kingdom building and random events is refreshing and enjoyable (at the start), and the story is one that allows for so much GM embellishment, while not requiring much.

The Bad:It's just too damn easy. I have a group of middling skill and minimum powergaming, and they just blew through pretty much everything in it. It's reasonable that the beginning encounters are easy, but it just didn't get challenging enough without my intervention. The kingdom building also became tedious and wasted time after we obtained more than two cities. There are, however, rules to make it simpler.

Get this book and see it through if you're tired of railroads or you just wanna explore. I promise you'll enjoy it if you give it a chance.


Yes!!!

5/5

For 30 years I've been DMing D&D, Top Secret, Star Frontiers, ShadowRun, GURPS and more recently EclipsePhase. Always I have tried to find a way to give my settings the 'feel' that there are lots of options without having to necessary write tons of material that I will never use.

I also have advanced players that can smell a linear adventure at the first reading of boxed text or NPC monologue. One of my more demanding players is in a party doing this 'path'. I can tell you that most younger, least experienced DMs/players won't appreciate this work, However, it is great for experienced groups that want options and lots of material that they don't have to even use or follow a script on.

Great job!!!


So much promise

2/5

This AP is a wonderful idea with tons of promise. However the endless random encounters and wandering from hex to hex took this roleplaying game and turned it into a board (bored) game. Forceing the pc's back to town every couple of weeks really hurts the feel of adventureing, and requireing 12 governmental positions is insane! Like several other AP's I've seen this is a good concept that needs ALOT more writting to truely flesh out and finish the story. Funner to read then play.


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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

Asgetrion wrote:
Alright, seriously, why not light green or emerald? And/or dark green spine?

I think they're saving green for the Serpent Skull AP since it takes place in the jungles of the Mwangi Expanse. Kingmaker is set in the River Kingdoms, so blue makes sense for the water theme. Personally, I'd have favored blue for a mostly aquatic-based AP and gone with purple for Kingmaker. It really is the color favored by royalty. So why not?

But that's just my two-cents,
--Neil

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Yeah. We're saving green for the NEXT adventure path, Serpent's Skull.

At this point, it's looking like Kingmaker's gonna end up actually with a blue treatment. Cause of all the rivers in the River Kingdoms.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 4

Well, I hope that the APs go on long enough that you run out of colors and have to move on to tied-dyed and plaid.


I can't wait for the aberration path who's cover is real aboleth skin!

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

I'm aiming for a rainbow of colors on my bookshelf, personally. So keep working them in as you can. ;-)


James Jacobs wrote:
At this point, it's looking like Kingmaker's gonna end up actually with a blue treatment. Cause of all the rivers in the River Kingdoms.

*sniffle* but... but... Purple! Paizo Purple!

Liberty's Edge

I'm really excited about this new strategy-like idea for this AP.
I can only hope that there will be more unique AP ideas/styles for the future as well.

Keep up the great work guys!

Sovereign Court

I am excited about this one as well, although I'm disappointed that (again) the adventure paths start at 1st level and end at something very short of 20th level.

Since this path is "Kingmaker" it would have made a lot more sense to start it at 13th level and get them to 20th level by the end of the campaign.

That way people who started campaigns in other adventure paths such as "The Council of Thieves" would be able to end that campaign and get in to something like this.

The Kingmaker series harkens back to some original D&D Companion modules for levels 14-25, which opened up the area of Norwald (Northern coasts)--a large area of mostly uncivilized land, for conquering.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Thorgrym wrote:
I am excited about this one as well, although I'm disappointed that (again) the adventure paths start at 1st level and end at something very short of 20th level.

You can, of course, use the fast XP award track and hit 20th level quite easily; Kingmaker will likely assume the medium XP track. You'll need to adjust some of the encounters, of course, but it shouldn't be THAT tough...

Assuming that we can pull off a 1st-18th adventure path in the first place! (crosses fingers)


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Hmmm... sooo many AP's... so few days to run Pathfinder games. :D

But, seriously, after these crazy holidays are complete I am going to revisit the notion of attempting to run two separate Pathfinder games.

I was thinking having Second Darkness be my "new" 2010 game... but maybe "Kingmaker" will be the game I choose to GM.

It does sound really cool, interesting, and exciting.

Can't wait.

Dean; the Minstrel Wyrm

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

The_Minstrel_Wyrm wrote:
I was thinking having Second Darkness be my "new" 2010 game... but maybe "Kingmaker" will be the game I choose to GM.

Oh, believe me. You're going to want to run Kingmaker. Heck, I want to run (or play in) a Kingmaker campaign...and I'm writing part of the darn thing!


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
NSpicer wrote:
The_Minstrel_Wyrm wrote:
I was thinking having Second Darkness be my "new" 2010 game... but maybe "Kingmaker" will be the game I choose to GM.
Oh, believe me. You're going to want to run Kingmaker. Heck, I want to run (or play in) a Kingmaker campaign...and I'm writing part of the darn thing!

Heh heh... Neil believe me when I say, the fact that you're writing

part of this AP is just one reason I'm considering it.

I wish I could just GM several games a week... (y'know instead of having to work for a living...) although it does provide me the money to buy all these awesome products... that I want to GM... gasp curses... a catch 22!

I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread. ;)

TMW


Hey Neil..you do realise you just volunteered to run our next PBP..after all you can't expect Thom and me to do all the work can you...

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

Of course I can...

I did say (or play in) a Kingmaker campaign. ;-P

Besides, a PbP game would take forever to get to my chapter. When's the last time you saw a PbP game take characters from 1st to 10th level with any kind of speed?

Nah. If I ever do run a PbP game, it'll probably be something shorter and more self-contained...like a standalone adventure module. I hear there's one coming out in January 2010 that might be somewhat decent. ;-D

Sovereign Court

James Jacobs wrote:
Callous Jack wrote:

Small design request: Can the spines for these books be some other color instead of black? When I'm looking at the PFs on my shelf, I love that RotRL and LoF stand out with their white and red spines but black is used on the rest of them. The different colors allow me to quickly spot what I'm looking for and look nice overall.

Pretty please?
Probably. The covers of Kingmaker are going to be some sort of blue is my understanding. I'm not sure if Sarah's planning on extending that cover to the spines, though. I'll run the idea by her anyway.

Out of curiosity, did you ever get an answer from Sarah?


Thorgrym wrote:

I am excited about this one as well, although I'm disappointed that (again) the adventure paths start at 1st level and end at something very short of 20th level.

Since this path is "Kingmaker" it would have made a lot more sense to start it at 13th level and get them to 20th level by the end of the campaign.

That way people who started campaigns in other adventure paths such as "The Council of Thieves" would be able to end that campaign and get in to something like this.

The Kingmaker series harkens back to some original D&D Companion modules for levels 14-25, which opened up the area of Norwald (Northern coasts)--a large area of mostly uncivilized land, for conquering.

Test of the Warlords was a great module for 15th level characters. It was sandbox style module where your character was granted land in Norworld.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_of_the_Warlords

Companion set's Dominion and war machine rules were easy to use and made it really cool to play a character with a dominion and an army.

Thunhus


James Jacobs wrote:
Thorgrym wrote:
I am excited about this one as well, although I'm disappointed that (again) the adventure paths start at 1st level and end at something very short of 20th level.

You can, of course, use the fast XP award track and hit 20th level quite easily; Kingmaker will likely assume the medium XP track. You'll need to adjust some of the encounters, of course, but it shouldn't be THAT tough...

Assuming that we can pull off a 1st-18th adventure path in the first place! (crosses fingers)

You can DO it!!

For those who wish for concluding at 20th, you're in the same boat I am - having to home-brew that facet.

Take heart in the authors slated for this AP though - Sir Pett is on deck for Chapter 6, so I'm hoping for cyclopean horrors to devour characters alive. ^_^

Sovereign Court

Turin the Mad wrote:
Take heart in the authors slated for this AP though - Sir Pett is on deck for Chapter 6, so I'm hoping for cyclopean horrors to devour characters alive. ^_^

I hate when roughly-worked masonry devours my group! ;-)


Callous Jack wrote:
Turin the Mad wrote:
Take heart in the authors slated for this AP though - Sir Pett is on deck for Chapter 6, so I'm hoping for cyclopean horrors to devour characters alive. ^_^
I hate when roughly-worked masonry devours my group! ;-)

Ayup ... templated advanced Colossal animated objects for the TPK! :D

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Callous Jack wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:
Callous Jack wrote:

Small design request: Can the spines for these books be some other color instead of black? When I'm looking at the PFs on my shelf, I love that RotRL and LoF stand out with their white and red spines but black is used on the rest of them. The different colors allow me to quickly spot what I'm looking for and look nice overall.

Pretty please?
Probably. The covers of Kingmaker are going to be some sort of blue is my understanding. I'm not sure if Sarah's planning on extending that cover to the spines, though. I'll run the idea by her anyway.
Out of curiosity, did you ever get an answer from Sarah?

I did.

Until the design is done, though, it's going to remain a secret.

Sovereign Court

James Jacobs wrote:

I did.

Until the design is done, though, it's going to remain a secret.

Hehe, that's just mean...

Sovereign Court

I've always tried making a colonizing type adventure.. the rules needed for the upkeep and the running of the kingdom always end up being long, complicated and tiresome...
I'm curious as to how Paizo designed this adventure... very curious...

Sovereign Court

This will be my first AP to run also. Sadly, up until the trip to GenCon 2009, I'd heard nothing of Pathfinder. But during that 10+ hour drive, I skimmed through a book that one of my compadres had, plus listened as they both described what it was. Having known nothing of it prior to that, I still woke up early Thursday morning to wait outside the vendor's hall, and (not counting the VIGs) I believe I was the second person to purchase the PFRPG Core Rulebook. I've been hooked since then, and have been attempting to put together my own game. I figured I might be better off learning the procedure from the masters after playing CotCT and seeing how well it was written. Went to the website, saw Kingmaker, and I was blown away. So, this will be my AP of choice for my players, when they finish up with CotE and learn the new system.


Thorkull wrote:
Does anyone else get a "Keep on the Borderlands" vibe off this, or is it just me? I'm more jazzed about this than any of the other APs (and, as you can see from my forum title, I've got them all).

I got that vibe too :). Its a good thing.

Silver Crusade

I may have to re-up my subscrips for this one!!

RM

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4

I'm trying to finish up an AP so I can start this one!

Liberty's Edge

When can we see the official cover?

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Mr Baron wrote:
When can we see the official cover?

Yeah, what he said.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

I've updated the image and product description to match the finished product.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

It looks very green. I thought it was going to be blue? not that I mind. And nice cover.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Dark_Mistress wrote:
It looks very green. I thought it was going to be blue? not that I mind. And nice cover.

At one point it was blue. Sarah thought that looked very ugly. So Sarah changed it to green.

Dark Archive

Vic Wertz wrote:
I've updated the image and product description to match the finished product.

Great cover. The savage looking, Erastil inspired (?) hunter is downright scary.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I just noticed, Steve Kenson is doing the Brevoy Gazeteer?

Awesome meet Sauce.

Dark Archive

James Jacobs wrote:
Dark_Mistress wrote:
It looks very green. I thought it was going to be blue? not that I mind. And nice cover.
At one point it was blue. Sarah thought that looked very ugly. So Sarah changed it to green.

And that makes me very happy! ;)


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Looks Great, I look forward to its release. One question thou, will there be any additional source to this AP in the form of a Chronicle / Companion? Like how Council of Thieves (loving that so far) had "Pathfinder Chronicles: Princes of Darkness" & "Pathfinder Companion: Cheliax, Empire of Devils"? As I understand it, the previous standard was to release "Player Guides" but the new practice is to release them in the form of expanded "Pathfinder Companions" or am I mistaken?

Dark Archive

So with the XP progression as it is, Stolen Land will take the PCs from 1st level to what...4th or 5th?

Sovereign Court

Fantastic cover! Do we get to know the color of the spine yet?

Dark Archive

Draznar wrote:
Looks Great, I look forward to its release. One question thou, will there be any additional source to this AP in the form of a Chronicle / Companion? Like how Council of Thieves (loving that so far) had "Pathfinder Chronicles: Princes of Darkness" & "Pathfinder Companion: Cheliax, Empire of Devils"? As I understand it, the previous standard was to release "Player Guides" but the new practice is to release them in the form of expanded "Pathfinder Companions" or am I mistaken?

Well, there's the Guide to the River Kingdoms coming out soon'ish (currently slated for a February release).


Looks great!!

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Draznar wrote:
Looks Great, I look forward to its release. One question thou, will there be any additional source to this AP in the form of a Chronicle / Companion? Like how Council of Thieves (loving that so far) had "Pathfinder Chronicles: Princes of Darkness" & "Pathfinder Companion: Cheliax, Empire of Devils"? As I understand it, the previous standard was to release "Player Guides" but the new practice is to release them in the form of expanded "Pathfinder Companions" or am I mistaken?

Kingmaker will have some source material in "Guide to the River Kingdoms," and there'll be a free "Player's Guide to Kingmaker" PDF once the AP launches.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

William Bryan wrote:
So with the XP progression as it is, Stolen Land will take the PCs from 1st level to what...4th or 5th?

PCs should end Stolen Land having just reached or just about to reach 4th level. The idea is for each installment to cover 3 experience levels.

Silver Crusade

lovin that cover!!

thanks!

Dark Archive

James Jacobs wrote:
William Bryan wrote:
So with the XP progression as it is, Stolen Land will take the PCs from 1st level to what...4th or 5th?
PCs should end Stolen Land having just reached or just about to reach 4th level. The idea is for each installment to cover 3 experience levels.

I LIKE!!

Scarab Sages

You guys have been reading my adventure notes again...

No, seriously. I've been running a campaign very similar to that in the Beta rules (switching to Official Release tomorrow in fact), but haven't cranked up the political stuff yet (see Naze Valley Rangers over on Obsidian Portal). Now I must buy it to see what cool stuff I can leverage into my game.

Dark Archive Vendor - Fantasiapelit Tampere

That.IS. COOL!

I cant wait to have my own copy of this!


Vic Wertz wrote:
I've updated the image and product description to match the finished product.

Is it possible that the placeholder cover is still available somewhere? I uh... liked the purple :)

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Monele wrote:
Vic Wertz wrote:
I've updated the image and product description to match the finished product.
Is it possible that the placeholder cover is still available somewhere? I uh... liked the purple :)

It's gone to placeholder cover heaven.


Very cool.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Monele wrote:
Vic Wertz wrote:
I've updated the image and product description to match the finished product.
Is it possible that the placeholder cover is still available somewhere? I uh... liked the purple :)

Check the "File history" section of the image page on PathfinderWiki. For the sake of transparency and for posterity, we try to maintain all versions of images that are included in the project. One result of this is that you can generally find placeholder images of older products, though some of the earliest ones have only final art.


yoda8myhead wrote:
Check the "File history" section of the image page on PathfinderWiki. For the sake of transparency and for posterity, we try to maintain all versions of images that are included in the project. One result of this is that you can generally find placeholder images of older products, though some of the earliest ones have only final art.

Wow, this rocks to no end! Thank you very much! I'll be sure to refer to this wiki for similar (and other!) needs.

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