darthcranius's page

[2 CENTS INCOMING] This is how I learned to GM, by being a newbie and dealing with 4 frustrating players who were my friends and roommates. It hardened my heart to the point where I can now mess with my party by destroying magical items and the like. It can be a fun game when the players are the ones who need to stay on their toes instead of the GM dealing with "problem players". [2 CENTS DEPOSITED]

Also, I bought a big metallic d20 that I can slam on the table. That helps.

My group and I really enjoyed Second Darkness, if that helps. I haven't played any of the other APs yet, but I really like the look of Jade Regent personally (I'm a sucker for geography, though), and Shattered Star seems like a lot of fun.
As a GM, I've learned that it can be a good idea to present YOUR players with the options, maybe even take a session "off" to discuss where to go from here. I'm a "nice-guy" GM, though, so if you prefer to keep secrets from the players, that's up to you.

My campaign has been running for a few years now (the players and PCs have changed, but I still consider it the same campaign. At first, we ran The Night Below mega-module in 2e, then continued that campaign into various one-shot adventures with no modules ("winging it" as I call it). After college, I updated the setting from Forgotten Realms to Golarion, placing the town (now a metropolis) of Haranshire a little bit north of Sandpoint in Varisia, since the group rarely left the Underdark into the Realms proper anyway. So I had my new party introduced into the world at level 12 ( a choice I now regret) and picked buts and pieces of the first 5 books of Second Darkness. My party really enjoyed Second Darkness, even though they technically failed (the five focus glyphs were destroyed but Allevrah still dropped the star on Kyonin. For fear of another attempt, the Elves of Golarion went into mass exodus back to their original home planet, Castrovel. I effectively removed all elven settlements from my game world, replacing them with either Drow beneath the surface or something else entirely. After a few more "winging" games, I needed a new module for the party and the demonic influence of the Moonscar intrigued me. Again, the party loved it, but now the module is over and my party is level 18/19 and I want to retire the characters. I have a very rough plan of what I want to do from here with lower level characters, but I don't want to push the party too hard. I plan to have the party return to the moon and cover some of the places not covered in the Moonscar. Distant Worlds is my new bible for the campaign essentially. After the moon, the party will find gates to the two nearest planets, Castrovel and Akiton. I plan to write up a few new gates to the other inner planets, then finally grant the party a method of space travel (around level 10/11 maybe?) such as Shantak mounts or something. I hope I can make it compelling for the party, but I usually find myself too hung up on geography and creatures to write a decent story. I guess the advice I'm looking for (I'm so long-winded lol) is any kind of story hook that will be enjoyable for my three players while still tying into my own personal campaign setting. Here's the only rough ideas I have;
1) Allevrah from Second Darkness is still alive and working with the party (sort of). She can't be trusted, but they are allied in some sense. I could easily have her betray them, but I'm not sure how
2) The Rockseer elves from Night Below left the world during the course of the module and I later used them as a hook when I had Allevrah kill them off and steal their secrets. I could have them return to Golarion, or even better, on one of the other planets, maybe even Castrovel with the elves or lamashtu.
3) I want to introduce Psionics since Night Below was centered around savant aboleth and that one intellectual property with the tentacled faces ;) I wanted to wait until PFRPG added official psionics rules, but I somehow doubt that will even happen because of balance issues. I would use Psionics Unleashed I think, but I am clueless as to how I can tie these rules into a current game. This is only minor, since I would probably only allow NPCs and monsters to access these abilities because I've had too many problems in the past with Psionic characters utterly ruining my game (granted that was 2e, but still I've never been a fan of classes that provide a pool of anything other than spells, ie monk, gunslinger, etc because even at low levels they have a TON of points usually when casters can do maybe two 1st-level spells)

Alright, I don't even know if anyone can offer me suggestions since I've stubbornly listed everything I already have lol, but any ideas would be greatly appreciated

In my old college 3.5 game, our DM allowed me to play a Jedi (later turned Sith) character as his campaign setting involved a multiverse concept, much like comic book crossovers. I used the Star Wars SAGA core rulebook to make the character (with minor conversions to 3.5 mainly the lightsaber and Force). I'm looking to cross this character over into my Pathfinder game as an NPC (a villain really) but I'm finding it difficult. A lot is "lost in translation" as I find with converting 2e AD&D to 3.5.
I chose Cerean as the race and created the character as a Jedi, then at mid-level (7 i think) I took 2 levels in Dark Side Adept while "turning to the Dark Side", and finally levelled up as a Sith Apprentice. The only conversion from saga to 3.5 was a customized lightsaber (balanced for the OP party I was in) and some tweaking to Force Powers (essentially a list of bonus feats gained per level and used by making a "Use The Force" skill check as per the DCs in saga).
This character blended well enough in the setting but I did feel a bit "cheap" while playing him. I had a lot of big dice rolls like a fighter, a big list of powers like a caster, and the feel of a psionic. It did not feel like a D&D character, but that was the game. As a player, it was fun, but I think a lot had to do with the DM. Now that I'm the GM, I want to be fair to my players and make a balanced enemy with a lightsaber, some Force powers, and an honestly cool backstory.
However, with the balancing changes in PF, I wonder if it will be underpowered or overpowered as a PF character, especially a "boss" enemy. Should I convert the race and all three classes, then level it up? Seems like a lot of work to me. Do the Saga rules blend well enough with PF? I could just copy and paste the character and playtest but I wanna do it right. Any ideas?