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Pathfinder Adventure Path General Discussion

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I run my games via my own hideous mutant hybrid edition of 3.x/PF (I term it 3.Aotrs). I'm just - finally - starting to run the APs (it's taken us about four years to start RotRL - basically, I had two groups that ended up folding together and finishing the two AD&D=>3.Aotrs camapigns first). Shackled City is next on my list (since at one point, RotRL was slated fro one group, Shackled City for the other (since there was at least one player common to both!)

One of the first things I ditched in 3.0 was their stat generation - both rolling and their point buy. (Never understood why a linear distribution needs a non-linear advancement, personally.) I have now consistently used base 8, 30 points point-for-point (and have since upped that to 36, since it makes the PCs no stronger, but gives them a little more play room, especially for the MAD classes). The former equates roughly to 18,16,14,12,10,8, the latter to more like 18,18,16,14,10,8. (As opposed to 3.x 25-point buy/elite array which is, what, 15,14,13,12,10,8?) I am thus aware of the conversion to 3.x points buy in broad terms. But Pathfinder's 15/20 point buy is a bit of a mystery. It's becoming something I need to address as I look at the more recent advanture paths I've now got (e.g. Jade Regent) which are PF and not 3.x, at least as a first order of magnitude analysis.

So I was wondering if someone could enlighten me with some examples of what base stats 15 and 20 point buy work out to in Pathfinder, so if I feel the need, I could adjust my monsters and NPCs accordingly.

Contributor

In the "Creating NPCs" section of the CRB, they give a baseline for NPC and Heroic characters, essentially 3 point-buy and 15 point-buy.

PRD wrote:

Once the character's basic concept has been determined, its ability scores must be assigned. Apply the NPC's racial modifiers after the scores have been assigned. For every four levels the NPC has attained, increase one of its scores by 1. If the NPC possesses levels in a PC class, it is considered a heroic NPC and receives better ability scores. These scores can be assigned in any order.

Basic NPCs: The ability scores for a basic NPC are: 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, and 8.

Heroic NPCs: The ability scores for a heroic NPC are: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8.

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