9 minutes ago, sevick said:

Oh I know I just didn't want my comments to come off as "This is what u need to change" but rather "here are some ideas you might try."

There are nice ideas too. Ain't saying I'm closed to everything that was shared. In fact, some of my rules were already altered since the first release and some were influenced by other people from the start.

I realize I may sound on the defensive here, something like : "This are my ideas, if you don't like them, I don't care!", which is not how I feel about this thread.

I'm not saying my Magic system is the best it could be. It may change to get even better. What I really need to keep from Pathfinder regarding its magic system is:

- Unique spells: While the idea of generic, easily modified spells is a cool idea, I don't think it fits the setting.

- Slow progresssion: I don't want spellcaster to be able to unlesh all their powerful magic from the start of the campaign. I want something that reflects the Pathfinder progression. Taking off the option to "rush in" magic skill to get powerful as quick as possible was the goal in making something linked to game time.

- Hard Choices: In Pathfinder, you have choices to make regarding spell selection (even more since in Pf, there is memorization). Somes creatures are resistant to certains spells effects or elements. I just don't want caster to see one spell as being the best at all situation. In my last session, my wizard, that was using mostly burning hands so far, fall back to magic missile after realizing that some target was pretty though and the low damage output from magic missile gave a better results than his normal high damage spell.

Any ideas that are in touch with these 3 concepts are more than welcome!

What's I'm struggling right now mostly is the scaling of spells. In Pathfinder, variables was very different from the start to the end of a character's life. He had about 10 HP at the start and ends up like 200HP by the end. That scaling was big turn off for me by the way. Being a vetaran soldier shouldn't allow to to survive a 20 stories high fall... anyway... Now, what to do with end-game spell. If Burning hands, a first level spell, deals Characteristic+3 damage, I can't have Meteor swarm to Characteristic + 30 damage as it would one-shot everything. I don't intend to reproduce the balance issue of pathfinder, when the wizard could easily eclipse the rest of the party by end game, but I still want to have interesting high level spell. I'm lucky so far as they are just closing their second session.

That's nicely spelled out what you are looking for. Some ideas:

Slow progression: Each spell has a rank that is equal to the casting difficulty. You can only easily cast spells with rank equal or lower to your rank in the magic skill. Optionally: you can spend a story point to cast a spell of higher rank (i.e. difficulty), but the GM gets to upgrade the difficulty of the casting check once for each rank that the spell is higher than the magic skill.

Unique Spells: For each rank of magic skill, the player can proposed a spell modelled on existing Pathfinder spells. That are the spells they know. More spells can be gained via talents. Alternatively: use free-form casting, but instead of strain your are limited to magic skill rank times casting characteristic per day.

Hard choices: Provide the adversaries with immunities and vulnerabilities like in Pathfinder. That's actually keeping with world lore.

14 minutes ago, JohnChildermass said:

That's nicely spelled out what you are looking for. Some ideas:

Slow progression: Each spell has a rank that is equal to the casting difficulty. You can only easily cast spells with rank equal or lower to your rank in the magic skill. Optionally: you can spend a story point to cast a spell of higher rank (i.e. difficulty), but the GM gets to upgrade the difficulty of the casting check once for each rank that the spell is higher than the magic skill.

Unique Spells: For each rank of magic skill, the player can proposed a spell modelled on existing Pathfinder spells. That are the spells they know. More spells can be gained via talents. Alternatively: use free-form casting, but instead of strain your are limited to magic skill rank times casting characteristic per day.

Hard choices: Provide the adversaries with immunities and vulnerabilities like in Pathfinder. That's actually keeping with world lore.

I like that Slow Progression suggestion. For now, most spells has Easy and Average spell difficulty. Having it adjusted based on the skill is a nice idea so you could risk casting something of higher level and at some point, casting 1st level spell could even become simple checks. Again, that would reward player rushing in their Magic skill, which is not bad but in few sessions only, that would still make them being able to cast end-game spells. But I'm gonna give it some thoughts as I find the idea still interesting. I'll probably come up with something inspired from this.

Unique spells: I think 5 ranks, which means 5 custom spells is a bit restrictive for the versatility I want to give my game. But I still love the idea. While it's not what I'm looking for, I still its a good "hybrid" between the two system. Think I'll include this idea as an "light-rules alternative" to what the chapter will be proposing. Your free-form casting is an interesting idea for the more "spontaneous" caster such as Sorcerers. I like it

Hard Choices: I think Pathfinder got them right. Its just a matter of adding such resistances to adversaries. I think I got already a good idea on how to bring up spell resistance and the like.

2 minutes ago, Korlall said:

Unique spells: I think 5 ranks, which means 5 custom spells is a bit restrictive for the versatility I want to give my game. But I still love the idea. While it's not what I'm looking for, I still its a good "hybrid" between the two system. Think I'll include this idea as an "light-rules alternative" to what the chapter will be proposing. Your free-form casting is an interesting idea for the more "spontaneous" caster such as Sorcerers. I like it

Oh, maybe I explained it badly: I meant a number of spells equal to the characteristic per rank. So with Intellect 3, it's 3 spells at each rank (for a total of 15 when the skill reaches rank 5).

Just now, JohnChildermass said:

Oh, maybe I explained it badly: I meant a number of spells equal to the characteristic per rank. So with Intellect 3, it's 3 spells at each rank (for a total of 15 when the skill reaches rank 5).

Oh right. It isn't the same thing the way I saw it

Personnaly, I love the spellbook bookeeping with scribing scroll and all, but I can really see the value of what you're proposing. That's why I intend to include something like this for alternate rules... Which is funny because it's mostly making your idea an anlternate rule for a proposed alternate rule for Genesys

Unique spells: In stead of having one list of additional difficulties that apply too all attacks spells you could have tack them on to spells here and there and just ignore the addition effects tables. For instance I thought it would be cool if I could make a summon creature permanent. So I added a +4 difficulty to the summon spell to do so. Permanent meaning no duration but as soon as it was dead it was dead. This higher difficulty would bring the players to come up ideas for making it easier, such as finding a wizard academy with all the resources available to him, allowing him to reduce the difficulty by one, much like the Special Modifications star wars book only with mages instead of mechanics.

Slow progression : Place ceilings on spells, like "to a maximum of x". Increase the amount of base damage the spell does in higher levels. For instance I have a table I go by for this:

Etc...

For spells with damage lower than 1d4 I use just the Characteristic as the base damage.

Hard Choices: As said before resistance is a good way. Also as in the above suggestion add difficulty options to individual spells to get more effects. A spell doesn't have to have the exact same functionality in the pathfinder core. Perhaps with the Burning hands spell you can get a high Burn quality than you would with a fireball, that in turn would have more blast than burning hands. You come across a a troll as a mage you will be glad you picked up that burning hands spell rather than waiting for the fireball spell.

Idk if i can help you, eventhough I love Pathfinder also. These years I've been thing about changes in the Path system, I think a lot of mechanics are really outdated to create an epic fantasy adventure, and I like how Genesys resolve some things.

I can talk about enemies difficult and creation, i can talk about the power by level, how casters are powerful, how baddly is 20 levels, etc.

Anyway, one thing I really really love in Pathfinder is the character customization, the class, archetypes, races, etc. It's something I really want to bring to me even playing more Genesys in the future. Things like "The Elf can choose between Fey Magic : ... or Orc Slayer : ..." in the character creation.

1 minute ago, Bellyon said:

Idk if i can help you, eventhough I love Pathfinder also. These years I've been thing about changes in the Path system, I think a lot of mechanics are really outdated to create an epic fantasy adventure, and I like how Genesys resolve some things.

I can talk about enemies difficult and creation, i can talk about the power by level, how casters are powerful, how baddly is 20 levels, etc.

Anyway, one thing I really really love in Pathfinder is the character customization, the class, archetypes, races, etc. It's something I really want to bring to me even playing more Genesys in the future. Things like "The Elf can choose between Fey Magic : ... or Orc Slayer : ..." in the character creation.

You can surely help. Look at the doc and tell me your impressions. This is far from a completed product so there are lots of stuff that haven't gone through yet, such as species, Racial features, talents, magic item creation rules and so much.

Since I'm running my game as I convert the system, I'm mostly focused in what my group is actually needing and encountering. That is why each section seems unfinished.

My player party consists of a Dwarf Paladin, Human Wizard, Aasimar Cleric and a Tiefling Rogue. We are running the Adventure Path "Wrath of the Righteous". They are starting the book 1, part 2. So far, they received 40 XP since character creation.

Ok guys I just had an awesome idea. I don't know if you will like it as much as I do but what if you added difficulty modifiers that added new effects to individual spells just as I said before only make a talent like this:

Name: Spell Weaver, Activation: Passive, Ranked: Yes, Tier: 3, Description: This talent allows you to access the spells 1 difficulty modifier per rank of Spell Weaver. For example 1st rank allows you to use +1 difficulty mods, rank 2 allows you +2 difficulty mods.

This way mages can still cast cool things only it forces him to get more talents if he wants to give his spells that little extra flavor. Not to mention it stops PC from having access to powerful modifiers at the start all while giving spell casters some much need insensitive to focus on more than just on their core spell casting characteristic. Also this is a way narratively to show how mages need to experiment and practice the spells they have be for altering them.

After few hours of playing, my group and I realized that Genesys and Pathfinder are too much different to achieve the kind of result we wanted. When we started playing Genesys in the Pathfinder campaign "Wrath of the Righteous", we though that we just had to creature the species that weren't Core Genesys. Then, after few battles, we were not satisfied by the magic system. We tweaked it and the result was ok, but that meant to design lot of spells. Problem is that adversaries creation also become more complex. Then, to give more flavor, we wanted class features from Pathfinder, so we started to design Talents that mimics those. With the time, what seems to be a little project became somthing huge.

At first, We wanted to go Genesys because for first, we are playing as play by post and Genesys was better adapted for such play as it didn't require any visual support. But with all these tweaks we personnaly felt required but in the end, the "to-do list" kept getting bigger and bigger. In the end, we realized it would probably be easier to simply adapt Pathfinder for Discord in some way than converting Genesys to Pathfinder.
While of course, we could have kept Genesys mostly as written, simply adding species and templates, this wasn't enough for us.

So there it is. I'm stopping the work on this document. Not sure I'll ever continue working on it again...

1 hour ago, Korlall said:

After few hours of playing, my group and I realized that Genesys and Pathfinder are too much different to achieve the kind of result we wanted. When we started playing Genesys in the Pathfinder campaign "Wrath of the Righteous", we though that we just had to creature the species that weren't Core Genesys. Then, after few battles, we were not satisfied by the magic system. We tweaked it and the result was ok, but that meant to design lot of spells. Problem is that adversaries creation also become more complex. Then, to give more flavor, we wanted class features from Pathfinder, so we started to design Talents that mimics those. With the time, what seems to be a little project became somthing huge.

At first, We wanted to go Genesys because for first, we are playing as play by post and Genesys was better adapted for such play as it didn't require any visual support. But with all these tweaks we personnaly felt required but in the end, the "to-do list" kept getting bigger and bigger. In the end, we realized it would probably be easier to simply adapt Pathfinder for Discord in some way than converting Genesys to Pathfinder.
While of course, we could have kept Genesys mostly as written, simply adding species and templates, this wasn't enough for us.

So there it is. I'm stopping the work on this document. Not sure I'll ever continue working on it again...

That is sad to hear. Maybe you will try my version when it's complete . All though I wouldn't be as good as you at the Photoshop aspect of it.

Photoshop makes great art, but doesn't make the game good

It's sad to see your efforts end. But I am afraid that's what happens when trying to convert a system instead of just the setting. The tasks start mounting, because instead of doing the necessary adjustment, one starts rebuilding everything. That can get quite daunting. Pathfinder was never my cup of tea, since the system compounds all the bugs from D&D 3 and makes them even worse. What I loved most about D&D was the 1990ies, when TSR was publishing colorful innovative settings that didn't always fit to the D&D paradigma, but were most interesting like Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Dragonlance, the Historical Series. Since that time the only other new setting that was published was Eberron. Good luck with Wrath of the Righteous!

3 hours ago, Korlall said:

Photoshop makes great art, but doesn't make the game good

Actually its a good artist that makes good art via photoshop and the same can be said for any RPG GM. My group is currently going through the slog that is Path of The Righteous. I don't blame the campaign, its Mathfinder and I am sure the GM is treating it as it's intended to be. But even though this GM also GM's Star Wars, he doesn't bring of the narrative aspects of Star Wars into the tediously tactical miniatures game that is Mathfinder. There is no artistry in Mathfinder and, while under the influence of Mathfinder, he is unable or possibly unwilling to break the mindset that would make it a better (but never a good) game. So I suffer and wait for Star Wars to start back up.

I agree it's hard, like i've said, the mechanics are very very different between these system and I love Pathfinder, but i'm insatisfied with the mini systems (adversaries, progression, magic itens, magic system, wealth, combat, etc.). It's not epic enough for what i'm looking for and sometimes to hard. Genesys works with a better system for a lot of things imo. The combat is better, wealth isn't a big problem, progression is better, magic seems better, etc.

I believe that Pathfinder 2.0 should be brave and try new mechanics, like D&D4-5 tried to do. DD-Path has a big conceitual problem cause there are players with different desires and expectatives. Some want to play it like a Lord of the Rings saga. Some want to play it like a band of mercenaries killing everything and farming gold. Some want to play like a hybrid from the classic games like World of Warcraft. Each game style, im my opinion, demands a particular set of micro mechanics inside the system. Just a few works very well in all of them, like the adversaries in 3 levels of power (minion, rival and nemesis), which is a great mechanic to this kind of game.

So, the setting is bigger than the system after all. It's possible to play something like LotR using dozens of different systems. And I believe that Genesys works better for me than Pathfinder to create this kind of adventure. But I could work with something hybrid between them with no problem at all. I like the dice system from Genesys, but I like the customization from Path. I like the adversaries mechanics from Genesys, but I like the monsters from Path. But after all I guess it would be a 70% Genesys/30% Pathfinder. Mechanic from Genesys, setting from Pathfinder.

And i'm not sure how it's in Genesys, but I loved the missions system from Star Wars. I guess it brings something very cool to the system instead the xp per monsters/trap/talk. XP per missions looks far away better to this epic fantasy game. Left the players choose what they want to do to receive xp/gold/itens.

11 minutes ago, Bellyon said:

I believe that Pathfinder 2.0 should be brave and try new mechanics, like D&D4-5 tried to do.

Unless pathfinder goes the route of Mutants and Masterminds and ditches the stifling and regressive level system then they will continue with the same problems that have plagued D&D since the (very) beginning.

13 minutes ago, Bellyon said:

And i'm not sure how it's in Genesys, but I loved the missions system from Star Wars.

Most rules systems give out XP for the same types of things as Star Wars and Genesys is inline with that methodology. The handing out of XP for making things dead is pretty my limited to d20 and OSR games.

20 minutes ago, lyinggod said:

Unless pathfinder goes the route of Mutants and Masterminds and ditches the stifling and regressive level system then they will continue with the same problems that have plagued D&D since the (very) beginning.

I'm not sure if it's the only way to resolve the problem, but I agree with you. 20 levels breaks the leveling in disgusting fractions... and the characters starts the game (lvl 1) too weak. It takes a long time to became a cool hero in DD. It's better to start stronger and the progression be less aggressive.

14 minutes ago, Bellyon said:

I'm not sure if it's the only way to resolve the problem, but I agree with you. 20 levels breaks the leveling in disgusting fractions... and the characters starts the game (lvl 1) too weak. It takes a long time to became a cool hero in DD. It's better to start stronger and the progression be less aggressive.

I haven't seen any level based system that is doesn't suffer from this problem. It's the nature of the concept of defining a character by a single level and trying to force everything to be balanced relative to this. The starting power level of the character isn't reflective of D&D's primary failing. After all, Dark Sun showed that characters don't have to start off weak. Gestaulting attempted to fix the weak character issue but was still limited by the level system, so its major accomplishment was primarily in making things more complicated and burdensome. Genesys isn't just an excellent replacement for d20 because it narrative, its an excellent replacement because it not level based and being narrative just makes it even better.

5 minutes ago, lyinggod said:

I haven't seen any level based system that is doesn't suffer from this problem. It's the nature of the concept of defining a character by a single level and trying to force everything to be balanced relative to this. The starting power level of the character isn't reflective of D&D's primary failing. After all, Dark Sun showed that characters don't have to start off weak. Gestaulting attempted to fix the weak character issue but was still limited by the level system, so its major accomplishment was primarily in making things more complicated and burdensome. Genesys isn't just an excellent replacement for d20 because it narrative, its an excellent replacement because it not level based and being narrative just makes it even better.

I agree that Genesys is better, but just talking about levels, Darksun do a great job, if i'm not wrong, characters already start in level 3 or 4, isn't? But my thought is about this, there's no reason to characters in DD start too weak to be the standard. And despite the game has levels, in no way it's said that all levels should have the same impact in the power progression. It's not too crazy to think about a stronger first level and some milestones, like every 3 or 4 levels. It's not too crazy like it seems. And no need to create a cap level also. So instead of start in level 3 or 4 everytime, why this isn't the standard?

13 minutes ago, Bellyon said:

I agree that Genesys is better, but just talking about levels, Darksun do a great job, if i'm not wrong, characters already start in level 3 or 4, isn't? But my thought is about this, there's no reason to characters in DD start too weak to be the standard. And despite the game has levels, in no way it's said that all levels should have the same impact in the power progression. It's not too crazy to think about a stronger first level and some milestones, like every 3 or 4 levels. It's not too crazy like it seems. And no need to create a cap level also. So instead of start in level 3 or 4 everytime, why this isn't the standard?

Characters have to start somewhere. 1st level characters are not as awesome as 4th level just as starting characters in Genesys (or any point based system) aren't as awesome as characters with 100 xp into skills and abilities. Also 1st level Heroes are better then the common 0 lvl person. Weakness is relative to who is above and below you. You seem to be addressing this from a character power level perspective which has nothing to do with the point I was trying to make. I was referring to how level systems grossly inhibit character growth but not from a "do more damage" perspective but from a depth of development perspective. Personally, I could care less about how "powerful or damage dealing" a character is. I apologize for not being clear.

27 minutes ago, lyinggod said:

Characters have to start somewhere. 1st level characters are not as awesome as 4th level just as starting characters in Genesys (or any point based system) aren't as awesome as characters with 100 xp into skills and abilities. Also 1st level Heroes are better then the common 0 lvl person. Weakness is relative to who is above and below you. You seem to be addressing this from a character power level perspective which has nothing to do with the point I was trying to make. I was referring to how level systems grossly inhibit character growth but not from a "do more damage" perspective but from a depth of development perspective. Personally, I could care less about how "powerful or damage dealing" a character is. I apologize for not being clear.

But I'm not talking about do more damage. It's a problem from DD that the hp/damage/ac should increase every level. I'm talking about start the gaming being able to do cool things and to feel stronger than an average citizen since the begining. In D&D/Pathfinder somethings the character just receive along the first levels (3, 4, 5). You know what i'm talking about, a goblin can kill a character in the first level. And a group of goblins in the first level in DD/Path are stronger than a group of goblins in Genesys, and this kind of detail helps the players feel stronger.

I'm not saying it's easy to change the first level of Pathfinder cause it'd impact the all system and the challange rating. It's easier to start at the level 3 or 4 in fact. What I'm saying is, in a better system or a better version of Pathfinder, like Genesys, is easier to create a better initial level. It's easy to create a pool of xp or idk and let the character buy what he want to start feeling stronger. I love the initial customization of Pathfinder, both with race and classes, but i don't like the lack of power in the begining.

10 hours ago, lyinggod said:

Genesys isn't just an excellent replacement for d20 because it narrative, its an excellent replacement because it not level based and being narrative just makes it even better.

This is so true! I like fantasy gaming, but most systems out there either have levels inherited from D&D or they have other drawbacks, like a rules system that feels overly complicated (I am looking at you Mythras, Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of) or a setting that is practically baked in (like The Dark Eye). But Genesys finally seems to be a system that can support fantasy gaming and makes me feel comfortable ruleswise (my comfort level is around WoD complexity).

I just uploaded a WIP of my Pathfinder setting just in case your interested. Enough is there to get a feeling of my take on converting Pathfinder.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/266226-pathfinder-to-genesys-conversion-formulas-and-setting/

11 hours ago, sevick said:

I just uploaded a WIP of my Pathfinder setting just in case your interested. Enough is there to get a feeling of my take on converting Pathfinder.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/266226-pathfinder-to-genesys-conversion-formulas-and-setting/

I'll look into that for sure. Being split between my actual Pathfinder game, my Android-themed enesys game and my PAthfinder conversion for Genesys, You probably have more energy than me to put into such thing.

Mostly dead or all dead, I wonder.

At first glance, PF 2nd might provide a more fruitful soil for a conversion. It does seem more easily convertible, for what it's worth.