My 4E campaign has almost reached lvl 30, and I'm starting to plan for the future. I'm a bit burned out with 4E, so I wanted to DM something else.
My players would like to get ivolved into ruling a kingdom and commanding armies in battles, so I almost thought about going to the basement, and get my old Birthright stuff out, or even my DnD Rules Cyclopedia.
Then I noticed that here at Paizo there's a new Adventure path called "Kingmaker", and I downloaded the player's guide. It seems the idea is for the PCs to become rulers of a kingdom? Am I correct?
Will there be rules for army battles? Will these rules be only for the lands in Kingmaker, or will I be able to use them also, for example, in Andoran, or any other nation?
Is it correct that all I need to play is the Core rulebook, and the Bestiary (and the 6 adventure books, of course)?
I guess that's all for now... thx in advance!
They do a great job of making sure that every single stat or rule you need is either in the Core book, the Bestiary, or the AP itself. check out [url]www.d20pfsrd.com[/url] if you want to see how some stuff has changed.
The whole Kingmaker AP is about staking out your claim in the River Kingdoms, building a Kingdom, and defending it against threats from within and without.
Book of Beasts: Monsters of the River Nations is a helpful resource for such an Adventure Path. Its 32 pages are full of monsters that your players never saw coming that fits well into a region of rivers filled with men of low character. Available in June (Disclaimer: this book is produced by my company, Jon Brazer Enterprises)
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Not sure exactly how stylized the rules are gonna be. The previews of the kingdom ruling mechanics seem pretty stylized, but that's cool with me. I actually hope that any mass combat rules are the same; enough realism to get the flavor yet abstract enough to play quickly and easily. Too much realism and we might as well play Civ or Warhammer (which is fine if that's your bag, baby.)
Creative Director
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The kingdom and city building rules themselves will not assume you're building the kingdom in the Stolen Lands; you'll be able to use the rules anywhere you want (although they do make the assumption that your players will be expanding their kingdom one 12-mile hex at a time).
There will indeed also be rules for mass combat; those rules will appear in Pathfinder #35. They're going to be VERY simplistic and quick and easy, though; they're nowhere near as complex as the rules for mass battles in, say, Warhammer, Battlesystem, or even in Birthright.
mh... i'm 80% convinced to buy the whole thing :)
one more (difficult) question: what's the average play time of each module?
I know YMMV, especially with sandbox scenarios, but maybe someone that already played the previous APs can have an approximate idea.
I just don't want to have to wait for all the modules to be out to go on with the campaign.
mh... i'm 80% convinced to buy the whole thing :)
one more (difficult) question: what's the average play time of each module?
I know YMMV, especially with sandbox scenarios, but maybe someone that already played the previous APs can have an approximate idea.
I just don't want to have to wait for all the modules to be out to go on with the campaign.
The single parts of one AP usually span 3-4 levels.
That might help you find out how fast you might go through them.
one more (difficult) question: what's the average play time of each module?
According to the campaign outline Stolen Land covers levels 1-3, Rivers Run Red levels 4-6, The Varnhold Vanishing levels 7-9, Blood for Blood levels 10-12, War of the River Kings levels 13-15, and Sound of a Thousand Screams levels 16-18. This is using Medium advancement in the PRPG rules set. I would estimate that each chapter would take at least 6-8 sessions depending on your party's pace and your session length.
Our group did Stolen Lands in three play sessions (4.5 hrs each), which is typical for us for an AP (We average 3-4 sessions per 'chapter' or book)
I expect the decision making for the next book, when the actual kingdom building starts in earnest, will take make the next installation to go longer, depending how into the 'nuts and bolts' of the kingdom making my group gets.
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I am SO stoked about the "running a kingdom" game mechanics. I have wanted to play a game like that since I started gaming 13-ish years ago. So of course I'm going to be the one running it, rather than playing. :P Ah, well, it's the next best thing, and will be a nice vacation for my husband, who has been running an OUTSTANDING Age of Worms game for almost 4 years now. (18th level, baby, yeah!)
I didn't know there would be mass combat rules; that is definitely an added bonus. What other mechanics are going to be introduced? The free PDF seemed to indicate some rules for creating/upgrading towns. I think that would be fantastic, and would probably get used in practically every D&D-esque game our group plays from here on out.
Yeah, this would have been great when my group played through Savage Tides. I imagine a lot of "borrowing" from that set of rules for Farshore.