Pathfinder, Planescape, and Rambling

[virgil]

I'm planning on running a Planescape campaign with Pathfinder rules.

In regards to the setting, I & one other player know a fair bit of the lore and are fans of Planescape as a whole. Mind caulk is kind of obvious, and the rest of the players are sufficiently ambivalent that they're not going to waste time fretting over the concept of infinite planes, alignment consistency, or rail against the Lady of Pain. So just to nip it in the bud, I'm going to ignore suggestions that consist of "use a different setting."

They're not adverse to house rules, but I'd like to avoid slapping down a literal book like my printed copy of the Tome series; which means no Tome combat, Tome armor, and certainly no Tome feats. I'm afraid that it will become more Tome than Pathfinder if I give them access to the classes; so that's a concern I'm undecided on.

I'll use the Playing With Fire, Banality of Evil, Wish Economy, & ToF's Practical Demonology. Outside of telling them the specific change to the spells, I think explaining the nuances of Wish Economic Theory is. When it comes to magic items, the Book of Gears is frankly too much of a change. Surreptitiously slipping in tiger amulets should be sufficient kludge to handle weak PCs.

I'm not sure what other rules I should be cognizant of as problems to revise before the campaign begins.

[Antariuk]

Sounds like an interesting project.

What starting level are you aiming for? Because I wouldn't bother with the Wish Economy unless necessary. Telling them about it is ok, but I'd rather introduce the concept over time through the ramblings of a high-level NPC or something than an up-front lecture.

About Pathfinder combat, consider boosting the all Combat Maneuvers if thatÄs something you want to emphasize. As in, at least double the bonuses granted by all Improved X feats, or play fast and lose (maybe with Action Points) and make all maneuvers accessible to everyone without feat investment, because as written the Pathfinder combat maneuver system is about as fun as prostate cancer.

Are you using/allowing traits? If so, consider limiting the amount of options or banning the most egregious offenders because the trait system is as unbalanced and unfair as it gets, especially for players who might not recognize the three valid options within the 200 or so traits we have by now.

As for something to use for Planescape, I can recommend 'Faces of the Tarnished Souk' from Rite Publishing for some freaky NPC concepts and writeups, all available as mid- and high level versions. I'm using that product in my own dreamscape urban adventure right now and I like it a lot (as do my players).

[tussock]

Pathfinder still seems to assume that healing matters and healing sticks aren't a thing, you could make it so that is true by limiting the creation and purchase of healing items.

Pathfinder still mostly ignores that you can just not participate in their whole dungeon-crawl aesthetic by scry-and-(send in animal spies-and-)die. In effect, there are various class features of spellcasters that bypass a great deal of content. That may be less of a problem if your adventures are all based around time-limited pocket-dimensions and fetch quests for cryptic door keys therein that take you to the next one, aka railroading through mini-dungeons.

And you'll want some pretty amazing free artifact swords, because casters are way better in Pathfinder than they were in 3e, and martials are all a fair bit worse that their old peaks, and the monsters are randomly either better or worse depending on which way their particular trick went.

Plus you might want some sort of system for having the skills interact with the factions, even if that's just arbitrary DCs like you find in various modules.

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But if everyone's pretty happy to dungeon bash and not try to create infinite anything, it'll be fine, if they can be bothered creating characters in Pathfinder in the first place.

[Aryxbez]

I would find it strange if they're willing to muck through the sea of Pathfinder wiki options, opposed to your "Tome Book" which is likely shorter in comparison. Though I guess the PF-wiki does have the advantage of being more organized most likely.

Lady of Pain sounds like something that shouldn't be in there, figurehead or like. Though in general I imagine you're going to minimize if not completely ignore the big DM-penis parts of its entire existence.

Red Rob's system for Magical Items I would seriously suggest to "ambivalent" players for the facts the swag list is smaller and easier. They just pick a few items, inform them of the scaling math-RNG items, and you're done. None of this crap of having to spend likely hours of shopping for their numbers beforehand. Pending what Class Balance experience going for (Wizard? Rogue?...Fighter?), if Rogue can just limit to classes that fall in that range. Alternatively limit the Wizard-level ones that are available, in general casual players would benefit from [tome] classes simplicity.