I'm starting a new Kingmaker campaign with four players and playing it by post online on our website. We'll be using the Kingdom-building rules in Ultimate Campaign and Ultimate Rulership.
All of the players are very experienced, but Kingmaker neophytes. The same is true of me, though I've carefully read through all of the AP and as much of this forum as one person can reasonably get through, reading lots and lots of good advice. Also, I've listened to the Chronicles: Pathfinder podcasts on the subject.
Even so, I have a few random questions.
1) Is slogging through the Kingdom Building rules subforum still a useful endeavor, given that 99.9% of it came out before Ultimate Campaign?
2) I've read a lot of conflicting advice on the problems (or lack thereof) of crafting feats in this AP. I'm inclined to let my players take advantage of such feats, as that's part of the fun of a long timeline. Given this, are there any caveats or hedges GM's recommend?
3) In Ultimate Campaign, what's the difference between a road and a highway? They seem to do the same thing, mechanically. What am I missing?
4) What are some of the best ways (beyond speaking to them directly about it, which I'll be doing when the time comes) to encourage my players to grow their settlements and nation in a story-driven, realistic way, rather than in a min/maxed, exploit-driven way?
5)
6)
Thanks!
As to #5) If you look through some of the threads (particularly DM_aka_Dudemeister's)there are a lot of good ideas about foreshadowing N. The "I don't believe in faeries" thread also has great stuff. A lot of these things can be added without actually adding additional encounters, simple things like having similar tokens on notable enemies, to passing references to "Her", etc.
#6) Oleg's seems like a great prospect for providing the information. Its a natural "first stop" on the trip from Restov and thus, much of the latest news can be gathered from travelers who stop in at Oleg's. This makes it easy to feed the party news in the form of "As you enjoy your hot meal, Svetlana mentions that a caravan leader passed through last week and said XXXXX". This provides the players with the information should they decide to act on it, without actually forcing their hand. Similarly, Oleg's seems like a natural trading post, and as things heat up in Brevoy, the stock at the post could fluctuate. Perhaps Rostland is starting to hoard certain types of equipment in preparation for war, or maybe merchants are finding that they have more than enough business in Restov from soldiers being called up and orders being placed, etc., that they no longer have the time, or need, to export items. Certainly a notable reduction in weapons shipments to Oleg's would be a sign of "trouble" on the horizon.
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1) Yes, because you can easily adapt things you find there to your game. Your only problem is going to come from using programs or spreadsheet that don't have those things you want to add, but it should take too much work to make adjustments.
2)Let them use the feats. If you feel that they are growing a bit too powerful with optimal gear you can limit it with two things. You can limit the amount of time they have by introducing events that interrupts them and pull them away from projects and you can limit the wealth they have to put into such projects by taking it away from found treasure. You should also be well versed in the crafting rules and be wary of custom created items. If you are not well versed and comfortable with the rules, just limit it to published and established items.
3) The only difference is that highways have a faster travel speed, as established in the Core Rulebook in a section for overland movement.
4)I do this through custom kingdom events, and Ultimate Campaign and Ultimate Rulership have similar events in them. Basically, have groups of people show up and ask for a building type. I had a priest of Hanspur arrive and ask for a waterside shrine, and the church of Abadar ask for a bank temple. You can also encourage players to be more creative in their kingdom building by suggesting each player be over a city or district. You may want to wait until they have the kingdom established and moving along, as you really do need to do some min-maxing in the beginning or you risk really stalling out and getting stuck with a kingdom that struggles to grow. Once they can support three or four settlements, then start pressuring them to be more creative in their kingdom building.
You can also help them be more creative by offering suggestions based on the flavor of an area. Instead of farms, there are a few horse ranches in the Kamelands that do the same thing mechanically because the wild horses of that area are of a high quality stock. My group has a hippogriff stables because they were able to tame some local hippogrifs. In this case, they can still min-max but you flavor it up with cool little details.
5)I personally have a couple big posts in these message boards on this. The short of it is to make more people her minions and have clues that link them together. You may not want to have them know about her as early as I did. In that case, you just have the physical clues but none of the supporting information. For example, have them find a specific ring on each of her minions but never have the minions tell the players who gave it to them for fear of a fate worse than death. This way the players keep finding this ring, know it means something important, and eventually start spending resources just to figure it out. Slowly from that point you can introduce information until they know about her and the threat she poses.
6)Have custom kingdom events that do little more than add flavor to Brevoy. For example, have people who moved into the PCs kingdom start asking who they support, or have arguments break out between people who used to live in areas ruled over conflicting noble houses. Have news occasionally come in to what is going on. At some point, have the PCs kingdom cut off from Brevoy because of the political hot-potato they become. Don't do too much with it or your players will want to become involved in it, and at that point you may have them ignore the events in the different books just to become involved in a part of the area they were not meant to be. In Book 5 or 6 you could ramp it up and have the civil war become inevitable, but any time before that and it could overshadow the overall story.
3) The only difference is that highways have a faster travel speed, as established in the Core Rulebook in a section for overland movement.
D'oh! I didn't realize that I might have to look elsewhere...like the most obvious source of all.
Good suggestions. Thanks, folks!
I look forward to more responses.