I've been planning a while to run a zombie survival game set in Absalom. If the PCs manage to find a safe place to hole up, such as a warehouse, etc, we'll also use the downtime rules a little bit as they choose between investing in their means of production, their built defenses, or their equipment. There's also a fair bit of investigating the mysterious origins of the plague and scavenging/exploring the dangerous city blocks around you. Social characters would not have as much fun as usual but still use from time to time in terms of convincing other survivors to cooperate, inspiring any survivors you take in to fight or work, infiltrating hostile groups of survivors, etc.
The minor wrinkle: I want the PCs to start as ordinary people who have a trade or what not who are forced to scramble to survive, becoming more competent over time (think Carol from Walking Dead). So I don't want epic builds or backstories. However, I realize that starting at level 1 can be a boring grind and this game will be somewhat deadly so I'm thinking starting level 3. But ideally, backstories and builds will cleverly set up PCs who are really good at whatever ordinary life they lead and just happen to be able to turn their skills to good use for survival.
The major wrinkle: I want to run this with some alternate rules. Along with some others, I've been working on a semi-democratic process to fix some aspects of PF 1e that we find problematic while leaving the game mostly the same. So I would want to use these rules. The ideal player would even provide input on these rulesets informally, through our nomination process, or by helping with the wiki, etc.
Link to our discord that explains how to join, nominate, etc.
Link to the main page of our wiki that details what rule changes we've passed relative to normal PF 1e
So who's interested? I'm especially curious to know how people feel about the major wrinkle.
The campaign concept sounds interesting. Love zombie stuff.
For the rules part, I already use some of those rules in most games, like adding skill unlocks.
I don't want the following comments to come off as unnecessarily hostile or negative, and I apologize in advance if they do. I'm trying to give a perspective on someone who was interested in the idea when you first proposed it on the pathfinder reddit.
I'm on the discord for your project, but, sorry, in the end didn't find that it made enough changes, like really fixing caster martial disparity, and a lot of it seemed like discussions that went back and forth but didn't end up resolving on any significant changes. I see that some people find it valuable to fix the undeniable wording issues in the rules, but I was hoping for complete rewrites of classes and a new magic system level of changes.
For 1.5, I was hoping for a more full bodied rewrite like the prospective corefinder from legendary games, ffd20, or kirthfinder. This seems like fewer real changes than the Porphyra rpg, which still hews very close to the previous edition. I realize your project isn't finished, and maybe more significant changes will be implemented, but the level of changes so far wasn't significant enough to maintain my interest in the discussion or editing a wiki, though I respect you're clearly putting an insane amount of time into this project between the discord and the wiki.
Yeah that's a really tough dilemma that doesn't totally satisfy and indeed it's a lot of work. We're not aiming to overhaul the magic system but we do have some big plans for fixing certain classes, the rogue and fighter being our top priorities.
Whatever you decide for yourself, I won't be offended. If you want to apply to play (when official recruitment opens) and just keep track of what rules we're using, that's an option.
So this is a medieval fantasy world or modern world?
It says in the post it's set in Absalom, which is in Golarion.
Absalom is also the third son of King David...however you're likely to be accurate
One of my favorite passages from the Bible: "The king was shaken. He went up to the room over the gateway and wept. As he went, he said: “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you—O Absalom, my son, my son!”"
But, yes, I'm assuming it refers to the metropolis on the Isle of Kortos.
Yes Absalom on Golarion. Indeed that is a powerful passage in the Bible, especially when you think about ALL the checkered (understatement) history between King David and Absalom.
You don't have to use an NPC class for first level but that might be a cool choice if someone made such a choice. I'd then let them retrain that level into an adventuring level as they were forced to learn to survive.
There's a wide range of zombies with different abilities. The start/default will be basic zombies (with a small twist) but the range of zombie abilities is something of a spoiler. I want to recreate the classic "what are these things and how do we kill them" so zombies will be a little different than we're all used to.
About 20% of people on Absalom left at start.
No government except whatever is in isolated holdouts.
The party doesn't know how this started but they may decide to investigate.
See spoilers about zombies.
Interesting. What's this mean? I'm aware of the evolution armor enchantment but unsure what it means if it's describing the bow.
Ah cool.
I'd be very interested! However I'm on vacation, and can't really put together a sheet at the moment. I'll be back by the 26th, and I know this is just a recruitment, but do you know how long the recruitment will be open?
Cool!
Recruitment won't be open for a little while but it will then be open for tw weeks, minimum.
Getting things ready for the official recruitment thread here's my draft spreadsheet for tracking loot, XP, hero points, and downtime capital and room/team use (most difficult part). Feel free to give feedback.