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I feel it definitely has some good GM stuff in there. Though Gamemastery Guide had some good articles about Worldbuilding, although I wonder if it sold well... I myself rarely crack it open, as useful as it is.Reading through "rooms and teams" under downtime. It's basically how to build buildings and organizations. It IS reminiscent of the Stronghold Builder's Guide system, but more streamlined, I think.
The book is a LOT more player oriented than I was hoping for, which is what my earlier post alluded to, but I know for sales books kind of have to be. I still want how tos on worldbuilding I don't think we'll ever get. But the actual content of the book is interesting so far and useful to players and GMs alike. Still of course scanning for the most part. Hard for me to focus on stuff printed on a screen.
I think what I really want is like an "Advanced GMG" that goes more into depth than what the GMG brushed upon.
But don't get me wrong, there is some really, really neat and useful stuff in Ultimate Campaign, and stuff I will use as a GM. I think somehow I had just set my expectations off--probably all due to my own misconceptions--and have to adjust.
I'm about 1/3 of the way through Chapter One. Jason wasn't kidding; the life events art for the Iconics in this chapter are FABULOUS.
So far, I've seen one for what looks like Lem and one who is definitely Seelah. If you know Seelah's backstory, its somewhat tragic.
I normally can give or take art but the art for this book in general is generally amazing.
Does the cost of retraining hit points seem cheap to anyone else?
Does the cost of retraining hit points seem cheap to anyone else?
Not really, since you only increase it by one.
Ah. I dont read PDFs very well, sadly. I thought you could just keep retraining it until you reached your maximum.
So the Background system that lets you randomly generate your alignment allows one of your "major conflicts" to be that you are a mass murderer of children or young people. Way to not let cultural taboos censor your printing, Paizo!
So the old 3.5 Flaws make a comeback. Sort of. There are a list of Drawbacks that you can get; you can select 1 drawback in order to gain 3 starting traits instead of 2. Pretty nifty, and the drawbacks that are presented are varied and make a lot of sense. Haven't seen at the mechanics of them yet, however.
Still.....
....denied.....
thE PRECIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
C'MON!!!!!
So the old 3.5 Flaws make a comeback. Sort of. There are a list of Drawbacks that you can get; you can select 1 drawback in order to gain 3 starting traits instead of 2. Pretty nifty, and the drawbacks that are presented are varied and make a lot of sense. Haven't seen at the mechanics of them yet, however.
Yeah, I like how the drawbacks are more personality based and not physical (lame, blindness). Much more managable and less min-max-y
Got access to my pdf today, it seems that they have fixed all my problems with the kingdom and mass combat rules from Kingmaker.
Care to elaborate :)
The Kingdom Building rules... holy crap. It's like you're playing Civ: The RPG. They have A LOT of optional stuff like Embassies, Trade Routes, Declaring Independence, and Combining Vassals into a kingdom. The 4x gamer in me is crying tears of joy.
Eeeeh! So looking forward to this!
But now you get nothing for selling magic items? I know I'll be the minority here, but I wish they'd just followed what Jon Brazer Enterprises suggested in their book and just reduced how many BPs you got for them. That said, nothing's stopping me from doing just that in a home campaign; and for those of you who wanted the change they made, congratulations.
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So the Background system that lets you randomly generate your alignment allows one of your "major conflicts" to be that you are a mass murderer of children or young people. Way to not let cultural taboos censor your printing, Paizo!
Even the younglings!
The Kingdom Building rules... holy crap. It's like you're playing Civ: The RPG. They have A LOT of optional stuff like Embassies, Trade Routes, Declaring Independence, and Combining Vassals into a kingdom. The 4x gamer in me is crying tears of joy.
Eeeeh! So looking forward to this!
But now you get nothing for selling magic items? I know I'll be the minority here, but I wish they'd just followed what Jon Brazer Enterprises suggested in their book and just reduced how many BPs you got for them. That said, nothing's stopping me from doing just that in a home campaign; and for those of you who wanted the change they made, congratulations.
Well, you CAN buy those items and then cash them in for BP, but the return won't be nearly as economically breaking as before. Admittedly, you are better off just putting money in.
One thing I like about the Kingdom Building rules is that they give you ideas on how to start a kingdom. Whether it's charters, vassals, fiefdoms... it's all there! My only wish in this book was that there was a rule for making navies. I'm sure I could crib the army rules for myself.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
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The Kingdom Building rules... holy crap. It's like you're playing Civ: The RPG. They have A LOT of optional stuff like Embassies, Trade Routes, Declaring Independence, and Combining Vassals into a kingdom. The 4x gamer in me is crying tears of joy.
Eeeeh! So looking forward to this!
But now you get nothing for selling magic items? I know I'll be the minority here, but I wish they'd just followed what Jon Brazer Enterprises suggested in their book and just reduced how many BPs you got for them. That said, nothing's stopping me from doing just that in a home campaign; and for those of you who wanted the change they made, congratulations.
The basic principle at work is that the magic item economy isn't about crafters working for you and selling stuff to profit the kingdom. It's about crafters working for themselves. They sell the items and they keep the money, which they then invest in crafting more things. The items are there for anyone to buy if they want them, but they are now a feature of the cities where they exist rather than an engine to profit the kingdom.
In my experience running Kingmaker for 3 years, even having reduced the amount of BP significantly that PCs earned from magic item buildings, those magic item buildings still dwarfed the rest of the economy.
Take just one Waterfront, for example (2 minor, 1 medium, 1 major item, and a +4 Economy bonus, though it hardly mattered). In the original rules, one major item was worth 15 BP. Given that you could rapidly get to the point where actual Economy checks were a formality, just trying to avoid a natural 1, numerical bonuses to Economy checks essentially just meant 1/5 of a BP per +1. At that rate, selling a single major magic item was effectively a +75 bonus to Economy. The BP revenue from selling just two major items added up to more than the entire rest of the kingdom's non-magic-item economy combined. And then we kept rolling for the rest of the items.
Even reducing the BP to a third the original level (or to make it round BP numbers, say 1 BP for minor, 3 BP for medium, 5 BP for major), each major item is effectively a +25 bonus to Economy. It reduces the payoff vs. the original rules, true, but it just curbs the problem, not fixes it. It's still vastly to your advantage to farm item-producing buildings to build your treasury. Even with minor items and buildings, and even with a reduced payoff for selling items, why build a Shop for 8 BP (+1 Economy) when you can build a Shrine for 8 BP (+1 Loyalty, -1 Unrest, and a minor item, which if it can be sold for 1 BP is pretty close in value to a +5 bonus to Economy)?
Decoupling the magic item economy from the rest of your economy allows it to operate more organically. Magic items are no longer drivers of your economy. Instead, they become background flavor and potential resources to access. Want to know what items are available in a city? Here you go! Want to have magic shops? Go for it! Have casters in your kingdom making and selling their magic items. Just know that it's not going to make you an overnight economic superpower.
Most item-producing buildings do provide some bonus to Economy, so it's not like these buildings have no effect on your kingdom's ability to grow its treasury. It's just that they now don't have a crazily disproportionate effect on your economy. Now you build a Caster's Tower or a Temple because you WANT to build a Caster's Tower or a Temple, not because it's the only sane rational choice if you want to maximize the BP your kingdom generates.
As an aside, I always wondered who was buying all this stuff. I mean, what is the implied economy where wandering adventurers are just cruising through your towns EVERY MONTH scooping up medium and major magic items that, for most of their careers, your player characters themselves couldn't afford to buy, and they're supposed to be the rulers of the kingdom! Why don't these nameless, faceless NPCs just kick the PCs out of the palace and take over, if they have that much money to toss around every month? :)
We lowered our bp's from selling to 1/2/3, but we also raised our economy profit to economy check divided by two. Honestly I don't understand how you finish the campaign with some sort of boost to economy. It certainly would make you kingdom seem squalid and useless.
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I'm a subscriber, and I'm still waiting. Which is OK. I'm typing this between grading papers. I just finished jury duty and I'm trying to force my seniors to graduate. Some of them are resisting. So, next week would be good for me :)
Does sound nice though. And I would probably be playing hooky and reading it... so definitely next week. Or later in the week... I'm weakening...
It was a big loophole in Kingmaker, where savvy players exploited that the best way to make endless BP was to build lots of magic item generating buildings, which spiraled the economy completely out of control and made most of the checks and balances of the system obsolete. Paizo got a lot of feedback about that, so I'd probably think that they worked out those kinks. I just wanted to ask if you could confirm, but no problem if you never heard of the issue before. I'll just wait for someone who played Kingmaker and noticed those problems. :)In the revised kingdom-building rules, selling magic items that your buildings produce gives the kingdom no BP.
None.
All selling a magic item does is clear the item slot for you to generate a new/different item that someone could buy. You can buy an item with your own cash and donate it to the kingdom for BP, which is no different from donating any other valuable property to the kingdom for BP.
Excellent! Thanks, Jason! :)
As an aside, I always wondered who was buying all this stuff. I mean, what is the implied economy where wandering adventurers are just cruising through your towns EVERY MONTH scooping up medium and major magic items that, for most of their careers, your player characters themselves couldn't afford to buy, and they're supposed to be the rulers of the kingdom! Why don't these nameless, faceless NPCs just kick the PCs out of the palace and take over, if they have that much money to toss around every month? :)
Yeah, that was one of the things which broke my immersion like a dry twig. Thank you for taking care of that. :)
I just have a copy reserved at my local game-store but... ARGH how I wish I had the PDF right now to maybe see what could already be useful for tomorrow's session.
I hope I get it before next week's session.
Anybody going to do an indepth review soon?
Aside from all the bits covered in the above list of features, are there any chapters beyond 4? what sort of stuff is in those? don't need any specifics but the official blurb states: "AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!"
What is included in that?
Any features we haven't really heard about yet?
Been digging through my PDF copy of the book and it's not bad, gonna be a hit or miss sort of book though. For some gamers this is going to be a fantastic book for others it's going to be pretty meh. Me I'm loving what I'm seeing but there are a couple of guys in my group that I know are going to see it as a waste of their money.
Couple of areas seem pretty lack luster though. The Magic item creation section for example seems to be mostly about "these are the reasons your DM is going to tell you NO"
though I do like the list of reagents.
Aside from all the bits covered in the above list of features, are there any chapters beyond 4? what sort of stuff is in those? don't need any specifics but the official blurb states: "AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!"
What is included in that?Any features we haven't really heard about yet?
There are a LOT of little changes to the Kingdom Building rules. For example:
There are three new Leadership Roles, plus the Royal Assassin was renamed the "Royal Enforcer" so its less ... questionable for Good kingdoms. The new roles are all variant Rulers.
Consort is a Ruler's spouse if said spouse does not have the same noble rank as the Ruler. For example, if a merchant becomes ruler and marries just about anyone else, you have two Rulers. However, if a Prince marries a merchant, the merchant spouse is considered a consort because she does not match the ruler's noble rank.
Heir is exactly what it sounds like; it is the Ruler's eldest son / daughter. Both the Consort and Heir can rule a kingdom in its Ruler's absence, but they have to make Loyalty checks to prevent unrest from accumulating and they only add half of their Charisma to the kingdom's statistics.
Viceroy is part of the new Optional Vassal rules; basically, you can pronounce an edict to split a territory you control into its own subkingdom. I haven't read much about it, but it looks like the new kingdom still pays texts to you and whatnot, but it has its own government, with the Viceroy occupying any one Leadership Role of his choosing. The Viceroy is basically the founding Kingdom's voice in the vassal / colony / whatever, and he breaks the normal rules that says you cannot have one person in two Leadership roles.
Rulers got retooled slightly. Now they add their Charisma to one kingdom statistic of their choice, then to two when the kingdom's size reaches 26, and finally all three when the kingdom's size reaches 101 or more. There is also a clause that says a Ruler with the Leadership feat adds "the bonuses from this feat" to all statistics he/she modifies, but after overlooking the Leadership feat, I'm not 100% sure what that entry is referring to.
There are a TON of new buildings and the book gives a ton of units for army building.
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C'MON!!!!
patient young grasshopper
Wait until sundown and it may be there
Okay, now tell us when the shipping crew STARTS working! ^.^
They started at the time of the rising sun.
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Got access to my pdf today, it seems that they have fixed all my problems with the kingdom and mass combat rules from Kingmaker.Care to elaborate :)
Well Jason Nelson explained what why the changed the magic item economy, I don't really have anything to add here. What the book adds is some new buildings, and they even added additional pictures for them (to represent them on the city grid). I have to read the whole rules again, but since they fixed the most annoying part....
The changed the mass combat rules a bit, added battlefield conditions (like fog, darkness or a sandstorm) and boons (special abilities based on the commander of your army). Army resources (healing potions, magic weapons...) no scale based on the size of your army, so equipping your 1 golem army with a magic weapon is cheaper, than equipping 2000 human soldiers.
Armies can now have a lot more special abilities, a monk army could have a Ki Pool and a paladin army could use smite evil.
That and there is a thirst of many, but only one well
That and there is a thirst of many, but only one well
The willow bends to reach the stream. And yet, do crabs?
That makes entirely too much sense. Thank you for taking the time to explain the rationale, Jason! This is the kind of insight that I love to come across in rule design.
What he said. Thanks for taking the time for such a detailed answer.
Though I always thought that the magic items were being sold off to merchants who were taking them elsewhere (outside your kingdom) for well-heeled patrons elsewhere who wanted them.
There are a LOT of little changes to the Kingdom Building rules. For example:
There are three new Leadership Roles, plus the Royal Assassin was renamed the "Royal Enforcer" so its less ... questionable for Good kingdoms. The new roles are all variant Rulers.
Consort is a Ruler's spouse if said spouse does not have the same noble rank as the Ruler. For example, if a merchant becomes ruler and marries just about anyone else, you have two Rulers. However, if a Prince marries a merchant, the merchant spouse is considered a consort because she does not match the ruler's noble rank.
Heir is exactly what it sounds like; it is the Ruler's eldest son / daughter. Both the Consort and Heir can rule a kingdom in its Ruler's absence, but they have to make Loyalty checks to prevent unrest from accumulating and they only add half of their Charisma to the kingdom's statistics.
Viceroy is part of the new Optional Vassal rules; basically, you can pronounce an edict to split a territory you control into its own subkingdom. I haven't read much about it, but it looks like the new kingdom still pays texts to you and whatnot, but it has its own government, with the Viceroy occupying any one Leadership Role of his choosing. The Viceroy is basically the founding Kingdom's voice in the vassal / colony / whatever, and he breaks the normal rules that says you cannot have one person in two Leadership roles.
Rulers got retooled slightly. Now they add their Charisma to one kingdom statistic of their choice, then to two when the kingdom's size reaches 26, and finally all three when the kingdom's size reaches 101 or more. There is also a clause that says a Ruler with the Leadership feat adds "the bonuses from this...
Thanks for the wonderful reply, eventhough it didn't really answer my question.
I'm looking forward to having this level of detail available for my players to also interact with kingdoms even if they are most likely not going to be ruling their own (any time soon atleast).
There are a LOT of little changes to the Kingdom Building rules. For example:
There are three new Leadership Roles, plus the Royal Assassin was renamed the "Royal Enforcer" so its less ... questionable for Good kingdoms. The new roles are all variant Rulers.
I always saw that one as "Royal Champion", as in the guy who dealt with anyone who thought they could stick their +1 sword of usurpation into the ruler. Given what the culture(s) of Brevoy, the River Kingdoms, and the Aldori Swordlords are like, it seemed to fit better.
Consort is a Ruler's spouse if said spouse does not have the same noble rank as the Ruler. For example, if a merchant becomes ruler and marries just about anyone else, you have two Rulers. However, if a Prince marries a merchant, the merchant spouse is considered a consort because she does not match the ruler's noble rank.
Heir is exactly what it sounds like; it is the Ruler's eldest son / daughter. Both the Consort and Heir can rule a kingdom in its Ruler's absence, but they have to make Loyalty checks to prevent unrest from accumulating and they only add half of their Charisma to the kingdom's statistics.
Having just read a history book that detailed why the Ottoman Turks stopped allowing the sultan to have an official wife and heir (to cut down on the palace backstabbing), these new roles intrigue me no end with the potential for mischief they offer. Just imagine your ruler announcing that he (or she) is looking for a consort, and the long, long line of wanna-be royals showing up at the front gate.
Viceroy is part of the new Optional Vassal rules; basically, you can pronounce an edict to split a territory you control into its own subkingdom. I haven't read much about it, but it looks like the new kingdom still pays texts to you and whatnot, but it has its own government, with the Viceroy occupying any one Leadership Role of his choosing. The Viceroy is basically the founding Kingdom's voice in the vassal / colony / whatever, and he breaks the normal rules that says you cannot have one person in two Leadership roles.
Rulers got retooled slightly. Now they add their Charisma to one kingdom statistic of their choice, then to two when the kingdom's size reaches 26, and finally all three when the kingdom's size reaches 101 or more.
The sound of all this is starting to make me drool. This book cannot hit the stores fast enough.
Got access to my pdf today, it seems that they have fixed all my problems with the kingdom and mass combat rules from Kingmaker.Care to elaborate :)Well Jason Nelson explained what why the changed the magic item economy, I don't really have anything to add here. What the book adds is some new buildings, and they even added additional pictures for them (to represent them on the city grid). I have to read the whole rules again, but since they fixed the most annoying part....
The changed the mass combat rules a bit, added battlefield conditions (like fog, darkness or a sandstorm) and boons (special abilities based on the commander of your army). Army resources (healing potions, magic weapons...) no scale based on the size of your army, so equipping your 1 golem army with a magic weapon is cheaper, than equipping 2000 human soldiers.
Armies can now have a lot more special abilities, a monk army could have a Ki Pool and a paladin army could use smite evil.
Everything I'm reading has me sold on this book!
Thanks for the quick response :)
Heir is exactly what it sounds like; it is the Ruler's eldest son / daughter. Both the Consort and Heir can rule a kingdom in its Ruler's absence, but they have to make Loyalty checks to prevent unrest from accumulating and they only add half of their Charisma to the kingdom's statistics.
Viceroy is part of the new Optional Vassal rules; basically, you can pronounce an edict to split a territory you control into its own subkingdom. I haven't read much about it, but it looks like the new kingdom still pays texts to you and whatnot, but it has its own government, with the Viceroy occupying any one Leadership Role of his choosing. The Viceroy is basically the founding Kingdom's voice in the vassal / colony / whatever, and he breaks the normal rules that says you cannot have one person in two Leadership roles.
Great. I've been thinking about how to adept the system to my settings tribal societies, where the kings are mostly powerful warlords who have several smaller clans as more or less loyal allies. The Viceroy seems to be just the role for these minor chiefs and the heir rounds out this tribal "court" very well.
I always saw that one as "Royal Champion", as in the guy who dealt with anyone who thought they could stick their +1 sword of usurpation into the ruler. Given what the culture(s) of Brevoy, the River Kingdoms, and the Aldori Swordlords are like, it seemed to fit better.
Using the Royal Enforcer as the Champion is a great idea. I think I'll probably use this as well.
Couple of areas seem pretty lack luster though. The Magic item creation section for example seems to be mostly about "these are the reasons your DM is going to tell you NO"
Oh please don’t say that, one if the biggest things I’ve been looking forward to is a more descriptive and clarified section on magic item creation.
I hope there is a more detailed list on what you can take a +5 DC on and more detailed explanation on how cooperative crafting works.
Instead of just “yes, you can work with another person to craft a magic item.”
I don't think so, as those rules appeared in Ultimate Combat.
No caravan rules.
Couple of areas seem pretty lack luster though. The Magic item creation section for example seems to be mostly about "these are the reasons your DM is going to tell you NO"
Oh please don’t say that, one if the biggest things I’ve been looking forward to is a more descriptive and clarified section on magic item creation.
I hope there is a more detailed list on what you can take a +5 DC on and more detailed explanation on how cooperative crafting works.
Instead of just “yes, you can work with another person to craft a magic item.”
Exactly the same thing I was hoping for.
We didn't get that.
Mostly it's advice about dealing with players having the ability to make their own stuff; dealing with Game breaking item ideas (EX: Heavy Mace with continual True Strike for 2000gp), little more on adding to an item or changing an item's type. How item creation changes character's "Wealth by level"
The only part in that section that really enriches item creation is the bit on Components for Item creation and that's really more a "fill-in-the-blank" storytelling adjustment to change item costs you 750gp to make into item requires 500 gp of Dragon's heartblood and 250gp of Mithral Crystals.