MyPlayers: Do Not Read!'s page

There's also the d20 rules for Fellowship of the White star

I'd never heard of this before, and it certainly sounds very much like what I'm trying to accomplish. I may download it and give it a read, thanks!

how did you do healing?

It hasn't come up yet, but currently their only option is conventional healing (I've included an NPC physician in the party to assist with this.) As play progresses and I get a better sense of how combats tend to go down, I may introduce options for magical healing - probably mostly single-use items, or possibly a times per day item that has some cost to the user (ability or sanity damage come to mind.) Learning magic will also become an option, but at a cost to one's sanity.

I've kept very few "monsters" in the adventure, enemies mainly being people or animals/vermin, and plan to continue the trend if the group decides to continue play past the first module. I've really just cut a large portion of the combat encounters altogether; I'm still relatively new to PbP, and I have little interest in slogging through room-by-room dungeon scenarios for any portion of the game. I don't know how this will play out in the long run, but after reading the first two modules and skimming the third, I think I'll have little problem revamping them to be less combat heavy while still maintaining a fair pace and aura of danger.

I'd also like to keep the adventures firmly grounded in a gritty, more realistic campaign world - I don't want the players or characters to think they can just bring themselves back from the brink of death with the snap of a finger. I plan to largely save supernatural enemies for "boss" fights; for instance, the only truly supernatural threats I'm using in the first adventure are the main Splatter Man villain (which I've tranformed into a sort of possessing entity) and a single custom haunt in the ruins. The rest are otherwise mundane enemies who are being affected/controlled by the Splatter Man.

So I started my 1875 U.S. version of Harrowstone, found here; feel free to lurk if you'd like. The campaign page still doesn't have the full list/explanation of rules amalgamations/variations, as I worked out the specifics with the players where needed for their characters. I do plan on completing it at some point.

I've further altered the plot in the following ways:

Are you still working on/running this? I'm currently working on converting this AP to be set in the United States circa 1875, and would love to hear more about what you’re doing.

For rules I'm using Pathfinder as the base, as it's the only set all my potential players are familiar with, then substituting d20 Modern base classes (ie Strong Hero, Fast Hero, etc.) for available starting classes, using some advanced classes and the firearm rules from Sidewinder: Recoiled, and the sanity/magic system from d20 Cthulhu.

I'd be interested in knowing what modifications you're making to the plot and encounters for the modules. The Moriarty angle is a cool idea. For my own, I'm keeping the magic rules pretty much as they are - I'm converting the whole AP over to a sort of Lovecraftian western, where the cost of trying to learn and use magic will be made pretty clear.

I've just begun working on the Haunting of Harrowstone (HoH), and so far have decided on the following changes:

Overall I see the group starting in upstate NY then moving westward with each subsequent adventure, with the final module having them head south into Mexico/Central America.