Kingmaker through book 5 (Spoilers)

In the Kingmaker Campaign I'm in we are basically through book two. Spoilers for the first two books are going to be okay in this thread but nothing from the other books please. I don't want the surprises ruined for myself and others.

So far the campaign has been easy. When we took out the Stag Lord we were close to a few deaths. When we fought the Trolls we burned through over 2 dozen healing scrolls and some wand charges, plus spells from the cleric (NPC) and Druid and all of my Paladins lay on Hands.

At this time I think we are a little small in the kingdom area though I'm curious were others are at about this point in the campaign. We have one city and just 14 hexes. It seems tough to generate the build points though we have bought more expensive buildings then I think we should have. It has also been challenging to find people to fill the leadership roles. There seems like there need to be more named NPCs in the books so that we can have some choices. We just filled the final role spot after having left the Royal Assassin position open since the Kingdom was founded.

So, how are other people's game and Kingdom's doing?

EDIT: we are now through book 3

New Edit: Now we are through book 5

re

We started module 4. Kingdom is 53 hexes.Five cities. Capital city is five districts with only one district completely built out. Build points come easier once you purchase buildings that give medium items or better. So spending on a few buildings that give items should greatly increase your build points. But you have to make sure to expand your city districts so you can sell them all. We have a 9 city districts spread between the five cities.

We have one player who enjoys the kingdom building. So it is being done in a fairly efficient manner.

Our group had a rough time against the Stag Lord. He dropped two of the characters, one with a lucky crit. The second module was relatively easy. We have five characters:

1. The King is an Invulnerable Rager Barbarian: Very tough class combo. Is using the fiend totem rage powers. This guy is hard to hurt and does a ton of damage.

2. Two-hander Fighter is the General: This class combo does the most damage. It's crazy how much he hits for.

3. Druid/Wizard/Mystic Theurge is the Treasurer: He enjoys the kingdom building aspect of the game from module two. Doesn't do a ton of damage, but has some good support abilities.

4. Life Oracle is the High Priestess: She manages the religion of the kingdom. Top notch healer with some utility.

5. Ranger/Zen Archer Monk: Another high damage combination. She is the Grand Marshal.


Everyone is fairly optimized as far as feat combinations and gear go. We used the 4d6 7 times stat generation method. So their stats are better than what the module was built on. So they are tearing through it pretty easy. The common exploration encounters have no chance against them. I use them as little more than part of the narrative. Once the main encounters are done, I give them the xp and gear from the exploration encounters and a brief summary of they find.

The funny thing though is that even though the modules are fairly easy combat-wise, the story is so intriguing that I'm still enjoying running the game and my players are still enjoying playing. I allowed the Leadership feat since it is a module built on the PCs as rulers. Which means I'm dealing with eight characters since three of the PCs took Leadership.

Now I have to tailor all the main encounters for eight characters. Which makes my job a little harder. But I'm still enjoying it because it's fun because with a module like Kingmaker you truly can go a lot of different ways in how you handle the scenarios. I've been able to incorporate a lot of themes and scenarios from movies I love like The Godfather and Excalibur into the story.

So far our King has bedded more women than I can count and has at least three bastard children. Though he doesn't care because he's a barbarian. So it is the other characters that make an issue of it at times, while the barbarian is proud to spread his seed as much as possible.

The Grand Marshal married Akiros Ismort from the first module when he was Captain of the Guard and is a faithful follower of Erastil helping Jhod Kavken build up the Temple of the Elk from the second module. Akiros was killed in the second module when the Owlbear attacked the capital city. The Grand Marshal PC was carrying Akiros child at the time.

The treasurer built himself a villa, tower, and academy. He is looked upon as the real power behind the throne and the architect of the kingdom's prosperity and greatness. He seems to enjoy playing that aspect of his character up.

So far Kingmaker has been one of the most enjoyable modules I've ever run. Great story. Module design is excellent. Combats during exploration are too easy, but I'm sure the designers knew they would be. The exploration is more for the characters to feel as though they are exploring a large land rather than be challenging encounters.

Great fun. You're going to have fun with the next few modules. It keeps on getting more and more interesting.

Crothian said:

In the Kingmaker Campaign I'm in we are basically through book two. Spoilers for the first two books are going to be okay in this thread but nothing from the other books please. I don't want the surprises ruined for myself and others.

So far the campaign has been easy. When we took out the Stag Lord we were close to a few deaths. When we fought the Trolls we burned through over 2 dozen healing scrolls and some wand charges, plus spells from the cleric (NPC) and Druid and all of my Paladins lay on Hands.

At this time I think we are a little small in the kingdom area though I'm curious were others are at about this point in the campaign. We have one city and just 14 hexes. It seems tough to generate the build points though we have bought more expensive buildings then I think we should have. It has also been challenging to find people to fill the leadership roles. There seems like there need to be more named NPCs in the books so that we can have some choices. We just filled the final role spot after having left the Royal Assassin position open since the Kingdom was founded.

So, how are other people's game and Kingdom's doing?

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The game reccomends that the DM give you time to do nothing but build your kingdom. I won't say how much time, not because it is a spoiler issue, since it has no affect on the storyline, but because I don't want to tell your DM how to run his game. We used Kresten, Oleg, Oleg's Wife, and eventually the former paladin guy(can't remember his name). The girl who wanted you to get the elven statue is also a possibility.

I had not realuized we could sell the magical items the buildings generate. We just built the Academy and that's the first building we have that has items with it.

We have a very fey friendly kingdom. We have three few in the leadersghip roles one of them the soon to be wife to my Paladin who is the Ruler.

We have had some time to just build. We took 5 months over the winter and grabbed 5 heses, built roads and farms. I want to at least expand to 20 hexes soon so that the ruler and his wife 's bonuses can be applied to two of the Kingdom saving throws. I think that will make a huge difference.

Right now we are also planning two more cities. My character wants to build upo the Temple to the Elk for Erastil (he is a Paladin of Erastil) and our Elf druid wants to build a city on the ruins of the ancient elven city.

We are now through book 3. We just took Varnhold and all those hexes into our kingdom. We are having some down time for even more kingdom building as we might not be playing next week.

The battle against the Lich was challenging but more so for the Zombie cyclops guard he had that crited the fighter and my paladin with a great axe. No one died but with one hit each the two combat characters were under 10 HP and not a lot of fast healing in our group. The Wizards black tenticle spell though kept the lich grappled for 3 or 4 rounds and that really saved our bacon.

So, how are things in other people's campaigns?

Just started Varnhold Vanishing last week. The PCs opted to go straight for Varnhold upon hearing of the trouble, rather than doing any exploration first, or even along the way.

They have about 10 days before they need to be back home for the Kingdom building portion of the month. They have...I believe 25 hexes at the moment, and four cities, but due to over-reaching in borrowing from the treasury, and their General (Kesten Garess) being assassinated last month by unknown forces, there is enough unrest that they'll be losing a hex before they can take any mitigating actions.

Kesten's body is currently waiting at the town they built around the ancient temple of Erastil (Healing Waters), being preserved by their High Priest, Jhod Kavken until they decide to raise him, or receive word from his family in Brevoy with instructions.

In Varnhold, the party has done a bit of investigating, and picked up that they should be looking into the Nomen tribe. This session we'll be starting with them checking out Varnhold's stockade.

That sounds like what we did, we did explore the hexes on the way to Varnhold but we wnt directly there. Once we explored the city and dealt with the spriggans we decided we wanted more clues before we spoke to the Centuars. So, we checked out the Spriggan caves and explored about 75% of the map before we went to the Centuars. I was hoping to find some other clues but there were none.

Crothian said:

The battle against the Lich was challenging but more so for the Zombie cyclops guard he had that crited the fighter and my paladin with a great axe. No one died but with one hit each the two combat characters were under 10 HP and not a lot of fast healing in our group. The Wizards black tenticle spell though kept the lich grappled for 3 or 4 rounds and that really saved our bacon.

Click to expand...

Putting in spoiler tags to make sure I don't reveal too much. Players of this campaign - you have been warned. Crothian, this should be safe for you to read as it does not cover future events.

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So the zombie cyclops guard mentioned above was an add-in borrowed from the kingmaker for 6 player parties on the Paizo boards. As GM I have felt that many of the fights were too easy and have been looking for ways to scale a few of the more momentous ones up a bit. Hence the addition of a grave knight cyclops with anti paladin levels. The goal was to slow up the melee fighters from killing the lich before he got to have fun. It worked pretty well save for the party wizard casting the Black Tentacles on the lich. Took him a bit to get free of them.

In retrospect, the grave knight was a little on the too powerful side, but did help make the fight a real challenge which I thought the lich fight should be. Without the additional guard I think the group would have cut the lich down pretty easily.

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My Kingmaker Campaign is perhaps a little different to some. Well... OK a lot different. At present, the characters are half way through Stolen Land and they are sitting at a freshly gained 2nd level. However:

- I am using the slow XP progression and I am hoping for the campaign to go over several decades with perhaps a further generation or two of player characters created.

- The Campaign started in Restov and I intend for relations in Brevoy and occasional venturing and politicking into Brevoy to be fairly common. [I have mixed Carrion Crown's Ustalav into Brevoy for a darker overall tone as well.] I have introduced a lot of factional in-fighting amongst the Swordlords of Restov and so the PCs are treading carefully, even with a small piece of paper in their hands.

- The group have defeated the Thorn River Bandit Camp, the Mites Lair and have brokered an agreement with the Sootscale Kobolds (with Mikmek providing the killing blow to Tartuk and fresh promotion as Sootscale's General).

- I have turned Tuskgutter into something akin to Jaws (an awakened, giant, dire boar somewhat connected to the Temple of the Elk). The massive yet intelligent pig terrorises the forest beyond the Thorn River. At Oleg's, there is a side on the wall where the names of seven hunters killed by the boar have been scratched as a psuedo-memorial. Some big-name hunter from Restov is going to come through Oleg's soon and have his arse handed to him by the pig before the thing effectively hibernates for winter. [Hunter's beyond the Thorn are highly skilled in avoiding Tuskgutter... most of the time.]

- The PCs have been visited by a good friend (Professor Lorrimor from the Haunting of Harrowstone who also happens to be Svetlana's uncle) and escort him up to Ravengro (which I have placed halfway between Oleg's and New Stetven). They have had a nasty nightmare of how the prisoner's there died which sets up the Haunting of Harrowstone just nicely when they most likely end back there in a couple of months (I want them to be 3rd level approaching 4th).

- At this point, they're about to head back south to Oleg's for further exploring, with a detour to the small village of Levoca (from Open Designs brilliant Tales of the Old Margreve). I have turned Mother Moldvay into a Green Hag Witch who has mellowed a little into a dark neutral alignment. They will have to roleplay with her (due to her power level) but they may be able to eek some advantage out of dealing with her nicely. Otherwise, the Hollow Man is going to kill them all!

- At Oleg's (where there has been some expanse in population and property development) I'm planning two very important events:

- Firstly, the Stag Lord has not sat on his hands with the cut-off of supply of good liquour from the north. He has sent a party to the forest near Oleg's where two (of the now 10 guards) have been killed, with one of them beheaded. This head will be de-skulled and shrunk with a very nasty demand from the Stag Lord inside its mouth for a very large some of cash (enough for the PCs and Oleg to just make, but it will severely deplete their resources if they do). Otherwise, the Stag Lord will start war with the group (starting with the abduction and likely murder of Oleg and Svetlana's 16 year old daughter). He plays dirty and to his strengths, safely inside his Fortress. That is going to be one tough nut to crack.

- And secondly if that doesn't put a spanner in the PCs plans, then the sudden revoking of their Charter will. There is a political shift in the wind with the deposing (death) of Jamandi Aldori as certain powerful factions within Restov seek re-alliance with the Issian Crown. To make matters worse, the abandoned Fort Serenko has been re-fortified and twelve miles south and east of Oleg's, plans for a further Keep have been laid as the new "Baron of Southern Rostland" actually does what the PCs were planning to. Getting gazumped by this "prick" is going to torment the PCs to no end.

- Caught between the devil (the Stag Lord) and the deep blue sea (the New Pompous Baron), the PCs are going to have to forge the many relationships they have already made in the Greenbelt into a new third power and seek to carve out their slice of the Stolen Lands too. So yeah... a little bit different to how it is described in the module.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

An update from tonight's session