Streamlining the back half of Kingmaker

[TheIneffableCheese]

I’ve been running Kingmaker for my group for more than two years now. We just finished The Varnhold Vanishing.

The elements that originally drew me to the AP – specifically the exploration and kingdom building – have proven to be less than engaging for my group. They still enjoy uncovering the map through, but the random encounters are never a challenge as they generally epitomize the 15 minute adventuring day. And the kingdom building was completely busted by one of my players who figured out how to game the system before the end of the first year of kingdom building turns. With his guidance, they built an economic engine that allowed them to build whatever they wanted and got their kingdom stats to the point where they could only ever fail a kingdom check on a roll of 1. I also brought in a sample of the mass combat rules with a small army of trolls fielded by Hargulka, and we found the experience to be lackluster. I’m thinking of dipping into my 3.5 library to pull from Heroes of Battle as a way of covering large scale conflicts in the future.

So, with this in mind, I discussed it with my group and they agreed that the kingdom building portion of the game was actually not that much fun given the time it took. We’ve moved to more of a Kingdom in the Background sort of model. Everyone is interested in where the story is going, and so far they have not missed the kingdom focused stuff.

At this point, I’m interested in streamlining the rest of the AP to get us through the rest of the story satisfactorily, but as quickly as possible. Basically, I’m trying to turn the rest of the AP into more of a traditional linear adventure, but with a bit more freedom to poke around the edges. I’d personally like to cut to the chase because I don’t want to be running this path for another 2+ years (I have too many other campaigns I’d like to run). To that end, I’d like to possibly combine Blood for Blood and War of the River Kings to try to get us to the endgame as soon as possible. I also wouldn’t be opposed to dropping in a different module to bridge some of the story if that makes sense.

I’m wondering if anyone else has attempted something similar, and if so what did you do? Any thoughts or suggestions are quite welcome.

[pennywit]

I've done a few things:

1) Especially after Vordekai, I considered Armag a lackluster villain. I kept Armag around as a background player, but I replaced the bulk of Blood for Blood with Kobold Press's Courts of the Shadow Fey.

2) I'm combining War of the River Kings and Sound of a Thousand Screams, although this is a combination in progress. My players saw Irovetti as a potential ally early on, so I decided to allow them to attempt it. I turned the Rushlight Tournament into an intrigue encounter, with my players sorting through various factions to find out who was doing what and a delegation from the Fable creating trouble.

3) I've added a third element to the mix: an erlking who is the Custodian of the Castle of Knives and possibly an ally to my players if they learn his backstory. A group of his forces attacked the Rushlight Tournament as it ended.

4) I'm combining the blooms (sometimes featuring an army, sometimes individuals) with attacks from D'Kara's military forces. My players are going to have to figure out how to cope with both the blooms and the more immediate attacks, and fulfill their obligations to Irovetti, if they want to "win" the Adventure Path.

[Lee Hanna]

Yep, smushing together books 3-5 is exactly what I did. Here is the link to my summary.

Combining the War and Blood shouldn't be hard, maybe you could have the invading army be Armag's, not Irrovetti's. You might want to scale up/down some CRs, of course.

I suggest:
- Move the Midnight Joust to Drelev's town, with everyone invited in. No betrayal at this time.
- Run the Battle of Tatzylford, but maybe Drelev isn't behind it, point directly to Armag.
- IMC, Drelev was secretly allied with Irrovetti, and lured the PCs into his castle, then tried to assassinate them at night. (Lady Drelev successfully pled ignorance.)
- Irrovetti then invades, and the PCs fight their way to his castle. My group also didn't really like the battle rules, so some fights were bypassed/handwaved while the PCs did commando-like stuff. If Armag is the big bad, maybe you don't need to do Pitax, or its siege happens earlier in the war, and King Armag is defeated at his final bolthole in the hills?
- Whiterose Abbey might be skipped, just make sure to tell the PCs about Briar before they get to Pitax castle.

An option that I considered, but didn't adopt: why have /2/ magic intelligent swords lying about? Combine them however you like, and play up Armag I's anti-fey history so that his sword is the one that will kill the next invasion.

Another option I considered is to drop Book 6 (and Briar) entirely. This is supposed to be about building a Kingdom after all. Once that realm is built up to where it can defeat an invasion by its neighbor, what more need is there to play on?

[JohnB]

Personally, I would just miss out the random encounters and Hexploration events and leave the key scenario's in.

Book 4 - Have the Slough area cleared by Drelev's men. It gives you four distincnt (and more traditional) scenarios - Tatzlford, Fort Drelev, The Barbarians, Boggards. None of which are very long.

Book 5 - Reduce all the armies to one big battle and scrap the tourney. Trim the 'Ranger Ally' bit and it leaves you White Rose and Pitax - two mid-length 'tradional' scenrios.

Book 6 - Reduce the Blooms and just go straight for the boss - it becomes one very big (and nasty) traditional story line. Or perhaps even drop it all together and mave Ivoretti the BBEG.

[Cesare]

pennywit wrote:

I've done a few things:

1) Especially after Vordekai, I considered Armag a lackluster villain. I kept Armag around as a background player, but I replaced the bulk of Blood for Blood with Kobold Press's Courts of the Shadow Fey.

Pennywit, how did you end up adapting Courts of the Shadow Fey to Kingmaker?

[pennywit]

Cesare wrote:

pennywit wrote:

I've done a few things:

1) Especially after Vordekai, I considered Armag a lackluster villain. I kept Armag around as a background player, but I replaced the bulk of Blood for Blood with Kobold Press's Courts of the Shadow Fey.

Pennywit, how did you end up adapting Courts of the Shadow Fey to Kingmaker?

Hannis Drelev feared my players' expansionist agenda. He cut a deal with the shadow fey so that they woould support him ... but they would gain claim to his lands if his line died out.

He ended up suiciding during battle with my players. AFter the shadow fey took over, my players journeyed to their court to persuade the court to abate its claim to Fort Drelev. It got a little insane.

[Tarondor]

I'd like to know more, Pennywit. I'm thinking of ways to use Courts of the Shadow Fey also.