Questions about the Kingmaker AP

[SilverLeaf167]

Okay, this might be a kinda weird thread, because a) I have limited information available, b) the question is pretty vague and c) I would like to avoid spoilers about the campaign. Slight hints won't ruin my life, but try to keep that in mind.

So, after years of basically nothing but DM'ing, I managed to become a PC in a pretty nice group. There's a total of six people, out of whom only I and a friend of mine have any real experience with D&D/PF. This leads to some unfortunate rules-lawyering/smartassing on our part, but we try to be nice about it and obviously also get to help everyone else, so it evens out.

Anyway, the DM picked up the Kingmaker adventure path as our first campaign to run (apart from a short practice adventure), as apparently it struck him as really interesting, and that's great! It sounds really cool to me too. I get the impression that it might be a somewhat difficult choice for a first-time DM, but that's okay.


The thing is, there are a few issues with it, most of which the DM has acknowledged/complained about to various extents. We're not very far yet (we're only level 2, maybe 3 soon) but the first impression is a bit worrying. I'll try to give some examples:

Expecting the party to actively seek out random encounters and grind XP before investigating seemingly more immediate issues. Somewhat annoying now, but at first it almost led to a TPK as we thought we were in a hurry and apparently barged straight into a mid-boss of sorts. Pretty jarring and videogamey too.
Somewhat related to the above, giving little to no hints/warnings about the environment. We're seemingly supposed to avoid the actual "boss battles" for now, but there's very little indication of which way is dangerous and which isn't. Again, not as much of an issue now that we know to scan the map in a zig-zag pattern hex by hex instead of actually heading forward, but came as a surprise at first.
Again related, giving us side objectives but no real hints about how to accomplish them. There are bounty posters for things like dangerous wildlife and kobold tribes, but we have no idea where they are, so instead of "let's go hunt these monsters!" it becomes "guess we'll keep walking in the forest and see if we randomly run into them among all the other stuff we fight."
According to the DM, there's a lot of detail and background the party can't possibly discover but that doesn't really help the DM either. Several paragraphs describing the tragic backstory of minor characters that either literally can't speak or that attack on sight and can't be reasoned with. Expanding from that, there are seemingly interesting places and encounters that the party gets curious about and wastes time on but that end up having literally nothing of value. I guess that last one can apply to any campaign, but...
The game world seems a bit static. Probably pretty normal for hexcrawl-style campaigns, but still: we've ambushed this bandit clan, interrupted their business, killed one of their leaders, firebombed another and raided their base (as far as we can tell), but even though several in-game weeks have passed since then, it doesn't seem like they're doing anything other than sitting in that dinky fort of theirs. They're the only real antagonists so far, but... not exactly engaging, in any sense of the word. We could just let them stay there for all I care. I wonder if the DM could let us make an agreement, since they clearly don't care very much either...
Last and probably least, very low wealth. We're about to hit level 3 and way, way behind WBL. Almost none of the little loot we've found has been even remotely useful or valuable. The Ring of Swimming I found (in an interesting but ultimately irrelevant grave) is technically worth 2,500 gp, but basically useless, and nobody will buy it. I guess the difference isn't that big at this level, but still. Feels a bit unsatisfying either way, though if it catches up later or is at least an intended part of the campaign, I can deal with it.

What I'd want to know is: which of these are issues with the actual AP itself, and which ones are caused by the DM's inexperience? I haven't read the books, so it could be that he's just missing things and/or failing to improvise. What friendly advice could I give the DM? And if Kingmaker itself really is the problem, can you tell me if it "gets better later on"?

None of these are deal-breakers for me and I'm having fun anyway, but it could still be better, y'know?

[Diarmuid]

It sounds like you're in a bit of a mixed issue. The AP is famous for many of the pitfalls you're describing. I'm running it myself and my group just finished the second book. As an inexperienced DM, that person is probably not too comfortable not simply running things as they're written.

I would recommend to your DM to have him start reading through some of the various threads in the Kingmaker subforum on the Paizo boards: http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoInc/pathfinder/adventurePath/kingmaker , more specifically the long thread about the first module: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2kfjy?Stolen-Land .

I would avoid these yourself as they're very loaded with spoilers, and even the thread titles could be spoilers themselves so best to stay out of the forum completely.

Many DM's have discussed the issue of parties simply bee-lining for the boss in Chapter 1 and many parties end up dying because of it. It is a bit of a choose your own adventure, but good PC's/parties need to be able to identify when the threat is not something they can deal with.

That being said, some information from the natives of the area about the relative strength or rumors about the things you're encountering can help the party make informed decisions.

TL:DR - It's both, the AP isnt perfect and an inexperienced DM will likely not be in a position to recognize what needs tweaking and make those adjustments.

[SilverLeaf167]

Many DM's have discussed the issue of parties simply bee-lining for the boss in Chapter 1 and many parties end up dying because of it. It is a bit of a choose your own adventure, but good PC's/parties need to be able to identify when the threat is not something they can deal with.

That being said, some information from the natives of the area about the relative strength or rumors about the things you're encountering can help the party make informed decisions.

TL:DR - It's both, the AP isnt perfect and an inexperienced DM will likely not be in a position to recognize what needs tweaking and make those adjustments.

Yeah, we're getting used to the mindset this AP seems to require... which is a shame, really, since it was delightfully easy for even the newer players to accept the freedom of a tabletop RPG, only for said RPG to force them back into the videogame attitude of "grind for XP and loot, the quests will wait as long as you want, never take the correct path first".

We only survived the first boss because my Alchemist buffs gave me an AC they could only hit with a natural 20 - the rest of the party was already down at that point, and even then it came pretty close. The DM was slightly annoyed, but I think avoiding a TPK is a pretty righteous cause. The next boss (the bandit fort) we could've avoided, but we hadn't yet realized that we should, though at least we managed to retreat with no losses. From now on, annoying as it is, I guess we'll just clear the whole region before even attempting anything boss-like. We've thought of some alternative approaches to the fort, but it remains to be seen how well the DM will adjust.

I'm currently operating under the assumption that a lot of my issues (fluff and crunch alike) will be resolved as the setting is more clearly established, we get our first settlement up and running (not sure about the schedule on that) and the DM gets more used to his job.

[Firechanter]

I also currently am a player in a Kingmaker game, so I appreciate the no-spoilers approach. Let's compare notes:

- yes, getting tasks and not any info how to go about them is a bit of a weak point. As an experienced DM has told me, he gave out useful information on locations of, I guess, the northern half of the map. However, my actual DM doesn't do this - we basically just explore, more or less systematically, and work on the sidequests as we go along.
- however, what's really important to understand is that in KM, at least throughout the first couple of books, you have _no time pressure_. Particularly the first book allows you to take all the time you need.
- while it might be logical from an in-character perspective to rush the Bandit Fort straight away, our own self-preservation instincts kept us from having our characters rush into their doom. Even though we have a pretty good idea where the fort is, we have decided to first explore the countryside - with the ingame reasoning that we "want to make sure nothing falls into our backs".

Note: although this AP gives you the option of getting in way over your head by rushing things, Paizo APs _mostly_ go very easy on the players during levels 1-2. You get tiny little fetch-and-carry quests and typically get weak and/or crippled foes thrown your way. As I like to put it: they spoonfeed you your XP-mush with little baby spoons until you are about level 3. This is because Paizo did understand how fragile and unsurvivable lowlevel PCs are, but somehow failed to apply said insight to their AP design and have the bloody adventure start at level 3 right away.

However, then the kid gloves often come off pretty fast once you have reached level 3. -- again, not speaking about Kingmaker here, but practically all other Paizo AP's I've tried have some pretty serious design fails (i.e. unbeatable but hardly avoidable encounters) before the end of the first book.



Last and probably least, very low wealth. We're about to hit level 3 and way, way behind WBL. Almost none of the little loot we've found has been even remotely useful or valuable. The Ring of Swimming I found (in an interesting but ultimately irrelevant grave) is technically worth 2,500 gp, but basically useless, and nobody will buy it. I guess the difference isn't that big at this level, but still. Feels a bit unsatisfying either way, though if it catches up later or is at least an intended part of the campaign, I can deal with it.

Singling this out because I've noticed this as well, in KM as well as in _any_ Paizo AP I have tried, and it feels good to vent about it. All of them starve you at low levels. For KM, I've heard the justification that scripted loot is rather low because there are so many Random Encounters, which should generate a lot of treasure, but I call bull**** on that - most RanEncs are local wildlife with no treasure whatsoever. Our DM has begun to counteract this by expanding on the Bounty theme, starting with spontaneously shelling out 400GP for the head of a Barghest that attacked us at night.

Another problem with WBL in Paizo APs is that the authors seem to find fiendish pleasure in scripting absurdly expensive, but annoyingly useless or downright unusable lootdrops. Haven't seen it in KM yet (since we have found very little loot whatsoever), but in other APs I've seen: a tiny +2 dagger that can only be used if you're pixie-sized; a hammock that prevents seasickness (same as a single rank in Profession:Sailor, but counts for 5000GP of your WBL), and enchanted versions of inferior base armours and weapons (like +1 Splint Mail or so). The most prevalent theme, however, seems to be the Magic Exotic Weapon. Like, you may find a pointy stick with +3 market price -- but it's a Harpoon, so if you don't want to burn a feat to do 1d8 damage with a two-handed weapon, all you can do is hope that you find a buyer for that piece of toxic waste. I have yet to see a _useful_ _martial_ magic weapon beyond basic +1 stuff.

_However_, concerning Kingmaker, I have been told that wealth becomes a non-issue in later stages of the campaign, because you can get revenue from your dominion and can leverage that by crafting your own gear.


What I'd want to know is: which of these are issues with the actual AP itself, and which ones are caused by the DM's inexperience?


Since we have pretty much the same issues, I reckon it's just how the module is written, and how probably most DMs who aren't very experienced would run it.

[SilverLeaf167]

Singling this out because I've noticed this as well, in KM as well as in _any_ Paizo AP I have tried, and it feels good to vent about it. All of them starve you at low levels. For KM, I've heard the justification that scripted loot is rather low because there are so many Random Encounters, which should generate a lot of treasure, but I call bull**** on that - most RanEncs are local wildlife with no treasure whatsoever. Our DM has begun to counteract this by expanding on the Bounty theme, starting with spontaneously shelling out 400GP for the head of a Barghest that attacked us at night.

Another problem with WBL in Paizo APs is that the authors seem to find fiendish pleasure in scripting absurdly expensive, but annoyingly useless or downright unusable lootdrops. Haven't seen it in KM yet (since we have found very little loot whatsoever), but in other APs I've seen: a tiny +2 dagger that can only be used if you're pixie-sized; a hammock that prevents seasickness (same as a single rank in Profession:Sailor, but counts for 5000GP of your WBL), and enchanted versions of inferior base armours and weapons (like +1 Splint Mail or so). The most prevalent theme, however, seems to be the Magic Exotic Weapon. Like, you may find a pointy stick with +3 market price -- but it's a Harpoon, so if you don't want to burn a feat to do 1d8 damage with a two-handed weapon, all you can do is hope that you find a buyer for that piece of toxic waste. I have yet to see a _useful_ _martial_ magic weapon beyond basic +1 stuff.

_However_, concerning Kingmaker, I have been told that wealth becomes a non-issue in later stages of the campaign, because you can get revenue from your dominion and can leverage that by crafting your own gear.

Heheh, our party Wizard is eagerly awaiting the time that he has enough money to use Craft Wondrous Item - and our DM fidgets nervously whenever it comes up, so I wouldn't be surprised if we got some houseruled restrictions. On the other hand, some restrictions would probably be pretty reasonable: with enough downtime and a high enough Spellcraft modifier, crafting feats can almost double the whole party's WBL, not even counting the profit they can bring in. Personally I'll just stick to silly alchemy stuff. :smalltongue:

[Elricaltovilla]

Having run over half of the modules in the Kingmaker AP, I can support the claim that these problems largely stem from the way the AP is written and have little to do with your party. My players got to regularly enjoy me stopping in the middle of the session to berate the authors as we played because of their seeming inability to focus on only the relevant information instead of filling page space with useless crap that will never affect anything in the campaign.

Seriously, the concept of an adventure designed around your PCs founding and managing a kingdom is a cool idea but the execution was, in all honesty, pretty terrible.

[Geigan]

As a player who just recently got finished playing Kingmaker from levels 1-17, this got me interested enough to go read back through the modules now that we were finished with the campaign. I can add to the voices calling out the AP for being poorly written for a lot of these issues.

-The grinding is definitely a part of the way the AP is written. I imagine it's supposed to be an exploration focused campaign with a huge map, presumably reminiscent of games like Baldur's Gate where you can go anywhere, but have no idea what you might be getting yourselves into if you stumble upon something level inappropriate. The AP doesn't want you to have to feel rushed in doing much while you're still low level, unless the GM decides to amp things up on their own.

-Yeah the AP itself doesn't give a lot of warning, unless you actively seek out information beyond what's handed to you and if your GM actually is willing to give you said info. Our GM was pretty reasonable about it and did give us a sort of meta sense of which parts of the map were definitely out of our depth, though there are still a few little pockets of difficulty to stumble onto randomly. That said it definitely means that a lot of the campaign is basically a lot of not terribly engaging walking around, punctuated with brief moments of challenge, and occasional TPK-potential-induced terror. At least while exploration is still the main focus that is. Without trying to spoil anything specific I'd say exploration stopped being as much of a main focus around books 4-5 and was more of something to do between getting important things done.

-The random side objectives is definitely 100% the AP's fault. So many frigging bounty posters with practically no indication of how to get these things done given to the party. Our GM again helped a bit by giving us a bit of indication of what parts of the map certain objectives might be in, but there were still plenty of them with just nothing. Perhaps interesting if the exploration aspect as a main focus is something your group particularly enjoys, but utterly terrible otherwise. There were not just a few exploration focused sessions where players didn't bother showing up because our party was big enough to just have a few players handle the "challenges" that exploration typically regurgitated at us. Sure the GM is supposed to scale and rebalance things to make the encounter interesting for everybody, but when we know it's just mostly pointless filler a lot of the time why should we care?

-Not going to give spoilers here, but there are indeed a lot of random anecdotes from this campaign. In practice, it felt a lot like my problems with games like Fallout 4. Fun game, but so much of a the story telling comes down to "go to X place, kill thing, read its diary/investigate the area to learn why you should care about it". Additionally having now skimmed through the first book, I can say that there's a lot of stuff present in the book for backstory that is presented as sort of important information for the world that unfortunately isn't super relevant to the first book's adventure, but is important for the AP's story down the road (depending on how your GM approaches it). I would highly advise giving your GM the advice to read ahead liberally to think through plot elements and how to string story threads together, because the AP does not do enough to foreshadow elements on its own imo.

-The game world being static is one of the problems that is part AP and part GM. Definitely going to touch lightly on the bandits to avoid spoilers, but the module doesn't really call anything out regarding their ability to take the initiative for themselves (for reasons that would be spoilers). Considering how much you've antagonized them it would make sense for them to have made some attempt to retaliate, but the GM may not be playing them as that competent for a reason.

-I second calling out Pathfinder APs on giving practically useless loot a lot of times that supposedly accounts for PC WBL, but a lot of that crap tends to have to be sold off a lot of the time because no one will ever use it.

This one the players in my group had to take measures to level out ourselves because the AP did not account for a group of our size, and since we avoided abusing our access to our nation's wealth quite purposefully. For that reason we were all very under-geared for almost the entire first half of the campaign, which in combination with the GM occasionally misinterpreting how deadly certain creatures were, ended up with not an insignificant number of party deaths. Not to imply that these deaths were all the GM's fault, as we did in fact have players trying to pull some dumb things occasionally on difficult encounters.

Eventually one of the players who got offed came back with a character running leadership, as he was an aspiring mercenary captain looking to make it big in service to the kingdom. His cohort was an Artisan (think 3rd party Pathfinder Artificer), which quite handily corrected the WBL and actually ended up pushing the party's effective WBL hard in the other direction. The GM was cool about it and just scaled things up to try and handle us, though I would advise you also be careful in not pushing too hard in the other direction to make it fair on the GM's encounter balance. I know our party went overboard with it, and the player who had the Artisan cheesed magic item creation to hell and back thanks to backwards access to 3.5 in addition to Pathfinder's general nonsense. We still got through it all without the campaign falling apart, but I'd say how much magic item creation your GM allows and you guys push to correct being under WBL could vary how things turn out over the entire AP wildly.

All in all you can definitely have some pretty good fun in this AP. I particularly enjoyed books 3 and 5 the most. But your GM will want to read whatever advice can be gotten about the AP as it's definitely one of Pathfinder's more experimental APs as is noted in the AP itself even. I know my GM read advice from the internet extensively on how to handle it and even then the writing still felt a bit stilted for what the story was trying to do.

[Seerow]

Going to echo the others that the AP is pretty flawed. I love it despite the flaws, but that's because I took a lot of time rewriting and reorganizing the AP. Like literally completely swapped entire books around in order. I still kept the core plot, characters, and map (including encounter concepts), but tweaked just about everything. It's not something I would expect most people to do, especially not a brand new DM.

[Sayt]

A few things to note: APs assume an average amount of random encounters, and that you generate loot for encounters without listed loot. Incidental on the treasure entry means half of normal for CR, not nothing.

I also think that a lot of the information provided in the APs is given so that when and if you alter or improvise you have more context.

I think an error I met when I ran carrion crown is that I tried to run it straight out of the book. You can't really do that. It's a scaffold and an architect's plan, not a building, if you take my metaphor.

[kuhaica]

As a DM who's planing on basing a campaign on the idea of King Maker. Basically everything said here sums up how the AP feels. It is based on the game being an 'open world' like many Video games with certain areas being harder then others. Forcing players to explore and seek out encounters and get a feel for the lands. This is time consuming but a key aspect of the AP. And I feel many people forget that as you are not required (until later) to do anything. You could just go around and kill things to fill the whole in your heart.

And the aspect of the low treasure. Reading through the books it seems intentional, as the party is out in the wilds with little supplies and little methods of gaining coin or equipment.

However, I would simply suggest talking to your DM. Give some tips on how to maybe change up the game rather then reading from the books. That generally works for me and my DMs

[Florian]

Hm... ok. In short: You´re doing it a bit wrong.

The main goal of this AP is exploration first, exploitation second, extermination third and story last, as the development of the story takes time and works on a grander scale, meaning the kingdom scale.

The Wanted posters and small side quests are there so you have an easy start at setting up your characters goals. What you´ll need here are the appropriate skills, spells or class features that help place them (roughly) on the actual map so you know the rough direction where to head for when you start exploring hexes (like Knowledge (local) or (nature) to get a heading on where the moon radish patch could be, Gather Information to get pointed at where NPC could dwell, and so on).

Second, you need to have personal goals for your characters, both short and long term. This can range from "Clear all roads of bandit activity", "Eliminate the cult of Gyrona" to "Find a suitable place to establish a knightly order" or "Marry, have children and be the founder of a dynasty".
As most combat encounters in this AP tend to be on the easy side (and the AP uses some special rules subsystems), it´s actually nice to pick some story feats, especially the ones based on exploration, nations and armies and work from there.

Third, know your subsystem rules and look at how to integrate them into your character builds. Kingdom and army management play a rather large part later, so get comfy with the appropriate feats and start playing up to it early on. (In both cases, look at Ultimate Campaign, Quests and Campaigns and Heroes of the High Court.)

Because of the time scale used, the world needs to be a bit static, as you´ll practically work with seasons later on, so it´s pretty much uninteresting whether the bandits react in any way. The first book alone should take about a year, the second book three years of in-game time. Get used to it.

As for WBL, shopping and magic items: Well, your gm should use the normal rules to generate random treasure and you will have to build your own shops and crafters so you can actually buy stuff later in the game. That part, again, is up to you, whether you want an alchemist, arcane tower or weapon smith first for shopping.

Beyond that, the AP itself includes the random tables to generate combat encounters, but the gm should use the non-combat tables from the GameMastery Guide and Ultimate Campaign to liven up the scenery a bit, especially for "pacified" hexes.

[Geigan]

Third, know your subsystem rules and look at how to integrate them into your character builds. Kingdom and army management play a rather large part later, so get comfy with the appropriate feats and start playing up to it early on. (In both cases, look at Ultimate Campaign, Quests and Campaigns and Heroes of the High Court.)

Oh this reminds me. Not all of this is relevant for awhile, but when they come up make sure to clarify whether the GM is using the rules as printed in the modules or as printed in later books/pfsrd. There are some discrepancies because Kingmaker's version of the rules for kingdom management/mass combat came earlier than the rules printed in the actual books. We had to deal with some of that in practice and it was frustrating because there were a lot of things from mass combat that we sort of were interested in using that turned out to not be relevant because the GM just preferred to keep the simplified versions as presented in the modules where everything was mostly predone anyway. I actually got full ranks in profession: soldier for no mechanical payoff and only ended up keeping them for fluff.

This basically goes part and parcel with the suggestions for him to read around for advice on the modules, but the subsystems in particular as written for the module are probably the most primitive form of those rules. You guys may want to either abstract some of it away or just use the better written mechanics from later available on pfsrd, because the mechanics in the module are annoying to deal with and more difficult for the players to reference unless your GM scans the book and makes you some handouts.

[Florian]

Using the kingdom and mass combat rules as presented in Ultimate Campaign and expanded with Quests and Campaigns is pretty much the only feasible way to go at it, especially since most of it is availlable on the PRD. The shortened rules provided with the AP have some... interesting... hick-ups.

[Geigan]

Using the kingdom and mass combat rules as presented in Ultimate Campaign and expanded with Quests and Campaigns is pretty much the only feasible way to go at it, especially since most of it is availlable on the PRD. The shortened rules provided with the AP have some... interesting... hick-ups.

I would second this for at least the kingdom building rules, but I have seen some talk while reading around of people forgoing mass combat altogether. Though that's really more of a group/GM preference thing. Getting into the kingdom building minigame is at least half the point of the AP, unless the GM goes heavy into houseruling up a system for it themselves. But the mass combat could be entirely abstracted out and it wouldn't be such a big deal imo. That's more of a conversation for the GM around the time those things become relevant, and they're still in book 1 from what I can tell. Certainly something for the GM to think about though.

[Alcore]

Played it once, ran it twice. All pbp so they didn't last.

1. Expecting the party to actively seek out random encounters and grind XP before investigating seemingly more immediate issues. Somewhat annoying now, but at first it almost led to a TPK as we thought we were in a hurry and apparently barged straight into a mid-boss of sorts. Pretty jarring and videogamey too.

2. Somewhat related to the above, giving little to no hints/warnings about the environment. We're seemingly supposed to avoid the actual "boss battles" for now, but there's very little indication of which way is dangerous and which isn't. Again, not as much of an issue now that we know to scan the map in a zig-zag pattern hex by hex instead of actually heading forward, but came as a surprise at first.

3. Again related, giving us side objectives but no real hints about how to accomplish them. There are bounty posters for things like dangerous wildlife and kobold tribes, but we have no idea where they are, so instead of "let's go hunt these monsters!" it becomes "guess we'll keep walking in the forest and see if we randomly run into them among all the other stuff we fight."

4. According to the DM, there's a lot of detail and background the party can't possibly discover but that doesn't really help the DM either. Several paragraphs describing the tragic backstory of minor characters that either literally can't speak or that attack on sight and can't be reasoned with. Expanding from that, there are seemingly interesting places and encounters that the party gets curious about and wastes time on but that end up having literally nothing of value. I guess that last one can apply to any campaign, but...

5. The game world seems a bit static. Probably pretty normal for hexcrawl-style campaigns, but still: we've ambushed this bandit clan, interrupted their business, killed one of their leaders, firebombed another and raided their base (as far as we can tell), but even though several in-game weeks have passed since then, it doesn't seem like they're doing anything other than sitting in that dinky fort of theirs. They're the only real antagonists so far, but... not exactly engaging, in any sense of the word. We could just let them stay there for all I care. I wonder if the DM could let us make an agreement, since they clearly don't care very much either...

6. Last and probably least, very low wealth. We're about to hit level 3 and way, way behind WBL. Almost none of the little loot we've found has been even remotely useful or valuable. The Ring of Swimming I found (in an interesting but ultimately irrelevant grave) is technically worth 2,500 gp, but basically useless, and nobody will buy it. I guess the difference isn't that big at this level, but still. Feels a bit unsatisfying either way, though if it catches up later or is at least an intended part of the campaign, I can deal with it.

1 & 2: if a group a wet behind the ear group think they can simply lay siege to a fort they are too stupid to live. This is truly a person expectation problem (gm included). You assume everything is at your level. If I were to march on the white house with a baseball bat secret service isn't going to conveniently come at me a few at a time barehanded. Use your heads.

3. Its an exploration game. Not much to say; your hired to explore so simply do so. It will all fall into place.

4. Yeah.... well it's the 'corner of the map' deal or a 'I go left!' Thing that would derail any game. The AP tries but the GM should also try to pickup slack in the sandbox.

5. Any world without a good GM behind will fall flat. For Kingmaker you need a world builder (which can't always tell a good story).

6. Will be fixed after the fort. Also start reading up on the downtime system. You'll surpass it soon enough (which is its own problem)

[Florian]

I would second this for at least the kingdom building rules, but I have seen some talk while reading around of people forgoing mass combat altogether. Though that's really more of a group/GM preference thing. Getting into the kingdom building minigame is at least half the point of the AP, unless the GM goes heavy into houseruling up a system for it themselves. But the mass combat could be entirely abstracted out and it wouldn't be such a big deal imo. That's more of a conversation for the GM around the time those things become relevant, and they're still in book 1 from what I can tell. Certainly something for the GM to think about though.

The mass combat part is actually quite important, as it changes the pacing of the AP quite a lot.

[Geigan]

The mass combat part is actually quite important, as it changes the pacing of the AP quite a lot.

Pacing which can be modified by the GM at will if they so choose. I know our group's GM only spent maybe four sessions max on resolving mass combat overall (and that's probably being generous). For some I imagine it could be a defining feature of the campaign. This difference is not inherently mechanics based, and either way comes down to a matter of group/GM preference.

[Florian]

Pacing which can be modified by the GM at will if they so choose. I know our group's GM only spent maybe four sessions max on resolving mass combat overall (and that's probably being generous). For some I imagine it could be a defining feature of the campaign. This difference is not inherently mechanics based, and either way comes down to a matter of group/GM preference.

I´ve gm´ed that AP twice, first time with Core + APG and plain vanilla rules from the modules, second time with Core + APG + UC + Ultimate Battle/Ultimate Rulership (3pp) and been a player to it once Core + UC + nearly anything up to UI.

Same time, I´ve gm´ed a local product "Von Eigenen Gnaden" (By thy own grace), a module which does the whole storytelling in a very aggressive way.

For me, doing the mass battles as background story really doesn´t mesh well with the level of player control you have throughout this AP and it´s harder to incorporate the actual economic downsides of going to war with the existing kingdom.

But I´ve got to add that we did a lot of the large scale stuff off table between sessions, so to not get bogged down during actual play.

[SilverLeaf167]

Without getting unnecessarily defensive, I feel like there's a couple things I should clarify. :smalltongue:


Hm... ok. In short: You´re doing it a bit wrong.

-snip-

I don't know how many of our issues can be attributed to "us doing it wrong" when almost all of your advice is related to what we should do in the long-term future, rather than at level 2, but I'll keep it in mind. The side quests can't exactly form a huge part of our characters' goals when (for now) they're all just simple fetch quests. I agree with you that the DM should be more accommodating, though given how often we try to roll Knowledge I can see why he'd get a bit tired.

"I roll Knowledge (nature) to see where we could find a big boar."
"Uh... in the forest?"

Thanks for the clarification on the campaign timescale though, it's something I've been wondering about.


Played it once, ran it twice. All pbp so they didn't last.

-snip-

1 & 2: if a group a wet behind the ear group think they can simply lay siege to a fort they are too stupid to live. This is truly a person expectation problem (gm included). You assume everything is at your level. If I were to march on the white house with a baseball bat secret service isn't going to conveniently come at me a few at a time barehanded. Use your heads.

3. Its an exploration game. Not much to say; your hired to explore so simply do so. It will all fall into place.

4. Yeah.... well it's the 'corner of the map' deal or a 'I go left!' Thing that would derail any game. The AP tries but the GM should also try to pickup slack in the sandbox.

5. Any world without a good GM behind will fall flat. For Kingmaker you need a world builder (which can't always tell a good story).

6. Will be fixed after the fort. Also start reading up on the downtime system. You'll surpass it soon enough (which is its own problem)

1 & 2. Well, in our defense, everything we'd come across had been either deserted or only occupied by some stragglers, and the description of the fort didn't seem any different. For all we knew, it only had some kobold hobos or something. We didn't lay siege to it, our scouting trip just went a bit off track due to some bad rolls, at which point we had to extract our most threatened members and then retreat as quickly as we could. We will definitely be careful next time though, but that's a given.

3. "Exploration" and "blind rummaging through the bushes" don't need to be synonymous, in my opinion, but I'm glad to hear it'll get more sensible.

4 & 5. No disagreement here. I expected at least some issues to be caused by the DM's inexperience, and am willing to just roll with it to some extent, so to speak.

6. I've taken a cursory look at it, I'm an Alchemist so I definitely expect to have some use for my crafting skills.

[Florian]

Well, this AP plays out on the grand scale, a thing that the gm or the accompanying players guide should have made clear. You have one overarching goal/quest per module and all the other stuff is just filler material to point you to the right direction. That is _the_ important difference to other, more story-based campaigns.

Keep in mind, the "main quest" for the first module ist to explore and chart every hex on the first map in the name of your brevoy backers. Everything else, like the bandits, is side-quests that you can tackle to have some short-term goals.

So, yes, your gm didn't´t quite "grog" how this works and needs a few pointers how to liven up the game-play without diluting its´ essence.

[SilverLeaf167]

Well, this AP plays out on the grand scale, a thing that the gm or the accompanying players guide should have made clear. You have one overarching goal/quest per module and all the other stuff is just filler material to point you to the right direction. That is _the_ important difference to other, more story-based campaigns.

Keep in mind, the "main quest" for the first module ist to explore and chart every hex on the first map in the name of your brevoy backers. Everything else, like the bandits, is side-quests that you can tackle to have some short-term goals.

So, yes, your gm didn't´t quite "grog" how this works and needs a few pointers how to liven up the game-play without diluting its´ essence.

Well, yeah, I realize that our main job isn't to kill the bandits and then go home or anything. However, since this is a tabletop RPG, I honestly don't feel that "filler material" is really... acceptable design, to put it bluntly. Especially if it's supposed to just "point us in the right direction" but the campaign also expects us to do all of it first. This isn't an open-world video game I can marathon as I wish; multiple people need to take time out of their busy schedules and get together for several hours, so even if the main focus is on the long-term goals, the short-term better be interesting as well and not just random encounters that we need to clean up before moving on. Yes, PF is a mechanics-based game and the combat itself is supposed to be fun, but it still needs to feel meaningful... this became a bit of a rant, didn't it?

Is this the perfect AP for our group? Probably not. Am I still having fun? Yes, but mostly because I'm optimistic about the long-term, I just enjoy hanging out and we obviously add our own role-playing shenanigans.

I definitely appreciate any and all concrete pointers on how to make the short-term more interesting, but seems like it really does boil down to "have the DM work something out". I'll try to point him in the direction of the forums, at least.

[Florian]

The problem is not spoiling you overmuch. Module 1 is the slow setup to all else that will come and the story will pick up steam once you´re actually in charge of your kingdom.

[Alcore]

3. "Exploration" and "blind rummaging through the bushes" don't need to be synonymous, in my opinion, but I'm glad to hear it'll get more sensible.eh.... sorta :smallfrown:

The others do have it right. Some is thrown in for nothing than pondering (unless gm builds otherwise). The bounties should fall into place as you clear out the map.


(If using ultimate campaign you can charter groups to do your exploring for you. "So we were chartered to explore this place and now we're going to turn around and charter other people to do all the work!? Brilliance!" :smallamused: )



1 & 2. Well, in our defense, everything we'd come across had been either deserted or only occupied by some stragglers, and the description of the fort didn't seem any different.no defense needed; your lulled into false sense of security. No dramatic build up of the bosses, just "pop" we're here! KM, as much of a gem it is, is a flop :smallannoyed:



Thanks for the clarification on the campaign timescale though, it's something I've been wondering about.just by the math book one will take over a month at the fastest (exploring each and every hex without going back to the outpost), two or more if you add extras. All spring and a good chunk of summer if you take it slow.

Time slows down even more after book 1. This is the one AP where you need to watch your age; you might be taking penalties later! :smalleek:

[SilverLeaf167]

just by the math book one will take over a month at the fastest (exploring each and every hex without going back to the outpost), two or more if you add extras. All spring and a good chunk of summer if you take it slow.

Time slows down even more after book 1. This is the one AP where you need to watch your age; you might be taking penalties later! :smalleek:
In retrospect, I'm probably quite lucky to be an elf! :smallbiggrin:

By my count, we've spent about a month so far, visiting the outpost quite often, and expect to take on the bandit fort relatively soon. I don't know how long it'll take from there, and don't want anyone to tell me either. :smalltongue:

[ComaVision]

I'm kind of running this AP. I've added a lot of stuff to it and I have a full town rather than just an outpost, so there are a lot more NPCs and stuff to do in town as well. As such, I've read the first three books.

I think a really big part of it is handling expectations. I told my players right off that this game will be "Morrowind style" where they are very capable of just wandering into the lair of something more powerful than themselves. There was a death early on but since then the group is prepared to run if the situation doesn't look favorable. I go a bit easy on them with the pursuit but there have been some pretty memorable fights as a result.

The group ran into a Will-o-wisp and pissed it off. Once they realized they couldn't deal with it, they ran off into the night. They did get away with some damage but they had run most of the night and were all fatigued.. and then they ran into a pack of starving wolves. It ended up being a very close fight but no character deaths.

About the game being static... I guess it's fair to call it an AP problem, as the AP doesn't outline how to make things dynamic but this is something I expect the DM to improve. Different groups of enemies should expand when their competition is eliminated, counterattacks and retreats should happen, memorable random encounters should be played up (ex. the shambling mound they ran in to actually has a lair in that hex now, with the treasure of several dead adventures/hunters/whatever as well as some other bodies for warning purposes). As people have said though, the exploration becomes a smaller focus over time though so you'll eventually just get past this part. Hopefully your DM picks up the latter parts better for you all.

[Firechanter]

Slayn!

:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

Nice to see you here. ^^

FWIW, from what I've seen so far, I don't expect Book 1 to take anywhere close to a year in-game. In our game, we have now spent a couple of weeks and explored about half of the map -- the grassy half, granted. So if the forest takes twice as long, we may be looking at three months all in all, tops. As I wrote earlier, we're holding back on offing the Bandit King until we're ready to transition into Book 2.

We played a session just today. I think we've now explored all of the Kamelands west of the River Shrike, and frankly, the last couple of hexes have devolved into a bit of a rut. So we sped that up a little. After the session, the DM suggested the rather optimistic sounding schedule that we might deal with the Forest - all of it - in the next session, and do the Bandit King the session after that. I kinda suspect that he's being a tad too optimistic, but two sessions for the forest should be doable if we don't waste too much time with empty hexes (of which there were quite a few in the grasslands; in fact I'm pretty sure he already added extra content to some of them).

Edit:

That said, I wanted to say one more thing about the timescale of the campaign. In my group, we have agreed ahead of time that we will not use the ageing rules. They suck, because they unilaterally favour Casters and shaft Mundanes. So those stupid bonuses and penalties will be ignored. We are aware that the campaign as a whole might last decades, and that the day may come where it makes sense to swap out an old character for one of the next generation -- but we want to do what when we feel the time is right, not because the old character is crippled by crummy rules.

[Coidzor]

Don't worry, with crafting and shrewd kingdom management, you'll likely run into being over WBL, as befits blinged out nobs.

[Florian]

Nice to see you here. ^^

Servus, Genosse!

IIRC, your gm leaves out a lot of things: You have no weather, hazards or seasons.

Assuming horses, fully exploring a hex takes between 1 and 2 days, traveling an already explored hex takes 8 hours. Weather and Hazard conditions can add 50/100% time delay and make exploring mountains impossible for a while. Keep in mind that after traveling through a hex, the forced march rules come into play, possibly leading to some parties having to take it slow, making the trip Oleg´s to the Fort alone take about a week.

[Firechanter]

Well, it's a different DM than you may remember, entirely new group. But yes, so far we haven't had any inclement weather -- it's early spring after all, and it's generally rather cold but mostly dry. We're assuming that's just how the climate is in that region.
However, in my experience, simulating bad weather just doesn't make the game better. I once played in a group where the DM rolled for weather every day on a table provided by the module, and usually it came up with rain. So much so that I renamed the country "The Rainlands". So that resulted in various difficulties, which were mostly annoying (such as not being able to spot anything), and not fun for anyone.

Also, iirc a Hex in KM is 18km / 12 miles? across; so when you're mounted you can easily travel 2 hexes per day, maybe even 3 in open terrain. If fully exploring a hex takes 1 day, how can just traveling _through_ it in a (more or less straight) line not be any faster? Also, a Forced March back to base has no consequences, because you and your mounts can recover in the safety of the fort.

[Alcore]

Exploring should be the fastest part of the AP.


Please remember by RAW the chance for random encounters does not accumulate unlike 3.5 (an often mistake of 3.X people, possibly on the designers side at the writing stage). So going 5-10 hexes with nothing to fight is not out of the question. The party should still run into animals or see other humanoids in the distance but nothing should come of it unless the party wants trouble.


How fast they can go is also one of conjecture. CORE says 30ft will equal three miles so four hours per hex (a hex is twelve miles). A horse with 50ft should make it two and a half hours. Over flat ground of course.

Exploration (in UC) uses a flat rate to "speed it up". With 30ft you have five hours for plains and eight all others. KM was likely a beta version of exploration and contains yet different numbers (for this post I will not check).

Actual exploration, instead of travel, is measured in days.

[Florian]

@Firechanter:

Please don't mix and match systems. Exploration uses abstractions so it´s easier to apply modifiers, once you start recalculating things like point-to-point travel times, things will start to get wobbly.

[Firechanter]

I'm not mixing anything. The KM Exploration sidebar itself says you need 4 hours to traverse a Plains hex at 40ft base speed; 3 hours at 50ft. A Light Horse has 50ft speed, so crossing 3 Plains hexes per day is not much of a stretch. That probably improves further once you actually build roads.

Edit: that comes down to 8 full hexes in 3 days without any Forced Marches.

[Florian]

I'm not mixing anything. The KM Exploration sidebar itself says you need 4 hours to traverse a Plains hex at 40ft base speed; 3 hours at 50ft. A Light Horse has 50ft speed, so crossing 3 Plains hexes per day is not much of a stretch. That probably improves further once you actually build roads.

Edit: that comes down to 8 full hexes in 3 days without any Forced Marches.

The KM rules seem to be some sort of UC beta version. Compare both rule sets and take a closer look at the differences - it´s very interesting.

[Diarmuid]

@Firechanter - There's a big difference between "traveling" and "exploring".

Following the published materials, exploring "half the map" in "a couple weeks" is physically impossible. The charter encompasses ~60 hexes and "exploring" each hex requires at least 1 day.

[Firechanter]

@Firechanter - There's a big difference between "traveling" and "exploring".

You're writing this as if I ever had claimed anything to the contrary. For the record _I_ said exactly that, and that therefore traversing a hex must be faster than exploring it fully.


Following the published materials, exploring "half the map" in "a couple weeks" is physically impossible. The charter encompasses ~60 hexes and "exploring" each hex requires at least 1 day.

That's actually not quite correct. The initial charter encompasses "no further than 36 miles east and west and 60 miles to the south of Oleg's Trading Post". That's not the entire map. Note how the numbers are convenient multiples of 12. If you actually count the hexes in range, you should come out at about thirty-six. (Also note how Oleg's is not in the dead centre of the east-west-expanse, and some of the western encounter sites are strictly speaking out of bounds while the map doesn't even extend 36 miles to the east. Better hope you don't have a stickler for the rules with ranks in Survival in the party. In my old group we had a player who had exactly that type of traffic-warden attitude.)

So anyway, ~18 hexes = 18 days + 1/3 of that in travel-time; total 24, or three and a half weeks, and even if you take twice as long, that's still well within the definition of "a couple".

[Diarmuid]

I guess your definition of "a couple" and mine are vastly different. "a couple" in almost every sense of the term generally refers to "2" of anything.

[Firechanter]

Well, look it up in a dictionary and you will find a couple being defined as "two or a few" or something to that effect. How many can "a few" be? Depends.
I was looking at it wrt Florian's claim that the first book should take a year.

[Diarmuid]

Y'know what's funny, I actually did that and didnt think quoting would be necessary,



couple
[kuhp-uh l]
Spell Syllables
Examples Word Origin
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
noun
1.
two of the same sort considered together; pair.
2.
two persons considered as joined together, as a married or engaged pair, lovers, or dance partners:
They make a handsome couple.
3.
any two persons considered together.
4.
Mechanics. a pair of equal, parallel forces acting in opposite directions and tending to produce rotation.
5.
Also called couple-close. Carpentry. a pair of rafters connected by a tie beam or collar beam.
6.
a leash for holding two hounds together.
7.
Fox Hunting. two hounds:
25 hounds or 12½ couple.
verb (used with object), coupled, coupling.
8.
to fasten, link, or associate together in a pair or pairs.
9.
to join; connect.
10.
to unite in marriage or in sexual union.
11.
Electricity.
to join or associate by means of a coupler.
to bring (two electric circuits or circuit components) close enough to permit an exchange of electromagnetic energy.
verb (used without object), coupled, coupling.
12.
to join in a pair; unite.
13.
to copulate.
Idioms
14.
a couple of, more than two, but not many, of; a small number of; a few: It will take a couple of days for the package to get there.
A dinner party, whether for a couple of old friends or eight new acquaintances, takes nearly the same amount of effort.
Also, Informal, a couple.


The word "few" doesnt appear in there anywhere, and if you'd used "a few" originally I wouldnt have batted an eyelash.

[ComaVision]

Y'know what's funny, I actually did that and didnt think quoting would be necessary,


14.
a couple of, more than two, but not many, of; a small number of; a few: It will take a couple of days for the package to get there.

The word "few" doesnt appear in there anywhere, and if you'd used "a few" originally I wouldnt have batted an eyelash.

Y'know, I agree with you Diarmuid, but lol ^

[Firechanter]

It does. Read again. Or don't, I don't care. But please spare me this pointless nitpicking, particularly if you _quote_ the proof that you are wrong.

[GreatDane]

I'm going to preface this by noting that I haven't read every single reply to this thread so far, so I may be repeating some points others have already made.

I'm currently running Kingmaker, albeit in 3.5 (only minor modifications needed). My players just wrapped up Book 1; we're actually starting Book 2 tonight! I'll try to respond to all of your issues:


I can't speak to the XP issues you're encountering. My group collectively hates both grinding and how long it takes to level up on the Medium XP path, so I manually level them up every 2-3 sessions. They got through Book 1 in 10 sessions.
Re: game direction. This one shouldn't be much of an issue; the AP provides the premise that the party is supposed to explore a specific area (30 miles east/west of Oleg's, 60 miles south, if memory serves) in the form of the initial charter. Carrying out the charter should allow you to find everything you need, from boss locations to "quest" goals. If the party wants to go after a specific goal (like the Stag Lord's fort, or the tatzlwyrms described in one quest), it shouldn't take more than a Gather Information or Knowledge check to at least find a lead ("I hear the Stag Lord rules from a fort to the south," or "tatzlwyrms usually lair near bodies of water").
Re: useless info. I can attest to this, but I don't see it as much of a hindrance. Most adventures have at least some of this, and it helps DMs come up with new encounters or NPCs, or weave stand-alone adventures into larger campaigns. If it really is useless info, though, then it can just be ignored. It's up to the DM to steer the session away from complete wastes of time.
Re: static world - this one is a flaw of the AP. Most people who run Kingmaker make the Stag Lord (and many other NPCs) much more active. I had the Stag Lord ride out to Oleg's and throw down a gauntlet a few weeks after the PCs took out Kressle's camp. Like other posters here, I recommend Paizo's Kingmaker forums (http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoInc/pathfinder/adventurePath/kingmaker) to your DM as a huge resource of ways to spice up the AP.
Low wealth is also built into the AP. I decided to leave it be for the first book, in order to play up the hardships of wilderness exploration. For the rest of the campaign, I'll be adding loot as needed.

Like Sayt said on the first page, Kingmaker works best when the DM (and players!) treat it as an adventure scaffold, rather than ready to play out of the box. By playing Kingmaker, you're kind of agreeing to leave behind the straightforward, static world of dungeons and towns in which the PCs are incidental to the larger world.

[Firechanter]

We also use Fast Advancement, because Med is just frustratingly slow.
Ofc that means we level faster than loot drops.

[Sayt]

Like Sayt said on the first page, Kingmaker works best when the DM (and players!) treat it as an adventure scaffold, rather than ready to play out of the box. By playing Kingmaker, you're kind of agreeing to leave behind the straightforward, static world of dungeons and towns in which the PCs are incidental to the larger world.
I think it actually works like this for all PF APs, to some extent, touch Kingmaker perhaps more than others.

We also use Fast Advancement, because Med is just frustratingly slow.
Ofc that means we level faster than loot drops.
Fast xp progression is actually supposed to increase CR appropriate loot drops. Can be found in the PRD, I believe.

[Firechanter]

Oh, that's good to know. I'll point my DM towards it.

However, as I said most of the encounters simply don't have any loot, being boars, bears, wolverines and other smelly critters. All we can do is bring their remains to Oleg's for his Trophy room, but that's also just 100GP extra here and there.

[Florian]

Oh, that's good to know. I'll point my DM towards it.

However, as I said most of the encounters simply don't have any loot, being boars, bears, wolverines and other smelly critters. All we can do is bring their remains to Oleg's for his Trophy room, but that's also just 100GP extra here and there.

That´s petty much intentional. You get the additional gp-compensation by doing the quests and side missions in book 1 and 2, so "works as intended". Please don't forget that this AP also offers the chance to really engage into item crafting.

But I´m nosy, how comes that you got roped into playing this particular AP again? I thought your last try at it was rather.... ****ty? Me, I´ve got talked into babysitting a bunch of newbies and I´m bored out of my mind by it right now.

[Firechanter]

Oh, I didn't need to get roped, on the contrary. Since my previous KM group was so sucky, I only saw a tiny fraction of the content at the time - like, 5 or 6 encounters' worth. So I have yet to actually play the AP.

What's more, the alternatives offered by the DM would have been Cadaver Crown and Winter Queen. CC is absolutely not my cup of tea, and I remembered your verdict of WQ being really weird stuff, so KM sounded like the best option by far.

[Florian]

Oh, I didn't need to get roped, on the contrary. Since my previous KM group was so sucky, I only saw a tiny fraction of the content at the time - like, 5 or 6 encounters' worth. So I have yet to actually play the AP.

What's more, the alternatives offered by the DM would have been Cadaver Crown and Winter Queen. CC is absolutely not my cup of tea, and I remembered your verdict of WQ being really weird stuff, so KM sounded like the best option by far.

Sounds promising. We´ve just wrapped our KM campaign up, finished it at lvl 18, with some very sucky characters and way too many cohorts (4 characters, 3 companions, 12 cohorts, due to archetypes and PrC with improved leadership). Say, any people I know and you´re keeping a log somewhere this time?