Dark Souls and Pathfinder

[Valdast]

So I'm thinking about crafting a homebrew campaign for Dark Souls, with the following stipulations.

No Magic beyond 4th-level, and using one of Dark Lincoln's houserules to eliminate a lot of the true magic items.

No crafting feats, or Leadership.

Starting level is I dunno...

I'm mostly looking for advice of how to create the various bosses mostly. I could potentially look for analogues in the Bestiary, or I could try homebrewing some of my own...

[Silence among Hounds]

Wounds and Vigor System, and 1st level with a 10 point buy (So the party feels fragile.)
I would potentially ban all Divine Casters.
The only ones capable of healing would be Alchemists, Witches, and Bards.
Ban Firearms and Monks.
I would nerf Arcane Spell casters but not letting them cast beyond 4th level maybe a bit anti-climatic.

[Valdast]

I think you misunderstand a bit. Their will be no full spellcasters. Anything with higher than a 4 level spell progression is taken out of the game.

This is because Dark Souls doesn't have any (or very little) magic to speak of, so their will not be any real magic aside from a few casters that will be NPCs.

I'm hesitant about removing Monks however, as they could perhaps still be good.

10 point buy sounds rather interesting though... I was thinking about 15 points.

[Valdast]

Also, I will post my system to represent the Dark Sign below after I'm finished work (or on my break) to see exactly how balanced you people think it is.

[Silence among Hounds]

Alright that makes more sense.
15-20 point buy is pretty much how the game was designed to be used with.
Dark Souls is literally Low Fantasy/Dark Fantasy so 10 would make your players fragile.
I would suggest allowing at least the Magi class to give some element of magic that dark souls has.
Or allow scrolls and make UMD almost necessary to live.

[Valdast]

Dark Sign:

You have been cursed with undeath. But it is not the kind of undeath you would expect, instead it is a unique kind.

Upon starting the game, those cursed are granted 3 Humanity. Every time the cursed individual dies, 1 Humanity is lost to the winds. If the player has no Humanity remaining, they take on a haggard and hollowed form, their formerly normal body replaced with that of a Hollow. Those afflicted take X penalties (still thinking that up), and unless they gain another Humanity before they die again, they will fully Hollow and lose control of their character.

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I'm also going to give out variants of the starting items as well. If anyone chooses the Pendant, I'm going to use it to open up some other storylines.

Binoculars: ???
Black Firebomb: High-powered alchemical weapons, dealing X amount of damage. (How much HP do most things have early on? This should easily one-shot normal enemies, and do a decent chunk to boss monsters)
Divine Blessing: This holy water is a gift, and is blessed by the gods. It will fully heal any Good-aligned character, though its effects are lessened for those who do not believe in the Gods.
Master Key: Allows entry to places that would normally be inaccessible. Some places are better left unopened...
Old Witch's Ring: Grants a basic affinity for fire spells. (Grants certain [Fire] spells as spell-like abilites. As well, it allows you to speak with a certain NPC...
Pendant: Does nothing... but opens sidequests?
Tiny Being's Ring: Grants the Toughness feat for free?
Twin Humanities: When these twin sprites are used, two extra Humanity points are added to their counter. They cannot be split among two individuals.

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I could also potentially use some help for a basic idea for the following creatures:

The Bed of Chaos
Dark Sun Gwyndolin
The Four Kings
Gaping Dragon
Sanctuary Guardian
Moonlight Butterfly
Gravelord Nito
Prowling/Titanite Demon

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I will grant each player a "Estus Flask", which is a multi-use Potion of Cure Light Wounds, that can scale as they gather Firekeeper Souls. This grants them some healing to stay alive at least.

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I'm also not approving the Magus or any other that uses a lot of spells. I will give out some scrolls to those who choose to pursue UMD, but most of them will be based off of the actual spells seen in-game. A couple healing spells (self-only), etc.

I'm also thinking about having the UMD be split between two disciplines, one for Sorcery and one for Miracles, seeing as they operate that way in-game. (yes I'm really wanting the in-game ideas to be in the actual campaign)

[chaoseffect]

For being Hollowed how about applying the Undead template with all of its bonuses and downsides? This will obviously be a boon to some character types, but if you are running a lethal campaign it also puts them that much closer to true "death" in exchange for that power.

I'm not a fan of any point buys below 20 really. If you go that route players will dump anything not completely necessary to 7 just so that they can hope to compete.

Dark Souls itself has a divine magic in the form of Miracles, so I'm not sure if I would blanket ban all divine.

[lemeres]

I want to make a joke that a DnD based system would be terrible for darksouls since Sword and Shield is strongly discouraged for 'optimization.' Go with the 10 point buy to overturn that, since being fragile will change people's priorities. Or not.It might encourage them to go towards two handed weapons even harder just to deal damage. Still, the lack of casters helps too, since there will be few to no squishies that are juicier targets instead of you. I would still consider reworking the shield system, since I always found that so vital while playing darksouls, and a small boost to AC is nowhere near the same feel. Maybe make shields into something like cover? Maybe use the armor as DR rule so that the AC boost from shields feels more significant? Yeah, that option sounds better since it covers both shields and armor, uses preexisting rules, and doesn't mess up players that would rather 2hand things very much.

I would say keep magi and possibly inquisitor, but put a hard cap on their spell progression. No spells beyond level 4. This is a bit of a nerf, but most of the commonly used spells end up being at or below that level anyway. The magi's spell list in particular seems like a better fit for the flavor of dark souls magic system than the bard's, since it is more about battlefield control and damage, with some nice buffs. Mind affecting spells on the bard's list just seem....wrong in this setting.

Also, I would be wary of any class with animal companions. While there are other options for rangers, the cavalier seems like they would see a major nerf losing this resource (even if you don't do mounted builds, the access to a flank buddy is a great boon, especially with beast rider, either archetype or feat). I would ban cavalier if only because I could not think of how to begin rebalancing it with fighter and barbarian.

Oooo! Here is an idea for an item: one time use summoning item to call an ally, like with the white and gold phantoms. Useful for important fights, and you can control how many the players can find, and guestimate when they would use them. And who doesn't love JOLLY CO-OPERATION! Adding phantoms in general can be an easy way for you to add enemies too: randomly throw in a red phantom in full plate and one handing a great sword when things get dull. Make sure that it is about 10 levels above the players for the authentic experience..hehe.

[cmastah]

How about this for shields:

If you only take a move action this round, you can ready ANOTHER move action to parry (roll your attack roll against the attacker's attack roll), if you succeed, the attack is thwarted.

The trade off I can see of this is that people would be forced to give up a standard action for the purposes of safety instead and would not want to push their luck by doing this too often since they'd (again) be giving up their standard action. I would NOT recommend allowing players to riposte afterwards (say for instance, they can blow an AoO) because at low levels most enemies only get one attack and the player (if melee primarily) is almost guaranteed a certain attack while certainly also defending himself (of course, certain enemies and slightly higher enemies (as you reach CR 3 and above, you start seeing enemies with more attacks) won't be as badly hurt by this since the player can ONLY ready ONE move action). You ALSO shouldn't allow riposte because if the player is within melee distance, he'd get a standard action with a move action he could ready to waste the enemy's attack while still getting another free attack. You should also make it that they can ONLY ready one move action and not both.

The benefit I can see of this is that players will have the ability to reach enemies far more cautiously (albeit slowly).

You could also consider doing that any enemy at least one size above medium (in case players take gnomes, halflings and dwarves) that uses a slam attack ALSO gets a free trip attempt. At two sizes larger than medium, they get a trip and a bullrush to simulate knocking away players. With these, you may want to be careful since trip can be pretty powerful.

[lemeres]

Well, you could always use the duelist class' method of parry and riposte: you have to sacrifice an attack, and it only prevents the enemy attack if you attack roll exceeds the opponent's. With 10-15 point buy, this might not end up being something use too often against tough opponents.

Here another new idea: give all players a limited Jotun Grip so they could one hand 2 handed weapons. Maybe have it tied into their strength score. It would be a bit hard to balance everything though, especially since titan maulers and phalanx fighters get something like this by third level anyway...

[Valdast]

I'm probably going to grant the Parry/Riposte system to the players, albeit at only one per attack action.

I'm thinking about adding the Trip+Bullrush action to it, although I think it can be better simulated by use of the Awesome Blow feat.

Not sure what exactly to use for shields then... I think I'll leave it as default for now, but I'll look for some other options.

As well, I'm using Dark Lincoln's houserule for player progression, thereby removing +s from weapons, armor, and such.

[rungok]

Here's my thoughts about this. I know this is like super thread necromancy, but hey, Dark Souls is all about not dying for good, right? ;)

I think starting at 10 point buy is good for starting characters, but change the levels stat points are handed out to be more progressive so that if they make it to lvl 20 (somehow) they will be more in line with a 20 point buy character (with the 5 advancements they'd have by that point). This would emulate the 'spending souls to increase my stats' feel that the game has. Or... have the currency be actually in souls instead of gold pieces and they can 'buy' stat increases on an increasing scale of cost.

As for armor/shield, here's my thoughts. The alternate armor providing DR actually does sound good. Just use that, maybe add on rules for increasing the DR provided for having a higher + value as they level up. Shields, I think they should provide the base AC bonus when equiped and normally used in combat, but I think the best way to encompass the blocking action that you can use in the game is to have their bonus change when the user takes a total defensive action. Have light shields provide 75% cover and heavy shields provide 100%. It isn't perfect, but it does emulate it pretty close though if an attack gets through it will do full damage.

Humanity... Well the mechanics can be geared towards the story arrangement or the gamgeplay arrangement. I mean in the game I can die as many times as I want and still be able to play the character. However it seems that Hollowfication happens to undead who remain without souls or humanity for long enough. I'm not sure if the specific number of deaths works, but I do like the idea of getting the undead subtype while hollow.

Estus flasks sound about right, what was said. 5 dose refillable potions of cure light wounds, and can be increased to 10 doses with a kindled bonfire. Taking a fire keepers soul to the right people can increase them up to moderate wounds, the serious wounds, then critical wounds. After that, I suppose the last upgrade could be empowering each dose?

Anyone know what's the deal with the sword stuck in the bonfire signifies?

Also, magic... well, magic is gonna be tricky since it's greatly restricted in DS. I'm going to think about that some more before I post my suggestions.