Is there a resource for a historical campaign?


Advice


Like, say I wanted to set a campaign during the actual, historical Hundred Years War or the War of the Roses -- late medieval, 14th / 15th century type of thing.

Is there (1) a PF2 resource that could help (probably it would be 3PP), or (2) failing that, a PF1 / 5e / 3.x resource? I remember there was a 3e 3PP book called something like "A Realistic Medieval Campaign" back in the '00s, and I remember it being pretty solid, but... that was a while ago, and I don't even remember the name precisely.

Anyway! Does anyone have anything?

Thanks in advance,

Doug M.


Oh, an interesting concept. As much as I'd like to tell you PF2e has what you want, depending on how much realism you're aiming for, there are probably much better suited ttrpgs out there. A Realistic Medieval guide for 2e would leave most of the classes on the cutting floor even if only asking for a non-magic "WotR with Goblins" and even with only vanilla humans as playable ancestries you'd still have to ban a number of feats that grant magical tattoos or similar.

With a sufficiently rigorous idea of what constitutes realism, not even Treat Wounds, a basic function of the Medicine skill makes the cut, since that allows you to patch life threatening injuries in minutes.

On the other hand, if you're just going for "as close as possible but also there are elves" or "War of the Roses if court wizards were a thing", I wish you luck finding the resource you need, that sounds cool! I just don't want you to have to rewrite or throw out most of the game to make it work when another could be much more suited.


This will depend if you want that magic exists into your campaign or not.

The main chassis of PF2 is very dependent from magic. ABP could help to prevent the need of magic itens and you can basically ban all casters and restrict magical subclasses of some martial classes but it still difficult and very restrictive and you probably have to run it almost in lower levels to avoid the most fantastic martial abilities of higher levels.

It's something pretty difficult to do. Maybe can be better to search another system to play in this scenario or adapt it to allow magic and if you want try your must to avoid it (making spellcasters and magical creatures and itens being rare and avoid use then as normal only restricting to some special situations where do you want that something occult happens).

You probably also want to restrict and ban 2/3 of classes because they are magically based and turn Gunslingers common.

It will be a pretty challenging to you as GM.

Grand Lodge

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I've played around with this idea, but I'm not strictly going for 'realistic'...more like 'realistic adjacent' or 'plausible with some imagination'. If we were talking about a private eye drama it'd be far more of an urban fantasy a la Dresden Files than gumshoe detective fiction. If you're looking for a strictly historical setting this may not apply to you.

I was inspired by a recent Kickstarter to start plotting ideas for a campaign set in the crusade era, where eldritch powers are brewing behind the scenes, but the common people don't know about it. Magic is rare, hidden, and if a character is found to be using it openly they're likely to be burned at the stake. With that being said, the heroes are special and once they get out of the public's eye most of the enemies are clued in to the supernatural to some extent or another.

My plan for running the campaign is to restrict characters to martial classes, use automatic bonus progression to keep the math right, and give free archetype to let the characters pick up spellcasting dedications. My one exception for spellcasting classes is the champion, because the holy knight is such a trope during the time that it seems a shame to cut it.

Basically, that leaves us with: Alchemist, Barbarian, Champion, Fighter, Investigator, Monk, Ranger, Rogue, Swashbuckler and Thaumaturge as core classes, and all of the other open as free archetypes. My players are all in, and have already picked out their characters, a Champion(Cleric), an Investigator(Magus), a Rogue(Kineticist), a Fighter(Bard) and a Thaumaturge(Psychic). We'll see how it works in play.

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