My Pathfinder Player's Guide (for Ravenloft)

[herkles]

neat. Btw jester how does epicwords compare as a campaign manager to say something like obsidan portal?

[Jester of the FoS]

neat. Btw jester how does epicwords compare as a campaign manager to say something like obsidan portal?

Much of the same. But enough differences that I like it better.
It's a third of the cost if you choose to pay. The calendar and forum features are free (and the forums let you post as NPCs do you can do stuff in-character). Which is nice. And the wiki and other places lets you hyperlink to images rather than only pulling from pics stored on the site.

[Ocule]

My group has moved on to pathfinder, from 4e. About damn time and I am running carrion crown adventure path to kind of give them a taste of ravenloft without drowning them in lore, backstory, campaign rules, altered psionics and magic and everything else. Wanted to ask though about this, what sets it apart from mistfinder player's guide? And what of the 3.5 ravenloft player's handbook? Also how come you decided to go with point based corruption like in the 4e book. I tried it for 4e when we played that and i found you gained and lost corruption way too easily way it was written then.

Also have not played with wounds and vigor system? How do those play out in the campaign?

[Jester of the FoS]

Wanted to ask though about this, what sets it apart from mistfinder player's guide?

What set's it apart? I wrote it not someone else.
I was unhappy with the races in Mistfinder. That was one of my big reasons.
Caliban were the half-orc replacement, so I disagreed with making them so different from half-orcs. And half-Vistani didn't feel right.

I didn't feel the need to convert feats and prestige classes, so Mistfinder is a good source for that. Although, a number of feats made better traits in my mind, and made it into that section of my guide.

And what of the 3.5 ravenloft player's handbook?

I love the flavour of the 3.5e Ravenloft books, but the crunch and rules were often sub-par.

Also how come you decided to go with point based corruption like in the 4e book. I tried it for 4e when we played that and i found you gained and lost corruption way too easily way it was written then.

I wrote the 4e guides, so it was my system. That's why I'm leaning to that. I

'm not entirely happy with it, especially for Pathfinder, but I'm doing a low corruption game with good-ish heroes, so it's less of a priority. I'd unfinished. I started making the conversion from 3e to PF but never quite finished.

The ease of getting rid of corruption felt very 4e. It's not a system - or at least the tone of the system - doesn't lend itself to long lasting penalties.
I also wanted a more active and fluid power check system, where corruption came and went. But also one where you didn't have a lot of saves or checks, as 4e wasn't built for that. You can't make avoidance checks or saves the same way you can in Pathfinder.
Looking back, it was a little quick, but easy enough to increase.
For Pathfinder, I'll probably require a Will DC or related Dark Power check to see if corruption fades.

Also have not played with wounds and vigor system? How do those play out in the campaign?

So far so good. I like them better than the armour as DR rule.

They're fun as first level PCs have that little extra survivability. But the slower healing means their loathe to take advantage of the significantly higher hp.
The PF version is a little more solid as critical hits reduce wounds a slower, yet not so slow as to be irrelevant. (Although, I tweaked it IIRC).
The issue in both is that wound points seldom come into play for monsters, but PCs got whittled down over successive fights.
There's also the related problem of all monster essentially having hp and thus fights go on longer. I fixed this by having NPCs only have hp while monsters auto-fail their checks to keep fighting at their wound threshhold (1/2 wp) so they have roughly comparable life to the unmodified version. (But, I can also change that rule on the fly if a monster gets owned too quickly.)

[Ocule]

Well i do like it alot so far, i might poach parts of it if i can talk my group into ravenloft. Im watching to see how they enjoy Ustalav, feels like a watered down version of ravenloft. Its ravenloft, without the things that make ravenloft awesome like darklords/dark powers/vistani and of course all the awesome corruption and altered magic and psionics. One of my player's is interested but is afraid the setting of constant horror and despair will get stale after so often.

Other than the corruption and houserules I think its a good conversion so far. Not saying those are bad just dont know if i like them enough to use them. The stat array and npc class thing confused me a little on why, but im guessing you dont intend to ever play up to level 20. But the stuff on races is very nice.

[Jester of the FoS]

The stat array and npc class thing confused me a little on why, but im guessing you dont intend to ever play up to level 20. But the stuff on races is very nice.

I'm a mean DM who wanted my players to start as weak flunkies. To earn that PC status. Most of them survived, but one ended up short an eye.
If my players make it to level 10 I'll be impressed. This isn't likely to be a 1-20 campaign. I'm not sure Ravenloft can handle that easily. Sticking to low levels and playing for a year and change and then maybe moving on to Rise of the Runelords.

[MichaelTumey]

Well not to drop a Kaidan discussion here, Jonathan McAnulty, the author of most of the Kaidan material posted this in the comments portion of my Kickstarter page, where he discusses running a horror game for high levels. Something we'll eventually have to deal with when we eventually try to build a 1-20th level AP for Kaidan.

While most Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder games are not horror games, I do not believe that the rules themselves preclude horror. Nor do I think that high-level play precludes horror (though it does make it trickier). The reason I believe this is because I have used the rules to run horror games and have even written and run a high-level horror adventure (it was called Points of Possession and was available at one time free through ENWorld, but I think the file got lost in one of the transitions on that site).

Successful role-playing horror games, in my opinion, depend on a combination of things. You need to be able to induce a subtle frustration, accompanied by a sense of helplessness, in the players. You also need to be able to impart a sense of wrongness or displacement through the storyline as well as the tone and mood of the game. The first of these is harder as the characters advance in power, but so long as the GM remembers the PCs are limited and does not allow them to become gods unto themselves in the game, you can always manipulate things so that the PCs do find themselves thwarted, frustrated and helpless to prevent this or that tragedy. This must be done carefully, so that the game remains fun, and the players themselves should always have the hope of success, but somethings should just be impossible to prevent, either because they are tragedies already past (such as in a haunting), or because there are forces at work that are nigh-unstoppable (the unfolding of a curse). The best horror games are going to manipulate events so that the PCs bring their own tragedy down upon them or those they love (sidenote: there are certain seeming-sociopathic players who seem to lack all empathy for the game-world or NPCs - such players are nearly impossible to do horror games with - you should know your group before attempting horror).

The second ingredient: the sense of wrongness, is, I think, easily induced at any level. There are some things that just cause a reaction in most people (snakes, darkness, disease, tentacles, ghosts, dead children, etc.). Such things should not be overused so that the imagination does not become desensitized, but these ingredients, when mixed in with the overmentioned sense of helplessness, induce horror.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Finally got a chance to read all the way through this. Excellent work! I'd love to see the fluff parts pulled out as a generic players' guide for Ravenloft. (Not that the crunch is bad, it seems solid, but all the alternate rule systems are more campaign specific). If I were starting a new campaign, I'd hand this over to players in a heartbeat.

[Hazgarn]

Yeah, my game isn't Pathfinder, but I've snatched parts of this guide for the setting page on my campaign wiki (with credit given). Specifically the introduction and the list of commonly known facts.

[The Giamarga]

Finally got a chance to read all the way through this. Excellent work! I'd love to see the fluff parts pulled out as a generic players' guide for Ravenloft. (Not that the crunch is bad, it seems solid, but all the alternate rule systems are more campaign specific). If I were starting a new campaign, I'd hand this over to players in a heartbeat.

+1. This would be a very handy download.

[koesherbacon]

I have a Ravenloft campaign coming up in a few months and have been poking away at a player's guide for the setting, found here:
https://www.box.com/s/8acdf69d7dc23d53e6ac

I would really like to download your PF Player's Guide, but the link above is dead. Can you please re-share it?

I'd be happy to mirror it for you as we'll if you're worried about bandwidth.

Thanks a lot!

[Jester of the FoS]

I have a Ravenloft campaign coming up in a few months and have been poking away at a player's guide for the setting, found here:
https://www.box.com/s/8acdf69d7dc23d53e6ac

I would really like to download your PF Player's Guide, but the link above is dead. Can you please re-share it?

I'd be happy to mirror it for you as we'll if you're worried about bandwidth.

Thanks a lot!

Link

[koesherbacon]

Link

Thank you very much!

Uploaded a new version of my Player's Guide, now with 100% more stolen art.

My players have made characters but the campaign start is delayed due to busy summer schedules.
Also created an EpicWords page for the campaign here:
http://www.epicwords.com/campaigns/2470

Did you take the art from Deviant Art? I've found that if you ask nicely and tell them you're making something not-for-profit post of the artist there rarely want to charge you for including their works. I think they're happy just to know someone likes their art enough to want to include it in something like this!

[Jester of the FoS]

Uploaded a new version of my Player's Guide, now with 100% more stolen art.

Did you take the art from Deviant Art? I've found that if you ask nicely and tell them you're making something not-for-profit post of the artist there rarely want to charge you for including their works. I think they're happy just to know someone likes their art enough to want to include it in something like this!

Most or the art is pulled from the e-portfolio of Talon, the artist who did pieces for the 3e Ravenloft books.
Using the pieces seemed okay since it was for personal use.

Since I'm leaving the document up, I should really remove the art, credit the artists, or check the usage policy on his website.

[TheSalemlord]

Jester,
I was wondering..would you make a Ravenloft Player's Guide for 5e similar to this one? or is already part of the 5e planning?