Hey has anybody ever attempted to combine two Adventure Paths so that they take place at the same time, sorta? The reason I ask is because now that my Robotech game is going well, and is becoming less and less work I’m setting things up to do a Pathfinder fantasy game. Before anyone says anything let me address the obvious.
1. I making my players level up at a crawl pace. Most likely Level X 3000 xp. Even without combining paths I feel that progression goes to fast for the stories I want to tell so this works much better, and with item creation no longer needing xp I’ll get fewer gripes about it.
2. I’m going to have the game in my homebrew setting, hence locations are not an issue for me. Nor Timelines. More importantly with the slower xp progression the players have the time to move from one place to another and thus deal with both adv. Issues.
My idea is this, RotR and 2nd Darkness are taking place at the same time, though my players don’t know this, so confusion about who or what the real bad guy is falls into question. In my game Drow were long ago defeated by the ‘goody’ Elves who now rule Arcadia in an Endless Summer. Most people see Elves as near Legends and Drow if they know of them at all, are regarded as Myth, so my players will be unprepared for Drow nature, and may think that they use some sort of Rune Magic, when really such magical works are due to the newly awaking Rune Lord.
I’ve done the xp system before and it really gives me freedom to have fun with little advs. between the main storyline without the players becoming too powerful for any given adventure. Example I could add the Kobold King Adventure just for fun one night. In any case I was wondering if anyone has done something like this and could you give any heads up on things that went wrong with your game.
Oh yeah and I was wondering if anyone has made up any ‘racial stats’ for the Varisians, other then just human? I was thinking of giving them separate stats like I’ve done for the Picts in my home setting. I’d hoped for such in the Campaign Setting when I got it but now such luck. Just wanted some extra flavor.
Thanks for the help,
TTFN DRE
Even if you throw out timelines, that will be a very busy campaign.
Honestly, I never know what to think when people try to stat up human "races". Conan did a lot of that... The spanish/romanians all came out with a racial ability to stab you in the back. The dark skinned people got a spear proficiency. The Semitish people were money-grubbing and so physically weak that only a variant was usable as a PC race.
Sure, the game was based on some pretty racist books so it might be expected, but it can make for awkward moments at the gaming table.
It's not really necessary in Golarian either. Humans can put that +2 in whatever stat they want, which is huge. Extra skill points go in region-appropriate skills. Pretty modular.
Even if you throw out timelines, that will be a very busy campaign.
Honestly, I never know what to think when people try to stat up human "races". Conan did a lot of that... The spanish/romanians all came out with a racial ability to stab you in the back. The dark skinned people got a spear proficiency. The Semitish people were money-grubbing and so physically weak that only a variant was usable as a PC race.
Sure, the game was based on some pretty racist books so it might be expected, but it can make for awkward moments at the gaming table.
It's not really necessary in Golarian either. Humans can put that +2 in whatever stat they want, which is huge. Extra skill points go in region-appropriate skills. Pretty modular.
Busy is fine, as is long campaigns.
As to the race question that was more an after thought for me, but you mention the other game that to my mind does human races correctly. Lets face it everyone is okay with 3000+ sub-races of elves or dwarves but god forbid humans are effectively generic no matter where they go. As to the racist question, well as you said, Conan's creator was a product of his pulp cultured time, look at Lovecraft and some of his stuff. Not an excuse but context. Golarian, not being based on such works need not fall into such trappings. One of the settings strengths is the many sub-races of humans, and they could have given slight racial options as they did with the core classes in the guide. In either case Conan and Golarian both share the common element that humans are all generic and effectively the same everywhere.
TTFN DRE
Yeah, I'm not saying that it's a done deal any attempt to separate humans into subgroups is doomed to offend. Just that it can be easy (and common) to do so without meaning to.
I don't actually accept the "context" excuse regarding that sort of thing though. Being a jerk is being a jerk, and Robert E. Howard was a jerk. I still like Conan.