I think if you remove crafting (and I'm presuming you'll also avoid "magic item shops") then you need some form of inherent bonuses to reduce the dependence on magic items (like a bonus to ac, to hit, damage and saves of one quarter your level or something).
What I'm doing includes:
Rolling hp at 1st level (I do, at least, allow the PCs to get at least half of their hit points at 1st level.)
XP for treasure gained, less xp from monsters
Random monster checks every ten minutes in dungeons, several times per day (exactly when is according to rules found in the 1st edition DMG).
I think if you remove crafting (and I'm presuming you'll also avoid "magic item shops") then you need some form of inherent bonuses to reduce the dependence on magic items (like a bonus to ac, to hit, damage and saves of one quarter your level or something).
Why? My experience with Pathfinder, at least at higher levels, is that PCs are too powerful for many of the encounters (at least ones from published adventures), so not having as much magic would probably make the game more balanced. However, in old school adventures there were usually plenty of magic items to be found anyhow, so depending on how the gm runs things the PCs could easily have just as many magic items.
What I'm doing includes:
Rolling hp at 1st level (I do, at least, allow the PCs to get at least half of their hit points at 1st level.)
XP for treasure gained, less xp from monsters
Random monster checks every ten minutes in dungeons, several times per day (exactly when is according to rules found in the 1st edition DMG).
Are they rolling stats using 3d6?
Just trying to brainstorm here for a set of campaign guidelines (rather than major rules changes) for getting a more "old school" feel with Pathfinder. I use the scare quotes for a reason -- old school means different things to different people; in this case I mean early 80s D&D, both B/X and 1E (I actually grew up with BECMI and 2E, but "regressed" to preferring the previous editions of each).
Some things that come to mind:
Slow advancement chart.
No item creation allowed.
Encumbrance, rations and ammo enforced.
Relying more heavily on verisimilitude and "common sense" for encounters, rather than CR.
Some skill checks will require more player description than others -- searching for and disabling traps in particular.
A general increase in the inherent weird fantasy aspects of the game.The goal would be a document I share with the players so everyone is on the same page. What else comes to mind, or what of the above would you modify or omit.
Also, full disclosure: I'm cross posting this to a couple other forums just to get a variety of opinion.
That stuff all sounds good. You'd probably want to give some guidelines on how ability scores will be generated as well as available races and classes. Maybe bring back restrictions on which races can play which classes.
You'd probably want to run a more sandbox style game. There's a some pretty good third party stuff for 3.5 that feels pretty old school- some of the stuff by goodman games and necromancer games come to mind.
I personally like some of the necromancer games modules, "Tomb of Abysthor" is a good one to check out. It features a pretty massive multilevel dungeon. It has a wide variety of ELs in it, so if you wander into certain areas you can quickly find yourself in over your head.
A friend of mine ran the 3.5 conversion for Tomb of Horrors for us a few years back. We had to generate out characters using 3d6 pretty much in order. We ended up with some entertaining but fairly gimpy characters. We went through a lot of them in that adventure, but had fun.
I think if you remove crafting (and I'm presuming you'll also avoid "magic item shops") then you need some form of inherent bonuses to reduce the dependence on magic items (like a bonus to ac, to hit, damage and saves of one quarter your level or something).Why? My experience with Pathfinder, at least at higher levels, is that PCs are too powerful for many of the encounters (at least ones from published adventures), so not having as much magic would probably make the game more balanced. However, in old school adventures there were usually plenty of magic items to be found anyhow, so depending on how the gm runs things the PCs could easily have just as many magic items.
Because it seems to me the PF game is built assuming everyone has a dozen or so appropriate magical items at ninth or tenth level. I agree there used to be lots of magic items floating around in AD&D modules, but they didnt seem to stack in quite the same way (so you'd end up with half a dozen weapons rather than half a dozen 'slots' filled with items).
.I dont have any experience with PF at high levels, so if it's easy I guess you're right and there's no problem. I didnt think "PF characters are magic item dependant" was controversial, though.
Just trying to brainstorm here for a set of campaign guidelines (rather than major rules changes) for getting a more "old school" feel with Pathfinder. I use the scare quotes for a reason -- old school means different things to different people; in this case I mean early 80s D&D, both B/X and 1E (I actually grew up with BECMI and 2E, but "regressed" to preferring the previous editions of each).
Some things that come to mind:
Slow advancement chart.
No item creation allowed.
Encumbrance, rations and ammo enforced.
Relying more heavily on verisimilitude and "common sense" for encounters, rather than CR.
Some skill checks will require more player description than others -- searching for and disabling traps in particular.
A general increase in the inherent weird fantasy aspects of the game..
We leveled pretty quickly back in the day- to start. In fact a general rule of thumb was that it took your level of a successful 8 hour gaming day to level. In other words, you leveled at the end of the first game nite, it took 2 game nites to get to 3rd, and so forth. But thing sslowed way down after about 7th level.
Magic item creation was very rare, true.
No one enforced those things past level 1.
There were no skills.
Now, here's how magic items worked: consumables were purchasable in any major town- magic arrows, potions, etc. Pretty well, nothing else was.
Low level +1 (and even +2) weapons & armor were common (as well as the other cheap stuff). After say level 4 or so, any decent party had extras. Generally those sorts of magic items could not be bought or sold. Thus WBL would be meaningless. OTOH, a PC could have a Ring of Elemental Command around level 12, rather than waiting until Epic- loot was fairly generous.
This sounds crazy, but it actually meant less optimized characters than became common in D20. Sure, everyone had a a bunch of extra low level stuff, and a few items that would be considered too high in todays games. But when you can't buy or sell magic items, then a PC can't count on getting that +1 flaming Keen Falcata he really wants. In fact, any smart fighter waited until he got a decent magic weapon- THEN he specialized.
Now sure, if a PC really wanted a Ring of Fire resistance (pretty common, actually) he could go on a quest to get one. But unless one of the other PC's had one to trade him, he couldn't get one otherwise unless he found it.
My current PF DM is more or less doing this now- there is no "Ye Olde Magic Shoppe". We find loot- some of it way past our level, some useless to the current party. But pretty much we keep it all (oh a few low level items have been given away as gifts, etc).
In other words, when we found a Lyre of Building, rather that us immediately selling it so we could all add another +1 to one of our current items, we kept it and use it.
So just get rid of "Ye Olde Magik Shoppe", but be extra generous with magic loot. You will see the players scramble to find uses for the stuff, rather than just selling everything.
For a True Old School feel, let them roll (and be generous with a rolling system, in 2nd Ed stats didn't mean as much) in ORDER then pick their class from that.
I'd say 4D6 drop 1, reroll 1's.
Max HP @ 1st level was pretty common.
Doctor,
WHY on EARTH (or Urth, Yrth, Irth, etc.) would you EVER sell a lyre of building?
Srsly.
Best. Wondrous Item. EVER.
How do you think those dungeons we all crawl through get built, anyway?
:P