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Having read through threads praising Kingmaker to the hills I get the impression that general consensus puts Kingmaker up there as one of the all time great AP's. People seem to consider it one of the best, if not the best, AP ever written.
Well I'm on book 6 now and I must say I can't see it. Large sections of this adventure have been a chore for myself and my players and with a few notable exceptions most of the fights have been dull with a capital dull. I will try to outline my issues here to see whether people agree with me.
1) 15 minute work day: The King in this party is a cavalier so most of our fights have gone like this:
a) Enter hex
b) Monster appears
c) Challenge
d) Charge
e) Dead
f) Next hex
The adventure seems to be set up so that there are single battles in each hex, maybe two if you have wandering monster encounter. So the players don't get challenged until they run into a set peice dungeon or similar. The whole exploring aspect (past the 2nd book where the novelty hadn't quite worn off yet) just got to be boring.
2) Mass battles: Ugh... SO boring. Mass battles in Kingmaker are majorly dull with little necessity for tactics or subtlety. I would like to have seen something similar to the Legend of the Five Rings system whereby the players can make a difference on the battlefield through personal heroic deeds. As it was, our mass battles were a case of roll until you win. I'm scrapping the whole system for the battle in book 6 and just doing cinematic battles.
3) Kingdom Building: We were up til 3:30am on Saturday night/Sunday Morning just doing kingdom building. Not because we were enjoying it but because we were trying to get it finished so we wouldn't have to do it again. Initially (like all these rules sets) it was interesting. My players oohed and ahhed about the magic items they were getting but eventually they realised that they could just make anything they wanted and these items were actually pointless. By the end of kingdom building after almost 100 turns of slog my players were sick of it and so was I.
4) Exploring gets dull: Here's the thing. My players went in book 3 to directly investigate Varnhold, the centaurs and then Vordakai's tomb- in that order. They were not interested in exploring anywhere else, they had a mystery and they were damn well going to investigate. That bit was cool. What wasn't cool was afterwards where they had to explore the rest of the map around Varnhold. They'd dealt with an ancient threat and then they had to mop up chimera. It was a major bummer. Exploring was the focus of the first two books but it became a chore after that, a bit "OK let's do the boring stuff so we can get to the interesting encounters".
5) The XP doesn't work: By book 5 my players were behind where they should have been XP wise by a good half a level. Yet they had done everything and fought a bunch of wandering monsters so there was no reason for them to be behind. It got so bad that I had to scrap the XP system and just level my players at the suggested intervals. Not good.
In the interests of fairness I must say that a lot of Kingmaker has been great. Vordakai's tomb was a highlight as was diplomacy with the Kobolds and (General) Mik Mek, slayer of centipedes. The Rushlight Tournament was also great fun and my players enjoyed crafting their own cities and giving each other titles and positions. Most of Books 1 and 2 also went down well before exploring and kingdom building got samey.
The issue for me is that there's a lot of good stuff in Kingmaker but it got weighed down by extraneous baggage that it didn't need. If you cut out the fat there's some very succulent meat to this AP. Unfortunately there's a lot of that fat.
Of course this is only my opinion, I know a lot of you guys love this AP. I just wanted to voice my counter argument and ask whether anyone else agreed with me.
I'm forced to agree....there were some redundant parts in the books; some "fat", as you said.
What I did as GM was to gloss over or even outright skip several parts. For example, book 6 went from a dozen or so encounters to three or four. That was the most extreme example out of the campaign, thankfully.
So, did we slog through everything as written? No. Did we have great fun?
I'd have to say yes...
I have deliberately cut most of the exploration aspects of the AP after Book 2. It wasn't relevant to my players or campaign, so I did away with it. I can never stop myself from slipping in a few extra mini-quests and that has helped make sure they're not losing out on xp.
There is a definite delicate balance that needs to be struck regarding kingdom-building, however. Some of my players love it and some find it the most boring part of the game.
In Kingmaker, as in all campaigns, the GM's most difficult and most important job is trying to keep everyone happy. If something isn't working for your group, don't use it. If you know something is going to bore them, don't use it. If you think something is missing, put it in.
Kingmaker isn't perfect, but it's rewarding for players in a way that few other campaigns are. I've found it rewards hard work on the part of the GM as well.
Having finished the story line of book 4 with one group and being about halfway through book 2 with another these are my experiences.
1) Single hex encounters have rarely been a challenge, but they can provide role-playing opportunities and some loot. Also works good for newer groups to get familiar with their character's abilities. I had great experiences with the logging/dryad/scythe tree in book 2, and there was no resting in between.
2) I haven't done this part yet, but I will be using a mix of the normal rules and others found here on the forum. Turin the Mad has some good ones.
3) This tends to go by very fast in my groups, using a GoogleDocs spreadsheet to track everything. I've also renamed magic items in favor of calling it something else, and will from now on use averages (minor items are mostly useless except in the very beginning, 1bp; medium, 5bp; major 12bp) instead of rolling whether they get something worth more than 4k or not.
4) After a while I agree, the higher the level the less interested they are in exploring. Several solutions may be to pay BP to have something explored, and only notify the PCs if it's a big threat or something they might be interested in. You can also let hexes next to your borders be explored after a certain amount of time.
5) I have used several other adventures (City of Golden Death, the Demon Within, Slumbering Tsar etc.) in the middle of Kingmaker, which makes up for random encounters I don't use, or set encounters that are never encountered. You can always make "Story awards" to keep using the XP track while keeping up with the recommended levels.
This is also the first AP I have run, and while not everything in it is that great, there is enough that is and it provides plenty of opportunities for the players to have fun.
I think it's important to pick up on what your players like and do more of that, and reduce the elements they find boring. Not everyone has to take part in the kingdom building for example, and it can easily be done between sessions.
My two Won.
Thanks for the kind words, Leonal.
Kingmaker is definitely the AP that rewards directly to the effort put into it in order to tailor it to your group.
5) I have used several other adventures (City of Golden Death, the Demon Within, Slumbering Tsar etc.) in the middle of Kingmaker, which makes up for random encounters I don't use, or set encounters that are never encountered. You can always make "Story awards" to keep using the XP track while keeping up with the recommended levels.
Off-topic, but I'm curious to know how you incorporated The Demon Within into your campaign. Did you take your King & court to Mendev, or find some way to bring the keep & the demons to them?
5) I have used several other adventures (City of Golden Death, the Demon Within, Slumbering Tsar etc.) in the middle of Kingmaker, which makes up for random encounters I don't use, or set encounters that are never encountered. You can always make "Story awards" to keep using the XP track while keeping up with the recommended levels.Off-topic, but I'm curious to know how you incorporated The Demon Within into your campaign. Did you take your King & court to Mendev, or find some way to bring the keep & the demons to them?
I don't have that module nor am I presently able to view the AP, but at a guess Leonal either dropped it into one of the abandoned castles; replaced Tatzylford; or simply had events call them across the border to Mivon. Based on previous comments, the castle may have replaced Candlemere as well.
Kingmaker is definitely the AP that rewards directly to the effort put into it in order to tailor it to your group.
+1
I just finished running Kingmaker this weekend, and my players loved it.
They liked Kingdom building (which only takes a few minutes if you use a spreadsheet) and enjoyed the exploration as well.
On to Carrion Crown...
I would like to point out a couple of things that might have helped earlier on:
1. Kingdom building is optional. If you notice that some or all of your players are bored with this aspect of the campaign, switch to running the kingdom in the background. All of the AP volumes have a sidebar explaining the generic expansion of the kingdom if it is run in the background.
2. Exploration is also optional, certainly for book 3 and onwards. There's no reason why your players would "have to" explore further hexes near Varnhold once they'd solved the mystery. If the players didn't want to explore, how come they did?
Part of the reason why so many love the Kingmaker campaign is because it provides a lot of opportunities for adventure (which could be fleshed out by the DM as desired), and relatively few required adventures (few of the hexes in part 3 and onwards need to be explored to drive the story onwards; they're just there if the players still want to explore).
The 15 minute work day was a problem in my game. I'd combine random encounters over several hexes. So we didn't have this explore a hex, get an encounter, defeat encounter, move one routine. A lot of the time I'd just describe the area and move the days by quick, then an encounter with a shambling mound, followed by trolls and finished with wolves. The way I looked it the wolves were trailing the party but were not going to attack unless opportunity was favorable. The trolls found the shambling mound as a easy source of food. They go in at take what mound killed. So 3 encounters that made sense in one hex. Often coupled with a set encounter for 4-5 encounters that day. Worked a lot better than the 15 minute work day, that just made things too easy for the players. I also mix it up, sometime 1 hex had just a single encounter, the players wouldn't blow all their resources because sometimes that's not the case.
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Can't say I agree there Are. The charter for the players states clearly that they have to explore and pacify the Stolen Lands. So no, exploration isn't optional it's the point of the whole AP.
I could have done kingdom in the background but really again that defeats the point of the AP. This AP was trumpeted as a chance to carve out a kingdom, not as a chance to play in a kingdom that is being created around you. The players have input into what they want to develop and I think they feel a sense of achievement in building a 200+ hex kingdom with 10 cities.
My objection is not the objective or the end result, it's the process. Getting from 1 to 200 hexes requires a whole bunch of paperwork which we had to do by hand and was a total headache. My players didn't enjoy the process but they like the end result.
Also as for exploration, again my objection wasn't doing the explorey bits it was that a lot of the encounters felt like poorly developed wandering monster encounters (3 chimera? yawn...) I don't think that skipping this stuff was the way forward. My players wanted to explore but after book 2 what they found wasn't that interesting.
I don't have that module nor am I presently able to view the AP, but at a guess Leonal either dropped it into one of the abandoned castles; replaced Tatzylford; or simply had events call them across the border to Mivon. Based on previous comments, the castle may have replaced Candlemere as well.
5) I have used several other adventures (City of Golden Death, the Demon Within, Slumbering Tsar etc.) in the middle of Kingmaker, which makes up for random encounters I don't use, or set encounters that are never encountered. You can always make "Story awards" to keep using the XP track while keeping up with the recommended levels.Off-topic, but I'm curious to know how you incorporated The Demon Within into your campaign. Did you take your King & court to Mendev, or find some way to bring the keep & the demons to them?
I kept it in its original location. Teleport makes long distances less of a hindrance.
They were originally forced to flee their kingdom for several months as mobs accused them of everything wrong in the Kingdom as a result of seeds planted by Nyrissa.
They got help from the Swamp Witch to escape, and were sent to the Desolation (Slumbering Tsar).
After some time there they were approached by a Leonal in disguise (aka. GM fiat for lets get you out of here, and I also have this cool adventure I'd like to run ;p) who offered them a wish each if they could attend a ceremony in Mendev that was suspected to get attacked, and they had proven themselves to be quite resourceful in the Desolation.
So now they are knighted (the wonders of having a NE wizard with a ring of mind shielding being knighted by Paladins) and have allies in Mendev which might turn up as a small army of knights should they be attacked.
They also have a flying caravel/carrack and a permanent demiplane (what they wished for from the Leonal, who had arranged for them to get their wishes).
Now they're ready to expand before preparing an attack on Pitax and the party barbarian decided he wants to keep Ovinrbaane as a backup weapon. *grin*
Maybe not your standard KM campaign, but whose is? :)
Can't say I agree there Are. The charter for the players states clearly that they have to explore and pacify the Stolen Lands. So no, exploration isn't optional it's the point of the whole AP.
I agree exploration is the point of books 1 and 2. Once you reach book 3 and later, exploration becomes something the PCs do if they want to, while other matters are more important to deal with. The original charter only allows the PCs to claim hexes in the Greenbelt area, while the other areas are given to the other 3 groups mentioned. The campaign does expect the PCs to claim hexes to the east and west eventually, though.
In any case, my points were in response to what I perceived the problem to be. It seemed that your players no longer liked the exploration parts of the campaign or the kingdom building part of the campaign. And if that was the case, keeping those elements to a minimum or in the background would have been a good idea.
Your later post clarifies the problem as a very different one: Namely the specific encounters met, rather than the exploration itself. I certainly agree that some of the encounters are not particularly interesting, but the best fix for that would have been to change the encounters up a bit. If your PCs found the encounters too easy or too boring, you should increase the difficulty, or use multiple encounters in one hex. I took all of those encounters to be general ideas for me to flesh out as I wished.
stuff aboout KM
I do think it is a good adventure, but I also think it is repetitious at times. I think there should have been less hexes, maybe cut them down to 50 instead of 77(?) per area.
The mass battles could have been better if they were designed to be done on the battle map. I just did not want to learn new rules for such a small part of the game, but that is not a game fault.There is a an excel sheet that handle 90% of the calculations for you. It is popular around here. I will admit thought that if not for that excel sheet our kingdom building would have been put into the background.
I had not problems with the XP, and random encounters did come up that much. I don't know of anyone else having issues with them either.
I wish the last fight had more firepower. She is strong defensively, but her offense is lacking.
It definitely falls into the more you put in the more you get out
I have really enjoyed running it, even though most battles the party have walked. Have had a few deaths and a few retreats, so not a complete walkover
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I am really enjoying the Kingmaker experience, I've been running it since the release of book 1 and we're still only in book 2. I added Realm of the Felnight Queen as a subquest in book 2, and moved the mass combat stuff as well (do a search for Hargulka's monster kingdom).
I realize how tedious repitition is when it comes to Kingdom Building and Exploration. So Now kingdom building is done online between sessions with just the Baron and I in order to have a compromise between kingdom building and moving it to the background. I'm also crafting rules for hiring explorers, who in effect will auto-map empty hexes, and flag dangers that need clearing. Basically means once exploration becomes tiresome the PCs can just flag dangers they need to fight themselves.
Finally, Kingmaker is a clothes hanger campaign. If you just run it as written it has only the basics, but if you take the time to tailor it, add in modules you always wanted to run or personal quests for your PCs you'll be well rewarded with a deeply memorable campaign. I'm sorry it hasn't been as fun for you.
Also, mass combat can be made more personal by coming up with vignette encounters the PCs take personal part in giving bonuses to the Army's stats for success or penalties for failure.
I wish the last fight had more firepower. She is strong defensively, but her offense is lacking.
You don't seriously think I've not made certain notes by this point have you ? ^_^
We have one player who really got into the kingdom building stuff so i do it with him online in down time.
If the exploration is the problem..send hirelings to do it..I think that will be my solution to the problem once I start getting into chapter 3
I'm also running Kingmaker, and I have to strongly support most recommendations made in this forum:
1. if there is at least one player interested in kingdom building, and others that aren't as much, just do the mechanical part between session using a spreadsheet. We started out doing the kingdom phases in the session, but some players were bored by it. Then we switched to discuss the development of the kingdom in-character during the session, and the mechanical part is handled between sessions on our messageboard. This works great.
2. Exploration did become boring at the end of book 2; we are starting book 3 now, and the PCs have turned to hiring adventurers to do the exploration for them. I've derived some quick-adventuring rules to determine the fate of the explorers off-session.
3. The 1-encounter-per-day is a serious problem, and I haven't found a good solution for it yet. But I hope that it will be less of a problem when the party doesn't do the exploration itself anymore.
4. Cavaliers are incredibly strong in this campaign. The halfling cavalier in our campaign isn't even super-optimized (he started taking levels of bard to go into battle herald), but he's dominating combats whenever there is enough space to use ride-by-attacks...
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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I'm also running Kingmaker, and I have to strongly support most recommendations made in this forum:
1. if there is at least one player interested in kingdom building, and others that aren't as much, just do the mechanical part between session using a spreadsheet. We started out doing the kingdom phases in the session, but some players were bored by it. Then we switched to discuss the development of the kingdom in-character during the session, and the mechanical part is handled between sessions on our messageboard. This works great.
2. Exploration did become boring at the end of book 2; we are starting book 3 now, and the PCs have turned to hiring adventurers to do the exploration for them. I've derived some quick-adventuring rules to determine the fate of the explorers off-session.
3. The 1-encounter-per-day is a serious problem, and I haven't found a good solution for it yet. But I hope that it will be less of a problem when the party doesn't do the exploration itself anymore.
4. Cavaliers are incredibly strong in this campaign. The halfling cavalier in our campaign isn't even super-optimized (he started taking levels of bard to go into battle herald), but he's dominating combats whenever there is enough space to use ride-by-attacks...
I think I'd venture that cavaliers being strong in this AP is at least as much feature as bug - considering they (and most mounted combat types) are reduced to chumps in a lot of APs, I think it's perfectly fair that they get one in which to shine. YMMV.
stuff about KM
1) If you run "hexploration" in such a methodical way, it will get boring. Tying hexes together should be more freeform imho. For example, build to the Boggard encounter by foreshadowing and run those hexes together as a tiny sidetrek with prerolled random encounters until you reach the Boggard hex. Same for the Tatzylwyrms, although iirc, there may have been a wanted sign for them making it easier. Another example was that I tied the Undead guy at the river (name escapes me atm, was it David Nettles or somesuch?), into one of my player's backgrounds. He came looking for him as he had lost contact. So I left clues in some places guiding him to the river eventually, another side-trek.
If the random encounters are dull, change them. Pick some creatures you find more interesting/challenging, perhaps toss them into a hex replacing an encounter that you didnt like, build up a small backstory, and run it as a side trek. As they cross the hexes to get there, you can consider them explored, etc. If it's a hidden site (or if there is one along the way), have them roll a their check as they pass through those hexes (as if they were actively searching) for a chance to notice it, etc2) Mass battles. If I run this, other than the first Tatzylford thing, I wont do anymore mass battles. I'd just have them happen in the background and stick to the party stuff. This leaves some modifying of book 5 to be done though. I'd probably mix a seperate module into this to keep the XP on track and have it as a more traditional adventure.
3) Kingdom Building. See #2 above. I'd skip this aspect entirely. The rules are clunky and tedious (though interesting). Kingdom in the Background is how I'd go. The PCs can still be responsible for founding a kingdom, even ruling it.... just it will still be in the background.
Aside from the above, I still think KM is way beyond fantastic.
It's such a classic campaign with a good BBEG, wilderness exploration, dungeon crawls and a main story tied in with the founding of a kingdom. It's a complete Epic.
I love the fact that the campaign can be run as is, or as a framework for any DM to personalize more than any other AP that has come before.
Also, the last part is probably the best high-level adventure I've ever seen from paizo (or anyone else for that matter) yet.
You don't seriously think I've not made certain notes by this point have you ? ^_^
I wish the last fight had more firepower. She is strong defensively, but her offense is lacking.
I had to modify her also for the last fight. I gave her the summon monolith spell from 3.5 complete arcane. I also changed some of her arcane spells.
My experience is different. The site encounters and the quests so far have had more than enough action, with the party almost dropping at least twice. In between encounters, they take advantage of downtime by exploring a few hexes here and there, with only the occasional random encounter.
I think they're enjoying the novelty of having quests (I print out the pieces of paper) and the XP they get from exploring, regardless of whether or not there are encounters. OTOH, I've tried pretty hard to make exploring flavorful by varying geography and weather; the exploration system as presented was a little dry.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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2) Mass battles. If I run this, other than the first Tatzylford thing, I wont do anymore mass battles. I'd just have them happen in the background and stick to the party stuff. This leaves some modifying of book 5 to be done though. I'd probably mix a seperate module into this to keep the XP on track and have it as a more traditional adventure.
Since the mass combat rules weren't finished at the time I wrote #5, my manuscript is written to be playable with just PCs - it has some scripted battle scenes, but the "army battles" go on in the background with the PCs having a couple of battlefield objective missions for each fight. It might be more to your liking. You can email me at
Can someone point me to this spreadsheet I keep reading about???
Thanks!
There is another floating around here also, but I don't have the link to that one.
Lots of pretty valid stuff.
I think most of your criticisms have a lot of validity to them. Kingmaker is definitely not for everyone, and I can see how some groups might not love it. That said, overall, I think this is the best Paizo has put out, precisely because it is so different from most of the other APs. The main plot thread, which is decent, is completely secondary, in my opinion, to the sandbox element that has the players basically writing their own story, and it provides tremendous challenges and tremendous rewards for players and a GM that are into that.
Here's my take on your points:
1) I somewhat agree, and that's why I more than tripled the written encounter rate, to prevent a lot of easy victories and a predictably low encounter rate that encourages novaing in every combat. This led to an erratic and unpredictable pattern of encounters that had them go several days without an encounter at times and then have three or four in a single day. They could never be sure what kind of day it would be. I also liked the fact that some of the encounters were with things that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to defeat. Two out of the three character deaths in my campaign have come from random encounters.
2) I think I agree here, too, and we're just getting to the mass combat portion of the campaign. In consultation with my players, many of whom are old wargamers as well, we're going to scrap the mass combat rules, and play out some of the battles as tabletop miniatures battles using an adaptation of the old 1st edition Battlesystem rules. This will be very time-consuming, and probably wouldn't appeal to many folks, but I think it will work with my group. As you said, it lets them be heroes on the battlefield, as well.
3) My group loves the kingdom building, and it is one of their favorite aspects of the game. As one of the features which makes Kingmaker unique, I enjoy it as well. It reminds me of old campaigns in 1st or 2nd edition, in which every player past a certain level tried to build his own stronghold. I also like that it gives some real focus to what a high level character should be doing beyond looking to make himself personally more powerful (to what end?). Obviously not for everyone, though.
4) Again I somewhat agree, but my group hasn't gotten bored of the exploring yet, possibly because they know it is necessary to expand their kingdom, and because they have gotten pretty engaged in some of the side quests that encourage exploration.
5. Haven't encountered this myself. My group has been pretty much right on track for experience throughout the whole thing. Of course, as I mentoned earlier, I've bumped up the random encounter rate.
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Can someone point me to this spreadsheet I keep reading about???
Thanks!
There is another floating around here also, but I don't have the link to that one.
Thanks!!!
It looks REALLY nice. One problem I ran into though: I have Excel 2003 and this was saved as an Excel 2007 file. When I open the file, I get a message saying certain features or calculations may not work.
The file still opens though and seems to work OK ... is anyone else using this with Excel 2003?
Since the mass combat rules weren't finished at the time I wrote #5, my manuscript is written to be playable with just PCs - it has some scripted battle scenes, but the "army battles" go on in the background with the PCs having a couple of battlefield objective missions for each fight. It might be more to your liking. You can email me at** spoiler omitted **
Email sent. Thanks so much. :)
Well, I as a GM am finding myself a bit disenchanted with the AP. I am GM'ing it for two groups at the moment and the repetition already is getting on my nerves. Other things I don't like so much are:
- The lack of a coherent story. It's very much "Go to hex 1, do encounter, go to hex 2, do encounter, etc.". I guess I should have known by my extensive research of the Kingmaker forums what I was gettin myself into, but the play experience is a bit harrowing for me.
- The kingdom building part is very tedious to me. So far we've only had one session of it, but that one was quite boring for me. I hope the next ones turn out to be more interesting.
Strangely, the first group seems to like the AP just fine and the second one is loving it so far. I'd much rather GM Carrion Crown at this point and start Jade Regent rather sooner than later, but I don't think I can get either group to abandon the AP and I don't want to be the bad guy who forces them to.
Well, I as a GM am finding myself a bit disenchanted with the AP. I am GM'ing it for two groups at the moment and the repetition already is getting on my nerves. Other things I don't like so much are:
- The lack of a coherent story. It's very much "Go to hex 1, do encounter, go to hex 2, do encounter, etc.". I guess I should have known by my extensive research of the Kingmaker forums what I was gettin myself into, but the play experience is a bit harrowing for me.
- The kingdom building part is very tedious to me. So far we've only had one session of it, but that one was quite boring for me. I hope the next ones turn out to be more interesting.
Strangely, the first group seems to like the AP just fine and the second one is loving it so far. I'd much rather GM Carrion Crown at this point and start Jade Regent rather sooner than later, but I don't think I can get either group to abandon the AP and I don't want to be the bad guy who forces them to.
Beg, borrow and steal other GMs' modifications! I generally fast-tracked anything non-essential during exploration. City building/kingdom building I did my own exercises for it to give myself a solid grasp of those rules but let my players do there thing. If your players are enjoying it, by all means let them. If not, see if there are volunteers willing to do so away from the table. If none of them are, or if they get tired of it, switch to "Kingdom in the Background" mode.
Since you're GMing two tables of KM I think you'll find it rewarding to mix things up. Move one group's stuff 2 or 3 hexes either clock direction from where they are on the map. Change out bad guys. Insert a favorite critter from past campaigns. Spice up the wandering monsters with a pet critter you've had languishing on a shelf, or have them harried by carnivorous centaurs with How to Serve Man on the brain.
Maybe even take each group on a slightly different twist from "as written". One will end up facing a BBEG that's a gestalt monk/fighter while the other tangles with an awakened tyrannosaur with shapeshifting and spells...
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@magnusskn: You might want to include some of your own "mobile" encounters. For example:
I added a small group of heinous bandits (much crueler than the Stag Lord) that roamed around and did bad things, never staying still too long so as to keep away from the Stag Lord's greater numbers and strength. I planned for them to move across the projected path of the party and then back again. They were raiding a tiny elven village on the edge of the Narlmarches and then meandering east. Potentially the party might never encounter them, or could run head on into them.
The first time, the party took too long and missed them, crossing after them, but seeing their tracks and the butchered carcasses of an elk herd, stripped of antlers and hides, but left to rot (a la Dances with Wolves, seems to upset druids for some reason). The party ended up seriously injured after that and had to rest for 2 days in one place, so they found them on the return trip, as they chased down an escaped elven female and mistreated her. The screams woke up the party and created the encounter.
I also ran a roaming worg pack earlier, with a preset path and timeline. These take a little time to set up, but can lead to some interesting encounters, cause the party to stop exploring to follow several hexes away (travel only) chasing after them. It helps to break up the monotony, and is more likely to lead into back to back encounters, especially if the pursued deliberately lead the party into a set encounter and then double back to take advantage.
I also added a daily roll for random track encounters and random night sound encounters, which can add spice to the regular grind and also foreshadow encounters. For instance, my party has already encountered a hill giant's tracks, several days old, even though they are in book 1 still... :)
These can also set up chains of events. For example if my party had run across the bandits early, they could have
You don't seriously think I've not made certain notes by this point have you ? ^_^
I wish the last fight had more firepower. She is strong defensively, but her offense is lacking.
You'd think that the 7 Prismatic Sprays she can do would enough to make the PC's cry, but then again this is a campaign run by you... I fully expect perfect clones of dead characters, named Da Burninator III, to teleport in from nowhere. :p
And thanks guys, for the tips. I'll continue for a while with the AP as pre-made ( until I get to War of the River Kings, where I'll use Jasons excellent Directors Cut ), but if it gets too tedious for me, I'll begin mixing things up. Let's hope not many of the other issues other groups seemed to have crop up with my groups!
You don't seriously think I've not made certain notes by this point have you ? ^_^
I wish the last fight had more firepower. She is strong defensively, but her offense is lacking.You'd think that the 7 Prismatic Sprays she can do would enough to make the PC's cry, but then again this is a campaign run by you... I fully expect perfect clones of dead characters, named Da Burninator III, to teleport in from nowhere. :p
And thanks guys, for the tips. I'll continue for a while with the AP as pre-made ( until I get to War of the River Kings, where I'll use Jasons excellent Directors Cut ), but if it gets too tedious for me, I'll begin mixing things up. Let's hope not many of the other issues other groups seemed to have crop up with my groups!
:) Not clones ... simulacrums! ^_^
If you ran Kingmaker exactly by the book, I can see how it would get boring. The only module I ran most of the exploration for was the first one. After part 1, I only ran key encounters I had designed and handwaved the rest giving my players the xp.
I modified the Mass Combat rules here and there to better suit my view of what a D&D army should be like.
The reason I consider Kingmaker to be the best AP I've run is that it gave me the best framework to play with. The players got to build a kingdom. I got an adventure where I could create in a given hex whatever I felt like making. I had an overarching plot I could tie together in whatever way I felt like.
I took module 3 through 6 and modified the heck out of them. I have run my players up to lvl 19 throughout the series. I found the entire AP very inspiring. That is why I like it so much.
I think it was the best series of adventures I have ever run because of what it offered the players (kingdom, cool unique magic items, open-ended adventuring, chance to have own army) and the DM (open-ended plot and encounters, many different types of monsters, chance to incorporate non-combat roleplaying into adventure within kingdom and with allies, no hard timeline to run by, magic items with a role-playing element).
I did a ton with these modules. My players did varied things that weren't just combat:
1. One player redeemed a fallen paladin, had a kid with said paladin, built up the Church of Erastil throughout the kingdom, and saw to it justice was done in the name of Erastil.
2. The player playing the king has multiple bastards (he's a barbarian, what do you expect). He had an affair with an opposing king's sister. Survived an assassination attempt. Built up the church to Gorum and planned how he is going to take over the Stolen Lands.
3. One guy built his own city dedicated to magic and his two deities Nethys and Gozreh. He spent his time building his reputation as the Grand Architect of Tre'aravand by being the primary mover and shaker in kingdom building. He rebuilt cities and renamed them inspiring the people to build to even greater heights. Negotiated an alliance with the local tribes. And named the armies. He designed a nice flag for the kingdom and its armies. Built an academy of magic with his name on it.
4. The healer built hospitals to her goddess. Spent the majority of her time healing the sick and overseeing the health and education of the kingdom. Became probably the most beloved person in Tre'aravand as she has performed miracles in keeping children alive during birthing and healing those thought unhealable.
5. The last character didn't roleplay a whole lot. But he still wrote up and built a cool personality through feats. He's the general of Tre'aravand. He has an intimidate skill over +30. He is the most feared warrior in the land and his subordinates do not talk back to him. He can scare dragons by looking cross at them.
Overall, it was a very fun experience. Much more fun than the standard slog through dungeon after dungeon until you fight BBEG. It was an adventure that if you put work into it as a DM and your players put work into it, you can all get a tremendous amount of fun out of it.
The only way I can you taking away more bad than good with Kingmaker is if you and your players didn't put a whole lot of effort into tailoring it to suit your group and tastes. I don't think it was a series of modules meant to be run exactly as is. I think it was meant to be more of a here is an open-ended adventure that gives your players something other to do than the standard linear adventure. We've thrown a lot of our own ideas out there for plot and how things should go, but feel free to modify as you want.
I modified like crazy. Especially module number 5. I had the most fun with that one.
3. The 1-encounter-per-day is a serious problem, and I haven't found a good solution for it yet. But I hope that it will be less of a problem when the party doesn't do the exploration itself anymore.
I loved this problem by handwaving them. If you know the players are going to win, give them xp. Why waste time rolling it out? Use the encounter as a chance to keep the xp on track, but don't waste valuable time rolling encounters you know are a cakewalk.
If you find an encounter interesting, then beef it up to be a challenge.
That was the best way I found to keep the sandbox, exploration style while not making all the per hex encounters trivial.
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If you ran Kingmaker exactly by the book, I can see how it would get boring. The only module I ran most of the exploration for was the first one. After part 1, I only ran key encounters I had designed and handwaved the rest giving my players the xp.
I modified the Mass Combat rules here and there to better suit my view of what a D&D army should be like.
The reason I consider Kingmaker to be the best AP I've run is that it gave me the best framework to play with. The players got to build a kingdom. I got an adventure where I could create in a given hex whatever I felt like making. I had an overarching plot I could tie together in whatever way I felt like.
I took module 3 through 6 and modified the heck out of them. I have run my players up to lvl 19 throughout the series. I found the entire AP very inspiring. That is why I like it so much.
I think it was the best series of adventures I have ever run because of what it offered the players (kingdom, cool unique magic items, open-ended adventuring, chance to have own army) and the DM (open-ended plot and encounters, many different types of monsters, chance to incorporate non-combat roleplaying into adventure within kingdom and with allies, no hard timeline to run by, magic items with a role-playing element).
I did a ton with these modules. My players did varied things that weren't just combat:
1. One player redeemed a fallen paladin, had a kid with said paladin, built up the Church of Erastil throughout the kingdom, and saw to it justice was done in the name of Erastil.
2. The player playing the king has multiple bastards (he's a barbarian, what do you expect). He had an affair with an opposing king's sister. Survived an assassination attempt. Built up the church to Gorum and planned how he is going to take over the Stolen Lands.
3. One guy built his own city dedicated to magic and his two deities Nethys and Gozreh. He spent his time building his reputation as the Grand Architect of Tre'aravand by being the primary mover and shaker in...
Maddigan, I couldn't have said it any better myself. Ditto!
The only way I can you taking away more bad than good with Kingmaker is if you and your players didn't put a whole lot of effort into tailoring it to suit your group and tastes. I don't think it was a series of modules meant to be run exactly as is. I think it was meant to be more of a here is an open-ended adventure that gives your players something other to do than the standard linear adventure. We've thrown a lot of our own ideas out there for plot and how things should go, but feel free to modify as you want.
+1 "Sandbox" isn't just for PCs! As a DM, I like playing in the sand, too! Look, I made a sand castle. Guarded by an anti-paladin and her succubus minion. Oh, did I forget the undead army out front? Have fun, peeps!
Personally, I think this AP is tailor-made to be tailor-made. I love it. Granted, this is the first AP I've run (though I'm playing in a Runelords game), but it's also the first one I read that got me excited enough to run. But, there you are. Everyone's mileage may be different. :)
Can someone point me to this spreadsheet I keep reading about???
Thanks!
There is another floating around here also, but I don't have the link to that one.
Thanks!!!
It looks REALLY nice. One problem I ran into though: I have Excel 2003 and this was saved as an Excel 2007 file. When I open the file, I get a message saying certain features or calculations may not work.
The file still opens though and seems to work OK ... is anyone else using this with Excel 2003?
openoffice is a freeware program that emulates the MS Office suite. You can use that. More than likely it should work with 2003, but the message is there as a warning.