Character Limitation Advice Needed for First Adventure Path


Pathfinder Adventure Path General Discussion

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I am running my first adventure path in campaign mode, and my experienced players asked me what restrictions I am putting on them for character creation. (I have both inexperienced players and players more experienced than I am both in this party)

A majority of my GM experience comes from Pathfinder Society, so it is something I have not really had to think about.

A lot of the homebrew I have been in have been things like no gunslingers or evil characters, only can be core races, cannot be core races (that is an interesting one), ect.

Is there something I should watch out for and limit just to not overwhelm the new players or myself?

Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.


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The main thing I would recommend is to keep to what you feel comfortable adjudicating. If you are not familiar with a new-ish book, and don't feel like you have the extra time available to learn it... then don't allow it.

Second, the older the AP, the more new material is going to overwhelm it. For example, Rise of the Runelords was revised after the Advanced Players Guide was published. It originally had no content from that book, but some was added in the revision. It has no content from later books like Occult Adventures or Horror Adventures. If you want to spend the time to make new content or modify existing content so you can use elements from those books, that's fine.. but no monster or NPC in that Adventure Path is going to be a "natural opponent" for a PC using content from those books. While the books are intended to be balanced (and, theoretically, a PC of any class should be fine), it may not work out so smoothly in practice.

When it comes to thematic exclusions, be sure to be clear to your players about WHY something is excluded. If a player has his/her heart set on a specific concept but it is a bad match, you will be better off denying it at the start, even if you can't come out and say "if you play that, you will become one of the enemies by the time we reach part 2".

Since you have players with a mix of experience, there is no harm in trying to keep it simple and use the minimum number of books that you are familiar with.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Thanks for the advice Urath.
I would not have even thought about how older AP's would be impacted by the newer content, I appreciate it.


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I prefer no evil characters, so that I can motivate the party with heroic goals and avoid intra-party backstabbing.

I hold a session zero, where we talk about the public knowledge about the adventure path, the stuff published in the Player Guide for that adventure path (the PDFs are free downloads), and decide how we want the characters to relate to the setting. For example, in my Iron Gods campaign, two of the PCs took the campaign trait Local Ties that made them residents of the starting town and friends of the missing wizard. For my Jade Regent campaign, many players chose an Asian (Tian Xian) theme for their characters, such as a ninja, samurai, and kitsune sorcerer. They started as foreigners in Varisia and the trip to Minkai was an opportunity to return home.

Gunslingers would be out of place in old-fashioned countries like the Hold of Belkzen, setting of Giantslayer adventure path, but they fit fine in the high-tech Iron Gods adventure path. Varisia, home of many adventure paths, attracts strange characters, so odd classes and odd races work there.

The least balanced classes are in the Core Rulebook. Wizard, sorcerer, cleric, and druid are strong. Rogue and monk are weak. The Advanced Player's Guide corrected many of the deficiencies in the Core Rulebook. Thus, I recommend against a Core-Rulebook-only campaign.


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Half of this is flavor. I personally don't want Gunslingers in my version of Golarion but that may change if I run Skull and Shackles and/or Iron Gods. Summoners haven't clicked with me from the get go. Beyond that, I'm good with any character with an interesting backstory with one exception... any class from the Advanced Class Guide is out. Based on reviews and posts, most seem to be unbalanced, and I don't like classes that seem to make other classes irrelevant.

For the most part, I recommend Core + Advanced Player's Guide + Unchained (for it's revisions of the core classes). Magus from Ultimate Magic is good too both in design and flavor. I also can't stress enough to use the Paizo recommended 15 point buy for characters to keep things challenging without having to modify every encounter.

Also, decide on your AP before making characters. If you are going to be fighting a lot of undead for instance, an Enchanter or Illusionist type might not be a good fit.

Currently I'm running a new and expanded (added modules) RotR campaign. My players have the following classes (all with 15 point buy)...

1) Human Fighter (Formerly Korvosan guard. Possibly picking up Paladin because of how well we built his backstory and how he's reacting roleplay-wise as we go along).
2) Dwarf Monk, Unchained (Zen Archer archtype, exiled from Janderhoff).
3) Dusk Elf Rogue, Unchained (going Assassin PrC later, has a long list of vendettas).
4) Elf Witch (escaped from her Coven's forced apprenticeship, somewhere near the Kodar mountains).
5) Gnome Druid/Ranger (Half-Svirfneblin Pyro with Fire Domain. Semi-NPC/DMPC. Party was caster big gun light with barely any healing).

Adding Pets/Familiars/Animal Companions gets to be a bit much as well as making a party larger, so I avoid them when possible. I'll probably go with teamwork over the Ranger pet for this reason. The Witch player does have a familiar though, thankfully mostly non-combatant.

YMMV. Mathmuse's session zero is what we did too, mostly on Discord/Text/Email.


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Two other thoughts..

If you are used to PFS, some of the experienced players may be expecting to play differently than PFS (such as a pre-Unchained Summoner). If you are more comfortably sticking with PFS' guidelines for characters, you should announce that BEFORE people show up with a finished character that doesn't fit.

Second, you should consider how backgrounds mesh. In the original Rise of the Runelords, all of the PCs were presumed to be new to Sandpoint. In the Anniversary Edition, there was at least one campaign trait that made the PC a native of Sandpoint. A mixed party of natives and non-natives made it harder for me... having to sort out what "Player A" would already know vs. needing to tell the same to "Player B", and so on. Details like that can make it easier on you presenting the information, if everyone is in the same boat.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Thank you guys for all your help. I have set up a session zero to go over character creation and outline what will and will not work with the campaign and what campaign traits would work well.

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