Hello everyone. Welcome to my Kingmaker writeup. I am the GM of a four-player party playing Kingmaker in Pathfinder 2nd edition, and I have some...opinions. What follows here is a small write up on what I would do differently if I were to run this campaign again. This also functions as advice for GMs who wish to run Kingmaker themselves.

Firstly, owing to that second purpose of this post, this is probably the most involved campaign I have ever seen or run. It has several moving parts (if you use them all, that is), and is extremely complex and hard to get right. I will be going over my house rules for my table, my house rules for Kingmaker itself, as well as the homebrew I used to make my life and the lives of my players easier (I'm talking about Vance and Kerenshara's Kingdom homebrew, but we'll get to that).

Part 0: My Party

I feel as though I should start out describing my party first. Currently as of writing this, the party is at level 5, so I can only say what I think they chose at character creation due to how Foundry works with leveling up. My party is comprised of the following: Branka, a hold-scarred orc who is a giant instinct barbarian that worships Erastil and has the Local Brigand background, Caspar Lindholm, a forge dwarf who is a fighter that chose Exacting Strike as his first class feat and has the Warrior background, Jhaan Firestorm, a desert elf who is a warpriest cleric of Sarenrae with the Field Medic background, and Kazrin, a mage automaton who is a school of mentalism flexible spellcasting wizard who chose experimental spellshaping as his arcane thesis and has the Magical Merchant background.

All of my players are mostly new to Pathfinder 2nd edition (Kazrin's player has played a little bit of PF2E before), but have either played or run games in Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition prior to playing in my Kingmaker game.

Part 0.5: My Table's House Rules

1. I use the Free Archetype variant rule.
2. I have decoupled spell attack proficiency from spell DC proficiency.
   1. All spellcasters who can currently become legendary in spell attacks become experts in spell attacks at 5th level, rather than 7th level, and masters in spell attacks at 13th level, rather than 15th level. No class will become legendary in spell attacks. Spell DC progression remains unchanged.
   2. All other spellcasters become experts in spell attacks at 11th level, and no longer become masters.
   3. If you select a spellcasting archetype, the master spellcasting benefits no longer make you a master in spell attack modifiers, though they still make you a master in spell DCs.
   4. Kineticists gain an impulse attack proficiency statistic separate from their class DC, which their impulse attacks use. Their impulse attack modifier uses the following formula: d20 roll + attribute modifier + impulse attack proficiency bonus + other bonuses + penalties. They start trained in impulse attacks at 1st level, become an expert at 5th level, and become a master at 13th level. They do not become legendary, and their class DC remains unchanged.
3. Named Staves gain an item bonus through a weapon potency rune.
   1. Every named staff (e.g. a staff of force barrage) gets a weapon potency rune appropriate for its level (a +1 rune for level 3-9 staves, a +2 rune for level 10-15 staves, and a +3 rune for level 16-20 staves).
   2. While wielding a staff, you gain an item bonus to your spell attacks (and not your spell DC) based on your staff's weapon potency rune.
   3. If the staff would be cheaper than its weapon potency rune, increase its Price to match its rune. This generally would require only minor adjustments (level 10 staves would need their Price bumped up by 15 to 35 gp, some level 16 staves would need their Price bumped up by 35 to 435 gp). If the staff's Price already matches or exceeds that of the rune, do not change its Price.
   4. If a staff loses its weapon potency rune (for instance, by transferring the rune out of the staff), it loses the ability to be prepared and cast spells until it regains that rune once more, or gains a stronger version of that rune.
   5. If a player wants to craft a personal staff, the resulting staff comes with a weapon potency rune appropriate for its level. If the player has one such rune and wants to supply it during the crafting process, its cost is deducted from the total crafting cost as normal.
   6. The item bonus to a kineticist's impulse attack modifier is increased from a major gate attenuator to +3, from +2. All other gate attenuators remain unchanged.
4. The item shadow signet is banned.
5. Two new spells are introduced: strike true, and unerring strike.
   1. Strike True functions as sure strike, but the spell costs two actions and you make a Strike as part of the spell, which benefits from the spell's effects (the spell therefore does not benefit other attacks), and the frequency restriction (introduced in one of the recent errata) is removed.
   2. Unerring Strike functions as sure strike, but you do not roll the attack twice (you still ignore circumstance penalties and specific flat checks as normal), and the frequency restriction is removed.
6. I am using XP leveling instead of milestone leveling, and the threshold for leveling up is increased from 1,000 XP to 1,500 XP.

Part 0.75: My Campaign's House Rules

1. You will not be allowed to buy items above your level in Restov. That is, if you see an item with a level that is higher than your character's level, you are unable to buy it (I had capped this here as Restov is a level 9 settlement that players have access to at level 1, and the party receives way more than the recommended amount of gold at the beginning of the campaign).
2. Rations will expire after 2 weeks of not using them.
3. All Precious Materials are uncommon.

Feel free to view Part 1 next as I get into the first part of the campaign.