[PF] Kingmaker Run, Is it worth it?

[HereBeMonsters]

Ok so I am thinking about taking my players on a run through the Kingmaker AP. Now here is the biggest issue. We can normally only get 3 of us together. That is myself and two others. So given that the Kingmaker AP is pretty expansive and can be pretty rough for 2 players I was thinking is it worth taking or should I put it off till we could get more players involved?

Now I would be playing a DMPC to help out, typically this is a buffer character or a healer of some sort. This is also so the players can RP with that character and not be talking to themselves (I know I always feel awkward if I have to do that.) and not just pass by with a "Oh we talk about X" which sucks you out of the RP really quick.

Now I am curious should the two PCs and the DMPC be Gestalted or should the two other players play two characters each. I know one can handle multiple characters as once as she has done it before when we lost a player, but the other tends to not want to split his focus onto more then one character.

Is it doable?

What classes would be good for the support aspect of the DMPC so that I don't take lead in anything or at least not in anything they might want to play. They typically play Rogue/Spellcasters for one of them and almost always straight melee fighters for the other guy (The one who likes to stay focused)

I was thinking of adding in D&D 3.5 classes like those from ToB (PF PoW too obviously) and so forth.

Can someone help out?

[ArcanistSupreme]

How is your group's Op-Fu? I heard (somewhere) that that AP was on the easy side, so if you are playing tier 3 or higher characters to their fullest, I think you would be okay. But I've neither played nor looked at that AP, so I really have no idea what I'm talking about. :smalltongue:

[hiryuu]

I did it with two mythics, and it worked out -great-.

Just added some stuff as trials, and it works out really well.

[Tovec]

Ok so I am thinking about taking my players on a run through the Kingmaker AP. Now here is the biggest issue. We can normally only get 3 of us together. That is myself and two others. So given that the Kingmaker AP is pretty expansive and can be pretty rough for 2 players I was thinking is it worth taking or should I put it off till we could get more players involved?
I would definitely recommend getting others involved. I find that the AP is best with many characters. If it is going to be a small number of players I recommend letting each play more characters in such a case but getting more players is by far a better and more ideal situation.


Now I would be playing a DMPC to help out, typically this is a buffer character or a healer of some sort. This is also so the players can RP with that character and not be talking to themselves (I know I always feel awkward if I have to do that.) and not just pass by with a "Oh we talk about X" which sucks you out of the RP really quick.
The problem with this AP for two isn't that it is overly tricky. It is that it is strong on character development over time, and the paths that people take to get there. Having a good array of abilities I think is essential, not just strong characters by varied ones. So a cleric NPC (I'm steering wide of the DMPC debacle) is fine, but its only one part of a greater whole. Plus there is already a cleric NPC in the AP in the first book, if you are going to go that route. But in this AP isn't huge on dungeon crawls and as such I think a NPC cleric that travels with is kind of unnecessary - just leave him at home and return to healing when needed.


Now I am curious should the two PCs and the DMPC be Gestalted or should the two other players play two characters each. I know one can handle multiple characters as once as she has done it before when we lost a player, but the other tends to not want to split his focus onto more then one character.
While two characters are likely to get crushed by themselves at lower level, if they survive and gather EXP they'll be over level later. No, the problem isn't really that. They simply need more characters. Kingmaker is about building a kingdom with varying roles and talents. Doesn't matter what abilities two doubled characters have they're not going to be able to perform the myriad of roles in government all at the same time. This is where the multiple characters is best, letting each player play more and thus filling out the roster, or having more people to do it. Plus I think you simply won't have enough named characters as the game is written right now. It is expected you'll have a decent sized party with many friendly NPCs and you don't have the first and the second I think won't get you there. You can fill out the slots with people who are virtually useless, but if you want the kingdom to do well you'll need some people with good stats and that means PCs or certain strong monsters, not Regular Joe NPCs.

Beyond that how doable is up to what fills out the roster of the party. I'm still working on doing something similar (taking the AP and reworking it whole cloth for my own game) with a solo PC. I've realized he NEEDS a good support team. Yes, he wants to go off and do his own thing, but he simply can't manage it. It is an exploration and survival game (just recently starting what would be book 2 of the AP - "kingbuilding") and that is nearly impossible solo. What is more he was originally part of a group but half that group is dead, his original character has died, the remaining bits of the group have moved on and been promoted in the kingdom. Simply put, he needs a group that can stick together and so he's recently formed a second group to this end. With the background he selected he'll (probably) never be king, which means I needed someone to fill that role. Heck, he didn't even want to be in the government (character reasons, the player is totally on board) but just a freeman in its workings (he has currently ended up as Grand Diplomat).

It seems I've gotten off-topic a little.

Returning to point: two players can be fine, but more is better. Two characters I would say is nearly impossible to make work well. You need more to make this particular AP work well. And from experience you need even more NPCs (no matter what group, unless it is BIG and well split in roles) than the book puts forth, I'd say maybe 4-6 more.

General other tips: read as much ahead as possible so you know the important threads (especially spoilers from books 4-6). Introduce named NPCs and details about them early and often. In some cases I would suggest making them almost sympathetic as I find they are written fairly narrow minded. The AP for example suggests certain NPCs for roles in the government, but you don't meet most of them until AFTER you are setting up the government and in some cases they're working against government so I don't know why the book would suggest them. Same goes with the quests (early and often). For the ones in the first book, when possible, maybe have a bulletin board with them posted that way they don't have to go collect and know what the goal is. Then introduce the next ones as those are completed instead of later on when they're the correct level. So, quests from book 2 told about during adventuring in book 1. They may not know how such features fit in, but the AP works the smoothest when the DM keeps on top of it. For kingdom building rules themselves see if you can find the updated ones in Ultimate Campaign. Also, I think it suggests giving them 50k gp and a year to set up, I think half a year is about right if you want to keep it relatively competitive still. Never made sense giving them a full year like things will sit still. Heck they still wouldn't have explored the second half of the first map for a YEAR?

That's all I've got for now. Hope it helps.