Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Campaign

This supplement for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is full of campaign options for GM's, and many of these options could be used in other fantasy roleplaying games with little or no modification to the rules (I personally know of at least one GM who is using this book in her D&D 5th edition campaign). While I don't think I'll ever use some of the variant rules presented in this book, many of the other options presented here are fully-developed systems to cover things that I've spent years hand-waiving away or coming up with house rules on the fly to address, and I found a lot of value here for that reason alone. The first chapter of this book, "Character Background," is worth its weight in platinum pieces! There's some really, really solid advice in this chapter for GM's and players alike. Too often, players try to create unique characters by indulging in what I call 'special snowflake syndrome' by coming up with utterly implausible character backgrounds and epic character backstories; please understand that I have no objection to strong character concepts which call for an unusual character background, but for many players, this strong concept doesn't exist-- they're just cobbling together a number of disparate character elements in an effort to be "unique." Playing a Tiefling fey druid on the run from a cabal of deadly assassins who are hunting it across time and space doesn't necessarily make for a unique character; such a convoluted backstory only makes that character a novelty. What really makes a character UNIQUE are that character's personality traits and belief systems, and without developing these aspects, this 'special snowflake' character concept is no more remarkable at the gaming table than an otherwise unremarkable farm kid gone adventuring. This common misunderstanding about character development is essentially what the first chapter of "Ultimate Campaign" seeks to address, with a series of practical tips for developing character personality traits by really thinking about his or her background. What was the character's childhood like? Who were the character's family members? What life events shaped the character in adolescence and early adulthood? This section of the rules also presents an optional series of tables for random background generation, arranged by race and class, which rather reminded me of the classic 1980's roleplaying supplement, Central Casting . This chapter also reintroduces the concept of character traits, which first appeared in the Pathfinder Advanced Player's Guide . The next chapter, "Downtime," is also full of roleplaying goodness! This chapter is essentially a complete, balanced rules subsystem for managing the player's activities between adventures, covering things like alchemical research and crafting magic items, but also allowing characters to make investments, form a business or guild, hire employees, build their reputations, or even spread rumors throughout the land! Chapter two also includes several different random event tables to determine what sort of real-life problems or opportunities present themselves to the characters while they're at home. Chapter three, "Campaign Systems," includes a plethora of rules for any campaign. While the options presented here are uniformly good, they may not be applicable to every campaign or gaming style, and this is where the book's offerings might become a bit 'hit or miss.' This chapter provides advanced rules for character Alignment, a barter/bargaining system, rules for player companions (including animal companions), rules for building and maintaining NPC contacts within the game world, rules for hex exploration (similar to those presented in the Kingmaker adventure path), rules for character honor, rules for family and lineage, detailed magic item creation rules, guidelines on maintaining character relationships (friends, parents, siblings, spouses, rivals, etc.), rules for character and party fame and reputation, thoughts on character aging and retirement, rules for retraining characters (i.e., changing classes), a system for taxation (ugh!), and finally, rules for playing younger characters who haven't reached 1st level yet. This chapter covers a lot of terrain, and it does so uniformly well, but many of these options are more a matter of taste and personal choice than a matter of necessity for every game. The final chapter, "Kingdoms and War," totally makes this book worth owning! The 52 pages of this chapter are chock full of usable crunch. This chapter covers kingdom building, different leadership roles for players or NPC's to fill, building and construction rules, a system for determining how government laws and edicts effects the populace, and rules for founding new settlements; all of these rules are fully-compatible with the hex exploration system from the previous chapter. There are also tables for kingdom random events, so that the kingdom can experience an unexpected economic boom, or be plagued by slavers, or even be visited by a celebrity. This chapter also presents several optional subsystems for use with its kingdom rules, such as a system for things like diplomacy and trade. Finally, the book closes with rules for building, training, and leading armies in mass combat. Everything in this chapter is awesome-- as with the system for hex exploration, you'll want to use the rules in this book when running the Kingmaker adventure path, instead of the rules there. All in all, this is a solid addition to the Pathfinder roleplaying game. Not every gaming group will use every rule contained in "Ultimate Campaign," but there ought to at least be something for everyone here.

This book.... I cannot say enough good things about this book! It has everything you need to take your campaign to the next level. Chapter 1: Background This chapter is very extensive. Lots of random roll tables to help you flesh out a very detailed background for any character you'd ever want to play. Also included is the most comprehensive Trait List ever. A new type of feat called Story Feats is introduced as well. Chapter 2: Downtime Everything you've ever wanted to do during downtime is now possible. While you could pretty much do whatever your Gamemaster would allow before this book was available, now he has codified rules that will smoothly cover any possible thing you want to accomplish during downtime. This chapter is my second favorite chapter coming in just behind chapter 4. Chapter 3 I haven't dug too deep into this chapter yet, but from what I've read it's essentially a huge selection of new systems that you can drop into your game "toolbox style". There are rules for Honor, Contacts, Haggling, Fame and Infamy, etc... Chapter 4: Kingdoms and War This is by far my favorite chapter. This chapter consists of the Kingdom Building and Mass Combat rules from the Kingmaker Adventure Path. However, they have been updated and expanded to offer a better experience and to make them not specific to the Adventure Path they originally appeared in. Everything you need to build your own Kingdoms from the ground up is in this chapter. Player Character will take on various roles in governing their Kingdom and helping it grow and prosper. The rules for mass combat are done nicely as well, with rules for Building your own armies and waging war on neighboring Kingdoms. The Mass Combat and Army Building Rules can also be used independently from the Kingdom Building rules for those GMs that only want to use one or the other. In closing, this really is quite possibly the best book for any Pathfinder Gamemaster. I highly recommend it. Buy this book today! You won't be sorry!

This sourcebook is clearly intended for players as well as gamemasters, if not more so. Much of the content is generic in format and can be ported to other game systems as well. And if you are playing the Pathfinder Kingmaker campaign, this book includes the revised rules for kingdom management (which you can also find on the Paizo site). Players are treated to a buffet of story ideas, some randomization tables for character backstory by class and race, and lots of Traits. Many of the traits are identical to those in the Advanced Players Guide and the Kingmaker campaign (note that some campaign feats, like "Bastard" in Kingmaker, have different properties in this sourcebook). Finally, there are story feats, which are pretty complicated and might need GM consideration. The Downtime section is good. This is clearly player-centric and designed for players to manage a building or two of their own, like a fort or an inn. Very useful floor plans included. The system lets you abstract purchases by components (labor, goods, magic and influence) or just by gold pieces. The prices are incredibly modest compared to 3.5 equivalents; I recall 3.5 had a castle at 500,000gp but Ultimate Campaign gives a little over 7,000. There are also event tables by building type for GMs to use or extract for ideas. Mileage may vary; some of these are pretty cheesy even for fantasy RPG. "A wealthy merchant, noble or other person privately asks for help with a personal problem such as halitosis or bedroom performance problems." Running out of ideas, Paizo? The chapter on Campaign Systems is a proper salad bar for the gamemaster. There are several clarifications on animal companions, followers, contacts, exploration, magic item creation, and so on, as well as intangible player qualities like alignment, honor, prestige, fame and prestige. Some are full rule sets with a point-based system that might be useful for a character-centered campaign in an urban adventure, but will find little use in a typical adventure. Even if you avoid the mini-rules systems, most of the subsections feature rules clarifications and examples. The last section, Kingdoms and War, is a rules set for building and managing a full kingdom. It abstracts everything from food and labor to cash money into "build points", which players spend to acquire territory, construct buildings, improve land, and finance operations. It does not dovetail well with the Downtime building rules. The mechanics of this mini-game have the feeling of an obscure Avalon Hill board game. Some of the material appears to have been shoehorned according to its statistical benefits rather than actual value. For instance, a castle spanning four lots costs 54 BP, but a marketplace (an "open space" spanning two lots) costs 48BP. As such, it suffers from the problems of a typical sim game. Success in the early stages requires good stats rather than good planning. But you can't just roll your way through it; you will require multiple record pages. It's not always good to be the king. Lastly, there are rules for large scale warfare. Much easier to follow than the Kingdoms rules, although I haven't tried it yet. All told, Ultimate Campaign is a useful sourcebook if you approach it with a critical eye. There's plenty here to be used as it is, some that requires extraction or house-ruling, and large chunks that can be disregarded altogether.

This book brings a lot of content to the table. Many variant rules, kingdom building rules reminiscent of Those found in AD&D 2e's Birthright setting, and a slew of new character options. Paizo made a great book, and those of you who played Kingmaker will find they've expanded the kingdom building rules. This book has something for everyone, players and DMs like.

This book offers you pre-made rules for nearly everything outside of dungeons and caverns. Acquiring and running businesses is very fun, haven't gotten into the kingdom building or mass combat yet but the rules look solid. Easily worth the $25-$30, the book is of the quality you expect from Paizo Publishing.

It was a long wait for this one to come out, but of all things they kept moving the date closer, instead of pushing it back. It seems to combine a number of optional systems, with the addition of several new ones as well. I particularly like the addition of charts for random background traits, that includes family generation, for those that wish a more randomized realistic take on how life unfolds around the characters.

I have only been pen and paper gaming for about twelve years now, but I love what they have done in this book. They took the 3.5 D&D rules and made them better and heartier. The Ultimate Campaign guide builds upon what they've already done and gives you some really good creation tools for giving backstory to your characters. I know that a lot of gamers do not have any issues making backstory, but some people do not find it as easy to do, and I think this will be a very good tool for helping those people make a fleshed out character that they can RP. There are also great rules on building wealth and what you can do with it in here. I think it's a good purchase.

I love it! This book brings into the game what characters do when they are not out adventuring - owning business, retraining class features, making magic items. It also adds mechanics for fame and honor. A good portion of the book is given to a system of creating a history for your character. This is a feature I have used and found fun, but is not something I incorporated into my campaign. The end of the book is a clean up of the kingdom building rules and mass combat. My gaming group and I have really enjoyed many of the mechanics here in. Some of my players do down-times, some do not - however everyone in my group has used at least one thing from this book, Most have used a lot. I would recommend this to any group, but think it works better if not on a heavily routed adventure path - though it can be adapted! It is worth your time to give this a try.

Muy bueno si quieres dar un toque estratégico a tus campañas. Muy útil para el path Kingmaker, ya que permite expandir las reglas existentes

I currently play in the Kingmaker campaign and do the kingdom building on behalf of the group, this book makes my job so much easier. As a gm in my own campaign, the players now own an Inn and a Keep. One player bowed out due to a clash in commitments but he's maintaining an active role by managing the inn and using downtime to build it up into a proper hangout for the whole group. A task made so much easier, if not possible, by this book.

Sehr interessant gestaltet und viele Tipps wie man eine Kampagne angehen sollte. Hatte mir noch ein wenig andere Informationen gewünscht. Aber trotzdem von mir 4 Sterne für dieses liebevolle gestaltete Buch

This is one of the best books one can buy for Pathfinder (Beyond the necessary Players guide and bestiary, of course.) I have found the advice of this book to be very helpful in designing not only PC's, but also NPC's, quests, kingdoms etc. Recommended for anyone who thinks they need help in designing a world in which they or their players can adventure.

Tiene una variedad de información importante para los detalles que necesitas para una buena campaña de RPG Pathfinder. Te habla sobre cómo los personajes no sólo pueden ser aventureros sino algo más importante en la sociedad de tu mundo.. Se los recomiendo mucho!