Hi there!
I've been a big fan of the web comic Room of Swords and I always thought that it would be an interesting setting for a campaign.
For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, make sure you go read it because it is awesome! Go read it!.
In any case the setting is as this:
SPOILERS
A number of people are thrown into an unknown world and they are all from different times and locations. The world has one goal and that is to steal the sword the boss of the world. If you manage to steal the sword then a gate will open leading into a hub world. From within this hub world you continue on repeating this mission in a multitude of different worlds until you reach a certain goal.
Aside from the standard inhabitants and enemies and such, there are shadow monsters. These are extremely OP and you'd do well to avoid them at all costs. The world they are in is based on a timer. When time runs out, shadow hour starts and the world is overrun with these shadow monsters.
There are three ways it can end.
One: you steal the sword and flee to the hub
Two: Die at the hand of a shadow monster during or before shadow hour or any other manner except for the boss sword.
Three: Kill yourself using the sword you're supposed to steal
To clarify the last one. Shadow hour is something you must avoid at all costs because if you die at the hands of a shadow monster then you are dead for good. If you die using the sword, then you retain your memories and experience. When shadow hour is over or if everyone died then the world resets to where you first began. This would mean that if you died using the boss sword, you can use your previously gained knowledge and experience in this world to make things easier for yourself.
End spoilers
So if you want to implement this as a campaign setting then you can do so. I'm stuck on the sword though. This sword allows users to have a limit break much like Final Fantasy 7. I'd like some advice as how to properly implement a system like this.
Hopefully this makes some kind of sense and if not then I'd be happy to try and clarify it further!
What's the part you're having trouble with? The limit break?
It's got to be a custom magic item. So work out how you want it to work, and just say it does that. IIRC FF7 limit breaks applied after being attacked a set number of times, so you could use that or you could go for below half HP as the activation condition. As for the effect, it's probably some kind of giant AoE, IIRC most of them were.
Well the main idea is gathering of energy but the problem is pacing and indeed limit break effects
Hm. Personally, if I were to run a Room of Swords campaign I'd probably look to something other than Pathfinder to run it in, probably FATE or Hero System.
Both those systems have decent support for stuff like limit breaks.
To implement it in Pathfinder, you'd have to create a system for counting up the ruin energy, and the drawbacks for being at your max.
And then make sure that's at the right pace. Too slow and it never comes into play, too fast and everyone gets crippled before they can get to a sword.
For the limit breaks themselves, you need some degree of player creativity, but set some guideline for power level.
So far we've only seen rather powerful limit breaks from higher level characters. So it's not unreasonable to scale it down for lower level ones.
Treating it as a spell like ability emulating a spell of your choice (with modifications as allowed by the GM) with a level up to half your character level (rounding up) would probably work decently, and then if someone wants to stack multiple lower level effects together instead that's probably fine but needs more looking at directly by the GM.
You could probably look to making the limit break design point-based, with gaining more points per level, but that takes a bit more work.
It's fine if they're a bit OP because they require a plot coupon to activate (a sword) and you suffer penalties for not using them when you're able.
I was hoping to find someone who has read this and is part of this forum :).
We've chosen pathfinder mainly because we're familiar with it and this is a side campaign for when our usual Starfinder campaign is on hold, which happens every now and again.
The pace is exactly the problem. I figured something like a point system regarding ruin energy. For example you'd have a maximum before you hit limit break. The points gathered differs from each monster difficulty. Lower monsters would give points based on d4 and d6 while big baddies might have d20 to d100. The pacing in that idea would be difficult.
Regarding drawbacks, I'd like them to be serious enough to not ignore.
Regarding the sword itself, I plan on making the sword transform to the most comfortable form for the user. Dagger or rapier for a rogue or a greatsword for a fighter etc.
I like your suggestion of combining lower spells or just using a higher spell. I'll consider that