Major_Tom's page

Frankly, it looks like you have the opportunity to run an adventure that will be talked about for years and years. Run with it.

Some considerations - and if you have to 'house rule' to make them happen, so be it.

Magic items should be subsumed into their cat forms, so if they get a +1 sword, they change to human, grab the sword, and change back to have +1 claws.

Since they are cats, they should be able to take pounce and rake. Added to backstabbing, and they'll do 1-2 +xd6. In Living Jungle, I once had a rogue reincarnated as a tree frog - his damage was nil +5d6 backstabbing. If they are willing to surround and pounce on something, they could be very effective.

Wonderful half-dragon mouse and string trap suggestions. Go with it, farther and farther out there. Yes, it's not pure D&D, but it could be wonderful fun. I would run something like that in a heartbeat.

I completely agree on the Summoner. With very few exceptions, it just kills the game flow completely. Also, we have six players in our group, at least two of them play only fighters or melee types. So if someone summons monsters, they are generally useless. The highest level monster a druid/conjurer/summoner can summon just don't stack up against a PC fighter or other melee type. By the time they get in there, the battle's almost over. The eidolon might be effective, but it's still filling a role that several other PCs are already filling. We're much better off with a spellcaster who blasts/buffs/heals/battlefield controls.

Actually, in the past, if someone really wanted to summon monsters, I made them have the stats at hand before we started play that night. Also, I required that when the used a specific spell, they got the same monsters all the time. It actually led to some decent roleplaying, as we had one wizard who summoned a pair of dire wolves, Hansel and Gretel, every time. She got to know them, and so did the rest of the party.

Other unfavorable classes - most of the onces from the APG. Alchemist is fun, especially if he's a gnome, and Cavalier can work in an adventure like Kingmaker, but the rest seem a bit.. off. For all of it's faults, 3.5 had better alternate classes - i.e. Warlord, Warlock, Beguiler... I do admit that had they still been available for Paizo to do, they would probably have done a much better job with them.

Pixel, I think you have the right idea. The best (read - most fun to play in) party I was ever a part of had almost all the required roles filled, including:

Fearless leader, damage causer, and face (The Gnome Ranger).
Actual damage causer, his little brother, a dragon slayer (Gnome fighter).
The Gnome Rangers fearless sidekick (Toronto, gnome sorcerer with a 24 con by the time he was 6th level, necessary since he always went in front).
Entertainment - halfing bard who never took a single vocal skill, she did it with dancing.
Business mgr - half-orc cleric who specialized in Knowledge-the Oldest Profession.
Resident pervert - Druid with a wolf companion - Wolf was never permitted to fight, since she and the druid were 'very' close.

OF course, everyone can see that for a true adventuring group, there is one role that is glaringly absent. I'm talking, of course, about the Orchestra. We adventured for 12 levels before finally filling that most important role. I'm sorry, but audible glamor (for when the Gnome Ranger appears), just didn't cut it.

In time, we got our 'folding bandstand' (box, wagon, bandstand), with Frankie the Flesh Golem to pull it, and a dozen lesser air elementals trained in music to act as our orchestra. It took 12 or more levels of relentless adventuring, but the orchestra was always our party's goal.

So, in other words, with a good group, you can make just about anything work.

Of course. Actually there are two levels.

1. Thursday night is DnD night. This is true whether we're playing Gamma World, PF, Torg, or Amber, it's still DnD night.

2. What are we playing this Thurs? Generally we are still playing DnD, which means PF. If youare speaking to non-gamers, most of them know what D&D is, none of them know what Pathfinder is. If you're speaking to pure gamers, most of them now know what the difference is between PF and 3.5.

But it will always be Dungeons & Dragons, no matter how much better the PF rules are, it's still D&D. That's why we love it.