On the horizon: Pathfinder Products

Just as a goad to get more work done, here is a list of Pathfinder products I have in various stages of completion and want to get to y'all. Basically this is the catalog. Consider them ethereal till you see them as its pretty ambitious for what is essentially a one man show but I believe I can manage it.

Into the Woods:
A ready to go Pathfinder quick play designed to challenge new and old players of all ages. Its a starting adventure for up to six players designed to be played in one sessions but to leave the doors open for more adventures.

To Battle! :
6 Short (Five level) fighting style prestige classes recycled from my 3.0 OGL and converted to Pathfinder

The Magic of Midrea:
A big list of spells, spellbooks and possibly magic items from my Midrea campaign because you can never have too much magic.

Spells, Swords and Prayers:
New 20 level classes for Pathfinder. To spoil this one, these are classes that resemble some of the prestige classes scaled up to 20 levels. This way you can play several cool concepts from L1 instead if having to struggle with planning and min-maxing.

Encounters A thru Z:
26 Short pre planned encounters for every letter of the alphabet. These can be used as filler or expanded into additional games or even with a little mental muscle into a campaign arc.

Dragons Gate Adventure Path:
Exploration, action and danger await on the Isle of Danger. This adventure path inspired by the pulps and the Isle of Dread is designed for up to six L1 to about L15 PC's and is suitable for Midrea or any other game world.

Isle of Danger:
This is the setting guide for the above Adventure Path.

Signs of Night Adventure Path
Something experimental, a shorter more Gothic Adventure Path. 5 Adventures perfect for you horror inspired game worlds or for players with an appetite for darker fair.

Power Up! Magic items that scale with you;
Just like the title says.

Wonder: Low Magic Rules for Pathfinder:
This is a pulpier, lower magic set of rules for Pathfinder. It includes simple low magic rules and a more complex "low magic item" rule set that keeps the associated power levels.

If y'all see anything on there thats sounds like a must have, let me know so I can prioritize otherwise, wish me luck.

Midrea One Page

This si the original idea behind Midrea, well at least beyond the "some place to run my games that actually has a name"

You'll also see some Iconics here that some day I may just post. I used Mnoren and Mary in games and Baran (all 35 levels of him) is a former PC. Tonzabar is named for a player as well, my "likes to talk world building" buddy though I've also called him Tanzar too.

I am nothing if not inconsistent.

Fantasy Setting Proposal for Midrea

1. Core Ethos Sentence.
Midrea is a world where hero’s deeds hold society and reality together.

2. Who are the heroes?
Mary Bow- Cynical Mercenary, holder of the Stone of the Pact and hero of the Nightfall War.
Mnoren, the self-appointed gatekeeper and master of the 13 gates
Baran, archmage and Master Magistar, the world’s most powerful wizard
Ravik Byrne, the leader of the Wizards Council
Megan Byrne, Ravik's daughter known as "Trouble"
Commenting on all this is the Adventuring Librarian Tonzabar, whose dry wit livens up any topic

4. What do they do?
Mary runs an Inn now called Mary’s Place, from time to time she sends foolish adventurers on a quest. She’d like to forget adventure but adventure has plans for her.
Mnoren watches the thirteen gates protecting man from, Other Things.
Baran? Well he studies magic until its needs it, which is more often than he'd like.
Ravik has his council to watch, evil plot to unwind and a troublemaking red headed to daughter to deal with him.
Megan, well there a lot to see and do out there and anyway isn't magic fun?
Tonzabar, he watches and comments on it all.

. Threats, Conflicts, Villains
Sometimes it’s hard not to find danger in Midrea. There are 13 gates Elsewhere
For more menace there is the Nether and the First Race. Netherspawn, the leftovers of the first attempt at creation are still out there and they hate all other life.
The First Race, time should have claimed them but Wizardry allows them to linger, still hiding out somewhere, making monsters and worse things. They will return.

6. Nature of magic
Magic comes from outer planar sources, the heavens (for clerical) the spirit world (for druids) the hells (for evil clerics) fae realm (Bards and Sorcerers) and the Nether for the fragments of creation, the spells of the Wizard.

7. What’s new? What’s different?
The flexible nature of the cosmology allows anything to be dropped in with a minimum of fuss. Since the humans on Midrea were originally from our world and time Roleplaying is easy, its Ren-Faire medievalism. And it makes sense. Even the timeline makes adventure fun and easy, historical “points’ help DM’s make a place for heroes.

Enerion One Page

Fantasy Setting Proposal for

Enerion: Along the Great River and Beyond


Core Ethos Sentence:
Enerion is a Steel Age world with a Bronze Age feel and a Robert Howard/Lost World sensibility ripe for action and exploration.

. Who are the heroes?
The heroes are the explorers, the protectors, the doers and the rulers.
They are people like Mesrik Galim, the Wayfinder.
Suon Argontil Prince of the Clarim City State. Hardin Coos Henar, Watermaster of mountainous Tarsk and of course the mysterious Silver Queen.


What do they do?
Every hero has his own desires, destinies and goals. Whether it is Metrics wanderlust, Suon Argontil’s protection of his City state or Hradwins stewardship of man there is plenty of room for excitement. And if things get dull, there is the Silver Queen ageless beautiful and full of terrible wisdom.

Threats, Conflicts, Villains: Danger comes in many forms. There are ancient monsters from before the time of man, the Scaled Ones cast off folks of a previous age, the enigmatic Shapers with there changed monsters Worst of all are the Demons, the outsiders whose very touch befouls the water life depends on.

Nature of magic: Water is the source of magic; spells are drawn form the water into the Wizard, cast out than flow back into the ocean. Even the Gods are said to dwell deep below


What’s new? What’s different?
All of his Civilization depends on water, all trade flows from it, all magic depends on it. Rather than great Feudal Kingdoms there are city-states. Rather than dungeons there are ancient decaying ruins. Rather than Orcs there are magically changed beast men. It’s a new face on old and familiar ground.

Familiar yet exotic is the watchword

I've never run anything in this setting though I've been tempted. My gamers don't read Howard or E.R. Burroughs and would be lost alas.

The 2002 WOTC Setting Search

I normally don't carry conversations from Big Purple over here but this one got me thinking about my old entries in that Wizards contest.

Back in 2002 I entered three worlds into the WOTC contest, Midrea which you see here , Enarion which was kind a bronze age city state thing and another, a not very Tolkien like Evil wins setting.

About a week before the thing was to close I received a phone call from Wizards requesting some kind of legal paperwork. Needless to say I was to the post office so fast you could see the contrail.

Now I really have no idea how close I was to victory but I like to think I was second to last set , which in what 12k entries is not all that bad. If any of my entries did make it that far I assume it was Midrea, as this setting was designed as sandbox/kitchen sink as I could make and I saw the same theme in Ebberon.

I honor of that , next couple of posts will be my one pagers from the contest. With apologies to all I cannot find my "Evil Wins" setting but if I ever do, rest assured I'll post it too.

How to stat your friends as Adventuring Classes

Just for fun its nice to make an version of someone you know as a D&D adventurer.

I have a kind of formula I use for this .

Stats --

Just Guess and round up generously.

Class --
If they have any real life skills that map to a D&D class, give them appropriate levels. Clergy get cleric, people who have studied the occult or science (in D&D these are the same thing more or less) get wizard, people with fighting backgrounds get fighter and so on. Otherwise pick the best class for their personality. If you aren't sure people can get expert or whatever class (savant in the case of Midrea) passes for "skill guy"

Level

Start them at L1 at any age from 16-18. Add the next level (2,3,4 and so on) till their age is reached. If they have any real adventures in the background and +1, add an additional +1 if they actually pursued an adventuring career (military, LEO, Crook) and an additional +1 if they had intensive training (including real grind colleges)

Race
Well unless they are Otherkin or very strange to the degree people think they are an alien, whatever or give off an archetypal vibe , Human.

Feats and Skills
Just guess based on things they know how to do.

And thats how to turn your friends into D&D adventurers and possibly ruin a friendship for life.

A Couple of Other Old House Rules I've played under

From the memory bank

#1 20 and confirm. My first experience with something like the D20 crit system, came way back in 1997. One of our local Grogs - D. Balrog used a system that was Roll and 20 and confirm and you get double damage. How that rule filtered into 3x I'll never know.

#2 Read and Detect Magic as at will abilities. This was back in the early 2e days and in my limited experience in a fighter heavy (7 fighters and a mage!) it worked just fine.

A couple of quick notes on magic in Midrea

Midrea is fairly high magic world, probably closer to Greyhawk than the Forgotten Realms in power level but there is still plenty of magic out there.

Magic items exist in the standard numbers and until I can come up with a fair and accurate level based bonus to AC I'll hold my nose and just use a pretty standard allotment. I do use the "power components" rule so items do not cost XP. Instead they require extra dimensional materials or highly magically saturated materials to make. The exception being "single use" items such as scrolls, potions and some minor wondrous items. These can be made with large quantities of ordinary (although sometimes rare) materials.

Most spells work as per the rules with two key exceptions.

#1 Resurrection Magic.

Bringing the dead back to life in Midrea has been difficult since the Unhallowed War some one hundred years ago . For some reason the various Gods have stopped allowing resurrection magic of any kind to work . Short of using a Magic Jar or Clone spell and a soul stone (or a few limited class abilities that effect only the caster) it is impossible to bring the dead back to life.
Note though that magic from before this period works normally , so the occasional Scroll (though they can't be scribed) ,Staff of Life or other items work normally.
There are also a couple of artifacts (the Heroes Table, The Life Web and the Rod of Years) that can raise the dead as well. Bottom line, you die and unless you buddies want to quest for you, you stay dead...

#2 Teleport

Teleport like spells and powers are rather rare and dangerous sorts of magic. The spells work normally however using them involves travel through the the 1st realm and thus risks taint. Trust me on this, taint is very bad. You an assume almost no one will teleport unless its utterly necessary. Also note that Tree Stride and Fire Stride and similar "nature themed" spells do work normally within the grounds of the Ealven Wood for some reason. So be careful.

Travel Domain Clerics do not gain Dimensional Hop as a power instead gain the following power as per the D20 SRD

SU: For a total time per day of 1 round per cleric level you possess, you can act normally regardless of magical effects that impede movement as if you were affected by the spell freedom of movement. This effect occurs automatically as soon as it applies, lasts until it runs out or is no longer needed, and can operate multiple times per day (up to the total daily limit of rounds).

In addition the spell list is altered as follows

L4 Enduring Flight
L5 Overland Flight
L7 Phase Door
L8 Discern Location
L9 Mass Overland Flight