One thing anyone who GM's and loves history fights within themselves is wanting to make a truly medieval feeling game...yet still have wizards who blast monsters and Paladins with plenty of evil to smite.
I'd like this to be a free-flowing thread where anyone can make suggestions on making more realistic feeling settings.
Some key points--
* Note I used "realistic feeling" not "realistic". So big huge changes are out. For now let us all assume we use Pathfinder as a starting point, and add or subtract from that.
* Make it multiple medieval cultures that can be encountered in Europe and the Mediteranean sea...so Byzantium and the Ottoman empire are also fair game, as are the Hordes out of Asia, but no Chinese or Japanese elements.
* Lets make it more realistic, but remember it is still fantasy
Some suggestions of mine:
* Either all humans or have the fantasy races linked up to real cultures. For example our stereotype Orc Barbarian is now a Mongol, and the Elves are all Celts.
* Real kingdoms but with some changes so characters can influence "history". I would think Dark Age Britain and Europe would be good. In Britain you had Britons, Saxons,Vikings, and eventually the Normans all vying for supremacy at one time or another.
* Magic works like Pathfinder but is rare as can be. This works especially well if early medieval as the education for a wizard would be rare anyway....but there are not sorcerers, or wizards or even Adepts in every town. Most priests are NPC Experts not Clerics. Your Cleric becomes the equivalent of a legendary Saint.
Now it's everybody else's turn...
Some suggestions of mine:
* Either all humans or have the fantasy races linked up to real cultures. For example our stereotype Orc Barbarian is now a Mongol, and the Elves are all Celts.
* Real kingdoms but with some changes so characters can influence "history". I would think Dark Age Britain and Europe would be good. In Britain you had Britons, Saxons,Vikings, and eventually the Normans all vying for supremacy at one time or another.
* Magic works like Pathfinder but is rare as can be. This works especially well if early medieval as the education for a wizard would be rare anyway....but there are not sorcerers, or wizards or even Adepts in every town. Most priests are NPC Experts not Clerics. Your Cleric becomes the equivalent of a legendary Saint.Now it's everybody else's turn...
Get rid of heroes as walking gods - Play E6. This is probably the first mechanical change I would recommend to anyone who wants low-magic or low-fantasy. Here Basically, the game tops at level 6 - so the most powerful wizards in the world can fly and summon sleet storms, instead of being able to gate in Balors, create new dimensions and the like.
As you said, low-magic. And make the game a bit more dark - make diseases a common enemy, and get the morals of the time straight. In D&D, you play modern time heroes in plate armor, at least when it comes to ethics. Make wife-beating something that doesn't even raise an eyebrow, slavery or near-slavery common, excecutions as well. Make rape and torture an integral part of warfare, and have capital punishment for heathenry.
if you just want the medieval feeling then there are a few changes that would make if feel more dark age and still be fantasy like.
1.st you dont have to remove elves and most other monsters(remember thy are "stolen" from medieval folk lore) just change some detailes, most supernatural creatures are dangerus even elfs.
2.nd have all players rolle up only humnan pc's
3.rd (almos) no Female ps's remember woman had very few rights in medival europe.
4th remove most of the gods, and stick with 1 good pr major culture, so in europe we have cristianity(or some equavalent) (sects are ok)
increase the power of the church
5th make literacy into a feat with some nobe born prerequest(most ppl could not read)
6th. most ppl are very suoerstitious, actually using magic(that is not from the church) will get you in truble fast, most magic is evil.
7th. use fedalism, one god one king and so on(im asuming you are familiar with how the system works)
if you need inpiration the try to take a look at bioware's dragon age, they steal heavly from the real world, eg their church worships the maker(god) and is all female(just a reverse of the chatolic church).
if you have acces to other games then black dog production have made a vampire the masqurade scenario for the middel ages called last supper(it has a very nice intro on how to make medival pc's)
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It is a pretty brutal change for wizards, but it would fit well into the setting:
Wizards, using hermetic traditions cannot prepare their spells just anywhere, they need a prepared chamber that is expensive and complicated to build. Larger cities may have hidden circles that allow trusted guests to prepare their spells, otherwise the wizard has to rely on his own home and perhaps a few friends in different towns/cities.
Of course these rooms have to be hidden, as the church doesn't take wizary very well...
No Sorcerers, the witches and warlock should use the less powerful adept class, or the sorcerer and witch classes should have hindrances akin to the wizard, like heavy tabous.
Firstly I would put the players on the slow levelling track. This would mean that it is much harder to level up.
All characters should be human. You might allow half-elves or half-orcs (they could be half-trolls?).
Wizards and sorcerers are rare, and there are no schools of magic. Wizardry is probably something that is learned and requires great scholarship, so only survives in places such as Byzantium and the Islamic world (if we are using real world analogies). Wizards should be Byzantine or from say Al-Andalus. Sorcerers are more 'natural' magicians and would be found among non-literate or mostly illiterate societies. Clerical magic should be very rare and used by people who are practically miracle workers and saints. Most ordinary priests and clerics are administrators, so miracle working PCs may find themselves being used by the Orthodoxy while being frequently at odds with it.
Keep the levels low even for bad guys - for instance, a 12th level sorcerer could be a major bad guy. People who reach 20th level are practically immortals or demi-gods.
Feudalism develops in Europe really during the 8th and 9th centuries. Those who are low-born will be required to show deference to aristocrats despite in-game considerations - ie levels. However if they prove themselves to be great heroes then they get themselves some leeway. However, not everywhere is feudal. Tribal societies exist in the north (Finns, Lapps, Wends etc.) while the Islamic south is not feudal at all, but a civilization based on religion, tribalism, trade and powerful urban centres. China is a sort of imperial bureaucracy.
Rein back the market economy. A peasant doesn't simply get 200gp from nowhere and buys sword and armour. Most people at this time don't use money and pay taxes in food renders. A player may have to pledge themselves to a lord who will grant them armour and weapons. Otherwise, the PCs are going to have to raid barrows and go digging in ruins to find magical Bronze Age and Roman equipment which never decays. Most commerce is done in silver pieces, so fiddle around with the price lists. Copper pieces are used to buy staples. Keep gold pieces out of the game as it is mostly used (if at all) amongst the aristocracy. Treasure hoards will be made up of jewellery, or rare and precious objects - spices, salt, even lead ingots.
Women characters should be allowed but they are the exception. Remember in history there are examples of influential and powerful women - Lady Aethelflaed of the Mercians, Khadija (Mohammed's wife), Eleanor of Aquitaine and Gwenllian of Deheubarth. However, many women might have to get by by pretending they are men.
Monsters should be rare and exceptional, inhabiting a world perhaps that intersects but is not our own. Elves inhabit the Otherworld, sea serpents throng the oceans, giants live in wild places, demons tempt people from Hell while dragons sleep under the mountains. Goblins should be magical creatures with spell-like abilities. Not sure I would have orcs as Mongols. Monsters should exist on the periphery.
Or play 'Ars Magica' :D
All high fantasy magic for strategic uses is gone - mass teleportation and such, prolly the most powerfull scrying and divination spells. Most spellcasters can live without those spells and it removes most of the sci-fi stuff that comes with that kind of magic.
Fantasy races are rare, living in the frontier lands.
There was a series of Green Colored books in 2nd Edition that actually touched on this. We had the Charlemagne book and it was pretty fun. We treated each nationality as a seperate race. Magic was rare, and you had to use the Witch kit out of the wizard's book if you wanted to go that route.
Play a different game.
No, really. If you try to get a group of people together to play Pathfinder-Medieval & Grotty, you are going to either:
1) Spend as much effort modifying Pathfinder as it would take to teach everyone a new game (at the low end) or as much effort as it would've taken to write a new game (at the high end).
2) Have frustrated players because the game doesn't work under the assumptions they expect. Pathfinder has a number of assumptions built into it - that characters will progress through 'low fantasy' (levels 1-4), 'magic fantasy' (levels 5-8', 'action hero fantasy' (levels 9-12), 'demi-god fantasy' (levels 13 to 16) and "Gods who sneeze and change the world" (levels 17-20). Your players, in playing the latest version of the worlds first roleplaying game, are expecting those assumptions as part of the game. As the game progresses, you're going to discover that you have to do exponentially more work to make sure encounters don't break your world or kill your party because they expect everyone to be a walking Christmas tree of magical items.
In particular, the 'kill things, take their stuff, level up, buy better gear, kill bigger things....' treadmill needs to be stopped fairly early on...and it's the fundamental assumption of character advancement in Pathfinder.
I'd strongly strongly recommend using GURPS Lite for this, or Ars Magica. If you can find it, The Riddle of Steel is brilliant for this kind of game.
okay, here my 2 Ideas:
if you allow magic, do as they tought it was, Clerics and Inquisitors are allowed and hunt all arcane magic users. Tough this is probably not what you seek. The most important thing is probably a monotheism and believing that other beliefs have to convert. I would allow other races as NPCs, people would regard them as aboration that have to be killed or shunned. Perhaps like the jews (I always tought the 3.5 gnomes were jews, I liked them a lot) or physicly weird people in the middle ages. Ignorance and racism is your friend. (I really hope I offended nobody by this, but if anybody from the middle ages reads this, my apologies, I'm from europe btw)
My second idea is more about the realistic "feel", you should describe life as harsh and short, the streets are dirty and the latrines emptied on it. Everything stunk, the food probably looked pretty bad in most tavernes and so on. Watching the first 5 minutes of "the perfume" (or reading the amazingly good book) might help to describe it, because it describes a fishmarket in old France.
You might want to check out the Kingdoms of Legends World Guide. It uses the Pathfinder rules to create a pseudo-historical setting. You can find it at this link.
* Either all humans or have the fantasy races linked up to real cultures. For example our stereotype Orc Barbarian is now a Mongol, and the Elves are all Celts.
A stereotype orc barbarian should, at most, be identified with a stereotype of a Mongol.
Incidentally, I believe Tolkien once likened orcs (in appearance) to Mongols in one of his letters.
Most priests are NPC Experts not Clerics. Your Cleric becomes the equivalent of a legendary Saint.
Or you could have clerics be the elite members of the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller.
Other than that, I like the ideas of using E6 (or least limiting NPCs that way, assuming your PCs won't abuse their power), restricting wizardry to Byzantium and the Islamic world, and having arms and armour be granted by a liege.
3.rd (almos) no Female ps's remember woman had very few rights in medival europe.
There have been women in the Middle Ages who rose to positions of prominence. Joan of Arc is only one example. That they may have been rare (or that you want to make them rare in your world) is no reason to restrict the PCs this way. Adventurers were also very rare, but it would be ludicrous to use that as an excuse to restrict the PCs to playing serfs. PCs are supposed to be exceptional.
AdAstra - I'm pleased to see somebody else who's heard of The Riddle of Steel! It's a great game for this kind of setting.
TRoS might have been the only game the people at The Forge fell in love with that I felt worked as a game, rather than a theoretical discussion of how to make a game.
I borrowed the Spiritual Attributes from it (FATE does something similar with Aspects) for D6 Dramatics, with some tweaks.
I'm now eyeing the Madness Meters from Unknown Armies and pondering how seeing horrific things should reduce your ability to care (and your maximum number of dice allowed in my version of Spiritual Attributes.)
One important consideration the OP should think about:
What sort of story/game do you intend to run? What will the PCs be doing? Playing "Pig Farmer Wat" who's terrified his prize sow will get stolen is a very different game from playing Theodoric, fourth son of the Duke of Brogniz, who's being kept around as an insurance policy in case any of his three older legitimate brothers dies.
You may also want to look hard at Green Ronin's A Game Of Thrones RPG. (The hard to find Guardians of Order version can still be bought from George R.R. Martin).
Most of the default assumptions of d20/Pathfinder really don't apply to medievaloid settings - this shows up a lot when looking at Game of Thrones from GOO.
How are you going to handle games about political power? If you can't hack it down with a sword or summon a demon to eat it, Pathfinder really lacks mechanisms to cover it...and people are far too willing to solve problems with murder in d20 derived systems.
Realistic:
Only Race allowed: Human.
Only Classes allowed: Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue, Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert, and Warrior Only.
No magic spells, weapons, or items of any kind. No Alchemy.
No magic monsters: No aberrations, constructs, dragons, fey, magical beasts, Monstrous Humanoids, ooze, outsiders, or undead.
There you have realistic, on the other hand, this is the world i live in, so i have no desire to play in such a world.
I WANT MAGIC !!! :-)
If you've ever played "Darklands" before (it's a computer game), just make your game more like that. If you haven't, download it and DOSbox. And play it. It's awesome.
I remember this! The booklet that came with it describes a fabulous medieval setting. I should try to find where I have that stored.
Realistic:
Only Race allowed: Human.
Only Classes allowed: Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue, Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert, and Warrior Only.
No magic spells, weapons, or items of any kind. No Alchemy.
No magic monsters: No aberrations, constructs, dragons, fey, magical beasts, Monstrous Humanoids, ooze, outsiders, or undead.
There you have realistic, on the other hand, this is the world i live in, so i have no desire to play in such a world.
I WANT MAGIC !!! :-)
Personally I find the notion of playing in a world where a lot of medieval legends were true much more appealing than the actual Middle Ages.
This would be more along the lines of the Green Ronin Medieval Players' Guide. Unfortunately, the ahistorical interpretation of magic in Ars Magica was a little frustrating for me (BA in Early Modern history with a specialization in Roma history).The magic depicted in the Arthurian, Chanson de Geste, Arabic legend and Indian literature is only slightly off from that in D&D. Read the legend of Virgil in the medieval form to get a sense of this. The Arabic Sirat al Dhu Yazan is similar (teleportation, shapeshifting, Rukhs, etc) and the Ramayana is out there too...
Someday I'll finish and publish my OGL guide/rules to all this...
Low fantasy games are a lot of fun if your guys are up for it.
Try not to listen to the 'play another game' comments.
one thing i like to do is throw out the quentissential roleplaying hook (walk into town, some random guyu wants to hire you to do a job, oh look all the pcs at the table took the job, how conveinient.) make the players write up background stories, input their goals and such into the game. give them a goal that is realistic but that they actually want to accomplish personally, not for monetary value. many movies and such have the characters wanting to complete a quest cause they want to and have to, but no one is getting paid to do it. the players making actually characters with stories, backgrounds, likes and dislikes, short and long term goals, and what and where they go while they are in town (other than the bar) helps make things more realistic.
Low fantasy games are a lot of fun if your guys are up for it.
Try not to listen to the 'play another game' comments.
While you can run a 'low fantasy' game in PF, the question becomes "Why would you want to, when for a lot less work you can do it in another game?"
While you can run a 'low fantasy' game in PF, the question becomes "Why would you want to, when for a lot less work you can do it in another game?"
I agree with you to a certain extent, but the thread (correct me if I'm wrong) is about "what to do to Pf to make more medieval" as opposed to "which game should I play for a medieval feel". All suggestions to "dig from that other game" are perfectly fine, and the OP might simply run the said game rather than dig from it in the end. But I have to agree that "don't play PF" is counter-productive within the context of this thread.
As for the OP:
- make sure the social tapestry is divided into the three social classes, with the possibility of a small separate niche for arcane spellcasters.
Alternatively, include all spellcasters in the clergy class.
While you can run a 'low fantasy' game in PF, the question becomes "Why would you want to, when for a lot less work you can do it in another game?"
...because the players might have forked out their several hundred bucks for a set of rules that they now have the hang of (especially the gm) and the game mechanics can be tuned that way?
I would hope that the rich systems and history that PF has drawn on that it would be diverse enough to cater for a rammed earth hovel campaign.
If one system managed to fit Dark Sun, Kara-Tur, Al Qadim, Forgotten Realms, Menzoberranzan, Ravenloft... etc etc etc wuite easily, I cant see why its successor would be less capable.
3.rd (almos) no Female ps's remember woman had very few rights in medival europe.There have been women in the Middle Ages who rose to positions of prominence. Joan of Arc is only one example. That they may have been rare (or that you want to make them rare in your world) is no reason to restrict the PCs this way. Adventurers were also very rare, but it would be ludicrous to use that as an excuse to restrict the PCs to playing serfs. PCs are supposed to be exceptional.
Funnily enough, women not having rights in medival europe is quite exaggerated due to the Victorian era using propaganda to portray women as weak and useless. Women were allowed to own land. Women just kind of had to marry because, well, they weren't allowed to go off and die fighting. Check out some info on the real Robin Hood, around that time period a lot of new information is being discovered.
I agree with the sentiment that Pathfinder is capable of being used in a 'realistic' fantasy setting. After all, its strength is this versatility. With a little tweaking you can make it work in almost any setting - High or Low fantasy.
In medieval folklore and stories evil Wizards were often fallen clergy, mainly since they had that suspicious ability called literacy.
Madcap Storm King and Bluenose - Thanks for that information.
Madcap, do you have any references about the propaganda from the Victorian era that you mentioned? I don't doubt you, but it's something I'd be interesting in reading about.
All right - since you asked:
1) Everyone starts at Hit Points equal to their CON stat. They get 1 HP per BAB they gain. If you're upper status, you have a justification for a higher CON than about 12.
2) Armor should give DR, not AC. Check out Tome of Battle.
3) A lance does damage based on the speed and mass of the horse; the knight is there to guide it in. In essence, you get hit with a lance, you get hit with about a ton of mass moving at 40 mph delivered to something that's like a 1" chisel point.
4) You want weapons? You swear an oath of fealty to someone. You may or may not get sent out to do errands, kill people, or show the colors...but the concept of "Random group of adventurers meet in a tavern..." each with a quirky backstory about how they're all loners and outsiders? Uh-uh. You'll be associated with someone else's temporal authority, or you'll have the local temporal authority coming to hunt you down.
5) Make Cure Light Wounds the only healing spell. Make it 3rd level.
6) Make everyone write backstory up that ties them into the local political scene. The "I'm the loner walking in from the hills" is likely to be met...poorly.
7) Decide what you want the game to be about. What great terror, what horrific thing, is there to be met?
Try and figure out what to do once the players get to 5th level, which is about the point where they outstrip any character from history.
Stepping away from mechanics for a moment:
If you want your campaign to feel medieval, as opposed to 'modern Americans with Magic Armor", you'll need to make sure that a lot of the things that built a medieval society work - and aren't circumvented by - the assumptions of the RPG.
99.99% of all medieval people lived and died within about 3 days ride (about 80 to 100 miles) from where they were born.
Medieval trade was barter; gold and silver were useful as a medium of trade because they could retain their value as a medium of exchange, but prices would fluctuate wildly.
Most people in a medieval society are refugee camp poor. The concept of 'go to a bar and pay 3 copper for a meal' is as modern (and as alien) to a medieval person as, say, options trading in commodity futures on CPUs would be.
Most people in a medieval society are illiterate; many are innumerate.
Population densities were low. On the coasts, it took about 8-9 farmers or fishermen to feed one city dweller. Away from them, it was more like 11-12 farmers per townie.
Manufactured things were rare. Manufactured things that weren't made of wood, stone, bone or cloth were rarer still. I want you to imagine that you make about $200 a month in modern money, and want to build a house. Each nail you want to purchase costs $3, and there's a seven month wait time on them.
That's about what it was like for the early medieval period.
Read GURPS Middle Ages and GURPS Vikings, even if you don't play GURPS. They do a wonderful job of conveying the realities of the period.
Whenever I see fantasy cities mentioned with populations of more than 50,000, I ask two questions:
1) How are these people getting food?
2) Where does all the horse sh!t go?
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Great ideas. I'm really enjoying this thread.
- For limiting magic, I'd allow very, very few items more powerful than +1 enhancement, and even those would be hard to replace. Stronger items would be strictly tied to story events. But, I;d design a lot of wondrous items with interesting, not necessarily utilitarian powers.
On this, what about a wider range of mundane weapons and armor? Regular +0 stuff, +1 Superior quality, and +2 Masterwork. Probably -1 Inferior and -2 crap quality. "Magic" could be +3 and above, or just +3. That way characters could still upgrade, which is fun, without getting into magic.
Also, a monotheistic church could still have lots of domains, either as aspects of a single god or as the domains of saints who serve that god.
Leveling would have to be really slow. The earlier point about capping at level 6 is well taken, but how about just slowing down advancement A LOT. Award occasional extra skill points or even feats between levels without actually leveling up. That way characters could get better at doing certain things (skills/feats) without gaining the class features that start to make them demi-gods.
If you want to make your fantasy setting more medieval try "A Magical Medieval Society" from Expeditious Retreat Press. Excellent treatment of feudal society done with 3E D&D rules. Doesn't deal with the crunch of the game, just the background. If you wanted to try another game (besides Ars Magica) try good old Chivalry and Sorcery (I believe it's still available in PDF). Personally I don't think switching games is worth it, too much lost in terms of familiarity. Last I checked Expeditious Retreat Press material was available at Paizo.
Lots of crunchy goodness so far, keep it up!
Some common thing seems to be the impression that:
* all magic must be dumped or really suppressed
* no one wants to play a realistic one,if they did they would just play gurps or a similar system
I don't totally agree with either of those.
After all, fantasy magic in a medieval setting was found often in tales of King Athur that were actually written in the 14th-16th centuries. So if they fantasized about it, so can we. Just treat it like Merlin is=very, very rare, and influential. In a more recent example, you look at the LOTR movies, Gandalf doesn't go crazy with fireballs but can drive away fel beasts, create a protective sphere against the Balrog and then shatter a dwarf built bridge.
As for nobody wanting to play it in D20...you would need a good, solid gaming group with open minds. If you only play "kill & take their stuff" and never actually interact with NPC's or the setting, then yea, stick with over the top fantasy.
One suggestion I have is to use the NPC classes as backgrounds.
Have everyone start with 3 levels in an NPC class to link them to the medieval era. Of course you would have to tinker with the commoner who is wayyyy to weak (although accurate for a half-starved peasant) and for PC's I would suggest the simple expedient of PC commoner's getting d12's for HD and proficiency with the longbow. I justify this by the fact that if he is adventuring with nobles then he is probably a soldier since many commoners often served as footsoldiers in medieval times. Footsoldiers never got the credit they are due in contemporary accounts.
How to make your game seem more authentically Medieval..simple.Play 'Chivalry and Sorcery' or 'Harnmaster'.
Lots of crunchy goodness so far, keep it up!
Some common thing seems to be the impression that:
* all magic must be dumped or really suppressed
One of the things that makes a setting medieval is that people were working under feudal obligations. The ability to throw fireballs or cast divinations, or, oh, cast Time Stop, can seriously undermine this.
* no one wants to play a realistic one,if they did they would just play gurps or a similar system
You'll spend less time running your game in GURPS or something similar than you will trying to patch Pathfinder to work. Your players will probably have more fun. (GURPS does 'low magic, gritty fantasy' very well.)
I don't totally agree with either of those.
After all, fantasy magic in a medieval setting was found often in tales of King Athur that were actually written in the 14th-16th centuries. So if they fantasized about it, so can we.
And magic in medieval romances is one of those things that happens once or twice to advance the plot. Tell your magic user player that he gets to cast two spells for each adventure path, and, well...you'll see why standard magic in D&D is much more common than it is in the source fiction.
Just treat it like Merlin is=very, very rare, and influential. In a more recent example, you look at the LOTR movies, Gandalf doesn't go crazy with fireballs but can drive away fel beasts, create a protective sphere against the Balrog and then shatter a dwarf built bridge.
Yes, and Gandalf was successfully imprisoned by Saruman in a way that any 1st level D&D wizard could've gotten out of: One measly Feather Fall spell and Gandalf is free.
As for nobody wanting to play it in D20...you would need a good, solid gaming group with open minds. If you only play "kill & take their stuff" and never actually interact with NPC's or the setting, then yea, stick with over the top fantasy.
If your good, solid gaming group with open minds can put up with a constant stream of patches on the Pathfinder game engine, and radically rewrite their expectations of what a Pathfinder game will be like in terms of freedom of agency and action - your good, solid gaming group will have no problems picking up GURPS. :)
One suggestion I have is to use the NPC classes as backgrounds.
Have everyone start with 3 levels in an NPC class to link them to the medieval era. Of course you would have to tinker with the commoner who is wayyyy to weak (although accurate for a half-starved peasant) and for PC's I would suggest the simple expedient of PC commoner's getting d12's for HD and proficiency with the longbow. I justify this by the fact that if he is adventuring with nobles then he is probably a soldier since many commoners often served as footsoldiers in medieval times. Footsoldiers never got the credit they are due in contemporary accounts.
How is a peasant with d12 hit dice (and thus, having more hit points than a war horse...) aiding your goal of having a more medieval fantasy experience?
For that matter, what do you want out of a medieval fantasy experience? What makes it appealing to you, and how will you make it appealing to your players?
One suggestion I have is to use the NPC classes as backgrounds.
Have everyone start with 3 levels in an NPC class to link them to the medieval era. Of course you would have to tinker with the commoner who is wayyyy to weak (although accurate for a half-starved peasant) and for PC's I would suggest the simple expedient of PC commoner's getting d12's for HD and proficiency with the longbow. I justify this by the fact that if he is adventuring with nobles then he is probably a soldier since many commoners often served as footsoldiers in medieval times. Footsoldiers never got the credit they are due in contemporary accounts.
The NPC levels is a pretty good idea, however I wouldn't mess with commoners. They really are the lowest common denominator (pun intended). Just don't let the PCs have commoner levels; anyone whose history seems to specify commoner should just be a warrior or expert. Besides, your justification for amping commoners because they are 'probably soldiers' just means they are warriors.
As far as magic, one trick is to limit levels in full caster classes to one half of character level. This simultaneously limits mad power growth in casters and requires them to explore alternate means to get the job done.
Also, I have heard a lot about the E6 idea, but I am not convinced that the same thing can't be accomplished at higher levels such as 10 or 12. Combined with a limit on magic levels this would produce a more satisfying and, I think, more realistic model of medieval heroes. Regardless, normal levels or limited, I would slow advancement way down. The earlier suggestion of extra skill points between levels is good, but a little clunky to execute. I think one thing to do here is give a feat every level instead of every other level. It is a lot of feats, but feats don't stop time (and you can't use them all at once). It would give a satisfying reward every time they level; when levels come less often, the odd "empty level" REALLY sucks.
And finally, another option within d20 is using Star Wars Saga Edition as a basis for a fantasy game. This was done rather famously by John "The Gneech" Robey as the Sword and Sorcery Saga rules.
They can be found here.
Cheers
And finally, another option within d20 is using Star Wars Saga Edition as a basis for a fantasy game. This was done rather famously by John "The Gneech" Robey as the Sword and Sorcery Saga rules.They can be found here.
Cheers
Given that WotC / Hasbro is dropping the Star Wars license I'd pick up a copy of the Saga edition quickly if you want one. I preferred the earlier edition myself...
D&D has never been good for a gritty or realistic game.
GURPS is perfect for it :3
Rather then try to beat a game out of shape and try to sorta-mold it into something that sorta works, just take something that's meant for it :)
Lots of crunchy goodness so far, keep it up!
Some common thing seems to be the impression that:
* all magic must be dumped or really suppressed
* no one wants to play a realistic one,if they did they would just play gurps or a similar systemI don't totally agree with either of those.
Neither do I, depending on your intentions and genre of game played. Personally, my favourite RPG set in a tighter medeval paradign is Ars Magica, which isn't much when all magic is dumped and suppressed...
As far as realism goes, I agree with the fact that D&D and its Pathfinder heir doesn't deal very well with hyper-realism, but the system is perfect for medieval-fantasy games. The departure from high-fantasy to medieval-fantasy isn't that hard to make, even without any alterations of the rules whatsoever; it a change of fluff and feel mostly.
One has to be careful however about the diminution of magic (either in power or availability) as the magical contribution is pretty much hardwired in the rules as written. It can be handled beautifully, but it takes some adaptation from the DM's part, ranging form not using a certain palette of monster or upping their CR to adopting new houserules. The E6 format or the substitution of the big 6 magic items into "natural talents" comes into mind.
Here's a concept for you: E6 without big6
'findel
Certainly the CR of some of the monsters will need to be upped, as it is often assumed that you will need magical back-up and magic items to deal with them. Monsters should be rare in general, and taking them out with just the odd magic weapon and some magic protection is going to be a memorable and suitably epic encounter indeed. I think you should start the PCs at 1st level and take the 'slow' levelling option. This will give you time to adjust game play to a more 'realistic' level while being able to gauge what the PCs can handle and what they can't.