In my campaign I'm running, my players are part of a Guild. They are just starting, so they are at the bottom ranks. Any ideas for quests? Stuff like, finding lost animals or gathering herbs. Maybe even a small subjugation quest, like some loose leaf leshy.
Pathfinder generally doesn't lend itself to this sort of story. In Pathfinder, guilds represent professions like smith, glass blower, jewelers, and professionals. Adventurers tend to not work well with figures of authority, like a guild master. Heck, a lot of them don't tend to work well with noble, guards, or even barmaids.
And a 1st level adventurer isn't the bumbling idiot found in anime with adventurer's guilds in them. They are generally considered to be equal to competent guards. By the time you hit 5th level there are very few people that are you're equal. While there always seems to be someone around the corner that is you're level, anyone above 10th level is rare. Most of the 17+ NPCs in the world hide themselves behind a thick layer of servants or literally hide themselves. Lots of 'important people' want to make use of high level adventurers and quite frankly even working for a large kingdom is a waste of time for end-game player characters. At that point they are generally adventuring beyond Galorian and usually return more out of habit than any pressing need.
So, not saying you can't do what you're doing. I'm saying I can't help you because I've never told that kind of story. Good luck.
Thanks for that bit of insight. I'll take that into consideration. These are new players, so I was thinking of using this as a way to introduce them to some of the mechanics they would normally never think of.
If you're looking for small quests, minor tasks to intro the players to the mechanics and the world at large, here's a couple suggestions:
1. Stinkwort, the chief ingredient in Brewed Reek, is so foul that growing it inside the town is prohibited. Laurel the Herbalist maintains small patches of the stuff an hour beyond the walls but the last of her stores have run dry. A group of surly hunters have already paid in advance for the stuff and the herbalist is in a bind; she'll pay the PCs 10 GP/plant returned from the nearby thicket on the edge of Mustard Marsh:
A)PCs must use skills to venture among the nettles and moors to find the stuff
B)when they get close they find that a pack of foul-tempered "Grinning" goats (use normal goats, describe the males with skull-like patterns on top of their heads so when they charge they're "grinning" at you) that like grazing on the disgusting weed
c) Now that the party has either fought or used skills/spells/abilities to get rid of the goats they can find 1d8 +2 of the plants still viable; unfortunately to gather them they must succeed at DC 11 Fort saves
D) Finally the PCs have survived all of the obstacles but prying up the delicate roots the herbalist needs will be tricky; PCs must succeed at a number of skill checks before failing some (I'd go with 4 successes over 3 failures); if they succeed they get every last one of the plants they found; if they fail they manage only 2 of them, the bare minimum Laurel requires, and for each Failed roll they are Sickened for the remainder of the day
E) On the way back to town the PCs encounter a small group of Sprites who watch over the goats. The fey are very cross with the PCs for interrupting their friends' grazing earlier but they're willing to hear the party's side of things. This should be an RP encounter that tests not only the social skills of the party but perhaps the willingness of the players to manage encounters without always relying on weapons. It can also be the setup to another, bigger quest in the future.
2. The town the PCs are in was built literally on top of the foundations of a previous seaside settlement. The storm sewers built by the dwarves long ago to keep the town from flooding also bisect some of the more ancient ruins below. Recently Ratcatcher Goyle, a local pest control agent, and his niece Vanya found such a chamber - an old wine cellar. They found a few bottles floating in the storm waters but when they tried to gather them they were nearly killed by a Reefclaw now using the tunnels as it's hunting ground. The canny old human offers the PCs a cut of the take from raiding the wine cellar; he intends to use his own share to find someone to cure his niece of some weird curse that seems to have befallen her...
A) Entering the narrow tunnel you must deal with the Reefclaw (a CR 1 aquatic Aberration)
B) You find a few bottles but the crack in the wall leading into the wine cellar is obscured by rising floodwaters; outside you hear a steady rain beginning. PCs will have to use skills to navigate the water and expand the Tiny sized opening if they want to get at the bounty within
C) After gaining entry to the brick-walled vault you're disturbed to find one section of shelves has rotted and collapsed due to water seeping through tiny holes in the ceiling; burrowing creatures have made their home here! The party encounters an entire den of mundane badgers who use the three chambers of the wine cellar to prey upon rats (6 badgers in all; this is meant to be a challenging fight)
D) in the course of the fight young Vanya gets frightened and when she did so a sheet of flames exploded from her hands, igniting the rotten shelves and old, soured wine. A foul stench is beginning to rise from the rear chamber of the vault and the sudden temperature change is cracking the ancient walls. PCs will have to manage a DC 11 Fort save to grab the poor girl who is trapped behind a steadily growing wall of fire!
E) Once the party is back together in the central cyst the vault behind them collapses. Goyle has been in these tunnels and ruins for years; he knows well that the rest of the wine cellar is not long for this world. Using the Chase Mechanic come up with a couple obstacles for the party to "outrun" the collapse of the wine cellar using skills or spells and abilities to do so
Epilogue: the Sprites from adventure 1 might have need of the PCs or Laurel may want the party to investigate the fey further. Perhaps the hunters paying Laurel are hunting something else the Sprites care about or might even be starting a war with the fey. In adventure 2, PCs asking about what happened to Vanya will learn she's done all sorts of weird stuff when frightened: caused strange sounds or lights to dance around and distract rats in the sewers, lit a lamp from across the room when she panicked in the dark, and once she even disappeared for a few seconds while running from a Fire Beetle! Turns out Vanya is just a budding Sorcerer coming into her new powers. The "help" she needs is mentorship from another sorcerer, which might be a PC or the next quest the party undertakes.
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If you're looking to run a guild-style campaign, I recommend taking a look at (or even just using) some Pathfinder Society scenarios. In each one, the PCs are members of a large guild of archaeologists, scholars, and explorers performing a wide variety of exploits. A scenario runs about 4–5 hours, making them good for single sessions. Even if you don't end up running the scenarios as written, you might just want to borrow pieces of them here and there.
Meirril wrote: Pathfinder generally doesn't lend itself to this sort of story. In Pathfinder, guilds represent professions like smith, glass blower, jewelers, and professionals. Adventurers tend to not work well with figures of authority, like a guild master. Heck, a lot of them don't tend to work well with noble, guards, or even barmaids. It's about a short hop away from how Pathfinder Society works. There's nothing about the Pathfinder rules that precludes or discourages this sort of game setup. The West Marches game style is extremely popular among open table groups and it's basically the same thing with a "frontier exploration" pillar.
TL;DR: Mission/bulletin board style is a perfectly cromulent way to run a game. : )
Search the messagebase for threads containing the words "1000 things" or "1000 hooks".
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We could use a "101 Threads Enumerating At Least 101 Things" thread. : )
Look up the old PC games Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights since some of the early quests in them would suit. Its things like fetch item give to person or clear critter from cellar or from barn. Its the sort of thing that apprentices and recruits would be used for.
EtG
Running a Pathfinder campaign with starting assignments such as Rank F quests is perfectly acceptable. It depends on what world you wish to play in as well, but even in the base setting of Golarion we have the Pathfinder Society and other organizations that request the services of adventurers. To answer your question with some examples (keeping in mind to make it worthy of adventurers to do in the first place);
An initiation rank quest; The party are told that at the end of cave marked out for them by the Adventurers Guild lies a large metal vase, which is inscribed with the tenants that guide the Adventurers Guild's actions. Relies more on the party circumventing obstacles and clever thinking, meant as a reminder of the game system rules and also the preparedness needed for good adventurers.
The party chooses a bounty for the mite Grunstil, who has been interfering with mining efforts in the Copper Mine. While not a dangerous adversary, the faye pest has been making work more difficult then it needs to be, and as such the party is instructed to take care of it.
Enlisting the aid of the adventurers guild, a man listed as Marty is in need of assistance investigating a robbery. His home had been broken into. However the culprit did not steal gold or any food, but instead a collection of books. However Marty wants one book in particular titled The Tiefling Maid . He is willing to pay a unusual amount of money in order for the book to be retrieved. (Turns out the book is actually a spell-book, but the culprit doesn't know that)
As long as you factor party level, most low level Rank F quests should be lighthearted, but still require some challenge with skill checks or brief combat
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