What were your favorite / least favorite elements about Kingmker AP?

[William Bryan]

This inquiry is for players and GMs alike who have played through/GMed the Kingmaker AP.

GMs: please use spoiler tags when necessary.

There are 2 intentions of this post.
1. For others to be able to make an informed decision of whether this AP will be a good fit for your players as well as to see if the AP style works with the GM's storytelling style.
2. For Paizo staff to be able to keep track of what their customers/fans think of the APs and use the information to improve the APs in the future.

[Brian Bachman]

1) The sandbox nature that lets the PCs basically write their own story.
2) The kingdom-building rules. Flawed and vulnerable to abuse as they are, they are a uniquee element that makes Kingmaker special.
3) The whole concept of getting characters involved in something beyond their own current adventure and the endless churning for experience/levels/loot. I gives them a focus beyond themselves and provides tremendous potential for creative and interesting play.
4) The vividly written and unique NPCs for the PCs to interact with (and not just kill them all). This helps the world become "real" for the players.

[NeoFax]

Caveat Emptor: I am not a fan of Kingmaker as there are some items I just can't stand.

Likes
--Sandbox My players love the way they can basically do whatever they want with a very minor plot overarching the game.
--Truly become Kings and Queens, Court Mage, Spy... which leads to a great buy-in from the players
--Location is a perfect fit for this style of game. Rough land people eking out their existence. Established government nearby makes a covert land grab using the PC's as dupes.
--Unique rules that lend themselves to strengthening the game play instead of just another rule to remember.
--Extended play although this is a double edged sword

Dislikes
--Very poorly executed overarching plot.

Spoiler:

Who is the BBEG today? The Stag Lord? Hargulka? Vordakai? Narissa?

--DM has to spend way more time prepping as there are no rails to keep the players on track
--Extended play

Spoiler:

some parts of the higher levels feel like the encounter was thrown in just to get the players to the next level

--Time to make the donuts

Spoiler:

I don't care how much prep a DM puts in, at some point searching hexes for XP sake just gets boring

[Brian Bachman]

Realize I forgot the dislikes. Just a couple:
-- Unrealistic side quests with unrealistic rewards.
-- Buggy kingdom building rules. I'm sure they will be improved before published separately.
-- Disappointing and unrealistic mass combat rules. They are designed to be able to resolve mass combat quickly and move on with the story. That's probably great for most people, but my group is composed of several veteran wargamers, and we were hoping for some detailed rules that would let us fight epic miniatures battles on the tabletop, like the 1st Edition Battlesystem. I'd still love to see that. I also dislike the fact that the power level of the armies is so inflated, I find the idea of entire armies consisting of 3rd level warriors to be a stretch, much more so 7th level fighters or hill giants riding mastodons, etc. I realize this is a product of the level at which mass combat is occurring, to keep it challenging, but it just jars me and runs contrary to my assumptions of the number of people with a significant number of character levels there are in the campaign world. Just a complete logical disconect for me.

[Maddigan]

Likes:

1. Players can build their own kingdom.

2. Alot of odd creatures and a BBEG at the end that is uncommon.

3. Side quessts that make keeping the xp on track easier.

4. Sandbox style adventuring where I can tailor adventure points I want to run and handwave those I don't. I did a lot of handwaving and giving out the xp since I knew the players would utterly destroy the hex encounter while I beefed up other encounters to make them challenging.

5. Magic items that added an interesting roleplaying element to the story.

Dislikes:

1. Kingdom building rules become more of a headache at high level and a paperwork nightmare. A little too much focus on the magic item sales being the largest portion of the economy rather than allowing the players to cultivate some local crop. Every kingdom that wanted to have any kind of robust economy and large number of build points had to focus on magic item shops or something similar. The rules were not well designed to promote an interesting and versatile economy.

I was really unhappy with this aspect of the kingdom building rules. I would rather have seen some rules for building around a staple crop or mines or something that gave as substantial an amount of build points as a magic item shop.

The kingdom's economy was very unrealistic and ridiculous due to the excessive focus on magic item sales being the primary form of commerce. They should have built around buildings giving build points rather than adding to the economy.

2. Army building was not realistic. It did not take into account size or time to build up the army. I built rules myself for taking into account size. It did not take into account mixed units. I wrote rules allowing spellcasting to be incorporated into a standard army because that is how D&D armies would be.

3. Mass combat was too abstract and poorly designed. Fighting until one side or the other wins was kind of boring. I set mine up in combat rounds that went by days. I liked the idea of it better.

The systems were easy to adjudicate, just not very satisfying. I would love to see them expanded upon to add a bit more realism and D&Disms like spellcasting as part of a regular army of fighters.

[PJ]

Maddigan wrote:

Likes:

1. Players can build their own kingdom.

2. Alot of odd creatures and a BBEG at the end that is uncommon.

3. Side quessts that make keeping the xp on track easier.

4. Sandbox style adventuring where I can tailor adventure points I want to run and handwave those I don't. I did a lot of handwaving and giving out the xp since I knew the players would utterly destroy the hex encounter while I beefed up other encounters to make them challenging.

5. Magic items that added an interesting roleplaying element to the story.

Dislikes:

1. Kingdom building rules become more of a headache at high level and a paperwork nightmare. A little too much focus on the magic item sales being the largest portion of the economy rather than allowing the players to cultivate some local crop. Every kingdom that wanted to have any kind of robust economy and large number of build points had to focus on magic item shops or something similar. The rules were not well designed to promote an interesting and versatile economy.

I was really unhappy with this aspect of the kingdom building rules. I would rather have seen some rules for building around a staple crop or mines or something that gave as substantial an amount of build points as a magic item shop.

The kingdom's economy was very unrealistic and ridiculous due to the excessive focus on magic item sales being the primary form of commerce. They should have built around buildings giving build points rather than adding to the economy.

2. Army building was not realistic. It did not take into account size or time to build up the army. I built rules myself for taking into account size. It did not take into account mixed units. I wrote rules allowing spellcasting to be incorporated into a standard army because that is how D&D armies would be.

3. Mass combat was too abstract and poorly designed. Fighting until one side or the other wins was kind of boring. I set mine up in combat rounds that went by days. I liked the idea of it better.

The systems were easy...

Hey Maddigan can you share your rule changes. It would be greatly appreciated.

[Sunderstone]

First off, this is my favorite AP.

Dislikes...
Kingdom building rules. Too clunky with paperwork.
Mass combat rules. Too abstract.

Likes...
Everything else. :)

[Maddigan]

Mass Combat Modifications

xp: three times the normal award for defeating an army.

Consumption: While an army is not active, you pay its consumption cost once a month during your kingdom building phase.

Resources:

Improved Weapons:

Masterwork weapons:

Initial Cost by army size:
Diminutive: 1 BP
Tiny: 2 BP
Small: 4 BP
Medium: 8 BP
Large 15 BP
Huge: 38 BP
Gargantuan: 75 BP
Colossal: 150 BP

Maintenance: (10% of initial cost; minimum 1)
Diminutive: 1 BP
Tiny: 1 BP
Small: 1 BP
Medium: 1 BP
Large: 1 BP
Huge: 4 BP
Gargantuan: 7 BP
Colossal: 15 BP

Magic Weapons: Add enhancement bonus to Offense Modifier.

You can outfit the army with magic weapons for the following costs:

+1 weapons: 7 times masterwork BP cost by army size
+2 weapons: 20 times cost by army size
+3 weapons: 45 times masterwork BP cost by army size

Maintenance costs are 1% of initial cost with a minimum of 1 BP.

Improved Armor:

Masterwork armor:

Initial Cost by army size:
Diminutive: 1 BP
Tiny: 1 BP
Small: 2 BP
Medium: 4 BP
Large 7 BP
Huge: 18 BP
Gargantuan: 37 BP
Colossal: 75 BP

Maintenance: (10% of initial cost; minimum 1)
Diminutive: 1 BP
Tiny: 1 BP
Small: 1 BP
Medium: 1 BP
Large: 1 BP
Huge: 1 BP
Gargantuan: 3 BP
Colossal: 7 BP

Magic Armor: Add enhancement bonus to Defense.

You can outfit the army with magic armor for the following costs:

+1 armor: 4 times masterwork BP cost by army size
+2 armor: 10 times cost by army size
+3 armor: 22 times masterwork BP cost by army size

Maintenance costs are 1% of initial cost with a minimum of 1 BP.

Mounts: CR of mount times CR of army initial cost. Maintenance is initial cost of mounts divided by 4. Higher CR mounts might adjust entire CR of army if mounts more powerful than soldiers.

Healing Potions:

Cost per battle (gives two uses):
Diminutive: 1 BP
Tiny: 2 BP
Small: 4 BP
Medium: 8 BP
Large 15 BP
Huge: 37 BP
Gargantuan: 75 BP
Colossal: 150 BP

Ranged Weapons:

Diminutive: 1 BP
Tiny: 1 BP
Small: 1 BP
Medium: 2 BP
Large 5 BP
Huge: 12 BP
Gargantuan: 25 BP
Colossal: 50 BP

Maintenance cost 10% of initial cost minimum of 1 BP.

Spellcasting Support: There are two types of spellcasting support: healing and combat. This support can be shifted from one army to another and moves at 2 per day. If they can cast level 5 spells or higher, the entirety of the spell support can move instantaneously to a new army within a round between battles, but not during a battle.

Combat Support: This is a group of wizards or combat clerics. They increase the consumption cost by 1 per spell level they can cast times the CR of the army divided by four (minimum 1). The army gains a bonus to OM or DV equal to the highest spell level they can cast.

Healing Support: This is a group of dedicated healers combining magic and skill. They increase the consumption cost by 1 per spell level they can cast times the CR of the army divided by 4. At the start of a combat round you can heal your army an amount equal to 1d8 times the highest level spell your healers can cast.

Mass Combat Rule Modifications

Morale Checks=d20 + leader's str or cha modifier + morale score

Mobility Advantage: Fortifications provide half the defense bonus against flying armies. No fortifications help against teleportation, burrowing, or incorporeal creatures unless the defenses are made to resist such forms of transportation.

[PJ]

Maddigan wrote:

Mass Combat Modifications

xp: three times the normal award for defeating an army.

Consumption: While an army is not active, you pay its consumption cost once a month during your kingdom building phase.

Resources:

Improved Weapons:

Masterwork weapons:

Initial Cost by army size:
Diminutive: 1 BP
Tiny: 2 BP
Small: 4 BP
Medium: 8 BP
Large 15 BP
Huge: 38 BP
Gargantuan: 75 BP
Colossal: 150 BP

Maintenance: (10% of initial cost; minimum 1)
Diminutive: 1 BP
Tiny: 1 BP
Small: 1 BP
Medium: 1 BP
Large: 1 BP
Huge: 4 BP
Gargantuan: 7 BP
Colossal: 15 BP

Magic Weapons: Add enhancement bonus to Offense Modifier.

You can outfit the army with magic weapons for the following costs:

+1 weapons: 7 times masterwork BP cost by army size
+2 weapons: 20 times cost by army size
+3 weapons: 45 times masterwork BP cost by army size

Maintenance costs are 1% of initial cost with a minimum of 1 BP.

Improved Armor:

Masterwork armor:

Initial Cost by army size:
Diminutive: 1 BP
Tiny: 1 BP
Small: 2 BP
Medium: 4 BP
Large 7 BP
Huge: 18 BP
Gargantuan: 37 BP
Colossal: 75 BP

Maintenance: (10% of initial cost; minimum 1)
Diminutive: 1 BP
Tiny: 1 BP
Small: 1 BP
Medium: 1 BP
Large: 1 BP
Huge: 1 BP
Gargantuan: 3 BP
Colossal: 7 BP

Magic Armor: Add enhancement bonus to Defense.

You can outfit the army with magic armor for the following costs:

+1 armor: 4 times masterwork BP cost by army size
+2 armor: 10 times cost by army size
+3 armor: 22 times masterwork BP cost by army size

Maintenance costs are 1% of initial cost with a minimum of 1 BP.

Mounts: CR of mount times CR of army initial cost. Maintenance is initial cost of mounts divided by 4. Higher CR mounts might adjust entire CR of army if mounts more powerful than soldiers.

Healing Potions:

Cost per battle (gives two uses):
Diminutive: 1 BP
Tiny: 2 BP
Small: 4 BP
Medium: 8 BP
Large 15 BP
Huge: 37 BP
Gargantuan: 75 BP
Colossal: 150 BP

Ranged Weapons:
...

Thnx Mad. I like it consider it borrowed. :-)

[Devlin "Dusk" Valerian]

I am a player, and currently we are in the Blood for Blood installment. Since we have not finished the whole AP, I am unable do judge the complete thing. But here are my few thoughts on the campaign so far:

- being able to play in politics: This is a fun aspect, although it might stand and fall with your fellow Players. So far, politics is limited to building your Kingdom, and maybe acting on any outside influences, such as the threat from a neighboring Kingdom.

The only thing that I had hoped for in this aspect is doing a little more "internal politics" that go beyond "where will we build what next".

I had hoped to roleplay a little more internal politics with/against my fellow Players, like secretly building a "private army" that is stronger than theirs, buying and selling favors, etc. (short: internal powerplay on the political stage)

- Sandbox playing mode

- No time limit for building the Kingdom (we are in our 4th game-year)

Dislikes:

- Army design rules: leaves not much options for "a bit more realistic" strategy and tactics on how to incorporate specific troops

- Battles are to abstract, here again, I had hoped for a the chance of being able to bring in my own strategy and tactics (I am not a wargamer, but bit more allowance for Player flexibility would be nice)

- Silly complaints, demands and sidequests brought to the rulers by their citizens, such as "a boar ran away with my spear: you rulers must bring it back, Or: "I want to cook a feast and I need some eels. You rulers, could you go fishing for me?" And of course: "I need to have some berries picked; you rulers surely can do that for me!" Gaaaaaahhhh!!!

But all in all, so far it has been fun.

[MadIcon]

On the whole, I am a big fan of the Kingmaker AP.

One thing I would say is more of a recommend rather than a "like" or "dislike" is that you really need to read at least one adventure ahead of the part you are currently playing or it becomes increasingly difficult to keep the metaplot relevant.

I would echo most of what has been said here so far:

I used a slightly modified version of the "magic item economy" since I found the current incarnation frustrating (and I agree that kingdom building gets too paperwork heavy).

I am also using the old Birthright Mass Combat rules rather than the ones presented in the AP. I just didn't like em. Honestly, I think I was more frustrated with the idea that your army just "poof" is there when you need it -- but is also ridiculously expensive to maintain... We were six years in by the time we got to part 5. We didn't have any kind of army before that? Then why do we have a General on the Court?

Most important though, I would echo the comment about the side quests. Probably the most frustrating part of reading each adventure would have to be the inside covers... "Oh, hey, you guys are high-level adventurers and the rulers of a nation. Could you go retrieve me a roc egg or a wild horse? That would be awesome."

Linked to that would be a little frustration with the way encounters were distributed. My players skipped large parts of the wilderness exploration once they were into the 3rd and 4th parts of the AP -- they were too busy, you know, with ruling their country and trying to solve the problems of their neighbors -- who were disasters apparently.

Don't get me wrong. I'm enjoying the AP and so are my players -- but some elements don't really seem fully thought out. I've considered running it again for another group and I know that it would be much improved the second time through -- so that I could have more things kept in mind the whole way through.

[Mary Yamato]

Likes:

Good NPCs presented throughout, especially in the early modules--Falchos, Meliasne, Mikmik, the Stag Lord's men, Willas, Oleg, etc.

Especially in the first two maps, interesting things in a large proportion of hexes. (I would have liked to see this on the western maps as well.)

The overarching plot--I really like that it's a big deal to the Stolen Lands and not to anyone else, so that it's very clear this is the PCs' problem. This module has the best answer to "why is this our problem?" ever, and I appreciated that as a GM.

The detailed encounter tables. They don't make a main course but they are nice seasoning and give the GM an idea what kinds of things are out there. (However, a few of the biggest entries, like dragons and hydras, should have "home addresses" and not just show up randomly from nowhere.)

Dislikes:

We had to rewrite the kingdom rules nearly completely, and we had to abandon the mass combat rules. (My player handled *that* by assassinating Irovetti before the war could properly get underway. Otherwise I would have had to abstract the army combats.) I had the same problems here as everyone else who's commented--magic item economy in particular.

What the module BBG was doing made no sense in modules #3 and #5 (and not a whole lot in #4). And in #6, while one has the sense that the BBG has a reasonable plan, the GM isn't actually let in on it, which makes improvisation difficult.

The endpiece mini-quests are goofy at best. I ignored them after module #2.

It would have been useful to have a writeup on Mivon rather than Iobaria. And if there was any realistic chance that the PCs would end up governing Pitax, Pitax needed at least a sketchy mechanical writeup. Most of all, claimed, settled and farmed hexes for all of the neighboring countries should be indicated somewhere! It really bothered us that there is no hint where Pitax's north border is. If we're fighting a war there....?!

All in all I really liked Kingmaker. It has a good structure for sandbox play, and my player had a great time running all over the place doing things with that openness. We are late in module #5; I will have to completely rewrite #6 due to level issues (we don't let things get that high level) but I think there's a lot of good material there. But a second kingdom-building AP would benefit from *heavily* rewritten kingdom and mass combat rules.

[Melissa Litwin]

I'm playing in #6 Forest of 1000 Screams, so we're not quite finished.

Likes:
*Hexploration and sandbox nature. It is nice to not feel railroaded by plot sometimes.

Spoiler:

We actually heard rumors of trolls (Hargulka) for about a year while we built up kingdom infrastructure and kept the rumors under wraps: "Trolls? What trolls? My dear sir, you must be mistaken, there are no trolls to the south." We made the Bluff/Stability rolls too :). It was nice to have the option of just doing what we wanted, which at that time was expanding and building up an economy

*Political structure. My group hasn't done much with international politics or diplomacy, but we sort of all know it's there 'in the background'.
*Building a kingdom is fun. Building cities is fun. We got to make art, which is really cool. I keep a hex map of our explorations on which I draw (in colored pencil) the background terrain, cities, important landmarks, and roads.
*Has an answer to "what next?" and "why are we doing this again?". PCs retire not to a nebulous future, but to being High Priest of Damascia or whatever role. We know why we're out and about: exploring and clearing land to expand, or taking out threats to the kingdom.

Dislikes:
*Most of the encounters are very easy. The bosses aren't, but everything else our DM has had to advance quite a lot and even then it hasn't been challenging. We did start with a generous 20 point buy, but I think even at 15 we'd still have been cakewalking a lot of the mod.
*Magic item based economy. Kingdom rules in general are clunky. Failing a roll on a Nat 1 makes no sense whatsoever from a political science point of view.
*Army rules are OK, but the combat rules are clunky. What happened is that the DM and I and one other PC were involved and everyone else just sat there bored until we were done. It would be better if there was something PCs could do to impact a battle or a way to get everyone involved.

[Rickmeister]

To me, it's a very nice build to work around..
As some commented, there are ways to make it spin out of control, and it take a great DM to make sure it doesn't happen.

1° Random / small-hex encounters being to easy > maybe something else than just a "roll initiative and slay" adventure?
2° Kingdom building and army statistics? > Make the general responsible for it, and give everyone their task.. This greatly helped, since everyone was doing their own "accounting", while I was keeping them busy ^^
3° Introducing the NPC's quicker? > That's your job DM :P It's not a MMO, read ahead and plan these people quicker? My pc's know a lot of people as inhabitants, but have no idea who they are/what they do yet..

In short:
Kingmaker is awesome, especially combined with a DM who uses his imagination ;)

[Darksmokepuncher]

DOT.

[Melissa Litwin]

Devlin "Dusk" Valerian wrote:

- Silly complaints, demands and sidequests brought to the rulers by their citizens, such as "a boar ran away with my spear: you rulers must bring it back, Or: "I want to cook a feast and I need some eels. You rulers, could you go fishing for me?" And of course: "I need to have some berries picked; you rulers surely can do that for me!" Gaaaaaahhhh!!!

Eh, we just giggled at the joke and moved on. We're all WoW or ex-WoW players, plus several have played Final Fantasy and other MMO-RPGs, and that's the sort of silly quest MMOs send you on all the time.