My group is currently at level 10 and have established quite a lovely 'kingdom'. Their ruler was a fighter with Gorum beliefs, so hze was never one to stay idle for long. With a ring of sustenance he did all his paperwork in the early hours, and trained with the militia during the day.
If there was something happening in the kingdom, he would face it himself, heroically!
However, the duke died, and I (dm) am not interested in putting his npc wife on the throne for long. It's their game and AP, and I want to keep it that way.
The problem now is that the only other pc's willing to take up the mantle already "warned" me that their character would no longer go on "adventuring errands", only diplomatic missions and greater battles (to inspire the men). However, this would effectively turn him into my NPC.
How do/can I stop this from happening? I would like an active baron/duke/king.
So far I have come up with the following:
> The people will not respect a leader who can not follow "You have what you hold.". Thus, increasing unrest.
> If they send out men to explore in their stead (and missing out on cool adventuring and juicy exp), they might not return. (Warr4 <> Fi9)
> ...
Your two cents, gents?
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You're level 10?
Okay let's look at what's left of the campaign (assuming you're in book 4 now).
Diplomatic Mission into Hooktongue Slough to restart trade from the south.
An attack from an alliance of Fort Drelev's Soldiers and Tiger Lord Barbarians, and thus a mission to take Fort Drelev and put down the barbarians once and for all.
Other encounters: Pretty much optional.
Next - Book 5:
A meeting of multiple River Kingdoms, which is actually a prelude to war. Thus every mission in book 5 is "integral".
Next - Book 6:
An invasion from another plane.
Your player is right not to want to go on "errands", fortunately none of the major missions in books 4, 5 and 6 are "errands" so much as major political fiascos. If they don't want to do Hexploration any more, don't sweat it. Just make a cost per hex explored (1 BP for hills, plains or forests, 2 BP for swamps and mountain hexes), explorers flag major dangers that need dealing with and your players can deal with them as they choose.
I see what you mean, but i don't want to hand out experience for doing nothing.. My group is at 10 now (five players) at the
They will love the big questlines/hooks, but i fear that they will mis out on the rest of it.
Making the "empty" squares cost money to explore is nice, i have to agree.
Ps: I'm keeping their WBL one lower to account for the fifth player, as well.
If they don't want to do Hexploration any more, don't sweat it. Just make a cost per hex explored (1 BP for hills, plains or forests, 2 BP for swamps and mountain hexes), explorers flag major dangers that need dealing with and your players can deal with them as they choose.
Problem is, taht with the economy of a ~ 60 Hex/5 city Kingdom, my player will get ~ 80 BP/Round, so 1/2 BP is nothing for them.
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Problem is, taht with the economy of a ~ 60 Hex/5 city Kingdom, my player will get ~ 80 BP/Round, so 1/2 BP is nothing for them.
Again, this is not a problem. You have to understand the game changes from level 1-5, 6-9, 10-15, 16-20. If your players are running an efficient Kingdom then let them have the reward of loyal subjects exploring the land. At a certain point it IS dumb to be traipsing through the swamp like a common adventurer. This is an adventure game not a treadmill, if you are still doing the same stuff at level 10 as you were at level 1, then you won't have any sense of progress. Now they have people to find the trouble spots and if it's beyond the low-level citizens then the superheroes (PCs) get to swoop in and save the day.
Right now your characters are superheroes. They have access to teleportation, can lead mighty armies and really shouldn't be bothering with Hexploration. It's the nature of the game and perhaps a problem with the AP for not taking that into account.
In my campaign I did away with xp, because it's pointless book-keeping. When players reach certain storyline benchmarks they level. If you must insist on using xp, then I recommend taking the minor hexploration encounters and then moving them together into a single "quest line".
Let's look at Book 4 for example.
There's a bunch of isolated monsters and that's no good.
There is however a group of refugees fleeing from Pitax, who need the player's help. Perhaps one of them entreaties the PC's to help guide them to their kingdom. Let's say there's about 100 refugees in that group all low-level experts and aristocrats (level 1-5, so CR 1/3-3). If the players want to teleport the entire group that will take about 20 teleports (or approximately 4 days, in which all of the wizard's spells need to be prepared as Teleport). Of course Pitax isn't just going to let these people go, and Hill Giant mercenaries are sent to attack them. The PCs need to defend the people from the Hill Giants (See Area B: Giant's Cave). The PCs can't know if more Giants are going to be sent to attack the NPCs, so perhaps walking them might be prudent. The fastest path to their nation takes them through the Hydra Den (See Area Y) and the Slug Bog (See Area Z). Perhaps they might also come through the Bog of Bones (Area W) and the Fey Pranksters (Area T). Or be attacked by the Chimera Pride, Aurumvoraxes and/or Smilodons (Area I, H and K). Feel free to move encounters from unlikely hexes to being in the way.
Players still get their xp, and it provides a great lead-in to book 5. War of the River Kings.
By Book 5, Hexploration is pretty much over, you're at war with a neighbouring kingdom, so those locations on the map are pretty much battle-fields for your armies and PCs to play in.
High level play is more work, in every aspect from story to rules. I am as annoyed by it as the next guy (trust me my next campaign is going to be super-slow experience track e6 or e8). That's a feature/bug in the d20 rules-set, and you need to shake the mind-set that players shouldn't be able to use the vast resources at their disposal to do the grunt-work. The players want to "skip to the good part" and at these levels they can, and should.
Thanks for the feedback, guys. I will definitely use it in my campaign work-out.
Any of you would like the "transcript" from a certain draconic diary from Book 1?