Adventures in Blueholme: Pathfinder Supplement

[Vile Traveller]

First, Thanks to Finarvyn for giving the go-ahead to post this here.

I have begun on an OGL project which aims to make Holmes-style gaming available to players of Pathfinder. That is, it's aimed at people who already use the PF rules. The idea being to produce a book that can be put out under the PF Compatibility Licence, the book can't be stand-alone.

So, what I envisage the content being is a PF version of the Holmes character races, classes, spells, monsters and magic items (using the PRD). The rules will be straight PF, but they will be severely pared back to the kind of rules included in Holmes - no feats, for example. I'm still undecided about non-thief skills, they may stay or they may go, time will tell. Also, I think I will take levels up to level 10, or possibly 14 (not 20, though). That remains to be decided later as well.

The reason for this thread is that I'm very new to Holmes - about three or four weeks new. I was brought up on B/X. So, to aid me in straying out of Holmes territory by accident, I'm hoping to pick the brains of the fine members of this forum.

To start with, I've been looking at character races. I have given them only the Holmes racial traits, and there are no ability score modifiers for non-humans. As I haven't made up my mind about skills yet, I've left in the extra skill points for humans for now.

The classes are restricted as per Holmes, although elves are multi-class magic-users and fighting men. This leads me to my first couple of quandaries:

1) Should I keep the class names of Holmes of PF? I'm strongly leaning towards Holmes. The intended audience are PF players, who may be more comfortable with rogue, wizard and fighter - on the other hand, with the d20 class proliferation, they should have no trouble differentiating if I use the Holmes names. If anything, I sort of wish someone had changed cleric into something else so that there wouldn't be any potential for confusion there.

2) Should I open up the thief class to dwarves and halflings, and should I allow elves to be straight fighting men or straight magic-users? I'm ambivalent about thieves, but I think fighting man/magic-user is more of a definition of elvish nature in Holmes than a class choice, so I tend to think I want to keep it at that.

Any feedback, encouragement or "don't go theres" are welcome! ;D

[Koren n'Rhys]

Could be very cool, Vile. Another way to introduce old-school style gaming to the PF masses. I'd recommend you look at the Beginners Box to start, as it pares down the PF crunch quite a bit already - core classes and races only, though still uses some feats and skills.

You'll need some of the conversion stuff from EdOWar (http://edowarsblog.wordpress.com/downloads/) to get halflings and more classic monsters in BB format, too.

Curious to see what you come up with!

[Vile Traveller]

Thanks for that link, Koren, some cool stuff on there. Actually, I'm not having much trouble so far just using the online PRD at Paizo's, I try to stick to a single source if I can. So far it's mainly been a case of throwing out bucketloads of new rules that this book (apparently) doesn't need - playtest will tell! There will of course be things in Holmes that have no direct equivalent in PF, that's where I'll have to get creative.

I think, for now, I'll leave class restrictions exactly as per Holmes. I will probably take the progression up to 10th level for PCs, but give some rules for the GM to have higher-level NPCs (in the tradition of the 3rd level M-U spell list in Holmes).

[Alex]

I vote for don't go there, but really I feel you should do whatever you enjoy. What you are doing is essentially the next generation project of BFRPG. Start with the new rule system and make it as much like the feel and shape of the old system as you can without tossing out the central mechanics of the new system. I tried this with 3E myself but never like the result, plus I soon found that playing the original is more fun and it is pretty easy to get gamers to try the older systems.

History of the Genre (that I can recall):
d20 Basic - Fantasy by Alex making 3E more like Mentzer Basic+Expert
Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game by Solomoriah making 3E (and I think later 3.5E) more like Moldvay/Cook B/X
name to be determined by Vile making PF more like Holmes Basic

Interestingly, as we get newer and newer starting foundations, the edition we wish to emulate gets older and older. ;-)

Note: The first thing you are going to have to do is throw out any hope of compatibility with PF! From my 3E experience, as you remove and simplify rules, you will be lowering the combat power of the characters. That's a good thing, but if you want to maintain compatibility while emulating an old edition then you have to be aware that the two goals are mutually exclusive...the better you achieve one, the worst you will fail to achieve the other.

[Vile Traveller]

Yeah, I'm aware that certain parts of the intertube are (and already have been) offended at the thought ...

But it's fun, which is basically the only reason I'm doing it! Compatible in this sense means "compatible" in quotation marks - there are certain things one has to comply with to be able to use the PF Compatibility Licence, that's all.

The true goal is to make something using the new rules, a lot of which I like, but the content (in terms of monsters, spells, classes, etc.) and the spirit of the older minimalist approach. Plus, in the process, I'm getting to know both Holmes and PF a lot better. Yeah, it's a pretty narcissistic project, but then I guess most small-press RPG stuff is.

Anyway, I'd better get back to the text. One of the principles I'm still wrestling with is how to deal with things that have been omitted from the PRD (not a lot, but some). For example, and this is just an example to illustrate the principle, carrion crawlers. A lot of the retro-clones make up analogues and use those, alternatively I could just leave them out of it and substitute another classic monster that is in the PRD and fits the same sort of niche. The benefit of the former is that something close to the original is maintained, the con is that it's never the same. The same applies to spells and magic items.

Thoughts?

[Alex]

The issue of items and creatures not in PF is purely one of personal preference. If you are writing to maintain usability of Holmes-era products then going the retro-clone way is good. If you are converting to get the style and feel of Holmes-era, the specifics don't really matter and you could include any comparable PF monster (Grick. Choose grick.). I never released my monster book, but I just used the SRD monsters instead of trying to reproduce exactly what was in Mentzer. No living statues, no rhagodessae...but AD&D-type golems. The question is: are you trying to replicate Holmes as closely as possible using PF or are you trying to give PF the Holmesian feel? Answer that and you will know how to handle those monsters and magic items.

[Vile Traveller]

Sept 11, 2012 8:01:07 GMT -6 Alex said:

The question is: are you trying to replicate Holmes as closely as possible using PF or are you trying to give PF the Holmesian feel?

Very succinctly put - have an exalt! I believe (having spent much time cogitating on a similar matter previously) that I am going for the second option more than the first. And I find myself agreeing with the principle of staying within the PRD rather than making stuff up.

Sept 11, 2012 8:01:07 GMT -6 Alex said:

(Grick. Choose grick.)

I may just do that.

[Finarvyn]

I find the entire concept of this fascenating but potentially frustrating.

I tried to do something like this for OD&D about a dozen times over the past decade or so and always end up hating the whole process. Holmes is something like 64 pages and the Pathfinder SRD is hundreds of pages, so you have to keep cutting and cutting before it becomes even remotely useful. I never get to the end because I get tired of cutting first.

Good luck on this and hope your endurance and patience are better than mine.

[Vile Traveller]

Patience is my middle name. Well, it would be if it wasn't a girl's name.

[Koren n'Rhys]

Sept 11, 2012 23:25:11 GMT -6 Vile Traveller said:

Patience is my middle name. Well, it would be if it wasn't a girl's name.

What's that have to do with it? My daughter middle name is Grace, and it turns out she's far from it!

...I kid.

On a more serious note, Frog God Games did the Tome of Horrors Complete in both Swords & Wizardry and PF versions. Might be a carrion crawler in there.