7. Running a Kingdom

UPKEEP PHASE

Step 1: Assign Leadership Roles
Step 2: Adjust Unrest
Step 3: Resource Collection
Step 4: Pay Consumption

ACTIVITY PHASE

Step 1: Activities

CONSTRUCTION PHASE

Step 1: Ongoing Construction

EVENT PHASE

Step 1: Check for a Random Event
Step 2: Event Resolution
Step 3: Apply Kingdom XP
Step 4: Increase Kingdom Level

To assign or change characters associated with leadership roles, do so now using the New Leadership kingdom activity. You can perform this activity as often as you wish during this step. Next, determine if any vacancy penalties apply. Any unassigned roles incur their vacancy penalties. Also, if a character assigned to a leadership role hasn’t spent the required week of downtime on that role since the end of the last Kingdom turn, they must either give up one of the three kingdom activities they would perform during Activity phase of this Kingdom turn or apply the vacancy penalty for their role until the start of the next Kingdom turn. If a leader was replaced between Kingdom turns due to an unexpected vacancy, as long as a character currently holds the role and any characters assigned to the role collectively spent the required downtime, the vacancy penalty does not apply.

On your first Kingdom turn, your kingdom’s Unrest score is 0; skip to the next step.

On all other turns, adjust your Unrest score: Increase it by 1 for every settlement in your kingdom that’s Overcrowded. If you are at war, increase it by 1. Other ongoing events may have ongoing Unrest adjustments as well; make them at this time. After making all adjustments, if your kingdom’s Unrest is 10 or higher, the kingdom gains 1d10 points to its Ruins. Distribute these points in any way you wish among the four Ruins. In addition, attempt a DC 11 flat check. On a failure, one hex of your kingdom is lost; the PCs choose which hex.

If your kingdom’s Unrest is 20 or higher, the entire nation also falls into anarchy. While in anarchy, you can only attempt Quell Unrest activities, and the results of all kingdom checks are worsened one degree.

The exact amount of resources you have to draw upon each Kingdom turn varies, as each month there are countless unexpected boons and setbacks throughout each citizen’s life that can impact how they can bolster your national plans.

First, determine the number of Resource Dice you are entitled to roll for the current Kingdom turn by adding your kingdom level + 4 to any bonus dice or penalty dice you gained from the previous turn. You cannot have fewer than 0 Resource Dice.

Resource Dice = kingdom level + 4 + bonus dice - penalty dice

Next, roll your Resource Dice to determine how many Resource Points (RP) you have available during this turn. Your RP is equal to the roll result. (RP remaining at the end of your turn can be converted into kingdom Experience Points.)

Finally, if you have any Work Sites established in your kingdom, gather Commodities. You gain 1 Commodity from each Work Site, or double that if the Work Site is in a Resource hex. Any Commodities gathered in excess of your storage capacity are lost.

Your settlements and armies require a certain amount of provisions, supplies, and funding, as well as all the basic necessities of life.

On your first Kingdom turn, your kingdom’s Consumption score is 0; skip to the next step.

On all other turns, calculate your kingdom’s Consumption score. This is the total of your settlements’ Consumption scores plus your armies’ Consumption scores minus the number of Farmland hexes you have within influence range of your settlements, plus any modifiers from kingdom events.

Kingdom Consumption = settlement Consumption total + army Consumption total - Farmland hexes influenced by settlements + modifiers from kingdom events

Spend Food Commodities equal to your kingdom’s Consumption. If you can’t or choose not to spend this Commodity cost, you can either spend 5 RP per point of unpaid Consumption or increase Unrest by 1d4.

Consumption for Kingdoms, Settlements, and Armies can never be negative and is always minimum 0.

The Commerce Phase is eliminated. All activities that previously took place during the Commerce Phase (Collect Taxes, Improve Lifestyle, Tap Treasury, Trade Commodities, and Manage Trade Agreements) now instead can be taken during the Activity Phase. These activities gain the Leadership Trait but keep the Commerce Trait as well.

All Commerce activities are limited to once per Kingdom Turn.

You can Collect Taxes once per Kingdom turn to attempt to bolster your Economy-based checks for the remainder of the Kingdom turn. If you don’t attempt to Collect Taxes, you can instead attempt a DC 11 flat check; on a success, reduce Unrest by 1.

You can draw upon the kingdom’s funds to enhance the standard of living for its citizens by attempting the Improve Lifestyle activity or you can attempt a withdrawal from the kingdom’s funds using the Tap Treasury activity.

If your kingdom has any stockpiles of Commodities, you can attempt the Trade Commodities activity to bolster your RP for the turn.

If you’ve established trade agreements, you can use the Manage Trade Agreements activity.

The Activity Phase is condensed. Instead of three separate steps for Leadership activities, Region activities, and Civic activities, there is only a single step called Activities. Any text that references the Commerce Phase, Leadership Step, Regional Step, or Civic Step now refers to the Activity Phase instead.

Instead of each PC getting a certain number of Leadership actions, the Kingdom getting three Region actions, and each Settlement getting one Civic action, each Kingdom Leader now gets a Turn during the Activity phase.

On their Turn, each PC Leader gets three actions to spend and each NPC Leader gets two actions. The GM can choose to take an NPC's Turn themself or delegate a player to take that NPC's Turn. The Turns can be taken in whatever order the Party wishes. On their Turn, a Leader can take any combination of Leadership, Region, and Civic activities. In addition to Leaders’ Turns, Settlements with certain Structures get their own Turns, as detailed in the Changes to Civic Structures section.

The following limits apply to action choices:

• Each Commerce activity may be attempted at most once per Turn.
• In each settlement, at most one Civic activity taken as a Leadership Action may be attempted per Turn. (Settlements containing Structures with the Civic trait may take additional actions within the Turn.)
• Each specific Region activity may be attempted at most once per hex.
• Unless otherwise specified, each activity may be attempted at most once by each Leader, as defined in the base rules.

If your kingdom’s capital has a Castle, Palace, or Town Hall, each PC in a leadership role may attempt up to three Leadership activities. If your capital has none of these structures, each PC can take no more than two Leadership activities during this step. Your party chooses the order you go in when taking Leadership activities. Unless an activity states otherwise, a leader cannot attempt the same Leadership activity more than once per Kingdom turn.

The PC leaders may now collectively attempt up to three Region activities. The players decide who rolls any skill checks needed to resolve these activities.

Your party may now attempt one Civic activity for each of the kingdom’s settlements. You determine the order in which these activities are attempted and who rolls any skill checks.

The Construction Phase is an optional new phase.

Structures can now take multiple Turns to complete. The Build Structure activity represents beginning construction. Once a Build Structure activity is successful, if a Structure is not completed that Turn, it will complete on a later Turn during the Construction Phase.

All commodity costs for Structures must be paid on the Turn of the Build Structure action. A kingdom may spend a maximum of RP equal to twice the die size of their Resource Die on any given Structure per Turn. For example, a Kingdom with a d6 Resource Die may spend up to 12 RP on a Structure per Turn.

If this is enough to fully pay the cost, the Structure completes at the end of the successful Build Structure action. If the Kingdom cannot pay the full RP cost in one Turn due to the limit, construction continues until the next Turn. When using the Build Structure action to build a Structure that will not complete this Turn, the Kingdom must spend the Maximum RP allowed. If the Build Structure Activity is a critical failure, only the Maximum RP allowed per Turn is lost, but all commodities are still lost.

Construction of Structures begun on previous Turns is handled during the new Construction Phase. The Construction Phase has only one Step, named Ongoing Construction. In the Ongoing Construction step, for each uncompleted Structure in any settlement, the Kingdom may spend RP towards its construction, up to the maximum per Turn listed above. No RP can be spent during Ongoing Construction on a Structure that was begun this turn with a successful Build Structure Activity. There is no limit on the number of uncompleted Structures a Settlement or the Kingdom may have. There is no minimum RP required to be spent each Turn, but uncompleted Structures have no effect. If you are upgrading an existing Structure, the existing Structure’s benefits are still available until construction completes. Once the full RP cost of a Structure is paid, the Structure is completed immediately.

Structures with the Edifice or Infrastructure trait take longer to build. The Kingdom may only spend a maximum of RP equal to the die size of their Resource Die on any given Structure with the Edifice or Infrastructure trait (instead of 2x).

Structures with the Residential trait can be built a little faster. The Kingdom may spend a maximum of RP equal to three times the die size of their Resource Die on any given Structure with the Residential trait. (3x instead of 2x)

Note: The Construction Yard Structure increases the RP per Turn limit as detailed below.

Attempt a DC 16 flat check. On success, a random kingdom event occurs. If no random event occurs, the DC for this check in the next Kingdom turn is reduced by 5. Once an event occurs, the DC resets to 16.

Random events present opportunities to go forth in exploration or encounter mode to deal with a rampaging monster or the like; these are handled now. In some chapters of the Kingmaker Adventure Path, specific story events are introduced outside of Kingdom turns; these are resolved when they occur.

The GM now awards any kingdom XP earned during that turn. If the kingdom experienced a random event, it receives XP based on the event level and the Pathfinder 2E XP rewards by level chart (Table 10-2, page 489 CRB).

The first Kingdom turn that your kingdom spent 100 RP, gain 80 kingdom XP as a Milestone.

In addition, any RP that remains unspent is now converted to kingdom XP, to a maximum of 120 XP per Kingdom turn.

If your kingdom’s XP total is above 1,000, and your kingdom isn’t at its maximum level, increase your kingdom level by 1 and subtract 1,000 from your XP total. See Kingdom Advancement for the full rules for leveling up.