Kingmaker AP

[Vicente]

I think some people here like a lot Paizo work, well, they are going to release a new AP that seems a mix between "Birthright" and a sandbox campaign (The West Marches): Kingmaker (http://paizo.com/pathfinder/v5748btpy8dhc).

The first adventure seems to be about exploring, while the second one will come with rules for ruling nations :)

[Rey]

And Player's Guide (http://paizo.com/store/downloads/pathfinder/adventurePath/v5748btpy8dqh) for free?

EDIT: Hm, nice, PG has "icons" for buildings in cities. Could come in handy.

[Lee]

A pal of mine just told me he's buying me the first installment for my birthday next week. I am already wondering about converting it to Cerilia. I've run in the Giantdowns before, that seems to match the concept of "unclaimed, bandit-infested land."

[Lee]

I've gotten the first two books of the Kingmaker AP now, and read them once through. I've also skimmed some of Paizo's message boards on this. One thread there stuck in my head; the Paizo team felt the AP felt to them like George RR Martin's Westeros, set in Eastern Europe. Many of the NPC and names had that Slavic sound to them, as a result.

The core of the AP is that the PCs are adventurers under charter to a kingdom, charged with clearing and colonizing some monster-infested territory on its border.

As a result, I am thinking of placing it in a Vos land. Kozlovnyy seemed like a good match: there are three 0- or 1-level provinces in its northeast, and it abuts awnshegh and sidhe lands (partial spoiler: This could be important later on). There is also ethnic tension between the Khinasi and Vos populations, which parallels the background of the as-written mother country.
Kozlovnyy might be too far south, and thus too warm, so I am also thinking of Yeninskiy-- it still has the Khinasi-Vos tension. Or Rzhev, since the "swordlords of Restov" seemed to feel more like Brecht, from the little I could glean from the modules.

Anyway, I still have to feel out my players, what rules and setting they would like. I've made my vote clear.

[Lee]

I've now gotten the third installment of this Adventure Path. #2 had the kingdom-running rules, which are not much like Birthright.

They are focused much more on building and operating a realm, with little mechanics for interaction with other realms. There is no real mechanism for running a guild or temple domain, or for regent-level wizardry. I'm not saying this is a negative, it is to establish that Kingmaker is seeking to do something different from Birthright.

The general theme is to build up cities and hexes, much like many computer strategy games, such as Pharoah/Caesar or Civilization. Having certain buildings or developments allows others, or bonuses for actions, and so on. A realm has statistics for stability and the like, which are affected by its makeup and by outside events.

In short, it's a different world and a different system, which seeks to do different things. It looks like it should do great for the group that wants to carve a realm out of wilderness, which is handled pretty simply in Birthright's regency system.

[Vicente]

Agreed, I have read the first to adventures (I just recently got the third) and I was a little disappointed on how simple the system was, but well, there are some nice ideas here and there to borrow at least :)

[Exile]

Paizo have had a very warm response to their kingdom rules, with a lot of fan work on expanding and modifying them.

There've been repeated comments about a possible future stand-alone supplement for domain creation and rulership, based on the rules in Kingmaker.

It's not something likely to happen soon, however.

[Vicente]

Do you have any link for that fan work? I would love to see it...

[Exile]

This (http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/adventurePath/kingmaker) should take you to the forum for the Adventure Path. I don't personally find them very easy to navigate, but there are all sorts of things there - from new buildings, through alternate economy rules, hiring adventurers to tackle problems for you, and on to half-serious things like using harems in place of co-rulers.

This (http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/adventurePath/kingmaker/kingmakerKingdomRulerCompilationOfClarificationsEr rataAlternateRulesAndExpansions) is an old compilation of some of what had been produced a while back.

[Vicente]

Thanks a lot!

[Oberon]

Well as a DM currently running this adventure path I've come to the realization that I really don't like the rules they came up with for kingdom building. I fully understand that they wanted to make them simple and straight forward but these are just sloppy and so prone to abuse.

I've gone ahead and started cludging in the BR rules for managing the realm instead and just kept the maps, encounters and storyline from the AP with a little bit of the city building rules. It's not a perfect fit but it's a lot less hand waving it was done then the AP suggests and it's less prone to abuse.

If you do decide to keep the AP rules change the rules for Mage towers and magic shops, they completely unbalance the game.

[Vicente]

Thanks for the tips, I will try to run this AP in the future (I have only read it, not enough time for gaming :( ).

[Lee]

Well as a DM currently running this adventure path I've come to the realization that I really don't like the rules they came up with for kingdom building. I fully understand that they wanted to make them simple and straight forward but these are just sloppy and so prone to abuse.

I've gone ahead and started kludging in the BR rules for managing the realm instead and just kept the maps, encounters and storyline from the AP with a little bit of the city building rules. It's not a perfect fit but it's a lot less hand waving it was done then the AP suggests and it's less prone to abuse.

If you do decide to keep the AP rules change the rules for Mage towers and magic shops, they completely unbalance the game.

Are you using their setting, or somewhere in Cerilia? I'll wait to hear what my players say, but I think I'd like to change the names to someplace Vos, formerly Brecht.

I agree, the magic shop rubbed me wrong just reading it. It seems like a too-easy way to have lots of magic items just show up.