Nation Builder extension (automation for new kingmaker ap for pf1,pf2,5e and more)

Thanks for looking into it. I don't understand the rules completely yet. Once (if) I do, I'll try and give specific examples of any rule vs. extension conflicts for the leaders/vested part. I have some high brain power in my group and once we start using those functions, I expect to get some "yeah, but on page X it says that ....." type of feedback :) Usually I take all these kind of "Ah" moments and put it into a cheat sheet for myself.

Tooltips for everything

I worked out a method to use the descriptions as "tool tips" for most records.

So far, I focused on the key details that might not be intuitive, such as;

• Nation choices (charter, government)
• Attribute (culture, economy, loyalty, stability)
• Nation Leaders (counselor, emissary, general, magister, ruler, treasurer, viceroy and warden)
• (All of the) Nation Skills
• (and, biggest effort of all) All the Nation Actions.

So now hovering the mouse over the "name" field for any of these, will pop up a nice tooltip of the stock description.

New background and layouts
My initial approach for a "generic" app resulted in a different "look" for everyone ruleset.
This made it difficult to standardize the layout as it could change based on external factors.

So, I have worked on creating new "sheet" backgrounds and color scheme.

To start, I created a hex based background for all the pages.
Then added some colors that seemed appropriate.

This required making use of custom assets, rather than utilizing the stock "core rpg" graphics.
(in some cases, made use of examples from pathfinder 1e, 2e or DnD 5e)

While I realize its not going to be perfect, for everyone - hopefully this will reduce the issues somewhat.
(And it should now look mostly the same, regardless of what ruleset you are using)

You may notice slight changes in the new layout, such as the giant "box" to hold your bonus resource dice.

Finally, item mod stacking (automated!)

first of all, this an insanely frustrating topic. So I will try to provide enough background data to understand the challenge.

Here is an excerpt, to give context

Maximum Item Bonus
Many structures within a settlement grant an item bonus to specific kingdom activities. Normally, item bonuses do not stack, but if you build multiple structures of the same type in the same settlement, their item bonuses stack up to this limit. In a case where two settlements have overlapping influences from identical structures, only the higher item bonus from a single settlement’s structures applies.
Max. Item Bonus (per settlement size)
Village, Towns = +1, City = +2 and Metropolis = +3


during gameplay, we have endless issues with this...

1. it discourages MULTIPLE settlements - as there is no benefit to building the same structure, in multiple settlements.
2. instead, it implies you can only stack (up to 3) of any building if its in the exact same settlement.
3. many nation skills are lacking a related item bonus from buildings, thus get more difficult as the kingdom levels up. (such as Manage Trade Agreements)
4. the bonuses are inconsistent. some skills have +1, +2 and +3 bonus items. others have only a single +1 item mod.
5. some like Hire Adventurers have 7+ ways to modify it, yet in theory only bonuses from the same structure type, in the same settlement would stack.
6. even if you maximize your settlements and buildings to get the "most possible bonuses" by building (1) of every structure -- its still barely noticeable.
7. PLUS - we are not tracking the layout of towns (in this app) -- so there is not enough data to even try to add them up as stated.
8. even with no limits on item stacking at all and a dozen settlements with 80+ structures -- PCs still struggled to succeed at kingdom checks.
9. the skill system, as written -- only works for the first 5-8 levels, then its impossible to make "untrained" checks.

There are many other posts on these topic already, so I won't bother trying to list all of the issues here.

original method
Originally, I left it "up to the GM" to determine how they wanted to interpret the rules and how/where to apply the bonuses. But this is simply "impossible" at scale - especially a year into the campaign where players have a dozen settlements and 100+ structures built.


However, believe I have found a simplified approach for automating the stacking of item modifiers - at least in the context of this app.

I have settled on a few key points:

• bonuses from building can be stacked up to (3) times, as stated in many of the descriptions.
• There are (3) tiers of item modifiers for buildings, based on the kingdoms level.
• they start at +1 (tier 1), then +2 at 9th (tier 2) and finally, +3 at 15th (tier3).
• You can (at most) stack 3 items for a possible (3 x +1) +3 item bonus to a related skill.
• then at level 9, you can start building +2 modifier buildings ... so the limit then increases to 6 (3 x +2)
• and at level 15, you unlock the +3 modifier buildings ... for a maximum of (3 x +3) = +9 item modifier.

As a means to "make it work" I've implemented (2) solutions -- which you can toggle between.

Item Mod stacking toggle

1. (off) no limits, just add up all the bonuses
2. (on) limit by level / tiers ... tier1 = +3, tier 2 = +6, tier 3 = +9

What this means
By default, whenever you open the Nation skills tabs -- the app will count up all the bonuses for each related skill check.
These bonuses are found under each completed structure, on the Main Sheet : Inventory tab.

It then adds the total to each Nation Skill automatically, in the "item mod" box.
(based on the toggle above, using tier limits or no limits)

In our testing so far; this is "sufficient", encourages expansion of settlements and is still not "OP" or resulting in "guaranteed success".
However, it does satisfy the need to auto-calculate the existing data and scales very nicely.

(see attached picture for a visual example of it in action)

Wow... I am just about to jump into this... amazing work!

and BTW I would suggest putting a forge link in your first post.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Morenu

Wow... I am just about to jump into this... amazing work!

and BTW I would suggest putting a forge link in your first post.

---

Thanks, I'm still learning the ropes. appreciate the suggestions

My group ran through their first monthly turn, and while it was a learning experience, overall we had a good time. What worked really well was the players being able to pull up the appropriate tab and roll the dice themselves. We identified an issue with Farm mechanics.

Per the manual farms lower consumption, but in the extension Farms generate 1 food/month. Mathematically this is a wash, but when it comes to storage its a big difference.

Example
Their pop centers consume 10 food, their armies 5, total 15.

But they have built farms to reduce pop center consumption from 10 to 0.

First way, have to store 15 food per month
Second way, have to store 5 food per month

Big difference

Technically, the only way to GET food is to harvest crops, gather livestock, or go fishing.

Actually, what I just posted isn't complete. Armies add to nation consumption, and farms should reduce consumption, so they could build 5 more farms and reduce consumption from 5 to 0 and not have to store any food.

The mechanics for mines, quarries and lumber mills is working 100% correct, but mechanics for farms/food is different.

Sgtwhy has taken on a monumental task :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Miloh

My group ran through their first monthly turn, and while it was a learning experience, overall we had a good time. What worked really well was the players being able to pull up the appropriate tab and roll the dice themselves. We identified an issue with Farm mechanics.

Per the manual farms lower consumption, but in the extension Farms generate 1 food/month. Mathematically this is a wash, but when it comes to storage its a big difference.

Example
Their pop centers consume 10 food, their armies 5, total 15.

But they have built farms to reduce pop center consumption from 10 to 0.

First way, have to store 15 food per month
Second way, have to store 5 food per month

Big difference

Technically, the only way to GET food is to harvest crops, gather livestock, or go fishing.

---

Glad to hear the player aspect of the toolset is working / helping with gameplay - that was definitely my goal.
It was a fair amount of work to allow clients to make rolls as it requires them modifying the server data.

My group just formed their firsts armies, so I have a bit more experience with the meta involved now.
And coincidently, we did some beta testing with the first version of the army combat tracker last week -

:thinking:

Hmm, it sounds like perhaps its an issue resulting from the order of operations ?

I have re-written most of that code while integrating it with the nation armies / army combat tracker efforts.

Will do some testing to confirm I can reproduce what you are describing -it may have already been solved ;)