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I finished running the Kingmaker campaign several months ago. My players and I agreed it was the most memorable and inspiring campaign in which any of us had participated up to that point. I don’t entirely take credit for that, as I have a group of creative, engaged and enthusiastic players.
A large part of my campaign’s success is due to these boards. Before starting the next adventure, I would read dozens of posts and gain invaluable advice. I am thus seeking to pay that forward, in the hopes that others will similarly have a great experience.
Below are some approaches that led to my campaign’s success. A number of these have likely been mentioned in other threads and I thank the posters whose work I’m stealing. Some of this may be controversial and I invite you to respond, disagreeing with anything I said.
Whatever you do, I hope you have as much fun with this campaign as our group did. Do what works for your group and ignore the rest. Also, in case it's not obvious, this is a GM advice thread and thus contains tons of spoilers. Players be warned.
No DM should treat a published adventure as sacrosanct. This is especially true in Kingmaker. It has been said elsewhere that Kingmaker is a framework upon which to hang your campaign. I cannot think of a better analogy. If you run it without making any additions or changes, Kingmaker will come across flat and incredibly thin. A good number of side adventures, however, will made sure our campaign is chock full of exciting stories, many entirely unrelated the published materials.
For published adventures, I added Barrow of the Forgotten King, a 3.5 adventure that incidentally features a sword called “Kingmaker,” Carnival of Tears to presage Nyrissa’s later assault, and Forge of Fury, because it’s one of my favorite 3.5 adventures of all time. I also added an encounter with cave giants led by a young red dragon, which was guarding some hippogriffs sought by the players. I added a second Vordakai layer that was guarded by a zombie mighty cyclops and a vampiric green dragon (can never have too many dragons). And a cult in Restov led by a hezrou and succubi that had nothing to do with the main campaign.
By tailoring adventures to my players’ interests, we were all more invested in the campaign. Kingmaker gives you a design space to add material that I haven’t seen in other adventure paths. Take advantage of this.
If you follow the advice of other posters, blogs, podcasts and even the adventure itself, you get the impression that you should only trickle information or obfuscate the truth. While there’s no reason to reveal the entire story right away, in my 20+ years of DMing, I’ve never found the big surprise to be as effective as foreshadowing leading up to an epic confrontation.
Take for example, Nyrissa. I dropped hints of Nyrissa when the PCs were level 2 when they met the fey creature in Barrow of the Forgotten King. Then, Nyrissaa attacked their nascent kingdom in the aforementioned Carnival of Tears. In fact, whenever the PCs met powerful fey throughout the campaign, they heard something about this ancient, exiled being. The PCs knew they could do nothing about it. But, when she finally struck in Sound of a Thousand Screams, it was not the jarring, non-sequitur event you will see described in other posts.
Irovetti is another example. When Grigori shows up in Rivers Run Red, the adventure instructs GMs to hide his connection to the Bandit King. I actually did the opposite. I let the players know that Irovetti had an unfriendly eye bent on their kingdom right away. Again, given the imbalance in power, they weren’t able to do anything about it in the beginning. And, soon after they meet Grigori, their attention was turned to the East with the vanishing of the Varnhold.
A successful sandbox campaign requires information that allows the players to make their own decisions. While Kingmaker is not a true sandbox, it certainly encourages that style of play. Giving your players information will allow them to make their own decisions instead of being fed quests by various NPCs, increasing the ownership they feel over the campaign. (You may notice a theme here.)
I’ve heard of more than one game of Kingmaker where the group spent an entire session on kingdom building. If you take one piece of advice from this post, please take this one: Do not do this. Perhaps run a few kingdom building turns over part of session, but that’s it.
Kingdom building works best if you have one player who is excited about the system and willing to handle all aspects of kingdom management. It also helps to have a robust spreadsheet that can handle the details. (PM me if you want to see mine.) If you don’t have a player willing to take on kingdom management, or you are not interested in taking it on yourself, I highly recommend dropping the system and just generally describe the growth of the kingdom. You can still use the kingdom events table to add a side quest related to the players’ kingdom.
I should also touch on mass combat. While I love the idea of the players’ armies clashing with their enemies’, unfortunately, like kingdom building, mass combat does not involve the entire group in a meaningful way. I recommend implementing some of the ideas from Heroes of Battle, which emphasize player involvement at various points in a battle. I also recommend making some tweaks to the battle system. There are plenty of alternative systems out there and you can find one that suits your tastes. No matter what you use, if you implement some form of mass combat, I recommend limiting it to no more than a handful of battles with a minimal impact on table time.
Following the advice on these boards, I gave all of my players leadership at level 7 as a bonus feat. This came with the understanding that their cohorts were only allowed to join them on an adventure with express GM permission (continuity of Kingdom leadership and all that). This provided several benefits.
First, it allowed them to fill all of the leadership position with characters of their making. While I was worried this would decrease their involvement with the NPCs, it increased their feeling of ownership over their kingdom. Second, it allowed me to use adventurers below their level without massive modifications.
Third, they had a host of followers to staff their own organizations that, in turn, fulfilled various aspects of statecraft. For example, the druid’s Tree Wardens protected the forests and the monk’s Keepers of the Black Tower, managed the central prison. Most significant, however, was the Spy Network, which deserves its own section.
Of all the leadership roles presented in the kingdom building rules, the one most ripe for further development is the Spymaster. As presented in the rules, it provides some bonuses to kingdom development and that’s it. The role should, however, be considered part of a larger organization, i.e. the spy network.
I wanted some objective mechanical component to measure the network’s success and failure. I’ll share my method but you can certainly develop your own.
The Spymasters’ followers granted by Leadership formed the spy network. Note the Spymaster will need a decent Charisma to make this work, which makes sense considering the importance of manipulation and subterfuge in spy-craft. In our game, the main character who ran the spy network soon stepped into the Grand Diplomat role (that does use Charisma) and his cohort became the Spymaster.
The spy network was organized into various cells of 6 agents that were placed in various cities of Brevoy and the Bandit Kingdoms. I then allowed up to five “assists” on Diplomacy used to gather information. You may want to reduce this to four. The Spymaster then determined the Diplomacy score of the lead spy, making several assumptions about the build, and added bonuses for the assists. There is no reason to build up all of the followers’ stats (though ambitious players may do so regardless).
Normally, we assumed the cell was gathering info on the background and providing general updates to major developments in neighboring nations. I only provided the most cursory details at this stage to avoid burying the campaign in political minutia. However, when the Spymaster wanted something specific, or when major events were about to occur, the Spymaster would roll a Diplomacy check for the group. Sometimes I would roll for him. For example, when Barron Drelev was about to attack, the PCs learned of it through their spy network instead of through the auspicious appearance of an NPC.
To reflect the inherent danger of spying, I ruled the spy network was caught and destroyed if the Spymaster rolled a natural 1 on the Diplomacy check. For particularly dangerous missions, I increased that number. This could be mitigated if that feels too harsh. For example, the Spymaster could roll a d6 to see how many spies survive.
If this seems too complicated, or not complicated enough, do what you feel is appropriate. Whatever you do with Spymaster, I strongly recommend expanding the role beyond static kingdom bonuses.
Conclusion
Hope you found this helpful. If you disagree with anything here, please post. I’m also happy to share more details from my campaign. I’ve further invited my players to add their impressions. This adventure path poses unique challenges and, as such, is best run by an experienced GM. That said, if run correctly, it will likely become an unforgettable experience that will generate stories your players will retell decades later.
Thanks for your post. I'm starting a KM campaign myself as my next one. Several of your suggestions are worth keeping in mind. Glad your group loved the AP!
Glad you found it helpful.
There are two other things I should have added. One, I recommend integrating the conflict between Issia and Rostland into your campaign more substantially than the adventures as written. Two, I suggest considering whether you want to start the first adventure at Oleg's.
Not one to shy away from cliches, I started my campaign in a tavern in Restov. A fight broke out between Maegar Varn and an Issian noble. The players had a chance to choose their sides right away. They choose to back Maegar and thus went forth as agents of Rostland. If they had chosen the Issian noble, I would have run the campaign more or less as presented, except they would have been working for the Surtovas in an attempt to disrupt Rostlandic expansion into the Stolen Lands.
Others have done far more work on this political backdrop than myself and there's no shortage of suggestions in that regard if you go looking.
*nods* like you i have done a fair share of idea mining from other threads and people sharing their experiences. I think my general metaplot will go in a different direction then yours in places, but am happy to find nuggets where i stumble over them. ;)
Your prequel premise is kinda neat, i hadn't considered that before. Will mull on that one and thanks for sharing that too.
Fantastic advice and feedback all around, Grog. Thanks, and congratulations on a successful run.
My group has been at it for about three real-time years, now, and we're about halfway through Blood for Blood. We've veered WAY away from the mod as written - still keeping to the main plot, but getting there by a bit of a more circuitous route.
We've completely left the supplied kingdom-building and mass-combat rules. We're a whole table of medieval history buffs, so we dug in and worked up a (probably way over-complicated) spreadsheet to manage the kingdom population and economy, and did a Pathfinder remake of old AD&D Battlesystem to handle the combat.
I wholeheartedly agree with the value of foreshadowing - By the time we get to the end, i think it will have made a huge difference. Any time I can, I talk about 'Her'in hushed tones, or throw in an extra fey encounter, or slap a fey template on something. It also lets characters that have optimized vs. fey a nice chance to use their special gifts and shine.
I think my general metaplot will go in a different direction then yours in places
Awesome. Of all the APs out there, I doubt any have as much differentiation from group to group as Kingmaker. Have a blast and let me know what you decide to do, either here or in your own thread!
Also our DM is incredible, and formerly master-level
Heh. In case it's not obvious, he's referring to the old RPGA rankings system, whereby DMs could qualify for various levels based on their knowledge of the rules.
While it's great for impressing people at parties and for picking up dates, I'm not sure it applies in Pathfinder.
This includes the other "leader" NPCs, the duergar from the Iron Wraiths (who would become an interesting character far later in the game, mainly because we were interested in him as a result of that first meeting)
This probably deserves some explanation. After the aforementioned bar fight in Restov, the PCs were dragged into a secret meeting with Ioseph Sellemius regarding the expansion into the Stolen Lands. There, they met the other adventuring groups.
I highly recommend introducing these groups early. The players had already bonded with Maegar Varn, making his disappearance and eventual fate more tragic. I played Baron Drelev as an elitist jerk, which made his later downfall that much more satisfying. I also introduced the Iron Wraiths, which were led by a good-hearted duergar (as a shameless ripoff of a certain drow ranger). The PCs later encountered this group of high level NPCs, who had been ensorcelled by Nyrissa, right before the last battle. It ended up being a satisfying way to bring the story full circle.
However, we didn't stop there. We were able to recruit the centaurs after getting rid of Vordekai, along with the fey inside the Knarlmarches and a tribe of stone giants we found deep in the mountains.
The stone giants probably deserve some more explanation. The player who posted was constantly asking about adding different troops to the kingdom. Axe beaks, hippogriffs, mammoths. You name it. Rather than just deny these awesome additions, I instead took this player-induced lead as a jumping off point for side quests. Again, Kingmaker gives you the design space to add material that speaks directly to the interest of your players.
My group has been at it for about three real-time years, now, and we're about halfway through Blood for Blood. We've veered WAY away from the mod as written - still keeping to the main plot, but getting there by a bit of a more circuitous route.
Very cool. I'd love to hear what you did different, either here or as a PM.
We're a whole table of medieval history buffs, so we dug in and worked up a (probably way over-complicated) spreadsheet to manage the kingdom population and economy, and did a Pathfinder remake of old AD&D Battlesystem to handle the combat.
That is a fantastic idea. Though it's not as much use to me at this point, you should post your conversion. I considered using some of the Birthright system at some point, but I just didn't have the energy.
As a final note, if anybody wants the material for my side adventures, send me a PM and I'll send that along.
As a final note, if anybody wants the material for my side adventures, send me a PM and I'll send that along.Oh hell yes! :)
PM'd. Thanks for the offer.
+1
PM'd. Very interested, since I'm still in Stolen Lands.
I'll be PM'ing you. Although if you have time, you might save yourself a lot of PMing if you make a thread with your added content. People on this board love them some additional content.
I received a couple PMs from people commenting on the length of their current Kingmaker campaign and thought I should address this in the vein of giving unsolicited advice.
Kingmaker gives the players unprecedented leeway to control the pacing (at least in comparison to other APs with which I'm familiar). When combined with the design space it provides to enthusiastic GMs, this can lead to a campaign that stretches numerous real-time years. I think it's incredibly rare, however, to find a group that will stay engaged with a single campaign over 3+ years. I think its even rarer to find a GM who can keep up her or his energy up for that long.
Moreover, in my long experience behind the screen, I've always enjoyed ending a campaign with the players wanting more instead of lingering in malaise that eventually ends the campaign and possibly breaks up the gaming group.
To that end, unless you and your group are one of the rare exceptions I mentioned above, I recommend speeding things up if you're at 2+ years and are nowhere close to the end.
1. Ditch the emphasis on exploration. After Vordakai, I don't think my players spent more than one or two sessions exploring. One player was a little bummed by this, but I think he appreciated the increased pace.
2. Start using events to push story development. As Raymond Chandler famously said, “In writing a novel, when in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns.” I think the same thing applies to gaming. In Kingmaker, your "two guys" consist of Vordakai, Drelev, Irroveti and Nyrissa. If the campaign is stalling, depending on the point you are at, these foes provide a great way to move the story forward.
3. Fast XP track. 'Nuff said.
4. Cut. I took out Irovetti's tournament altogether. At that point, the players were incredibly suspicious of him and it felt cheap to launch a surprise attack they would have suspected the entire time. It meant we finished book 5 in three sessions.
We finished our campaign in just over two years playing, at most, every other week. There were one or two longer sessions, though most were about five hours. While there were plenty of opportunities to continue the campaign, and while we may return to it one day, I had no regrets ending when we did.
Again, feel free to disagree. I'm curious if others have suggestions for keeping the campaign from stalling out.
I'll be PM'ing you. Although if you have time, you might save yourself a lot of PMing if you make a thread with your added content. People on this board love them some additional content.
Agreed. I've been happily surprised by the number of requests for additional content. I need to decide on a format that works well for sharing and will post that either in this thread or in another.
Give me a couple days to edit so it doesn't come across like a complete mess (my notes were not originally intended for public consumption).
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First off, Grats to you Groglodyte, my hat is off to any GM who can run through Kingmaker the way it should be, ie- lots of extra GM work to make it your own!!
- I really like how you tailored everything to fit your group and your players. I think this is essential to making this AP really shine.
- I agree completely with having most of the BBEGs be known and menacing, often at times the PCs cannot take the action they would like to as a countermeasure. I think it works to motivate and direct their kingdom growth and focus, which as you pointed out is sort of the heart of this AP.
- Our spymaster and grand diplomat play a huge role as info gatherers. Also the druid in falcon form is single handedly responsible for taking out about 5 critical messages sent by raven that would have started wars, averted the slaughter of enemy armies, etc. The party sometimes gets more excited about uncovering a secret plot than gaining major magic items or winning battles :)
We also decuded to do some of the things you suggested, finding it was time to move on:
[spoiler=Mass Combat]Our mass combats are all first person where I narrate what is happening with different units and parts of the battle, allowing the party to do the Lord of the Rings thing and throw their weight wherever they are needed to turn the tide. So far, there have been no mass combats where the whole party was not present.
The Fey courts are much bigger in mine than the standard AP. There are three of them (Summer, Winter, Shadow) and all of them oppose the main BBEG, but won't talk about her with mortals.
I am curious, did your group get involved in Brevoy politics and goings on much?
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I'm going to post some of the material I added to my Kingmaker campaign over the next couple weeks. I apologize for the slow timing. A busy family and professional life prevent me from posting any more frequently.
Before I start, a few caveats are in order. First, these are notes I wrote to run adventures and are presented in an outline format. They are not finished, polished modules. There may be gaps, missing information, or typos. Second, I am not claiming anything here is entirely my own work. I have included stat blocks from the NPC Codex, other posts and websites, and from the adventure itself, sometimes with little to no changes. Third, I have six players who all excel at building killing machines and we had a summoner before Unchained who built an unstoppable monster. So, don't expect these encounters to be balanced for a group of four noobs running first level characters.
With that in mind, I hope the following will prove useful for some people.
First, you're welcome to take a look at our Obsidian Portal page:
The (incomplete) adventure log gives a good idea of how our first dozen or so sessions went. Not all of the content on there meets the community use guidelines. You've been warned.
This was my opening for the Kingmaker campaign. As mentioned above, it allowed the players an opportunity to choose Issia or Rostland and this choice dictated many events later in the campaign. Note, if your players choose Issia, you will likely need to make some substantial modifications to the adventure path.
Also, I tried to implement a Diplomacy mechanic to allow the PCs to sway the crowd. It's kinda clunky, though, and in play I just winged that part of the encounter.
I added another group of bandits led by Rorn the Black from the NPC Codex. (See what I mean about this not being 100% original content?) I also tweaked some of the stats of the Stag Lord's minions, such as giving Dovan the Two-Weapon Fighting feat and removing the Stag Lord's drunken condition.
Because an encounter with an old man in a cellar after defeating the BBEG seemed anti-climactic, I allowed Nugrah to join the fight. He sat on the palisades raining down call lighting on the PCs, later changing into a bear. I've included stat blocks for these animal forms. It was pretty brutal and, if you do that, you might want to reduce other minions or give the PCs some help. Maybe a bunch of potions of resist energy (electricity) in the mites' nest.
That's it for now. Future posts will feature material that is closer to a complete adventure, though, again, it will not come in the form of a polished product.
Hope this is useful and let me know if you have any questions or see any errors in my stat blocks.
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I added a few things to Rivers Run Red:
First, the PCs had encountered some werewolves early in their career and nearly died. Through luck and coup de graces, they were victorious sans silver weapons. I decided the larger werewolf pack would start raiding farms in an attempt to lure the PCs into an ambush.
Bokken's mad brother became a druid instead of a rogue. It was pretty satisfying encounter, with the druid approaching as a Small air elemental and his cat tracking the PCs in the high grass.
I gave the lizardfold some more gear. Mainly, the braves got better gear and King Vessek got a Numerian weapon: A vibro-axe that could be turned into a reach weapon with a swift action.
I added more drakes and detail to that encounter.
Howl of the Northwind became an advanced, huge dire wolf.
Finally, I gave the owlbear at the end of the adventure a vicious ranger friend taken from the NPC Codex with a few tweaks. She peppered the PCs from opposite of melee with bane arrows until she was gibbed by the magus.
I'll try to include more high-level stuff next post.
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Thanks for sharing stories of your campaign, Redcelt32, and sorry for not responding to your questions earlier. I'm glad you've also been having success with it so far and it sounds like you've also tailored the AP to your group's tastes.
I can't blame you for ditching book 3 since it is an outlier. We had fun with it and I found some ways to tie it into the larger story arc (e.g. the Issians were ultimately responsible for stirring up the conflict with the centaurs as a way to destabilize Varn's kingdom). But you can easily take Vordakai out without any effect on the main plot.
I would love to see the system your group used for mass combat, since I found the one in place sort of lacking and impersonal.
Here is our system:
Kingmaker Fantasy Battle System
This was actually created by one of my players who is also a war-gamer. It is not entirely complete but I think it's much more dynamic than the system in the AP or UCam. The biggest difference was changing the damage mechanic. I should warn you it is somewhat arcane. Let me know if you have any questions.
One thing we disagreed on: his rules allowed units to form into their constituent squares instead of staying one big block. I preferred the latter for ease of play, but to each their own.
I am curious, did your group get involved in Brevoy politics and goings on much?
Yes, quite a bit, as you may be able to tell from ant0nym's post. Most of it was diplomatic meetings and selecting which houses to ally with. They also decided to form an alliance between Mivon and Rostland.
I've since decided to run a Final Chapter, where this conflict will feature prominently. Like most, I feel it's too bad it was not more central to the AP.
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Thanks for sharing stories of your campaign, Redcelt32, and sorry for not responding to your questions earlier. I'm glad you've also been having success with it so far and it sounds like you've also tailored the AP to your group's tastes.
I can't blame you for ditching book 3 since it is an outlier. We had fun with it and I found some ways to tie it into the larger story arc (e.g. the Issians were ultimately responsible for stirring up the conflict with the centaurs as a way to destabilize Varn's kingdom). But you can easily take Vordakai out without any effect on the main plot.
I would love to see the system your group used for mass combat, since I found the one in place sort of lacking and impersonal.Here is our system:
Kingmaker Fantasy Battle System
This was actually created by one of my players who is also a war-gamer. It is not entirely complete but I think it's much more dynamic than the system in the AP or UCam. The biggest difference was changing the damage mechanic. I should warn you it is somewhat arcane. Let me know if you have any questions.
One thing we disagreed on: his rules allowed units to form into their constituent squares instead of staying one big block. I preferred the latter for ease of play, but to each their own.
I am curious, did your group get involved in Brevoy politics and goings on much?Yes, quite a bit, as you may be able to tell from ant0nym's post. Most of it was diplomatic meetings and selecting which houses to ally with. They also decided to form an alliance between Mivon and Rostland.
I've since decided to run a Final Chapter, where this conflict will feature prominently. Like most, I feel it's too bad it was not more central to the AP.
Thank you for the mass combat system. I am going to read through it tonight and maybe start using it next month when we go back to Kingmaker.
TBH, I would have loved to run Vordekai, it just didn't make sense storywise to jam up the players when they were already hard pressed into some heavy political gambits and skirmishes with rogue barons in Brevoy. Now they are 9th level and I am going to have to basically re-tool the whole scenario as a higher level challenge, probably after the queen marries and there is a quiet period.
As far as Brevoy, I think the War for the Throne will end up being our book 6 and the real Book 6 will be our Final Chapter. Our queen's #1 goal is using her kingdom to merge Mivon, Rostland, and the PCs kingdom into a united swordlord nation. Not only does she have her work cut out for her, it sort of requires annexing half of Brevoy :)
Now they are 9th level and I am going to have to basically re-tool the whole scenario as a higher level challenge, probably after the queen marries and there is a quiet period.
This might help:
I gave the cyclops the juju zombie template, added fighter levels to a few of them (the Honor Guard), and gave levels to Agai, Cephal and the big V.
Since Vordakai was a true lich, he had a phylactery, which was kept in another lair. There, it was guarded by a juju zombie great cyclops, a vampiric green dragon and an advanced iron golem. Once it's in presentable form, I will post my notes for this second lair.
By the time my PCs were ready to assault Irovettis' fortress, there were a couple levels above the recommended level and, as mentioned earlier, had built crazy powerful killing machines. So, I added a council to aid Irovetti. Most of the following is just the stat blocks. I did not include a stat block for Zelath the Reaper and ran him as presented in the NPC Codex.
Irovetti is mostly based on a revised stat block Jason Nelson had posted to the boards some time ago.
The vampire monk was meant to take advantage of a character's back story, which, if you're interested, you can read here. I've been getting backstories from my players for decades but this one in particular deserved some recognition.
I have a few more before I'm done spamming. Again, hope this stuff is helpful and let me know if you have any questions.
Now they are 9th level and I am going to have to basically re-tool the whole scenario as a higher level challenge, probably after the queen marries and there is a quiet period.This might help:
I gave the cyclops the juju zombie template, added fighter levels to a few of them (the Honor Guard), and gave levels to Agai, Cephal and the big V.
Since Vordakai was a true lich, he had a phylactery, which was kept in another lair. There, it was guarded by a juju zombie great cyclops, a vampiric green dragon and an advanced iron golem. Once it's in presentable form, I will post my notes for this second lair.
what level were your players when they started VV?
Thanks for posting all this stuff! I can foresee some of the amped up encounters coming in handy, since I've got a pretty powerful party.
what level were your players when they started VV?
It's been a couple years, but I would guess around 9, 10 when they faced Vordakai. At CR 15, I thought my Vordakai would be a bit of a challenge. If I remember correctly, he was down by the 3rd round after failing a Concentration check to teleport to his second lair.
Sorry, I haven't checked back here in a while. If folks want to PM an email address to me, I will share my Battelsystem conversion, hodge-podge and incomplete as it is.