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This is an (incomplete) project that I've been working on since about mid-Mists of Pandaria. It is, as it appears, a World of Warcraft campaign setting for Pathfinder. While I never fully shelved it, I've decided to resume working on it. While I have made a few changes this past week, I've learned of or noticed quite a lot I needed to change or fix, not to mention fill out.
Obviously, this is nowhere near a finished product at the moment, but in order to end up with something decent, I decided I would look to MW for assistance and advice.
I used the earlier Sword & Sorcery Warcraft RPG books made for D&D 3.5e as a starting point for various things (particularly feats and spells), but there are several aspects of that system I dislike, not to mention its being incomplete, non-canon, and (moreso in the revision than the original) not entirely compatible with Pathfinder.
I intend to fill this setting out as much as possible as a - likely life-long - side project, including adapting each zone in the game into an adventure. As such, my intent is to balance accuracy to the game with compatibility to Pathfinder, erring on the side of compatibility however, given that this is a campaign setting and not a subsystem or variant like the original Warcraft RPG.
I have attached a pair of PDFs that represent my work so far. One (“wow core”) holds the majority of the rules, and the other (“wow spells”) is where I'm working on all of the new spells.
As I said, my two main aims for this are compatibility with the core Pathfinder system, and faithfulness to the lore and feel of Warcraft. Because the various Warcraft games are not tabletop RPGs, however, mechanics will favour the former as long as they can support the fluff. This means that if a reasonable facsimile for what is found in Warcraft lore can be fashioned from existing Pathfinder mechanics, then deference will be given to those mechanics. For example, with minor adjustments or conscious choices (of archetypes, feats, spells, etc.), most Warcraft classes and character types can be recreated with existing Pathfinder classes.
This rule is given more leeway towards not converting when it comes to spells. As the most clear example, only a few Warcraft healing spells will be converted since Pathfinder's own cure spells, positive energy channeling, and so on cover most varieties of healing that can be performed in a tabletop game without much hassle. The majority of Warcraft healing spells that would be notably distinct from the existing healing options would require mechanics too complex for most groups to bother with. With refluffing, a mass cure spells can represent a priest's circle of healing just as well as it they can a druid's wild growth.
As for the project's "grand vision", there are two main prongs to my intentions. The first is to make a core rulebook that roughly corresponds to the setting during Vanilla and Burning Crusade (although the Outland part may get its own supplemental book) World of Warcraft, with allowances and acknowledgments of both earlier and later games/expansions when needed (mostly to facilitate retcons). The slight caveat to this is that the core book's spells will be drawn from the iconic, unique, and noteworthy class spells from all WoW expansions (also, goblins are included in the core book partly to round out the races, and mostly because, while not playable, they have always been prevalent in the Warcraft universe, particularly among the Horde). I'll also make a bestiary, although I've yet to determine how, exactly, I'll be handling this.
I intend to make supplements for each of the subsequent expansions (Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, and Warlords of Draenor - presumably Legion and future expansions, too), and likely at least one for the eras covered by the original RTS games (which may or may not also include even earlier periods like from the novels). These supplements will include various mechanics, iconic items, and monsters introduced in each expansion, along with basic information on the new areas they introduce.
The second prong is to create a set of adventures - ultimately, one for each and every zone and instance in the game. Yes. It will take approximately one forever. But hey, I'll never have to worry about not having something to work on. I have already mapped out an "experience curve" between WoW and Pathfinder. The curve is based on total experience rather than class levels, and maps the 100 WoW class levels to the 20 Pathfinder levels based on the percentage of total experience a fully leveled character has that each level represent. Using this system, Vanilla WoW goes from levels 1 to 14, BC goes from 14 to 16, WotLK from 16 to 18, Cata takes place entirely at level 18, MoP goes from 18 to 19, and WoD finishes up by taking us from 19 to 20. Trouble will come, however, when trying to continue this curve through Legion and beyond, since after 20 it starts to break down. In all likelihood, from Legion on, it will probably be best to assume that each new expansion adds about 0.75 or so levels, starting at 20.5 with the end of WoD. If anyone can tell me how to find the best fit equation for this curve, please let me know.
In addition to these levels, the end of each expansion will grant a mythic rank. Because of the exponential rate of level growth, and relative shortness of expansions, this actually allows character growth to continue at a surprisingly steady pace after Vanilla.
Now, as for creating the actual adventures, I intend to have another two prong approach to this: on the one hand, each zone-adventure will be fairly self-contained, but on the other, whenever possible, they should relate to the expansion's overarching plot. While it can at least be argued that this is how they work in the MMO, I feel it should be brought to the fore a bit more for a tabletop game. Ultimately, it should be equally possible for a GM to pick and choose zone-adventures to run (for a party exploring Azeroth and adventuring from land to land) as well as to run a series of consecutive zone-adventures that connect both geographically and narratively (for a party questing through an area to reach a certain goal).
Rather than converting each individual quest, or anything, the main story thread(s) of each zone will be isolated and streamlined so that it they conform more to the standards and expectations of a tabletop game, then the "quests" of the adventure will be rebuilt around these plots and considerations. If things go well, adventuring in Westfall will still feel like adventuring through Westfall, but also like a unified, coherent tabletop adventure rather than a series of connected quests.
Additionally, I ultimately intend to create adventures for both the original and post-Cata versions of "old world" zones, but that in particular is a long-term goal. While not currently planned, if all of this manages to get done, I'll strongly consider creating adventures to correspond with the RTS games (although they will, naturally, be less direct adaptations, being made for a small party of adventurers rather than armies).
--Overview of Core PDF--
While class-race restrictions work for WoW, I don't like them in tabletop games (though, of course, a GM is welcome to do what they want in their own game). Still, I feel like representing certain races' predilection towards certain classes is great flavour and racial favored class bonuses strike me as an excellent way to encourage that flavour without restricting player freedom. As such, I only gave racial favored class bonuses to certain race-class combos. Most are pretty much just taken from the Paizo favoured class bonuses of other races, just to make sure the options were reasonably balanced, however I did modify those that give skill check bonuses that can be duplicated or surpassed by the basic +1 skill point option (usually by increasing the bonus from +1/2 to +1 - while you effectively get two skill points with these options, they are only applied to a pair of pre-selected skills, and usually only apply to specific or conditional uses of those skills; even so, just as a countermeasure, I'll probably add a cap at +10 for these).
The rest of the chapter will contain Warcraft-specific class options and perhaps an archetype or two if I can come up with something. I'll likely also include a sidebar to talk about how to make warlocks and (Warcraft) shamans in Pathfinder. Lastly, I wrote the majority of this book before Occult Adventures was published - certainly before I got a copy - and while I don't think psychic magic fits the Warcraft setting very well (aside from maybe a few shadow priest spells, but that's really just an endorsement of individual spells, not the magic system as a whole), a couple of classes - particularly the kineticist as a Warcraft shaman - certainly show potential for working with the setting, so I may include some mentions of it in later edits.
The feats were one of the first things I added to this and pretty much all are taken whole-cloth from the Warcraft RPG books. I'll probably be tossing or completely remaking most of these. I will say I like the idea of the Shout feats for giving warrior-types some party support options, although anything that basically amounts to taunting will be removed. And yes, I had a bit too much fun with the icons.
As for the spells themselves, more than perhaps anything else in this entire project, I would like some second opinions on. While I tried to come up with some reasonable system for what level they should be, it's ultimately been pretty arbitrary, and I'm sure that plenty of them would be better off adjusted. On top of that, figuring out how balanced a spell is turns out to be frustratingly difficult if you want them to be anything more than a reskin of another spell. Even for straight-forward damage-dealing spells, two spells that deal similar amounts of total damage, but with one dealing all of that damage to a single target and the other dividing it among multiple targets would have drastically different power levels - not to mention the difference that damage type can play (generally, untyped/holy > force > other energy types, I think positive/negative energy types would be roughly equivalent to force, and I'll freely admit that I have no idea how to rank physical damage types on that hierarchy). And when we get to non-damage spells, things get even more guess-based.
Lastly, I need to mention the bugbear that has been totems. Totems are, in my opinion, perhaps the single most uniquely iconic element of Warcraft. If you doubt this, consider which Warcraft class is the most uniquely iconic. The shaman, right? And what is that, more than anything, makes it so iconic? Totems. Warcraft without totems simply isn't Warcraft (that said, Warcraft without many things simply isn't Warcraft, but the rest of those things are either fluff or already being taken care of). However, trying to adapt totems to Pathfinder is proving to be rather difficult. For starters, I can't decide whether totems should be expressed by a metamagic feat, new spells, or a combination of the two. I'm currently going for a combination, however I think that the metamagic feat would be the better way to go. However, I simply can't figure out how to make such a feat work - the version I currently have in the book I have absolutely no confidence in.
I want to single out the warlock for a second. It strikes me as coherently distinct enough to warrant its own class, but since aspects of it are pretty well covered by sorcerers, summoners (particularly with some GM oversight/restrictions), and witches (which can be roughly equated to the warlock specializations of Destruction, Demonology, and Affliction, respectively - thought there's plenty of leeway for differing approaches) that a prestige class seems the best approach to me. Essentially, warlocks in Pathfinder Warcraft end up doing the opposite of WoW - instead of becoming a warlock, then picking a specialization after a few levels, you start with your specialization then become a warlock. I'll probably loosen the requirements a bit though, and its still very incomplete. The finished version will certainly look very different from what is seen here.
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I have been homebrewing things pretty much since I started playing D&D, and while I always intended to aim for balance, the fact that I thought that the monk was the most overpowered class shows how terrible a judge I was of such things. While I have gotten better, I also don't seem to have a head for min-maxing which seems rather necessary for being able to properly balance mechanics (in order to better see how it could be broken). The fact that my games have so far proven to be exponentially likely to end for one reason or another after about level 6 certainly doesn't help my comprehension of high-level play.
In preparation for this project, I purchased all of the old Brady guides for Vanilla, BC, and WotLK WoW, and have grown quite familiar with WoWpedia and WoW Wiki, as well as saving copies of a few older sites and guides for pre-Cata WoW (via the Wayback Machine). In truth, I've strongly considered seeing if I could set up one of those private WotLK servers for research purposes, but so far the (probably at least somewhat irrational, given how prevalent they seem to be) fear of litigation has kept me from doing so.
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World of Warcraft is a great setting (not to mention a pretty cool game). I've often thought of using it myself for a basis of a campaign, or at the very least stealing of few ideas.
As far as totems here's my idea: use the Summon Elemental spell, but reskin it to Summon Elemental Totem. Once summoned the totems grant access to that elements' spell list.
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That seems overly complicated to me... I mean, only marginally more than a metamagic feat, but still.
EDIT: OR! Totems as domains! ...Sort of. The spell list idea is certainly something to latch onto since I can create one for each of the four totem elements. Then just write up base rules for how totem spells work compared to their normal counterparts, and I there's something to work with here! It'd only end up as complicated as a metamagic feat and without the fear of needing to balance for every possible spell it could apply to. The only question becomes how to make it available... I don't really think it's necessary to make a full shaman class, but the best I can come up with is either an alternate class feature for any class with access to domains (which will probably also need to exchange one spell per day for each spell level or something), or a feat...
Nature magic is a very distinct power from divine magic in Warcraft, while they're basically the same thing in Pathfinder. I really don't like the solution of making shamans clerics; it doesn't really work for for the mechanics or the flavor. You'd certainly need to entirely rewrite the spell list, at the very least, and it would take an even larger overhaul for enhancement as a spec to even be possible. I'd honestly rather make shamans their own class (though as an enhancement shaman player I'm probably biased lol), or possibly as an alternate class to the kineticist.
I'm also really not fond of the Forsaken getting the Dhampir treatment and only being "sorta" undead creatures... It would likely come at a significant cost but I really feel like they need to be treated as true undead.
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Well, first consider - at the very least for why I'm lumping it all in with divine magic - that my philosophy for this is to not make new systems and mechanics if those that already exist wouldn't be significantly different. Of course, what defines "significantly different" is highly dependent on what the mechanic is, but pretty much all that defines divine magic as opposed to arcane magic is the fluff and the fact that divine magic isn't interfered with by armour. At the very least, I see shamanic magic as being based more on Wisdom than on Intelligence, and while I suppose there's nothing that says one has to be arcane and the other has to be divine, I think it's as good a divide as any. (Yes, there's also Charisma, and I can definitely see a fair few shamans relying on that instead, but Charisma can be used by both, so I consider it to be better to just look at Intelligence versus Wisdom, even for classes that actually use Charisma. I'm sure you'll agree that any Cha-based arcane caster would be more likely to use Intelligence than Wisdom if, for some reason Charisma wasn't an option, and any Cha-based divine caster would likewise use Wisdom.) So that's why I'm not making shaman magic distinct from divine magic.
Now, certainly, not every cleric build would work for shamans, and not every shaman build could work as a cleric, but again, consider my treatment of warlocks: not every sorcerer, summoner, or witch build would necessarily work of warlocks (...okay, at least not every sorcerer build), but you can use the class to make a warlock build. Now, I'll certainly agree that of all the classes that (I think) could work for shamans, clerics are the least shaman-y choice. Most shamans I would probably make using druid, oracle, shaman (which is also a surprisingly poor fit, though admittedly not as bad as a cleric), warpriest or even inquisitor. In fact, I think that inquisitors probably would be a best fit for enhancement shamans (aside from warpriests who, personally, I think are almost perfect) although they're still kinda far off. I think I'll almost certainly make an archetype, though, to remove or at least rework things like judgment and stern gaze and replace them with more shaman-like abilities. Not sure what, though... Suggestions? Though remember that totems will be their own thing as soon as I can decide whether they'll be feats or exchanged for domains.
But back to cleric shamans: given how almost every other divine caster I, at least, can see working for shamans, I'm at least able to imagine the existence of a more priest-like group who worship or revere the elements in a more cleric-y way. Pretty much the one thing that I see in the cleric class that I see as un-shaman-like is channel energy, but there is the Elemental Channel feat which I think I may grant to shamanic priests (as per the sidebar, instead of the boon I've currently given them), but entirely replacing the ability to channel positive/negative energy rather than being an additional option alongside it. Now, all this said, I do welcome your feedback. While I do have a terrible case of altitis that means I have (and actually play) characters of every class (I have a server each for Horde and Alliance that has one character of every class in it, and all are at least level 20, with half being over 40), mages and warlocks are my main classes, so input from someone who favours shamans is greatly appreciated.
Lastly, yes, I think the kineticist would be a wonderful shaman class, too, but I haven't had a chance yet to fully look over what the fact that they are a psychic class means, and how much that would ...mesh. The majority of psychic magic (as a system, not the psychic spells that are available to divine and arcane casters) doesn't seem to fit the Warcraft setting. Of course, the kineticist doesn't have proper spellcasting so that gives me hope I can work it in, but for cohesiveness, if I can't simply relabel the kineticist as a divine "caster" (as much as he can currently be called a psychic "caster")... I just don't like the idea of crossing magic types for the same character concept - warlocks should never be oracles, and shamans should never be witches.
As for the forsaken, yes, making them true undead would be incredibly broken. Even if they had no other abilities. No Constitution score has both upsides and downs, but for a player race, those upsides can far outweigh the downsides. Undead get a ridiculous number of immunities: mind-affecting effects, death effects, disease, paralysis, poison, sleep, stunning, nonlethal damage, ability drain, energy drain, exhaustion, and fatigue - almost any one of those would be horribly broken for a player to have, and fortunately, the Forsaken are expressly not immune to most of these things (as best as can be determined given the system differences). Additionally, all undead are inherently healed by negative energy and harmed by positive energy. While it's certainly possible to have a racial feature that inverts this like the one that dhampir have (and is an alternate choice for my Forsaken), it's just extra reason against this. Oh, and undead are unaffected by raise dead and resurrection meaning that players couldn't be revived until four whole levels after everyone else. No, making them full undead by Pathfinder's rule system just comes with far too many problems, both mechanically and fluff-wise. Scourge undead will, however, obviously be true undead.
Why reinvent the wheel?
The setting is already published, thanks to Art Haus, and I think you can still get the PDF of the books through DriveThrough. Material just needs some optional updating for the later expansions... although one might prefer to run a campaign in the Burning Crusade or earlier eras.
The rule mechanics are all there as well.. they just need some tuning for Pathfinder.
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I explained this all in the first couple of paragraphs. I have all the D&D Warcraft books. I don't like the majority of their mechanics (although the underlying ideas are sometimes salvageable), they're not even 100% compatible with D&D, let alone Pathfinder, the line ended before it could even start talking about Burning Crusade, let alone the 4+ expansions since, and it contradicts Warcraft lore sometimes pretty significantly. I'll certainly be scavenging what I can from it, but that's really not a lot.
I explained this all in the first couple of paragraphs. I have all the D&D Warcraft books. I don't like the majority of their mechanics (although the underlying ideas are sometimes salvageable), they're not even 100% compatible with D&D, let alone Pathfinder, the line ended before it could even start talking about Burning Crusade, let alone the 4+ expansions since, and it contradicts Warcraft lore sometimes pretty significantly. I'll certainly be scavenging what I can from it, but that's really not a lot.
The books cover much about...
Outland
Pandaria
Northrend.. (almost everything in the books was also seen in Wrath)
There's also extensive information on the various factions which dovetails nicely into what's been revealed in game.
Races covered beyond the core..
Blood Elves
High Elves
Pandaren
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Yes, but it was all before Wrath of the Lich King was released, and I'll have to double check dates, but I'm pretty sure Burning Crusade was still in beta by the time the last book was published. Basically everything that they have on Outland, Pandaria, Northrend, Blood Elves, High Elves, and Pandaren came from Warcraft III which only briefly had glimpses of Outland (specifically, only what is now Hellfire Peninsula, and the Black Temple which got a pretty important retcon to no longer be in Hellfire Peninsula). Northrend gets a bigger show, but it's still pretty different from what we see in WotLK, and Pandaria is pretty much only mentioned in supplemental material and as little more than just being the home of the Pandaren. I don't even remember Pandaria being mentioned in a greater context than that in the Warcraft RPG books.
There have been numerous significant retcons between Vanilla WoW and now that need to be accounted for, not to mention the fact that the Warcraft RPG even diverged pretty significantly from the canon of Vanilla WoW. I'm rather tempted now to go through every one of the books now and make an itemized list of what's incompatible and why.
And none of that addresses the rest of what I said.
I happen to be pretty big on both shamans and the kineticist, I've been sitting on a few ideas for making my own take on it for a while. Psychic casting is generally associated with the ethereal plane and communion with spirits, which is actually a pretty great fit for shamans. As a small bonus psychic casting doesn't use somatic components and therefore comes built in with the ability to cast without hands free, obviously important for a dual-wielding enhancement shaman.
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But I wouldn't consider enhancement shamans to be spellcasters in the same sense as, say, elemental shamans. They seem to be more like they rely on buffing up before combat, and then focusing pretty much entirely on hitting the enemy as hard as they can before those buffs wear out. Yes, I'm sure they use several spells in combat in WoW, but - and as I said, shamans aren't my area of expertise (I have one 30-something resto shaman, one level 20 elemental shammy) - don't enhancement shamans mostly use instants rather than spells with a cast time? That sounds less like any sort of spellcasting to me, and rather more like special abilities. Or at least spells with a few metamagic feats.
Having said this, I think I'm going against some of my own points. So I'm going to have to think on this a fair bit...
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I never played Warcraft before, but this seems cool, so I'll make an adventure in it and see how it works out.
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Oh my! Thank you so much! A big reason that I've turned my attention back to this project is that I currently don't have a group, so I can't do much to test things myself. Not to mention, I've never been particularly good at judging balance. While it's certainly not complete, there's quite a bit that can at least be worked with, and I won't really be able to improve on some of it anyway without some testing. Even so, I think that the feats need some urgent reworking, so I'd like to ask if you'll give me a week to hack at those some before you use them. I'll also try to come up with something for totems in that time.
But regardless, if you want to use anything from it, feel free. And please let me know your full and unadulterated thoughts on how things do and don't work.
But I wouldn't consider enhancement shamans to be spellcasters in the same sense as, say, elemental shamans. They seem to be more like they rely on buffing up before combat, and then focusing pretty much entirely on hitting the enemy as hard as they can before those buffs wear out. Yes, I'm sure they use several spells in combat in WoW, but - and as I said, shamans aren't my area of expertise (I have one 30-something resto shaman, one level 20 elemental shammy) - don't enhancement shamans mostly use instants rather than spells with a cast time? That sounds less like any sort of spellcasting to me, and rather more like special abilities. Or at least spells with a few metamagic feats.
Having said this, I think I'm going against some of my own points. So I'm going to have to think on this a fair bit...
You're right-Enhancement does have a few key abilities with a cast time (Lightning Bolt and Healing Surge, namely) but a large part of their current rotation is making those abilities instant (though that is changing considerably in Legion).
You could definitely consider Enhancement less of a "caster" in Pathfinder terms than Elemental would be, but at that point you're building them as entirely different chassis rather than specializations of the same whole. Which is valid of course, but I wasn't sure if that's what you wanted to do.
I'm also really not fond of the Forsaken getting the Dhampir treatment and only being "sorta" undead creatures... It would likely come at a significant cost but I really feel like they need to be treated as true undead.
I disagree with this one pretty strongly. They actually have better reasons to be treated as "Half-Undead" in Pathfinder than they do in WoW, due to the number of resistances and immunities undead get in PFRPG, but even in WoW they are treated as humanoid targets.
That said, I'm also not sold on this version of Forsaken. A simpler and more interesting version (well, more interesting to ME anyways) is to make Forsaken a subrace race of Humans, and add the Undead Resistance, Resistant, and Carrion Sense racial traits in place of the bonus feat (all combined into one trait I called "Will of the Forsaken").
The reason I'd rather have them be a subrace of humans is that it would allow more Forsaken to be created, and more importantly it would facilitate characters to become Forsaken, letting them trade their most recently gained feat for the resistances.
As far as shaman go, I think a Kineticist would replicate a shaman quite well. All three specs, actually. Enhancement would need the most help, but Elemental devastator is pretty close to the class fantasy. Monkey with the class lore a wee bit, maybe toss in an ability to summon an appropriate elemental/assume elemental form once per day (although elemental overload does a good job of that one actually) and call it done. Or, hah, just give all shaman an elemental familiar, starting with a Small elemental using the Young template, and let it slowly gain in size as you level. The class is considered slightly underpowered anyways, no one would care if you just handed that one out. The great thing about this approach is it allows shaman not currently supported by the MMO, like a frost shaman or a wind caster.
I would also consider Warlocks to be an archetype of the witch or (pf) shaman. Demo locks would need the most rework, but I think it can be done. Maybe give a unique patron that only hands out the various summon magic spells, slap the fiendish template onto the standard familiar in trade for their first Hex?
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You could definitely consider Enhancement less of a "caster" in Pathfinder terms than Elemental would be, but at that point you're building them as entirely different chassis rather than specializations of the same whole. Which is valid of course, but I wasn't sure if that's what you wanted to do.
Well considering that's how I'm treating warlocks... (Roughly speaking, affliction -> witch, demonology -> summoner, destruction -> sorcerer, although I want to emphasize that these should not be the only ways to make a warlock, nor that there shouldn't be overlap between these three types.) That said, shamans are a bit trickier. Warlocks generally need some degree of magical knowledge before they can start dealing with demons and tapping into the fel, so having warlocks start out as different classes then taking on a prestige class makes sense, but shamans are (generally speaking) trained as shamans from the start, so having shamans represented by multiple different classes fractures the class identity. That said, I'm justifying it by the fact that various different traditions can be represented by the same Warcraft class - everything from kobold geomancers to Twilight's Hammer cultists can be said to be shamans of some description, and I don't think it's stretch to say that the way they approach and express their shamanic powers can be drastically different from each other as well as from player shamans.
It should also be said that I strongly advocate - for any setting - maintaining a disconnect between the mechanics we use to represent a character and how that character, and the world, views themselves. Of course, starting out with a system, the accompanying flavour is helpful in figuring out and understanding what a class is like, but now that I've got a decade of d20 experience under my belt, I basically just look at the mechanics of classes and completely ignore their fluff, rewriting it to fit the concept I have in mind. For example, I once made a character based on this painting. Mechanically, they were a summoner with the spirit summoner archetype, and I worked out with the GM that in place of the usual verbal and somatic components, she played her instrument to cast her spells as well as to summon and control her eidolon. Mechanically, this requires virtually no changes, and the places where it does come into conflict are logical extrapolations that rarely, if ever, are explicitly mentioned by the rulebooks, anyway. So that explains - probably more than anything else possibly could - why I'm in no hurry to create new classes. It's just how I view classes as a mechanic.
That said, I'm also not sold on this version of Forsaken. A simpler and more interesting version (well, more interesting to ME anyways) is to make Forsaken a subrace race of Humans, and add the Undead Resistance, Resistant, and Carrion Sense racial traits in place of the bonus feat (all combined into one trait I called "Will of the Forsaken").
The reason I'd rather have them be a subrace of humans is that it would allow more Forsaken to be created, and more importantly it would facilitate characters to become Forsaken, letting them trade their most recently gained feat for the resistances.
Well, all I have to say is to each their own. To me, such extensive replacement of features makes me wonder why this would still be considered a subrace or variant rather than an all-new race. Even aside from that, it's a pretty hefty burden on my suspension of disbelief that a walking corpse can be considered close enough to a human to simply use humans stats with a couple changes. At least in my eyes, I see a lot more similarity to living humans in elves, dwarves, and just about every other standard humanoid race than the forsaken. Sure, they may have once actually been human, but death's a pretty big alteration. As for humans becoming forsaken, I certainly have no problem with doing that, but I don't see why it can't simply be done as a "standard" race change.
As for shaman stuff, see the first half of this comment. Also, I definitely support the idea of character types that aren't supported by the MMO - just so long as they're at least reasonably supported by existing lore. There isn't really any explicit equivalent to bloodragers or magi (unless you want to count death knights), but in a world so overflowing with magic, it's hard to believe such things are impossible.
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'Nother quick thought on shamans being divine casters, btw. It may not be a water-tight argument, but I think it's at least worth noting the classes that are available to tauren. The only other casters that they can be are paladins and priests, both of which are definitely divine casters. Tauren will get to play rogues before they get to be mages, and they'll get to be mages before they get to be warlocks. Likewise, of the classes available to draenei, shaman, paladin, and priest go at the top of what they're (lore-wise) likely to be, and mage goes towards - if not at - the bottom. It's certainly more correlation than causation, but to paraphrase Randall Monroe, it definitely waggles its eyebrows suggestively while mouthing "look over there".
'Nother quick thought on shamans being divine casters, btw. It may not be a water-tight argument, but I think it's at least worth noting the classes that are available to tauren. The only other casters that they can be are paladins and priests, both of which are definitely divine casters. Tauren will get to play rogues before they get to be mages, and they'll get to be mages before they get to be warlocks. Likewise, of the classes available to draenei, shaman, paladin, and priest go at the top of what they're (lore-wise) likely to be, and mage goes towards - if not at - the bottom. It's certainly more correlation than causation, but to paraphrase Randall Monroe, it definitely waggles its eyebrows suggestively while mouthing "look over there".
...And then on the other hand you have the orcs, who are the "true" shamanistic race since Tauren and Troll shamans are translations of the spiritwalker and witch doctor units respectively. Orcs have no access to divine magic at all, and can't be priests even though the Shadowmoon obviously practice shadow magic and could potentially have the same "in" to the class as Forsaken do.
I'm not sure what you mean by extensive rework. You lose one feat, and gain a +4 vs mind affecting effects, and +2 against disease and poison. You also gain a scent ability that only functions against corpses and the creatures low on health. I consider the Carrion sense slightly superfluous to be honest, but that's as close as I'm willing to go to try and find an equivalent for the Cannibalism racial trait.
Although, hmm, looking again at the race builder, I suppose gaining the half-undead subtype would work well enough, if you swap it out for the bonus feat. I still dislike racial stats, because whatever their bodies are currently, they WERE humans, with all the variations of backgrounds and talents that entails. Losing some of that diversity, in the cost of losing their bonus feat, reflects that well enough in my opinion. But, then, I don't feel the same way about Worgen, so I admit I'm slightly discordant on this topic. Probably because while the majority of Forsaken are from Lordearon, not all are, while nearly all Alliance Worgen are of the same Gilnean culture. But that's a rationalization; I don't like Worgen as much as Forsaken in lore or in game, so I don't care as much about how they'd be built.
Edit:
'Nother quick thought on shamans being divine casters, btw. It may not be a water-tight argument, but I think it's at least worth noting the classes that are available to tauren. The only other casters that they can be are paladins and priests, both of which are definitely divine casters. Tauren will get to play rogues before they get to be mages, and they'll get to be mages before they get to be warlocks. Likewise, of the classes available to draenei, shaman, paladin, and priest go at the top of what they're (lore-wise) likely to be, and mage goes towards - if not at - the bottom. It's certainly more correlation than causation, but to paraphrase Randall Monroe, it definitely waggles its eyebrows suggestively while mouthing "look over there"....And then on the other hand you have the orcs, who are the "true" shamanistic race since Tauren and Troll shamans are translations of the spiritwalker and witch doctor units respectively. Orcs have no access to divine magic at all, and can't be priests even though the Shadowmoon obviously practice shadow magic and could potentially have the same "in" to the class as Forsaken do.
Also, the Broken Draenei who were the first Draenei shaman explicitly became so because they had their connection to divine magic cut-off as an sideaffect of the Orc attack on Shattrath.
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That's three new abilities. Most races have between four and six, I believe.
And to provide a technical quibble, some of the forsaken (it's never clear how many, unless you're comfortable saying it's just the dark rangers and Sylvanas - which, personally, I'm not) were once high elves. Regardless, your argument hinges on the idea that it should just be a simple thing to become undead which I strongly disagree with. Death is a traumatic experience, and the bodies that forsaken inhabit are pretty warped from the ones they had in life. But I'm going to have to call you out with your thoughts on worgen. Everything that makes a worgen distinct from a regular human is in their shapeshifted form. It makes far more sense for worgen to become so by a process like exchanging a feat. And yet, pretty much just for mechanical concerns, I'll be making them their own race, too.
Honestly, the fact that you like the forsaken so much makes me curious as to why you want the change to be so minor, because the biggest reason by far why I don't like your suggestion is that it is so minor. Slapping the half-undead subtype on a human just doesn't feel like forsaken to me. It feels like a weird human. The forsaken may have once been human, and culturally may have retained a lot of that diversity, but they are now far more undead than they are human. The forsaken should be forsaken, not humans with a template.
But it seems we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this. If you like the rest of the system, there's no reason you can't just swap out that one race and use your own idea in your own game.
Also, the Broken Draenei who were the first Draenei shaman explicitly became so because they had their connection to divine magic cut-off as an sideaffect of the Orc attack on Shattrath.
I'm not so sure about this. The Broken didn't exist until after the Burning Legion invaded and Draenor became Outland, but all the lore I recall suggests that draenei learned shamanism from the orcs while Draenor was still whole and (relatively) peaceful. That said, there may have been some retcons in WoD that contradict this, but none that I recall.
I definitely agree that Forsaken should be a separate group from Humans, though I'm not really buying the High Elf Forsaken argument (I was assuming the "core" playable Forsaken would be the ones you play in WoW; I doubt you'd allow a player to play an Abomination, for example). The fact that the forsaken aren't just zombie humans is really a large part of why they're interesting and, if I may say so, a large part of why what Blizzard has done with the Worgen narrative isn't.
Also, the Broken Draenei who were the first Draenei shaman explicitly became so because they had their connection to divine magic cut-off as an sideaffect of the Orc attack on Shattrath.I'm not so sure about this. The Broken didn't exist until after the Burning Legion invaded and Draenor became Outland, but all the lore I recall suggests that draenei learned shamanism from the...
The first Draenei shaman was Far Seer Nobundo. He was a vindicator, about as Paladin as a Paladin can be, prior to losing his connection to the light and becoming one of the Broken. Thoroughly abandoned by the light, the remnants of Draenor's elements called to him on his own, no help from the orcs necessary.
In fact, Nobundo became a shaman because when the light didn't answer his prayers, the wind did.
It was in-game as part of BC, and expanded on in the short-story Unbroken. Nobundo is the Shaman class trainer in the Exodar.
I'm trying, but I can't think of a single Draenor Draenei that isn't a garrison follower in WoD that used elemental magic at all. Shadow, Fel, Holy, even Arcane, but not elemental magic like shaman practice it.
Edit: However, both Nobundo and Akama are present and accounted for in WoD, both Paladins on Draenor but Shaman in BC.
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Hm. Fair enough. That does make it somewhat odd that players can be draenei shaman in that case, but I'm not going to worry overmuch about that. I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation, and I never really questioned draenei shamans, anyway. Still, it wouldn't be hard to come up with an explanation that the reason draenei could pick up shamanic magic so easily is because it works off of similar principles. Druids also get their magic from a source that isn't the Light, but I'll be rather surprised if you try to seriously argue that there's isn't divine magic. In fact, I'd say that druidic magic is the next closest thing to shamanic magic. In fact, thinking on it, you could probably make a case saying that shamans are basically just Draenor's druids.
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I definitely agree that Forsaken should be a separate group from Humans, though I'm not really buying the High Elf Forsaken argument (I was assuming the "core" playable Forsaken would be the ones you play in WoW; I doubt you'd allow a player to play an Abomination, for example). The fact that the forsaken aren't just zombie humans is really a large part of why they're interesting and, if I may say so, a large part of why what Blizzard has done with the Worgen narrative isn't.
Well, it is just my personal theory and seems a fairly reasonable assumption to me. However, I'll admit that aside from Dark Rangers, there isn't a lot of evidence for it, so I won't actually be supporting it in this system. Forsaken are simply forsaken, as they appear and are playable in the game. At most, I'll include a sidebar saying something along the lines that a player may want to play a forsaken high elf, but in such cases the mechanics would still be the same.
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Hm. Fair enough. That does make it somewhat odd that players can be draenei shaman in that case, but I'm not going to worry overmuch about that. I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation, and I never really questioned draenei shamans, anyway. Still, it wouldn't be hard to come up with an explanation that the reason draenei could pick up shamanic magic so easily is because it works off of similar principles. Druids also get their magic from a source that isn't the Light, but I'll be rather surprised if you try to seriously argue that there's isn't divine magic. In fact, I'd say that druidic magic is the next closest thing to shamanic magic. In fact, thinking on it, you could probably make a case saying that shamans are basically just Draenor's druids.
The Draenei picked up shamanism because Nobundo taught them about it, and they listened to Nobundo because Velen told them to. Once you get past the origin story it's basically that simple.
Druid magic is... ill defined in Warcraft. It's definitely not close to shamanism, druids just tend to get their grubby little fingers over everything and try to take over stuff that is obviously the shaman domain (I'm not biased you're biased). Shamans are absolutely not "Draenor Druids", because Druids are primarily concerned with what the titans intended the planet to look like while Shamans are concerned with the balance of the elements and making sure druids don't ruin everything on a macro level while they're so distracted by the micro. Plus shamans existed by other names prior to the orcs showing up, they were just called witch doctors.
I still maintain that in Warcraft the Light and only the Light provides divine magic. Shamanism is basically a contract with the elements where you agree to work with them on their goals and in return they give you power. One of the biggest divides between it and divine magic is that Shamanism doesn't actually require any sort of reverence at all, as proven by goblin shamans (who address the elements as business partners rather than objects of worship) and dark shamans (who force the elements to do things without their consent).
The Light is essentially the power of fervor; you don't even have to be one of the "good guys" to benefit from the Light. You just have to believe really, really hard that you are a good guy, thus the Scarlet Crusade getting to keep their Paladins while they're burning down villages and slaughtering innocent people in anti-scourge witch hunts.
This, of course, is honestly kind of an irrelevant discussion because the schools of magic in D&D are simply different from those in Warcraft so some reflavoring will have to be in order. It was always pretty bizarre that D&D considers divine and nature magic to be the same thing anyways, splitting them up would be a good thing.
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Druid magic is... ill defined in Warcraft. It's definitely not close to shamanism, druids just tend to get their grubby little fingers over everything and try to take over stuff that is obviously the shaman domain (I'm not biased you're biased). Shamans are absolutely not "Draenor Druids", because Druids are primarily concerned with what the titans intended the planet to look like while Shamans are concerned with the balance of the elements and making sure druids don't ruin everything on a macro level while they're so distracted by the micro. Plus shamans existed by other names prior to the orcs showing up, they were just called witch doctors.
Well I was being rather simplistic about it. Philosophies aside, all I was intending to draw comparison between was the origin of their respective powers: druids draw upon the Emerald Dream - Azeroth's primal nature - and shamans draw upon the elements of Draenor which strike me as the closest thing Draenor has (when it comes to what these things actually are and represent, not simply the superficial appearances, so no, the Everbloom is not Draenor's equivalent). And while, yes, Azeroth has elementals, too, they're a rather different beast (although, given the elements' role in Draenor as well as what's been established about Azeroth's early history it can certainly be concluded that every planet normally just has its elements and elementals, and that the Emerald Dream is fairly unique to Azeroth - given this, I think it's safe to assume most planets could have their own shamans). But I'm getting way off-topic now.
I still maintain that in Warcraft the Light and only the Light provides divine magic.
(etc., etc.)
This, of course, is honestly kind of an irrelevant discussion because the schools of magic in D&D are simply different from those in Warcraft so some reflavoring will have to be in order. It was always pretty bizarre that D&D considers divine and nature magic to be the same thing anyways, splitting them up would be a good thing.
So yes, here we get to the kernel of our disagreement, and I wish I'd realized this was the sticking point earlier. When I say that shamanic magic is divine magic, that's strictly for the purposes of mechanical representation in a d20 system. As could be implied in my earlier post about mechanical-fluff disconnect, by default I consider the different types of magic - particularly divine - in d20 to simply be umbrella terms that collectively describe all sorts of different types of magic that simply behave similarly enough that, for mechanical purposes, they can all be lumped together.
I agree that, in Warcraft, arcane, divine, nature, shamanic, and fel magic are all distinct and separate from each other, but they're all similar enough that - again, for mechanical purposes - they can be lumped together for d20.
Compatbility and linking the two mediums is difficult to reconsile, to say the least. You have to be prepared to slaughter some cows (both from the MMORPG and from the TTRPG), such as spell slots, class concepts, and introducing new mechanics and subsystems.
I have no qualms about cow slaughtering, but I think that you're thinking more broadly than I am when I talk about compatibility. When it comes to Warcraft, I'm pretty much just talking lore-based compatibility, only using the mechanics of the game(s) as a starting point and guideline. As long as it doesn't contradict that lore of the setting, WoW's mechanics can go hang as far as I'm concerned (for this project, at least - I have considered trying to make a Warcraft system from scratch, but that's a much more massive undertaking than I have any desire or time for). Basically, I'm just treating this as a campaign setting, and the mechanics should be able to be appropriated for any other Pathfinder campaign without trouble.
I myself am captaining the Warcraft to 5e conversion (version 1.6.6 now), but have worked on a Warcraft to Pathfinder conversion before I switched to 5e (not for system preference, mostly for opportunity and to focus on easier projects).
Here is an early attempt on conversion you can make use of: Warcraft TOTAL conversion to Pathfinder. At the bottom, I've linked documents to the lead designer to help share my insights. They contain all feats, classes and spells from all sourcebooks.
Very cool. I'm not entirely sold on 5e, but I like it more than 4e, and even that I eventually warmed up to to some degree after a time. I'll probably check out your 5e project if I ever get into the system.
As for your previous work, thanks a ton. It looks like you went for more of a straight update of the White Wolf/Art Haus RPG which carries with it a lot of stuff I'd rather get rid of, but there were elements I was considering bringing along. I'm sure I'll find lots of inspiration in your work.
Here are my 2 cp on the conversion.
Spoiler:@Races: I cannot see Forsaken except as full undead in lore.
I know about the question of balance: removing immunity to stun, paralysis, bleed effects, ability drain/damage, and energy drain is appropriate (gaining +4 to saves instead), while retaining immunity to death effects, diseases and poisons (except those that function against the undead), and nonlethal damage, as well as immunity to fortitude-targeting effects.
This is part of their make-up and development. Adding the undead 'template' should be easy for high elves and humans in exchange for some racial traits.
Although I would like to add that forsaken should not be able to heal by resting, and must cannibalize (as the spell of the same name, usable at will).@Wild Growth and DoT/HoT spells: There can be a mechanic to resolve spells in a point-based manner, best done by allowing HoT/DoT spells to act like poisons (Spell deals initial damage (save halves), and then the caster spends points on their round to increase damage/healing).
This represents damage/healing over time effects, and opens up new mechanics for use (such as consuming all points for added effect, or moving an effect from one character to another). With added conditions, you can build a debilitating character with DoT spells such as the WoW Warlock, who mostly drained his enemies while CC'ing them.@Bestiary: You're in luck in this case: most monsters need only nominal 3.5 to Pathfinder conversion (alterations to CMB/CMD and skills).
@Setting and Adventures: The setting is adequately represented in the original 3.5 books (which have been used as a source to design WoW). Retcons aside (which truthfully are everywhere in WoW), it is perfectly usable, and provides interesting and appropriate hooks.
Other than that, adventures (and classes for that matter) are always what come last in designing a system.@Level curve: Level-based expansions insinuate that you'd be running a very long-term campaign covering all events (from Goldshire to Pandaria), and that by itself is not realistic. Each expansion deserves to be an adventure path in of itself.
Illidan (TBC) was nearly as tough as Arthas (WoTLK), but that doesn't mean Sha Garrosh is tougher than both (being of higher 'hit points' and dealing more damage.
One issue you must resolve with level curves is that WoW assumes raid parties of 5-10+ characters taking on an enemy (and in some cases, 40), and are balanced around that fact. Taking a leaf from the comics, novels, and cinematics gives a more even assessment to how characters can be balanced (which is less of Pathfinder's insta-rocket-tag and more of 5e's longer combats).@Class/Race Restrictions: Few players will take bad choices for race/class combinations anyway, so there is no worry in this regard. You won't often see a dwarf sorcerer unless there is an archetype to help (and by that point, it's justified in-game).
If you want to provide a better incentive to stick with classic race/class combinations, consider racial archetypes (see below) to be better (or at least more specialized) than other combinations.@Classes: Consider divorcing the engineering mechanics from the engineer class. I have taken the same approach and built shamans on the cleric chassis.
Archetypes are indeed a great way to represent several mechannics.Death Knight: variant paladin.
Demon Hunter: variant rogue
Elven Ranger: variant ranger
Mounted Warrior: variant warrior
Mountain King: dwarf-only variant warrior
Spellbreaker: elf-only variant warrior
Sharpshooter: dwarf-only variant ranger
Lightslayer: forsaken-only variant rogue
Acolyte: scourge-only variant cleric
Blademaster: orc-only variant warrior
Warden: elf-only variant rogue or slayer@Psychic Casting, Shamanism, and Druidism: For simplicity, I agree that druidism/shamanism are best represented as clerics with heavily specialized domains.
As for kineticists: I advise against it. Adding psychic spells as normal ones and new domain abilities work better, mostly because familiarity is a big factor when it comes to participating in fan projects such as conversions.
What you could do is alter minor components with specific classes.@Languages: Corrupting Eredun notwithstanding, most languages are accessible. Kalimag is a universal elemental language, however. Ignan, Terran, etc. are simply dialects.
@Feats: Some feats need errata and re-balancing (see the conversion effort on Piazza), but most are appropriate to take as-is.
@Magic: Please check up on the conversion thread in the Piazza to see my work in Errata and re-balancing spells in the warcraft universe. Some spells are very weak, and some are stupidly underleveled.
The document is nearly 250+ pages, but they include all spells in all sourcebooks.@Totems: You have several ways to go about this: Metamagic or item creation.
Metamagic: Totems recreate (or recast) AoE or ray spells in a 20-foot or 30-foot radius respectively when modified with the Totemic Spell Metamagic (+2 adjustment). Just metamagic, and the modified spell can be dispelled by destroying the totem.
They are cast once per turn, using the shaman's DC and ranged touch bonus, and usually remain for 1 round/level. If a burst, the effect is centered on the totem, which is always immune to its own spell. If the spell is a concentration spell, the totem concentrates on it instead. A shaman cannot have more than two totems active at any given time.
Totems A totem spell creates physical objects called totems. This object then creates an effect in a 30-foot or 20-foot radius. The totem remains for 1 round per caster level or until destroyed. All totems have 2 hit points per caster level, 5 points of hardness, and an AC of 7 (touch 7).
For reference, an Entangling totem (or Earthbind) would be of level 3, throwing an Entangle once every round.
An Alarm totem would be of level 3 as well, and would reset the alarm every round, giving a relatively good flow of information on how often the alarm is sounded.
To create totems of 2nd level or lower, I recommend reverse-engineering spells (such as by reverse Extend Spell) to lower spell level.Item Creation: Totems are objects that cost as per the normal feat, and the spell that summons the totem is equal to the spell within the totem.
For example, you create an Earthbind Totem (entangling totem), and prepare 'Summon Earthbind Totem' in a 3rd level spell slot. As a summoned object, it can be harmed and dispelled (like a creature), but it does not actually get destroyed until the actual object is destroyed.
This liberates shamans from preparing several spells (as they can just carry the totems and activate them whenever), and also allows for several totems to be used in conjunction and sold to one another.My recommendation is to take the metamagic spell route. It is more versatile, though more abstract.
@Mana: There are mechanics proposed for mana should you be interested (best of which is the Blackfang Mana System), and the one I overhauled for use in the Warcraft conversion.
Personally, I utilize mana over spell slots (which is an entirely alien concept to Warcraft).
1. It lowers the amount of spells used per hour, but allows for a more even spread throughout the day.
2. It opens up the mechanics for mana-restoration and mana destruction effects, such as the martially-focused Spellbreak Strike feat.
3. It is more representative of Warcraft fiction and the video game, wherein casters get drained from casting several powerful spells, but can throw weaker spells all day.@Prestige Classes: I actually do not like prestige classes, and think that representing special classes works better with archetypes (or stacking archetypes).
@Warlocks: Variant demon-based Sorcerer. The specifics can be discussed.
@Magic Items: Build on items from Warcraft III and go on from there (such as fire/cold/lightning orbs, Lion Horn of Stormwind, etc.).
As for set pieces of equipment, they can act as normal equipment with a special bonus if used together. This hints of grinding, though, which is a big no-no in tabletop.@Tech & Engineering: I recommend building upon the Warcraft engineering point-based upgrades system. It's a tad wonky, unbalanced, and strangely priced, but focusing on it primarily comes with a better feel than the abstract Technology Guide in Pathfinder.
I have done work on the engineering system, should you be interested.
DoT/HoT: I have no problem with DoTs. There's already a few spells and abilities that apply them in Pathfinder (bleed damage, setting on fire, etc.), so implementing any new ones can simply be modeled off of that. As for HoT, the closest thing Pathfinder has is fast healing, and there are a couple of spells that provide it like infernal healing. Early drafts of this system did include a few HoT spells, but I decided to remove pretty much all of them for now until I can be sure about how to make them worth preparing/casting over normal cure spells, without them breaking the game.
Setting: No, they are not. Far too many retcons for what does exist, and nothing for what's been added since. In any case, I want this to be a fairly stand-alone product. At least as much as, say, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting or Eberron Campaign Setting books for 3.Xe.
Level Curve: I'll be honest, I don't have much first-hand experience with d20 high-level play. I'm certainly well aware of the rocket-tag reputation, but I don't know it first-hand. I'm trying to keep this in mind, but there's only so much I can do working off of reputation and theory. However, as for the campaign... Like I said, I'm wanting to take a two-prong approach to this. One is to make each zone usable as a stand-alone adventure - this even extends to levels - not that each zone will be a full 1-20 campaign, just... It's a bit hard to explain at the moment, since I only have notes and some initial planning figured out. I won't be able to really say anything for certain until I've started working on them, which as I said won't be happening until everything else is pretty much finalizaed. However, you definitely make some good points. Whether or not it's feasible, I still want to make a single campaign that characters can go all the way through, but it would probably be prudent to also balance adventures for campaigns that only span that expansion. I do think that - even if your group doesn't intend to do the whole thing, there should be some support for groups who want, say, play their veteran of Northrend in Pandaria, but I can't figure out any way to handle that without essentially having to reset the character's level which can cause more than a couple ontological hiccups.
Bestiary: This isn't so much a reply to your section on this as it is a tangent to the level curve discussion, but the bestiary will be fairly agnostic to the planned level curve. As I intend things to go, each adventure will have its own monster entries appropriate to the level range that it is intended for, allowing the bestiary to simply create each base creature (so not every single variant, rename, and palette swap of what's essentially the same thing, just with a different class, template, or number of HD) at whatever CR would be most lore-appropriate.
Class/Race Restrictions: You misunderstand. I don't want to create extra incentive for players to stick to classic combinations. Bring on the tauren rogues, I say! But I racial favoured class bonuses are minor enough that I wouldn't expect any but the most munchkin-y players to choose their race and class based on them, which allows them to simply be something that reinforces flavour without adversely affecting player freedom.
Classes: Most of those (that I even consider worth adding) will be better suited as prestige classes. Certainly death knights and demon hunters.
Languages: As far as I can tell, there actually isn't much canon support for the existence of Ignan, Terran, etc. at all. I'm actually extremely on-the-fence about including them and pretty much only did it to pad language options (both in total, and for racial starting languages).
Feats & Spells: Indeed, and thank you for your support on this. However, I'll probably be cutting a fair few that overlap with existing feats.
Totems: Narrowing them down to AoE and ray spells (along with various other elements you mentioned) helps a lot with the “broad spectrum” problems I was having with trying to get them to work as metamagic feats. I'll take another stab at it after taking this into consideration. I do like the idea Knight_Druid and I came up with at the start, so I'll probably still mock up something for that, too, and just figure out which of the two systems I like better. Experimentation!
Mana: Yes, this is something I've thought about since I started this project. Ultimately, I decided to play it safe on the side of Pathfinder intercompatibility. I may include a sidebar or something to sketch out a mana/spell point-based variant system, but that's as far as it'll go.
Prestige Classes: Here we simply differ in philosophy. I consider archetypes to be good for creating specialized versions of classes that simply focus on a specific aspect of that class (or of another class, or just of adventuring in general) but that are still roughly the same as the base class. Prestige classes come in two main types: one is a character type that can have a wide variety of ways to approach the same general concept, and the second is for highly specialized character types or ones that diverge greatly from the basic assumptions of base class mechanics (perhaps by granting a template or something like the dragon disciple does or death knight would). The first type is sort of like the inverse of archetypes. Since archetypes can only apply to one class, if you want something specialized, but that can be done by multiple classes you either have to make archetypes for every single possible class that can do it, or you can create a prestige class that can be easily entered by those classes. As for the second, the nature of the class necessitates - either for fluff reasons or, ideally, for mechanical balance - extra training beyond what is simply expected of those progressing in a normal class. Basically, a base class (including archetypes and alternate classes) is for when you're simply getting better at what you can already do, while a prestige class is for granting an entirely new set of skills that you actually have to work towards. And yes, this does imply that not all of Paizo's prestige classes are worthy of being prestige classes in my eyes.
Warlocks: In my opinion, sorcerers are the least warlock-y Pathfinder class (that can still work as a warlock). That and, considering my aforementioned philosophy, the fact that warlocks can't just start out yucking it up with demons (lore-wise, not so much the MMO player class) without having some appreciable magical power already suggest that it's something you have to work towards rather than simply start out as. That, and the fact that most arcane casters can make roughly equal claim towards being a warlock means it also meets the criteria for the other type of prestige class - the one that would otherwise require a separate archetype for that gives basically the same abilities for each possible class.
Magic Items: I'm pretty much with you on this, although I don't think I'll be converting as many items as you might. I think Pathfinder already features a lot of items that are close enough to work for Warcraft counterparts (the orbs, for instance, I always saw as being a way to represent flaming, frost, etc. weapon enchantments within the system). Regardless, I'll be tackling this chapter last.
Tech & Engineering: I'll be tackling this chapter only before I do magic items (and then going back to update the feat chapter with any appropriate additions). While I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do with it, aside from vehicles, I think Paizo's Technology Guide can work pretty well with just some basic refluffing. The difference between cyberpunk and magi-tech steampunk is largely one of flavour.
Mechanically, the only real difference between the two is the spell lists of their respective poster children (wizard and cleric).
What the game should go towards is eliminating individual class lists entirely, and showing spell lists on an Arcane/Divine basis, with specific classes being branded as exceptions (such as paladin Blessings, warlock Curses, druid Marks, cleric's Prayers, etc.), which are rare and are usually tied to the domain or specialization.
Such as an entry under Divine Magic: Only characters who cast from divine sources can cast cure spells.
There are a few other differences between arcane and divine: divine foci are all the same thing (generally a holy symbol or the like) while arcane foci are specific to spells. Divine spells are inherently unencumbered by armour, and while arcane spells can be cast normally while wearing armour, doing so requires spending a couple feats, or being a member of a specific class. There's also a distinct difference in the flavour between spells of each type.
Your suggestion to remove class restrictions is downright shocking, though. Most every spellcasting class is balanced based on their spell list, and simply allowing every spell to be cast by every class would wreak havoc with balance. If not for the fact that you basically follow this up by recommending rebuilding spell lists, just in a round-about manner.
Also, forgot to add something else: Instead of mythic, there is a sub-system for specialization (as per Warcraft's specs) that provide point-based abilities.
I am not fond of the system anymore, but it might be useful as reference.
Eh... I really always viewed Warcraft's talent/spec system as something of a necessary evil to permit some degree of character customization, but far too restrictive for a pen-and-paper system. In fact, for the most part, I consider talents to be the equivalent of feats and ability choices like Pathfinder rogue talents. Really, I embraced the overhaul in MoP because it made it a lot more like feats, with real opportunity for choices to be made. Pen-and-paper, in my opinion, already supports the spec system. That said, I'm never one to toss out an idea unseen, so I'll certainly take a look.
@Psychic Casting, Shamanism, and Druidism: For simplicity, I agree that druidism/shamanism are best represented as clerics with heavily specialized domains.
As for kineticists: I advise against it. Adding psychic spells as normal ones and new domain abilities work better, mostly because familiarity is a big factor when it comes to participating in fan projects such as conversions.
What you could do is alter minor components with specific classes.
Kineticists are weird, in that while they are in the same book that psychic casting is introduced to Pathfinder, they don't actually use the psychic casting rules. All their abilities are Spell-like abilities or Supernatural abilities. Prior to the class being introduced into Pathfinder, I might have uneasily sided with you. I don't particularly like Shaman as clerics, for all the reasons Arachnofiend has mentioned and my own personal vision for the class. But now that we have a class that closely follows what, in game, the class is capable of doing, and even allows some options that have been set aside during various ability prunes or never were available to players but that NPCs can do, why not use it?
Now, converting shaman to 5E,
*after thumbing through* This is a really well thought out conversion. I have some minor quibbles, for instance I'd take Light Armor away from priests, and swap the armor, but not weapon, proficiencies of shaman and druids, but like I said, minor stuff. I particularly like the Eclipse mechanic.
Edited to add:
Warlocks: In my opinion, sorcerers are the least warlock-y Pathfinder class (that can still work as a warlock). That and, considering my aforementioned philosophy, the fact that warlocks can't just start out yucking it up with demons (lore-wise, not so much the MMO player class) without having some appreciable magical power already suggest that it's something you have to work towards rather than simply start out as. That, and the fact that most arcane casters can make roughly equal claim towards being a warlock means it also meets the criteria for the other type of prestige class - the one that would otherwise require a separate archetype for that gives basically the same abilities for each possible class.
Agreed. I'm a bit on the fence as to whether warlocks would be better represented as witches (and summoners, good call there) or as a prestige class, but you're right that there's some strong precedent towards it being a prestige class. If you make said prestige class require a familiar and spellcasting, there's all sorts of fun combinations that could be built.
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I don't particularly like Shaman as clerics, for all the reasons Arachnofiend has mentioned and my own personal vision for the class.
I'd just like to reiterate for the record that while I do support clerics being able to represent a variant of shamanic magic, I also support other classes, and even agree that most other divine casters come closer to the Warcraft representation of shamans than clerics do. In fact, it may be helpful to think of a shamanic cleric in this system as less representing the playable Warcraft shaman and more like the Twilight's Hammer cultists (though not necessarily evil).
If you make said prestige class require a familiar and spellcasting, there's all sorts of fun combinations that could be built.
For spellcasting, absolutely. My thoughts for the prestige class is basically to give it a sort of add-on spell list - one that expands the spell list of the warlock's existing arcane spellcasting class rather than giving the class its own spell progression.
As for familiars, while the warlock should certainly get one (of some sort, though I'm leaning more towards using animal companions as a base, given how warlock companions are actually meant for combat, unlike familiars), I don't know about having it be a requirement. I'm also a bit stuck on what to do about the summoner's eidolon (even if you don't think it's the best class to represent warlocks, summoners pretty much can't be anything but warlocks in Warcraft, and I can't see a justification for cutting the class since it certainly fits in the lore, as long as you put some limits on how eidolons are built so that they're basically always recreating demons - which, given the prevailing opinion of the class' balance, I'm sure most GMs would have no problem with). I'm not saying anything about what I will or won't be doing concerning this issue, just that it's something that will take some pondering. While I do have a warlock prestige class already made, it's little more than a placeholder that I threw together in a couple hours, and I have zero confidence in how balanced it is.
Well, summoners can be conjurers I suppose. Not a current player class, but one that was around in the RTS and that Mages have mined for some of their class abilities (e.g., Frost Elemental). But, again, agreed.
I have to say, what amuses me about this line of thinking is that I have parallel thoughts when it comes to the Kineticist and Shaman. Picture it: you have a class that throws around lightning, fire, and rocks at people that annoy them, commune with elemental powers, take on elemental form at their peak performance, can channel that power into their weapons, and hell, even heal with the power of water. I can't imagine that at a table and not mentally translate that as shaman.
But, hey, you've said your piece, I've said mine. I only brought it up again because of the similarity to your comment about summoners. What you have to say about cleric shaman being Twilight Cultist bran shamans is pretty true as well.
Hmm, perhaps the prestige class can have a variable method of entry, like the Hellknight Enforcer/Signifier? They'd either need an bloodline, familiar bond, or eidolon to enter the class, and whichever way they enter the class, the class stacks with their base class.
Edit: I think I've come across as overly critical, so in addition to everything I've said so far, let me ALSO say that I like the work you've put into this so far. In particular, the layout and presentation (including using the class icons for spells) is great, and I really like the Engineer class.
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Oh, I do agree that kineticists would make great shamans, I just need to look the class over to be sure there's nothing hiding in it that I should know about, and see how easy it is to crowbar out of psychic magic by itself. I only just got Occult Adventures a week ago, and haven't had a chance to do more than thumb through it.
The variable entry thing is something I've considered, but it seems a bit too complex to not try to come up with an alternate plan. Still, definitely something to think about.
Also, thanks for the praise. ^^ I certainly do not mind you being critical, however. Critique is the only way to improve anything, anyway, and as long as you're not simply being dismissive or insulting, I encourage being critical.
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First off, I'd like to reiterate that my priority is inter-compatibility with plain Pathfinder. Any system or rule should be able to be taken straight from the core game (or any supplement) and used in this without conversion or tweaking, and likewise, and system or rule from this should be able to be taken and used in any other Pathfinder game. This is a campaign setting, not a subsystem or variant of the Pathfinder rules. I'm not saying there shouldn't be one, or that making a Warcraft subsystem or variant would be bad, but that is not what I am trying to do here. While I will likely include sidebars for variant rules that allow closer replication of Warcraft as a system, these will only be of secondary importance, and not the main focus, nor will their use be assumed. So as long as we've reached an understanding on that (you're free to disagree with me, just so long as you respect that we merely have a difference of opinion), let us move on...
Sylvannas in this case does need to eat and drink, sleep, do have blood and can bleed, will get tired if she marches for long enough [...] Above that, she can be healed by Paladins.
That's a wrong picture: The Forsaken's vulnurability to the Scarlet Crusaders is entirely built on them being harmed by the Holy Light (and by Paladins and Priests having anti-undead powers). They have been described as restless when marching, and the tireless undead are just that--tireless.
Don't get me wrong; power imbalance is an issue, but proper representation usually takes priority in design; early World of Warcraft allowed [...]
Optimization potential with undead is often overestimated in this case. Con as a dump stat can increase effeciency, but concentrating on one attribute is as bunching eggs in one basket (and can be countered by not having point-buy). A poison that can affect undead and deal Cha damage will cut into hit points, Fortitude, Cha checks, Con checks, and everything related to both Charisma and Constitution.
[...]but otherwise would make no logical sense, unless zombies, abominations, banshees (and really, all undead in Warcraft that became Forsaken) are also just half-undead, too.
It's trivial to add a racial feature that removes the need to eat, drink, and sleep. Thanks for catching that. Smite and other holy spells harm living humans just as easily in Warcraft, and forsaken are healed by the same spells as everyone else. Even if I concede that it may not be indisputably lore-friendly based on strict interpretation, this is enough for their to be precedent in my opinion, and I've experienced first hand the headache it is to party healers when channel energy and cure don't work on everyone in the party. While it can be an interesting challenge to overcome, it should not be inflicted as the default in my opinion (which is why it's included as an alternate racial feature). I do not agree with your assurances that allowing players to effectively spend more points on fewer ability scores would not drastically upset game balance, and your closing thought smacks of ad absurdum. Banshees, abominitions, would never be playable races, and so do not need to worry about balance issues. Additionally, they are quite different "biologically" from forsaken, being animated constructs and disembodied spirits, that if one required a full explanation for one is treated mechanically as full undead and the other isn't, it would be child's play to do so. But ultimately - much as I'd like to say otherwise - that I have to just rely on the fact that making forsaken full undead would at the very least necessitate that being practically their only racial trait (maybe one or two minor skill bonuses), which in my eyes devastates their feel as a whole and complete race.
Somewhat...Metzin has been on-and-off again with how canon the lore-books are. At first they were canon, and now they aren't, but they are sometimes referenced by other materials and sometimes get fleshed upon in the game (Shando-Pan/Naga/Emerald Dream).
Not really, no. While the line was still supported, things fluctuated, but since its termination, Blizzard has been adamant that it is not canon. And while, yes, things were brought from the RPG into the MMO (Brann Bronzebeard perhaps being the most notable example), I view such things as being more like convergent evolution (compare the Shodo-Pan with Mists' Shado-Pan, for example - it is not just the spelling that differs between the two). The pandaren share only the most superficial similarities between the two versions, Northrend, while broadly-speaking, quite similar, still has a number of important differences, and so on. I'm not saying the RPG is 100% inaccurate, but it is enough that it certainly can't be called reliable.
[various things about PrCs]
I understand your viewpoint, and by-and-large, will even agree when it comes to many prestige classes, however I do not think the mechanic is wholly without merit, and that it can be used properly. I do not intend to make this game lousy with PrCs. In fact, at most, I can only come up with five or so all the way from WC1 to Legion, and I'm doubtful that all of those will even make it to the final draft. But we clearly have a deeply-rooted difference of opinions on this matter, and I will simply have to ask that we agree to disagree.
And, personally, while I love archetypes, I dislike how they now make it so that 98% of character concepts (discounting munchkins and mechanics-based concepts) can be created by 20 levels in the same class. Fluff-wise, there's virtually no reason any more to multi-class, even though 3e finally made that a reasonable system for D&D (and Pathfinder improved it). While I'm not going to make PrCs for the sake of making PrCs, I'm certainly not going shy away from it if I think the idea is appropriate for the concept.Flavor is not a concern; it's the ability to construct and customize engineered devices.
The Tech Guide says 'TAKE THIS, PLAYER' and never bothers to allow characters to reverse-engineer or customize what they get without GM Fiat, while Warcraft's Engineering system gives you the required tools.
It's the difference between making your own character and running a pregen.
I hate pregens.
I agree, and this is, in fact, a large reason why I was let down by that book. However, the basic mechanics in it, I consider to be reasonably solid, and intend to expand upon them so that they do include the ability to make modifications and customization.
Balance when spells are involved? :D
I surely could have used a better phrase. Obviously, with as many options as are even in just the core book for spells, it's virtually impossible to keep things truly balanced. This is even setting aside the fact that spellcasting is already considered to be an inherently imbalanced system. But lumping all spell lists together is going in the opposite direction of balance, not to mention that some classes like the bard are defined as much by the spells they can't cast as the ones they can.
As for the rest of your comment, I either don't have anything particular to say about it (though this doesn't mean I don't value or think there's something to them, just that any response would simply be "Intersting..." or "I'll think about it."), or it falls under the note at the top of this post.
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I've just uploaded a new version of the core PDF. Changes are very minor. The goblin's urbanite racial trait now replaces squalor rather than integrated (I have no idea why I did that the other way around), forsaken's half-undead (which I'm probably going to rename because in spite of this mechanic, I do still consider them to be full undead, they just cling a little harder to their humanity - suggestions for a better name?) allows them to no longer need to eat, sleep, or drink, and I've removed a number of feats that I considered questionable (or were Technology feats, since I need to create those rules before I can be sure what sorts of things these will do). I also changed several feats that were categorized as metamagic feats to be general feats as they didn't actually alter spells the way that every other metamagic feat does (this was a hold-over from the previous RPG where I'm guessing those feats were solely categorized as metamagic so that mages could take them as bonus feats - not a bad idea, per se, but it seems like a loophole abuse to me). I'm wavering on whether or not to remove the various leadership feats, too. I know most GMs don't like allowing Leadership to begin with, and I'm not sure how integral they are to the Warcraft experience - sure there are great leaders and all, but Teamwork feats fill a similar niche, if nothing else.
I was going to point out about the forsaken and the light, but @Arrius did so already.
Forsaken being healed by the light exists for a game balance perspective, they had to come up with the "pain explanation" or otherwise we would have to avoid partying with forsaken tanks in the game.
Keep in mind that resurrection does not exist in warcraft lore, it exists in the game for a game balance perspective aswell, you have to keep playing anyway.
We have seen that all forsaken are gone once they are killed, not even necromancers will bring them back (just their mindless corpses, mind you). We have seen on the forsaken new cataclysm quests that only the banshee can bring a dead forsaken back, which we could consider the most powerful necromancy spells known in the lore.
We also got the red dragons, which can bring life from the dead, but only their queen (Alexstrasza) has seen bringing anyone back from the dead.
Other than that, you got necromancy. Powerful necromancy can create undead with a mind, but usually broken. We have only seen such spells used by the Lich King and a few of his servants though.
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Holy damage =/= positive energy. Holy damage is more akin to Flame Strike's 'divine' damage that is irresistible.
I was going to point out about the forsaken and the light, but @Arrius did so already.
Forsaken being healed by the light exists for a game balance perspective.
Right. And if nothing else, I feel I need to maintain that precedent for a game balance perspective.
True, but that's why I say it's reliable unless otherwise specified.
I'd say the other way 'round is a more reasonable approach: unreliable unless otherwise noted. Although, I consider uncanonizing them a reasonable action. White Wolf is a separate entity from Blizzard, and they each have their own creative teams who worked on the respective products. Even while it was being published, it still contradicted established canon at the time - Alterac Valley, for example.
Although I prefer archetypes over PrCs in most situations, they cannot stand in for everything. Death Knights, Priestesses of the Moon, Druids of the Claw/Talon/etc. are archetypes or domains of a class, since they share too many mechanics to warrant being prestige classes (Runeblade being built off Paladin's Bond/Moon Domain/Minor Shapeshifting exchanges, respectively).
Demon Hunters or Wardens may be PrCs, but don't have to be if they can be made into specialist Archetypes of classes that represent them (Rogue and Slayer, respectively).
Dark Rangers and Elven Rangers have stronger cases to be PrCs, while things such as Liches are templates.
Things that do require PrCs are classes like the Felsworn, Mountain King, Wind Rider, Shadow Hunter, Techno-magi, and various Scarlet Crusader orders.
Death knights never start out as death knights, however. No one goes straight from common farmer to Arthas' lieutenant. His death knights are generally hand-picked from fallen adventurers who have already proven themselves on the field of battle, implying that already have a few class levels under their belt. Even though WoW treats all death knights the same, without any variation for possible past lives, this can certainly be blamed on engine limitations and logistical concerns.
While I lean towards Dark Rangers being a PrC, I have to just chalk that up to intuition since I consider elven rangers to simply be mid- to high-level (base class) rangers. Or hunters, slayers, etc. And I can understand Dark Rangers being likewise.
Honestly, (and yes, I know I did include this in my pdf, but that's just a hold-over from my early "copying things over from the previous RPG" phase) I don't really know about what "felsworn" would really be in Warcraft. That sort of thing seems to be covered by either warlocks or a fiendish-type template. I will be looking into it right after posting this, though. I'm in a made where I'm trying to hack out unnecessary holdovers from the previous RPG. Mountain kings might be PrC-able, but I can see that being a flavourful characterization of high-level dwarven paladins, cavaliers, etc. At most, it may be a cavalier archetype to replace the mount.
Depending on various opportunities for interpretation, I can see shadow hunters being an archetype, alternate class, or PrC, and I'm not sure which of the three I'll choose.
Spells:
See... In my personal opinion, based on what I like about d20, spellcasting, etc., the advantages you list aren't terribly 'strong' advantages, and are arguable as to how much they even do (for example, you say reduced word count, but the replacement sentence you wrote just before that is almost three times longer than what gets replaced - you may save space when it comes to writing up the spell lists by not having to repeat spells used by multiple classes, but the word count in rules text I consider to be more important than the document's overall word count), and the list of disadvantages are things I miss quite strongly.
Another thing about your proposition is that it requires a lot more cross-referencing. After thumbing through the spell list, you then have to look up the individual spell to make sure that it's not restricted to another class. This can be lessened a bit by removing the restricted spells from the general list, and having lists for just the class-restricted spell, but then you've basically recreated a more inconvenient version of the class lists we already use. While the writer/publisher/printer may be inconvenienced a bit by having to include spell entries multiple times for each class, this is typically one measly line of text per list, and allows players to look at a single list that has every spell their class - and only their class - can cast, meaning they don't have to do any cross-referencing, and just pick the spells straight off of that list knowing that everything there is available to them.
I'm certainly not saying there is no merit to this as a variant system or something (it would probably work superbly in a system or setting with only a few of caster classes), but to me, it would no longer be D&D or Pathfinder. Or it would be, but with a significantly less user-friendly interface. I think this is another instance where we must just agree to disagree.
Metamagic: I suggest classifying them (as well as metamagic feats) as simply 'magic' feats.
One interesting thing to note is that Counterspelling in Warcraft is more rewarding than in Pathfinder--though they still suffer from the original mechanic.
But that could upset balance, and would require editing and overruling the wording of core Pathfinder rules, which - for inter-compatibility - I don't want to do unless it is absolutely necessary, which I can't even imagine a situation where such edits would be. Counterspelling is something that has troubled me since, as an Arcane Mage in WoW who can only manage middling DPS (simply due to my skill as a player, not equipment or anything), I basically consider that to be one of the main things I bring to a group. However, I'm not sure how to balance an all-purpose counterspell like that. Plus, I'm at least able to convince myself that since Pathfinder does already have a counterspell mechanic... (Yes, it's a weak argument. It won't take much to convince me that's not enough. ...Because it's not.) On the other hand, I'm concerned what being able to counterspell so easily would do to game balance. ...Then again, I suppose spellcasters can do with a bit of a nerf.
Leadership is more for mass combat purposes. I advise that you ignore them now.
Done. (Also, this is probably what it will look like if you attempt to convince me about counterspelling, above. As I said, I can't even convince myself of my own point.)
Keep in mind that resurrection does not exist in warcraft lore, it exists in the game for a game balance perspective aswell, you have to keep playing anyway.
Indeed, and I've pretty much regretted bringing that up ever since I mentioned it. Honestly, I don't really like the presence of resurrection even in Pathfinder and D&D. I definitely don't like killing characters, but the impacts of being able to return the dead to life pretty much have to be ignored if you want anyone to ever accomplish anything in the narrative. Whether and how to include resurrection in any tabletop game has always been a question that's bothered me, and I've pretty much only avoided it because no one in any of my groups has ever died unless they think it makes for a better story, or they want to roll a new character.
Still, this is all a discussion that has more to do with whether or not resurrection magic should exist at all, and not so much how it should interract with undead. Since the forsaken can corpse run just like anyone else, and the only character I can think of who's even returned to life after getting properly killed is Sylvanas (post-Cata Silverpine/Gilneas storyline), I don't see why forsaken should be treated any differently than anyone else. Either everyone can rez, or no one can. And I'm honestly fine with either (though for different reasons, of course).
And by the way, the magic chapter will probably have a sidebar about resurrection and how it isn't truly canon (at least not as the everyday spell we find in the core rules). I may introduce a ...say, 4th-level or 5th-level spell that returns those who died to life so long as it's only been a couple of rounds or minutes at most (think I'll call it resuscitate), but even that will probably just be an optional safeguard against unwanted player deaths included in that same sidebar.
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No farmer starts out as a mage, a warlock, or a shaman (heck, even rogues and warriors and rangers are not farmers who picked up the respective weapons).
I was exaggerating for effect. DKs start at level 55 for a reason. A farmer can pick up a sword, swing it around a few times, and he's started his path as a fighter - not a good one yet, but hey. Level 1. A level 1 DK doesn't even make sense. As I believe you yourself said, any game that you'd have death knights in would start around level 6 or 7 - about the level that a character with their first level in a prestige class would be. DKs are elites, lieutenants, commanders. They have experience already. In fact, I'd even argue that those initiates you mentioned aren't proper death knights. They were raised and given a starting kit, but they didn't meet the prerequisites for the class. And you say that the reflection of a paladin should be the same sort of class, but the blackguard wasn't so there's a certain precedent. Not to mention, I don't consider death knights and paladins to be mirrors in any way but thematically - or I carry the mirroring further, because I believe death knight magic is more similar to arcane magic than divine, ability to cast while wearing heavy armour notwithstanding (in fact, if I even were to make a death knight archetype or alternate class, it would be based on the magus, not the paladin).
But this is all a matter of taste and opinion to which there is no absolute right answer. You've made your case, I've made mine, there's been some back and forth, neither side has really budged, so I suggest we just - and I'm sorry to sound like a broken record at this point - agree to disagree, and move on.
I've treated it as a Warrior (fighter) archetype, but dat avatar do.
I should think that would make it easier to make it as a cavalier archetype. It's a pretty hefty ability and you can easily just trade out the mount for it rather than having to figure out how many bonus feats to toss, and at what levels.
As for the rest, they're called 'magic' feats.
Eh. At present, they account for only two or three feats. Not really worth creating an entire category, particularly if it's just for determining whether or not certain classes can add them to their bonus feat selection. But even if I do end up adding more that would fit into the category, I'd have difficulty reconciling the fact that some of these would be in it, but not dozens of other feats from the core game that would be just as fitting, if not moreso. And in case it wasn't already apparent, I'm loathe to do anything like retroactively add all of those feats to the new category.
Resurrection magic does in fact exist in Warcraft's lore, as @Lawrence said.
Resurrection magic, but not so much resurrection spells. As you said, corpse running/spirit healers are almost certainly just for the purposes of the MMO (although the fact that Azuregos is acquainted with one does upset that theory a little), but even so they're inhuman entities capable of powers that could very well be far beyond what an mortal could attempt. Just looking at the lore (so ignoring player priests and shamans, etc.), raising the dead isn't something any old high priest can do as would be implied by the presence of a mid-level spell. Fel, I doubt even Velen can resurrect the dead, and if he can't conceivably cast a divine spell, no mere mortal can. Certainly not 7+ times a week for just a few diamonds.
And what does that say about the game they're playing?
That they don't want to punish their players for an unlucky roll? I try not to judge on such little information. Everyone has their own style, and I for one kind of abhor the GM vs. player mentality that seems to be so heartily espoused. (Honestly, does anyone other than the GM actually like that? I've only ever heard horror stories from players about GMs like that, never any about how great they are. Wait... I did once have a group with a munchkin in it who I bet would have enjoyed being in that sort of game, but I kind of hate munchkins, too. The game I play and the game they play are two completely different things.)
Anyway, the sort of thing you suggest is already pretty widely known, and not infrequently used, but I have difficulty in seeing it written out as hard-and-fast game rules. Costs like that should pretty much always be left up to GM adjudication and player discussion. As soon as you write a solid rule about it, you'll have players starting to see how to break it. Does it require intelligent humanoids? Do they need a certain number of HD? How can such things be justified in lore? Maybe you say that none of that is important, and instead the sacrifice has to be someone with a strong emotional attachment to the resurrectee. In which case, does it have to be a positive attachment, or can you off the guy's nemesis to pay for his revival? And regardless, how do you measure in game terms the strength of someone's emotional attachment?
No, writing any rules to that effect requires writing many rules or leaving things wide open for abuse, and every group will have its opinions and preferences for what should and shouldn't work so if it is best to do no more than suggest that as an idea and leave GMs and players to hash out what they think is best on their own. I suppose this is why there aren't mechanical rules about what counts as Lawful or Chaotic, or how many Good or Evil points an action will grant. The book provides guidelines and ideas, but any mechanical effects (even to the point of changing alignments) is left up to the group.
This breaks the 4th wall.
Sidebars do that all the time. It's like the one time the authors will step back and actually have a frank discussion with the reader, acknowledging the nature of all of this being a game.
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Quick notes: I've sketched out my plan for how I'm going to tackle the progress on this, which will mostly be chapter-by-chapter. First, I'm going to finish up the spells, since they're almost done (at least for a first non-rough draft). After that, I'll work on the Classes chapter,
Actually, I'm going to finish Classes first, since there's that totem idea I was going to try, and depending on how that turns out, I may or may not need to create different spells. Back to your regularly scheduled program.
...followed by Feats, Magic (the non-spell entry parts thereof), and Prestige Classes. That should result in something at least playable while I start writing up the Technological Devices chapter (which, in retrospect, I may fold into the Equipment chapter, since Equipment doesn't really have much to it otherwise). Once the Technological Devices rules are written up, I'll probably have some more feats to add, which will be done at that time.
The goal for this is just to get the ideas and basic rules written out. Once that's done I'll do a pass or two to make sure nothing should get cut or added, and after that's taken care of, the plan is that what's left is only and all of what will be in the final version. Then we begin Phase 2.
Phase 2 will be for polishing the rules, making sure things are reasonably balanced, clarifying ambiguous language, etc. The goal of Phase 2 is to have all the mechanics and rules finalized. Technically, as far as functionality is concerned, it will be the finished project at the end of this phase.
But there's still Phase 3 where fluff text and descriptions will be added. Priority will go to the things that have rules text, and then to things like the gazetteer and other "pure fluff" sections. Once that's taken care of... Well, I guess the writing's done. Can anyone think of anything I missed?
Minor note: Apparently Spitit healers are actually a thing. They were recently revealed to be Valkyr renegades according to the new Warcraft Chronicle book. I'm guessing thier ubiquity is still not cannon, but I'm not as sure if that as I once was.
Edit: Also, you mentioned at one point that you might write Worgen as an alt-human subrace. If you go that route, have you seen the Skinwalker race? Their Change Shape ability is valued roughly that of the human flexible bonus feat, so that could be an option.
Or you could just import the Skinwalker race wholesale.
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O_o Well that was unexpected. Clearly, I'm going to need to get this book just maintain accuracy.
And importing skinwalkers is probably the route I'll go. Perhaps with a few tweaks, but I wasn't looking forward to figuring out how best to write rules for the shapeshifting. I kinda forgot skinwalkers were already there for me to ape off of.
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I really wasn't going to respond to the death knight argument any further, but I'm just going to say this one last thing: A level 55 DK has four spells to their name, and one of those is basically just a fancy taunt so I'd hardly even count it. That strikes me as being pretty level 1. Even by the time you get out the starting area, that's only about doubled. At the same 55-60 level range, every other class already has the vast majority of their spells - between one and two dozen, (not counting passives for any of this). And remember that level 1 in a PrC doesn't mean a level 1 character. A 1st-level duelist is leagues better than a 1st-level swashbuckler, and a 1st-level slayer would have no chance against a 1st-level assassin (side note: I don't actually think either of those are appropriate for being prestige classes, but they provide the most direct comparison between base and prestige classes). Likewise, a level 1 death knight should crush a level 1 paladin (at the very least, in my opinion, and nothing in lore overtly contradicts this so it gets to remain my opinion). Because prestige classes have requirements to get into them, you can have only a 1st-level one and still be much better than a character with only one total class level. Ergo, elite lieutenant.
Now, I've said more than my piece. We differ on this issue on a fairly fundamental level, since as I recall you don't even like prestige classes as a concept to begin with. If someone else brings this up (since of the half dozen or so people I've asked about this, you are the only one who doesn't think they should be a PrC), I will take it into further consideration, but until such time, consider this topic over. Let us move on.
Although this does diverge from traditional Pathfinder (which puts rules for nearly everything) and gets a bit close to earlier edition's overall design mentality (leave gaps for GMs/players to fill).
Honestly, this is one of the (few) things I've grown to dislike about Pathfinder. I remember my first time reading the 3.5e DMG (my first tabletop gaming book) and coming across an example of play that described how the basic rules could be used to have a player's monk leap up, grab a chandelier, and swing on it to kick an enemy in the face. That really opened my eyes to the sort of freedom that tabletop gaming allowed, and has shaped my view of what the medium can and should be, and Pathfinder's tendency - particularly in its creation of new feats - to map out every possible action and scenario a character could possibly conceive of just strikes me as problematic. But this is all a little tangential to the issue at hand. Just wanted to mention it.
As for the issue: what sort of guidelines? That's kind of the problem with this sort of thing is that that sort of cost is going to be best left entirely up to the GM, and if any guidelines are provided that are any more in depth than "you could require a living sacrifice", it would create too much precedent, and allow players whose GMs want to go in a similar but different direction to say "But the rules say...". Even if, no, the rules don't say, they merely offer a suggestion. The fact that it is on the printed page in a book is enough for some players to be quite the headache, and I've been in that situation. So no, if it's something I think is best left to individual groups to decide what is best for them, I will not create ammunition for the one person who doesn't like the group's decision to create more of a hassle.