Hope this is the right area for this...
Just curious if anyone's tried to use Pathfinder for Jim Butcher's Furies of Calderon setting. Not that my group has any interest in playing something of this sort (though I've just gotten into PBPs and it occurs to me that this could work well there), but I've been playing with how I would do it.
Fair warning: This thread (if anyone responds) could potentially have spoilers for the whole six-book series. (Which I think is the best recent fantasy series in ages.)
I think the easiest thing would be to map the furies to attributes, with everyone's strength in each fury based on each individual attribute (that would allow for PCs with multiple talents). Seems to me that they'd work as follows:
Str -- Earth (seems obvious, considering the strength-based abilities)
Dex -- Air (again, seems pretty obvious)
Int -- Wood (this one's actually somewhat process of elimination in that I used all of the other ones so far)
Wis -- Water (maps to wisdom often being linked to healing via clerics)
Con -- Metal (perhaps not the best choice, but metalcrafting is linked with reducing pain and it would fit well with the martial aspects that metalcrafting is linked to...)
Cha -- Fire (passion, plus firecrafting someone is often mentioned, though so is earthcrafting)
I'm thinking we'd probably have to scrap the classes as currently formatted. Instead you'd perhaps have a skill-focused class, a combat-focused class a jack-of-all-trades and maybe a couple others that would be more about how many and which bonuses you get as you level (and easily adaptable to whatever role your character ends up with). So a Legionnaire would take the combat class, giving him more bonuses in combat. A cursor and a steadholder could both potentially be jack of all trades, though the skills they'd choose would be very different.
Each level would also give you more abilities with your fury/furies, scaled up to a top threshold based on your key attribute. Or, thinking about it, you could perhaps use feats to give yourself new fury-based abilities. I was originally thinking manifesting a fury would be based on having at least a 14 or 16 in the key attribute, but maybe that would be better done as a feat (perhaps with a minimum score as a requisite?)...
(And then of course there'd be new races: Marat, Canim, Iceman, Vord, perhaps Children of the Sun or something else going on in the Feverthorn Forest, though that latter seems like it'd be a great idea to build a campaign around.)
Thoughts?
Love the Calderon series...converting it to Pathfinder will face a few difficulties:
The magic is inborn like a sorcerer...no real spells to learn.
The magic is elemental (mostly)
A LOT of people in Calderon (all nobles) have this magic.
It is not vancian--but what fantasy novels other than Vance's themselves ever were?
My suggestion:
1) DONT scrap all the core classes. Keep barbarian, fighter, monk, and rogue pretty close to as is. HOWEVER, these will be tied to an element--barbaric rage becomes the temporary strength increases from earth, the monks's multiple attacks and speed become air-based, etc.
2) REDO the spellcasting classes by simply making custom spell lists. Use the cleric domains as a start. I would be happy to help. Make the wizards and sorcerers have the most powerful ones at lower levels than the cleric, and let the cleric keep healing but tie it to the appropriate element.
3) KEEP it simple by KEEPING it Vancian (spells per day), so players have a shorter learning curve.
4) After you have compiled spell lists into the 6 elements, then work on archetypes (variant core classes) to better suit the setting.
Oh, and keep your list of elements tied to ability scores. This will become the new modifiers to base your spellcasting on. For example Instead of Int determing save dc's and bonus spells, a wizard will use dex for air, con for metal, etc. There will be elemental spell lists that are somewhat like the arcane schools.
Wizards and sorcerers can use 3 rather than two elements--they will be unique ones that the characters in the books just never happened to run into. You might look at the elemental archetypes for the wizard in the advanced guide (which are online as part of the PRD)to replace the normal school based ones. Oh, and since they are more limited by the spell lists than a normal wizard/sorcerer, they can cast in light armor.
Clerics use domains tied to the elements,but tie more domains to each element, since the furies of calderon have multiple abilities per element. The cleric can choose two domains each from two elements (four domains total). This seems like a lot BUT the ONLY spells he can cast are from the 4 chosen domains. Since this is less spells, he can spontaneously cast any of them. The bonus domain spell per day is one selected every morning that gets a +2 bonus to caster level. This seperates it out from the
Druids use the domain option of nature bond, but can choose from more domains. However, they cannot choose the metal based domains, and gain a bonus domain that is wood based domains.
Rangers and Paladins will have slightly different spell lists since theirs are more combat related than raw power.
Bards will be more or less the same since they already have a decent BAB, and less spells than a ranger or paladin. One change would be to grant them Weapon Finesse at first level, and bonus feats every 5 levels like a wizard, but with a different feat list than either wizards or fighters.
For NPC's I would give the Aristocrat NPC class the Adept's Spells per day. Voila! That makes a noble with elemental powers without any fuss.
One of my gaming groups thought about doing this, though using different systems. One of the big problems we ran into was how to portray the Furies accurately, which would be a problem in d20 as well. Some had 1 or 2 weak furies, some might have had 1 but was exceptionally powerful, some might have a few moderate almost across the board, and then you had nobles who were extremely powerful.
My instinct would be to go for Furies being Feat based. in d20 Of course that would make it hard for some one going for a Noble born character so, while I don't like doing this, I'd make Noble a class. I might even go for two classes for Nobles. One would be more skill based and one would be more martial, but both's primary focus would be Furycraft. I would have other classes that had a decent synergy with one or two different types of fury craft but might have a primary focus elsewere. Knight for instance would be focused on combat and one particualar fury depending on the type of Knight you are. I'd also have classes that really didn't focus on Furycraft at all, like Cursors and Legionaires (Furycraft was like a bonus rather then a necessity beyond basic levels.
All Alerans would need to takee their starting bonus "Aleran" feat as some form of "Furycraft" Feat. I also might adopt something like Psychic Focus and save spells for "Nobles". For instance, if you maintain your Earth Fury Focus, you get Powerful Build. You can release your focus for a damage bonus on an attack. Rather then spells, you could also make it skill based like the Force in Star Wars.
Having it skill based, a la SWSE, would likely be the easiest and hardest. Easy because you have SW to work off of, hard because you are coming up with a variety of powers. I did do a good job with a Mass Effect setting this way, though, so it is possible.
Everyone with power would be in effect summoners with elemental magic instead of summoning spells.
Taking a combination of the Summoner's pet, SWSE Jedi force powers, wizards elemental powers/sorcerer elemental bloodlines/cleric elemental domains, and add them to generic martial classes and you may have something.
The main issue is, in the books, having access to different types of crafting exponentially increases your power. It is going to be difficult to balance a person with just fire or earth crafting with a Lord. Which is why, in the stories, those with more power have become a sort of dynasty-ruling class.
Maybe:
Barbarian are earth primary crafters
Fighters are metal primary crafters
Rangers are wood primary crafters
Give everyone a summoner's pet. Take away class features when the pet is out.
All classes have spellcasting abilities, so wiz/sorc/cleric may have to be scrapped. Everyone may get some sort of Words of Power spellcasting ability to emulate to fluid nature of crafting.
A major undertaking, but possible.
I agree scrap the spell casters as every one has some power.
Maybe have the crafters as traits or feats to be chosen early on.
Make the lords non-playable or npc class. Maybe make a feat for later development.
Possible bloodline type from Unearthed Arcana?
Keep in mind that Furies as entities was generally accepted only on the fringes of Alera. In more central areas the actual physical manifestations was treated like being left handed was up until 1900s.
Each class has a specific sorcerer elemental bloodline, cleric domain, or wizard elemental school. Have it done as a separate part of character creation instead of class. We'd also have to rework them, and create ones for wood and metal. After you pick them, you get access to different spells or, since this may be the easier way to go, Words of Power. It also would give you a pet based off of the summoner or druid.
Multi-classing wouldn't give you additional furies. Either automatically gaining them at levels 6, 12, or something like that. Or have it feat-based with minimum levels for second, third, etc. Secondary furies should be at level-x so that a PC's power doesn't jump too greatly. This is for balance, not lore, since their power is supposed to jump a lot as you gain furies.
Classes should be handled as a separate entity. This makes PCs sorta gestalt. It also allows for the least amount of work done to the base classes and the different furies should automatically lend themselves to being better for some classes.
Usable classes with minimal change needed would be: barbarian, fighter, rogue, monk, cavalier.
Spell-less versions of classes: bard (lends itself to fire crafting very well), ranger, paladin.
Home-made classes would be needed for a more crafter/caster, one for skillful usage of casting (battlefield control/utility), powerful crafting (blaster), and defensive crafting (healer/buffer).
The biggest problem I keep seeing is balancing multiple crafting sources and multiple furies.