Kingmaker Adventure Path

[billd91]

Its the crowdfunding thing. Yes, it took that long.

2016 doesn't sound right to me, not for the Kingmaker 10th anniversary hardcover. The GameOnTabletop campaign started in May 2019. It's a year late compared to its estimated delivery. So, really, I guess it took a hair over 3 years to fulfill.

 

[Starfox]

Hm, I never bought the old Kingmaker books from Paizo (I bought them used from a friend). So it was not them I was looking at...

Seems this is an artifact from when I was subscribing to their adventure path. Still very confusing. It does say in the shopping cart that I ordered it, and I have a vague memory that I did. I'll have to check with Paizo, but not now (2:30 AM here).

 

[lyle.spade]

3 out of 5 rating for Kingmaker Adventure Path

Let me start by saying I wish I could give this a higher rating. There is the seed of a very good campaign here, but it requires a lot of work by a dedicated and experienced DM to bring it out.What do I mean....Parts one and two are a sandbox where the players try to carve a kingdom out of the wilds. It's actually not a bad sandbox too. As with all sandboxes, A good DM that can take basic outdoor encounters and bring the monsters/NPCs to life based on some basic info is needed to keep this section from feeling like an MMO. But overall, if you DM is willing to put in some work and go along with the PCs crazy plans, the first couple books are a blast.However it should be noted: This part also introduces some of the rules designed to abstract out the running and economy of a kingdom. At first this isn't too bad, as the players probably will have fun building a little kingdom. However they do suffer from the same economic problems inherent in all of D&D 3.x systems and as such the system as written is very easy to break given a little thought or some bad luck. This can quickly lead to a significant drag on the fun for any of the players who are not accountants.The second part of the adventure path (books 3 and 4) are more of what I consider a loose form adventure. Outside events start to put more pressure on the PCs and make this less of a sandbox, and more about the PCs reacting to those events. The game does make some assumptions about what the PCs did in their sandbox, and the events start to become more plot driven (rather then feeling PC driven) but overall I also found this section to be reasonably well done. I do have some questions about the execution choices here (like part 3 funneling the PCs to the hardest encounters at the very start of the adventure, rather then the end), but as long as you read advice from people who have run these before and can adjust a bit, these are also very solid entries.The last 3rd of the AP is where the biggest problems comes from. Part 5 makes extensive use of some questionable mass combat rules, and other then that really removes all sandbox style elements from the path in favor of a more plot driven structure. Part 6 pretty much comes completely out of left field for the players unless the DM goes way out of his way to expose the metaplot of the AP in books 3 to 5 far more then it is currently written in. While not a bad adventure per say, 6 is just totally a different tone/feel from the past books, and that is not foreshadowed well at all.So overall, if you have a DM who is willing to put in the time and effort this could easily become a 5 star effort, but as written there are just too many problems to give this more then 3 stars.

Well said, and for the most part I agree, although our group solved the problems with the AP differently. Books 1 and 2 were exactly what we expected, and we enjoyed them a lot - that is, carving out a fledgling realm and realizing that you can't act like a murder hobo and never experience the consequences of that on the local population. We started to lay a solid foundation for so many NPCs and B-plots in those first two books. Book 3, in our view, made little sense when set inside the kingdom building storyline. Yeah, sure the PCs are the regulators in traditional FRPGs, but the notion of sending the leaders of this new kingdom off on some errand of a dungeon crawl just didn't work for us. We ended up up drawing out the time between Books 2 & 3, building up the kingdom more, and sending having the leaders (the PCs) send a team of chosen next-gen heroes to go look into what was going on to the east. This enabled us to promote, in levels, some of the interesting NPCs and gave the players a chance to play other other characters and operate in their kingdom from a different angle. It worked well.

Books 4 and 5 we played pretty much as written, although I found myself handwaving and narrating through an increasing amount of the kingdom management rules - Paizo really buried the story under their love for mechanics by then. We enjoyed the war in Book 5, and as a group decided to not play out Book 6 at all, instead riffing on the war and other regional issues and adversaries, playing out the PCs' leadership of the kingdom for several years of in-game time, up to the point where some had had kids and the original PCs were starting to get long in the tooth. That's when we sunset the campaign, and we were all very satisfied with it.

 

[Defender_X]

The kingdom building was fun but time consuming. The last module was a let down for me as well. But it did let me know to expect the final boss of adventure paths to a bit op. I'm mentally prepared to start planning for the boss im the path my group is in now.

 

[Starfox]

as a group decided to not play out Book 6 at all

This is what I hear from every table I have heard from.

 

[John R Davis]

My group got ship in a bottled halfway through mod 6.

 

[lyle.spade]

This is what I hear from every table I have heard from.

I've heard it, too. The problem with the AP - and I'd say that this is the only glaring problem with it - was that the whole "crazy fey behind the scenes" plot thread wasn't developed enough, not foreshadowed enough in the first five books, and so dropping it on the party in book six was jarring...out of the blue. It felt as if the writers weren't fully clear, during the early books, about just how big the fey side of the story would be in the last book, and didn't plan well for it. I read each book in full before running it and quickly had purchased a few books ahead of where we were in the story...and the prominence of that part of the overarching story never felt as big as it suddenly did in book six. And so we decided to ignore it.

 

[John Dallman]

The problem with the AP - and I'd say that this is the only glaring problem with it - was that the whole "crazy fey behind the scenes" plot thread wasn't developed enough, not foreshadowed enough in the first five books, and so dropping it on the party in book six was jarring...out of the blue.

We're in the early parts of the third book, investigating the depopulated village. I've just learned a spoiler from you, but it is not a surprise. It has been clear for a while that we have an opponent hidden behind the scenery. From my in-character notes of a few weeks ago:

The Barony of Stagland may have an enemy. It seems plausible that the same person or organisation was (a) getting the trolls to attack civilized parts in general and (b) got the bandit leader to set the giant owlbear on us. Our nearest thing to a clue is the handwriting on the map the bandit leader had, although we have no knowledge of who wrote it.

 

[payn]

I've heard it, too. The problem with the AP - and I'd say that this is the only glaring problem with it - was that the whole "crazy fey behind the scenes" plot thread wasn't developed enough, not foreshadowed enough in the first five books, and so dropping it on the party in book six was jarring...out of the blue. It felt as if the writers weren't fully clear, during the early books, about just how big the fey side of the story would be in the last book, and didn't plan well for it. I read each book in full before running it and quickly had purchased a few books ahead of where we were in the story...and the prominence of that part of the overarching story never felt as big as it suddenly did in book six. And so we decided to ignore it.

Yeap, this issue props up in a number of APs. A lot of it has to do with a quick fire publishing schedule and/or new authors of every chapter. I have found the APs to be excellent overall, but I do find at least a few major items that I see fit to change in everyone of them. I strongly suggest folks that plan to run to at least read every chapter synopsis and check a few forums so benefit from the experience of others.

 

[John R Davis]

PF often has the " ha ha, it was I all along" villain.
The party often answer " Er, who??".

Very common in PFS