Brand new to these boards some help

Hi everyone,

My name is Sean Connors aka outsiders68

I love the system have the PDF and thought wow.

I have been running pathfinder up till this point and have felt a little stifled by it.

Sometimes someone does something so much better than yourself all you can do is say “well done”

So has anyone used grey hawk campaign as a basis for this game any thoughts suggestions.

And any pointers to be aware of.

Hey,

Welcome! Feel free to ask any questions you might have regarding the rules. The system is pretty straightforward but as you get into higher level stuff, like Domain management, people tend to have some questions.

I don’t know if you’ve ordered the Player’s Companion but it’s an amazing resource that expands the system in a great way - the class and spell creation guidelines are fantastic.

There is a thread or two with people using the Greyhawk setting, take a look around and I’m sure you’ll find them.

Have fun,
Moorcrys

Hi Sean,

Thanks for the kudos!

I did a lot of gaming in Greyhawk using D&D 3.5 in the days before ACKS (or even Pathfinder). The hexes in the Darlene map (and also the one published in Dragon Magazine during the Paizo era) are 30 miles across, which is larger than the 24-mile hexes described in the ACKS guidelines for creating a campaign map on p. 229. One decision you'll need to make is how to handle this size discrepancy. I would recommend just treating the Darlene map hexes as 24 miles across instead of 30, which will in effect shrink the Greyhawk world to 80% of its former scale (a continent the size of Europe). The listed values for troop sizes, populations, etc. are far enough from ACKS assumptions that this change will fit into the margin of fudge factor.

Either way you'll want to make your own maps at the 6-mile-hex regional scale, focusing on the area that the party will be adventuring in. To get the details that'd show up at this zoomed-in scale, you can look to a fan-made map project like the excellent Atlas of the Flaeness, or pick up one of the 2E-era Greyhawk products that had smaller-scale poster maps. However, it'd be fully within the spirit of the original Greyhawk intent to use the broad outlines of the 30 (or 24) mile hexes as the frames of your canvass and then fill in everything at the 6-mile scale using just your own imagination (or a random hex map generator).

My personal recommendation would be use the 1980 Greyhawk folio as your primary source in an ACKS version. Its sparse descriptions of army sizes and populations are just the meat of what you need to start creating the area you'll use in play. Once you settle on where you want the adventures to take place, you can start browsing through later Greyhawk material to add detail as it suits you.

Hope this helps! The other advice I'd have if you're going to play with your same Pathfinder group is to read through (and maybe share with the players) some of the threads here about character lethality and players accustomed to other systems. I've been playing in a Pathfinder Basic open-table campaign exploring B1's Caves of Quasqueton, and although we started out in a very cautious old-school style focused on exploration and avoiding combat in favor of strategy, I've noticed that even as some of us hit third level we've got sizable piles of hit points and shiny combat abilities that predispose us towards a more Diablo-style "clear every room" approach. Your group will have the most fun with ACKS when they re-jigger their expectations to match the system!

Yours,

Tavis

Many thanks the random generator and maps of grey hawk are inspiring.

Man I’m so looking forward to running this game.

One further question players companion is it available to order ? And how sorry if this seems like a silly question

The Player's Companion is available for pre-order at Game Salute in PDF or hardcover+PDF bundle. The book is still in layout, but if you pre-order you get access to the complete document, it's just not pretty yet.