Glorantha for Pathfinder 2: wild speculation thread

[smiorgan]

You have seen the posts on the social media. I think Chaosium (and Paizo) are announcing Pathfinder Glorantha on Monday. 

After the OGL controversy Paizo and Chaosium have become closer and the move makes sense commercially. Of course I might be completely mistaken.

Would you play Pathfinder 2 in Glorantha? Are you excited or worried?

Personally, I am ambivalent. With RQG I already have my Glorantha system of choice. I love RQ and BRP. Yet, it's some time I am curious about Pathfinder 2. I like tactical combat in the vein of D&D4 and I am always curious of trying new systems.

That said I am probably not going to buy a Pathfinder version of the Dragon Pass setting of RQG. But if they decided to develop another area of Glorantha... That would be super interesting. Ralios for Pathfinder would be very hard to resist.

 Looking forward to be proven completely wrong in 2 days...

[Agentorange]

Doesn't appeal to me at all.

[smiorgan]

46 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

Doesn't appeal to me at all.

What's your preferred rpg engine for Glorantha?

[Agentorange]

12 minutes ago, smiorgan said:

What's your preferred rpg engine for Glorantha?

It was RQ3, though there are things about RQG that I  really like, the use of passions and runes, augments ,the shamanic powers section and so on. But for me RQ3 was my favourite.

Edited February 25, 2023 by Agentorange

[MOB]

5 hours ago, smiorgan said:

Of course I might be completely mistaken.

5 hours ago, smiorgan said:

 Looking forward to be proven completely wrong in 2 days...

Will save you the time: yes, you are completely mistaken.

5 hours ago, smiorgan said:

Yet, it's some time I am curious about Pathfinder 2. I like tactical combat in the vein of D&D4 and I am always curious of trying new systems.

If you want to play in Glorantha in that vein, do check out 13th Age Glorantha if you haven't already (one of the co-authors was the author of D&D4).

[DreadDomain]

There are quite a few things they could announce that would be quite exciting. My bet is on the RuneQuest computer game but I would be even more excited by the first wave of the cults book or BRP 5E or Stormbringer,

I am actually quite glad it is not about Pathfinder.

Edited February 25, 2023 by DreadDomain

[DreadDomain]

5 hours ago, smiorgan said:

Would you play Pathfinder 2 in Glorantha? Are you excited or worried?

I would not have been excited, nor worries. Merely curious. I am nonetheless glad it is not it.

4 hours ago, smiorgan said:

What's your preferred rpg engine for Glorantha?

RuneQuest, by far. Even though I believe it needs a complete rewrite of the combat chapter, the latest edition would be my preferred one overall. It has the benefit of being much more integrated with the setting than RuneQuest 3 or Mythras/RuneQuest 6 which would be the other two contenders in my book. Everything else does not even register on my list of preferred Gloranthan system. 

[smiorgan]

51 minutes ago, MOB said:

Will save you the time: yes, you are completely mistaken.

If you want to play in Glorantha in that vein, do check out 13th Age Glorantha if you haven't already (one of the co-authors was the author of D&D4).

Thanks a lot for clearing that out, MOB. Now, I'm even more curious of the big announcement! 😅 

Yes, I know of 13th Age in Glorantha and it looks cool. I will surely try it sooner or later - now I'm too busy with RQG, though.

[smiorgan]

25 minutes ago, DreadDomain said:

There are quite a few things they could announce that would be quite exciting. My bet is on the RuneQuest computer game but I would be even more excited by the first wave of the cults book or BRP 5E or Stormbringer,

I am actually quite glad it is not about Pathfinder.

Could well be the RQ Computer game, but I rather prefer it to be Stormbringer or BRP. 

 

[kr0p0s]

Could it be the first Cults of Glorantha books release?

[svensson]

41 minutes ago, kr0p0s said:

Could it be the first Cults of Glorantha books release?

Hope springs eternal....

[svensson]

46 minutes ago, smiorgan said:

Could well be the RQ Computer game, but I rather prefer it to be Stormbringer or BRP. 

 

I would be stoked if it was the CRPG.

OTOH, I'm kinda terrified at what it might be....

[SDLeary]

6 hours ago, smiorgan said:

What's your preferred rpg engine for Glorantha?

Depends on what the group is interested in. Zero-to-Hero? RQ3+. Rune level? PDP+. Heroic? HQ+.
 

SDLeary

[Jason Farrell]

3 hours ago, kr0p0s said:

Could it be the first Cults of Glorantha books release?

"Your path changes in 3 days"

Doesn't sound like it to me.  We'll see.

[Gary Norton]

I’ve been using Second Edition Pathfinder for two years and I love it. I’ve run the PCs through 44 individual episodes and the PCs are now 15^th level. We started play in 1617 S.T. and are about to enter 1622 S.T.

Second Edition Pathfinder has a number of features that work well with Glorantha:

1)   High-Level Play: Pathfinder effectively supports play for beginning heroes all the way up through powerful heroes who can be the equals of the great Gloranthan heroes.

2)   Skills: Players can easily direct their PC’s choices of non-combat skills. You choose if you want to become better at physical skills (like Acrobatics, Athletics, and Stealth) or better at social skills (like Diplomacy or Intimidation) or better at something else. As you increase your proficiency in the skills of your choice, you unlock the ability to take cool skill feats. These skill feats allow your character to perform stunts that not every character can do; this allows individual PCs to differentiate themselves.

3)   Weapons: Weapons have weapon traits that differentiate their usage. For example, a scythe allows you to trip an opponent while a maul allows you to shove someone away. Further, the critical specialization effects vary depending on the type of weapon. Your choice of weapons matters.

4)   Combat: Characters have lots of meaningful choices in combat. Combat tactics will vary from character to character based on the class they have chosen and the various class feats that they choose to select.

5)   Balancing Encounters: Pathfinder tightens up the math so that there is less variation in the damage output of the various builds. This allows the GM to better tune the combat difficulty to give the players a solid challenge without creating a TPK.

I also made changes to the character building system to make the PCs Gloranthan.

1)   PCs choose three Rune affinities. This gives PCs the option to select Focus Spells that allow them to use their individual runes to their benefit. For example, the Air rune gives access to Stormwind Flight allowing you to fly.

2)   Everyone has access to Spirit Magic and Rune Magic spells. (Optionally, you can go with Sorcery spells instead.) As you gain levels, you gain more spells and more powerful spell effects.

3)   Your choice of cult specifies which Rune Magic spells that you have access to. Orlanth worshipers have access to movement related spells and the ability to use the storm to damage their enemies. Yelm worshipers bring fire down on their enemies.

4)   I’ve removed permanent magic items and replaced them with the Automatic Bonus Progression system. This allows PCs to keep up with the underlying math assumptions in the Pathfinder game without being reliant on external magic items. When I hand out permanent magic items as adventure rewards, this really means something.

That’s not to say everything is perfect. I’ve learned a lot about what does and doesn’t work. I’m working to significantly change the spell distribution between the Spirit, Rune, and Sorcery magic types.

Converting adventures from RuneQuest, HeroQuest, and 13^th Age Glorantha into Pathfinder rules takes some effort.

The effort I’ve put into this has been well worth it. The current campaign will complete in the next year and I look forward to my next Glorantha campaign starting in 2024

[Rodney Dangerduck]

I have some D&D / PF playing friends with some interest in Glorantha.  I'll try to GM this for them.

Speaking of GMing, in my limited experience, Pathfinder is an order of magnitude easier to GM than RQG.  Far clearer rules, less need for GM creativity and thought.  Note, this isn't always a good thing & sometimes GM creativity is good!

[smiorgan]

32 minutes ago, Gary Norton said:

I’ve been using Second Edition Pathfinder for two years and I love it. I’ve run the PCs through 44 individual episodes and the PCs are now 15^th level. We started play in 1617 S.T. and are about to enter 1622 S.T.

Wow! Impressive. That's sounds like a lot of work to me. And while I am confident in house-ruling BRP games, my I am super wary with (post D&D3) d20 games because they are "exception based" and tightly interconnected. 

[smiorgan]

22 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Speaking of GMing, in my limited experience, Pathfinder is an order of magnitude easier to GM than RQG.  Far clearer rules, less need for GM creativity and thought.  Note, this isn't always a good thing & sometimes GM creativity is good!

Really? In my experience Pathfinder 1 was hard to GM because of the crazy complexity of monsters and NPCs and the number of spells and abilities and special rules you had to look up. On the other hand GMing D&D4 was a breeze because everything was right in the monster NPC description. I gather Pathfinder 2 is more like D&D4.

Gamemastering RQ Glorantha is fun to me and not that difficult. Sometimes you need to make up rulings on the spot and some combat situations could be messy to adjudicate, but being familiar there is usually one or typically more sensible ways to adjudicate. 

 

[Gary Norton]

8 minutes ago, smiorgan said:

Wow! Impressive. That's sounds like a lot of work to me. And while I am confident in house-ruling BRP games, my I am super wary with (post D&D3) d20 games because they are "exception based" and tightly interconnected. 

I'm curious what you mean by "exception based" and tightly interconnected.

The way I see it is that Pathfinder is a permissive game system where you gain feats and abilities that allow you to do something. For example, the Climb action(within the Athletics skill) requires you to have both of your hands free to climb. The Combat Climber feat allows you to climb with one hand occupied (e.g., with a weapon).

It was a lot of work. This campaign is my retirement project to keep me busy. I spent several months working on the rules and several more months running playtest sessions. Then COVID got in the way, but opened new possibilities to run the campaign online.

[smiorgan]

@MOB or another moderator... Given that there is no Pathfinder Glorantha coming, the hread is becoming a bit superfluous and drifting OT viz the Glorantha forum. You might want to close it or better move it out of here to the Tavern area.

 

Edited February 25, 2023 by smiorgan

[Gary Norton]

4 minutes ago, smiorgan said:

Really? In my experience Pathfinder 1 was hard to GM because of the crazy complexity of monsters and NPCs and the number of spells and abilities and special rules you had to look up. On the other hand GMing D&D4 was a breeze because everything was right in the monster NPC description. I gather Pathfinder 2 is more like D&D4.

Gamemastering RQ Glorantha is fun to me and not that difficult. Sometimes you need to make up rulings on the spot and some combat situations could be messy to adjudicate, but being familiar there is usually one or typically more sensible ways to adjudicate. 

 

Paizo made a significant effort to simplify the game for GMs. In First Edition Pathfinder, every creature was essentially built like a player-character and that could lead to over-complication.

For Second Edition Pathfinder, antagonists have simplified stat blocks. Most have some special ability, but they aren't nearly so complicated.

[Bill the barbarian]

Now how did this thread escape from the "Your Dumbest Theory" forum?

 

[Rodney Dangerduck]

38 minutes ago, smiorgan said:

being familiar there is usually one or typically more sensible ways to adjudicate. 

It's the "or ... more" that's the problem.  🙂

[Baron Wulfraed]

5 hours ago, svensson said:

Hope springs eternal....

Only to hit the lid of Pandora's box...

 

[g33k]

2 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Now how did this thread escape from the "Your Dumbest Theory" forum?

I think it's always a challenge to keep Primal Chaos contained...