Ultimate Relationships and Kingmaker

[Draco Bahamut]

I really love the Ultimate Relationships rules and i plan on using it with every adventure path, but Kingmaker has a really large cast of NPCs. I am making that in my campaing, NPC must have a rank 4 relationship with someone in the party before accepting a Leadership position. Someone else is using these rules ?

[Philip Knowsley]

Know of the rules, but don't know the rules themselves.

All I'd say is be careful of leaving your players with no options to fill
leadership positions. If they don't develop enough relationships to fill
all of the leadership slots, then it will likely wreck their kingdom before
it even really begins...

Other than that - sounds like a good way to make your players invest in the
lives of those around them. (Just make sure your players are aware that this
is how you'll be playing it.)

[magispitt]

To clarify, do you mean these rules?

*Edit: or do you mean these rules?

[Chemlak]

He means these rules.

Not a bad idea to use the URel rules for setting the level at which an NPC will accept a leadership position.

Here's some thoughts, though: As Philip says, you run the risk of gimping your kingdom (since you need to rank up three times if you set it at rank 4). Consider that doing that requires 12 camaraderie points for each NPC, which is 6 levels worth, or fewer levels with appropriate milestones.

On the other hand, I do like the idea of rank 4, since it's a major relationship step.

One option would be to allow any NPC of relationship rank 1 or higher to agree to become a kingdom leader, cap the kingdom stat bonus they can provide at their relationship rank, but once they reach rank 4 they can always use their full stat. You could even modify that dependent on NPC affinity.

[magispitt]

I'm going to be running a Kingmaker campaign as well, are there any rules to be found for free that you would recommend using as a guideline for NPC relationships? It doesn't have to be something not mentioned yet, I have't used the rules I liked above yet so some feedback if you have any is great.

Thanks in advance! :)

[Rogue Eidolon]

Draco Bahamut wrote:

I really love the Ultimate Relationships rules and i plan on using it with every adventure path, but Kingmaker has a really large cast of NPCs. I am making that in my campaing, NPC must have a rank 4 relationship with someone in the party before accepting a Leadership position. Someone else is using these rules ?

If you and the players are ready to spend a lot of time on NPC relationships, then UR works well with a large cast. In my Jade Regent group, the PCs had over 30 active friendly NPCs with this system (the UR singles line with the Lonely Lyrakien and so on are inspired by the relationship rank-ups I built for those NPCs). Rank 4 seems like the right point to accept a kingdom role, but that means the PCs need to make sure to spend milestones with the early NPCs like Oleg and Svetlana (and even someone like the Old Bel Dame if they need a caster). Since the Kingmaker campaign traits aren't based on relationships, no one will start at rank 2 either.

[Philip Knowsley]

Also - I have just been thinking...

If you intend having outside forces wanting NPCs in a leadership position,
you'll need some sort of mechanic to allow the PCs to accept someone with
whom they have no relationship.

e.g. if you use some of the message board options presented for earning BP,
you may want to allow the priest of xyz onto the council in exchange for
10BP of funding early on or something similar.

That said, how about making a limit for the amount of NPCs who can be brought
in without any sort of relationship having already been formed...or, using
the rules you're looking at...perhaps a tiered approach?
e.g. 6 positions at tier 4, 2 at tier 3...etc.

This would give you a bit more flexibility, and perhaps a tiered approach to
the great idea by Chemlak. i.e. allow a gradual increase of rank & as a
consequence a gradual increase of stat bonus to the position.

Next - how will you handle people on the council who are at odds with the
PCs? Is there any sort of mechanic in the rules to handle this?

[Chemlak]

There's nothing in the rules as they exist right now for opposition within the rulers, but watch this space, because I have a little (read: quite big, really) something in the works.

[Draco Bahamut]

The kingmaker tempo is a little different from regular campaing, so let people raise ranks freely if they spend the entire day with said Npc.
Quests also should give camaraderie points with npcs.
We are still in the first module, so the PCs have a lot of free time (there 5 PCs, but one is a vigilante and I am letting each identity occupy a different leadership roles, as long the vigilante is the Royal Assassin)