So we finished book 2 of the Ironfang Invasion, losing 3 PCs in the process. We are taking this opportunity to convert to the playtest rules. We have done character creation and had 1 low key session so far. We were already using the unchained action economy, and while I like it a lot, I thought it would probably work better with PF2. Plus, people still get confused about caster level. And some of us were just keen to try it.
While the PCs hit level 8 at the end of book 2. However, book 2 says the PCs are established as the most powerful heroes in the region, and that various Chernasardo Rangers who gather to their banner are between levels 1-6. As such, it didn’t feel right to me to bring in a bunch of randos at their levels, so I’m committing one of the biggest faux pas in Pathfinder and using different levels for the PCs. *gasp*
Ironfang Invasions has next to no shopping, instead having a ton of found loot. I’ve had some fun converting items between the editions, with some being obvious, like Ibzairiak’s +1 AoMF granting the effects of a more level appropriate +2 Handwraps. Others were a little more abstract, like taking the +2 Headband of Charisma which boosted the eloquence of Parthuk the Troll and turning it into a Choker of Elocution programmed with Goblin. Some were tough judgement calls, like deciding the Cloak of Elvenkind would be too strong if converted into its new level 10 version. Various items didn’t even require modifications, granting out of combat effects.
As a general rule of thumb, I’m going to assume something like a +2 amulet of natural armor translates to a +2 potency rune, and occasionally adjusting boss loot to more level appropriate options.
We are also using the militia system, which is granting the PCs various boons as they rank up their forces. This has so far included an extra skill feat, an extra skill to expert, and an extra skill to master.
So our party consists of:
Half-Orc Monk 8. He actually lost an arm fighting Ibzairiak, the black dragon final boss of book 2, but also got his +2 amulet. He’s using wolf stance, ki blast, wholeness of body, and wall run. His big skills are stealth, athletics, and acrobatics. Currently using Bracers of Armor 2nd.
Dwarf Fighter 8/Cavalier. He’s taken every Cavalier feat but Banner, and took Power Attack and Shield Warden for his Fighter feats. He’s a master in medicine and crafting, and has taken Magical Crafting to boot. He’s used that to shift runes around to create a +2 Shock Lance and +2 Dragonhide Master Splintmail. (Homebrewing the material was pretty easy—make it master quality minimum and then make it cheaper to inscribe an energy resistance rune on it, just like PF1.) He made the character before the ancestry update, and since he had been built to maximize his saves I let him spend an ancestry feat to keep hardy, essentially. He was very disappointed with the change and it didn’t seem like it would cause any harm.
Human Ranger 7 The previous archer ranger had been training up a protégé in fiction, so I let her come in a level above the completely new characters. This Shoanti nomad has inherited a pretty sweet set of equipment, including a +2 shortbow, +1 longbow, 2 +1 shortswords, and a set of+1 Shadow Studded Leather. The armor and swords were taken off the book 1 final boss, a bugbear slayer. The studded leather was original spiked an fortified. But armor spikes no longer exist, and fortification is much stronger now, so I repurposed it into something that it seemed appropriate for the Bugbear to have instead. Mostly archery feats but also twin take down IIRC. She is dabbling in snares and crafting but mostly focused on survival and stealth. Perhaps the least optimized in terms of ability scores.
Gnome Fey Blooded Sorcerer 6. Focus on intimidation and Deception. Took Animal Speaker ancestry feats to fill the “wild empathy” role, which is super useful in this wilderness heavy campaign. The party seeks to continue treating various dire animals like pokemon instead of killing them.
Halfling Maestro Bard 6. A bit of a wild card—I’m not totally sure what to expect here.
Session 1 was mostly just spent on militia stuff, role-play, and crafting—we were down 2 players so I didn’t want to start in earnest. The crafting rules seem to work fairly well in play—one interesting thing I learned was that if you have multiple crafting projects to get done and don’t precisely know how much downtime you have, it is only worth taking extra time on the last one because you save the same amount per day no matter the original cost of the item.
I also realized afterwards I was letting them convert gold into crafting without paying heed for acquiring raw materials—which isn’t a given since they have very little shopping access. Still, they have lots of gold, gems, reagents, and an excessive amount of extra weapons they’ve picked up to arm their militia. Handwaving the gold cost as an abstraction of all of that seems OK.
Because they plan on outfitting their militia with extra magic weapons and armor rather than selling them, I may need to add some extra wealth. In particular, I’ll probably tweak some upcoming loot drops to beef up these new casters—they need some help since they are under-leveled and the existing permanent items aren’t as helpful to them. Still, there’s some old wands that have been gathering dust that these new party members can finally use.
While the dwarf crafted, the monk and sorcerer went out and fought two red caps. The sorcerer fireballed them for 20 a piece, and the monk one shotted each them with crits. With flanking, he only needed 13 on the dice to do so. Also, Metal Strikes is waaay better this edition thanks to Weakness.
For next session I’ve prepped the rest of the Fangwood encounters. It was also pretty fun to do. I have made an adjusted Book 2 random encounter table using the PF2 bestiary— a few enemies converted directly, but several others are just using tweaked statblocks of PF2 monsters that I have reflavored. I’m treating CR as level and it seems like it should pretty well.
The Ironfang Deserters for encounter A were easy, as level appropriate Hobgoblins are already in the bestiary. I’m going to wind up upgrading that base stat block a lot as the game progresses though. These troops will also clue the party in on a new group of refugees they can take in for encounter B. These folks have been infested with Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing eggs though— using local herbs to cure the affliction is going to call for me to decide on some Skill DCs, and I’m not sure if the original DC 20 checks for this section will feel appropriate. Still, I’m inclined to use them for the moment.
Searching for said herbal remedies will lead to encounter C, a Maenad and 4 charmed dwarven revelers. The dwarves were CR 1 but buffed by the Maenad, so I’m just using the stats of level 2 orc warchiefs. Replacing the weaponry and orc ferocity with dwarf stuff. For the CR 8 Maenad herself, I am using a level 9 Night Hag as the base—I figured the level bump would help make up for the 5 man party. I trimmed a lot of spells, and replaced them with heroism, some food creation spells, charm, confusion, and paranoia. Making the charm spell at will bypasses the plot problem of its reduced duration, I think. I’m not sure if I want to make Infectious Dance an AoO Confusion or if I want to use the less dangerous Paranoia. I think the confusion nerf that they get a save at the end of every round will probably make it fairly reasonable, especially with the bard around. For her Con damaging poison, I’m using something modeled after the Leng Spider, a 3 stage affliction with increasing drain value and confusion at stage 3, lasting 6 rounds.
Debating whether the maenad’s lyre should be master quality or a full blown Maestro’s Instrument for the bard.
Patchy the advanced Dire Bear was originally going to be an Elite Cave Bear, but because she went from a CR 7 base to a level 6 base, it didn’t quite seem to cut it. Instead I’m basically using the numbers of the mastodon and anaconda as benchmarks for level 8 animal numbers and adjusting the cave bear to match.
Finally, somewhere in all this Marrowcrack will probably strike, looking for revenge for the death of her pet gorgon. She’s been chowing down and graduated to a Greater Barghest. She could get real dangerous if she strikes when the party is still worn down from these other encounters. Her at will invisibility means she can really pick her moment.
Anyway, that’s where I’m at! I will update on session 2 after our Sunday game.
Neat! I've been running the adventure path using the playtest rules from the beginning, and my group just killed Ibzairiak as well! I'm taking a week off to prepare the stats for the next book. Here's the only monster from book 3 that I've converted so far, if you want to use it.
[Chaotic, Evil, Ghost, Small, Undead]
Perception +14; darkvision
Languages Aklo, Common, Undercommon
Skills +8; Acrobatics +17, Crafting +16 (+18 traps), Mining Lore +16, Thievery +17, Stealth +19
Str +1, Dex +3, Con +1, Int +2, Wis +3, Cha +3
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AC 25, TAC 23; Fort +11; Ref +14; Will +13; +1 conditional to saves vs. positive
HP 111; Immunities asleep, death effects, disease, paralysis, poison; Resistances all 8 (except adamantine, force, ghost touch, or positive)
Rejuvenation (necromancy, occult) When a quarrygeist is destroyed, it re-forms where it was destroyed—fully healed—after 2d6 days. A quarrygeist can be permanently destroyed only if someone disables or destroys every hazard in the area.
Telekinetic Defense
- Trigger A creature approaches within 10 feet of the quarrygeist.
- Effect The quarrygeist makes a telekinetic object Strike against the triggering creature.
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Speed fly 35 feet
⯁ Ranged telekinetic object +16, Damage 3d12+3 bludgeoning
Innate Occult Spells DC 22; At Will shape stone, telekinetic maneuver Cantrips (3rd) expeditious excavation, detect magic, mage hand
⯁ Telekinetic Repair (transmutation, occult)
- Frequency once per round
- Effect The quarrygeist attempts to Repair an adjacent environmental hazard. Use a Hard difficulty Crafting DC of the hazard’s level.
Create Hazard (downtime) The quarrygeist can spend a week to create a level 7 environmental hazard out of raw materials. Multiple quarrygeists can work together, increasing the level of the hazard by 1 per additional quarrygeist. Hazards made this way award XP separately from the quarrygeist.
Hey, cool, that's the one thing I haven't converted yet, and the Quarrygeists will probably be fought tomorrow. That and the Trench Mist, because it was such a unique critter to begin with. All those special abilities made its AC feel pretty irrelevant, so I thought I'd try just running it with the PF1 statblock.
I've only been updating my campaign journal on the playtest "running the game" forum, but if folks are interested I can start posting it here as well. I have a lot of converted stat blocks I could share.
So I gave this statblock a whirl and it felt a bit overtuned. 3d12 is a lot of damage, and between that AC, HP pool, and resistance the thing is really hard to kill. Running the first one at these numbers was a lot, especially since the original monster was only CR 7 and it had favorable terrain (bridge room.)
I wound up lowering the AC, hit points, and saves by using the Greater Shadow (level 7) as my benchmark. I also knocked off one of those damage dice. The good news is this was really easy to do on the fly.
Casters and their spiritual weapons and magic missiles really got to shine here.
Yeah, ghosts can be nasty. I based it on the Poltergeist, which also has natural invisibility! Looking back, lowering the damage was probably a good call. I've recalculated it and 2d12+3 would be just about right.
I'm gonna be running Ridgeline Camp next game, with a surprise visit from the Burrl ogres at the end. Should be fun!
So I haven't bothered keeping up on this, but we have converted to actual second edition as of book 4 which we are currently early in. I know there are other folks out there playing this campaign converted, though I don't think any are quite as far along as we are, so I thought I'd give it the old bump and see if those folks want to talk about their experience converting this particular campaign.