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GameMaster_Phil
2016-04-21, 01:25 PM
Hi All,

first post on these boards here. Aight, let's get going:

I have been playing and DMing a long time, but our group is until the end of the year on hiatus. But this here needs to be done.
I would like to create and DM an Old School Megadungeon for my group. I have DMing experience, but I find the modern model of "shared storytelling" and "adventure paths" and stuff like "death flags" to be not my cup of tea. I like a real challenge in my games.

I read up on the relevant blogs (like angry DM, hackslashmaster, dungeon fantastic, Benoists posts on rpg.net, the alexandrian) on how to create a megadungeon and what has to be done to get the "megadungeon feel". Maybe this will be discussed in another thread if people are interested.

I like 3E and Pathfinder by and large, all my books are for these systems, so Pathfinder it will be (with 3E elements, but later more). Do not bother suggesting other systems.

The Pathfinder System as found on d20pfsrd is... a mess. I found that it starts being cluttered up by badly thought up and unbalanced rules. So I need to introduce some house rules which I'd like to discuss here:

Allowed Books

Core Rulebook
Ultimate Magic
Ultimate Combat
APG
These books should meet the needs for conservative players. Anything not in these books from Paizo is banned.

Psionics Unleashed from Dreamscarred
Path of War from Dreamscarred. Expanded as well, if I can get my hands on a copy.
Tome of Battle. In case of redundant rules, use the Path of War equivalent. It is possible to trade 1 martial discipline like described in the Path of War book. The system is transparent, so a Crusader could end up with Silver Crane. I will allow a lot here and see how it works out in game.
I like the ToB and Dreamscarred stuff, and I would like to see my players use it. It has a good reputation.

Warlock from 3.5 is allowed, I found a conversion somewhere.


Other Rules for players

Crafting magical items is severely restricted. Only items from the core rulebook can be crafted at all without finding a blueprint. The rule that crafting requirements can be traded for a +5 skill check DC no longer exists.

Magic Marts do not exist. Do not expect to be able to obtain a specific magic item. A given trader only has a certain amount of items.

Experience:
The fast track for advancement is used.
XP for Encounters is reduced TO 10% of the normal value. If the encounter is somehow not permanently solved at first, it grants only 5% of the normal XP, and the other 5% at permanently solving the encounter.

1GP of treasure looted yields 1XP of experience. This XP is always evenly distributed over the whole party, and this only grants XP if there was some sort of risk involved (so robbing old ladies won't make you cast spells better, guys.) This way, characters are always at roughly WBL until level 10. I will worry about higher levels later.

There will be a lot of new, custom magic items for the players to loot and test. These are somewhat underpriced at sale, so players are encouraged to keep them. And I can hand them out earlier.

Game starts at level 1. All characters start the game with 1 fate point, which can be spent to save the characters' life once or turn a saving throw into a natural 20 even after the consequences are known (within reasonable time limits). Fate points do not regenerate. They are given out by the DM for doing major advances in the story, like entering a new dungeon level or thwarting a major cult. A character can have a maximum of 2 fate points.

Hard mode (optional)
At character creation, players can choose hard mode. This cannot be changed for a character. If so, the maximum fate point limit becomes 3. The character can only be ressurrected by any given spell once, however. The exception is Breath of Life. If you were once raised by Raise Dead, the spell will never again work on you. There are no other exceptions.

Assume that all NPCs, even if they don't have fate points, play hard mode.

GM Resources
Any 3E book and all PF books I consider necessary. But by and large, if I bring it, the players can take it. For example, 3.5 spells can be found in the form of magical spellbooks, which allow characters to prepare/ready the spells as long as they have the book.
Regarding monsters, builds and templates, I will hit the players with anything I find useful and/or entertaining.

Remember, I want to go for the Old School feel and the campaign is a megadungeon. Did I miss anything? Thoughts? Comments? Criticism? Questions? All is appreciated. Looking forward to your responses.

upho
2016-04-28, 06:16 PM
Sorry for the late reply, totally missed this thread.


The Pathfinder System as found on d20pfsrd is... a mess. I found that it starts being cluttered up by badly thought up and unbalanced rules. So I need to introduce some house rules which I'd like to discuss here:

Allowed Books

Core Rulebook
Ultimate Magic
Ultimate Combat
APG
These books should meet the needs for conservative players. Anything not in these books from Paizo is banned.

Psionics Unleashed from Dreamscarred
Path of War from Dreamscarred. Expanded as well, if I can get my hands on a copy.
Tome of Battle. In case of redundant rules, use the Path of War equivalent. It is possible to trade 1 martial discipline like described in the Path of War book. The system is transparent, so a Crusader could end up with Silver Crane. I will allow a lot here and see how it works out in game.
I like the ToB and Dreamscarred stuff, and I would like to see my players use it. It has a good reputation.

Warlock from 3.5 is allowed, I found a conversion somewhere.Seems to me you're experienced enough and ready to put in the necessary work to ban individual stuff, rather than using the IMO frankly weird and arbitrary method of judging the suitability of an option based on the book in which it was first published. There's a potentially big gain in allowing all Paizo sources, giving your players access to fun and generally well-made options such as the hybrid classes from ACG and plenty of interesting/useful stuff for the classes in most need of a buff (although there are a lot of useless underpowered trash to sift through as well). At the same time, the CRB alone contains many options which can easily create a highly unbalanced party, while many of the later/"less core" Paizo options actually compensate for this somewhat IME (take a look at the superior Unchained (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/unchained-classes) versions of the Monk and Rogue for examples of this). This is still true if your players will use PoW and/or ToB stuff, albeit to a lesser extent than otherwise. In short, I'd say options published in Paizo sources besides those you mention would at the most only slightly increase the risk of ending up with an unbalanced party, while there's a much greater chance those options will have the opposite effect. But most importantly, allowing all Paizo sources vastly increases the number of viable character concepts.

In addition, I highly recommend cutting down on combat feat taxes, using house rules along these lines (http://theworldissquare.com/feat-taxes-in-pathfinder/).

In my game, one of the very few things I actually flat out banned is full caster spell progression, so no spells above 3rd before 9th level, and no spells at all above 6th (unless given as special rewards). Though it should be noted I also offer homebrew PrCs to compensate full casters (see for example the Coven Agent in my sig below).

Also, I think you should be aware the ToB/PoW classes can/will be much stronger if you use the classic old-school attrition style to wear out the party's limited resources, since those classes typically don't have any vital per-day abilities and can thus remain at/near peak level regardless of how many encounters you throw at them between rests. After the first levels, many of them will also be able to access limitless out-of-combat healing. This shouldn't be problematic if you plan accordingly though, and I'd adjust play style any day before excluding PoW options - they're simply too awesome IMO.


Crafting magical items is severely restricted. Only items from the core rulebook can be crafted at all without finding a blueprint. The rule that crafting requirements can be traded for a +5 skill check DC no longer exists.

Magic Marts do not exist. Do not expect to be able to obtain a specific magic item. A given trader only has a certain amount of items.This sounds fine, provided you're aware of what the PCs actually want and plan to give them at the very least any vital stuff as treasure. There are unfortunately a lot of otherwise great concepts that are mechanically highly dependent on having the right magic items. This is typically true for martial builds (ie those with 4/9 spell progression or less), so be careful to ensure their gear is up to scratch or the limited treasure risks punishing them much more harshly than the casters. I have my players make wish-lists in my game, which has the added boon of often sparing me from having to search for suitable treasure all the time... :smalltongue:

Hope this helps!

GameMaster_Phil
2017-01-04, 02:54 AM
Sorry, I lost the thread from the Radar after it dropped from the first page. But I have some new info which hit the same topic. I have started this project and have several sessions under my belt. You will find my final rules and some results below the quotes.


Sorry for the late reply, totally missed this thread.

Seems to me you're experienced enough and ready to put in the necessary work to ban individual stuff, rather than using the IMO frankly weird and arbitrary method of judging the suitability of an option based on the book in which it was first published. There's a potentially big gain in allowing all Paizo sources, giving your players access to fun and generally well-made options such as the hybrid classes from ACG and plenty of interesting/useful stuff for the classes in most need of a buff (although there are a lot of useless underpowered trash to sift through as well). At the same time, the CRB alone contains many options which can easily create a highly unbalanced party, while many of the later/"less core" Paizo options actually compensate for this somewhat IME (take a look at the superior {link removed, I lack Post count --GMPhil} versions of the Monk and Rogue for examples of this). This is still true if your players will use PoW and/or ToB stuff, albeit to a lesser extent than otherwise. In short, I'd say options published in Paizo sources besides those you mention would at the most only slightly increase the risk of ending up with an unbalanced party, while there's a much greater chance those options will have the opposite effect. But most importantly, allowing all Paizo sources vastly increases the number of viable character concepts.


I agree with you that the individual decision of banning and using stuff would be perfect. But I simply don't have the time, which IMO is a big reason for people deciding on a per-book-basis. I will post my updated Old School Pathfinder List below. My group has two very skilled players and two rather inexperienced players, so imbalanced power level at my table stems from the veterans out-optimizing the rookies. This is why I want to condense the available options, because the veterans will use them while the rookies will probably not, making the problem worse. Also, I hope to attract new drop-in players, so I want to keep it simple. That's very important to me.
I agree on the Unchained Classes, they look rather good. I reserved the right to allow players to rebuild as Unchained class if their original class underperforms. So far, I have a rogue who has proven extremely useful in a Megadungeon environment, so I don't see the need right now.



In addition, I highly recommend cutting down on combat feat taxes, using house rules {link removed because I R noob --GMPhil}.

Again, they look well made, but I don't think the time and effort justifies the result. TBH, I have pretty much given up on trying to fix combat feats. Sad but true.



In my game, one of the very few things I actually flat out banned is full caster spell progression, so no spells above 3rd before 9th level, and no spells at all above 6th (unless given as special rewards). Though it should be noted I also offer homebrew PrCs to compensate full casters (see for example the Coven Agent in my sig below).

Good idea. I may need to use this if casters get out of control. But we are low-level right now, so no problems so far.


Also, I think you should be aware the ToB/PoW classes can/will be much stronger if you use the classic old-school attrition style to wear out the party's limited resources, since those classes typically don't have any vital per-day abilities and can thus remain at/near peak level regardless of how many encounters you throw at them between rests. After the first levels, many of them will also be able to access limitless out-of-combat healing. This shouldn't be problematic if you plan accordingly though, and I'd adjust play style any day before excluding PoW options - they're simply too awesome IMO.

I know :smallwink:. I'm counting on it. I consider this a feature.



This sounds fine, provided you're aware of what the PCs actually want and plan to give them at the very least any vital stuff as treasure. There are unfortunately a lot of otherwise great concepts that are mechanically highly dependent on having the right magic items. This is typically true for martial builds (ie those with 4/9 spell progression or less), so be careful to ensure their gear is up to scratch or the limited treasure risks punishing them much more harshly than the casters. I have my players make wish-lists in my game, which has the added boon of often sparing me from having to search for suitable treasure all the time... :smalltongue:
Hope this helps!

Thanks for the input! See below for my attempt to address this.

Aight, I started the Dragonspear Depths already, and did several sessions. Here are my final rules:

Allowed Rules for players:
CRB
APG
Magus and Archetypes from UM, spells and feats for the Magus from UM are allowed but exclusive to the Magus.
A warlock conversion I stole somewhere.
Path of War + Expanded with restrictions & errata.
ToB with conversion.

Races: Core & Common races from the PRD. Alternate Race features restricted to the MM entry or the APG.

PB 25, no buydown below 8
Level 1 start for all characters.

House Rules:
Magic Item Creation is severely restricted, the +5 on DC rule for waiving requirements is gone.
Magic Item trade is severely restricted and almost impossible.

Fast XP-track.
Killing enemies does not yield XP.
Secured treasure (removed from dungeon) grants 1 XP per GP value. Consumables grant half their market price in XP.

Classes without spell progression get +2 skill points per level
Classes with knowledge (arcane) get Knowledge (psionics) on their skill list
Classes with full BAB get knowledge (martial) on their skill list.

Tome of Battle Classes can add exactly one maneuver school from the three martial books to their available schools at level 1. PoW(E) classes can trade one of their available schools to another from the PoW books at level 1. This can not be changed later. Martial traditions and class templates are not allowed.
Crusader: d12 HD, gets stances on the same levels as a warder.
Warblade: Heavy Armor proficiency. Bonus feats are all combat and teamwork feats.

Figters get Weapon Aptitude for their feats gained as a fighter and their class features on level 1. Fate points as in original post.

Table Rules:

This is an open table, so it does not matter who appears for the session from my player pool. Sessions have to start and end in town or the XP and loot from the session are lost.
All new chars start at level 1 regardless of the levels of the other characters. No XP or gold is given to absent players.
Players are encouraged to have multiple characters, picking one of them for each session. Team building is done at the start of the session. The composition of levels and or characters is up to the players.

If this is still interesting I can post some experiences if you guys want.