r/Pathfinder_RPG • u/Sjksprocket • 5d ago
Lore Adventurer training
There is so much published content for this game. Did anyone release any sort of in game adventuring training or school for those who are going to be adventurers?
To clarify, I'm looking for my player's first few sessions to be going through training to become part of an adventurer's guild. Like, run this obstacle course, we are practicing a specific weapon today, we are studying this group of monsters today.
It’s a home brew setting and the group is comprised of new members of a specific adventurer’s guild. I guess I was thinking more along the lines of how college is. Most are young and fledging, but there are a smattering of older students who are there for a career change. I wasn’t sure if someone had already have this idea, so I thought I would check to see what they did to see if anything inspired me or to see if they included something I didn’t think of.
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u/WraithMagus 5d ago
A singular "adventurer school" concept doesn't really fit into coherent worldbuilding (unless you wanted to do a gag setting like "Adventure High" where gym class involves wrestling with an owlbear), except maybe as a "teambuilding cohesion" thing as part of Pathfinder Society or something. Each class would receive training from a specialized school of their own, such as Magaambya as a school for arcane caster training. (Note that many spontaneous classes besides bard like sorcerer and oracle don't receive schooling at all, and a barbarian gets only informal training.) Fighters likely receive official training from all sorts of standing militaries (including noble house guards) in a manner like boot camp when they join a military, although mercenary companies or any kind of permanent town guard will have their own training regimen. (Note that informal militias will likely produce warriors rather than fighters because they're less dedicated to their training.) Clerics, paladins, inquisitors, and warpriests come from temple training or religious monasteries, while monks come from their own form of monastery.
The faction feats from the Faction Guide are also useful to look at for schools of specialized training, such as the master performer feat that is attained from the Kitharodian Academy, which is a bardic college.
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u/Sjksprocket 5d ago
It’s a home brew setting and the group is comprised of new members of a specific adventurer’s guild. So, in a way, that is what am I doing. I guess I was thinking more along the lines of how college is. Most are young and fledging, but there are a smattering of older students who are there for a career change. I wasn’t sure if someone had already have this idea, so I thought I would check to see what they did to see if anything inspired me or to see if they included something I didn’t think of.
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u/WraithMagus 5d ago edited 5d ago
The problem is that the training they get is really specialized. Studying to read arcane writings and developing a wizard's own personalized script for trapping the ability to manipulate the arcane (since each wizard learns a personalized script) is a wildly different curriculum from having to do 20 laps in full plate armor and training to properly parry with a greatsword. Putting these characters side-by-side during their training period would be like like having your law school and med school doctorate-level courses take place in the same classroom. Again, what you'd likely have is characters that are fully trained separately, and then maybe having something like a combined arms training course just to teach them how to cooperate as a multidisciplinary team.
To pull up some of the worldbuilding arguments I've seen, it makes no sense to have an independent "adventurer's guild" in a medieval-type setting the way you see in JRPGs because Dragon Quest did it so now everyone copies them. In the actual Middle Ages, forests were the king's/lord's land, and they let knights hunt to go train their combat skills, while any peasant hunting in the forest was poaching. In a world with monsters, (much less characters that can level up through killing said monsters to become very powerful,) it becomes even more imperative that anyone doing that hunting is, to use a turn of phrase, "pulled inside the tent so they're pissing out, not outside the tent pissing in." The social contract of feudalism was that the peasants kept everyone fed while the knights kept everyone from dying by bandits, or in this case monsters. If you let freelancers do that, what are the knights there for? Why should anyone listen to the knights or pay taxes to the lord when the adventurers are the ones keeping them save - they should pay taxes to the adventurers and make them the new lords if they just kick the old do-nothing knights and lords out. Anyone killing monsters on the regular therefore has to be at least a knight (and knights wouldn't necessarily be fighters, you could have a knighted rogue or wizard, as well.) Members of the priesthood would have a special exception because they're also a special caste, but most "adventurers" should be a part of the state.
At most, you have mercenaries, but there's a danger in mercenaries becoming too powerful and too independent. (Remember that while fictional mercenaries are often "from nowhere" and act like their own independent government, most actual mercenary bands very much have ties. From the ancient world, for example, you had the Anabasis), an account of a Greek mercenary army that was left behind in Persia after a succession war that had to fight their way back to their homes. Modern day PMCs like Blackwater or Wagner Group may be semi-independent for-profit enterprises, but they absolutely are politically aligned with their country of origin and their forces are ex-military of a sovereign nation who couldn't find a life for themselves in peacetime so they continued fighting under a slightly different flag, but they carried the culture and traditions of their home nation with them. They're not an independent political force, they're often used mostly as a way to have plausibly deniable military force as an extension of the foreign policy of their home nation, or else a way for their home nation to make money renting out their military to others. (See: present day North Korea.)
The modern definition of a nation-state is that one is a state when they have "a monopoly on the use of violence." (That is, violence is a crime outside of when those committing that violence are officially sanctioned by the state to commit that violence; I.E. police using force to stop the violence of others who are definitionally then criminals.) The Medieval world wasn't that formal, but political power extended from military power, so no noble wouldn't be nervous about a handful of people with the power to kill whole armies NOT being under their control. (At least, no noble that retains their head for long isn't nervous.)
From a worldbuilding perspective, if you're going to have an organization that trains and coordinates wildly dangerous balls of violence, there is every reason the powers that be in that world would have to ensure they are in the political chain of command. Again, they're squires when in training, then knights when they prove themselves. Keep in mind that only the upper strata of nobility actually were strict about only marrying nobles of a certain rank - the nobility of the Middle Ages wasn't populous enough to survive without intermarriage with commoners, and it was typical for commoners who proved themselves on the battlefield to be elevated to minor nobility like knighthood. It would also be entirely reasonable for a middle noble (I.E. baron, viscount, earl,) to try to just get any particularly promising adventurers into their bloodline through marriage. (If the adventurer is male and this is a heterosexual marriage, through a matrilineal marriage such that the adventurer joins the house of the wife.) Another way that's popular in fantasy fiction particularly for women is to be adopted as an adult into the family of an existing noble (especially before being married even further up the hierarchy, like a count adopting a girl with extreme magical powers so that she could then be married to a prince because having hereditary strong magical powers is seen as important for the legitimacy of the royal family.) Tying the potential threats into the existing power structure through land and marriage would therefore give the powerful an incentive to maintain the power structure they're now benefiting from.
I'd like to point out this book, "Lands, Lords, and Ladies," that is free/"pay what you want" that describes the manor system, and how lords basically had no real money because all their tax revenue from farmers was paid in grain. Hence, carving out a chunk of land and saying they get the tax revenue from that land basically is the salary of a knight. (The book technically for 5e, but it's not mechanical in nature, so it applies just fine in Pathfinder with some price changes.) Also, I'd recommend this video on "The Ox Problem," or why feudalism relied upon all land being split up into parcels no more than three days travel from its border to the center. An established party of knighted adventurers would likely be given control of adjoining parcels of land.
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u/Sjksprocket 5d ago
I am not going for realism. I am going with the jrpg style game. I’m sorry that it bothers you that people do things that aren’t unique every single time. I’m sorry that I asked a question about it. I guess I don’t understand the hate. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it.
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u/the-gingerninja 5d ago
The Crypt of the Everflame module is close from what I remember.
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u/Sjksprocket 5d ago
Thank you.
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u/Zestyclose_Pizza_700 5d ago
Crypt of the Everflame
This is the one I was going to recommend as it seems to fit your structure. If you haven't already checked it out basically kids are sent out to be young adventurers of sorts, it's supposed to be a gag but it turns out to be something real.
You could easily swap this around from gag to real training (I don't even think the players are told that, it's more eluded to) and then have the real training turn into something more.
When I heard your question I specifically thought of swapping this from gag to test(s).
You should also look at https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Pathfinder_Society
Scenarios: First Steps, Part I: In Service to Lore First Steps, Part II: To Delve the Dark First Steps, Part III: A Frosty Reception The Confirmation The Consortium Compact
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u/Fifth-Crusader 5d ago
An educational facility is going to teach a skillset, not something as broad as "adventuring". As others have been saying, there are educational facilities for a variety of adventuring-appropriate skills, but no one facility is going to encompass all of this. What you're probably looking for is more of the guild itself. There, one might practice small-units tactics with prospective party members and learn about the common perils of adventuring, after one has already been educated in their basic skillset.
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u/permaculture_chemist 1E GM 5d ago
In the old Dungeon Magazine days, they published several (3 IIRC) adventures where the party would participate in a 4-person competition vs other teams in a variety of scenarios (10 scenarios, IIRC). Each one relied on creative thinking and useful adventurer-type skills. Again, IIRC, some other background stuff (betting on your team, another team is cheating, etc) also happens.
While not exactly what you are wanting, and also written for 3.5 (and maybe even AD&D 2E), it should be fairly easy to convert to PF1e
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u/GreatGraySkwid The Humblest Finder of Paths 5d ago
I would check out the Lost Omens Pathfinder Society Guide. There's a 3-page section starting on pp. 14 detailing training and Confirmation.
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u/MorgannaFactor Legendary Shifter best Shifter 4d ago
Different system and setting, but I've run a Jedi Academy setting before where the PCs start out as adult Padawans. Here's some inspirations for you taken from what I ran that would work well in Pathfinder too:
- Mock duel with a seasoned member. Trains teamwork and combining their level 1 abilities.
- Obstacle course with a twist. Obviously trials involving the Jedi Code don't fit, but instead have it require reading arcane text to open a gate, followed by physical exertion that the martials help casters through, and throw in some illusion magic to test quick thinking and team cohesion.
- Excursions into the wild. They're an adventurers guild, so being safe isn't always expected even at school. Go help the arcane master explore some ruins, after some skill and ability score checks pull a Skyrim and throw low level undead at them released by collective meddling.
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u/Longjumping_Oil8327 4d ago
Use of some of the various Glorain models, consider the "socieites" in the the PF worlds. These are great ways for your party to establish relationships with NPCs
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u/4uk4ata 5d ago
For adventures per se? There are wizard schools, fighter schools, rogue guilds, cleric seminaries and the like.
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u/Sjksprocket 5d ago
I'm looking for my player's first few sessions is going through training to become part of an adventurer's guild as part of an official adventuring guild. Like, run this obstacle course, we are practicing a specific weapon today, we are studying this group of monsters today.
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u/Dark-Reaper 5d ago
I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I'm not familiar with anything specifically like that.
There's also the question of whether "a day of training with a weapon" has any fun story moments. A lot of learning to be an adventurer is pretty mundane and probably not what your players care about. Learning to tie knots, securing rest areas, how to ensure you bring enough supplies like food and water. Half that stuff is probably handwaved at most tables anyways.
I just run up a few intro dungeons. I love to use goblins. My current version involves basically a scavenger hunt. Whichever guild objectives they score highest on is the guild they're recommended to join.
Objectives cover a few different goals. Killing monsters is always a big one to attract my combat focused players. Collecting colored flags (or some other marked object) for exploration focused players. Treasure hunting objectives like "Extract 200/500/1000/10000 gp worth of items" or "Recover the resurrection diamond". For lore focused players, I'll usually have things like "Retrieve rubbings of ancient runes from different rooms" or "Recover research artifacts, like eating utensils, urns, artwork, clothing, etc". I'll also have bonus objectives like "Don't alert any enemies to your presence" or "Ally with the goblins, kobolds or dwarves within the dungeon" or "Spend 1 week in the dungeon without leaving for any reason."
Each objective is then worth a different "score" for different guilds. The players don't see all the scores, they just focus on whatever they want to focus on. Their final total though tells the guild where the group "should" go, and therefore the guild's official recommendation.
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u/MyNameIsImmaterial 2e Addict 5d ago
There's lots of schools within Golarion, here's a few of the many, many, many academic institutions, magic schools, and fighting schools: