Here's my advice:
Talk to your players. Explain to them that if they try to break the game, they'll ruin it for themselves and for you. Tell them that they can't use anything to guarantee/alter any kingdom rolls, certainly not something that gives an auto-success - those sorts of things are meant to grant the PC a bonus on a single roll during adventuring, not to allow the kingdom to gain the benefit of a guaranteed roll.
Since you haven't already let them spend the money, tell them that their withdrawel of those funds never actually happened (and put the BPs back into their kingdom treasury).
In fact, if I were you, I'd tell them that since they tried to abuse the "withdraw funds" option, you came to the boards here, got advice, saw how game-breaking this could be, and have decided to remove that option entirely - there is now no option to remove funds from the treasury for their own personal use. As justification, cite the fact that BPs do not represent money in a treasury, they represent man-hours and materials for building a kingdom.
Look through the Kingmaker board and you'll find other examples of groups abusing the Withdraw Funds option. For example, this thread. Stand up to your players, or else (with this campaign allowing PCs as much time as they like for magic item creation) be ready for this campaign to become completely unplayable.
I agree with Cintra Bristol, talk with them openly about this. The withdrawal option is tempting, and needs to be used carefully. In my Kingmaker game (as a player), we withdraw some funds, and have even failed a loyalty roll once (unrest hurts). But we only do so occasionally and only a few BPs at a time. Most of the gps go into buying low cost magic items from the kingdoms slots. Tell them this will hurt the game. I might also suggest putting specific limits on the sword.
I sure hope they see the right and allow a "take back". If this is the group from your "High Unrest" thread I fear they might insist upon keeping the gp, then you need to make a decision. Do you want to keep playing? What to do about this?
More information would be helpful.
-Is Stone Shape/bury the only protection they used to hide the loot?
-level?
-alignment (of pcs and kingdom)?
-what module are you in?
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The bottom line is this "sword" thing you're doing for the players is a "Privilege" not a "right".
This is a bonus, something special not covered in the rules that you give to be benevolent.
Explain that you have the right to place restrictions on the benefit. Afterall, there's nothing saying you have to give it at all.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you. To me - what they did was an abuse of your generosity for the sake of cheese.
You only have two options
1) be firm, take it back and put a no-go on anything like that in the future.
2) allow it stand and risk the game breaking and being out of control.
I believe if you approach them with the notion that if/when the game gets out of control you're not going to want to run it any more, so they risk losing out of the game-altogther, they'll see the wisdom in discretionary use of the benefit.
Robert
Enforce the wealth by level rules. That what I told my players. They can take out as much as they want to buy things but when it comes to magic items they can only spend up to their wealth by level. So if they want to fun a lavish life style they can use the money for that or they can outfit the NPC with Magic Item up to the PC wealth by level. As well wealth by level can be exceeded due to adventuring but that's something I can control.
As well the Player can exceed the wealth by level by leaving items at the keep. So technically they can own more but they can't take it all with them. So for example they might have a couple of good swords but can't take them all. It's arbitrary but keeps things from getting out of control.
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Or if you REALLY want to have some fun - have Abadar send an agent or two of his to rebalance the imbalance of all the money being distributed unfairly.
Have them wipe out a district or something that must be rebuilt in order to swing the pendulum back the other direction.
Must have order and balance when it comes to the economy.
Robert
I am not well versed in the Kingmaker Kingdom Rules but you could pass along information that a low level clerk in the treasury has stumbled across some "account irregularities" and brings it to the attention of the appropriate authority (which might be the PCs). Just because they succeed to withdrawal the money without causing immediate issues doesn't preclude future issues when the withdrawal sees the light of day.
Say you made a rules mistake. It's a "sword", right? Like, a 3-or-4 foot-long sharp piece of metal used in combat? And it lets you "roll a 20"? To me that sounds like it can be used to kill people.
It would be really weird to have a sword that let me pass my Fortitude save versus poison. Or my Perception check against the assassin sneaking up on me.
Tell your PCs that the sword can only effect to-hit rolls. Say "I made a mistake, the sword couldn't have done that" and move on.
I'd say that if they don't let you put the money back, you just stop giving them the MVP bonus. Or you give them something much lesser (say, a floating +1 that can be applied to one roll after the fact if used during the next session).
While I agree that abusing the withdrawals can break the system and affect game balance, I don't see where the idea that this is lawless embezzlement comes from. The PCs are the rulers of a feudal society. Of course they will reap the benefits of the lands they rule. It's not merely permitted, it's expected. If the PCs are taxing the people heavily, food is short, and the rulers are doing nothing but holding expensive parties, unrest will grow. But if the citizens are happy and secure, taxes are slight, and the PCs are seen as active heroes not merely living it up as noble parasites but nobly risking their lives to defend them and enhance the domain, a nice chunk of change getting withdrawn won't bother them at all. It's a perk of the offices they hold. Some chunk of that money should go to court items - crowns, jewels, badges of office, official emblems - that belong to the offices and country and will pass to the next holder of the position. Some further chunk should go to support lifestyles befitting feudal nobility of a prosperous land. But there won't be a bloody uprising because the king wanted a portable hole and the general added some enchantments to his magic sword using BP taken from the kingdom. That's a purely modern sensibility (one held, sadly, by a depressingly small number of the world's countries) which simply doesn't fit the setting, especially if the money went to adventuring gear to make the PCs better able to defend and increase the realm.
Make withdrawals progressively more difficult. In fact, automatically increase unrest on a one point for one BP basis as if they failed the roll, no chance to evade. A well managed nation can easily support a slow siphon of BP if the PCs don't get greedy and try to grab too much too fast. Between successful stability rolls, filling the position of Royal Assasin, and unrest decreasing improvements, a trickle of 2-4 BP per month won't make so much as a ripple in the economy, nor lead to uprisings. (Think of it as a proxy for a tax to support the King's Privy Purse.) Imagining some massive uprising based on holding the PCs accountable to some law which simply doesn't exist - the PCs wrote them, they'd know - is unnecessary and inelegant. And enforcing the wealth-by-level guidelines is no better. It penalizes success to support an arbitrary number which exists solely to help the GM design balanced encounters - it's not a limit mandated by the gods, it's a rule-of-thumb expected value for adventuring gear so that the CR system works.
they are a variety of alignments but the sorceror is they only character with evil (he is the one that trapped me with making sure its a natural 20).
This is alarming. Just because a player is roleplaying a selfish and greedy character does not mean or imply that he should be rules-lawyering out-of-game. Nor does the Paladin being good imply that he shouldn't be. I sense you might have a problem player with your sorcerer player: no-one should ever be in a position of "trapping" the GM. That's not cool.
Interesting dilemma that you have. The basic problem isn't what happened in this one situation. That, in and of itself, is an annoyance, rather than a gamebreaker. There have been several good suggestions on how to handle it already.
What will break your game though, is what I see as the base problem - players who are trying to "trap" the DM and beat the system. Until they stop doing that, your game will always be in jeopardy. So it's time for a grown-up, out of game discussion of what is expected from them and you. All their schemes to abuse the rules and your rulings are pointless and add nothing to the enjoyment of the game. The more powerful they make their characters, the more you will have to bump up the difficulty of the adventure to keep it challenging and fun. So what's the point? Of course, there is that minority of players that don't want the game to be challenging, and like to curb stomp the opposition without difficulty, probably because it makes them feel good about themselves in a sad and pathetic way. If you have players like that, I have no advice for you, only sympathy.
And remember. You are the GM. You can only be trapped or outsmarted if you let yourself be. You have complete control of the plot and the campaign world and have complete freedom to do whatever you need to do to correct problems that arise in your campaign. It's called GM discretion and it is one of the foundations of the game. If your players object to your using your discretion to stop or correct for their unbalancing schemes, then you have a problem. Of course I would solve that problem by objecting to being their GM.
So i withdrawing the sword privlige.
1) Ok Yes the only protection they have on the gold was a stone shape to make a large hole put the gold in it and then do a second one to cover it up with. They then said we mark it with an X marks the spot.
2) they are all now level 8
If that is all they did to hide it, they deserve to have it stolen. Someone somewhere is bound to notice 100 missing BPs, and without serious magical protection it is so vulnerable to theft. That's not even including party infighting.
3) they are a variety of alignments but the sorceror is they only character with evil (he is the one that trapped me with making sure its a natural 20). The Paladin how was in the party watched it happen and encouraged it. (his character died last night)
The Cleric is Nuteral Good. the rogue player was against it. and the fighter is newish and dosnt rock the boat much.4) we are about half way through module 3.
The Paladin, did what....evil Sorcerer....what?
>resists the urge to start a paladin discussion<
GOOD STUFF
+1
I agree with Brian, you have a player problem and this(sword/BP abuse) is just a symptom.
gordbond, I am curious as to the outcome of your problem? Can you tell us what happened?
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Interesting dilemma that you have. The basic problem isn't what happened in this one situation. That, in and of itself, is an annoyance, rather than a gamebreaker. There have been several good suggestions on how to handle it already.
What will break your game though, is what I see as the base problem - players who are trying to "trap" the DM and beat the system. Until they stop doing that, your game will always be in jeopardy. So it's time for a grown-up, out of game discussion of what is expected from them and you. All their schemes to abuse the rules and your rulings are pointless and add nothing to the enjoyment of the game. The more powerful they make their characters, the more you will have to bump up the difficulty of the adventure to keep it challenging and fun. So what's the point? Of course, there is that minority of players that don't want the game to be challenging, and like to curb stomp the opposition without difficulty, probably because it makes them feel good about themselves in a sad and pathetic way. If you have players like that, I have no advice for you, only sympathy.
And remember. You are the GM. You can only be trapped or outsmarted if you let yourself be. You have complete control of the plot and the campaign world and have complete freedom to do whatever you need to do to correct problems that arise in your campaign. It's called GM discretion and it is one of the foundations of the game. If your players object to your using your discretion to stop or correct for their unbalancing schemes, then you have a problem. Of course I would solve that problem by objecting to being their GM.
+1 I agree Wholeheartedly!