D&D 5E (2024) Kingmaker AP in 5E With Bastions?

[Zardnaar]

A few questions

1. Has anyone done 5E kingmaker.

2. Have you used bastions or considered it in 5E.

3. Did you use the city building rules in the AP or revised ones in 3.5 or Pathfinder?

Recently bought a fantastic condition PFKingmaker set. Maps are still sealed.

 

[pukunui]

I have been experimenting with a bastion for my Eberron group. It’s a floating tower on the side of Sharn overlooking the river. Each PC has their own floor. It’s still early days, though, and I am waiting to see what the new bastion options in the delayed Eberron book are.

Don’t know anything about the Kingmaker AP though. Sorry.

 

[Zardnaar]

I have been experimenting with a bastion for my Eberron group. It’s a floating tower on the side of Sharn overlooking the river. Each PC has their own floor. It’s still early days, though, and I am waiting to see what the new bastion options in the delayed Eberron book are.

Don’t know anything about the Kingmaker AP though. Sorry.

All good. Basically you can build an abstract city. 36 spaces on a frid each billing takes 1-4 spaces.

You can abuse it to farm magic items though

 

[haakon1]

A few questions

1. Has anyone done 5E kingmaker.

2. Have you used bastions or considered it in 5E.

3. Did you use the city building rules in the AP or revised ones in 3.5 or Pathfinder?

Recently bought a fantastic condition PFKingmaker set. Maps are still sealed.

1. No.
2. No. Bastion is a concept that's new to me.
3. In general, when I've done city, manor, castle, etc. building, I've used a mix of just "thinking it up", published sources, Harn Manor, and DMG stuff, especially AD&D 1e DMG.

Why am I answering then?

I played Pathfinder Kingmaker on Xbox and enjoyed it.

So much so that I converted 6 of the Pathfinder companions into NPC's in one of my two 3.5e Greyhawk email games.

The players have recently met Valerie and Harrim (and both groups are currently trapped in the dungeon from "A Wizard's Fate" in Dungeon magazine) and they just met the last two members of "Tartuccio's Crew" - Tartuccio and Jaethal - who are on the outside of the stone block, due to complicated things happening "off camera" with me and one player figuring it out.

Tartuccio is planning to "help" the PC party and help himself to half of the presumably enormous fortune in the wizard's tower, or kill them and take it all. We'll see how things work out! He met an NPC friend of the PC's at a pub, who was worried about the PC's being at risk, and of course Tartuccio's wheels turned and he came up with a semi-evil plot to "help" the PC's.

Two other groups out there:

Octavia and Regongar: They overheard Tartuccio plotting with Jaethal to rob/help the PC's for half the treasure, and thought maybe they can get in on the action by ambushing the ambushers (if the fight seems opportune). While Tartuccio's Crew is below, they've already robbed his camp. Their backstory is they are escaped and wanted-by-bounty-hunter slaves, not from the Technic League in Golarion, but from the North Kingdom in Greyhawk, where Octavia is the last of a murdered noble house and Regongar was a gladiator, who fell in love and escaped together. Octavia was working as a mage's assistant and stole valuable scrolls and information about her family (the Attirr's, who were explorers in the Solnor Ocean and the previous family ruling the North Province), so Herzog/King Grenell has a high interest in getting her back. (Trust me, this is cool in Greyhawk lore!)

Linzi and Amiri are out there somewhere too, but nowhere near the PC's at the moment. Their story is similar to their Pathfinder origins, with Amiri from the Holds of Stonefist and Linzi from Alhaster, Red Hand, in the Bandit Kingdoms.

 

[Zardnaar]

1. No.
2. No. Bastion is a concept that's new to me.
3. In general, when I've done city, manor, castle, etc. building, I've used a mix of just "thinking it up", published sources, Harn Manor, and DMG stuff, especially AD&D 1e DMG.

Why am I answering then?

I played Pathfinder Kingmaker on Xbox and enjoyed it.

So much so that I converted 6 of the Pathfinder companions into NPC's in one of my two 3.5e Greyhawk email games.

The players have recently met Valerie and Harrim (and both groups are currently trapped in the dungeon from "A Wizard's Fate" in Dungeon magazine) and they just met the last two members of "Tartuccio's Crew" - Tartuccio and Jaethal - who are on the outside of the stone block, due to complicated things happening "off camera" with me and one player figuring it out.

Tartuccio is planning to "help" the PC party and help himself to half of the presumably enormous fortune in the wizard's tower, or kill them and take it all. We'll see how things work out! He met an NPC friend of the PC's at a pub, who was worried about the PC's being at risk, and of course Tartuccio's wheels turned and he came up with a semi-evil plot to "help" the PC's.

Two other groups out there:

Octavia and Regongar: They overheard Tartuccio plotting with Jaethal to rob/help the PC's for half the treasure, and thought maybe they can get in on the action by ambushing the ambushers (if the fight seems opportune). While Tartuccio's Crew is below, they've already robbed his camp. Their backstory is they are escaped and wanted-by-bounty-hunter slaves, not from the Technic League in Golarion, but from the North Kingdom in Greyhawk, where Octavia is the last of a murdered noble house and Regongar was a gladiator, who fell in love and escaped together. Octavia was working as a mage's assistant and stole valuable scrolls and information about her family (the Attirr's, who were explorers in the Solnor Ocean and the previous family ruling the North Province), so Herzog/King Grenell has a high interest in getting her back. (Trust me, this is cool in Greyhawk lore!)

Linzi and Amiri are out there somewhere too, but nowhere near the PC's at the moment. Their story is similar to their Pathfinder origins, with Amiri from the Holds of Stonefist and Linzi from Alhaster, Red Hand, in the Bandit Kingdoms.

Awesome cheers. I'll have to read the later ones more.

 

[TheSword]

I’ve done it both ways with kingdom building (PF1) and without (5e)

My honest opinion is that the kingdom building in Kingmaker and the Ultimate Campaign book is a hot mess, that very quickly goes down a rabbit hole. The calculations/bonuses and maths are quite oppressive. If you have a particular player that would get a kick out of the gamification of that then cool, but my players pretty much ignored it anyway or only casually ignored engaged. Pathfinder doesn’t respond well to casual anything.

I would absolutely use the Bastion rules to abstract the benefits of being a ruler. Alternatively you could use Matt Coleville’s Strongholds book to achieve the same thing. Lots of the encounters in the books could be repurposed as Bastion events I think,

In the campaign the exploration soon overtakes the kingdom building element. It seemed like the book was encouraging you to annex the heights to the east and the lands to the west but in truth I think that makes it very unwieldy. Better to keep the PC kingdom to the stolen lands and have the later adventures be abojt defending those lands.

Another piece of unsolicited advice if you want it… use some of the rules from Kolbald Press’ Tales of the Old Margrave to represent the Narlmarches Forest. Have the southern part of the forest be much more dangerous - if not impenetrable and move Thousand Needles there as the ‘heart of the forest’.

 

[Amphytrion]

A few questions

1. Has anyone done 5E kingmaker.

2. Have you used bastions or considered it in 5E.

3. Did you use the city building rules in the AP or revised ones in 3.5 or Pathfinder?

Recently bought a fantastic condition PFKingmaker set. Maps are still sealed.

1. Yes, ran it up to 9th level.

2. I didn’t, but this campaign started long before we had Bastion Rules.

3. I used neither. I used a much more narrative approach to kingdom building. I wouldn’t defend my approach—it’s wobbly—but it’s not time consuming at least.

Happy to answer any other questions.

 

[touc]

2. Have you used bastions or considered it in 5E.

3. Did you use the city building rules in the AP or revised ones in 3.5 or Pathfinder?

I ran Kingmaker in both PF1E (mostly as written, real life killed the campaign during the 5th module) and then over 10 years later with a D&D 5E conversion (lots of added material and expansion of the primary storyline, completed with characters at level 16). I consider the 5E campaign lasting nearly 2 years to be my magnus opus. That's saying a lot over decades of gaming and props to players who were all in on making storylines. I've got an immense amount of notes and materials if you want.

That said:

• I considered Pathfinder's Ultimate Campaign "bastions" as D&D 2024 wasn't out (specialized buildings that could be added on with unique events for each, basically the same thing as D&D 2024), but went with the "mini-game" of the original using Jason Nelson's "Ultimate Kingdom 5E" (a conversion of the original "Ultimate Campaign" material with edits to avoid exploits like magic shops).
• I required the players to role-play and earn their starting "Build Points" by cozying up to powerful people.
• I combined this with Matt Colville's "Kingdoms & Warfare" and "Strongholds and Followers" books for raising troops.
• It was a lot of labor. A lot...
• Players were excited at the idea, so hence the labor.
• In both 1E and 5E, kingdom building was actually exciting and fun...for a few sessions. Then it became boring & cumbersome. And, the rate of expansion is extremely unrealistic. Villages don't become cities in a few months.
  • It's very easy for a few bad rolls to tailspin the kingdom into ruin.
  • Once you get past that point is when the fun falls off. I limited towns to 1 sheet, but even then it got cumbersome.
  • One player usually ends up running things. In 1E, we needed a computer program to track everything.
  • It comes dully repetitive to roll kingdom checks over and over and over.
  • It's hard to get all players involved, including in mass combat, no matter what the rules.
  • Had to have a flowchart.

• The entire point of kingdom building in 1E was to be able to afford to build an army for another mini warfare game and provide income for crafting or buying magical gear, a necessity in 3E and Pathfinder built into the rules.
• Gold income became a huge issue.
• By the 3rd module (going into centaur lands, vanished village), we abandoned kingdom building. By that time, rolls were pretty much automatic. Boring.

In retrospect?

• Use bases but make them rewards from adventures. I liked Colville's Strongholds book. It's awesome. It's got a base for every character type with (caveat) a massive power boost. Consider having something like this and having players adventure to reclaim special bases in their lands, whether this be Bastions or the Strongholds.
• Keep the original roles (ruler, high priest, grand diplomat, etc.), but create special tasks with special events tied to them inspired by the original roles, such as setting tax rates, holidays, etc. Make it all about the roleplay or leading to side quests.
• Kingdom rules can work great for one module. It's a novel mini-game. Calamities or mismanagement can lead to roleplaying opportunities. But, after Rivers Run Red (#2), consider the kingdom running well enough on its own and abandon them.
• Create a huge list of kingdom events. I made a calendar of the first year or two with preset events and module events mixed in. Otherwise, it's too crazy to track.
• Players should be expected as heroic rulers to handle the "big stuff" in the kingdom. Abandon them handling the little stuff and have NPCs do that, such as wild boar troubles.
• Use the PCs as "special forces" in mass combat instead of actual mass combat. It's a chore.

 

[Zardnaar]

I ran Kingmaker in both PF1E (mostly as written, real life killed the campaign during the 5th module) and then over 10 years later with a D&D 5E conversion (lots of added material and expansion of the primary storyline, completed with characters at level 16). I consider the 5E campaign lasting nearly 2 years to be my magnus opus. That's saying a lot over decades of gaming and props to players who were all in on making storylines. I've got an immense amount of notes and materials if you want.

That said:

• I considered Pathfinder's Ultimate Campaign "bastions" as D&D 2024 wasn't out (specialized buildings that could be added on with unique events for each, basically the same thing as D&D 2024), but went with the "mini-game" of the original using Jason Nelson's "Ultimate Kingdom 5E" (a conversion of the original "Ultimate Campaign" material with edits to avoid exploits like magic shops).
• I required the players to role-play and earn their starting "Build Points" by cozying up to powerful people.
• I combined this with Matt Colville's "Kingdoms & Warfare" and "Strongholds and Followers" books for raising troops.
• It was a lot of labor. A lot...
• Players were excited at the idea, so hence the labor.
• In both 1E and 5E, kingdom building was actually exciting and fun...for a few sessions. Then it became boring & cumbersome. And, the rate of expansion is extremely unrealistic. Villages don't become cities in a few months.
  • It's very easy for a few bad rolls to tailspin the kingdom into ruin.
  • Once you get past that point is when the fun falls off. I limited towns to 1 sheet, but even then it got cumbersome.
  • One player usually ends up running things. In 1E, we needed a computer program to track everything.
  • It comes dully repetitive to roll kingdom checks over and over and over.
  • It's hard to get all players involved, including in mass combat, no matter what the rules.
  • Had to have a flowchart.

View attachment 416031

• The entire point of kingdom building in 1E was to be able to afford to build an army for another mini warfare game and provide income for crafting or buying magical gear, a necessity in 3E and Pathfinder built into the rules.
• Gold income became a huge issue.
• By the 3rd module (going into centaur lands, vanished village), we abandoned kingdom building. By that time, rolls were pretty much automatic. Boring.

In retrospect?

• Use bases but make them rewards from adventures. I liked Colville's Strongholds book. It's awesome. It's got a base for every character type with (caveat) a massive power boost. Consider having something like this and having players adventure to reclaim special bases in their lands, whether this be Bastions or the Strongholds.
• Keep the original roles (ruler, high priest, grand diplomat, etc.), but create special tasks with special events tied to them inspired by the original roles, such as setting tax rates, holidays, etc. Make it all about the roleplay or leading to side quests.
• Kingdom rules can work great for one module. It's a novel mini-game. Calamities or mismanagement can lead to roleplaying opportunities. But, after Rivers Run Red (#2), consider the kingdom running well enough on its own and abandon them.
• Create a huge list of kingdom events. I made a calendar of the first year or two with preset events and module events mixed in. Otherwise, it's too crazy to track.
• Players should be expected as heroic rulers to handle the "big stuff" in the kingdom. Abandon them handling the little stuff and have NPCs do that, such as wild boar troubles.
• Use the PCs as "special forces" in mass combat instead of actual mass combat. It's a chore.

I played to start of its 4 similar results. Kingdom building stops being fun and become D&D the accounting.

Haven't used Ultimate Campaigns.

 

[touc]

I played to start of its 4 similar results. Kingdom building stops being fun and become D&D the accounting.

Haven't used Ultimate Campaigns.

Ultimate fixes several abuses, but it doesn't fix the overall bookkeeping. I personally felt it stays best at 1 hex map, wherein the party chooses its capital and begins to explore/expand, and it works best if you cap any settlement at 1 grid page. It gives a sense of achievement to see your town grow and roleplay opportunities as new personalities (and possibly quests) come to town.

I ran a version of the Paizo forum "Dudemeister's Monstrous Kingdom" wherein a monster was also building a kingdom.

Spoiler

It was part of my overall campaign where Nyrissa, the ultimate bad guy, was cursed by the Elders and has to bring the ruin of 1000 kingdoms in the lands she once sought to link to her fey lands. It's why the Stolen Lands never seem to keep civilization. For ages, she's been sowing seeds, encouraging behind the scenes kingdoms to rise, and setting the stage for them to fall. My party found evidence of a kingdom predating theirs and its fall (and eventually more, and a coverup of those facts), and there's a couple monstrous ones that she's aiding while simultaneously providing mysterious aid to our party and offering them deals just when they need it. She needs the PCs to succeed enough to be a kingdom with power, then fail. Same with the Monstrous guys. The Pitax guy figured her out and of course, when the PCs get fey aid, assume they're under her sway. Otherwise he was cool to them in our early foreshadowing.