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So given that the first adventure involves a portal, and later adventures involve travel to planets and even time travel, I'm thinking of starting this whole thing as a men out of time campaign. The pcs will start out as members of Monster Hunters International, which is a modern fantasy series several of my players are fans of. They get called to a small town, possibly in Kentucky, since we live there, that is beset by a strange blast of winter weather.
All of the PCs would be from super genius games awesome anachronistic adventurers series and begin with access to modern equipment. Of course, from there they may take the opportunity to adopt Pathfinder classes.
Everyone will some idea ahead of time what is going on, so it won't be me pulling the rug out from under a modern game or anything.
Thoughts?
Sounds like that could be pretty legit, if the players are up for it, and if you are willing to deal with the challenges of modern earth time-portals, as opposed to easier/built-into-AP shenanigans involved with our past.
I think I'll still have them go to 1918 or whenever. So they will still be men out of time. The main problem I see is they will lack magical healing early on and if characters die replacement characters might be hard to explain.
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I think I'll still have them go to 1918 or whenever. So they will still be men out of time. The main problem I see is they will lack magical healing early on and if characters die replacement characters might be hard to explain.
Replacement characters could be alternate reality versions from parallel universes.
"Woah, Bob, what happened to you? I mean, you're not dead, but you've got that wicked scar and eyepatch!"
"Me? What happened to the three of you? Mitch had half his face frozen off, Rob drowned in a frozen lake when the ice snake got him, and Bill was decapitated by an ogre. In any event, I've been running from the blue witch for three days, and I'm glad I ran into you because SHE'S RIGHT BEHIND ME!"
I love alternate/parallel realities...
That is pretty awesome, and probably worth having them run into alternate selves whether they die or not. I tend to run a fairly deathless game, but sometimes things happen.
What if they start with a goatee?
I thought that AP installments happen in the year in which they are published. I think I read that somewhere on the boards. So it begins in 2013. Not sure what the equivalent Golarion year is.
2013 AD (Earth) = 4713 AR (Golarion).
Presumably the method of travel which brings the PCs to Siberia will involve some sort of temporal dislocation Wacky Antics.
Thanks Trace Cobern.
I love this being time travel too. The characters get home to Earth, right? They hear someone speaking Russian, which someone either knows or at least recognizes. Yay! Campaign problem solved. Oh wait, we are 100 years too early. Do we stay here or keep going?
Developer
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To be clear, the correlation between Golarion years and Earth years is just an easy way to track the passage of time on Golarion. I.e., for every year that passes in our world, a year passes on Golarion. This is not the same as saying that 2013 CE on Earth is the same as 4713 AR on Golarion.
Baba Yaga's Dancing Hut can travel through space and across dimensions and planes, but not through time.
Orcs and elves would probably be available as races. That would require writing them up.
Orcs seem to have a sort of niche dominance. There is a game coming from hero games, so that might provide some ideas.
1st level pcs (except clerics) have very little access to healing magic anyway. Modern people wouldnt be at THAT much of a disadvantage.
Our group began with a druid and a witch , each with one cure light wounds spell, it helped but not hugely so.
What are you going to have them start out as?
Experts or commoners?
If im a real word monster hunter, what do i think monsters are? REal physcial beings? or hoaxes (that turn out to be real in this case)
I mean if this were the modern pendagast, I would be 60% likely to take my 9mm pistol and 52 rounds and ammo with me (standard for a pistol and 2 back up mags) just because normal people MIGHT start something and I carry concealed.
But if I KNEW there was such a thing as REAL physical monsters (like there was a GOOD chance of actually FINDING big foot) I would be definitely armed. Just trying to figure out of the Players are going to start out with weapons, or just cameras and stuff.
You might want to have them start out as 'normal' people with a level in their chosen class, that gets "realized" when they come in contact with 'magic from another realm' that triggers it.
So casters can't cast spells, unless they come in contact with magical fey creatures that awaken their abilities... so they think they are a camera man , until.....
the fighter/barbarian types might have to start out with improvised weapons (I hit it with my cam corder!) but there is tons of stuff written in the adventure, it wouldnt be long before they equipped themselves.
they could be a museum curator, or some "weird wild eyed" 'expert monster hunter' that bequests the cold iron longsword on to them, and the guys would be like,,serious? your handing me a SWORD? only to find out they need it later?
Just some ideas... i mean normally, modern humans dont wander about armed unless there is a zombie apocalypse on the loose.
Pendaghast, the monster hunters international series is fairly gonzo on the scale of urban fantasy. Characters work for a business that hunts monsters for money, sometimes for government bounties. Each character would have encounter monsters on their own before their recruitment. They would go in to the opening scenario with full tactical gear:automatic weapons, body armor, etc. they would be better equipped than many first level parties. For classes, they will use the anachronistic adventurer classes from super genius games.
Hmmm. Interesting.
Limited ammo.
So eventually would have to switch over to 'conventional' weapons and tactics.
Question.
If monsters exist, why do modern classes not have magic for things like healing? Why wouldnt modern sorcerers, witches, or even clerics (catholic priests?) exist?
PFRPG-style 'smite and heal' magic generally doesn't fit the aesthetic of urban fantasy books, mostly because the risks of combat, and the consequences of getting hurt, lose a lot of their dramatic impact if someone on your team can just wave a hand, say 'Cure Moderate Wounds!', and get the hero from 'death's door' back to 'fighting fit' in a couple of minutes.
That said, a character who starts out as a 'spellcaster' in a PL5 society might well have never realised the complete potential of their arcane/divine powers. There aren't many options for formal education about 'using real magic' in the modern world, especially in an urban-fantasy setting where the characters have to maintain the facade of normality to protect the 'civilians' and spend most of their time getting by on wits, creativity, and luck (another of those conventions to create drama). A sorcerer who starts out in the modern world might well only know relatively subtle spells like charm person and cause fear and rely on firearms for combat, while a 'cleric' in similar circumstances might not realise that their pre-combat prayers for their team actually have a real mystical oomph behind them; it could be that they only realise the full breadth and potential of their magic when they get to Golarion. Let's face it: Golarion's known of, and semi-systematically studied, the various strains of magic for longer than Earth's had recorded history, so the natives should be able to teach the out-of-towners a fair few new things. ;)
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To be clear, the correlation between Golarion years and Earth years is just an easy way to track the passage of time on Golarion. I.e., for every year that passes in our world, a year passes on Golarion. This is not the same as saying that 2013 CE on Earth is the same as 4713 AR on Golarion.
Baba Yaga's Dancing Hut can travel through space and across dimensions and planes, but not through time.
But But But, I really wanted my PCs to have a hut shaped, chicken legged TARDIS :(
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To be clear, the correlation between Golarion years and Earth years is just an easy way to track the passage of time on Golarion. I.e., for every year that passes in our world, a year passes on Golarion. This is not the same as saying that 2013 CE on Earth is the same as 4713 AR on Golarion.
Baba Yaga's Dancing Hut can travel through space and across dimensions and planes, but not through time.
Everything travels through time. Now the present on Golarion would be the past on Earth because of the distances involved, but from Earth's perspective we are seeing Golarion's past too.
I know, it's silly to bring such things into a game where "it's magic" is the answer to any problem but still the Hut MUST travel through time in order to travel instantaneously through space because otherwise that means it moves faster than light which relativity says is a hard speed limit. But by travelling through space and time (or even bending space which is the same thing) the hut can connect two different times AND places. It must be so otherwise considering that Golarion is so far from Earth (unofficially a different galaxy) the light from our star might not have reached it and Golarion's present might be during some prehistoric era.
Dudmeister, I was just going to say the same thing about time travel.
Regardless, I'm cool if the official hut can't travel through time. In my campaign, I'll just say it can. We've always played in Golarion with the idea that now on Golarion is now on earth, with some obvious variance based on how much time the narrative is taking.
We have also encountered a smartphone, a transdimensional spaceship that moves through time and space, and what may have been a post Indiana Jones ark of the covenant, so I don't have much trouble with weirdness.
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I am thinking of doing this.
My take.
1. Players are from early 1930s earth and were part of a ramshackle crew gathered by an SIS member to seize a Babylonian atrefact before a group of German National Socialists got their grubby mitts on it.
Yep, channeling India Jones.
2. They destroyed the object as Nazis closed in on them and when the smoke cleared they were in the woods near Heldren. They have now lived there for five years.
I'm thinking everyone starts multiclass (one level in an Anachronistic Adventures class, one level in a 'normal' class) and can choose where to go from there. (I can beef up combat for the first level and just delay levelling, I don't track XP anymore anywyay).
3. They want to go home but even travelling to cities, nobody they have met has seen anything more badass than a teleport or a fireball. They've no idea how they could get home and have started building lives in Heldren.
So, first they want to protect the town but rumours of the hut mean they get a chance to go home!
Channeling a bit of the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon here, plus Quantuum Leap.
4. When they arrive in Russia they'll have that pull (so close but so far! Stay here and live an earth-based life or rick it all to protect Golarion) along with pressure to avoid world-changing events (screw the timeline and we all die).
5. At the finale, characters will have to choose between going home to Earth or continuing their new lives on Golarion: pretty awesome.
No reason why modern characters can't have magic...what would happen if Harry Dresden got sucked into Golarion when he was just starting outÉ
Don't know, don't know who Harry Dresden is.
However, I think it can work and I like the pulpy way in which Anachronistic Adventures incorporates magic.
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!? :P
I would want to limit access to magic classes at starting in order to enhance the men out of time theme. Harry would be fairly nonplussed by magical portals to witches. I mean, he creates that sort of stuff.
Monster hunters international has some weird stuff, but the PC type characters are all fairly normal. Competent and flexible, but not wielding great magic,
Of course, there is a DMPC who gets to be a werewolf.
To be clear, the correlation between Golarion years and Earth years is just an easy way to track the passage of time on Golarion. I.e., for every year that passes in our world, a year passes on Golarion. This is not the same as saying that 2013 CE on Earth is the same as 4713 AR on Golarion.
Baba Yaga's Dancing Hut can travel through space and across dimensions and planes, but not through time.
< channels Phil Foglio > Are you people STILL having trouble with the Whovian Estate? < /channels Phil Foglio >