House Rules for Kingdom interactions in Kingmaker


Kingmaker


Sorry, my internet at home has decided to go insane. I'll be posting what I have as I can. They're not really finished so comments would be appreciated to fine tune these rules. Also there are spoilers and what not so yeah.

The problem with running macro social encounters is that you kinda have to expand on the material given for the local kingdoms, which is kinda sketchy. The Guide to the River Kingdoms is a really cool book however and gives good pointers as to what the various kingdoms do.

First things first is to outline stats for the kingdoms. What I have as a guideline is:

Disposition: Does the country like the PC's country. Rate -10 to 10. Depending on your players you can keep this hidden and reveal it through narrative or show the number. The PCs can do some kind of interaction with the other kingdom to improve relations (ie quest or a diplomacy roll plus an expenditure of BP) Of course with Pitax their disposition should always be kinda neutral (barring crazy stuff the PCs do to them) until War of the River Kings.

Let's guestimate some possible interactions

Trade agreement: The PCs arrange some sort of trading setup that's beneficial to both sides. This acts like a revenue stream per month of the Power + Disposition of the other country. In addition the other country might have extra bonuses to this trade agreement in the form of more BP or some kind of other narrative discount.

It takes a minimum of two months of game time to setup which sees the councilor in charge of it, usually the Ambassador, not providing his bonuses to your country. Furthermore it requires an extended Diplomacy test pegged at lets say the character's diplomacy + 10 to 15 (depending on how difficult you want to make it), with each check taking up 1 month's time, minimum 2 successes, more for people who want to provide hassle to the PC's country, like say Pitax. Your PCs might also want to quest to finish this somehow. Easiest solution is a "remove bandits" quest with several high CR encounters.

War: This subsystem hasn't been explored well. That being said there should be ways for the PCs to engage in lower level skirmishes. If the PC's declare war on a country they suffer an unrest penalty of 3+disposition, minimum 1 unrest unless disposition is at -10.

Research: Man I wish there was a research option. Sadly I can't think of one other than somehow providing the PC's prerequisites for building armies.

Power: This is another soft rating. This is just to suggest the general level of NPC they'll be dealing with when they interact with the town. Peg the rating above the PC level to suggest they might want to hang back a bit from a place or lower if you want the PCs to try to invade/co-opt a place.

Make revealing information about the kingdoms cost BP and/or face time. My guess is travel to adjacent kingdoms is something along the lines of 2 months (assuming travel, staying and hassles) with the countries farther out taking 3-4 months?

Also with all of this don't forget Brevoy. It's likely they'll want some taxes and to check if there are any Rogarvian holdouts in your PC's country. For now we'll say the Greater Powers (Brevoy, Galt, Numeria, Kyonin, Razmiran) also fall within the purview of these rules, with greater bonuses and greater penalties and so forth.

Sovereign Court

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Check out this old thread for ideas. I was trying to come up with a treaty system a while back for my players, as a coupe of them are much more into politics than fighting. I haven't fiddled with it in a while, but I need to get back to it and polish it off. I'll take a more careful look at your ideas when I get a chance.

Grand Lodge

Mosaic wrote:
Check out this old thread for ideas. I was trying to come up with a treaty system a while back for my players, as a coupe of them are much more into politics than fighting. I haven't fiddled with it in a while, but I need to get back to it and polish it off. I'll take a more careful look at your ideas when I get a chance.

I'm glad you resurrected this.


One thing I found with my last session is how should magic interact on one to one interactions between diplomats. Its a possibly very frustrating situation.


Use skill challenges for multiple rolls. That way a diplomat can only "nuke" one roll.

For instance, in 4e, the bard has Words of Friendship that can give him +5 to a single Diplomacy check.

(Of course, you can break the 4e system with the paladin's "Astral Speech" power, which gives +4 to all Diplomacy checks for an encounter, or the bard's Glib Limerick ritual, which lets him double-roll Diplomacy checks for its duration.)

You might also want to check the Giants in the Playground not-ridiculous Diplomacy house rules.

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