Hey, guys. I've jumped on board with Pathfinder and have left 4E behind, finally. I just got more and more disillusioned the further they moved down the path towards simplification and meta-gaming. Well, that's not the reason for this thread and I don't want to start a 4E vs. Pathfinder thing, just wanted to update my status from before when I used to post frequently.
So, I've been designing my own Dark Sun campaign based on Dark Sun but with the changes I've always wanted to make (no Halflings or Blue Age, for example). Now that I've decided to go with Pathfinder (8 books are now in the mail on the way to my home, yay!) I wanted to ask a question:
Has anyone used Elemental Priests, as in Dark Sun, in their campaigns? And, if so, has anyone out there divided up all the current spells into the Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Cosmos categories?
I'm wondering how to proceed and am not looking forward to making up my own spell lists with these categories and am wondering if someone out there may have already done the work and if they would be kind enough to share.
Either way, thanks! I'm really, really looking forward to running Pathfinder!
People with greater knowledge of the game could correct me, but a good idea could be take a lookk at clerics with elemental domains, and element-related channeling feats..
You might want to look at www.athas.org , they released free downloads of pdfs of their dark sun for 3.5, shouldnt be too hard to adapt for Pathfinder.
Ah! I'd never heard of Athas.org. Thanks!
Sadly, when it comes to Domains for clerics, Athas.org makes it not as easy. They came up with all their own domains, and abilities, that you would still need to convert to PF.
I found the simple stuff in Paizo's Dragon issue #319, works simply enough. They gave Domains for each of the Sorcerer-Kings, and suggested domains for the elements. It will take much less conversion. The Elemental ones were simply, Must have the domain of the element, and any 1 other. The idea that each priest reveres the element for their own reasons.
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I second tracking down a copy of Dragon #319. It's by Paizo, and although it was published for 3.5 back in the day, it's actually got several proto-Pathfinder ideas (the racial ability modifiers, for example) and should be easy to convert over. If you can find that month's issue of Dungeon too, it's got a more good summery of the setting and several monsters. A later issued of Dragon had a workable system on Defiling magic.
Another, more direct thought: For elemental clerics you may want to consider the Theologian archetype in Ultimate Magic. They only get one domain, but get the abilities two levels earlier and can spontaneously cast their domain spells. Might be a good fit for a cleric focused entirely on one domain.
Actually, in my Dark Sun game, I'm using Oracles as the Elemental Clerics ( Earth, Wind, Waves & Flame ) and regular Clerics for Templars. This makes them unique and you can use the Domains for the Sorcerer-Kings from the aforementioned Dragon Magazine.
Given the lack of healing magic in Athas you can use the Elementalist options for Wizards in APG. Change the spell progression/spell known to the match the sorcerer and you could be set.
Quicker fix is just using druids and limiting their Nature Bond to the elemental domains. (Only if they want to play an elemental priest, no need to limit regular druids)
Actually, in my Dark Sun game, I'm using Oracles as the Elemental Clerics ( Earth, Wind, Waves & Flame ) and regular Clerics for Templars. This makes them unique and you can use the Domains for the Sorcerer-Kings from the aforementioned Dragon Magazine.
This is my approach as well. Even the fluff supports the Oracle Curses. Clerics usually had to go through some sort of test to prove their worth to the Elemental Power. The curse and it's resulting benefit could easily be explain as a result of that test.
I agree Oracles are a good option. I don`t really feel having Oracles running around wild IN ADDITION to Elemental Clerics and everybody else makes sense in Dark Sun, so enforcing an Elemental Oracle == Elemental Cleric correlation works well IMHO. That could mean limiting Oracles to certain mysteries... i.e. Elemental including Heavens as Cosmos.
You could also make them Druid based, Ultimate Magic has a good Archetype (Storm Lord?) for making an elemental-blasty Druid, and there are good Sub-Domains for the Elemental/Weather Domains. I would enforce that they can`t use Wildshape for anything but Elemental forms, which would mean coming into play much later in the game. Normal Druids would be OK in addition this, and I wouldn`t flavor them as having much if anything to do with each other. Theologian Archetype Clerics could work too. ...Only problem is what to do for Cosmos, Domain-wise I^m not sure. So I guess I`d favor Oracles for that reason. If you want, you could use Oracles ONLY for Cosmos. Since there`s no healing, I suppose I would consider granting another bonus spell that`s appropriate to the Mystery/`Domain`.
It`s technically possible, but I would stay away from Elemental Wizards/Sorcerors, it just requires too much modification, especially the spell list which is too broad. In general, I would say you will have to limit alot of the standard options (for many classes), because including them would tend to break how Athas is set-up, i.e. you don`t want too much of classes stepping on each others` toes... which PRPG tends to do.
Sorry it took so long for me to respond. I'm currently playing in a Dark Sun Pathfinder game with just buckets of custom rules. My DM ran DS once before, from 2004-2006, and we're returning to his somewhat changed world. He and I spent most of last summer bouncing ideas off one another for how rules should work to be updated for PF and he does have basically a Dark Sun SRD, incorporating stuff from Athas.org, the Dragon/Dungeon articles, homebrew stuff, reskinned fluff from the APG, and other. If you're interested go ahead and post an email addy and I'll try to find the document.
I actually like the way we did elemental priests. Basically Templars are modified Inquisitors, but memorize (they have to ask for permission from the SorKing to cast specific spells, it made more sense) and elemental clerics are modified Clerics with Oracle progression. In other words they get 2 domains off a chart of domains that they are eligible for based on their chosen element. They get spells known/per day as an Oracle, but they get both domain spells for each level and appropriate Cure spells known automatically. It's perhaps overly generous, but there it is.
