Converting our campaign

[Trychydts]

We started testing the Pathfinder RPG yesterday. We decided that we would convert our existing campaign; so we converted the characters to the new rules.

First we had to decide what to do with the character levels: after some hesitation I -- the DM -- ruled that we adjusted the xps to the character levels and not vica versa. I decided that way that I simply did not want to take away powers from the character they already earned.

The party is made of a human 8th level rogue/1st level fighter/1st level shadow dancer (Mayte), a 7th level lizardfolk cleric (ECL 10) (Shraash), a halfling 6th level fighter/4th level rogue (Jillian) and a human 6th level wizard/3rd level cleric (Quinquin).

After recalculating and readjusting the skill points and the feats, re-rolling the necessary hit dices, it turned out that the rogues became slightly more powerful than before. (It is important to say that we used a house rule: if a character had a skill as a class skill in any of her class, she could always develop it as a class skill.)

Mayte had the Investigator feat -- since it has been eliminated, she chose Two-weapon fighting instead. She also had Weapon finesse, but now she was able to choose it as a rogue talent, so she took in Agile Maneuvers instead of it. At 9th level she has chosen Combat Expertise only to be able to take Improved Disarm -- now Combat Expertise is not a perquisite of Improved Disarm, so I also let to swap these.

She only had to subtract 3 skill points from her new skill's ranks, but since all her skills were class-skills, she got a +3 bonus on every of her skills, so she obviously became much more skilled.

Jillian was specialized to short swords, so she obviously chosen the "light blades" armor training, becoming even more deadly with her short swords. Since she also could get weapon finesse as a rogue talent, she swapped it for double slice. After recalculating her skill points, she even had 3 points to distribute, so, as a specialist (she only has Climb, Stealth, Acrobatic, Perception, Disguise and Escape Artist) she also became much more dangerous.

Compared to them, the spellcasters did not seem to improve that much. Quinquin is a transmuter, and his school powers are useful indeed. Since he intends to use mainly his telekinetic fist in combat, I let him swap the rapid reload feat to Improved channeling. However, since most of his skills remained the same, he had to lose quite a lot of skill ranks he originally acquired at first level; this change was barely balanced with his +3 bonuses.

Shraash fights with axes, so he has no much use neither the Wooden fist, nor the Icicle power. Obscuring Mist, Barkskin and Resist Energy seem to fit well into his combat-oriented style. He also had to give up quite a lot of skill points he originally distributed at 1st level. However, since he is now able to sunder not only weapons, but armor, too, he will be a much more dangerous opponent from now. Since he had Power Attack only to be able to have Improved Sunder, I let him to swap it to Toughness (a much more powerful feat than before).

So the two rogues became instantly and obviously more powerful -- this change seems a bit more drastic than in the case of the spellcasters. A rogue use her skills a lot; the rogue/fighter fighting with two short swords profits highly of the weapon and armor training. They also have more feats than the spellcaster. I am not sure that the few school/domain powers can make up for it. Shraash, on the other hand, who is using a few combat-related feats, also gained some benefits.

However, everybody seems happy with his/her character, so so far, so good.

I also converted the NPCs of the next adventure. Since cross-skills do not have the previous disadvantage, the guards (fighters) of the mansion the player will have to infiltrate insantly became much more vary (they have relatively high Perception skills). I really like that. They also became more dangerous opponents because of the new fighter abilities.

The main opponent (not an enemy) is a sorcerer with the Fey bloodline; she certainly became much more interesting and unique.

[Molech]

Have fun with the conversion! Let us know what works/doesn't work.

Two rules of thumb:

Let your Players know you guys are going to be playing it "by ear" and that if, in a couple session's time you realize there's a game-balance problem -- or a rules-mechanics problem, you guys will change it. In other words, the conversion you make for the PCs, NPCs and rules are provisional, not set in stone. This way no one gets upset if they have to change something on their PC sheet in a few weeks or no one gets frustrated if you have to revamp the rules-set again to tweak out what doesn't work.

Second, if things get hairy just have a Flight of advanced Infernal Dragons, the Tarrasque and his big brother, and a Pit Fiend/Wizard/26 wander in the PCs' camp one night on the Bard's watch. Then everyone can write up new characters. All is fixed.

-W. E. Ray

[Trychydts]

Some feedback on actual playtesting.

The first adventure was some spying/information gathering in the city; Mayte was a bit better, since she became more skilled. Suddenly she "gained" Diplomacy (she originally only had ranks in Gather Information), she used it a lot. Since she changed her mind and took Major Magic (Charm Person) instead of a Combat Maneuver feat as a rogue talent, she became really cool with influencing people. Much cooler than before.

Quinquin usually gives support whit his Knowledge skills and Enchantment spells in these kind of adventures. He barely became any better in these areas -- since he chose arcane bond, and he added Intelligence+2 to his ring, he became a bit smarter and basically that's all. But he is a Transmuter, after all, not an Enchanter. If he were, he would have been much better than a D&D wizard.

The second part of the adventure was some sneaking in the house of a mysterious dwarf. Because of the merging of the skills, Mayte was much better in disarming traps (originally she had much more ranks in Open lock then Disarm traps); both Mayte and Jillian was better in Stealth. However, the guards were much more vary because of the elimination of cross-class skill limits -- these Fighters could have more rank in Perception. In some situations they barely could avoid getting caught (once only because of Mayte's clever use of her minor magic talent (she chose Ghost sound)).

Shraash was not involved in this adventure.

As a side story, Jillian was involved in a fighting contest which we started with the original 3.5 rules. It involved fighting on ledges and pillars above a pit. After the conversion, as a Ledge Walker, and with her increased potency with her short sword, she won the contest much more easily than she could without the conversion.

The next adventure involved the tracking of a party of tiefling adventurers. They needed their social skills in the villages -- see above. The pinnacle of the adventure was the actual confrontation with the tiefling.

Quinquin's Telekinetic fist is superb in combat -- much better then his previous, pathetic efforts with his crossbow. His extra spells came really handy, just as the 3/day Gaseous form ability of his Arcane Bond ring.

Rogues are better in combat with the new system. Much better. In 3.5, Shraash was a considerably better fighter then Mayte. He had more HP, and he displayed a better performance with the greataxe than Mayte with her rapier. Now, Pathfinder Mayte is able to fight with two weapons, she has more HP (actually more then Shraash), and Bleeding attack gives additional advantages to rogues in prolonged fights.

[Gnome-Eater]

Trychydts wrote:

His extra spells came really handy, just as the 3/day Gaseous form ability of his Arcane Bond ring.

How come the wizard got Gaseous form 3/day from his ring? Did he imbue it with that ability along with +2 Int?

I'M trying to familiarize myself with some of these rules, as prep for my campaign conversion when the Beta is released!

Thanks!

[Trychydts]

Gnome-Eater wrote:

Trychydts wrote:

His extra spells came really handy, just as the 3/day Gaseous form ability of his Arcane Bond ring.

How come the wizard got Gaseous form 3/day from his ring? Did he imbue it with that ability along with +2 Int?

I'M trying to familiarize myself with some of these rules, as prep for my campaign conversion when the Beta is released!

Thanks!

P. 49 of Pathfinder Alpha says:

"A wizard can enchant his bonded object as if he had the required feats. Any powers added to his bonded object are added at half the normal cost. If the bonded object is a wand, it loses its enchantment when its last charge is consumed, but it is not destroyed and it retains all of its bonded object properties. "

So, according to my interpretation, the wizard can enchant his ring as he had the "forge ring" feat, at is costs half as much than forging a normal ring; so it's one-quarter of the item's market price, which we calculated using table 17-2 (p. 143). So the gaseous for 3/day costed him

3[Since Gaseous form is a 3rd level spell]*6(Quinquin's level when making the enchantment]*1800[It is activated with a command word]/(5/3)

So the market price of a ring with this enchantment would have been 19400 gp; Quinquin was able to enchant his ring for 4860gp. (It is not too much for a 6th level charachter, since his suggested wealth level is 16000 gp.)

[0gre]

Trychydts wrote:

So the market price of a ring with this enchantment would have been 19400 gp; Quinquin was able to enchant his ring for 4860gp. (It is not too much for a 6th level charachter, since his suggested wealth level is 16000 gp.)

The caster level is the minimum required to cast the spell I believe so I think the gaseous form ring would have a GP value of:

3*5*1800*3/5 = 16200
So cost for a gaseous form ring should be 16200/4 = 4050

However if the ring also has INT +2 you should double the cost of the higher cost effect since it has multiple different abilities in a single item. (p143) So the ring with INT+2 and gaseous form x3 would cost 12100.

Strangely rings are not mentioned on the "Body slot affinity table", they have made it fairly clear that INT/ WIS/ CHA boosting items should be on headbands though which would raise the cost of the item even more. (uncustomary item slot +50% cost)

-- Dennis

[Trychydts]

0gre wrote:

Trychydts wrote:

So the market price of a ring with this enchantment would have been 19400 gp; Quinquin was able to enchant his ring for 4860gp. (It is not too much for a 6th level charachter, since his suggested wealth level is 16000 gp.)

The caster level is the minimum required to cast the spell I believe so I think the gaseous form ring would have a GP value of:

3*5*1800*3/5 = 16200
So cost for a gaseous form ring should be 16200/4 = 4050

But you can make it with a higher caster level if you wish to do so, can't you?

0gre wrote:

However if the ring also has INT +2 you should double the cost of the higher cost effect since it has multiple different abilities in a single item. (p143) So the ring with INT+2 and gaseous form x3 would cost 12100.

That is true (and I overlooked this, so thank you), however, page 147 says:

"Adding New Abilities

A creator can add new magical abilities to a magic item with no restrictions. The cost to do this is the same as if the item was not magical. Thus, a +1 longsword can be made into a +2 vorpal longsword, with the cost to create it being equal to that of a +2 vorpal sword minus the cost of a +1 longsword. If the item is one that occupies a specific place on a character’s body the cost of adding any additional ability to that item increases by 50%. For example, if a character adds the power to confer invisibility to her ring of protection +2, the cost of adding this ability is the same as for creating a ring of invisibility multiplied by 1.5."

This seems to be a small loophole in the rules, since it seems it is cheaper to add new abilities than to create a magical item with several abilites. In that paticular case, the wizard first gave the ring the Abilitiy "Alter self" (a permanent/user activated effect for 2*3*2000/4=3000 gp), then "Gaseous form" abilitiy mentioned above for 4860*1,5=7290gp), and then the +2 intelligence bonus for 2^2*1000*1.5=6000gp. The total cost is 13860gp, which is still a very good price for a 9th-level character.

0gre wrote:

Strangely rings are not mentioned on the "Body slot affinity table", they have made it fairly clear that INT/ WIS/ CHA boosting items should be on headbands though which would raise the cost of the item even more. (uncustomary item slot +50% cost)

I do not know what to think, exactly because rings -- as you mentioned -- has no special affinities. At the moment I am inclined to treat rings as a special kind of magic items that can be enchanted to any effect without an additional cost.