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So, in a couple of weeks, I'm going to be starting the Shackled City Adventure Path using Pathfinder. I told my players to use the PFS guidelines for making their characters, but that they could only select classes from the Core Book; my thinking is that the NPCs in SCAP were constructed with (for the most part) base classes in 3.5, and I want to keep the playing field relatively level.
I'm going to set the campaign in Sargava, the Lost Colony. I think flavor-wise it fits very well, with Chelish colonials and Mwangi natives in a sweltering jungle setting. I'm going to place it at the extreme top right of the Sargava map, which puts it a little further from the capital (Eleder) than Cauldron is from Sasserine, but I think it'll work better that way -- the outlying towns will be more reliant on Cauldron for protection.
I'm trying to work up Cauldron as a city in PFRPG terms, and I'm not sure which of the Qualities to give it. At 4,500 people, it gets 3 qualities. Academic (for Bluewater Academy) and Insular seem appropriate, leaving one I'm not certain of. Also, while I would like to give it a Disadvantage to reflect what is going on in the SCAP - none of the available ones seem to make sense: Cursed? Maybe Hunted?
Other conversions look like they'll be easier. I'm replacing Wee Jas with Pharasma and Pelor with Sarenrae. I'll replace St. Cuthbert with either Abadar or Iomedae, and Kord with either Gorum or Cayden Cailean - I'm going to go over all of the scenarios to see if one or the other fits better.
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On classes, assuming you are going to convert npcs to paizo classes, aside from possibly the summoner (if optimized for combat only) all of the supplementary classes are in the same range as those that came in the core rulebooks. Paizo has been rather good about not increasing the power level in terms of base classes.
That is similar to what I did, although I made the city of Cauldron more central in Sargava and I changed it into a meteor crater (with an elemental gate underneath) rather than a volcanic crater. I put the Demonskar in the jungly bit to the northwest.
I used Abadar instead of Wee Jas and Erastil instead of St. Cuthbert, but your choices are probably a closer match. I don't know anything about the PFRPG city stat system, so I can't comment on that.
A search for Shackled City + Golarion will turn up a bunch of old threads on the subject, too.
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On classes, assuming you are going to convert npcs to paizo classes, aside from possibly the summoner (if optimized for combat only) all of the supplementary classes are in the same range as those that came in the core rulebooks. Paizo has been rather good about not increasing the power level in terms of base classes.
I would say some of the APG classes are somewhat more powerful (or maybe easier to minmax) than the Core Book classes. The Magus is really too powerful. The Oracle and Alchemist are probably okay. But I figure keeping them all to the Core Book cuts down on some of the craziness; I have some players who are REALLY GOOD at optimizing classes.
That is similar to what I did, although I made the city of Cauldron more central in Sargava and I changed it into a meteor crater (with an elemental gate underneath) rather than a volcanic crater. I put the Demonskar in the jungly bit to the northwest.
I used Abadar instead of Wee Jas and Erastil instead of St. Cuthbert, but your choices are probably a closer match. I don't know anything about the PFRPG city stat system, so I can't comment on that.
A search for Shackled City + Golarion will turn up a bunch of old threads on the subject, too.
Yeah, I did a read-through of a bunch of threads before deciding on my substitutions. I figured on two places to possibly put Cauldron, and eventually decided the farther-away one made it less possible to go to Eleder or Fort Bandu to get help.
Thanks for the comments!
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So far, I think Cauldron looks like this:
CAULDRON
NG large town
Corruption +2; Crime +1; Economy +0; Law +1; Lore +2; Society +1
Qualities academic (Bluecrater Academy), insular, magically attuned, infiltrated
Danger +10
DEMOGRAPHICS
Government autocracy
Population 4,500 (3,555 humans [1,333 colonials, 2,222 Mwangi], 405 halfling, 225 gnome, 135 dwarf, 90 elf, 45 half-elf, 45 others)
Notable NPCs
Lord Mayor Severen Navalant (male human aristocrat)
Terseon Skellerang, captain of the Town Guard (male human fighter)
MARKETPLACE
Base Value 2,400 gp; Purchase Limit 12,000 gp; Spellcasting 8th
Minor Items 3d4; Medium Items 2d4; Major Items 1d4
I gave it a Disadvantage of "infiltrated" which I thought described the situation pretty well. I would say it adds +2 to Corruption and Crime, and +5 to Danger.
Regarding the god replacements:
Pharasma may not work that well as a substitution for Wee Jas. In Secrets of the Soul Pillars, the party fights Ike Iverson, second-in-command of the Wee Jas church, and he uses undead to defend himself - something Pharasma is absolutely against.
In the game I'm planning, I'm going to use Nethys instead of Wee Jas. Most people see Wee Jas and think goddess of death, but I'm going to focus a bit more on the magic side. And Nethys is not particularly a stable god, so it kind of fits that his followers are so screwed up in Cauldron.
As for the other gods, I'm doing this:
St. Cuthbert -> Iomedae
Kord -> Kurgess
Pelor -> Sarenrae
Fharlanghn -> Ketephys
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Regarding the god replacements:
I was thinking Desna as a replacement for Fharlanghn. It seems more likely that there would be a shrine to Desna in a roadside inn.
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Having read the encounter in question,
Alternatively, Ike Iverson can secretly have become a follower of Urgathoa masquerading as a Pharasman, perhaps due to Vhalantru's manipulations of his suggestible nature, and as a result this is his explosively public fall from grace.
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So, I ended up going with Abadar as my replacement for St. Cuthbert, not the least reason being that I like the symbology: Abadar's symbol is a golden key, which contrasts nicely with the Cagewrights.
My PCs include:
Drow rogue (follower of Norgorber)
Human (Cheliax) bard (going to Noble Scion from PoP)
Human (Cheliax) ranger
Human (Mwangi) cleric (Pharasma)
Gnome sorcerer (Red Dragon bloodline)
Going to be an interesting mix. The NE PC's player doesn't really roleplay much, so the alignment "problem" probably won't be. I run a consequences-heavy game, and he knows that.
Since I ended up with a Pharasman cleric, Pharasma became a lock for the Cathedral. I'll have to adjust one encounter slightly to compensate, but I'm not too worried about it.
I started them off with a minor encounter at the Lucky Monkey, where they were the last people sitting up at night, drinking and eating in front of the only fire. A swarm of tiny monkeys started attacking them (flinging poo and the like) and the battle was on. That led them to a caravan which had been carrying the monkeys as live cargo; they found one dead body of a drover who had crawled into the jungle before perishing. The drover carried identification: Rob Urikas.
At Cauldron, they saved Ruphus on their way to the Church of Abadar, then met Jenya Urikas who gave them a job. And so it begins.
Glad to see more people diving in to the conversion!
For encounter conversion, my advice is to give the encounters as written some boosting. For Chapters 1 & 2, I basically ported the creatures and NPCs over as is without changing comparing CRs or beefing their stats up, and I found that the party was blowing through encounters. Granted, they are all experienced games, so that could be part of it, but if your party is the same you will probably need some lift.
They are just now starting Chapter 3 (playing the Flood Festival/Demonskar Ball next Friday!), and in prep not only did I start truing up the CRs/XP to match the level progression in 3.5, but I'm also making most creatures at 80% HP instead of using average or rolling.
I also started using HeroLab mid way through level 2, so if you want some shortcuts with my custom files I'm willing to share them.
Lastly, I recently found a blog of someone doing a conversion and blogging about his process... as a newb GM, I've found it fairly helpful in my own process.
http://dave.monkeymartian.com/?p=831
The temple to Wee Jas is easily converted into a temple of Pharasma. The cleric that has essentially closed it's doors, Ike, iirc, is just not a worshipper of Pharasma anymore... he has turned to Urgathoa!
How does that sound?
:D
GNOME