Running Paizo adventures in the Sunchaser setting

[The_Grand_User]

So I'm interested in running a few of the well-crafted adventures from Paizo's Pathfinder, both the adventure paths and the stand alone ones, but obviously they weren't built with the Sunchasers setting in mind. And I figured others could benefit too, as well as get some other opinions. There's the great thread about converting the stats of various NPCs, so this one I would like to concentrate more on the setting conversion, though a few notes on mechanics can make sense in places.

So here are my thoughts about the adventure Curse of the Riven Sky.

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I decided to locate the adventure in the Brenne-Stones mountain range. The first reason is that’s where my players were headed, but it also seems to work out rather well since the location has the River of Snow cloud formation, and the adventure features two different fortresses in clouds. The small city of Jol I will be a major settlement of the pechs, rather than a human city.
That led me to think that the main NPCs, Zoarth and Verakas, rather than being plain cloud giants they might be associated with the fey. I considered them being the actual Kind Grunne and Queen Firda, but decided that some lesser fey nobles might be better. I’m still thinking they’d be giant sized, though, just for the fun of huge fey. I also considered they could be pechs with strong fey blood or a pair of drakes with storm affinity.

The plot hook for why the character want to go there works well enough, and I’m mostly using it as I, though they will be directed there by a pech wizard they meet (they have an extra magic item they can’t use that they want to donate to a pech, as well as a Plot Item they can’t identify; the pech wizard will suggest they visit Zoarth, who taught the pech).

Then there are the hill giants. Now while Sunchasers doesn’t have giants, I do recall Morgenstern mentioning that *anything* could wander out of a sunpool, so why not a small tribe of giants? A tribe of ogres would also make sense as a replacement, but since my players had just dealt with some, I thought I’d add a bit of variety. A group of Black Erron could also be a possible replacement.

The “orb beyond” and the Pale Ones I think could be replaced or influenced by the Soregg, as chaos, calamity, corruption, and gelatinous cubes blobs raining from the sky seem to fit them well. A tear in the sky might also cause other problems in regards to the Crone.

The side encounters they have along the way work as is. The farmers are simple, and the dryad and satyr are easily explained by being near the fey lands (though they might mistake him for a Lyss at first).

The linnorm would need to be changed to a rogue drake most likely, who probably disregards the drake king’s protection on the Matha, or figures it doesn’t extend to the pechs (which it might not), and leave the encounter as is. However, I’m personally going to run it as a crotchety, “get off my lawn!” old-man hermit encounter that could be resolved peacefully, as I think that fits a Sunchasers drake better.

Likewise, the young blue dragon is obviously another drake, also very young and impetuous and fallen in with the wrong crowd. A run-in on the wrong side of Sunchasers will probably do well for his outlook on life.

Most enemies run away when they reach a certain amount of HP, but since most of them will be standard characters, it might make sense to add a grade or two of toughness to them, and have them run when they're out, or just have them run away regardless of what their final damage save would do.

I think that’s all the important stuff that would need changing. The adventure fits in reasonably well. Thoughts or comments? And would anyone else like to try their hand at one of the adventure paths?

[Morgenstern]

I like your localization quite a bit . The possibility of the players mistaking a satyr for a Lyss is slick, and yes, Soregg as prone to making it rain gelatinous cubes made me titter with evil glee .

Sounds like good fun all around!

[The_Grand_User]

Thanks 

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We've made it through the first scene, and while the players are curious as to why there are giants around they're takign it in stride.

I also decided to make the two main giants into gigantic fey-touched pechs, afterall. It amused my players greatly, and an amusing joke token (since we use MapTool) was made that I'll have to share once I get home.

[Gentry]

I'm going to semi-hijack this thread to make a statement about the Curse of the Crimson Throne paizo adventure path, and the FC conversion I'd do if and when I get a chance to run it:

Law & Order: Korvosa (DOINK-doink!)

That is all.   

[The_Grand_User]

So we finally finished this adventure today and I'd say I'm pretty satisfied with the way things turned out.

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I decided that the young drake (youjng blue dragon originally) parent's were killed by a pech, basing that off of the adventure saying that the king of the local town became so because he killed a linorm (at at least brought its head in, but people suspect he just found a dead one).

I'm not sure what relationship the drakes and Westfolk had before the humans arrived, but probably not the best, given that the drakes were going to consider the humans just some more prey before the Rascal made the deal with their king. This could likely be vestiges of the time before.

The players were also suspecting the cats might be related to soregg, and maybe they are and maybe they aren't.

[The_Grand_User]

Completely unrelated to the running adventures, but I noticed that in Sunchaser the the Heroic Renown titles "Knight Champion" and "Dragon Slayer" would work even better switched, "Knight Slayer" because of the 99 Knights of the Crone and "Dragon Champion" since the Drakes and Dragon Gods are more good guys.

[Morgenstern]

Drakes and Westfolk... have you seen the fat-content on those little fellows? They're delicious if you can dig them out... Just kidding .

Actually, the little guys are probably decent riddlers in their own right, so I could see younger drakes flying up that way to test their wits and eat a few sheep. The Westfolk know how to garrison their holdings and mount lots of spikey logs poking up from around their more important storehouses (think kithkin if you're a M:tG follower) and drakes aren't big on getting massively perforated on final approach. A crazed/bloodthirsty drake could do a lot of damage, but most can't be bothered beyond a little mutton rustling.

[The_Grand_User]

That is something I'd like to see more about, the Humans you have a pretty good picture of their daily lives, but the non-humans, and their interactions with each other, aren't as well detailed, both before and after humans arrived.

*Edit* Also, any votes on what PF adventure/Path I should look at next for conversion? I could probably attempt any of them, except Serpent's Skull, as I'm currently a player in that one.

[Takeru]

try to stay away from the paths unless you -really heavily- edit them for use as single adventures. But there's loads of PFScenarios and Modules you can look at. I've heard good things about that Razmir one.

[Gentry]

I'm really enjoying Curse of the Crimson Throne. It's a tad railroady, but I personally think that could be overcome by staging the whole path as a fantasy cop show (i.e. the PCs are a city guard inquisition unit), as it would let the discovery of clues feel more fluid and natural.

[Number Three]

I'm playing in a Jade Regent campaign right now.  If I had one non-system related complaint, it's that it seems disingenuous to call it an oriental-themed campaign when you spend the three chapters just getting to the Asia analogue, encountering a few asian items and bosses on your way through Viking and Artic land.