and you'll be armed.

What would the wild west be without gunfights and what would standoffs at high noon be without revolvers. However typically pathfinder gives us longswords and crossbows instead of the revolvers we so desperately need in order to defend the farmstead. The addition of Ultimate Combat, the gunslinger, and plenty of firearms has done well to alleviate the disturbing lack of guns, however it still leaves weapons like greataxes in the mix, and as those have become obsolete I want to emphasize that no-one uses those anymore, and thus every weapon was looked at individually as to what it can add to a western game. I listed all weapons which would remain in their current roles as Simple, Martial and Exotic, any that were left out of my list were bumped up. For example the normally simple weapon "Light Mace" has fallen so out of use that it is now considered a martial weapon. This is not because the weapon is any harder to use, but because it is so rare and uncommon.

Firearms will be run by the "Guns Everywhere" ruling in Ultimate combat. Advanced firearms should be incredibly common.

That is all for now.

Coming up Next: Elves in depth.

Alternate Rules

Some Sweet Clip art I found.

So I believe I have found the problem to my issue of how guns can be used without being completely useless. And it comes in the form of alternate rules.

Alternate rules change how the game is played and even though the campaign setting is designed for Pathfinder the rules I am using were originally designed for 3.5 all of the rules come from the following website

http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/variantAdventuring.htm

Here are some of the rules I am contemplating on recommending for this campaign setting.



Class Defense Bonus


I chose the Class Defense Bonus rule due to the fact that most characters armor will maximize at leather. This also shows the training of more experience martial characters in their ability to dodge attacks.

Armor as Damage Reduction






I've decided to take Armor as damage reduction due to the favor of realism, and due to the fact that the Class Defense bonus already gives them a great AC.




Vitality and Wound Points

I've also chosen Vitality and Wound points which vastly increases the chance of death by accident (crits are dangerous).

These are the three 3.5 rules I recommend for this campaign setting, but I will also be crafting some of my own special rules for the campaign.

COMING UP NEXT:  Weapon Proficiencies!

Continents

Here are the Continents and oceans as I have them now. I plan on mostly ignoring Indal and Germoras (at least as much as I CAN ignore them) until much later in the development. Caspantias will be the primary campaign setting and location of 99% of adventures in this world.

Caspantias

The Primary continent of the campaign setting, it is a land of hills deserts, forests and mountains. Free and open terrain characteristic of the American west define this land. A land of opportunity and danger.

Indal

An old European world, the governments of many nations have recently banded together after a terrible and bloody war. A scarred land of tradition.

Germoras

The “eastern” continent that has its own customs apart from those in Indal. A strange and foreign land ruled by reptilians with strange customs.

Ethium, Escini and Erova

Small continent/countries off the coasts of Caspantias and Germoras.

Classes on Classes

~~~Classes~~~

Many classes fit right into the genre without a problem, others however need tweaking to fit appropriately with the setting, here are my initial thoughts on the classes.

~Core~

Barbarian: A brute or angry fighter, might not work too well with bullets flying but as a brawler they fit very well.

Bard: A performer fits in just fine in this.

Cleric: The holy man will lose his armor and many will lose the access to their deities favored weapons, but otherwise they will fit in fine.

Druid: Will work great with the tribal elves as their shaman. Horse and other ridable animal companions would be a staple.

Fighter: Heavy reliance on armor will need to be addressed, especially if they are needed for tanking.

Monk: Shanghai Noon. A favored class of kobolds.

Paladin: Again heavy reliance on armor will need to be addressed, and the mechanics of smite need to be changed to focus on guns & ranged weapons. They will make perfect Sheriffs and Lawmen.

Ranger: Fits the setting almost perfectly. Can be anything from Elven scouts to bounty hunters tracking down bandits. Will probably add gunslinging as a combat style.

Rogue: Another that fits fine with the theme.

Sorcerer: As dangerous as always, and probably the primary arcane caster of most campaigns.

Wizard: Within the world wizardry will be taking a backseat to technology. The time it takes to learn a wizards craft is too long for most and they can get the same effect (or close) with technology.

~Secondary~
Alchemist: doctors, pharmacists and chemists. Could be very interesting in western setting.

Antipaladin: The opposite of the Paladin, a criminal and bandit of the highest level. Will need to appropriate the armor again.

Cavalier: Masters of the horse. Think 7th Cavalry instead of knights.

Gunslinger: If a single class fits this genre more than the gunslinger I don't know it.

Inquisitor: another class that fits the lawman/bounty hunter roll, this time with more religious fervor.

Magus: same as the wizard this has taken a backseat to technology, but some still study it.

Ninja: See Monk entry.

Oracle: The oracle is a bit odd, though I could see it as a class for Elves who are in tune with their spiritual ancestors.

Samurai: See Monk entry.

Summoner: an odd class but I can see no reason it would not fit in fine.

Witch: I'm not really sure about witches, I can see no reason for a loss of them.

Orcs in Sombreros

~~~~Races~~~~

I want the multiple races is that I want them to both reflect their origin from high fantasy and gain a unique interesting take on these classic ideals.

Human: Humans always seem the hardest for me to write for as I want them to be unique but in the end I feel a lot of people are attracted to playing humans for their neutrality and flexibility.

Elf: I do not like a lot of the idea of elves being an immortal beautiful "perfect" race. Its just when other races have such obvious flaws as dwarven stubbornness, gnomish curiosity (in the "killed the cat" sense), and orcish aggression the elves "problem" was that they were "too perfect" and were vain about it. However one of my favorite versions of elves were the "Wild elves" or "painted elves" from 3.5. a Group of elves which never advanced past a sort of tribal state, from this idea I decided to make my elves in the role of the American Indian, mostly based on Sioux culture. The elves have been pushed back by the expansionism of several nations within the campaign setting and have resorted to raiding and other tactics to preserve their way of life from the encroaching "civilization".

Dwarf: Keeping in the mirror of the old west, a war over slavery has just ended. Instead of having the slavery based on skin color I decided it would be species based. I decided dwarves were prized slaves for their constitution and ability to work long times without rest and thus a market for dwarven slaves was perpetuated within several communities. Dwarves at this time have only recently gained a sort of equality to the other races after almost a millennia of forced servitude. They face hatred from their former owners and other injustices in the world due to their race.

Halfling: I cannot get the image of a halfling who looks like colonel sanders out of my head. with this in mind I have decided halflings would be the primary race that enslaved the dwarves. Since halflings would probably have trouble physically enslaving any race, I decided for them to take the role of overseer or plantation owner and have human employees as the overseers and taskmasters. Having recently lost a war to keep what they view as their "property" the halflings are facing troubled times as they lose not only their wealth but even the ability to feed their families as their slave based economy crumbles.

Gnome: gnomes are naturally bright and inquisitive minds, and I plan to keep them that way. However as opposed to being tough tricksters I decided to make them more intellectual individuals taking the place of doctors, shopowners, and traveling salesmen. They don't have their own individual culture or civilizations but tend to integrate into other communities very well bringing their unique interests and flavor to those groups lucky enough to have them.

Goblinoids: Goblins also don't have their own culture, but where gnomes are considered a boon to a town goblinoids are considered a plague. They usually end up killing livestock, robbing and forming gangs. Goblins are considered a nuisance at best and a danger when they form larger warbands and gangs.

Orc: The Orcs come from a mostly desert land where it is a struggle to survive, it is no wonder many turn to gangs and raiders when their homeland is so harsh and unforgiving. However not all resort to violence and many have started forming farmsteads and ranches to break the cycle of violence and war. Orcs are proud and hard workers, my original idea was for them to be similar to the stereotypical mexican bandito, but they now encompass more of mexican culture than just their criminals.

Kobold: I decided to make the kobold culture interesting and different from the others as the only race that is not a mammal. Doing this while keeping with the theme of "Old west" would be a challenge but in the end I decided on them being the equivalent of the chinese immigrants from western lore. Since they would be a generic culture instead of literally china I decided that their favorite classes would be samurai, monk and ninja.

Half-Elf & Half-Orc: after deliberation I decided to cut both of the "Half" races as they both detract from the base races of Elves, Orcs and Humans, and they always feel tacked on anyways.

Concerns on Armor

My first concerns have been to work on a setting where guns are very intrinsic into the base of the game, and pathfinder guns make armor obsolete to the point of uselessness which hurts several classes which rely on armor for protection. This made me think that perhaps to make those classes more viable I needed to rework the cover system and give them some advantages in gunfights, however the more I thought about it the less this seemed like a good idea and I decided to keep the base gun & cover rules and instead give classes that rely on armor other advantages. At this time however I shall work on the races and primary 11 classes.

Opening

I have decided to keep a journal of my work on, what I am currently calling a "Spaghetti Fantasy" Pathfinder campaign setting, while Spaghetti Fantasy is something I hope to become its own genre it is in actuality a mixing of two of my favorite genres. The "High Fantasy" in which works such as the books "Lord of the Rings and games such as "Dungeons and Dragons" are commonly set. The other genre is the "Spaghetti Western" where films such as "The Man with No name Trilogy" are styled after. My idea is to have a western based technological society without getting rid of the inherent magic and races that are known to most fantasy settings.

In other words: Elven Indians, Dragon Railroad Tycoons, Goblin Banditos and Dwarven Sheriffs.