First off, let me just say, "wow!" I'm very impressed with the Beginner's Box in just about every aspect of production. Very well done, and I'm supremely happy with it.
/e hugsPaizo
I'm planning on starting a small game with some friends soon-ish. It'll be a little difficult with schedules and stuff, but should be fun when we can make it. I've already bought one module (Crypt of the Everflame) and out of personal amusement a small supplement (Cooking with Class, because I'm a food dork!).
Now, for the fun/weird questions.
1. My normal group is about 12 people meeting up Saturday nights to play games using HERO System. I don't necessarily expect myself to be running for them anytime soon, but will Pathfinder be okay with such a large group if I ever tried? What could I do with such a large group?
2. Speaking of HERO, it does call itself a gaming toolbox. Has anyone ever used it to create something then convert it to Pathfinder? Enemies, items, spells, etc?
3. How much work would it take to convert D&D 4e stuff to work with Pathfinder? The main concern I've got here is that Maui has no friendly local game/comic shops (yay economy), and with the closure of Borders ONLY has a lone Barnes and Noble for books, games, etc. Whenever I move over to Pathfinder's Core rules and get the Beastiary, I'll get them there. However, they've got a fair amount of 4e stuff, and from what I've read about 4e they've got some useful/neat things. My main concern is supporting local gaming and supporting a locally operated business rather than getting the "best price," and from what I've heard, special orders benefit the company, but not necessarily the store itself.
Tangent on #3:
When our Borders closed down (it was in town) there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, let me tell you. Not only for losing much loved community spot to meet, spend time, etc., but losing a venue for local authors, writers, etc., plus all the jobs. When I say it was "our" Borders, I mean it! So, yeah, wanting to help keep our local B&N up and running...
I will buy stuff via Paizo and other online spots, but would much, MUCH rather buy local.
Ah, up too late and over enthusiastic...
I just found 0one Games's "Beginner Path" - what Adventure Paths and Modules are Beginner's Box friendly?
Running a game for 12 people would be ridiculous. Especially with the beginner box.
I would not recommend it at all. I think 6 players is the upper limit of manageability.
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I agree that 12 players is probably unworkable. In my experience, four or five players is ideal, up to 6 works pretty well, 7 is doable in a pinch, and above that things are just a mess. The main problems are that the more players you have in a group, the longer everyone has to wait for everyone else to take their turn, and also the encounters are not really designed to be handled by such a large group.
You will need to increase the toughness of the monsters or their numbers. The problem with making them stronger is that at that point it becomes very easy to inadvertently kill a single Player Character out of the whole group. The problem with adding more of them is that doing so exacerbates the problem of the turns taking a long time, because now there are more monsters as well as more players.
If you can get someone else to step up and GM, it would probably work better to have two groups of six.
Unfortunately, converting 4th Edition material will likely be difficult, particularly if you are not really familiar with both Pathfinder and 4E. You could easily steal adventure ideas and the like, but it will be a bit of work to convert all of the stats from one system to the other.
In terms of beginner adventures, you already have Crypt of the Everflame, which is a great start! You might also look into its sequels, Masks of the Living God, and City of Golden Death. The latter is for 5th level characters, and sort of assumes that the characters will reach level 6 partway through the adventure, so you may want to give the characters some power-ups when they would have leveled up. Something along the lines of an extra feat and a +1 bonus to one ability score would probably be a good start.
The Beginner Path adventures are another good option. A third that I particularly like is called "Orcfest". It was written for D&D 3.5, but converting that to Pathfinder is actually quite simple. You could probably run most of the encounters without needing to change any of the stats at all! I really like Orcfest because it is designed with beginners in mind, and has lots of sidebars that teach various game concepts, as well as some on how to GM well.
Thanks! And, believe it or not, my looney group does indeed tun those numbers every week... *-*
Hmmm...
Oh, yeah, again, my initial/hoped group will be 3-5 players... Bit going insane just yet!
How fun/difficult is King Maker for players and GMs? And can you just use the town building part? We're doing that in a nearly 3-times a year Harn game, and we really dig it.
1. My normal group is about 12 people meeting up Saturday nights to play games using HERO System. I don't necessarily expect myself to be running for them anytime soon, but will Pathfinder be okay with such a large group if I ever tried? What could I do with such a large group?
Ok so unlike everyone else here, I am going to tell you that you shouldn't immediately run from such a large group, it has SOME advantages (and alot of problems). My current group has 11 people in it, and sometimes I have had as many as 12 people at the table.
It can be alot of work, and alot of hastle, but it can be fun with that many people coming up with interesting ideas. Everyone though has to understand they wont get alot of face time and would have to make a concious effort to keep down side conversation, and to keep the game flowing.
It also means you always have enough people to play. If a couple people cant make it, it really doesnt stand in the way of the game if you can come up with a reason (or hand wave) for the characters to be absent.
There is also the Conflict system which is a party vs party combat system for pathfinder that might be pretty awesome with a group that large 6v6 would be pretty solid.
3. How much work would it take to convert D&D 4e stuff to work with Pathfinder? The main concern I've got here is that Maui has no friendly local game/comic shops (yay economy), and with the closure of Borders ONLY has a lone Barnes and Noble for books, games, etc. Whenever I move over to Pathfinder's Core rules and get the Beastiary, I'll get them there. However, they've got a fair amount of 4e stuff, and from what I've read about 4e they've got some useful/neat things. My main concern is supporting local gaming and supporting a locally operated business rather than getting the "best price," and from what I've heard, special orders benefit the company, but not necessarily the store itself.
Most of the 4E stuff would take alot of work to convern. Powers from 4E dont translate to anything in pathfinder really, you would basically be taking the concept and building them from the ground up. You could always talk to your local store owners about stocking more pathfinder stuff, feedback generally helps in that area. And if they are unwilling, well you did try to support them, just because they dont want to meet your need doesnt mean you are turning your backs on them.
How fun/difficult is King Maker for players and GMs? And can you just use the town building part? We're doing that in a nearly 3-times a year Harn game, and we really dig it.
Kingmaker has been a ton of fun with my group. One of the benefits of a large group, is every leadership position just about is filled by an actual party member. We wrote a whole constitution and debated it in character (one of the more fun roleplaying events in recent memory for my group). It is like all sandboxes a high difficulty kind of adventure path to run, because you have to be aware of a lot more at once (as opposed to a linear story where you can just read ahead a few pages to be up to date).
And yes you can use just the kingdom building rules, in fact there is a 3rd party product that has those same rules and some minor expansions from john brazer enterprizes Book of the River Nations pdf. Which would obviously be cheaper then buying the 2nd book of kingmaker just for the kingdom building rules.