Abra Lopati

Ari Kanen's page

Organized Play Member. 30 posts. No reviews. 5 lists. No wishlists. 1 Organized Play character.



3 people marked this as a favorite.

As a DM, I had yearned for the simplicity that DnD 5e has delivered on. But I also really appreciate and want to use all this PF (specifically Golarion) material I've collected over the years.

So, since 5e is very structurally similar to d20, I'm working on converting PF material I'm going to use in game, and post it up for other folks online.

It took me about 30 minutes to do Burnt Offerings. The most time consuming thing was making sure challenge versus level progression was balanced. Right now I'm working on the math conversions and substituting monsters, like for like, such as switching Sinspawns for Nothics with minor re-writes.

Surely, we'll know more once the Monster Manual and DM's Guide is out, but I thought I'd go ahead and get a jump start, and see if anyone else planned on doing the same, and see if they wanted to contribute to the wiki (Google Site) I'm about to launch.

Let me know if there is any interest...


5 people marked this as a favorite.

I read all the playtest rules, but I didn't do the surveys. I still feel like I got everything I wanted. I've been DMing RIse of the Runelords for the past year using PF, and I just started to get burned out around level 8. I found myself doing more math and less exploration of the narrative elements of the game and at the table we were spending more and more time talking about rules elements and what character/monster could or couldn't do, and while this was fun in the same way deck building in magic is fun, I personally yearned for something else. I have a two players from my long term group that really enjoy character optimization and I'm sure they would prefer to stick to PF. But since neither of them want to GM PF, they'll have to find someone that wants to.

I think Wizards is doing a smart thing and producing a game for DMs. Their first product was a DM product. The reason I think this is clever is that DM are organizers of games. Ask yourself, if you're primarily DM or are a player, how hard is it to find a game? If you don't live in an area with other roleplayers, on roll20, it appears that advertisements for DMs appears 50 times as often as an add for players. I can DM/GM a game anytime I want, pretty much. And if I was willing, I could bring in new players. With 5e, I probably will, because of how easy it is to play.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Played one session so far, and read (I think) all the material that has been released. Super happy with I'm seeing, and I burned out on GMing PF and 4e long ago.

5e seems to be channeling a lot of aspects of E6 that I was intrigued about. It carries a lot of the simplicity, and still give players enough choices for players to feel progression. If feats and spells remain in line with this, through subsequent products and levels, I think 5e will pretty much filled the niche for me.

In both of the most recent editions of the DnD 4e and 3.X, I noticed players tended towards the character creation and math aspects of RPGs. Character optimization, tinkering with math was a pretty huge component of the conversation and forum talk that I saw. I think this will remain a strong niche and folks that don't mind having that as an aspect of their game will either stick to PF or move on to other games that cater to it.

As a DM, I think 5e built something I can work with. I've noticed since we've started our campaign I'm going through my old material from Dragon and 1e all the way to 3.5 stuff looking for campaign material. Not for builds, but for story. I like the fact that I can spend as little or as much time as I want, and that I'll be able to build encounters on fly. This was possible in other editions, but I realize that the stress of doing so will just be lower.

For my campaign I'm doing my own reboot of Forgotten Realms, using only the Greybox and FR1-6. So we're playing as though nothing in the novels ever happened (mostly because so much has happened, I can't really track it all). The world's going to be grittier, and less forgiving. More George Martin than Tolkien.

And I like that this is all really easy to do without having to be an expert in the rules.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

Drow TWF Ranger, Grumpy Dwarven Fighter/Cleric, a physically weak and uncharismatic, but genius level mage, a token female elf rogue, and human, usually melee based frontman/leader (even though their charisma is also a dump stat.