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I am running a kingmaker game, and two players are now using either classes or archetypes from the APG. The only issue thus far has been that the Summoner is a VERY complex class, with lots of nitpicky rules - and those rules are important to keep the Summoner from stampeding over the rest of the group. Summoner is something the DM has to really be familiar with, and it takes a good and experienced player as well. The archetype hasn't been an issue, and the spells haven't either.
One of the biggest changes in Pathfinder is the changes made to individual spells. This is where casters have been weakened the most. Therefore the use of the Spell Compendium could cause serious problems with spells much more powerful than their Pathfinder counterparts. I would advise extreme caution in introducing these spells - I would at most allow them only on a case by case basis, and editting may be necessary. This may be more work than you want.
Items have been changed a bit too - I think the Magic Item Compendium is not as potentially problematic as the Spell Compendium...but there are still inconsistencies. Item slots changed, stat boosting items changed, and experience points are no longer expended to craft items.
I'm having a lot of fun running Kingmaker, and I think my party's having fun too, but it is a lot of work for the DM, especially at the beginning of each book. Keep in mind that that the sandbox nature of campaign means you'll need much of the exploration material prepared ahead of time, and sometimes events from one book can run into the next, or vice versa. Have fun gaming!
My own group, I allowed the APG and we have no problems. We have a caviler, summoner, and a skirmisher ranger. Everything works as well as if it came out of the core book.
I treat all WotC book (including the spell compendium) as any other 3rd party product. Its approved on a case by case basis. Now I tend to be liberal in that I allow almost anything as long as I know about it ahead of time. About the SC specifically, I don't find the spells broken (as some say they are). But it is a book of options you have to compensate for. So if someone takes Orb of Force, you just have to throw in monsters from time to time that have a high touch AC. I should state some spells need "pathfinderized" to bring them in line with pathfinder's spell design philosophy.
Just my experience. YMMV.
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Howdy!
And for a more general question, would you say that it is safe to allow the Magic Item Compendium and the Spell Compendium from 3.5 in Pathfinder in general and Kingmaker in particular? We didn't use any of our 3.5 books in the last campaign because we didn't know if they would break things.
For what it's worth, there were plenty of people who didn't feel the Spell Compendium was safe to use in 3.5 either. I would proceed cautiously with it with either 3.5 or PF and approve spells on a case-by-case basis, and without adding to either the cleric's or druid's spell list (in other words, for every one you add, take one off).
Howdy!
It seems that Kingmaker was created before the APG was published, so I was wondering if allowing my players to use that book might break something. Is there anything in APG that might break Kingmaker wide open because it never took into account that player class XXXX might be able to do YYYY?
Hiya! While I can't speak for the 3.5 books, the APG shouldn't be an issue at all. I have one Inquisitor and one Witch in my game, and while the Inq is pretty strong, he's not overpowering. And while the witch sometimes feels she doesn't have many options, she tends to under-utilize her hexes. More than one fight has been won based on that Evil Eye of hers... :)
All in all, the APG is a terrific book, and with the possible exception of the Summoner*, there's nothing in there that would break this AP.
*--Mostly to do with the complexity of the class, I think. I'm tempted to start a summoner if only to get a handle on the class. But then, I've never played a barbarian, either...:)
Depends. Are your players optimizers? If yes:
If you are going to run Kingmaker as written, DO NOT allow 3.5 materials at ALL. I did this, and I had to optimize and rewrite just about everything to hope to challenge the PCs in the slightest.
Do not allow magic item creation if you allow them to withdraw money from the treasury. You will find yourself dealing with gods by lv7.
The APG has not done much to break the game though, as it is internally balanced.
Just completed part 5 as written by Jason Nelson, which actually made the fight with Irovetti worth mentioning. Otherwise, the fighter and wizard could have taken the entire part, even if they got no XP and were stuck at lv12.
Part 6 is more interesting, but I need to liberally alter and add to make the encounters a challenge.
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Hi, welcome to Kingmaker.
I have allowed all Pathfinder material, but no 3.5 WOTC material. I haven't had any problems with the material from the APG. I've got a Witch, two multiclass Oracles, and a Paladin archetype in my group, so we have some experience with the APG. The one thing I have done is I have changed some of the NPCs to better match what they are supposed to be. For example,
My suggestion is have the players use the books for ideas, but you get final say in everything that comes in.
As Kamelguru points out, this AP can give the PCs access to lots of cash if they decide to cheese the system that way. You may want to look into item sales (the biggest source of BP, as explained in book 2). It is a known flaw. There are plenty of other threads here about that though, and you can look them up. Better to not distract from your question.
Custom items wont really break the system unless they do something really wierd. Then its your own fault anyway. If you allow things from magic item compendium, keep in mind that it has some things more efficient than the core pathfinder book, so by arround mid level characcters will be more effective. You may need to up the power level of opposition, but that is something lots of people need to do with experienced players anyway.
The spell compendium is a little trickier. The spell design philosophy changed some with pathfinder. Just look at some of the core spells for examples. Save or sucks tend to be less hosing, offering repeated saves. Save or dies now deal hitpoint damage mostly. A number of buffs were modified to stack less. Overall, there were many little nerfs that are not imediately obvious. Allowing the spell compendium as is would buff the players.
That being said, I do not know of any added abilities in either book that would trivialize encounters more than just normally having the right spell/gear at the right time would. They give more options in planning, but those options wont break things, and will likely just be a nice boost at the proper time.
One word of warning on alchemists though. Their firebombs can be very well suited for the weak peons of Book 1 and the trolls of Book 2. Make sure you remember your penalties for thrown weapons. Also space out your monsters a little so they can't trash these enemies.
+1. Firebombs combined with Entangle spells from the druid are doing mad damage to bandits so far.
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Thanks everybody! I let my group know that APG is in, but MiC and SpC are out for now.
Things to watch out for, and a couple of quick suggestions:
1: Magic Item Sales + Withdrawing GP = Basically Unlimited GP
combine that with
2: Essentially unlimited down-time for crafting as written
and get
3: Unhittable killing machines of PCs.
If allowing money to be withdrawn from the kingdom (the easiest fix is to simply ban that, IMO), don't allow Item Crafting Feats.
Suggestions:
Use the Standard Fantasy Point Buy! 15 point buy sounds like a crappy array at first, but if the GM then has to apply Advanced Templates on all the monsters to account for the party's stats, there's no real difference between NPCs & PCs with high numbers or low numbers.
It just becomes a lot more work for the GM to make up all those high number critters.
Really play up the introduction NPCs. Oleg, Svetlana, Jhod, Bokken, they all have really good potential for awesome characterization, so use that to your advantage.
Finally, share the tasks around. I have one player who does all the treasury stuff (and keeps a log of everything found/bought/sold), one who tracks initiative, one who plans out the city stuff (including rolling random magic items), and one who takes care of all mapping. This really helps the GM concentrate on the overall task of running KM, and prevents it from becoming too overwhelming for one person.
[oc]I'd recommend you check through the various "Chapter 1, for GM's Eyes Only" type threads kicking around on the KM boards, as well as the Obituaries thread for a bit of prescience.[/ooc]
I'm with one of the above posters; DO NOT freely allow 3.5 materials if you have access to expanded Pathfinder materials. I'm allowing only Pathfinder materials, and we're already feeling a little bit of strain just from having experienced gamers with strong character choices and APG's options. As little as it is, it's offering some pretty superior choices at very little cost (Teleportation subschool, anyone?).
On the flip side, I'd recommend rebuilding monsters using books available to the players to even the score.
There are not to many dungeons
and you will have quite a few one encounter adventure days
some (many?) of your encounters will get massacred by mobile outdoors archers types and controller arcanes/druids, as there are quite a lot of solo/brute like beasties
this is ok, they will get lazy and soft with easy victory, so when they suddenly have 3 encounters in quick succession you can get GM-vengeance!!
Greetings, fellow travellers.
I just wanted to chime in, though I have nothing new to say.
I do only allow the Player's Handbook for Kingmaker, since I can't be bothered with getting as familiar with the APG as with the PH at the moment (and still, there are a lot of combat issues we have to resolve by looking them up).
And still I am always upping the encounters by either adding class levels, HD or advanced template to present some kind of challenge to my paladin, cleric, figthter and sorcerer.
Short version: with all the issues mentioned above I would definitely limit books to the ones published by Paizo and I also agree with the crafting feat + fund withdraw / item selling issue: do NOT go there.
Ruyan.
Short version: with all the issues mentioned above I would definitely limit books to the ones published by Paizo and I also agree with the crafting feat + fund withdraw / item selling issue: do NOT go there.
In this case you should be careful not to refer to the Core Rulebook as Players Handbook to avoid confusion.
The magic item economy for the kingdom building, however, is ESSENTIAL to having the cash and kingdom size to building an army necessary for the ending game. Remember that a natural one is always a failure with the rolls, so if they abuse the magic item withdrawals, they're risking ending the game every time. Tell them that as a way to get them to agree to a gentleman's agreement not to abuse the system. If a gentleman's agreement bother's your players' sensibilities, then simply have the freedom-loving people loathe it when their nobles treat their home as their personal piggy bank.
Read up on this issue, but also read up on whether or not you want to give the players the rules to kingdom building. In the latter case, the PCs haven't been born and bred to royalty, so there's no reason they should know everything that goes into it. Skill checks and trial and error could be fun or frustrating, depending on you, your group and a bit of luck.
Aye, thanks for the correction, Zaister and sorry for the mistake. Core Rulebook it is!
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The magic item economy for the kingdom building, however, is ESSENTIAL to having the cash and kingdom size to building an army necessary for the ending game. Remember that a natural one is always a failure with the rolls, so if they abuse the magic item withdrawals, they're risking ending the game every time. Tell them that as a way to get them to agree to a gentleman's agreement not to abuse the system. If a gentleman's agreement bother's your players' sensibilities, then simply have the freedom-loving people loathe it when their nobles treat their home as their personal piggy bank.
Read up on this issue, but also read up on whether or not you want to give the players the rules to kingdom building. In the latter case, the PCs haven't been born and bred to royalty, so there's no reason they should know everything that goes into it. Skill checks and trial and error could be fun or frustrating, depending on you, your group and a bit of luck.
I don't disagree, however the money withdrawal is the issue, not the item selling itself.
"It fails on a Nat 1" is meaningless when hero points are in play, and they are too fantastic to do without, in my experience.
Howdy!
My group rotates GMs, and it is my turn. We converted to Pathfinder for the last campaign...a campaign that the GM himself came up with. But now it is my turn, and I've bought the first three books of Kingmaker.
It seems that Kingmaker was created before the APG was published, so I was wondering if allowing my players to use that book might break something. Is there anything in APG that might break Kingmaker wide open because it never took into account that player class XXXX might be able to do YYYY?
And for a more general question, would you say that it is safe to allow the Magic Item Compendium and the Spell Compendium from 3.5 in Pathfinder in general and Kingmaker in particular? We didn't use any of our 3.5 books in the last campaign because we didn't know if they would break things.
Thanks for any help you can give!
A player that is going to break the game can do it with core rules. The APG won't affect that. As for the Magic Item Compendium it has good stuff, but some of it is underpriced. I allow it in my games though. As for the Spell Compendium I don't allow everything in it. I would disallow any spells such as the one that gives blanket immunity to energy types since Paizo wanted to get rid of a lot of those types of spells. In short every spell should be allowed on a case by case basis, and if you would feel bad using it against the players I would not allow it to be used against the NPC's if it came from the Spell Compendium. Watch out for the Wraithstrike spell<--Yeah that is really the name of the spell, and Avasculate. I would not allow those. I am sure there are others, but I can't think of them right now.
spend those resources putting up permanant magical effects to protect the castle (anti-magic fields, teleport circles, etc).
The updated kingdom building rules in the Book of the River Nations: Complete Players Reference for Kingdom Building include ways to upgrade castles like this ingame without having to withdraw funds.
Oh, and you really must allow the sale of items for BPs, the army build system pretty much breaks down without it.
Or make other changes. I disallow magicitem sales for BP, but instead I have every resource point (the gold coin on the map) use the same rules as a magic item. So a gold mine is the huge cash influx that it should be (rather than a mere +1 econ). It also makes the whole "should we kick out the kobolds" question much more interesting. :-)
So each gold mine produces up to 15 BP a turn? Yes, that would certainly neate the need for MI sales.Why would it be 15 BP? What am I missing?
He was referring to my post, where I said I replaced the magic-item-economy with a resource-point economy.
For what it's worth, I didn't make it a flat 15. Different resource points give different amounts, but they always give results in multiples of d6s. So a goldmine is 3d6. We like dice over preset values. It's worth noting that I've added more locations (mostly in out-of-the-way places) to my Kingmaker map. I wanted to encourage exploration and expansion (which is something the current rules do not do in my opinion), and replacing the magic-item-economy with resource-points did just the trick. My PCs are scouring all over the wildnerness for rumors of gem-veins, rare woods, etc.
Besides, I like to go for a bit lower-magic feel, and the idea of a magic-item-economy didn't sit well with my sensibilities.
Further disclaimer: I'm using the billeting rules from this forum to make it so that garrisoned standing armies only charge consumption on a monthly basis instead of weekly. (Feilded armies are still weekly.)
So each gold mine produces up to 15 BP a turn? Yes, that would certainly neate the need for MI sales.Why would it be 15 BP? What am I missing?He was referring to my post, where I said I replaced the magic-item-economy with a resource-point economy.
For what it's worth, I didn't make it a flat 15. Different resource points give different amounts, but they always give results in multiples of d6s. So a goldmine is 3d6. We like dice over preset values. It's worth noting that I've added more locations (mostly in out-of-the-way places) to my Kingmaker map. I wanted to encourage exploration and expansion (which is something the current rules do not do in my opinion), and replacing the magic-item-economy with resource-points did just the trick. My PCs are scouring all over the wildnerness for rumors of gem-veins, rare woods, etc.
Besides, I like to go for a bit lower-magic feel, and the idea of a magic-item-economy didn't sit well with my sensibilities.
Further disclaimer: I'm using the billeting rules from this forum to make it so that garrisoned standing armies only charge consumption on a monthly basis instead of weekly. (Feilded armies are still weekly.)
This looks interesting! It would definitely add an incentive to expand the kingdom. :) Thanks for this idea!
So each gold mine produces up to 15 BP a turn? Yes, that would certainly neate the need for MI sales.Why would it be 15 BP? What am I missing?He was referring to my post, where I said I replaced the magic-item-economy with a resource-point economy.
For what it's worth, I didn't make it a flat 15. Different resource points give different amounts, but they always give results in multiples of d6s. So a goldmine is 3d6. We like dice over preset values. It's worth noting that I've added more locations (mostly in out-of-the-way places) to my Kingmaker map. I wanted to encourage exploration and expansion (which is something the current rules do not do in my opinion), and replacing the magic-item-economy with resource-points did just the trick. My PCs are scouring all over the wildnerness for rumors of gem-veins, rare woods, etc.
Besides, I like to go for a bit lower-magic feel, and the idea of a magic-item-economy didn't sit well with my sensibilities.
Further disclaimer: I'm using the billeting rules from this forum to make it so that garrisoned standing armies only charge consumption on a monthly basis instead of weekly. (Feilded armies are still weekly.)
Would you mind sharing those rules and locations in more detail? I think I'd like to replace the magic item economy, too, and my group is about four to eight sessions away from getting to create their kingdom. :p
Would you mind sharing those rules and locations in more detail? I think I'd like to replace the magic item economy, too, and my group is about four to eight sessions away from getting to create their kingdom. :p
+1. The idea of magic item factories turning out things to sell at magic wal-mart just doesn't appeal.
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Here is a link to the forum which hosts my home game: Tem's Kingmaker Game
The game mechanics thread contains all of Jason Nelson's suggested rules for kingdom building and mass combat (except for the non-city improvements). About 90% of the material there is his, and it does well to fix the issues regarding the absurdly high cost of armies as well as drastically reducing the BP generated from magic item sales.
If you want to see how it's working in action, check out our "Duchy of Volynia" thread which shows the current state of affairs including a map with hexes claimed and city grids.
Thanks, Tem, some interesting things there, especially how you put the three maps together and painted them in the appropiate colour. May I ask how exactly you changed the colouring ( total and utter Photoshop noob here ^^ )?
Your fixes for the magic item economy seem a bit drastic, though, making minor items completely irrelevant and the medium to major items almost worthless, too. I was more thinking about a 1/2/4 BP sales gain.
But I fear I still must plead to Erik to post his alterations, since he seems to have completely changed how the economy works, which begs several questions:
a.) What are the exact values of mines?
b.) Where do you put them? I love the idea that the players still need to go exploring after their kingdom has been founded. That should serve as another motivation for them to find encounter sites.
c.) What are the benefits of magic itemp roducing buildings, then, like the Caster's Tower? Or did you take them out of the kingdom building rules?
I don't disagree, however the money withdrawal is the issue, not the item selling itself.
"It fails on a Nat 1" is meaningless when hero points are in play, and they are too fantastic to do without, in my experience.
Yes, the reroll would pose a problem. If using those, make sure to establish ahead of time that a hero point cannot be used for the purpose of such non-heroic activities. Although, if you're playing an evils campaign...
Thanks, Tem, some interesting things there, especially how you put the three maps together and painted them in the appropiate colour. May I ask how exactly you changed the colouring ( total and utter Photoshop noob here ^^ )?
Your fixes for the magic item economy seem a bit drastic, though, making minor items completely irrelevant and the medium to major items almost worthless, too. I was more thinking about a 1/2/4 BP sales gain.
I'm unfortunately also pretty useless with photoshop and those images were created by my players who update them as needed.
Although the changes to magic items seem drastic, they are still a big cash cow at 0/1/2 and are *still* a very efficient way of producing BP. Remember, they also give bonuses to econ so a building like a black market actually has the next effect of +17 to econ so they're still getting a little better than +1 to econ for 3BP which is on par with the efficient cheap buildings. I did a lot of thinking regarding the 0 for minor items but they aren't game breaking like the major ones in the rules as written and their primary function is to provide items that the PCs can buy. Early on, they were able to cycle through them quickly and pick up a couple choice items they wouldn't have been able to get access to otherwise. In that sense, they've been quite good to have around.
Besides, with the changes to how armies are built and paid for, there is still enough BP floating around to wage wars, just not protracted ones - which is kind of the point. The whole mass combat portion of the AP becomes silly if the PCs never have to worry about money.
Yes, the reroll would pose a problem. If using those, make sure to establish ahead of time that a hero point cannot be used for the purpose of such non-heroic activities. Although, if you're playing an evils campaign...I don't disagree, however the money withdrawal is the issue, not the item selling itself.
"It fails on a Nat 1" is meaningless when hero points are in play, and they are too fantastic to do without, in my experience.
Don't hero points allow you to reroll one of your own rolls? Kingdoms are like other characters (complete with saving throws, etc). You can't use your hero points to let other characters reroll, so there's no way I'd let someone use their hero points to reroll a kingdom roll.
I'm still hoping that Erik will get back to us with his modifications. But he probably is away with the family for Easter. :p
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Yes, the reroll would pose a problem. If using those, make sure to establish ahead of time that a hero point cannot be used for the purpose of such non-heroic activities. Although, if you're playing an evils campaign...I don't disagree, however the money withdrawal is the issue, not the item selling itself.
"It fails on a Nat 1" is meaningless when hero points are in play, and they are too fantastic to do without, in my experience.
he...funny you should mention that...
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Don't hero points allow you to reroll one of your own rolls? Kingdoms are like other characters (complete with saving throws, etc). You can't use your hero points to let other characters reroll, so there's no way I'd let someone use their hero points to reroll a kingdom roll.Yes, the reroll would pose a problem. If using those, make sure to establish ahead of time that a hero point cannot be used for the purpose of such non-heroic activities. Although, if you're playing an evils campaign...I don't disagree, however the money withdrawal is the issue, not the item selling itself.
"It fails on a Nat 1" is meaningless when hero points are in play, and they are too fantastic to do without, in my experience.
right from the start of the game, I made sure the players had specific roles with regards to the city-building "mini-game"
One player takes care of the mapping, another gets final veto rights (the queen's player), another takes & tallies treasure, and the "city builder" has final say on building placement, city design, and handles all the rolling for actual game stats.
that being said, it seems draconian to say "you can't use hero points to make your city better," especially as the PC was the most Good of the group.
i get what everyone's saying, and yes, this is a bed I made myself, but oh well. That just means I need to work a bit harder to up-gun the various boss critters.
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Do not allow magic item creation if you allow them to withdraw money from the treasury. You will find yourself dealing with gods by lv7.
1) they can sell 1 magic item for district each month and it should cost at least 4.000 gp
2) a major magic item sell for 15 BP, medium 8, minor 23) each BP withdrawn give 2.000 gp
4) Minimum value of the sold item 4.000 for minor, 4.000 for medium (ring of counterspelling) or 4.000+masterwork buckler/leather armour, major 5.580 spined shield.
I see where it break down when you sell player made items.
A simple house rule would be that the sale difficulty is based on the item category but the BP gained are item value/4.000 (fractions rounded down)if the item is sold to raise BP for the treasury.
That way you give the players a bonus (they get almost full sale price instead of 1/2 like normal) but the don't get the flywheel effect like it happen with the published rules.
In that situation I would allow player to sell self made/looted items for GP at full value (minus a 10% commission paid to the shop owner) using the same general rules.
They will be in competition with the local magic builders too, so players constantly building and selling magic items could damage the city economy (and honestly, how many spined shield can you sell?).
Edit: re reading the rules it say "these can be items you recovered during an adventure or they can be magic items currently held by any of your cities".
I find this perplexing.
Ruler sell self made/looted item -> get full value in treasury, fine
NPC x produce magic item -> put it on sale in his shop -> [b]the kingdom treasury[/b*] get the sale income, .....
A tax income on the sales, ok, but full sale price? Where the shop owner get the money to live or produce new magic items?
So another houserule: only item sold by the players add to the kingdom income.
Still hoping for Erik to post his rules changes... I really, really like the idea of changing the magic item economy to a resource-possession based one and I am curious he handled the item-creation buildings.
Do not allow magic item creation if you allow them to withdraw money from the treasury. You will find yourself dealing with gods by lv7.
1) they can sell 1 magic item for district each month and it should cost at least 4.000 gp
2) a major magic item sell for 15 BP, medium 8, minor 2
3) each BP withdrawn give 2.000 gp
4) Minimum value of the sold item 4.000 for minor, 4.000 for medium (ring of counterspelling) or 4.000+masterwork buckler/leather armour, major 5.580 spined shield.I see where it break down when you sell player made items.
A simple house rule would be that the sale difficulty is based on the item category but the BP gained are item value/4.000 (fractions rounded down)if the item is sold to raise BP for the treasury.
That way you give the players a bonus (they get almost full sale price instead of 1/2 like normal) but the don't get the flywheel effect like it happen with the published rules.In that situation I would allow player to sell self made/looted items for GP at full value (minus a 10% commission paid to the shop owner) using the same general rules.
They will be in competition with the local magic builders too, so players constantly building and selling magic items could damage the city economy (and honestly, how many spined shield can you sell?).Edit: re reading the rules it say "these can be items you recovered during an adventure or they can be magic items currently held by any of your cities".
I find this perplexing.Ruler sell self made/looted item -> get full value in treasury, fine
NPC x produce magic item -> put it on sale in his shop -> [b]the kingdom treasury[/b*] get the sale income, .....
A tax income on the sales, ok, but full sale price? Where the shop owner get the money to live or produce new magic items?So another houserule: only item sold by the players add to the kingdom income.
The problem is not player made items. The problem is that once you get multiple districts, the BP generated from magic item sales grossly outclasses the BP from the economy check, to the point of some kingdoms reporting 4 to 5 times as much from magic item sales.
You can get your kingdom scores easily to a point where you are always succeeding barring a 1. You should be hitting this point arround ~24 months, even with steady but not constant growth.
The problem is once you are practically autosucceeding, you can then withdraw money from the kingdom coffers for 2000gp/BP. IF you take out 50BP, as many kingdoms can easily produce thanks to magic item sales by the end of book 3, you are looking at players having enough money to craft any item in the game every month by arround level 10.
The problem is not player made items. The problem is that once you get multiple districts, the BP generated from magic item sales grossly outclasses the BP from the economy check, to the point of some kingdoms reporting 4 to 5 times as much from magic item sales.You can get your kingdom scores easily to a point where you are always succeeding barring a 1. You should be hitting this point arround ~24 months, even with steady but not constant growth.
The problem is once you are practically autosucceeding, you can then withdraw money from the kingdom coffers for 2000gp/BP. IF you take out 50BP, as many kingdoms can easily produce thanks to magic item sales by the end of book 3, you are looking at players having enough money to craft any item in the game every month by arround level 10.
Pretty much, yeah. I discarded the BP system and took reigns of the kingdom and present problems and "skill challenges" instead. My players had an income of well over 150 bp per month by the end of part 4.
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The problem I'm running into in my campaign, is that the players don't want to stop and build up the kingdom. Well, not all the players anyway. I've got one player who is seriously interested and the others just look at it as something to help forward any agenda they have.
I'm thinking of adding some given events to try to slow them down and make them work on the kingdom building.
The thing that seems to be forgotten about withdrawing from the treasury is that the unrest caused by doing so is automatic. You can't do a thing about it, so you start the next month/turn with (x) Unrest. If you're over 10 Unrest, you lose territory. If you're at 20+ Unrest, your kingdom dissolves into anarchy on the spot.
You can "safely" withdraw 1 BP per month with a Royal Assassin (if memory serves), although frankly given the bonus from starting at 0 Unrest doing so is not worth it.
Magic item sales are BP specific per category. I intend to implement an increasing DC after first item for these sales, as you can "auto-succeed" very, very easily relatively early on for medium items and not overly long for major items with the rules as-written.
The problem I'm running into in my campaign, is that the players don't want to stop and build up the kingdom. Well, not all the players anyway. I've got one player who is seriously interested and the others just look at it as something to help forward any agenda they have.
I'm thinking of adding some given events to try to slow them down and make them work on the kingdom building.
No need to do that - I recommend that you have that player do all the work - and reap all of the XP resulting from doing that work asides from the exploration benefits (which are minimal after around 3rd level).
In other words, the one player's interest generates your campaign's "kingdom in the background" for the rest of them.
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So another houserule: only item sold by the players add to the kingdom income.
The problem is not player made items. The problem is that once you get multiple districts, the BP generated from magic item sales grossly outclasses the BP from the economy check, to the point of some kingdoms reporting 4 to 5 times as much from magic item sales.
You can get your kingdom scores easily to a point where you are always succeeding barring a 1. You should be hitting this point arround ~24 months, even with steady but not constant growth.
The problem is once you are practically autosucceeding, you can then withdraw money from the kingdom coffers for 2000gp/BP. IF you take out 50BP, as many kingdoms can easily produce thanks to magic item sales by the end of book 3, you are looking at players having enough money to craft any item in the game every month by arround level 10.
That was the reason for the added houserule.