Hey guys, my group just finally finished RotRL after 2 years and we are now onto Kingmaker. I've been frantically trying to find all sorts of good things to throw into this game and add alot more color in they style of RotRL Book 1 (a bazillion NPC's).
Anyways, so far my biggest note was that after reading book 1, I was incorrectly assuming that the walk from Restov was straight south to the Greenbelt, I later noted when reading book 4, it wasn't the case. But my point is, how necessary is the Map Folio? I've debated using it, but I'm not sure I want to reveal a map to the players, it may take some of the exploration feeling out of the game, your thoughts?
Aside from that I'm trying to mesh in some extra content, I've adapted the setting to use the Cold Climate, but just not checking hourly, my group really likes Game of Thrones the tv show. The other thing I'm doing is meshing in a 2nd Edition Module that spans levels 7-20 roughly the Dawn of the Overmind trilogy. Of course I'm going to have to make a homebrew write up for illithids due to the copyright stuff.
Anyways I'm just looking for insight. I've seen some mention about dropping the Lyre of Building, Fabricate, and Wall of Stone type stuff out of the game, and yeah I'm going to drop it.
The Gamemastery guide has alot of neat stuff to help with random memorable npc's and the humanoid encounters sections (prostitutes, beggars, thieves, etc).
Most notably I have a group of 7 players, which is large, yes, but I run them low magic and typically beef up most of the encounters. As far as purchasing magic items, I was thinking of only letting them buy the random goods their town pops (erfworld reference anyone?). There's also a guideline about what items are available in Restov, ie. 2d4 minor 1d4 medium random items or something. Anyone feel this is going to put them at too much of a disadvantage?
Just looking for any advice, good sidequests, etc.
My group ran their fourth session of Kingmaker last night and we're still on the first book. After the first session, I realized that I needed the map folio. It made my life a lot easier as a GM and for the player mapping the explored hexes. Also, I'm sure I'll be able to make use of the maps again for other campaigns so I figure it's a good investment. I highly recommend products by Raging Swan (which can be found on this site). They have a couple of nice short adventures which you can easily drop in like "Road of the Dead" which I'm using. It's a great little adventure (which you can get in softcover on Amazon if you don't like PDF) which includes information to scale the adventure from levels 2-4. Also, their Tribes line presents a unique tribe of a particular monster. I'm adding in the Hobgoblins of the Mailed Fist and the Lizardfolkd of the Dragon Fang (and using the Raging Swan module "Dark Oaks" as a precursor). Also, another company, Jon Brazer, has a number of products designed for Kingmaker and expand on some of the new rules like armies and kingdom building.
|
I have brought the Map folio both as PDF and as a printed version and I am very happy to have them.
You really need only the PDF version and someone with good skills in manipulating images. One my players has those and we will get a updated map every few sessions with what the players have discovered and what they have constructed. It will be loaded on a USB storage device and displayed on a large TV screen.
I feel that the PDF maps will not detract from the game. They give the layout of the territory and a hex grid, but only already know features beside that. Remember that the greenbelt isn't totally unknown land, it is a land that has been acquired and lost several times. So the general layout is known, what is unknown is what live and lay there now.
Ok, so it looks like we are going to use the Map Folio. I was trying to think of the logistics of describing the hex to the players, but I might as well give them that one and let them draw up their kingdom. I had debated making a copy and just letting the player's write on it... not sure.
I'm definitely going to try and throw some extra adventures in, after RotRL took 2 years, the party really likes these immersive adventures. Though they wish it was more centric around their NPC friends because they like to roleplay. I'm working on a big list of interesting npcs who are randomly assigned from the reincarnate table as far as race. I don't think it will be too game breaking to have a few extra houses dotting the countryside, some abandoned, some not.
So what about the kingdom? On the outset does it seem pretty easy to pass the checks? I'm wondering how difficult it is to have the kingdom fall into anarchy. I think some of my players will really enjoy it.
As far as magic items, what did everyone else do? Did you find the magic item drops from the book to be good enough? I like to run low magic if I can.
I'm really looking forward to using the GameMaster's guide's drugs and addiction rules.
And I will say almost all of my player characters took some form of nobility, whether they are disgraced or otherwise. Did anyone see any effects of this in their game? How did it play out? I have 1 Surtova that I can recall.
Ok, so it looks like we are going to use the Map Folio. I was trying to think of the logistics of describing the hex to the players, but I might as well give them that one and let them draw up their kingdom. I had debated making a copy and just letting the player's write on it... not sure.
I'm definitely going to try and throw some extra adventures in,
1.I´d recommend to let your players draw on a blank hex-page for starters and show them part of the map when they explored a good bit.
2. You´ll need extra adventures dearly to keep your rather large party level-fed, if nothing else. Also i´m told that a good bit of the side-quests in the AP are somewhat lame. Off the top of my head, "Realm of the Fellnight Queen" by Neil Spicer and " Tower? of the old Margrave"(3PP?)
3. You saw the conversion(s) for 6 players in the forum ?
Also, another company, Jon Brazer, has a number of products designed for Kingmaker and expand on some of the new rules like armies and kingdom building.
Second this. The Complete Guide is pretty good.
Greetings, fellow travellers.
Although I failed at creating a map of all four parts of the Stolen Lands by using the pdfs and Gimp, I am still happy with the print outs I got from the pdf files of KM.
I printed them and glued them on sturdy cardboard, cut them into individual hexes and hand them over to my players once they've explored that hex.
Extracting the maps from the pdf via Some PDF Image Extractor gives me the territory without the icons and it has worked well so far.
With your number of players additional XP is heavily needed, but I am a little concerned about to many different "loose" side trek style adventures. The sandbox nature of the AP makes for some difficulties advancing the story line and adding random extended encounters might further distract the PCs.
I can second the idea of using the conversion mentioned above by Alexander Kilkoyne (somewhere in the archives) - but if you're allowing anything above 15 point buy be sure to even beef that one up. We use 4d6 drop the lowest in my group and it has been a cakewalk for my group so far.
I have never found limiting magic items to cripple the game, just let them have what's written in the AP from the monsters and add in those items mentioned in the city stat blocks.
The AP has enough room for letting them create their own magic items as well, if they wish to do so, as well.
Concerning nobility background, my take is that depends on you - my players have not been into Brevoy once so far and support from Brevoy gets scarcer the further down the road you go.
If, on the other hands, your players are into political intrigue (since you mentioned Game of Thrones), you are in for heavy work to flesh out what's written in the player's guide about the houses and their dealings.
Oh, and I can highly recommend using Realm of the Fellnight Queen by Neil Spicer - it is a really nice way of foreshadowing the final BBEG.
Ruyan.
I'm hoping my pc's aren't too over the top for the campaign, I just use a simple ten points of adjustments rule, nothing out of racial maximums. We don't use xp, just level up points, and I'll probably run them a bit behind due to the party size.
Alot of what we are going to be doing is political intrigue, several of my custom npcs are spies, secret monsters, or carry cursed items that could make them turn bad at any moment. My goal is to have 50 random NPC's, not all of which are all massive stories, but just realistic villians and some down on their luck townsfolk.
Thinking about all the side quests, I'll probably have plenty of good stuff to mix in. My players are required to write a backstory and I'll hopefully have a chance to run them all. I'm debating dropping the Dawn of the Overmind conversion, its a 2nd edition module anyways... I might drop in some elements or something.
As far as the 6 player conversion, I tend to just wing it on increasing the difficulty of encounters, typically I err on the side of overpowering the monsters. For the most part at this level I'm just going to use alot of poison weapons to add some pain to the baddies and probably use minions so I don't have to keep up with it if the players use it. I definitely want to avoid any feeling of this being a cake walk. I'm making them roll cold weather climate penalties twice a day so at least 1 or two always have frostbite. I'm sure it won't be too long before they figure a good way to mitigate it, but that's just part of dming.