Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Campaign (OGL)

Two things.

1: "Dance Hall" will always (ALWAYS) have 'air quotes' around it.
2: Plenty of awesomeness otherwise, with enough room for a 3PP to do things on top.

All in all, pretty damned spiffy...but damnit, it's still a brothel to me!

Its still a brothel in the rules too. All of the buildings that discount the 'Dance Hall' state that they discount the 'Brothel' instead. Honestly, it looks like it was a last-minute editorial change more than anything.

Stronghold (Story) Feat

There is no cooldown on this ability and it can stack with itself in a couple of ways. You can keep dishing out the AC dodge bonus to infinity and it'll stack. And each time you do that you can also apply one of the other four options (attack bonus, fort save, ref save, and will save) due to the double effect bonus for completing the quest.

I now know that I will be building a Pally ~ Noble Scion who buffs his troops into, "You can't hit me, neener neener, dracolich god thing."

Until the Dracolich unleashed its breath attack on your unsuspecting army and they all died instantly.

And then, the Drcolich raises them all into an Army of Skeletons to fight against your Paladin.

And begins buffing them with the Stronghold feat.

>: )

Hey question, has anyone posted or changed the random exploration hex table to include desert?

The Waterfront adds (among other things) a slot for 1 major wondrous item.

Since the value of items in a settlement cannot exceed 16,000 gp, per

This item’s price cannot exceed the base value for the settlement (reroll if the item’s price exceeds the settlement’s base value).

and:

A settlement’s base value can never increase above the values listed in Table 4–5: Settlement Size and Base Value.

More than 25,000 Metropolis 16,000 gp

What exactly can go in that major wondrous item slot? I can't find a major wondrous item that costs less than 16,000 gp.

The baseline value is only to show items that are 'readily available', ie have a high chance of being for sale. An item above 16k could still be available for purchase.

Base Value and Purchase Limit: This section lists the community’s base value for available magic items in gp (see pages 460– 461 of the Core Rulebook). There is a 75% chance that any item of this value or lower can be found for sale in the community with little effort.

Minor Items/Medium Items/Major Items: This line lists the number of magic items above a settlement’s base value that are available for purchase.

If the Trust score is equal to or higher than the Risk score, you must attempt to negotiate by making an opposed Diplomacy check against the contact to determine whether he’ll perform the task. The contact

adds the task’s Risk score to his Diplomacy check. If your check succeeds, the contact is willing and able to attempt to help you (though he may have a price for his services). Failure doesn’t necessarily mean the contact doesn’t want to help; the contact might be unavailable or unable to help at that time.
Once a contact agrees to help, the GM must determine the extent of his success. The GM attempts a skill check on behalf of the contact using the contact’s most appropriate skill for the task (or an ability check if no skill is appropriate). The DC for this check is determined using the following formula:
DC = 10 + the CR of the task + the task’s Risk score + any other GM modifiers
“Any other GM modifiers” includes any modifiers the GM feels are appropriate for the situation, such as a high level of scrutiny at a noble’s party or a temporary shortage of certain black-market goods.

The contact rules are pretty great, but my question is where does the trust benefit the negotiation check? Once you pass the gate that trust>=risk, then the risk is the only thing that affects the DC besides the task challenge and other GM modifiers. Seems to me that the DC should be reduced by the trust score or the player should add the trust score to his d20 roll.

Hi, I'm running Kingmaker using the rules in UC and realize that among the buildings listed, there is no Pathfinder Lodge (as seen on the Pathfinder Lodge map pack.)

What settlement bonuses should a Pathfinder Lodge give?

I know Pathfinder lodges comes in all shape and sizes and I could just pick any other building and call it a Pathfinder Lodge, but I'm hoping for something more unique.

Whatever other bonuses a Pathfinder Lodge gives, it should provide something for both Lore (from researching hidden secrets) and Danger (from when your research gets loose and attacks the public).

So, there seems to be no response to the fact that Deserts are listed in the details of the tile Generation section, but not actually on the Generation rolling list.

I figured this would be a good place to ask this rather specific question.

Concerning the Diplomatic Edicts and Diplomatic Relationship Modifiers:

I understand that the modifiers are cumulative per additional 3rd party involved, thus if you have three treaties with three different kingdoms and all of those three kingdoms have treaties with a targeted fourth kingdom, that would be a -2 x3 situation, thus a -6 to the Diplomacy check to establish or improve a Diplomatic Edict with that fourth kingdom (i.e. the more friends the better)

I also get how trying to establish a Diplomacy Edict with a new target kingdom that is an enemy of another kingdom you already have a Diplomatic Edict with makes it more difficult (i.e. choose your friends wisely).

My question is what, if any modifiers, are appropriate for trying to establish a Diplomatic Edict with an ally of your enemy?

Let me present this another way...

Newtopia is the new kingdom on the block. They have no Diplomatic Edicts. Right off the bat, they make enemies with Distrustia (Distrustians don't like Newtopians because of unimportant Reason X). Distrustia already has a treaty with Apathetica, which is much larger than Distrustia, but Apatheticans doesn't care what Distrustians do because their apathetic.

Newtopia approaches Apathetica in the hopes that by establishing an Diplomatic Edict with them, Apathetica might provide some help. Apathetica is not an enemy of either Newtopia or Distrustia, but would like to keep their treaty with Distrustia if they can. If not, no big deal.

What penalty, if any, would Newtopia suffer on the Diplomacy check to establish an embassy with Apathetica, knowing that Apathetica and Distrustia have a trade agreement? If successful, what, if any, problems would arise for Apathetica (loss of a Diplomatic Edict step or possibility thereof)?

Or another way of saying it, fill in this table:

You are enemies with a 3rd party that the target kingdom has an embassy with: +?
You are enemies with a 3rd party that the target kingdom has a treaty with: +?
You are enemies with an ally of the target kingdom: +?

Would these all by the same (+2 / +5 / +10) as what is already listed for you have a XXX with the target kingdom's enemy? Or something else entirely?

- Daniel 'Tzizimine' Clarke

Quick question, do you have to pay for capital you earn during downtime events?

You do have to pay, but it's the reduced 'Earn' cost (about 1/2 the flat purchase price)

See, I would say "no". (Note: the question was explicitly about capital gained as a result of a downtime event, not normal earning.)

Ah.... good catch. Then I would say no as well.

Hi all,

I am thinking about introducing both the kingom buildings rules and the downtime rules in my current campaign. I wanted to let my players start building a settlement using the downtime rules since they dont have a wealthy sponsor and therefore no 50 BP to start with the kingdom building rules.
But after reading both rule systems i am confused by the huge difference in building cost in both systems.
Under the downtime rules an academy can be build with a mere 5360 gold while under kingdom rules it would need 52 BP which equals about 104/208k gold.

While cheaper buildings make it much easier to start from nothing the difference is so huge that it would make the transition between both systems difficult. Why would one want to crown himselft if he knew it would increase the cost of everything he would want to do by 3880% ;) ?

You shouldnt mix BP with gp, i believe the book mentions that they are different currencies like four or five times, and if it happened that you needed to convert them, then it gives the average values based on settlement size. Even so, a BP varies between 1.000 and 4.000.

That 52 BP cost is also cut in half if you happen to have a magic shop, library or caster tower. The downtime academy doesnt produce magic items monthly either, they are two different types of academy.

Keep in mind that if you are make an academy using downtime, it assumes you are ruling it to obtain profit, but if you make an academy using kingdom, then it provides a bonus to your entire kingdom.
In general, anything crafted using downtime rules will be a lot cheaper.

Okay true with the discount from other buildings the price difference is halved.
BP are not gold but you can buy one BP for 4k gold. This is relevant in my case since my players might not have may starting BP so they might have to use this conversion formula.
True that a player rund academy does not automatically produce items which you decreases its worth.
But what I would need is some sort of conversion rules between the two rule stages. My idea was that my players build up a city until it can sustain itself and then start leading it from a higher vantage point using the kingdom rules.
But then their city might already have an academy and I am woundering how to handle those buildings. I could ask for some extra payment to make the academy able to operate independantly. Or I could increase the general building prices under downtime rules but that might make it again difficult to start from zero.

The downtime and kingdom rules don't mesh well together. They were written by different designers and it's pretty much a coincidence that so many of the buildings appear in both systems.

As someone who's tried it, do NOT allow PCs to build using the downtime rules and add the building to the kingdom rules. The kingdom will quickly become too good. I would recommend some form of BP discount on downtime buildings being converted to kingdom buildings, maybe 25%. Once the building is in the kingdom rules it no longer provides downtime benefits.

The downtime and kingdom rules don't mesh well together. They were written by different designers and it's pretty much a coincidence that so many of the buildings appear in both systems.

It's not a coincidence at all. We deliberately wanted people to be able to use the downtime system to emulate the same sorts of buildings you could construct with the kingdom rules. It's really just a matter of scale:

personal: I want to create a magic item
local: I want to create and sell magic items in town
national: I want to provide magic items for my citizens

Because they work at different scales, they're not supposed to mesh well together--in the same way that you can present a powerful monster as an "army" in the Mass Combat rules, it's not the same as having a PC-scale battle between 100 soldiers and 1 powerful monster.
Likewise, you can have an individual PC craft and sell magic items, and can have an individual PC create a business that crafts and sells magic items, but it doesn't work the same way. (We've had players on the boards think that having a magic shop means their character can craft +1 swords and sell them for full price... but that's not how it works... if you have a magic shop with the downtime rules, you earn resources according to the downtime rules, not the PC rules.)
And likewise, you can have an individual PC create a magic shop with the downtime rules, and you can have a ruler build a Magic Shop with the kingdom rules, but the downtime and kingdom rules for those buildings don't work the same way.

Again, it's a matter of scale. If you're planning a kingdom-building campaign, but the PCs get more interested in city-building and local events than country-building and national events, the downtime rules let you create and manage similar structures as you would with the kingdom-building rules. Or, if you're planning a city-based campaign, and the players decide to take it up a notch and become rulers, the similarities between the systems are there so the PCs can convert their home town into kingdom-rules settlement without confusion over "what happened to all the businesses we started?"

Ah, thank you, Sean. I was reading a bit too much into a comment by Jason Nelson about the design of the kingdom rules and the downtime rules not being connected, hence the vast discrepancy in (apparent) costs between the two systems.

I absolutely agree with your points about scale.

I concur, these notes about the differences in scale will be very useful when I get a group again and we get to engaging in this type of activity.

Chemlak-
I also plan to use the crap out of your kingdom sheets. You, Sir, are a scholar and a gentleman. It is a great public service you are providing there and I am not able to thank you enough. Please, with all sincerity, keep up that awesome work, it is most appreciated.

blushes

Thanks! I'm still working on it, though haven't done any updates for a while, since I've been having an interesting summer with lots of family outings and not a lot of time to sit down and think my way through new features. Glad you find the sheet helpful!

Question regarding Ultimate Campaign "Bargaining" system
Someone brought up an interesting point that would render this entire system completely useless. And, so, I believe a poor choice of wording was done with the writing of this system.

It's really 3 questions so here they are:

1) Was bargaining meant only for non-magic items or any item?

2) According to the ruling, a buyer can make an Appraise OR Sense Motive check. The system favors one who makes a successful Appraise check on the item, which is not difficult to pass at all (considering if you're selling a high price item, you are definitely dealing with an NPC who can beat DC 25+ easily).

I say it favors the one choosing Appraise instead of Sense Motive because Appraise alerts the buyer to the actual price of the item. According to the rules after that, the Initial Offer is 2 x Undercut Percentage taken off the successfully Appraised price and the Final Offer is the Undercut Percentage taken off the successfully Appraised price. (and Undercutting is always a minimum of 2%)

3) Which price is the value the buyer is looking for when appraising? Example, I have a PC who located a trade agent in town and is trying to sell a Ring of Evasion (25,000gp). Normal rules, he can sell it for 12,500gp. But he wants to bargain a price for it so when the Bargaining rules say an Appraise check determines the item's value, which value are they talking about? The 25,000gp or the 12,500gp? (He's trying to sell it for 18,000gp, so would that be under-value because of the item's true worth or would that be overcharging because of the items value at 1/2 price?)

I take it bargaining is a useless system in the book then?

Seems to be that it should be for trade goods, gems, and art objects. If you want to include normal sellable items, use the 50% figure as the value to base the bargaining transaction from.

There is no question 2, but that should answer 1 & 3.

From the intro to that section of the book:

Bargaining Rules
In general, a character can sell an item for half its listed price. This keeps players from getting bogged down in bargaining with NPCs over 10 gp on a 10,000 gp item, and maintains game balance by not allowing players to use bargaining to exceed the Wealth by Level guidelines by buying low and selling high. The "sell for half" rule allows a fair price for standard items in normal circumstances.

For rare or unique items, or in certain cases, the GM might allow or encourage bargaining. Keep in mind that bargaining usually involves one PC talking with an NPC while the other players wait, and watching someone else bargain is rarely interesting. Bargaining should be infrequent, and should happen only when it's important to the story.

I just wish there were a way to explain the realism behind PCs selling at 50% value, but yet if they craft something they are still stuck selling at 50% value. I've had PCs make, say, a +2 weapon and wanting to sell it at 8k (the market price) after spending only 4k making it, and thus make a profit, but the game completely discourages, or does not allow, this entirely.

That's a game balance issue. But if you want your crafters to double their WBL, have at thee.

Yeah, that's basically an infinite cash exploit. If you can do it once, what's to stop you from doing it ten times, or a hundred times? Unless there's a ticking clock on the campaign, but if that's the only thing limiting you from having infinite cash, then that puts ticking clock campaigns on uneven footage with lots of leisure time campaigns. And it would discourage GMs from running campaigns with any downtime, which would kind of kill Ultimate Campaign's downtime rules.

What is the page count of Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Campaign

The last page with a number is 253. There's a few adverts as well.

Should a settlement's economy modifier from the Gamemastery Guide be applied to the PC's skilled work rolls to generate income using the downtime rules in Ultimate Campaign, assuming that the roll made is craft, perform or profession? Thanks!

The rules don't say, as far as I know, but I'd allow it.

but the game completely discourages, or does not allow, this entirely.

Or, you know, you could actually use the rules...

Some examples where the PCs might actually want to use some of their skills:-
Diplomacy/Intimidate (or maybe even bluff) - +5% sale price for every, what? 4 ranks?
(Of course, intimidate or bluff may get them into trouble...)
Profession (Merchant) - oh no, but my PCs don't want to have to spend ranks on
actually fleshing their characters out...no skills, no benefits - sorry...

There will be other skills that apply, or even spells...charm person anyone?

So - it can be done, just have to think 'box'...outside

As for the whole 50% thing - yup, game balance, but that can be explained if you
really put your mind to it...
I mean, honestly, a bunch of dudes turn up at a pub trying to sell legit gear,
that looks a bit second hand...? Honestly - who would believe them. How did they
get the gear, are the cops gonna shake me down if I buy it, isn't that my uncle
Harold's sword...?

PCs are not merchants. They don't (generally) have a shop or other retail
premises set up. So - they either have to sell it to a merchant who also wants
to make a buck (have you ever sold something in the real world to a shop? They
usually pay 50% or LESS).
Or, you have to sell it on the down-low to some adventurers in a bar somewhere,
& for sure - they're not going to pay full price for used merchandise, that they have
no idea of the provenance of...

As for PCs making stuff & selling it...that's a hard one.

Even if you craft a +2 sword in 4 days, it doesnt mean you can sell it instantly. Have you ever wondered why the magical item market is full of +X weapons? Because a lot of them take a while to sell.

Cheaper items sell much easier, but the profit margin is also lower (potions, lv1 scrolls, lv1 wands, etc).

Which is merrily abstracted through the downtime rules, so that rather than you getting 2,000 GP after 100 days trying to sell that blasted +1 club, you earn 20gp per day (or whatever).

The 50% rule serves two purposes, which are game balance, and representing a quick sale. If you're willing to put in the time to schmooze contacts, advertise, and basically run a business, then use the downtime rules to represent the fact that you're running a sales business, and forget the exact details of stock management (yay, abstractions!).

I'm sure someone could come up with rules for combining the use of magic capital to aid crafting specific items, and the sale of those specific items from your stock, but at that point you're stretching the rules into Shopkeepers and Stocklists. I'd rather just abstract it.

Even if you craft a +2 sword in 4 days, it doesnt mean you can sell it instantly. Have you ever wondered why the magical item market is full of +X weapons? Because a lot of them take a while to sell.

Cheaper items sell much easier, but the profit margin is also lower (potions, lv1 scrolls, lv1 wands, etc).

They're also fairly common because you can crank out any +1 item in a day (assuming you can take the -5 on the check) a +2 armor in a day with a cooperative crafter (valet familiar anyone?) or a +2 weapon in 2 days.

I tend to assume as long as its a common weapon (longsword, battleaxe, etc) some merchant WILL buy it immediately, but would be hard pressed to go above 1/2 price.

They're also fairly common because you can crank out any +1 item in a day (assuming you can take the -5 on the check) a +2 armor in a day with a cooperative crafter (valet familiar anyone?) or a +2 weapon in 2 days.

"Easy" and "common" are different things.

How many times, when playing the game, have the players bought a +1 weapon instead of a wand of cure light wounds or potions?
For their price alone, potions are much more common than +1 swords.
They cost only 25 gp to craft, you can make them even if you still worked all day on something else (profession skill) because you only need 2 hours for potions, and they are much easier to sell due to their low price, even an innkeeper can earn enough money in a month to keep a single potion of healing available.

The same innkeeper would need to work for almost three years to buy your 2,000 gp +1 sword.

The 50% price rule is basically there to balance the game, as others said, but it also means that you can quickly sell anything in a few hours if you undercut the market value of the item by a big margin, a merchant will quickly see that as a business opportunity (hey look, 100% profit!) and buy the item from you.

I always picture mages working on commission-no need to keep a huge inventory if adventurers will show up with a masterwork weapon and say 'magic it sharper, please.'
And you can make any level 1 wand in a day, too. I picture a level five wizard setting up shop and making utility items as needed-drop off an order in the morning, pick up in evening. Extra charge if it HAS to be done today.
Of course, this assumes a settlement can support a 5th level caster.

Another way of looking at it:

Say a Player Character has set up shop, around selling a single +1 sword. The shop can effectively make X-profit. You may sell the sword for full price, but it may take months and months for a buyer with the cash to finally appear. At the end of the X number of months you finally get your 2,000+ gp. Having a shop doesn't equate finding a buyer who both needs and can afford thousands of GP an item on a daily basis.

In my campaign, I am using Ultimate Campaign rules to allow PCs to build houses, but not businesses or organizations. To generate capital, they're making skilled work checks. Their houses aren't businesses so don't generate capital. Mainly, they'll be building rooms that give them bonuses to saves and checks like lavatories and baths.

However, one PC wants to be a gardener. I know this isn't RAW, but if the gardener built a garden at his house, would it be overpowered to allow him to add the garden's +8 goods bonus to his skilled work checks to generate goods?

Not really overpowered at all. By RAW, the garden will generate 1 good per day (take 10 +8 = 18, which generates 1 good). The player still needs to pay for that capital. Allowing him to earn 1-2 more goods per day isn't going to break the bank for you or him.

Plus he can add Furnishings (+5 to any checks to generate capital)- this would include things like a sturdy wheelbarrow, strong, sharp garden tools, well-built planter boxes, and the like.
If you let him hire a gardener (laborer, +2 labor or GP) you could apply it to gold earnings, but not to goods

The class background tables (1-32 to 1-49) have helped a number of players I've worked with flesh out background when they weren't certain of the direction they should go with. With all of the new classes that have come out since Ultimate Campaign was released, is there any chance we might see similar tables for those classes not represented here?

Any word when the re-print of this will become available, if at all?

I'm not a fan of PDF's for everything, and I like a hardcover for reference.

Wow, I didn't even notice it was out. I definitely hope we're getting a second printing that fixes some of the erroneous stuff.

Plus he can add Furnishings (+5 to any checks to generate capital)- this would include things like a sturdy wheelbarrow, strong, sharp garden tools, well-built planter boxes, and the like.

If you let him hire a gardener (laborer, +2 labor or GP) you could apply it to gold earnings, but not to goods

Please pardon my asking, but where do you get 'Furnishings' from? I assume it's somewhere in the Rooms and Teams section of Chapter 2: Downtime? I just checked and I didn't see it.

It's an augmentation: check the end of the rooms listings.

And now that I have another chance to post... Ooh, a possible 2nd printing due? Errata to this would be very welcome!

It's an augmentation: check the end of the rooms listings.

Thank you, Chemlak.