Pathfinder and this E6/E7/E8 thingy?

[GunnarGreybeard]

Ok, so I have yet to play my 1st Pathfinder game and have only read through the Core Books once. Now, my interest has been rekindled as the other day I came across mention of this E6/E7/E8 stuff (still haven't read it, just read a little about it and kinda what it is).

I do plan to run the games/campaign in a homebrew HarnWorld so there would probably not be an opportunity for players to get any Pathfinder Society benefits. Since I have never GM'ed anything beyond AD&D in the D&D sphere I know I have some serious learning to do with Pathfinder to get up to speed. I will mostly be starting with some short one-shots and then hopefully evolve into a full campaign.

Here is my issue. I am old school D&D and HarnMaster (with the emphasis on latter and the gritty, low level genre of HarnMaster). I really want to get into Pathfinder BUT for me to "get into it" it needs to retain the gritty low level feeling of HarnMaster but have enough so called high fantasy to attract enough interested players.

My question is, for those who may be familiar with Pathfinder, and based on my comments above, how well do you experienced and knowledgeable Pathfinder players think this E6/E7/E8 variant will this fill my gritty, low level niche? And can I use the current Pathfinder FGII Ruleset to run it as is?

[Trenloe]

The main difference is that at the relevant level (level 6 for E6 for example) the PCs stop leveling and then every 5000xp they get a new feat. This stops spells at 3rd level (as the maximum spell level a 6th level wizard, cleric, etc. can cast is 3rd level) but can make characters a lot more versatile and powerful in the low level stuff they can do. It tends to make fighter types very powerful as they can quickly get a lot of combat feats once they reach the E6 (level 6) point (1 new feat every 5000xp), but then various feats can increase spell casting types too - but they're still limited in spell levels and number of spells per day.

You can also control what comes into your campaign by restricting feats. If you don't want wizards crafting magic items, don't let them select any crafting feats.

If the number of feats becomes a problem, increase the xp needed for each feat.

The one thing that may become hard is working out what is a hard/epic encounter CR level for a party of E6 PCs who have a number of additional feats under their belt...

You absolutely can use the Pathfinder ruleset (3.5E - PFRPG system option) to run this type of game.

[GunnarGreybeard]

Thanks for the reply Trenloe. Guess its time to do some more reading.

[S Ferguson]

My solution to figuring out the CR ratings, is to do the old calculate "character levels" vs. "class levels". if you continue to increase in experience that counts as an increase in the number of Feats, but the character stays constant in level, continue treating the characters as being of higher level. For E6-type games and such it works fine. It only gets out of hand at higher levels.

And being an addict of Harnmaster many years ago, I don't think there is a single problem you'll run into. In fact, the game sort of encourages it.

[GunnarGreybeard]

Been reading up on this some more. Starting to look more and more what I might be after. Pathfinder but crunchier.