Pathfinder 1E Age of Worms questions for Pathfinder

[jhilahd]

Hi all,

So I am just now coming to Pathfinder. As a former 3.X DM who got burned out, I stopped playing d20 systems til 4E came out. I've been running that since then and have loved it. However, I've missed some of the crunchiness of the 3.X game.

My players love Pathfinder. I have been... hesitant to convert until recently.

In an effort to rekindle my love of DMing, I've picked up the Core book and the Bestiary, I purchased the first few issues of Dungeon with Age of Worms in a plan to run it as my PF campaign this summer.

But... in the conversion process, I hit a few blocks and need help.

So Falcon's Hollow/Diamond Lake is pretty easy to merge or just switch out. The one I'm struggling with is the Free City.
Where and what.

I thought about dropping in Ptolus along the southern coastline of Andoran, and figuring out some wacky history like it was a planar shifted city during the powerful storms of 4606. Only because I like Ptolus, and think it'd be a good fit. The trick is that it's huge. But it would work, I think, in Andoran ok. It would be a free city state(no pun) and be allowed to operate in a more open friendly environment with the democratic ideals of Andoran(again, still learning the setting).

Plus putting it closer to Cheliax gives Andoran a reason to support Ptolus as an ally. Rambling now, but... I know that the Free City comes into play in the AP, but like I said I'm struggling with this one.

Any suggestions would be great! Thanks in advance.

 

[billd91]

I'm not entirely sure I'm following things here. You want to run Age of Worms using Pathfinder rules. I get that. No problem there.

I also infer that you're planning on running it in Golarion rather than Greyhawk and are looking for Golarion-based alternatives to the Greyhawk ones in the AoW, right? I would turn around and ask if you really need to do that. Settings can be largely system neutral and Greyhawk should play just as well with PF rules as it did with 3.5. Plus, AoW is something of a fantastic tour of the central Flanaess for Greyhawk. Any fans of that setting in your group will probably be really thrilled by it.

If you really want to shift to Golarion and use additional materials like Ptolus, you've got a lot of freedom to define or redefine Golarion as you see fit. I wouldn't worry much about finding the "best" place to put the new locations. I'd just find ones that seem geographically reasonable based on the Free City site you pick (meaning the replacement for Diamond Lake needs to be relatively close by - most others can be more widely spread as PCs gain the ability to teleport about).

Later in the adventure, yet important to the backstory from the beginning, Tar-Baphon might be a good replacement for Kyuss.

 

[Tinner]

O did exactly what you've described with my group.
For the Free City, I used Absolam. It already has a Greyhawk-ish feel IMO.
I wouldn't bother trying to add Ptolus to the mix at all.
The PC's aren't likely to need that kind of depth and detail for the amount of time they'll actually spend in the city.

 

[jhilahd]

Thanks for the replies.

As much as I would love to run AoW in the Flaness, it ain't happening. It was either the Forgotten Realms or Golarion. My group grew up on FR and love it, yet I'm burned out on it. It has been my go-to setting for more than a couple of decades, plus everyone who will be joining my group is excited about exploring Golarion.

And yeah, sorry for the confusion. Had a stream of thinking that didn't translate too well to the interwebz.

Since Greyhawk is a major "site" in the beginnings of the campaign, I wanted/needed a major city much like it. Ptolus is a great setting as well, and something I've always wanted to use.
Now I'm not sold one way or the other on using it, just tossing out the idea for feedback.
The suggestion for Absalom is good, and something I clearly thought about using as well.

I plan on placing the starting game in Andoran, and using the town of Falcon's Hollow for my "Diamond Lake". Going so far as to even just keeping the name, and using the Diamond Lake map, locations and NPC's.

The tripping up was coming from how close Greyhawk is to the Diamond Lake, and that it's a major reference to the story. So I wanted to use an established city close to a locale that would fit. Seeing none, I thought of just incorporating my own idea of Greyhawk in the vision of Ptolus.

Anywho... the game is still months away from fruition so I still have tons of time to plan this out.

Thanks again!
Jhilahd

 

[Lwaxy]

We are making up places of our own for the 3 adventure paths from the Dragon Magazines. Our Golarion already has a few cities not official, so we mostly just took the provided maps and put them in the new world. Greyhawk is likely to be renamed Greystone (fitting the color of the buildings). This also means nothing we do can later interfere with official stories.

If we ever get to that, our crazy idea of playing every Paizo adventure plus a few others more or less simultaneously will probably crash somewhere on the road but then, we've done years long campaigns before.

 

[frankthedm]

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't AoW designed with the 3.5 defensive buffs in mind? I'd just be slightly concerned modules made assuming annoying immunities that were readily available in 3.5 might mean the module is nigh impossible for Pathfinder PCs. Pathfinder's needed nerf to Heroes Feast making Poison a threat to high level PCs being the first issue I can think of.

 

[Lwaxy]

I've already made some adaptions when I ran this for FR in 3.5 to avoid the need for those. It made for a much better story. I am also running AoW on a German forum in PF and it does work - sometimes with adaptions needed on the fly, but the players want the story not every little detail. No power players either.

It is doable with some creativity.