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We alternate between 3 DMs, playing one book before another DM takes over.
We started Kingmaker in 2010
Finished last night
Found Nyrissa (for the second time) She hit 3 of the characters with a prismatic ray. Karli the 2 weapon fighter rolled a 1 on a poison ray. Abigale Paladin/cleric saved. Kelso failed against insanity.
Sven the rouge was blinded by he beauty a few rounds later.
Kelso contributed when the confusion roll allowed. Abigale went toe to toe with Nyrissa. Briar protected her with SR.
Finally rolled a 20 and confirmed the critical for the 2nd time and beheaded her (again)
I will add some more comments about the campaign later
Interested to hear your opinions on each book if it's not too much to ask. Did you stay 1e through it all?
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Yes we have not ventured into 2nd E. We have at least half a dozen AP to run and loads of 1st Ed classes yet to play.
Thoughts on the campaign and books to follow (work is a bit crazy)
Yeah, reading someone who's completed the AP when they're looking back at it is always interesting to read. What worked for your group? What didn't? How did you deviate from what was published? Things like that.
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OK so to start, I was a player so don't know all of where we diverted from the AP as written. And a lot of it was played a long time ago, so memory is sketchy
Clearly this is a great AP. We were an unbalanced party. We started as
Abigale 1/2 Elf Cleric/Paladin of Erastil
Kelso Gnome Wizard (Illusionist)
Jarl Dwarven Ranger (Archery)
Sven 1/2 Orc Rouge
The opening book was run straight as written as far as I can tell. Really great Sandbox with a tough fight at the end. We chose to start our kingdom centred on the Stag Lords base. With kingdom building we set out to keep the kingdom reasonably small to keep the DCs under control.
It was in the second book where the DM started to get creative. I am reasonable sure Kingmaker is the AP which is least likely to have no custom material in it. Some examples of ours:
Our spymaster was an awakened, very intelligent horse.
We had a recurring thread about a spy and shadowy organisations. I am reasonably sure this came from a random dice roll, when the DM roll a minor item of a scroll of read magic. As you need read magic to read it why would you write it? This led to all kinds of spy stuff.
We had a recurring Necromancer from a random encounter.
Anyway second book equally great sandbox.
Book 3 Was run as written (apart from the madness happening at home) It has the first dungeon of any size, but the was great. Abigale who at this stage only has one level in cleric, so was a mid level Paladin should have smited the lich's *@##, but of course got paralysed. The rest of the party had to rescue her.
About this time we also noted Kelso incredible ability to teleport us into the Hooktongue. So much so that Abigale bought a folding boat.
While on the subject of Kelso, he had a number of item creation feats and we used them a lot
Our spymaster was an awakened, very intelligent horse.
The perfect spy.
Thanks for the write up, Hadrick!
Somewhere in Book 4 Jarl died and was replace by a 2 weapon fighting Elven Fighter called Karli (or later the buz saw) This changed the balance of the party we lost our ranged specialist and his wolf AC but gained a hand to hand phenomena
This book continued with the great sand box, the opponents were a change from Varnhold and very enjoyable.
By book 5 the party balance was becoming a real problem and Abigale advanced as a cleric instead of Paladin
We enjoyed the tournament and adventuring in Pitax. We never tried to add Pitax to our kingdom. The Paladin gave leadership back to the people of the city
Book 6 was a slog. Unlike the previous book it was solid combat all the way through. The opponents were also very well designed/tough.
A couple of other points
Abigale took leadership which staffed/guarded the castle. Her horse (Molly) was also very important until she started leveling in cleric. She also got married.
We all hated the Hooktongue
Sven came close to aging into Middle Age!!!
Our castle got attacked by Fey assassins
It was a running conversation with the players about who/what was behind all of this. None of us had any idea
It was a running conversation with the players about who/what was behind all of this. None of us had any idea
That's interesting. You're probably aware that one of the common complaints about this AP is that the major threat seems to come out of nowhere for the players, but this sentence implies that maybe the mystery of who or what was causing the kingdom issues added to the campaign?