Ptolus in 5th Edition?

[Baptor]

Thinking of running Monte Cook's Ptolus Campaign Setting in 5th edition.

1. Has anyone tried this? How did it go? What obstacles did you face?

2. I've never played the setting but have always been interested in it. Has anyone had any experience with it at all?

3. Any additional thoughts on this setting and using it in 5e?

[RazDelacroix]

I once held the Ptolus book in my hands...

It was forged to break doors and to be a veritable weapon against lawbreakers.


From what I remember reading of it, while it was a d20 compatible book, it should be usable for 5th edition with maybe minimal adjustments. Granted it's been 10 years since I've glanced at it, so take that with a grain of salt and have fun!

[JPMuffin]

I am currently running Ptolus, loosely, as a setting in 5e. Five players in the party, 1 is new to role-playing, 1 played advanced and 2nd edition, and all are new to 5e... so we're learning this as we go.

Compared to 3.0, magic and magic abilities are more prevalent while magic items are not. In my campaign, I simply dropped the magic item dealers, which fits my style anyhow. You could keep the 3.0 & 3.5 gold and magic items and discard the 5e, but some sort of a compromise needs to happen, 5e doesn't require the bonuses from prior editions. 5e economy is tied into the Downtime activities, which has a much lower yield in gold pieces... I like it.

I haven't used the NPC stat blocks much, mostly swiping names or personalities. A major NPC villain would need to be re-tooled before introducing them, or just create a new one.

That said, combat has been my biggest struggle as a DM. I've heard many talk about how overpowered 5e players are, but I'm not seeing it. My players will drop single monsters quickly, but struggle versus mobs of low level creatures. For a party level 3, I dropped 2 players with a pair of Minotaur skeletons and the party had to retreat. Party level 3-4, I dropped the tank and very nearly a TPK vs 8 Lizardmen and a re-skinned Giant Octopus (the 1st Lizardmen Shaman did it with a Heat Metal spell). In prior editions, a challenging combat encounter was 2-4 challenge ratings above the party, so I'm still trying to find a decent balance.

That said, I love the setting, love Monte's intro on Urban Campaigns, and love the plethora of content at my fingertips.

[pwykersotz]

I am currently running Ptolus, loosely, as a setting in 5e. Five players in the party, 1 is new to role-playing, 1 played advanced and 2nd edition, and all are new to 5e... so we're learning this as we go.

Compared to 3.0, magic and magic abilities are more prevalent while magic items are not. In my campaign, I simply dropped the magic item dealers, which fits my style anyhow. You could keep the 3.0 & 3.5 gold and magic items and discard the 5e, but some sort of a compromise needs to happen, 5e doesn't require the bonuses from prior editions. 5e economy is tied into the Downtime activities, which has a much lower yield in gold pieces... I like it.

I haven't used the NPC stat blocks much, mostly swiping names or personalities. A major NPC villain would need to be re-tooled before introducing them, or just create a new one.

That said, combat has been my biggest struggle as a DM. I've heard many talk about how overpowered 5e players are, but I'm not seeing it. My players will drop single monsters quickly, but struggle versus mobs of low level creatures. For a party level 3, I dropped 2 players with a pair of Minotaur skeletons and the party had to retreat. Party level 3-4, I dropped the tank and very nearly a TPK vs 8 Lizardmen and a re-skinned Giant Octopus (the 1st Lizardmen Shaman did it with a Heat Metal spell). In prior editions, a challenging combat encounter was 2-4 challenge ratings above the party, so I'm still trying to find a decent balance.

That said, I love the setting, love Monte's intro on Urban Campaigns, and love the plethora of content at my fingertips.

I did much this same thing. I more or less threw away existing statblocks and gave the names to 5e compliant ones. Basically, I used the setting and didn't use any of the mechanics. I never got anywhere close to the end, but it was pretty fun.

[Eric Diaz]

- I haven't, but have run LMoP in another "urban" setting (Ravnica). Wrote three posts about it (starting here (http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/2016/03/the-lost-mines-of-ravnica-i-lost-mines.html)).

Main obstacle, I think, is not having a "wilderness". Some classes loose a lot of their power and meaning because of it.

Other than that, you usually don't have that many encounters in urban settings when compared to dungeons... But Ptolus has a lot of dungeons anyway... I think it is probably a good fit.

5e has characters that don't become demi-gods, but have lots of spells (almost every class has them). Seems a good fit to Ptolus, which is both high magic and dark, gritty etc.

One problem you MIGHT have with Ptolus is that its too full detail... I cannot be bothered with that much information nowadays. But its a beautiful book, great layout, etc.