Groups who loved The Witcher 3 's "become a lord" arc, Dragon Age: Awakening , or the Kingmaker CRPG.
The Kingmaker Companion Guide (separate PDF, ~$20) adds 9 fully-statted NPC companions with side quests and romance options. The base AP assumes you'll recruit generic followers. For the classic CRPG experience, you want the Companion Guide. The Bad 1. The Army Rules Are Underbaked The mass combat system (used for the "War of the River Kings" chapter) is simplified to the point of being dull—just opposed checks and HP pools. Most GMs on the Paizo forums handwave this or port the Troops rules from Bestiary 3 . pathfinder 2e kingmaker adventure path pdf
From levels 15-20, the adventure becomes a planar/feyscape dungeon crawl. Many encounters rely on complex mythic-style abilities (the "Mythic" rules are not in this book; you need Kingmaker: The Six Trials of Larazod or homebrew). Paizo left mythic for a future supplement, so the endgame feels abrupt. Groups who loved The Witcher 3 's "become
The 1E version had clunky kingdom rules. The 2E version (found in Chapter 10 and the Kingmaker Companion Guide ) is streamlined but still robust. Your party builds cities, assigns leaders, deals with random events, and goes to war using an army mini-game. It feels like a civ-building layer on top of an RPG. For the classic CRPG experience, you want the
Because it's a sandbox, groups can spend 5 sessions exploring random hexes and ignore the main plot. The book gives you "event triggers" (e.g., "After 3 months, X happens"), but novice GMs may struggle to keep tension high.