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[Endarire]

Greetings, all!

What would be involved in adapting the Pathfinder 1e rules to Dwarf Fortress?  I ask because DF is already effectively a Roguelike life simulator, and Pathfinder 1e is a robust, complex ruleset which allows for many, many things.  I chose Pathfinder 1e instead of D&D 3.x for its robustness of mechanics instead of the D&D 3.5 system on which it was based:  Pathfinder simply has more open source stuff legally usable.  At present, I don't plan to do the modding work.  I just want to know what would likely be involved, and considering the number of Dwarf Fortress/Pathfinder crossover Google results I found, other people also want to know!

I ask because I've been a D&D and Pathfinder fan for many years now, and the DF engine (especially the adventure mode in this context) is quite extensive as a life simulator.  I like the notion of being able to play in a procedurally generated world with familiar rules and use the most powerful stuff from the rules in an environment that doesn't directly harm other players.  (For example, I could have an Undead army via animate dead, Command Undead, and command Undead, a bunch of dominated and charmed minions, many simulacrum clones, and some Outsiders I got from planar binding.  A typical 4-6 player game doesn't like someone playing 10s of units at once while they each only play 1 unit or so.)

I know that the Pathfinder stuff would need to be made - mechanics, creatures, images, etc. - and some Pathfinder material would need to be adapted to this engine and the fact this is a PC game.  I also don't expect the fullness of PF1e's mechanics (classes, spells, feats, items, etc.) to be fully available from the first release because of the 10+ years of stuff made for it.  I also know that if Incursion can adapt D&D 3.5 mechanics for single players (with NPC followers like horses and Bardic groupies) and Javelin can adapt D&D 3.5 mechanics for parties, this ruleset can be done in Roguelikes.

I also imagine later releases with multiplayer and a GM mode.  (There's already a multiplayer Dwarf mode mod!)

What say you?

Thankee!

[Meph]

I'm not up to date on Pathfinder 1e, but I know Pathfinder 2e, Dnd 5e by heart, and know DF modding.

You can't adapt pen&paper rules or dice rolling into the game. You can make approximations of weapons and armor, as well as (this is guesswork) about half of the spells, but not a spell-slot, feat or level up system. You can also create fitting creatures, but they won't behave like their counterparts in Pathfinder.

With Dfhack, a third party modding tool, you can get closer, but it would be a lot of work. For example you could get magical items to work, as well as a level-up system using creature transformations.

GM mode can't be done, unless you count someone building a dungeon in Fort mode, spawning in creatures with dfhack, retiring the fort, for the player party to visit said fort in Adv mode.

Overall: It would be simple to put in basic classes, creatures and items and play DF with a sugar-coating of Pathfinder; it would be a huge amount of work to get it to behave like a Pen&Paper rpg. Would be easier to do that in Skyrim as a mod.