I need to play D&D. What's my system, what's my campaign setting?

[AngryMojo]

I'm going to fourth Savage Worlds. It's a ton of fun.

 

[Ravellion]

Bah! Go for Pathfinder!

(...)

Then, run the Kingmaker Adventure Path. That's the one benefit you get from Pathfinder that no other RPG (not even 4E) can touch: it has the best published adventures for the game in the industry and no other RPG comes close to touching that aspect of the game's strength.

Pathfinder is for me just 3.5 with house rules. Which means it is very good and suits my purposes, but it isn't necessarily the bees knees. I am most likely going to use Trailblazer as opposed to "core 3.5". Perhaps with some UA options thrown in, maybe even adapt 4e races slightly and use those instead of the core races. Will add some power to the players, but not too much. Probably less than the magic I intend to withhold from them .

I have heard good things about the Paizo adventure paths, but I am going to be playing with 3 players (probably add one DMPC which is going to be played by a player who will only be there 50% of the time). is that going to be a problem? I heard Paizo balances their paths for 5 players. Also, I really, really, don't want to DM above 11th level. If I have to scale down everything to keep following the path, that would probably be too much work for me to enjoy it as a DM.

 

[S'mon]

S'mon, I don't know why I blindsided myself thinking it had to be E6 or E8. E10 might indeed be just what I am looking for. If only the rarest and greatest heroes and villains can teleport/raise dead, I still have a "D&D flavour world" but only two levels of over-the-topness (I do think levels 9 and 10 are a bit too much - hit point inflation is the primary cause for this, IMO). And I would be able to run Red hand of Doom, which I haven't done so far. I think I could also tone down Greyhawk to E10 without hurting the lore too much, and play in my favourite campaign setting.

Alright, E10 it is, Greyhawk, and I already have adventure material for half the campaign. After that, I will give savage worlds a spin. Thanks guys!

Glad to help Rav.

I've been using an effective 10th level cap for two campaigns now, one ran ca 2005-2006 for ca 35 sessions and we played Lost City of Barakus (which I highly recommend as an example of an E10 sandbox) and follow-ons up to 9th level. My current 3.5 game has run 21 sessions and is more like E6 for most NPCs, so the 6th-7th level PCs are top of the heap, epic heroes. I find that it works great if you just use suitable NPC demographics and monster stats. It feels much more like "D&D" to me than does the 17th level scry-buff-teleport stuff. If you play weekly and don't want the PCs to cap out quickly you may want to use half XP, but in my current campaign I've used full XP without a problem.

I think Greyhawk as a setting was designed very much around the 1e 1-10 level range, where 10th level PCs can go kill Lolth. The only proviso is that very high-level NPC wizards are a part of Greyhawk lore, but they can be dealt with through eg access to powerful ritual magic only useable by 10th level casters at certain nodes of power when the Stars are Right.

 

[S'mon]

Current Pathfinder APs go to ca 15th level, so the last third won't work well with E10.

 

[the Jester]

Well, I'd probably go with 1e, but I have all the resources already.

That said, it sounds like you've found a good solution to your dilemma.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Pathfinder is for me just 3.5 with house rules. Which means it is very good and suits my purposes, but it isn't necessarily the bees knees. I am most likely going to use Trailblazer as opposed to "core 3.5". Perhaps with some UA options thrown in, maybe even adapt 4e races slightly and use those instead of the core races. Will add some power to the players, but not too much. Probably less than the magic I intend to withhold from them .

I have heard good things about the Paizo adventure paths, but I am going to be playing with 3 players (probably add one DMPC which is going to be played by a player who will only be there 50% of the time). is that going to be a problem? I heard Paizo balances their paths for 5 players. Also, I really, really, don't want to DM above 11th level. If I have to scale down everything to keep following the path, that would probably be too much work for me to enjoy it as a DM.

I think once you throw in the APG, you find quickly the dimissive "just house rules" approach is no longer close to being justified.

If you don't want to DM above 11th level - run Council of Thieves AP. The players should ding 12th level on the final fight in the 6th book.

The APs are balanced for four player characters, not five. If you are running for three PCs, run an NPC cleric as one of the heroes. You are good to go.

 

[gamerprinter]

Pathfinder is for me just 3.5 with house rules. Which means it is very good and suits my purposes, but it isn't necessarily the bees knees. I am most likely going to use Trailblazer as opposed to "core 3.5". Perhaps with some UA options thrown in, maybe even adapt 4e races slightly and use those instead of the core races. Will add some power to the players, but not too much. Probably less than the magic I intend to withhold from them .

I have heard good things about the Paizo adventure paths, but I am going to be playing with 3 players (probably add one DMPC which is going to be played by a player who will only be there 50% of the time). is that going to be a problem? I heard Paizo balances their paths for 5 players. Also, I really, really, don't want to DM above 11th level. If I have to scale down everything to keep following the path, that would probably be too much work for me to enjoy it as a DM.

Honestly, if you only compare the PF Core with the 3.5 PH and DMG, but reading between them only, you'll only come up with the conclusion that PF is just 'house rules." However, if you actually play the game, there's a huge difference between the two - huge but subtle, as it still plays like "D&D".

We've been playing PF for over a year, but when we started we ran four sessions to complete our first adventure, afterwhich I asked if the party would like to go back to 3x, and they responded, "No way!"

The difference between a 1st level 3x character and a 1st level PF character is huge. In fact all the base classes are significantly powered up, while the casters are less so than the martial members, there are still improvements. Then look at Prestige Classes, these are now flavor differences, and few mechanical options, but nolonger are you looking to definitely move into a prestige class as part of your build.

I have only one player who has taken a prestige class, everyone else is sticking to single class, and throughout 3.5 all these players, always played multi-class as their preference. Now the single classes have so much more features and capabilty - at each level, few are compelled to leave their base class.

Add to this the great variety in the Advanced Players Guide and the options are even greater.

In the beginning, we took the 'backwards compatible' premise and continued to use the various 3x books to enhance our game. With the release of the APG, all of the 3x books in our game has been banned. APG and Core provide everything we need for an excellent gaming experience. 3.5 is just a memory now.

We had our own house rules for 3x, so why switch to somebody else's house rules... because its not just house rules, its a completely better game, yet still feels just like 3x... YMMV.

GP

 

[Ravellion]

We had our own house rules for 3x, so why switch to somebody else's house rules... because its not just house rules, its a completely better game, yet still feels just like 3x... YMMV.

GP

I fully believe it still feels like 3e. We played with the UA basic classes for a while and it felt like 3e though .

Pathfinder is a bit too option rich for my tastes. Maybe I will use it to try it out if I ever do one of the Adventure paths. I know at least one of my players would love it.