Not enough XP?

[Umbral Reaver]

I've been running the first book of Kingmaker for a while, and the party of four has managed to get through about a third of the sites, including the first bandit camp. However, they're still level 1. I've given them experience for exploring, quest completion, random encounters and all, yet it still seems to come in at only a trickle.

I'm not sure they'll even make level 3 by the time they have cleared the area and head for the Stag Lord.

Am I missing something?

Edit: Using the medium track for XP.

[Valfen]

I made the calculations a while back, but IIRC there's just enough XP rewarded by the fixed encouters to get a party to level four by the end of the first part.
Random encounters can add quickly to this, and they should happen fairly often. There's a ~31% chance of at least one random encounter per hex explored and camped into, unless I fail at basic probability (which is entirely possible).

My group had a slow start too. Things seemed to get faster once characters got to level 2 (which made a huge difference in exploration).

So unless your players like to rush things, they should be fine.

[Cpt. Caboodle]

Umbral Reaver wrote:

I've been running the first book of Kingmaker for a while, and the party of four has managed to get through about a third of the sites, including the first bandit camp. However, they're still level 1. I've given them experience for exploring, quest completion, random encounters and all, yet it still seems to come in at only a trickle.

I'm not sure they'll even make level 3 by the time they have cleared the area and head for the Stag Lord.

Am I missing something?

Edit: Using the medium track for XP.

Interesting - I'm experiencing the exact opposite. We're at the end of book 2 now, and the party always seems to be one level ahead of schedule. By my calculations it's the random encounters. I already reduced them by about 4/5, and I hope it'll work out well for book 3.

[thenovalord]

Have finished it, but im pretty sure they stayed ahead of the curve until about mod 4, when they fell just behind it

[FallofCamelot]

Watch out for Book 4 for experience. My group ended up way behind in that one.

[CalebTGordan]

Keep in mind that Kingmaker is a sandbox game, and that by its very nature you should be making adjustments to it. It is probably the easiest AP to modify or add to, and you should be doing that.

I ended up adding an encounter site in Part 1 to boost them into 4th level, but the random encounters were also a major factor to making up that lost chunk of EXP.

Once Kingdom building starts, your group will be gaining large chunks of EXP just from kingdom management. My own group decided to do two years of it before going out to explore, and they did so well that they gained a whole level without doing any adventuring. They are roughly only a third into the book and already level 6, which worries me that they might end up gaining 7th level well before the book ends.

[Valcrist]

I'm a player in Kingmaker right now and I've haven't noticed being behind on xp. Gold sometimes, but not levels. But our GM also has been rolling up random encounters. Maybe one for every five our six hexes explored. Not sure what the encounter percentage is. Maybe you should just toss a few in your players path. Also I think we were 3rd when we took on the fort in book one. It was a pain, but not undoable.

Happy Gaming!

[FallofCamelot]

CalebTGordan wrote:

Keep in mind that Kingmaker is a sandbox game, and that by its very nature you should be making adjustments to it. It is probably the easiest AP to modify or add to, and you should be doing that.

This is why I dislike Kingmaker.

[Sub-Creator]

FallofCamelot wrote:

CalebTGordan wrote:

Keep in mind that Kingmaker is a sandbox game, and that by its very nature you should be making adjustments to it. It is probably the easiest AP to modify or add to, and you should be doing that.

This is why I dislike Kingmaker.

And that's a valid opinion, I'd say.

However, this is one of the things that I'm looking forward to with Kingmaker! It gives me the opportunity to explore more and do more with story lines because it's much more wide open. Of course, it still doesn't do it quite enough with the XP they hand out, so I'm still going to run it under the slow progression.

Luckily, there are enough different APs out there to suit everyone's taste, regardless of how opinions may vary!