Notes from my Kingmaker campaign

[Douglas Muir 406]

Currently about halfway through Stolen lands, with the first PCs just leveling up to 2.

The party leader is a paladin with the Bastard trait, related to the current royal family. He has a chip on his shoulder and much to prove. He's first in line to be King, should they get that far.

Two quests completed so far: bandits and radishes. I ruled that the radishes were a mild aphrodisiac. Much hilarity was directed towards the PC who'd been munching on a basket. (He made his save, but they mocked him anyway. Players.)

They've killed half a dozen bandits in encounters, including a couple brought back to Oleg's for a fast trial and hanging. A small rise nearby has turned into a graveyard, "Bandit's Hill". Kressle and the Stag Lord have been established as serious enemies.

They beat the undead at the old bridge, to my surprise -- fast healing 5 and high damage makes him a very tough opponent for low level characters. The paladin swore to destroy the Stag Lord, though, so no nightmares yet. I'm thinking the spirit will give them 90 days or so and then start once/month.

They're riding around on horses, but so far this is more of a nuisance than a help -- lots of untrained Ride checks. I'm thinking to pit them against an NPC who's optimized for riding combat, to show them how it's done.

They've used up several months exploring 15 or 20 hexes, so it's now late summer / autumn.

General notes: they're enjoying it so far. Lots of roleplaying. I've seen people saying that the exploration system eventually gets tedious, and I could totally see that, but it hasn't happened yet -- so far, those empty map hexes are still pulling them onward.

Wandering monsters are significant, and this is a minor quibble that I have: the wandering monster table is pretty blah, and there are no hints or hooks provided for the DM. Not a huge thing, but a little effort here could have made things noticeably easier. Also, weather -- I've been handwaving weather (basically, mentioning the occasional rainshower or thunderstorm), but some simple rules would have been nice.

But so far everyone is having fun, and that's the main thing.

Doug M.

[Turin the Mad]

Weather: they've been enjoying the nicer time of year. Geographically speaking, the Stolen Lands seem to equate to northern Germany or Poland in Europe. In the States they're probably equivalent to Buffalo, NY or perhaps even New Hampshire or Vermont or even western Wisconsin in terms of what kind of weather to hit them up with.

Wandering critterbeasties: instead of throwing the bones on the chart, take another forumites excellent advice and set up a handful of "roaming monsters" that tie into the quests/wanted posters. Give each a "range" that they roam around in and the time frame. Make one or two of them nasty for party level - the kind of nasty that screams "flee or die" and 2nd level becomes "kill it!" @ 5th.

Your mounted combat specc'd guy is an excellent example. Set that one up as a feytouched Black Knight type. Or for your group a Paladin-Cavalier that is 4 levels above them. Zombies are mooks, but they're tough mooks. Account for them when figuring out how much the party can handle. Scare the bejeebus out of them on the Cav-Pal's opening spirited charge when (s)he one-shots the toughest zombie they have. If possible, have some mounted archer types peppering the PCs for support. 3rd level warriors are only CR 1, and mounts are equipment. A half-dozen of them can be surprisingly effective.

Kingdom treasury draining: remember, this always creates at least 1 Unrest and *all* Kingdom rolls automatically fail on a natural 1. See the kingdom building sticky for a good write up on making those withdrawals hurt. If they're siphoning the treasury, remove any wanted posters that give rewards, unintelligent critter lairs' treasure and the like until they're wealth-n-loot is where it should be. Kingdom events crop up on average every other month. Fudge dice or re-roll until you have events that reflect the masses anger against zombie hordes or anything else blatantly against local custom. CAVEAT: what is the kingdom's declared alignment? A kingdom that acts against that alignment should quickly garner Unrest...

[ChrisO]

Good to hear you're having fun!

The biggest suggestion I could make is to go through the KM forums. There are TONS of great threads here. A few wonderful people made posts about adding in extra stuff for those un-written hexes, and wandering encounter ideas. Try a search in the forum and get to reading. You won't be disappointed! (At least, I haven't been. There are some dang creative people on this board!)

While the exploration has the potential to get dull, it can also go very quickly if it does, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Besides, it can't all be fighting and talking, right? I mean, travel and exploration can be frightfully dull at times. "Look, more landscape. Break out the tents for supper, folks. Anyone bag that squirrel for dinner?"

Good luck, and have fun! :)