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I'm running a PbP of Kingmaker and it is throwing up some interesting issues around rulership. It's early days but they have some bandit captives and the PC's are wondering what to do with them. They don't really want to indisciminately execute them (though they have killed one) especially as one of them is "mentally ill". They don't really want to use corporal punishment and then send them on their way (known by the technical term "beat and release") as they might come back or become someone else's problem. And they don't really want to watch over them while the pay off their debt to society as they don't, at the moment, have the resources.
Have any other sorts of issues like these blown up in other games of Kingmaker? How have they been dealt with?
EDIT: Oops, should probably have mentioned that his might contain spoilers.
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I'm running a PbP of Kingmaker and it is throwing up some interesting issues around rulership. It's early days but they have some bandit captives and the PC's are wondering what to do with them. They don't really want to indisciminately execute them (though they have killed one) especially as one of them is "mentally ill". They don't really want to use corporal punishment and then send them on their way (known by the technical term "beat and release") as they might come back or become someone else's problem. And they don't really want to watch over them while the pay off their debt to society as they don't, at the moment, have the resources.
Have any other sorts of issues like these blown up in other games of Kingmaker? How have they been dealt with?
EDIT: Oops, should probably have mentioned that his might contain spoilers.
This does actually have the potential to come up very early in Rivers Run Red with
Grigori.
The players are tasked with quelling an uprising caused by this particular NPC. At extreme ends of the spectrum, the PCs can force him out of their kingdom peacefully, via trial-by-jury, straight up combat, or any other number of means. In my campaign, the PCs decided to arrest him, put him on trial, and then execute him.
Regardless, the rules as stated don't really take into acount (BP) costs for maintaining prisoners. So resources for these prisoners doesn't really play a game making or breaking function. Plus, consider that each hex in their kingdom adds 250 population. Just one hex is enough to assume a token amount of Law enforcement officials. So your players can adopt any form of Law and Order system they desire. Criminals can be held, forced unto chain-gangs, executed, or set free after an appropriate amount of "Time served".
If it were me, then any criminals set free would definately have the potential to become recurring villians or repeat offenders at the very least.
The party *is* the Law in the Greenbelt, empowered to, and for that matter ordered, to deal with the bandit threat in the area.
(I'm presuming by 'early days' that they have not yet established a settlement)
Unless there is darn good reason to believe they can be 'turned' quickly and surely, execution is very much the culturally appropriate action. Letting them go in a manner that means they might continue to plague the area would be a violation of their charter.
If they are really reluctant to kill them, then bring them to Oleg's, sentence them to 20-year term of slavery for their crimes, and sell them to the next travelling merchant to come by. Slavery is quite legal and common in Golarion, and even if they were in Cheliax Term Slaves have some rights, so it could be considered the 'humane' option.
The bandits don't die, the party gets some cash, everybody wins.
Then it's up to the DM to decide if banditry is a hanging offense (most likely) or not back in Brevoy.
Page 6 (the charter) of Stolen Land says:
"The punishment for unrepentant banditry remains, as always, execution by sword or rope."
The "unrepentant" part presumably means that if it is a first offense, execution is not necessary, but if it is a repeat offense execution is the remedy.
Then it's up to the DM to decide if banditry is a hanging offense (most likely) or not back in Brevoy.Page 6 (the charter) of Stolen Land says:
"The punishment for unrepentant banditry remains, as always, execution by sword or rope."
The "unrepentant" part presumably means that if it is a first offense, execution is not necessary, but if it is a repeat offense execution is the remedy.
As Are says, the charter is pretty clear that the PCs have the right to execute any bandits they determine are unrepentant. Banditry, like piracy, is a crime that needs to be stamped on hard if there is to be any hope of convincing settlers to move into the area. Given that charter, lawful good characters should have little qualm with executing bandits caught red-handed, although they may want to rig up some sort of hearing system to determine if they are unrepentant.
My own particular group has taken multiple captives, and subjected them to interrogation. They have executed some that were uncooperative and unrepentant, but let others go with a promise that they would abandon banditry and leave the area, as well as a threat that if ever seen in the region again (and they've been giving them a distinctive notch in the ear to make them easily recognizable) they will be killed on sight. They even tried to recruit a couple of the more sympathetic and cooperatvie ones to serve as additional guards at Oleg's, but quickly determined they were not trustworthy enough for that.
The side effect of taking these captives is that my group has actually developed pretty good intel about the Stag Lord and his merry band, which should help them when they move against his fort. Given the intel they have gotten, they don't think they are strong enough to do so yet (still 1st level, getting close to 2nd) and they're almost certainly right about that.
My players are about to go up against the stag lord. They have ~10 prisoners right now, and this has caused division in the party. The LN inquisitor has spent more on building himself a jail, complete with torture chamber, next to Oleg's than anything else. He has been putting them to work in a chain gang, paying Kesten extra on the side to look after them. As a reward for the money spent, I will be starting them with a free tenament next to Oleg's. The LN druid wants to free them and is wondering why they are not brought to her bedchambers at night if they are prisoners anyway. The CN oracle, who is pretending to be a cleric of a LG god, is wondering why they aren't swinging from Oleg's wall by the neck yet, and the LE rogue seems to agree.
Before the kingdom building, the party has enough resources to take care of them in some way. Warrior guards are cheap when the PCs are raking in the money like they do in the early game. Once they found their kingdom, I would handwave it in as a standard part of the stability/economic score.
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I'm running a PbP of Kingmaker and it is throwing up some interesting issues around rulership. It's early days but they have some bandit captives and the PC's are wondering what to do with them. They don't really want to indisciminately execute them (though they have killed one) especially as one of them is "mentally ill". They don't really want to use corporal punishment and then send them on their way (known by the technical term "beat and release") as they might come back or become someone else's problem. And they don't really want to watch over them while the pay off their debt to society as they don't, at the moment, have the resources.
Have any other sorts of issues like these blown up in other games of Kingmaker? How have they been dealt with?
EDIT: Oops, should probably have mentioned that his might contain spoilers.
My group ran against this early and decided that they would be wrong to execute all bandits on general principle or even to expect them to reform quickly. They took a long time with the NPC leading the Thorn River camp, believing her a special case, working to reform her, but for the rest they issued a general amnesty with the warning that anyone who did not reform and seek the legitimate work that would soon be available in the Greenbelt would not be granted clemency again. They made this effort in particular with any monster tribes they encountered, trying to respect those who live and thrive in the Stolen Lands already(the Sootscales, for example). It won't always work and some who were granted mercy may come back to haunt them. On the other hand, they have made their kingdom well-known for its merciful and inclusive baron.
My party, following their charter, hung them or put them to the sword and moved on. They spared Akiros, Nugrah and a handful of nameless bandits in SL - Akiros because of his help against the Stag Lord and because the party Priest of Erastil had decided to take on the task of his redemption, Nugrah because the party Druid decided to act as his advocate (who eventually simply released him back into the wild), and the assorted bandits because they "repented", pleading for their lives and promising to get out of the region quick.
Now they throw troublemakers in the dungeon bellow the castle, stick them in pillories, hang them or put them to the ax in the public square (my party has no problem with medieval justice). That being said, if you prefer the modern preference for incarceration, there's always building a Jail (at only 14 BP, before other building cost-breaks). The Stolen Lands are frontier territory though - every mouth they collect is a mouth to feed and an added expense on a community of limited resources.
Footnote - if you haven't yet, check out the Guide to the River Kingdoms. Given many of your future colonists will likely be coming up from there, you may wish to take of the 6 River Freedoms into account. Specifically, rules 5 & 6:
- "Slavery is an abomination" - which might argue they'll generate some serious unrest if they start selling prisoners into slavery, &
- "You have what you hold" - which suggests that far more of their own populace may have been bandits at some point or another, when times were hard.