|
I've been GM a Kingmaker game. We played the first two sessions, everyone got really busy with things (myself included) and it seemed it was going to die. However, a few weeks ago, my players really got the itch to get back into, it inspired me, and we cracked out several quality sessions. Last night was the final game.
Anyway, everyone is really excited about RRR and I've been prepping my notes to hopefully get started on it this weekend. However, I had a few questions about moving forward and wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions/had run into this problem before.
1. I'm having a little difficult sorting out the countries, factions and possible loyalties of the region. The players haven't asked too much, knowing the Swordlords to be their quest givers and handsomely rewarding them for their work. But with the building of the city and a little more social/political feel about things, they want to know more about the government and countries around the place. Granted, I know very little of the setting, and like I said, this far they've been in the woods and it didn't matter all that much. If I wanted to know a little bit more about the Swordlords and their political agenda, etc, where would I look? I know the KM module books have some information on them. Is it worth reading to understand this?
Also, only have read through RRR module, to what extent are the PCs "under the thumb" of the Swordlords? The charter seems to grant a lot of independence, but are they technically agents of the Swordlords? Do the PCs have to listen to them? Do the PCs at any point break away from their affiliation with the Swordlords (perhaps in an occurrence in a future book)?
2. One of my PCs decided to be from one of the royal families, the Surtova. He more than any other player, seems especially intrigued by the possibility of political going on's in the formation of a new Kingdom. Do any of the later books present possibilities for this?
3. I've recently found I'm going to be dealing with quite the cluster of a PC party. It is only a 4 PC group, but each seems to be bringing more to the table. The Ranger just hit level 4 and has an animal companion. The Cleric has the domain power granting an animal companion and just hit level 4. The Barbarian/Oracle is debating a level of Cavalier and would obtain a mount. The wizard plans on taking an improved familiar to get in the mix, binding outsiders when he can, and wants to craft his own golem when he has the opportunity. Not only can this be daunting to worth through during combat, but I'm afraid this many combatants could make the party a little better than it should and possibly walk through some encounters that should be harder.
4. My wizard PC took Craft Wondrous Item at 3rd, wants Craft Arms & Armory and is salivating over the idea of a personal golem at some point. With the way Kingmaker is laid out, it seems he will essentially have infinite time to craft, therefore making magic items half the listed price. I'm afraid this is going to severally change the dynamic/difficulty of the game. My group is normally very power gamey already (this is the first game any of them have every played with a less than 20 point buy). I've tried to stress to them this shouldn't be an arms race or a min/max-a-thon but its so far out of their nature to make any character build choice that is even nearing "subpar" as they call it (not optimized) they I can easily see this game getting out of hand. While I could increase the difficulty of encounters to compensate, it seems it would be ALOT of work, on top of what is already a lot of work, to adjust every encounter to up the difficulty a bit.
Thanks for bearing with the long post. Hope you guys have some great suggestions and tips. Can't wait to hear 'em.
Glad you and your players are having fun. KM is the first AP I've run, and we're having a blast.
As to your questions:
1. The books do have some info in them, but not tons of it. The River Kingdoms book has more info on neighbors; you can pick up a copy of the pdf fairly cheaply and have a read-through. It doesn't include Brevoy, however; that's left to the first KM book.
1.a. I'd suggest reading through all six books, you'll be able to tailor your game much better knowing what's ahead. Yes, the Swordlords eventually--around book 3 or 4--stop having a hand in the PC's kingdom. But while Restov gives them a charter, they're not actually agents of the Swordlords and can easily tell them to jump in the Lake. Though I'd recommend they do it politely. :)
2. The AP isn't directly about Brevoy. The last book does give some information on continuing the campaign and getting involved in the fate of Brevoy, but at no point in the actual AP do the players enter Brevoy (though they can easily go off the beaten path). To the left, you can easily come up with stuff on the side and get them involved to some extent, or allow as to how, once they've developed their own kingdom and tamed the Stolen Lands, they'll be in an excellent position to get involved in their neighbors' plots and machinations.
3 & 4. I combined these because they can be related. There are on these boards some wonderful people who upped the difficulty for a party of six PCs; you might want to take a look at those and see if they can help in increasing the difficulty if your players are stuffing their party with henchmen, companion creatures and the like. This is also true of crafting. I might suggest upping the encounters to the six-party conversions while leaving the loot the same as is in the AP to balance the cheaper items they're crafting. If you find your group is going beyond their "wealth by level", you can always lessen the gold they receive to compensate. But I wouldn't punish them too much. This AP is one of the few that allows massive amounts of "down time" to craft; it'd be a shame to disallow that opportunity.
Just my thoughts. :)