First time DMing PF - Requesting assistance/advice.

[gurgleflep]

Heya people, I'm in need of some assistance. I've DM'd 3.5 before but never Pathfinder - and I've only ever played that once - so I would like some advice. I would like to start the party (only two players) off as level fives.

What races are playable right away and what level should races such as drow elves become playable? There aren't any level adjustments or ECL, so I'm more than a little confused.

Is there anything I should avoid letting the players use? Feats, spells, magic items, etc.

Any other helpful advice? There are so many questions I can't even think of asking!

[Psyren]

What races are playable right away and what level should races such as drow elves become playable? There aren't any level adjustments or ECL, so I'm more than a little confused.

Drow are playable with no adjustment right from level 1. Basically, PF powered up all the base classes so that there'd be a wider range of allowable concepts. So you can have an Aasimar and a Half-Orc or even a full Orc in the same party without any of them feeling underpowered.



Is there anything I should avoid letting the players use? Feats, spells, magic items, etc.

Basically just run like you would 3.5 for the most part, the classes haven't changed much. The main thing you'll want to get your head around are the changes to combat maneuvers like grappling and tripping. It's simpler to calculate but they're also harder to pull off due to how quickly CMD rises.



Any other helpful advice? There are so many questions I can't even think of asking!

It's a bit dated but Saph's guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7609693) is a good overview of the changes to core. So I would start there, as well as Paizo's own conversion guide available for free download from their site.

[gurgleflep]

Well the race bit comes in pretty handy, that will keep one of my players rather happy :smallsmile:

Well that seems pretty straight forward, thanks.

Thanks for linking to that, I'll begin reading through it now :smallcool:

[gr8artist]

Ehh, I would disagree about the race thing. While yes, there is some truth to the idea that the strength of the classes outshines the benefits of race selection, I would still advise you to keep an eye out for metagaming high-op douche-bags. I had a guy who looked at PF's rules for races and templates, saw that there was no level adjustment now, and rolled up a vampire drow. When we told him that it wasn't fair that he was so much stronger than everyone, he said I should just throw bigger monsters at the party. We had similar trouble with a centaur, a half-ogre, and a half-dragon.
My advice: If you're starting at 5, take a look at the Race Points that each race possesses. (Using the rules from the Race Builder, it lists the most common races with their construction costs). If anybody wants a race with 15-25 or so, then he's got 1 LA. More than that, then 2 LA.
Bottom line, if one of your characters gets a lot more stats, or resistances, or whatever, then he needs a slight nerf to keep it fair. Would you give one of the characters a +2 STR/CON belt at level 1? Probably not. So why let someone play a race with 4 more ability points than everyone else?

[Bhaakon]

The race points aren't all that useful in determining how powerful that character might be, to be honest. The synergy between race and class is far more important. A human spontaneous caster, for example, has a huge leg up because it can spend its favored class bonus to get more spells known, but that's not at all reflected in its unspectacular RP total.

If you're starting from low levels, than you should mostly be more concerned about specific problematic abilities of individual races. You'll probably want to ban races with fly speed, or that gets access to particularly useful spells as SLAs, just because those can be significant advantages for a lower level character. Fortunately, most classes hare alternate racial traits that trade away problematic abilities, so that the player can still play that race.

And, for god's sake, don't let anyone convince you that the drow noble is the same as the stock drow.

[Psyren]

Ehh, I would disagree about the race thing. While yes, there is some truth to the idea that the strength of the classes outshines the benefits of race selection, I would still advise you to keep an eye out for metagaming high-op douche-bags. I had a guy who looked at PF's rules for races and templates, saw that there was no level adjustment now, and rolled up a vampire drow. When we told him that it wasn't fair that he was so much stronger than everyone, he said I should just throw bigger monsters at the party. We had similar trouble with a centaur, a half-ogre, and a half-dragon.

In PF, LA roughly equals CR (or more accurately, HD+class levels+CR adjustment = ECL) using the rough guidelines in Bestiary I. And the book points out that DMs should be especially willing to exercise their veto power if the PC wants to play a monster race, so you had even more onus to say no. You shouldn't let the players try to bully you over stuff like this at any time, but especially not when the book tells you to be strict.



Bottom line, if one of your characters gets a lot more stats, or resistances, or whatever, then he needs a slight nerf to keep it fair. Would you give one of the characters a +2 STR/CON belt at level 1? Probably not. So why let someone play a race with 4 more ability points than everyone else?

Drow are fine. The SR is often more hindrance than help and the bonus is pretty small anyway (it starts at half what it was in 3.5.) They get the same stat budget as most other races.

[gurgleflep]

I don't really know how to reply to all of this, but it's rather helpful - thank you all :smallbiggrin: