Pathfinder’s most-popular campaign ever returns in this massive new hardcover compilation updated to the latest Pathfinder rules! In this new, revised version of the classic Kingmaker Adventure Path campaign, the Stolen Lands have long been the domain of bandits and monsters, but no longer! Your party has been granted a charter to explore these wilds, defeat its dangers, and build a brand new nation. Yet not everyone will welcome you as new neighbors, and powerful supernatural forces have their own plans for the region. Can you defeat your kingdom’s enemies and become leaders of one of the greatest new nations in the world?
This hardcover edition of the Kingmaker Adventure Path contains:
All six chapters of the original Kingmaker Adventure Path, expanded and updated for use with Pathfinder Second Edition.
Hundreds of pages of new content that expands the campaign to cover the full range of levels from 1 to 20.
Works with tie-in Bestiaries (sold separately) to allow easy conversion to Pathfinder First Edition or the Fifth Edition rules of the world’s oldest roleplaying game!
Extensive rules for building and running kingdoms, settlements, and armies, along with narrative-based rules for resolving mass combat encounters.
Eleven new alchemical items and spells to discover.
Sixteen new monsters, ranging from mundane but dangerous wild animals to potent supernatural threats that will challenge even the most powerful of heroes.
Written by: Steven T. Helt, Tim Hitchcock, James Jacobs, Ron Lundeen, Rob McCreary, Jason Nelson, Richard Pett, Tom Phillips, Neil Spicer, and Greg A. Vaughan.
ISBN-13: 978-1-64078-429-1
The Kingmaker Adventure Path is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure and Chronicle sheet are available as a free download (897 kb PDF).
Available Formats
Pathfinder Kingmaker Adventure Path is also available as:
The story and everything releated to it is 5/5 without any complains, can recommend it blindly.
BUT (and it's a big but)
The kingdom management system is broken. There are many homebrew rules for fixing it but as is it gets 0/5, getting an average of 2.5/5 (and in Pf2e we're rounding down).
What doesn't work in management?
Basically everything. Kingdom turns take way too long of session time, the whole process is tedious, and frankly, boring. It's such a wasted opportunity because this could be the best system, exported to all games all around. I hope that it will be reviewed and fixed in the future but for now either don't use these rules or implement Vance and Kerenshara fixes for it.
When Paizo fixes the kingdom management system, I'll be more than happy to give this game 5 stars, but for now I just can't. This game is about building kingdoms and this is an essential part of the adventure
Ok, here we go with another update and revision to the review, since we're almost done with the AP.
Ratings:
Story: 5/5
Kingdom Management 3/5
Armies 2/5
Adventure:
I can't see how any 2e AP can dethrone this adventure when it comes to content and story. The world is wide open, has lots of interesting encounters and is very easy to adapt to your own content. The dungeons are absolutely fantastic. No point really felt like filler. That being said, there are definitely places that you should fill in on your own, otherwise the world map is too empty after after founding your kingdom, so don't pick up this one if you don't feel like homebrewing anything. Plus, since players are in charge of building their own shops to buy items from, players will likely need to spec into crafting to get the latest and greatest (this is a plus in my opinion).
Kingdom Management:
It's really, really bad when you first start out, but it gets better at around level 9 when pressure builds up from bad events such as the Bloom or when war breaks out. I feel like most groups won't make it through the early levels and give up in frustration. Reasons for that are the broken XP curve at low levels and long kingdom turns (and even longer at the beginning) combined with a lack of interesting choices. It never really reaches a level of "wow, this is great, it was all worth it" and I feel like the focus should have been on Region activities and Events, cutting Leadership activities almost entirely. The same applies to buildings: a simple city stat block that you level up like a weapon would have been better IMHO.
On a side note: RAW I think the math involved in tallying up bonuses from settlements is impossible to play at the table without automation.
Armies:
Same as Kingdom Management, really bad when it starts out. However it does not really get that much better. There's just a general lack of tactics, interesting choices and the many mistakes in the rules require a lot of time to add an interesting homebrew on top
I'm curious -- and on this one I would beg for a blue response from someone on staff here.
Quote:
>Extensive rules for building and running kingdoms, settlements, and armies, along with narrative-based rules for resolving mass combat encounters.
This isn't an "official" product I believe? So if I purchase this for these rules, is there a chance that those rules might become obsolete for PF2 if another designer chooses to go a different route in an official product?
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Quote:
Extensive rules for building and running kingdoms, settlements, and armies, along with narrative-based rules for resolving mass combat encounters.
I'm also intrigued with this bit. What does "narrative-based rules" mean here? I hadn’t planned on making use of mass combat rules – the way they've been presented before – because they move the narrative away from player character's focus and familiar mechanics, and onto other people's. It feels a little like you're playing a separate game while you're using them. Which is cool, just not my personal style. A ruleset that keeps the narrative focus in this battlefield scenario on PCs themselves, however, and/or interacts more with the players' own abilities and stats – I'd very much be intrigued with.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Leon Aquilla wrote:
I'm curious -- and on this one I would beg for a blue response from someone on staff here.
Quote:
>Extensive rules for building and running kingdoms, settlements, and armies, along with narrative-based rules for resolving mass combat encounters.
This isn't an "official" product I believe? So if I purchase this for these rules, is there a chance that those rules might become obsolete for PF2 if another designer chooses to go a different route in an official product?
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
The 2E rules were written by the Paizo team. The 5E rules for the 5E Bestiary were by the Legendary team. That's exactly what it says in the GameOnTabletop. But please call me obtuse again.
Also, people can and do write for both companies. It's the nature of the business. Paizo contracting Legendary Games to help organize a project that Paizo releases... is still a Paizo project. I'd appreciate if you learned anything about how game publishing works before calling people obtuse.
Paizo is publishing it. Doesn't matter who worked on it. Paizo is publishing it. Making it an official Paizo product.
Didn't this product page go up just now? How come there are comments from August?
That's what we in the industry call a little "oopsie-doodle", where a switch was flipped prematurely, and people saw it before we could disappear it again. (:
That's dissappointing. I hope whoever makes that decision changes their mind before release. I understand that this isn't a subscription. However pdf have been offered before for pre-order on non sub orders.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
This is a special situation to other books of this sort. This was crowdfunded and there are specific rules that cause them not to be able to offer that.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Note: There's a mistake in the Aldori Blade stat block. It's reprinted here from the Lost Omen World Guide with the same typo that was in that book. So you should follow the same errata: (the page number here is the LO book's page, in Kingmaker it's on page 599)
Lost Omen World Guide Errata wrote:
Page 28: The aldori dueling sword mistakenly cost too much due to a lack of conversion to the silver piece standard for starting gear. Change the Aldori dueling sword's price to 2 gp.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, PF Special Edition Subscriber
I'm having trouble getting a clear answer on this, but is this or is it not going to be included in any of the Corebook/Adventure/Adventure Path subscriptions?
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
ravenmaster_001 wrote:
I'm having trouble getting a clear answer on this, but is this or is it not going to be included in any of the Corebook/Adventure/Adventure Path subscriptions?
I've never heard of such a crowdfunding restriction unless it was self-imposed. I hope Paizo goes a different route for crowdfunding in the future, because this process seems like it was a mess even for the few folks that actually got to fund it.
Anyway, it's not in a sub, no pdf for pre-order, so I guess I'll just wait for it come out and see if it is worth it.
Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
By my count, there are 13 products associated with this project, only two of which I don't want (the two bestiaries, because I don't play 5e and don't play PF1E any more. S%&~. My "completeness" bug just bit me regarding the PF1 bestiary. No! No! I don't wanna! This thing is going to be expensive enough as it is. Maybe I should just wait for the pdfs. No, I want the printed maps, at least. damn, damn, damn. My wallet hurts!
That's strange a bit, to see elves with human eyes
Which elf? (Usually when this happens it's 'cause of one of two things... the image is actually of a half-elf, who have human eyes, or it's an error that slipped through.)
Oh. You made the main book pf2 and expected me to pay extra for the pf1 rules. I was excited about this but nevermind. Let me know when you decide to give the pf1 fans any love at all.
Oh. You made the main book pf2 and expected me to pay extra for the pf1 rules. I was excited about this but nevermind. Let me know when you decide to give the pf1 fans any love at all.
Oh. You made the main book pf2 and expected me to pay extra for the pf1 rules. I was excited about this but nevermind. Let me know when you decide to give the pf1 fans any love at all.
I have phenomenal news about Kingmaker 1e: it came out 12 years ago.
Oh. You made the main book pf2 and expected me to pay extra for the pf1 rules. I was excited about this but nevermind. Let me know when you decide to give the pf1 fans any love at all.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
James Jacobs wrote:
RatyborGM wrote:
That's strange a bit, to see elves with human eyes
Which elf? (Usually when this happens it's 'cause of one of two things... the image is actually of a half-elf, who have human eyes, or it's an error that slipped through.)
It's in the Player's Guide. I assumed it was the latter error, because the ears are much too long for a half-elf.
This is a bit off-topic, so perhaps we can help with some perspective. Both Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne were originally published for Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. When their compilations came out Paizo updated them to the newest version of its rules, Pathfinder First Edition. The Kingmaker Adventure Path first came out for Pathfinder First Edition and has again been updated to the newest version of the Pathfinder ruleset. We have no plans for a compilation for the older ruleset. Paizo may someday make the original separate volumes of the Kingmaker Adventure Path for Pathfinder First Edition available in print-on-demand at DriveThruRPG as we have with other titles. Adventures Ahead!