3 weeks back we had a reunion with my old roleplaying group, apart from hopefully restarting the campaign again, very nice to see my old buddies again, everybody kinda lost touch after my flatmate moved out (after the fire), as our place was sort of the hub where we'd meet. Funny how that works cause my flatmate moved in with one of the other guys and that didn't turn into a hub. Ah well.
Anyway I had passed the DM of the group some links to PathFinder some months back, cause I heard some good things about it here on PD. We used to play 3.0/3.5 (with a very short initial period of 2.0, even) so I figured the transition would be easier than to 4th ed. and all the rules are open and for free so that's nice. He still bought the books though--with his job as a psychiatrist (gonna work with the criminally insane, even!) he can spare the money--OTOH I should probably at least get the Player's Manual cause it's nicer than looking through a PDF on a laptop.
It was a bit chaotic for the first time, everybody getting used to (somewhat) new rules and I had to select spells for my character (Wiz 9) about 1/3rd through because the first part was very much railroading (annoying because it wasn't entirely clear so at some point I just stopped trying to come up with creative reactions to the situation) picked up from where we left off years ago, as good as we remembered [funny how much we still knew, including the erroneous description of the monster we had been battling], right away pretty much killing the party with an earthquake collapse in the Underdark ("no you didn't have Stoneshape memorized"--"I went into the
Underdark, right, must have slipped my mind!!").
This railroading was so we could reappear in some sort of plane of Hell, where we met an old party member (played by the guy who just kept killing off his chars, the rest of the team has been the same since level 1). Though this particular incarnation of him was my favourite anyway so that's good--just that he's a sort-of vampire and the Cleric and the Elf don't like that very much. Which is actually how he got killed, got on fire during a battle and me screaming for water to put him out, the Elf handed me a bottle of holy water ... Which reminds me, my character still needs to get revenge for that "prank" (unfortunately the Elf's player doesn't handle being fucked with very well).
Anyway, at some point I had to just select a bunch of spells from some other (dead) wizard's spellbook cause I had lost mine (it's still with my crushed corpse in the Underdark). I don't think a wizard can just use another one's spellbook like that, but we were clearly winging it or something. So then I got the message my wizard turned into an Evoker during the down time (?? has been a universalist, always, even though he liked fireballs and splosions, but everybody like those right). I think I'm going to get back to the DM about that one next time because I don't like having forbidden schools. Selecting those spells took some time from being involved in the game (the rest continued, but I really can't pay attention to two things at once as well anymore, very stressful).
BTW that reminds me, the Pathfinder spell list is slightly different from the 3.0 and 3.5 ones. I'm fairly sure I could argue to just redo the selection for next time (hopefully including no longer being an Evoker). Oh and did I mention I had to select at least one fire-related spell on each level (cause the dead wizard was crazy about fire) and that all the spells regarding teleporting and planar travel and dealing with Outsiders had been ripped out (safety precaution from whatever Hell dwellers got him)
including Dimension Door boooo. Actually considering it like this, it really sucks and he pretty much crippled my character. Anyway, anyone got a good list of what are the no-brainer need-to-have spells for levels 1 to 5 in Pathfinder? I think I got most, but it's always good to hear about.
After being told it's Pathfinder "book" rules only (no 3rd party, with a grand total of 5 house rules handed to them, clearly written), the question "Yeah, but can I play this one badass class from this cool 3rd party 3.5 supplement?" (bye)
you probably told me before, but I really wonder what these house rules are?