Welcome to Guidance, Private Sanctuary’s source for tips and techniques for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, written by Everyman Gamer Alexander Augunas. Today, we’re going to be talking about kingdom building.

It is difficult for me to convey how ridiculously excited I am to be blogging about today’s topic. Kingdom building. This is one of those additions to the game that perfectly meshes with my preferred playstyle. I love micromanaging things. I love ridiculous little details. Love it, love it, LOVE IT.

If you’re not into micromanaging, then today’s article might not be for you. But if you are, oh, and I hope you are, then get giddy, because we’re about to get MICROMANAGING!

A Brief History of Nations

Kingdom building as a Pathfinder mechanic was first introduced in the Kingmaker Adventure Path. Kingmaker is literally about building your own kingdom out of necessity in the River Kingdoms. About a year later, those rules would get polished and re-released in Pathfinder’s Ultimate Campaign, which is chock-full of interesting subsystems for players and GMs to use.

Basics of Kingdom Building

Kingdom building is a VERY in-depth subsystem, especially if you’re using Ultimate Campaign. I am going to give you the bare minimum that you need to know to use Kingdom Building effectively in your game.

• Hexes: Kingdom building is hex-based. Essentially, you take a map and you split it into a series of hexes that represent roughly 12 miles from angel to angel. Kingdom building is based off of “claiming” these hexes, which allows you to use them in kingdom building. You can upgrade a hex to possess a special feature (like a mine or fishery) as well as a settlement or road. There are rules that govern which types of upgrades a hex can have, but the most important one to start is your settlement.
• Settlement: Kingdoms require settlements to function, as most of your kingdom’s bonuses are going to stem from settlements. Settlements contain buildings that give your kingdom bonuses. Its also where all of the people live. Typically, your first settlement is your kingdom’s capital but you are free to move that honor around as you wish.
• Leadership: A kingdom requires a number of leaders to work effectively. There are about 15 leadership roles in the game, but only about 10 to 12 of them are actually required. Those “required” roles place crippling penalties onto your kingdom if someone isn’t doing that job for you. There are a handful that provide only benefits, no penalties, however. You’ll note that a typical party has 4 PCs but a kingdom has over three times as many roles. Your PCs are going to be expected to recruit NPCs to perform these jobs for them, so make sure you as a GM are seeding such individuals into the story.
• Buildings: Settlements contain buildings, and buildings grant benefits to a kingdom. A typical building takes 1 kingdom turn (which represents 1 month of game time) to build.
• Kingdom Statistics: Although there are roughly 12 statistics in all, only 3 of them are vitally important to the actual construction of the kingdom: Economy, Loyalty, and Stability. Economy is your kingdom’s ability to generate income for the government, Loyalty is your population’s approval of your government, and Stability is how effective your government is at maintaining order. Building buildings and hex upgrades and appointing leaders will give you bonuses to these three scores, which translates to a bonus on specific types of checks. Throughout a “kingdom turn,” you will be called upon to make checks using these values on behalf of your kingdom. The DC for such checks is equal to 20 + the number of hexes in your kingdom.
• Consumption: Consumption represents how much money your government requires to operate. Consumption is equal to the number of hexes your kingdom possesses plus any modifications from your edicts.
• Edicts: Basically, these are laws that you set for your kingdom. The severity of your laws affects your Kingdom’s statistics. The big three are holiday, promotion, and taxation. Holiday edicts represent how many festivals your kingdom has (+/– Loyalty, + Consumption), promotion edicts represent how quickly your kingdom grows and expands (+/– Stability, + Consumption), and taxation edicts represent how high the taxes are (+/– Economy, +/– Loyalty).
• Unrest: As bad stuff happens, whether its your fault or not, unrest accrues. Essentially, unrest is how close the people of your kingdom are to revolting. If unrest ever reaches 10, your kingdom basically outs you as the government is overthrown. It is VERY important to keep unrest low, and one of the main ways that unrest accrues is when you can’t pay your Consumption on-time, which is another reason why keeping your Economy healthy is so important.

With all this in mind, let’s move on to Kingdom Building Strategy

Kingdom Building Strategy

So, you’re a new king and you’re looking to stay in power. How can you most effectively grow your kingdom? Don’t worry, I’ve got your back:

• Maximize Economy Bonus: The most important thing that you need to do when using kingdom building is reach a point where no matter what you roll on your Economy check, you’re always generating wealth. In order to do this, your check needs to be high enough that you always generate more wealth than you need to pay to Consumption. Therefore, the first rule is to A) make sure that even if you roll a 1 on your economy check, your result will be high enough to beat your kingdom’s Control DC (20 + the number of hexes in your kingdom). For most new kingdoms, this means that you need an Economy bonus of at least 21 because your Economy check DC is going to be 21. How Economy checks work is if you beat the DC, you divide your result by 3 to determine the number of points of wealth you generate (called BP in the game). So, for example, if have an Economy DC of 25 and a Consumption of 5, you would want to have at least a +25 to Economy checks, because even if you roll a 1 (a 26), your result will beat your Economy DC and 26 / 5 = 5, so you have enough money to pay your Consumption for the turn regardless of how much wealth you have in your treasury.
• Loyalty and Stability: In many cases, these statistics are like the Will saves of kingdom building. These checks do not happen nearly as often as Economy, but when they do happen, horrible things occur if you fail your check. For this reason, it generally is a poor reason to set taxes high or refrain from having holidays because you get a huge penalty on your Loyalty check for doing so. So while you should be focusing on Economy at first, do not “tank” your Loyalty and Stability too hard. Remember that your DC for Loyalty and Stability checks is the same as your DC for Economy checks, after all.

So now that you know WHAT to do, HOW do you do it effectively? Let’s dive in!

Leaders

The easiest way to get an economy bonus is through your Leader bonuses, as each role allows you to add a specific ability modifier to the kingdom’s Economy, Loyalty, or Stability. Since there are more roles than PCs, it is very important to place your PCs strategically to maximize your benefit.

• Ruler: Add Charisma to a number of statistics based on the kingdom’s size. Economy should always be your first choice.
• Magister: Add Intelligence or Charisma to Economy.
• Spymaster: Add Dexterity or Intelligence to one kingdom statistic. (Economy is the best choice for a LONG time.)
• Treasurer: Add Intelligence or Wisdom to Economy.
• Viceroy: Add Intelligence or Wisdom to Economy. This leadership role basically needs a higher-level kingdom so you have the means to support a vassalage, so don’t expect to have this one right away.

Going off of efficiency alone, you want your PCs in the Ruler, Magister, Spymaster, and Treasurer roles to maximize those Economy gains. This won’t always happen because of roleplaying, but remember that these roles need the biggest bonuses because Economy is arguably the most important statistic.

Buildings

Next up, you’re going to want to build some cheap, Economy-boosting buildings to help improve your monetary gain. Here’s a quick list of all of the +Economy buildings in the game. Please note that I’m only listing the BP cost and Economy bonus of the building in order to spare myself from rewriting several pages of text. Without any further adieu:

• Academy (52; +2)
• Alchemist (18; +1)
• Bank (28; +4)
• Black Market (50; +2)
• Bridge (6; +1)
• Bureau (10; +1)
• Caster’s Tower (30; +1)
• Castle (54; +2)
• Dance Hall (4; +1)
• Exotic Artisan (10; +1)
• Foreign Quarter (30; +3)
• Foundry (16; +1)
• Guildhall (34; +2)
• Inn (10; +1)
• Library (6; +1)
• Luxury Store (28; +1)
• Magic Shop (68; +1)
• Magical Academy (58; +2)
• Market (48; +2)
• Menagerie (16; +1)
• Mill (6; +1)
• Mint (30; +3)
• Museum (30; +1)
• Noble Villa (24; +1)
• Palace (108; +2)
• Pier (16; +1)
• Shop (8; +1)
• Smithy (6; +1)
• Stable (10; +1)
• Stockyard (20; +1)
• Tannery (6; +1)
• Tavern (12; +1)
• Theater (24; +2)
• Town Hall (22; +1)
• University (78; +3)
• Waterfront (90; +4)

So without looking at any of the buildings’ other special abilities, the best bang for your buck economy-wise is the dance hall, which offers +1 to Economy for 4 BP. Nothing else has as good of an Economy-to-cost ratio. That said, the dance hall (which is effectively a whorehouse), does have a penalty attached to it: every dance hall you build increases your unrest. Ouch. You can either build a house at the same time as this to counteract the unrest gain, effectively increasing the ratio to 7 for +1 (the same as the bank) or you can eat the unrest penalty. Personally, I wouldn’t spam whorehouses throughout my kingdom, but that’s just me.

After the dance hall, the smithy, the library, the mill, and the tannery all have a ratio of 6-to-+1, which makes them the second-best choice. These are much more respectable institutions that make sense to build both from an RP standpoint and an economic standpoint. If you’re looking to build for Economy, these three should be your first choices. After these two, the bank can’t be beat. At 28 BP for a +4, it boasts a 7-to-+1 ration and has the highest bonus for a single building. When you have the BP, building a bank should be a priority for you. After the bank, the only building worth noting for its bonus is the mint, which costs 30 BP for a +3, offering a 10-for-+1 ratio. Its not as good as the previous choices, but it is certainly an option. The theater offers a 12-for-+1 ratio, but beyond this everything is far too expensive to be worth noting. These buildings are your bread-and-butter choices, the backs upon which your settlements’ economies are built.

Hexes

The other major way to get Economy bonuses is through terrain improvements. Essentially, you can upgrade a hex you control to have an improvement. Usually you’re limited to one improvement per hex (and a settlement counts as an improvement), but some improvements ignore this rule. Let’s take a look at the improvements.

• Farm (Sharable; cost varies with region; decreases Consumption by 2)
• Fishery (Sharable; 4; decreases Consumption by 1)
• Highway (Sharable; cost is road x 2; +1 per 4 Highways)
• Mine (6; +1, +1 BP when taxes are collected)
• Road (Sharable; cost varies with terrain; +1 per 4 roads)

So at a glance, I can tell you that roads and highways are seldom good sources of economy. Farms, Fisheries, and Mines, on the other hand, are worth talking about.

The base cost for farms is 2 BP, and since they reduce Consumption by 2, they are effectively worth +3 Economy per farm, as +3 Economy will increase the number of BP you earn by 1. So yes, farms are incredibly efficient as long as your Consumption is higher than 0. That said, a farm’s price increases based on the type of terrain it is in. The 2 BP is only for planes: the cost is 4 BP in Hills or 8 BP in a desert. Even at these prices, the farm is still fairly efficient; it is 1-for-+3 in plains, 1-for-+1.5 in Hills, and 1-for-1 in a desert.

Fisheries are similar, except they’re 4 BP for a +1. This means that a single fishery is as BP efficient as a whorehouse, which is nice. The only downside is that you need a coastline hex to build it on, but that’s not a HUGE problem unless you’re building in a place like Tibet.

Finally, Mines are interesting because not only do they give you a +1 to your Economy, but they also increase the number of BP you gain by +1. Effectively, they’re worth a +4 to Economy because every 3 in your Economy generates 1 BP for you. Since they cost 6 BP to build, the ultimate ratio is about 3 BP for a +2, or just under 1 for 1.

So strictly from a +Economy standpoint, Farms followed by Fisheries are the most efficient use of BP until your Consumption hits 0, after which Mines are best..

Tip of the Iceburg

I am barely scratching the surface with Kingdom Building in this guide and you can bet that in time, I’ll probably do more Kingdom Building articles. This subsystem is a huge wealth of player involvement and interaction and it is by far the most intricate rules system in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. I think it’s a blast to play, and I hope this article helped you capitalize on capitalism a bit more then you currently were.

That’s all I have for generating wealth in the Kingdom Building system. Do you have any Kingdom-related questions that you’d love to see me tackle? Leave your suggestions below and I’ll see what I can do! Until then, I’ll see you next week for another installment in the GM’s Guide!

Alexander “Alex” Augunas has been playing roleplaying games since 2007, which isn’t nearly as long as 90% of his colleagues. Alexander is an active freelancer for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and is best known as the author of the Pact Magic Unbound series by Radiance House. Alex is the owner of Everyman Gaming, LLC and is often stylized as the Everyman Gamer in honor of Guidance’s original home. Alex’s favorite color is blue, his favorite Pathfinder Race/Class combination is kitsune treasurer, and he loves rollin’ in all the GPs!