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Well I just bought my first Pathfinder product, RotRL #1 Burnt Offerings. I have been reading through it and the RotRL Players Guide. I really like the world of Golarion and want to play in it. However, I am definitely going to be switching to 4E, so I started to look to conversion. Its not that I don't think a conversion could be done, it can but there are some things I am worried about.
My biggest concern is how will we be able to convert Golarion with the limited classes and new races of the first 4e PHB? We will have no Barbarians, Druids, Bards, Monks, and Sorcerers until who knows when. Also how will we integrate Warlocks and Warlords into Golarion?
Warlords don't sound too hard as they just seem like fighters with more leadership abilities, that shouldn't disrupt the flavor of Golarion at all. I guess Warlocks could be Chelish devil-binders but we don't know everything about Warlocks or devil-binders yet so thats a big maybe, and its probably not a perfect fit.
As far as races.
No half-orcs or gnomes as full race writes ups in the PHB. But will will probably see full write-ups from them in Dragon very soon after release.
I don't know everything about Golarion so I wonder if there are more types of elves. The new 4ePHB Elf seems to fit well with the elves I have seen presented so far in Golarion. So how do we represent Eladrins? Do they have a kind of high elf/wood elf split in Golarion?
Tieflings, I saw a mention of a Tiefling in Burnt Offerings so they definitely exist but I guess its a matter of making them a larger presence. Cheliax seems like a logical fit since they worship Asmodeus, I can imagine some of them coming from there.
Dragonborn, no clue. I would probably just leave them out in all honesty.
Anyone else been thinking about these issues?
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I have been thinking about it the last while but I have been regarding it in an even bigger context. The more I see of 4E, the more I like the mechanics but, and it is a big BUT, the more I dislike the fluff. The nice thing is the fluff is the easy thing to do away with. I don't like tieflings, dragonborn, etc. I like archtypical fantasy characters - no problem, no tieflings and dragonborn as PCs.
The one issue you mention is the missing parts - I will just house rule something for the "flavour" until the BtB version is available. No gnomes yet in 4E - no problem I don't really like the fluff about Eladrin. Gnomes in Golarion are fey - keep the racial fluff and modifiers from Golarion but let them have the racial at-will/encounter/daily powers of the Eladrin until the BtB gnomes are available.
Then again, I might just convert the whole thing to Castles & Crusades and be done with it.
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I run two groups, both in Golarion. At this point in time (and obviously, this can all change), one group intends to switch to 4th edition, the other to use the Pathfinder RPG. So I've given this a little thought.
I like the feel of Golarion, that's why I run there, so keeping that is most important to me.
Now, the 'missing classes' is not really a big problem. Players just can't take those classes. Problem solved. Druids, bards, monks, and the like still exist in the world, as NPCs. Players can meet and interact with them, but I don't have to stat them out. If I do have to - if they're opponents - then I'll stat them as monsters, and try to do a good approximation of their abilities.
New classes... A little more problematic, but only a little, so far. The warlord, as you say, is a fighter with leadership abilities - so they'll fit right in. I don't have too much of a problem with warlocks either, as the Cheliax/Korvosa deals with demons bit works well for them.
That also works well for the occasional tiefling character, though I expect them to be very rare. I'm likely to forbid dragonborn, unless I come up with a better way to fit them in, or there's something particularly cool about them.
I'm a little concerned about the planes. 4th edition tries to make them more places to adventure, and some of the planes are intended as fairly low-level places for adventures at that. Now, that isn't a problem in itself - just don't have the players go there, and ignore that part of the fluff. But if they have spells or powers that are designed to interact with the planes, it may become more problematic. Well, that's something I'll have to wait to see what the rules actually say, I suppose.
Drew Garrett
Gnomes are in the Monster Manual with advice on running them as PCs. They are in 4E.
I was merely correcting the misconception that there are no gnomes in 4E. One can of course change fluff. I do so frequently.
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Gnomes are in the Monster Manual with advice on running them as PCs. They are in 4E.Forgot about that - but does their fluff and abilities fit with Golarion gnomes?
Yeah they do actually. 4e gnomes are much more closely tied to their fey roots than previous editions that had them closer to dwarves.
Yeah I am not really worried about gnomes and half-orcs. We will get base stats blocks for using them as PCs in the MM and I suspect a more detailed write up in Dragon shortly after release.
I was merely correcting the misconception that there are no gnomes in 4E. One can of course change fluff. I do so frequently.
Do we know if they will get the same workup as the races in the PHB?
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I was merely correcting the misconception that there are no gnomes in 4E. One can of course change fluff. I do so frequently.Do we know if they will get the same workup as the races in the PHB?
From what I understand, no they won't. They will be playable but a big concept of 4e is that your race continues to play a role and develops as you go up levels. So there will be racial feats unique to each race that will be available to pick up as you level up. They are not mandatory though so if you want to ignore them you can. I suspect making a race out of the MM as a PC will be like playing a PHB race and never picking any Racial feats as you level up.
They have said though that we will see a full write up of the half-orc in Dragon either at or right after the release. I suspect this will flesh out his racial feats. Hopefully we will see the gnome too.
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Fiendish:
Don't forget that you may need to consider reinventing the schools of magic for a 4th Edition game set in Golarion, given that I understand (rightly or wrongly) that there are no longer schools of magic in 4th Edition.RotRL major spoilers: ** spoiler omitted **
Yeah thats another problem, I hadn't even thought of yet. Also it looks as if they aren't doing specialist in 4e like they did in 3e. I believe that those would actually be new classes like, Necromancer, Illusionist, Conjurer, etc; which they have hinted as coming in the future. (Necromancer and Illusionist having a Shadow power source for example.)