My Pathfinder Player's Guide (for Ravenloft)

[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 thought I'd share it here and get some feedback and more eyes on it.

Included are a couple new races (my PF takes on the caliban and half-Vistani) as well as more than a few house rules I've been playing with. Some of the new rules come from the Pathfinder books (mostly Ultimate Combat), while a couple are all me.
I've also stolen the Harrowing variant of the Hero Point rule from the Carrion Crown adventure path and overlaid that with the Tarokka deck.

Let me know what you think.

[starfalconkd]

This is excellent work. Personally, I would love to use these as written but I think my players would faint at the ability score array.
The magic system seems open to some abuse but I imagine you will be keeping your pcs on a tight leash in that respect.
How will you handle people taking item creation feats? That would work against the rarity of magic.
I'm very curious to hear how the play test works out, especially the ritualistic magic system and the critical hit rules.
One last question: How are you handling fear, horror and madness checks? I was considering these when my group discussed Ravenloft and didn't want to make them all Will saves. It would make Will saves far too important and encourage optimizing towards that end while penalizing anyone without a good Will save. My first thought was to make Fear and Madness Will saves and Horror save Fortitude based.

[Jester of the FoS]

This is excellent work. Personally, I would love to use these as written but I think my players would faint at the ability score array.

That's just for this campaign as I've never done it before and the idea of being "NPCs" is fun. My current campaign (one session left) was the Dragonlance War of the Lance modules, starting at level 6 with the party now being level 14, so going to crazy low-power is a pallet cleanser.

The magic system seems open to some abuse but I imagine you will be keeping your pcs on a tight leash in that respect.

It will require some playtesting and will make buff spells and summoning spells more potent. But a lot of those durations were reduced from 3.0 to 3.5 anyway. I prefer the idea of buffs lasting multiple combats as it means fewer adjustments to character sheets.

How will you handle people taking item creation feats? That would work against the rarity of magic.

Good question.
Mostly I'll be asking them not to and keeping a tight rein on gold. If they don't have hundreds of gp they won't be able to make tonnes of items.
I'll be trying to give out unique items. Magic will be rare but after level 3 or 4 the players are the types of characters that will being doing rare things and getting that one or two magical items.

I'm very curious to hear how the play test works out, especially the ritualistic magic system and the critical hit rules.

More than any other system, the critical hit rules will need to be playtested.
I was unhappy with the Pathfinder version from Ultimate Combat as it removed the confirmation roll from the player to the opponent. And confirmation rolls take much of the drama away from 20s.
I wanted a 20 = crit system (ala 4th edition) but also wanted to keep the various options for weapons (high crit weapons, improved threat range weapons, etc). High crit was easy but finesse weapons with a higher crit range proved difficult. I'm still not 100% happy with those rules.

One last question: How are you handling fear, horror and madness checks? I was considering these when my group discussed Ravenloft and didn't want to make them all Will saves. It would make Will saves far too important and encourage optimizing towards that end while penalizing anyone without a good Will save. My first thought was to make Fear and Madness Will saves and Horror save Fortitude based.

I'll be using the Madness rules from the Pathfinder Gamemastery Guide as that seams easiest.

For fear and horror, I'm going for something more rules light.
Sometimes, I'll be calling for fear checks, which would be the standard Will save vs. fear, if only to let fighters and related classes get class bonuses. This will generally be any time I want there to be a mechanical penalty for fear in combat, when I want them to be shaken or panniced.
The rest of the time I'm leaving it for role-playing. So if the player role-plays being frightened or horrified I can give them a little reward.

When you get down to brass tacks, Fear and Horror checks really a mechanical beat stick to enforce role-playing. "No, your character IS frightened. They failed. Suck it up and take the penalty." I'm going to try the carrot and reward players who act afraid at reasonable times.

I picked-up some skull beads from a Michael's craft store last Halloween and have them in an old dice bag. I'll hand them out for acting frightened and (as mentioned in the document) let them be cashed in to let the player do a little story manipulation. So good role-playing grants story-based rewards.

[starfalconkd]

That's just for this campaign as I've never done it before and the idea of being "NPCs" is fun. My current campaign (one session left) was the Dragonlance War of the Lance modules, starting at level 6 with the party now being level 14, so going to crazy low-power is a pallet cleanser.

I can understand that. But my player's are relatively new to the game, three of them have only ever role played with me. My typical games tend to be 20 or 25 point buys. Of course your numbers would definitely add to the fear...

It will require some playtesting and will make buff spells and summoning spells more potent. But a lot of those durations were reduced from 3.0 to 3.5 anyway. I prefer the idea of buffs lasting multiple combats as it means fewer adjustments to character sheets.

I was more thinking spells like Haste lasting minutes can be a bit intense. Summoning spells are kind of double edged in Ravenloft and other low level buff spells (Bull's Strength, etc) lasting 10 min/level is actually kind of balancing given the lack of magical items.

For fear and horror, I'm going for something more rules light...

I'd love to do this, but I have one player (possibly two) it just would not work with.

[Jester of the FoS]

Working on Dark Power check rules too:
https://www.box.com/s/a6573e5ae5f0db805905

(oh, and here are the Dreamwalking rules mentioned below:
https://www.box.com/shared/yxi9ve1c8k
keeping them here so latecomers can understand what was going on...)

[Five]

I'll definitely be taking a closer look at that Guide to Dreamwalking, as well as a doubletake on The Nightmare Lands boxed set.

IMC I had/have a NPC, Harold Median, aka "the Sleeping Detective". For a fee he'd navigate the dreamworld to do his client's bidding. In most cases it is to spy on and dig up dirt on a mark, whose 'scent' he'd get from a personal object (more often than not stolen and provided by the client). Anyway, as I wasn't aware of the boxed set at the time I used him, or any other dreamscape-type rules, I had to completely wing the dreamworld (the PCs got entangled in a subplot). If I had my time back, and was a little better prepared, I think I could've made a more colourful scenario. While I don't regret what went down (maybe a little in regards to the comic book-ish last name), I'm thinking now that once I 'storyboard' some more I'm going to bring back this narcoleptic gumshoe..

Thanks Jester.

[Jester of the FoS]

I'll definitely be taking a closer look at that Guide to Dreamwalking, as well as a doubletake on The Nightmare Lands boxed set.

Crud, that link was meant to go to my Powers Checks rules.
The Dreamwalking rules were fun to make (and are available elsewhere on the FoS site).

[Blackest Sheep]

Thanks for the guide, I downloaded it after browsing through it. Just from a quick glance I gather that I did many things quite similar when I adapted Pathfinder and Ravenloft. Do you have any previous experience with the Wound & Vitality system? I was thinking about using something like that, but decided against it, as most of my players are not familiar with 3e/PF and I feared that the system is quite complex already.

[Jester of the FoS]

Do you have any previous experience with the Wound & Vitality system? I was thinking about using something like that, but decided against it, as most of my players are not familiar with 3e/PF and I feared that the system is quite complex already.

My prior Ravenloft campaign used it, but it was short so I don't have as much experience as I'd like.

I like it because it adds this base survivability to characters through this extra stack of hp, but unlike 4e it's not as easily replenished and can become slowly depleted over the course of an adventure.

It can be a little more monster friendly, in that players fighter multiple fights and their wound points slowly trickle down. But monsters are unlikely to be crit enough to drop early due to WP loss. I used the earlier version from Unearthed Arcana where crits just did normal damage but to wounds, so crits felt far less special as they often only did the same amount of damage at the end of the fight. Having crits do something to Vitality and a little extra to wounds means crits still seem special to players. That's important.

I like the PF version's mix of 4e's heal-fully-between-fights with earlier editon's heal-slowly-over-days. Wound points are a nice track of actual physical damage; you just need to describe and narrate the fight differently for the vitality loss.

[Blackest Sheep]

Thank you for your insight. I will take a closer look and think about implementing it. I believe the system is a good fit, especially for low magic campaigns.

[brilliantlight]

Working on Dark Power check rules too:
https://www.box.com/s/a6573e5ae5f0db805905

(oh, and here are the Dreamwalking rules mentioned below:
https://www.box.com/shared/yxi9ve1c8k
keeping them here so latecomers can understand what was going on...)

The one thing I personally would change is the idea of LG is automatically more good than CG or CE is automatically more evil than LE but that is just me. Most of my powerful villians are LE as I see that as far more dangerous than CE. It is like comparing Nazi Germany with Hell's Angels. Disorganized evil can only so big a threat.

[Jester of the FoS]

Working on Dark Power check rules too:
https://www.box.com/s/a6573e5ae5f0db805905

(oh, and here are the Dreamwalking rules mentioned below:
https://www.box.com/shared/yxi9ve1c8k
keeping them here so latecomers can understand what was going on...)

The one thing I personally would change is the idea of LG is automatically more good than CG or CE is automatically more evil than LE but that is just me. Most of my powerful villians are LE as I see that as far more dangerous than CE. It is like comparing Nazi Germany with Hell's Angels. Disorganized evil can only so big a threat.

The idea is, someone who is doing evil acts is also breaking the law, which is more of a transgression for someone who claims to care about legality and order than an anarchist.

[brilliantlight]

Working on Dark Power check rules too:
https://www.box.com/s/a6573e5ae5f0db805905

(oh, and here are the Dreamwalking rules mentioned below:
https://www.box.com/shared/yxi9ve1c8k
keeping them here so latecomers can understand what was going on...)

The one thing I personally would change is the idea of LG is automatically more good than CG or CE is automatically more evil than LE but that is just me. Most of my powerful villians are LE as I see that as far more dangerous than CE. It is like comparing Nazi Germany with Hell's Angels. Disorganized evil can only so big a threat.

The idea is, someone who is doing evil acts is also breaking the law, which is more of a transgression for someone who claims to care about legality and order than an anarchist.

I guess that is one way to look at it. The thing is that it is one of my pet peeves that somehow WOTC doesn't grasp the fact that orginized evil is just as evil as disorginized evil but more dangerous.

[Jester of the FoS]

The one thing I personally would change is the idea of LG is automatically more good than CG or CE is automatically more evil than LE but that is just me. Most of my powerful villians are LE as I see that as far more dangerous than CE. It is like comparing Nazi Germany with Hell's Angels. Disorganized evil can only so big a threat.

The idea is, someone who is doing evil acts is also breaking the law, which is more of a transgression for someone who claims to care about legality and order than an anarchist.

I guess that is one way to look at it. The thing is that it is one of my pet peeves that somehow WOTC doesn't grasp the fact that orginized evil is just as evil as disorginized evil but more dangerous.

I think WotC and a lot of writers know LE (or Evil in 4e terms) is still plenty bad, being the alignment of hobgoblins and devils and more.

The other reason for the different modifiers is, of course, different modifiers. I wanted a greater range of alignment modifiers beyond just good vs. evil vs. neutral.
And I wanted the paladin or shining LG character to really feel the pinch when the commit an evil deed, I wanted it to be more dangerous than the scoundrel heart-of-gold CG hero crossing a line. At the same time, I acknowledge that a crazy berserker creature, the typical agenda-less agent of chaos that is a CE monster, is less likely to interest the dark powers and that a LE character who has rules and ends up breaking them anyway.

[Jester of the FoS]

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