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I've been wondering, how long has your group spent in the Kingmaker Adventure Path?
My group doesn't seem to want to take time to stop and smell the kingdom building roses, so we've only gone through 25 months and are almost done with Rivers Run Red. (And about 6 of those months are exploration.)
I'd like to know if this is extremely short or if they are on target with the average group. They wouldn't even have taken that much time except that I forced them to take a minimum of a year at the end of Stolen Lands.
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I've been wondering, how long has your group spent in the Kingmaker Adventure Path?
My group doesn't seem to want to take time to stop and smell the kingdom building roses, so we've only gone through 25 months and are almost done with Rivers Run Red. (And about 6 of those months are exploration.)
I'd like to know if this is extremely short or if they are on target with the average group. They wouldn't even have taken that much time except that I forced them to take a minimum of a year at the end of Stolen Lands.
I think 3 years is probably more apt to be the popular amt of time - at that stage. My group is almost done w/ RRR, and they are just now completing their 5th anniversary since the founding of their kingdom - add 8 months spent in the first mod, and they are at 5 and a half years since campaign began. They are 7th level.
Robert
Timewise, VV goes very quickly. My group is 6 years in and have just finished that book. The events which trigger the beginnings of books 3 through 6 are all at the discretion of the DM. If you feel your PCs need more kingdom building time, just delay these events.
The suggestions regarding kingdom size at various points during the AP are good indications of where the PCs should be. Between VV and BfB, I only allowed a couple of months to pass (the winter) since they already have a kingdom of 64 hexes. I expect I may need to give a bit more time before moving on to WotRK since I want them to have at least a couple armies and control over 80 hexes (a true kingdom).
I have roughly planned about 20 years of game time to pass, more or less, for the entire campaign.
My group is getting ready for the "trench run" at the end of VV, although my original time frame will probably shift a bit "later" than originally penciled in.
I'm running two groups - one is about halfway through RRR and the other is about halfway through VV. The more advanced group has taken about three years, and they're at size 50ish. The newer group has taken about a year, and did most of the RRR stuff about 9 months in.
I will be telling the second group that nothing is going to happen for a while, so they can take however long off to advance their kingdom, once they defeat the Trolls and the Owlbear.
Total campaign time for our group was 5 1/2 years by the time the AP finished.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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My group is somewhere close to the four-year mark, and is probably about to take most of another year of downtime after finishing Blood for Blood. Next mod will be the Varnhold Vanishing (interesting choices in the campaign led me to switch them around).
Although I guess I could do War of the River Kings now (since they are 13th level) and then just keep bumping VV up and drop it as an "out of nowhere" event, which it kinda is. I thought it made more sense, though, to drop that whole thing on them and then have the Irovetti stuff come along as the country is destabilized by trying to deal with the collapse of Varnhold to the east.
We'll see.
We are about a week away from starting Varnhold Vanishing and we just hit the eight year mark.
KM1-SL took 3 or 4 months
2-RRR took 20 months (6 city districts)
3-VV took 6 months (8 cd)
4-BfB has taken 9 months (we are up to 15 cds/size 92) and we are almost through. We still have to finish exploring the map and dealing with a few encounters. Should take another few months (of exploring 2 weeks at a time). I calculate at the end of BfB we will be at 3.5 years of game time.
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After reading through these, how in the world are you all getting so big so quickly? My group is struggling at 2 years of game time and only size 11 with one city district. I even gave them the full rules to build. Are the dice just rolling that bad against them? Or are they making that poor of decisions? For more on what they've done check out our forum posts.
After reading through these, how in the world are you all getting so big so quickly? My group is struggling at 2 years of game time and only size 11 with one city district. I even gave them the full rules to build. Are the dice just rolling that bad against them? Or are they making that poor of decisions? For more on what they've done check out our forum posts.
I tried reading the posted forum but it's too cluttered with talk, could you give us a brief description. What do they have in the city district, total values for Sta, Loy and Eco, leaders and their pluses? Size 11 and only 1 city 2 years in, wow.
We're in the middle of Rivers Run Red and we're running just over 4 years. We're only about 24 hexes with 4 small cities (1 of which has only a few houses). I agree with one of the above posters--how are you all getting so big so quickly?
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In the forum, I do a month by month break down of the phases.
Here are the 13th month and 24th month.
Desnus: 13th Month
Starting STATS
BP 14 STA 17 LOY 21 ECO 21 UNR 0
Upkeep Phase
Stability Check ~ 1d20 + 17 ⇒ (7) + 17 = 24: Fail by 5 ~ 2 Unrest
Consumption - 0
Magic Item - None
Unrest ~ -1
Improvement Phase
Leaders ~ Unchanged
Claim ~ None
Improve ~ Tavern -12 BP, +1 Stability, +1 Loyalty +500gp base value
Roads ~ None
Farms ~ None
Edicts ~ Unchanged
. Promotion: Token
. Taxes: Normal
. Festivals: 1
Income Phase
Deposit ~ I looked through my sheet and I have you for +1 Hide, +1 Buckler, and +1 Warhammer = 4486gp => 1BP
Withdrawl ~ None
Sales ~ None
Generate ~ 1d20 + 21 - 1 ⇒ (7) + 21 - 1 = 27 = None
Event Phase
2d100 ⇒ (92, 55) = 147 = None
Final STATS
BP 3 STA 18 LOY 22 ECO 21 UNR 1
Gozran: 24th Month
Starting STATS
BP 8 STA 21 LOY 25 ECO 24 UNR 0 DEF 2
Upkeep Phase
Stability Check ~ 1d20 + 21 ⇒ (9) + 21 = 30 = Success, +1 BP
Consumption - 0
Magic Item - None
Unrest ~ -1
Improvement Phase
Leaders ~ Unchanged
Claim ~ None
Improve ~ Brewery -6 BP, +1 Loyalty, +1 Stability
Roads ~ None
Farms ~ None
Edicts ~ Unchanged
Income Phase
Deposit ~ None
Withdrawl ~ None
Sales ~ None
Generate ~ 1d20 + 24 ⇒ (3) + 24 = 27 = Fail
Event Phase
2d100 ⇒ (11, 97) = 108 = The famous dwarven brewer Judkar Alemaster from the Five Kings Mountains helps you construct your Brewery, giving you a boost to your Economy as visitors from all over come to try the new ale being produced.
Final STATS
BP 3 STA 22 LOY 26 ECO 24 UNR 0 DEF 2
A copy of our excel sheet can be found here.
From the look of things - without having seen the spreadsheet - at 29 hexes in size and that teeny tiny treasury, they're not having much luck on several things. Assigned leadership (a full council), well developed roads and farmlands to offset the consumption costs and planned development. For a size 29 kingdom, the Stability, Loyalty and Economy bonuses seem pretty low... although they're catching up pretty quickly.
The first two years are always the hardest. It's when you get a player that really gets into the "urban planning" - or several of them, which is even better - of it all and start cranking things into high gear.
All your players need to do is crank up the farmlands and road everything that it makes sense - say, all of the farmlands - to do so and the rest pretty much falls into place. Having a healthy magic item economy doesn't hurt either, although that requires 1 city district per item to be sold.
A kingdom after, say, 20 years - which is still a "young" kingdom from a historical point of view - is going to be something to see.
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From the look of things - without having seen the spreadsheet - at 29 hexes in size and that teeny tiny treasury, they're not having much luck on several things. Assigned leadership (a full council), well developed roads and farmlands to offset the consumption costs and planned development. For a size 29 kingdom, the Stability, Loyalty and Economy bonuses seem pretty low... although they're catching up pretty quickly.
The first two years are always the hardest. It's when you get a player that really gets into the "urban planning" - or several of them, which is even better - of it all and start cranking things into high gear.
All your players need to do is crank up the farmlands and road everything that it makes sense - say, all of the farmlands - to do so and the rest pretty much falls into place. Having a healthy magic item economy doesn't hurt either, although that requires 1 city district per item to be sold.
A kingdom after, say, 20 years - which is still a "young" kingdom from a historical point of view - is going to be something to see.
Where are you getting the 29 hexes? They are only size 9.
Shieldknight, your loyalty is really high and economy really low. Ecconomy is the most important early game stat, and loyalty is the least important early game. You should look at where your spymaster and ruler are putting their bonuses. If they ever fail to make money on a turn, you are really hurt.
By comparison, my group has Econ 35, Loyalty 16, Stability 27 and is size 11 with a control DC of 31 in the middle of RRR. They have 1 minor item, which I modified the rules on to reduce the BP from. They are about 15 months into kingdom building.
On average they will produce 10 BP/turn, allowing them to boost their econ by 1 and still have a few points left over for 2 buildings next turn.
Shieldknight;
I read your site and excel sheet and you have some houserules that should be posted,
-Magic Items give 1 BP for every 4000gp sold (cumulative)
-size determines how many cities can be made (10 size=2 cities)
Your ECO is way too low, ECO>STA(within 2 of control dc)>LOY (which can be lower than control dc)
Don't expand beyond you ECO and STA, but try to keep expanding (so you can build more cities, so you can sell more magic items).
Build another city (preferrably at a location that provides a building(stag fort/temple of the elk/olegs).
Keep that unrest at 0.
You also need buildings that generate medium magic items (Caster Tower).
Keep your consumption at or near 0 (build farms).
Your ruler needs to marry (Paladin of Erastil should be allowed, or is it required ;), to marry).
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Full Disclosure - I am the GM. I made the magic item houserule because they were doing so poorly for getting BP. I gave the players the full rules ahead of time.
Shieldknight;
I read your site and excel sheet and you have some houserules that should be posted,
-Magic Items give 1 BP for every 4000gp sold (cumulative)
-size determines how many cities can be made (10 size=2 cities)Your ECO is way too low, ECO>STA(within 2 of control dc)>LOY (which can be lower than control dc)
They wanted to go with the balanced approach. I don't think they realized how unimportant Loyalty would be at early stages.
Don't expand beyond you ECO and STA, but try to keep expanding (so you can build more cities, so you can sell more magic items).
Right now they are expanding so they can build Tatzlford.
Build another city (preferrably at a location that provides a building(stag fort/temple of the elk/olegs).
As above, they are trying to build a second city.
Keep that unrest at 0.
This they have been trying to do, but have had some unfortunate events pop up. I plan on doing some intentionally "random" events to develop some side quest/plot lines. One of which is members of the ruling families from Varnhold and Pitax will be courting the Grand Diplomat.
You also need buildings that generate medium magic items (Caster Tower).
They just haven't been able to get the BP to do this yet. Also, they are all wanting different things and trying to decide who gets what they want.
Keep your consumption at or near 0 (build farms).
They have been doing this to the best of their ability.
Your ruler needs to marry (Paladin of Erastil should be allowed, or is it required ;), to marry).
;) This is happening, the wedding is set to happen soon. He is engaged to Lily.
I guess in most cases players must just be focusing on Economy and Stability and going for broke. My players were trying to do a balanced approach.
We have been working on our "Kingdom" for about 3 years, and are at size 43. We are just starting to explore the area southeast of us as the map indicates. The mountains are called the Nomen Heights.
Where are you getting the 29 hexes? They are only size 9.From the look of things - without having seen the spreadsheet - at 29 hexes in size and that teeny tiny treasury, they're not having much luck on several things. Assigned leadership (a full council), well developed roads and farmlands to offset the consumption costs and planned development. For a size 29 kingdom, the Stability, Loyalty and Economy bonuses seem pretty low... although they're catching up pretty quickly.
The first two years are always the hardest. It's when you get a player that really gets into the "urban planning" - or several of them, which is even better - of it all and start cranking things into high gear.
All your players need to do is crank up the farmlands and road everything that it makes sense - say, all of the farmlands - to do so and the rest pretty much falls into place. Having a healthy magic item economy doesn't hurt either, although that requires 1 city district per item to be sold.
A kingdom after, say, 20 years - which is still a "young" kingdom from a historical point of view - is going to be something to see.
Uh ... oh wow, only size 9 after two years? O_o
That explains a great deal.
We're in the early stages of VV, and the Barony of the Elk has 24 hexes and three cities. My players have taken a slow and cautious approach to expansion, and I have not revealed the entire building rules to them, instead revealing them bit by bit as needed.
A couple of my greedier players are excited that they may be able to claim the Varnhold area, despite the fact they have had good relations with Varnhold, and their Baroness married a cousin off to Baron Varn to cement the alliance. In fact, the child from that marriage (sh'e already pregnant, Varn's not getting any younger and is eager for an heir) will be the heir to the Barony of the Elk throne as well, unless the Baroness marries and produces offspring of her own.
Not sure if I as a GM did something wrong or what. My players, after 14months of starting the kingdom are at: 15Hexes, E46, L27, S31.
We have done the first 'in town' event and they haven't explored since getting the kingdom.
They built the caster tower right out the gate and got lucky on magic item rolls (1 minor (m) and two moderate (M) that qualified for selling. I think two months went by when they couldn't sell anything. They've made all their checks.
They just built a waterfront in a second district and have refused to expand to a second city.
I had 'normalized' the costs of the buildings as they were inconsistent. The result was the issue of building spamming for the 'best' building no longer occurred as there no longer was a best as everything was consistent.
So at month 14 with 2 districts the players make about 32bp a turn minimum. I'm going to have to significantly adjust all the CRs to match the gear they all have if they start withdrawing.
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Not sure if I as a GM did something wrong or what. My players, after 14months of starting the kingdom are at: 15Hexes, E46, L27, S31.
We have done the first 'in town' event and they haven't explored since getting the kingdom.
They built the caster tower right out the gate and got lucky on magic item rolls (1 minor (m) and two moderate (M) that qualified for selling. I think two months went by when they couldn't sell anything. They've made all their checks.
They just built a waterfront in a second district and have refused to expand to a second city.
I had 'normalized' the costs of the buildings as they were inconsistent. The result was the issue of building spamming for the 'best' building no longer occurred as there no longer was a best as everything was consistent.
So at month 14 with 2 districts the players make about 32bp a turn minimum. I'm going to have to significantly adjust all the CRs to match the gear they all have if they start withdrawing.
Your aware each district may only sell one item per turn right?
I've been wondering, how long has your group spent in the Kingmaker Adventure Path?
My group doesn't seem to want to take time to stop and smell the kingdom building roses, so we've only gone through 25 months and are almost done with Rivers Run Red. (And about 6 of those months are exploration.)
I'd like to know if this is extremely short or if they are on target with the average group. They wouldn't even have taken that much time except that I forced them to take a minimum of a year at the end of Stolen Lands.
4 years so far and 106 hexes. They are in the last module.
Timewise, VV goes very quickly. My group is 6 years in and have just finished that book.
Just to update for anyone interested: We're a session away from finishing BfB (though without the big flourish you might expect due to some interesting consequences of PC choices). We've just passed the 8 year mark with a kingdom of size 103. The event which triggers the start of WotRK will be coming up in a couple months. I expect book 5 to take about a year and I may give them another year before the events of book 6 start. Since that last book only takes about a month or so to complete, my entire campaign will have taken about 10 years of game time.
One of my groups just finished the main storyline in Blood for Blood, but haven't been exploring much in the region yet. It's currently 2 years since they began and they're size 41. Will expand further towards Drelev before they plan to attack Pitax.
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My group is at one session into War of the River King, with the kingdom 6-7 years old at size 144 with 11 districts (9 cities, two of which each have two districts). Only major house rule with Kingdom Building is that magic items 'pushed' out of a district (which is still 1/district per month) only provide 1 BP per 4,000 GP value. I have a program written that automatically adds stuff up and generates new random items (the Random Item generator is still on the boards somewhere), so its pretty quick to do. It means they get less BP per items (a lot of Minor items aren't even worth 1) but sometimes the Major items can generate loads (a 200K item that popped up once was worth 50 BP). Oh, I also have a house rule that a second district cannot be built unless the building desired can't fit in the first district.
I'm DMing the Kingmaker Campaign for my group of six players. They are approaching the Stag Lord's keep right now and they at 6 months and 4 days, so far. They still have a 5 hexes to explore when, and if, they succeed against the SL. By the time they get back to Oleg's it should approximately 7 months in game time (and 10 months in real time. We play 4 hr sessions every other week.)I've already suggested that the group take at least one year to build up their Kingdom. The group is happy to do this, especially since three of the characters have craft feats/skills. I've encouraged the group to really make use of the creating items ability that this setting is perfect for.
The group has been using Oleg's as a homebase and one thing I did permit was a little head start in the kingdom building. Several of the players started to build things: the cleric of Torag has a small smithy/church; the ranger has seedy bar being run by kobolds they befriended; the summoner has his own house/workspace; the cavalier has a small drill area; the rogue is working on gambling house in conjuntion with the ranger's bar; and the bard has been recruiting material for research. This will provide a boost, or impact, to their initial country stats. One other thing that I've permitted are two free hexes to the east of Oleg's (farm land) for the recent settlers that have heard of the groups exploits.
