NIGHT SHIFT: Tales of Jackson, IL

 My son's group has been splitting their Sunday games up into two sessions lately. Usually, it is D&D 5e first, then dinner, then something else. Lately, the "something else" has been AD&D 1st edition (which they love), along with a combination of NIGHT SHIFT, Wasted Lands, and Thirteen Parsecs.

I got a chance to run some games with them. Since I was fresh off my "Stranger Things" high of this winter, I wanted to run a "proper 80s" style game with them. So I picked Jackson, IL, and set their adventure in 1986. The fun part was reminding them that no, there were no cell phones, no Internet, no Wikipedia, and if you wanted to call someone and you were not at home, you had to find a payphone. Cultural shocks aside, it also gave me an excuse to pull out some NPCs I have been dying to use.

Stephanie, Faye, and Larina

The players are all familiar with Pathfinder, and the various Iconics have made guest appearances in their D&D 5e games. Largely because we have the minis for them and they are all easily recognized. So I decided to have a little fun and fill the halls with characters they would recognize, but as high school students in 1986.

The big ones are Stephanie (Seoni) Vale, Fiona "Faye" (Feiya) Blackwood, and, naturally, Larina Nichols. They are likely the stars in their own tales, but here they are the NPCs. Everyone whispers that they are witches. Everyone is right.

Yeah, Larina is right-handed and wears her watch on her right hand. She was a weird kid.

Val (Valeros) is here as a super jock, as is RPG/LARPER dude Ed (Ezren), and more. Most of them just fill up the background of a school that has a lot of weirdness going on. But a few stand out.

Kyra is a sweet girl known as the "Preacher's Kid" and a star on the girls' track team. She is always hanging out with troublemaker Meriko (Merisiel). Kyra, though, thinks demons, devils, and other evil things are hiding in the shadows. She is also not wrong. Meriko dresses like a mid 80s ad for "Ninja culture" because she likes to irritate her conservative parents. 

Kyra and Meriko

Others include some originals. 

Rowan and Andy are the "it couple" at Jackson High and "were born dating," according to Faye. Rowan is the local horse girl who spends more time with animals than people. Andy is the star player of the football team, the son of a wealthy businessman, and an all-around nice guy.

Rowan and Andy. Aren't they adorable?

I have to admit, I was writing their background and got really carried away, and now I kinda love them both. 

They met when Andy's father, who owns the stables where Rowan's dad works, thought his son needed discipline, so he spent the summers cleaning the stables. Rowan, who always hangs out at the stables to ride the horses (she can't afford to be a member), showed Andy how to do the work she and her dad did. After friction, not liking each other, and even fighting, Rowan saw that Andy, despite everything, wanted to do a good job in hopes his dad would notice, and Andy saw how natural Rowan was with all animals, especially the horses. They fell in love in typical, even clichéd, 1980s Rom-Com fashion, including a special scene where Rowan has to enter the horse she loves into a show to win, or he gets sold. She loses because a rival cheats, and the horse is sold. TWIST: Andy buys the horse with his college money and gives it to Rowan!  They realize they love each other. Spoiler. They get married right out of high school and adopt a dozen pets. 

I said I spent way too much time on them. The irony? They haven't even shown up in the game yet!

The first "episode" adventure was called "The Midnight Bell" about the big school bell that was hung in the tower and has not rung since 1936. It rang and every supernatural creature heard it. The Big Bad (they don't know this yet) is "The Bell Ringer." He is a harbinger of more bad guys. I have a faerie lord slumming it at the high school who up to no good. Faye has two "Aunties" who are really Urban Hags. I also have some creepy kids, some fake-Satanists, some real Devil-worshipers, a hidden graveyard, tunnels under the town, and an abandoned mall filled with zombies. So yeah, basically shit from my own childhood!

I hope I get to do more with this. Plus, I am enjoying all the "cameos" I am throwing in. They love the time and keep asking how things were in the 80s. The oddest thing? These 20-somethings LOVE "Hall and Oates."  I am trying to play Iron Maiden, and they want to hear "Maneater."

Ah well. Maybe you all will enjoy my 1985 and 1986 playlists.

OH! quick reminder.
Night Shift® is a registered trademark of Elf Lair, LLC. 2026

Elowen Hale: Pathfinder 2nd Edition

“I have been around long enough to know that returns like this are never free. Nothing in the universe is ever free. There is always a ledger. A balancing. If something, or someone, let Elowen come back, then something may someday collect. I do not know what that means, and I do not like not knowing. She smiles as if the debt has already been paid. I hope she is right. 

But if something comes to collect from that girl, they will have to go through me first.” - Esmé Valethorne

Pathfinder 2nd Edition might not get the hype and play as Pathfinder 1st edition, but in some ways, I think it is better. It can stil play the same sorts of games you can with Pathfinder 1st ed, and of course D&D, but it has a some mechanics I like and many more that interest me.  Plus, I love the world Pathfinder has built.  

Character Background (Pathfinder 2nd Edition)

In this universe, Elowen is marked by the River of Souls. She died before her time, and a power neither divine nor arcane intervened.

Mechanically, she is a Witch, but narratively, she is one of the Returned. She perceives hauntings before they manifest. Undead feel uneasy in her presence. She does not radiate positive energy, but she disturbs the natural flow. I might have her take some levels of Seer later on. I have not decided just yet, I need to read up a little more on the class.

Elowen does not seek power. She studies it because she fears what might have brought her back. She works closely with the witches of West Haven, who understand that resurrection always carries a price. Resurrections of witches, even more so.

Her curse is subtle. At times, her reflection lags behind her movements. At others, she dreams of places she has never been but remembers dying in.  Despite this, she remains hopeful. She believes fate is not fixed. She has seen what lies beyond, and it has made her compassionate rather than cruel.

Elowen Hale
Female Human (versatile) Witch (Hedge Witch), Level 1

Background: Acolyte

Strength 0
Dexterity 0
Constitution 1
Intelligence 4
Wisdom 2
Charisma 2

AC 13
HP 15

Fortitude 4
Reflex 3
Will 7

Skills
Arcana 7, Crafting 4, Deception 5, Diplomacy 5, Lore (Ghosts) 7, Lore (Scribe) 7, Medicine 5, Nature 2, Occultism 7, Performance 5, Religion 5, Society 4, Survival 5

Weapon
Dagger 3, 1d6/1d4

Class DC 17

Feats
Additional Lore, Adapted Cantrip, Student of the Canon

Class Abilities
Attribute Boosts, Witch Initial Proficiencies, Witch Skill Training, Patron, Familiar "Mirepoix" (calico cat), Spellcasting (Occult), Hex Spells, Witch Lessons, Heightened Spells, Cantrips, Hexes, Spinner of Threads. 

Spells
Cantrips: Disrupt Undead, Daze, Detect Magic, Light, Prestidigitation, Read Aura, Shield, Telekinetic Hand, Telekinetic Projectile, Void Warp
First Circle: Sure Strike, Dizzying Colors, Enfeeble, Fear, Ill Omen, Mystic Armor

Focus Spells
Nudge Fate, Phase Familiar

--

This was one of the other main rule sets that helped me define who Elowen was. Here in Pathfinder, she is an Occult-based Hedge Witch. Like Larina has said, Elowen isn't going to raise storms or even summon armies of the dead to fight. She will be a beacon to guide others home, and if she summons up an army of the dead, well, it will be so she can show them to their afterlife and give them peace. 

Of the two versions, Tales of the Valiant and this one, I am not sure which one I like the best.

Character Creation Challenge: Day 28, Areelu Vorlesh Witch Queen of the Malefic Tradition

 Areelu Vorlesh is another witch queen I adopted, this time from the Pathfinder game. She is a half-succubus witch and a whole lot of fun. In the Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous video game, she is described as something like a mad scientist and mother of monsters. So for this reason, I gave her the Alchemist secondary skill. Since a lot of her magic seems based on her occult devotion, I also decided that she would be a witch priestess, more akin to an occultist than anything. I considered archwitch, but felt this worked better. She sought to claim the authority of the gods in my games. 

The human who would become the witch Areelu Vorlesh has been lost to time. It was known that she was a witch in Deskari’s cult.  She was researching the nature of the separation of the worlds and planes.  It was her success at opening the Worldwound that caused her Patron to transform her into a half-fiend.

After her defeat at the World Wound, Areelu Vorlesh sought other allies. The ones she found became The Coven of the Shattered Crowns. Vorlesh is going after the Gods themselves. 

Witch Queen Areelu Vorlesh

Areelu’s elevation to Witch Queen came not through lineage, coven recognition, or patron blessing, but through apotheosis by catastrophe.

The creation of the Worldwound was not an accident, nor a summoning gone awry. It was a calculated experiment: to pierce planar reality and hold it open long enough to observe what crawled through. That demons followed was expected. That the wound endured was the true triumph.

In this moment, Areelu crossed the threshold from Malefic Witch Priestess to Witch Queen, for she no longer merely wielded magic, she altered the cosmological order.

This act places her above regional sovereigns and elemental queens, but below those who embody primal myth. She is not inevitable. She is possible, and that is far more dangerous.

Areelu Vorlesh
28th level Half-Succubus Witch Priestess/Witch Queen 28 (20/8), Chaotic Evil
Tradition: Malefic 

Secondary Skill: Alchemist

S: 14
I: 18
W: 18
D: 18
C: 18
Ch: 19

Paralysis/Poison: 3
Petrify/Polymorph: 3  
Rod, Staff, or Wand: 4
Breath Weapon: 6
Spells: 5

AC: 0 (Bracers of Defense, +3 Amulet of Protection)
HP: 73
THAC0: 10

Weapon
Dagger of venom +4 1d4/1d3

Familiar: "Gimcrak" (Quasit, Enhanced)

Occult Powers
1st level: Familiar
7th level: Evil's Touch
13th level: Devil's Tongue
19th level: Curse

Witch Queen Powers:
Awesome Presence, Occult Eminece (Polymorph Other), A Thousand Faces, Timeless Body, Ninth Level Spells (4)

Spells
Cantrips: Arcane Mark, Detect Curse, Message, Summon Vermin
First level: Bewitch I, Cause Fear, Charm Person, Command, Increase Sex Appeal, Quicken Healing, Shattering the Hourglass, Silver Tongue
Second level: Ecstasy, Enthrall, Evil Eye, Hold Person, Invisibility, Phantasmal Spirit, Rite of Remote Seeing, Scare
Third level: Bestow Curse, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Dispel Magic, Feral Spirit, Fly, Tongues, Witch Wail
Fourth level: Abomination, Charm Monster, Confusion, Divine Power, Spiritual Dagger, Withering Touch
Fifth level: Baleful Polymorph, Feeblemind, Greater Command, Nightmare 
Sixth level: Break the Spirit, Mass Suggestion, Repulsion, True Seeing
Seventh level: Draw Forth the Soul, Eternal Charm Monster, Gate (Ritual)
Eighth level: Bewitch VIII, Damming Stare, Destroy Life, Wail of the Banshee
Ninth level: Bind the Soul, Imprisonment, Power Word Kill, Shapechange

Theme Song: Hexenhammer & Queen of the Infernal Pantheon

Areelu Vorlesh ultimately earns her place among the Witch Queens not because she commands lesser demons, but because she refused to accept the limits imposed by gods, planes, or tradition. Where other witches bargain, rule, or endure, Areelu experiments. She treats the cosmos as a problem to be solved and suffering as an acceptable reagent. In this, she represents a uniquely modern horror, not the ancient terror of Baba Yaga or the cold inevitability of Koliada, but the relentless conviction that reality itself is flawed and must be corrected, no matter the cost.

Character Creation Challenge: Day 19, Feiya

 I will admit it. I love Feiya. I "adopted" her once she was released for Pathfinder, and I brought her over to interact with my other witches. It has been great to see how she works (mechanically speaking) with my other witch types. I am not sure how she is in other people's games, but in mine, she has been wonderful. I'd be curious to hear if anyone else uses her. 

One of the great things about using her in my games is that she was one of my first play-test "Archwitches." 

The Archwitch began about this time last year. I got some notes, went to my stack of characters, and looked for one I hadn't already tagged as a potential witch priestess or witch queen. I got to Feiya and stopped. She just kinda fit the whole archwitch idea for me. 

But that is not all I have done with her. A couple of weeks ago, I began a Jackson, IL game with our Sunday group, and I used the Pathfinder iconics as first-level High School students. It is going much better than I ever expected. 

In any case, this is a great character.

I am still working out the finer details of the archwitch Advanced class. What I do know is they gain access to magic-user spells the base witch does not and I am fairly sure that they also loose access to some occult powers OR their selection becomes limited. Typically I associate Occult Powers with a Tradition and spell access with covens. I might codify that a little better in the future. 

The real question before me, though, is whether Archwitches should gain access to 9th-level Magic-user spells? I am inclined to say no, but have not decided.

Feiya
19th level Human Archwitch, Chaotic Good

Secondary Skill: Herbalist

S: 10
I: 17
W: 13
D: 14
C: 12
Ch: 18

Paralysis/Poison: 7
Petrify/Polymorph: 7  
Rod, Staff, or Wand: 8
Breath Weapon: 10
Spells: 9

AC: 4 (Robe of the Archwitch, Ring of Protection +1, Bracers of Protection +2)
HP: 39
THAC0: 14

Weapon
Staff of the Archwitch +2 1d6+2 (plus striking +1d4 per charge)

Familiar: Nine-tails Fox "Daji"

Occult Powers
1st level: Familiar
7th level: Speak to Plants & Animals
(13th level: Fae Shape (Hag))
(19th level: Curse)

Spells
Cantrips: Daze, Detect Curse, Object Reading, Sound
First level: Cause Fear, Charm Person, Chill Touch, Sickly, Mend Light Wounds, Shattering the Hourglass, Taunt*, Read Magic*
Second level: Agony, Evil Eye, Levitate, Rose Garden, Ghost Touch, Detect Evil*, Ray of Enfeeblement*
Third level: Bestow Curse, Bewitch III, Dispel Magic, Danse Macabre, Clairvoyance*, Monster Summoning I*
Fourth level: Animal Growth, Emotion, Withering Touch, Instant Karma, Confusion*
Fifth level:  Baleful Polymorph, Bull of Heaven, Eternal Charm Person, Animal Growth*
Sixth level: Eye Bite, True Seeing, Anti-Magic Shell*
Seventh level: Wave of Mutilation, Breath of the Goddess, Monster Summoning V*
Eighth level: Mystic Barrier, Seer Stone

Theme Song: A Forest (Feiya is absolutely a fan of The Cure.)

Again, I think this character is great. Spells marked with an asterisk* are ones from the Magic-user list chosen as an archwitch. Still working on finalizing the list of spells, but I like figuring them out in-game to see what works.

I also put her later Occult Powers in parentheses since I have not figured out what to do about them. If I use the Hierophant Druid as my model, then she should retain her powers. But if you use the Thief-Acrobat, then some abilities remain, but never get better in favor of new abilities. 

More testing is needed.

Kickstart Your Weekend: 5e Witch Content

 I mentioned before that one of the reasons I have not done a 5e Witch class myself is that I have wanted to have some joy in discovery of something new for D&D. If I make a 5e witch, then I am always comparing it to the new stuff to mine. 

So today there are two witch-related 5e Kickstarters I want to share. They are in their last days of funding, so get on these while you can.

Witchfyre: A Dark Fantasy RPG for 5E+ & Pathfinder

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/witchfyre/witchfyre-a-dark-fantasy-rpg?ref=theotherside

This looks like a lot of fun and has a great Folk Horror vibe. It is for 5e and Pathfinder, so that is really great.  And it comes with minis and a tarot set, so I am very intrigued. While the deluxe cover looks nice, I think I prefer the standard cover.

Any looks great, to bad I will have to wait a year to get it.

The Mystery of Witchhaven: A 5e Solo Adventure

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obviousmimic/the-mystery-of-witchhaven-a-5e-solo-adventure?ref=theotherside

I admit a little trepidation to this one. First, I am generally not a fan of Solo adventures. Nothing against them, I just prefer to play with a group. Secondly I have my own "Witch Haven" but the name is so common I should not be surprised when a variation of it gets used.

But this does look fun and I'd be remiss if I didn't check it out.

ETA: Another one!

Wicked Echoes - Whispers of the Samodiva: A 5E Supplement

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wicked-echoes/wicked-echoes-whispers-of-the-samodiva?ref=theotherside

Folk Horror is pretty hot right now. And this one looks great.  This is more horror than Witch focused, but that is fine by me!

--

Both look great and hopefully ship quickly.

#AtoZChallenge2024: P is for Pathfinder (and Paizo)

 A bit of a divergence today for, well, a bit of divergence.  Let me set the stage a bit. It is 2007, and Wizards of the Coast has decided to end the publication of the wildly successful Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition line and will now produce Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition.  D&D 3e was the edition that brought many back to the game. It was the edition that rekindled my enjoyment of the game after so many years. The idea that this would end only after 7 years (10 years per edition had been the average) seemed a bit odd.

In any case, 4th edition was released, and ... well, I'll talk about that on Sunday. But people were not ready to give up their 3rd Edition rules. Enter Paizo and Pathfinder!

Back when 3rd Edition was popular, Wizards of the Coast had licensed out the RPG Hobby's flagship gaming Magazines, Dragon and Dungeon, to Paizo, Inc. Here they helmed both magazines for many years and built a few 3rd Edition compatible products thanks to the Open Gaming Licence. In 2007 Wizards of the Coast announced 4th edition they did not renew the contract with Paizo to produce material. So Paizo went on to produce their own Pathfinder periodical, a set of publications similar to the Dungeon magazine. 

In 2008 D&D 4e started out with good sales, but soon they began to fall. Fall faster than expected. Paizo saw there was still a market for 3rd-edition compatible material, but they also wanted to make some changes. Thus, in 2009 the Pathfinder RPG rules were born.

So in 2009, we both did D&D 4e, which was not compatible with D&D 3x or any other D&D rules set. And Pathfinder, which was 95% compatible with D&D 3.x.  That last 5% is for the differences in the D&D 3 and 3.5 rules and the extras Pathfinder added in. But honestly, you could take your D&D 3.0 characters, fight D&D 3.5 monsters while the Game Master ran Pathfinder rules, and everyone would be fine.

Sadly, Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro has a very bad habit of firing people. The good news here though is that some of those people would go on to be hired by Paizo to work on Pathfinder. I mentioned before that Pathfinder is often thought of as being "Dungeons & Dragons 3.75" and there is a lot of truth to that. There is a lot here that feels like D&D 3.x perfected. They certainly had the advantage of 9 more years of playing and writing to help them out. 

Pathfinder then did the impossible, it dethroned D&D as the best selling Fantasy RPG. They beat D&D at their own game. If the OGL was one of the reasons 4e got made, it was 4e's failures that got 5e made. In the meantime, Pathfinder just kept moving along and doing its thing.

Pathfinder 2nd Edition came along in 2019. It was different. While the rules were still very much tied to the OGL and the system first created for D&D 3, these rules had more divergence. The Pathfinder 2nd Edition rules were created to go after the D&D 5th edition, which by this time had reclaimed its market superiority. 

This would change again in 2023 when Wizards announced they were going to "revoke" the OGL (something they actually could not do legally). Pathfinder relied on the safe harbor of the OGL (as do many publishers) so in April of 2023 they announced their Pathfinder 2e Remastered. This would be their 2e ruleset, rewritten to avoid using the OGL and instead their own ORC license. While this did not deal the blow to D&D 5e that Pathfinder did to 4e, it was enough to have some people (myself included) move from D&D 5e to Pathfinder 2eR. 

Pathfinder 2e and 2eR. I am still a sucker for a ribbon in my book.

I can find no significant differences between the Pathfinder 2e rules and the Pathfinder 2eR ones. I know Paizo is no longer selling the 2e rules in favor of the 2eR, which is as it should be. Pathfinder 2e is a fine game in its own right, and I like it better as long as I am not trying to compare it to either D&D 3e or 5e. And then only because they can all do the same sorts of games, just in different ways.

Tomorrow is Q Day, and I am going with a tried and true one. I will talk about the various Queens of Dungeons & Dragons.

#AtoZChallenge2024: Sunday Special, D&D 3rd Edition

This is another Sunday special to talk about another edition of D&D. Today, we are going to visit the year 2000 and the Third Edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

Dungeons & Dragons, 3rd Edition

Ok, let's get caught up. By 1997 I was married, had a new house, a new job and we were planning on starting a new family. I was also really, really burned out on D&D. I was tired of the nonsense that TSR kept pulling on their fans, I was tired of the infighting between the fans of different settings, and the power creep in the books was getting to be way too much. 

In April of 1997, TSR was not just in dire straits; they were failing life support and hemorrhaging money. In comes Wizards of the Coast, flush with cash from the success of Magic the Gathering. They buy TSR, and Dungeons & Dragons, and wipe out all of TSR's debt. 

For a while, things seemed, well, weird. Wizards ran TSR as an extension, and books were still produced using the TSR trade dress.  However, in late 1999, I got an email. I want to say it was December since that roughly corresponds to my 20th anniversary of playing. This email, which I was told was ultra-confidential, was the play test documents for the new Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition.

Then 2000 rolled around. On September 11, 2000 (not *that* 9/11) I went into my Favorite Local Game Store and bought a copy of the 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook. 

This edition was new. So new that unlike the past editions this one was not very backward compatible. This was fine since Wizards of the Coast (now dropping the TSR logo) had provided a conversion guide. The books were solid. All full color and the rules had expanded to fix some of the issues of previous versions of D&D. Armor class number got larger as the armor got stronger, as opposed to lower numbers being better. Charts for combat were largely eliminated, the number on the sheet was what you had to roll against. Everyone could multiclass, all the species (races) could be any class without restrictions, though some were better at it than others, and everyone had skills. 

But the most amazing thing about 3rd Edition D&D was that aside from a few protected monsters and names, Wizard of the Coast gave the whole thing away for free! Yes the books with art cost money. But the rules, just a text dump, were free for everyone to download. It was called the System Reference Document or SRD. It was all the rules so that 3rd-party publishers could produce their own D&D compatible material. With these rules you could play D&D without the books. There was no art and no "fluff" text, but everything was there.

Eventually the system was updated to a 3.5 with various levels of compatibility with 3.0. It was I still say 98% compatible, except for where it wasn't.

The books were larger, and had some new art, but they were still largely the same. They were close enough that originally I did not feel the need to buy them. But when the "Special Edition" leather-bound covers came out, I had to have them. Plus I am a sucker for a book with a ribbon. 

D&D 3rd edition had a very solid run from 2000 to about 2008. 

The rumor I have heard was that the higher-ups at Hasbro (who now owned WotC) demanded a 4th edition because they could not believe that WotC was just giving away the game in the SRD. The way the license was written though they just could not pull it. They tried this back in December 2022/January 2023 and the fans and the publishers revolted. Hasbro's stock fell and subscriptions to their online tool, DnDBeyond, tanked so bad that Hasbro not only backtracked, they dumped the whole 5th Edition SRD into the Creative Commons.  I might to cover that in detail someday.

D&D 3rd Edition, though, still lives on. The Pathfinder RPG was created by people who worked with WotC on D&D 3.x and is often called "D&D 3.75." Pathfinder 1st Edition was published in 2009 and directly competed with D&D 4. By many measures, it out-sold and outperformed D&D 4. Pathfinder 2nd Edition was published in 2019. While not as backward compatible as the 1st edition, we are now at a point where the D&D 3.x (also known as d20) rules are approaching 25 years old.  That is some longevity. 

I still enjoy 3rd Edition. I played it a lot with my kids and had a great time. It rekindled my love for D&D, and that was no small achievement.

Dungeons & Dragons 3.x Edition was also the edition which Wizards really embraced PDF format. So to my knowledge nearly everything is available at DriverThruRPG.

Tomorrow, we will be back to regular A to Z posting. It is M day and Monday, so you know I am going to talk about Monsters!

Mail Call: Gary's Other Grandkids

 Maybe "stepchildren" might be a better moniker. We are coming up on the first anniversary of WotC's attempt to murder the OGL 1.0. This sent many publishers (myself included) on various paths of re-discovery on what to do about it. Some looked for new licenses. Others stuck with the OGL 1.0 to show it can't be removed.

Myself? Well, it knocked the wind out of my sails, to be honest, and I have spent the better part of 2023 figuring out where I want to go next. But while I am over here contemplating the various Gods, others have moved on.  So here are a couple of recent purchases that embrace the two paths of the OGL.

Pathfinder and OSRIC

Undoubtedly two of the biggest success stories of the OGL and 3e era has been Pathfinder and OSRIC. Both gambled on the OGL and spent a long time enjoying the fruits of that gamble.

OSRIC of course used it to go back to "1st Edition style" play and Pathfinder to extend and enhance their own flavor of "3rd Edition style" play.

The OSRIC Players Book covers everything the Player needs to know. It is a great resource and a good replacement for your Player's Handbooks and Unearthed Arcana books that might be showing their wear.

This one embraces the OGL 1.0 and keeps it alive.

Pathfinder has taken a different path (sorry) and taken their own 2nd Edition and revised it into two new books for Players and GMs.

This uses the new OGL-free version of Pathfinder. I have not spotted many differences yet, but I am still working through the game. The new books combine the older OGL Corebook and some of the Advanced Player's Guide.

These are supposed to be the same system, Pathfinder 2nd Ed, so there are far more similarities than differences.

I am looking forward to delving deeper into both games.

 

Reviews: I'm Going to Hell!

 It's October, and my thoughts turn to scary things. And honestly, what could be scarier than a trip to Hell? There are a lot of great adventures to take your characters through. I can't review them all, but here are a few.

I DO still want to do my "A Barbarian in Hell" adventure sometime. These will help me out. 

So come with me. Let's go to Hell!

666: The Number of the Beast

PDF, 20 Pages, DMsGuild. $6.66

This one is fun. It's 20 pages long, and it takes its inspiration from both Dante's Inferno and Heavy Metal music. Sounds like my kind of mix, to be honest! This one also takes cues from a few different video games. This works if you imagine that your characters are already dead and in Hell and not traveling there as a "Soujurn in Hell."

This PDF sets up seven "boss battles" for characters in Hell. It can be used as described or as a supplement to an ongoing campaign in Hell, which is what I am using it for.

This is obviously for D&D 5e via the DMsGuild.

Nine Hells Adult Coloring Book

PDF, 48 Pages. B&W art (by design). $6.95 PDF / $8.98 Print

This is overtly a coloring book, but it is also a great resource for the Pathfinder version of Hell and stat blocks for the rulers of each level. Again this could be in the form of a "boss battle" or as a resource. Buy it for the coloring book, but stay for the backgrounds, lore, and stat-blocks.

The art from Jacob E. Blackmon is excellent as well, and there are some pieces here that would be a lot of fun to color. Now, where did my kids leave their crayons?

 

Emirikol's Guide to Devils

PDF, 246 Pages. Color art. $15.00

From Sean McGovern, of The Power Score RPG blog.  So right away I knew this was going to be a well-researched product. Sean has been one of the best at deep lore D&D research in the blogging scene for years. He is meticulous and encompassing on any topic he tackles.

This is a massive volume at 246 pages and covers the Hells and its inhabitants. It takes D&D lore from as far back 1st/2nd Edition (I noticed that details from "Politics of Hell" are not really included though, but everything else is) and tries to bring them all together. It leans heavily into the 5th edition versions of Hells (naturally), and the book is presented like many of the newer 5e books, with notes from Emirikol the Chaotic and Natasha the Dark. 

The information makes for a great read, and there are some details I really enjoy. I like how the author explains the shift from Demon to Devil to Fiend for Succubi. There are plenty of stat blocks, which is good if you don't have all the devils and Archdevils. And there are plenty of new devils and backgrounds on playing characters associated with devils and the Hells.

The art is a mixed bag, as with any DMsGuild product, and I am not 100% on board with all the lore choices made here.  But there is enough text and information here to keep me busy. Plus any choice I don't like I can simply say "well, Emirikol got it wrong" or even "This was from Natasha when she was younger and not yet Iggwilv."

In any case, it is good to have multiple points of view on something as complex as the Nine Hells.

I do wish there was a printer-friendly version. This would be nice in my big red binder of devil information.

Dalor's Guide to Devils & Demons

PDF, 127 pages, Color art. PDF $19.99 / Print $34.99

Now this one was a bit of a pleasant surprise to me.  It is for 5e so I was expecting something akin to the DMsGuild products I had been reviewing. But this one reminds me of the best of the OSR in terms of look and feel, with solid 5e design and layout. Really the best of both worlds. The vibe I get from it is like the old Mayfair Demons series.

This book gives you a ton of new demons and devils and plenty of background and lore for them. There is even a fiendish language and alphabet. I am a little surprised this one doesn't have more sales because it is just a treasure trove of great stuff.

There are new demon lords, new arch-devils, cults and contracts, and even a new class. A little bit of everything really. 

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See you in Hell!

Kickstart Your Weekend: Cottages & Cerberus

Last year my family and I were playing a D&D 5e game, and we got to talking about our other 5e game. I had asked them what they wanted for their characters "after level 20."  My youngest wants to take over a town and fill it with artificers and build a community of "makers." My oldest wants his Dragonborn to build a mighty temple to the Platinum Dragon in his role as the "Sword of Bahamut."  When they turned around and asked me what I wanted for my NPC/GMPC witch character I said I wanted her to retire with her cat, have a garden of about 1000 different herbs, drink tea, and live that 100% Cottage-core life.  I had done all the "big endings" before.

Well it turns out that you can do that as well.

Cottages & Cerberus

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cottagesandcerberus/cottages-and-cerberus-new-system-pf2e-5e-support?ref=theotherside

This game is described as "A new monster hunting cottage core TTRPG system with PF2 & 5E compatible bestiary."

Sounds fun for the right groups really. 

Honestly I am happy that game designers are taking leaps and doing new things with their RPGs. This won't be everyone's cup of tea, but for someone out there this is the perfect game.

Given the number of pledges it has so far it seems like there is a pretty good market for this. 

The art looks great and there are all sorts of add-ons to enrich your current game. I am considering both the D&D 5e and Pathfinder 2e digital versions.  It might be worth it just for the stats of the "Leviathanus Rex." Imagine a Godzilla-sized narwhal. 

There is a 63-page preview and a character sheet.  I rather like the idea of "spoons" as a personal resource.

They are doing great so far and I wish them the utmost success.

Monstrous Mondays: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Bestiaries

I have a few projects to wrap up then I will be getting back into my own Basic Bestiary, but until then I am enjoying some non-5e options as well.

In particular, the new(er) Pathfinder 2nd Edition Bestiaries.

I ordered the Bestiary 2 from Paizo's website just before the OGL news broke last month and right before they became slammed with orders.  It took it a little bit, but this past weekend I got new box in the mail.

I enjoyed it so much I ran to my FLGS to grab the Bestiary 3!

The art, layout and presentation are all fantastic. There are plenty of new monsters and old favorites here. The old favorites even get a few new twists to make them all feel like new.

They all look great next to each other, and I am a sucker for a ribbon in a book.

Looking forward to giving my "Second Campaign" a spin with some Pathfinder rules.

Converting D&D 5 to Pathfinder 2: Character Conversion

This isn't going to be about a full conversion. Mostly because I feel the best conversions are done in situ by the GM. 

Today I want to talk about converting one of my D&D 5e campaigns, "Into the Nentir Vale."

A bit of background.  Into the Nentir Vale began as, obviously enough, a D&D 4e game.  I ran the intro adventures for it with a group, and the reactions were mixed. I tried again with some Pathfinder, a one-shot, but it never quite jelled the way I wanted it to.  Fast forward a few years, and D&D 5 was released. I did a series of posts on sunk cost analysis/bias and conversions leading up to it:

• RPGS and the Sunk Costs
• BECMI/4e Conversion, Ghost Tower of the Witchlight Fens
• Into the Nentir Vale (was BECMI/4e Conversion)
• Into the Nentir Vale, 5e Style

Once these were all done, the adventures went on under 5e.  Well...we know how this will turn out.

Somehow it seems fitting that I am converting it again to Pathfinder, this time 2e.

The adventures themselves are the HPE adventures from D&D 4e. Essentially I am removing about 1/3 of the content to make it play a bit faster.  I am scaling the monsters and encounters to fit a 20th level maximum (vs. a 30th-level one), but in many ways, the conversion between 4e and Pathfinder 2e is easier than converting between D&D 4e and D&D 5e.

The Character: Rowan McGowan

Rowan is my test character here. She is a reoccurring NPC and one I used as my internal tests of various combat situations.

Like the campaign itself, Rowan has seen some history and conversions. She began life as a witch for D&D 3.5. Her concept is a "Witch Knight" or "Witch Guardian."  This is a witch that takes up the sword to protect others, typically of their faith and/or other witches. Rowan is a protector of the "Old Faith." Some of her exploits found a home in my Pagan Witch book, for example. 

In D&D 5, Rowan was a multi-classed Warlock (Hexblade)/Paladin. Her background was an acolyte to cover her growing up in a religious order of witches. She picked up the blade when she saw others of her kind being killed.  Her devotion is like a Paladin, just to a different cause. Multi-classing her was pretty easy to do since Charisma is the prime ability of both Warlocks and Paladins.

When converting her to Pathfinder there were a number of key differences.

First, while warlock was a compromise in D&D 5 (I wanted a core book class) I can do a proper witch in Pathfinder.  But witch's main ability is Intelligence in Pathfinder (though I will argue with some authority that it should be Charisma). Also Pathfinder 2e does multiclassing VERY differently than what D&D 3.x/Pathfinder and D&D 5e do it. Interestingly enough, it is more similar to how D&D 4 did it.

In 5e Rowan's first level was Warlock (Witch) and then she took a level in Paladin. I have been leapfroging the classes. She is level 4 now with 2 levels in both Warlock and Paladin.

In Pathfinder Her class is Witch. I had her take Weapon Proficiency at level 1 so she could use simple weapons.  At level 2 she is still a witch but I had her take the Champion Dedication feat. This "multi-classes" her into Champion, the Pathfinder version of a Paladin. This is similar to the Multi-class feats of 4e.

Here she continues to 4th level.

The progression is more straightforward in Pathfinder with fewer options in the beginning.  The progression in 5e is less straightforward with lots of options. 5e Rowan has more spells for example, but her maximum casting choices will be limited at higher levels. Pathfinder Rowan will have access to much more powerful witch spells, even if she has fewer right now.

Rowan McGowanWitch 4

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Chaotic Good

Medium

Human

Versatile Heritage

Humanoid

Perception +7;
Languages Common, Draconic, Elven
Skills Acrobatics +1, Arcana +9, Athletics +4, Diplomacy +10, Intimidation +10, Lore: Scribing +7, Occultism +7, Religion +7, Society +7, Survival +7
Str +4, Dex +1, Con +0, Int +1, Wis +1, Cha +4
Items Half Plate

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AC 22; Fort +6, Ref +7, Will +9
HP 32

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Speed 20 feet
Melee Greatsword +10 (Versatile P), Damage 1d12+4 S
Devoted Guardian Requirements Your last action was to Raise a Shield. You adopt a wide stance, ready to defend both yourself and your chosen ward. Select one adjacent creature. As long as your shield is raised and the creature remains adjacent to you, the creature gains a +1 circumstance bonus to their AC, or a +2 circumstance bonus if the shield you raised was a tower shield.
Occult Prepared Spells DC 17, attack +7; 2nd ; 1st Command, Mage Armor; Cantrips Chill Touch, Daze, Mage Hand, Read Aura, Protect Companion
Arcane Innate Spells DC 20, attack +10; Cantrips Detect Magic
Arcane Innate Spells DC 20, attack +10; Cantrips Shield
Focus Spells (1 points) Pact Broker Range 30 feet; Targets 1 creature Saving Throw Will; Duration sustained up to 1 minute You offer to broker a pact of peace. If the target accepts and doesn't take hostile actions against you and your allies, you take a –1 status penalty to Deception checks to Lie to them. If they refuse and take a hostile action against you or an ally, they must attempt a Will save. If they accepted the offer and then take a hostile action against you or an ally, they must attempt a Will save and treat the result as one category worse. Regardless of the outcome, the target is then temporarily immune for 1 minute. Success The target is unaffected. Failure The target takes a –1 status penalty to attack and damage rolls against you and your allies. Critical Failure The target takes a –2 status penalty to attack and damage rolls against you and your allies.
Phase Familiar Range 60 feet; Targets your familiar You draw upon your patron's power to momentarily shift your familiar from its solid, physical form into an ephemeral version of itself shaped of mist. Your familiar gains resistance 5 to all damage and is immune to precision damage. These apply only against the triggering damage. Heightened (+1) Increase the resistance by 2.
Additional Feats Arcane Sense, Arcane Tattoos, Champion Dedication, Root Magic, Student of the Canon
Additional Specials Arcane Tattoo (Shield), Champion Archetype Cause (Liberator Cause), Familiar, Hexes, Patron (Pacts), Tenets of Good, Witch Spellcasting

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Thankfully I still had her PDF from D&D Beyond. 

There are subtle differences to be sure. Pathfinder Rowan has better AC and HP compared to her D&D 5 counterpart on paper. I am not sure if those will make much of a difference though in play. 

I knew 5e (and 3.5s) Rowan had a tattoo on her shoulder blade but I was not certain of what yet. In Pathfinder I figure it is the symbol of her Goddess Desna.

• Rowan McGowan, D&D 5e (PDF)
• Rowan McGowan, Pathfinder 2e (PDF)

While putting these sheets in her folder I noticed I had also started AD&D 2nd Ed, Castles & Crusades, and DragonAGE versions of her started as well!

The conversion was pretty fast, to be honest. These systems still share DNA. In many ways, the Pathfinder version is much closer to my original concept of her so I am pretty happy about that. I will need to see how I can convert the other characters now.

Converting monsters will just be a one-for-one swap out.