Pathfinderized Traits for SCAP


Shackled City Adventure Path

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

So, I'm looking at running this path for some folks in the near future, and wanted to offer them a set of campaign traits. The ones in the back of the book, however, are 3.5 traits - not quite as powerful, and have drawbacks to offset the bennies. So, my goal has been to adjust these traits to be more in line with the campaign traits given for published Pathfinder APs. Here's what I've got so far - feedback is appreciated!

General: all drawbacks removed.

Child of Jzadirune: as benefit.

Demonscarred: as benefit, +1 trait bonus to Fort saves vs. poison.

Dream Haunted: whenever you would become exhausted, you may treat it as fatigued.

Long Shadowed: autostabilize if reduced to negative HP.

Mark of the Beast: +1 trait bonus to Handle Animal checks, Handle Animal is always a class skill. +1 to Wild Empathy checks, if applicable.

Nobility: as benefit.

Scarred Soul: as benefit.

Scion of Surabar: as benefit.

Touched in the Head: as benefit.

Wyrm-blooded: resist acid 1, +1 bonus to either Swim or Perception, this skill is always a class skill for you.


I did something very similar, though I let the long shadowed trait keep the negative energy resist (though I lowered it to 1 after reading your adjustments to Wyrm-blooded) and mark of the beast still has animals suffering a -2 penalty to hit.

I bumped the bonuses for partial saves (such as Touched in the Head) from +1 to +2. There are other traits that give you a flat +1 bonus to a whole save, so I figured bumping these a bit wouldn't be out of the question.

I also changed all the bonuses provided from either untyped or morale to trait bonuses.

And what you did with Wyrm-blooded was simply inspired. I like what you have much more than the changes I made. In addition to what you have, I also added that if they take levels in Sorcerer with the Draconic Bloodline, they had to choose black as the color.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

You've got some good ideas there, Dal - as campaign traits, I don't mind them being a little cooler than generic traits. I have the same philosophy as you on these - either a +1 flat bonus to the save, or a +2 specific bonus to a save is about the same. I'm not a big fan of inflicting a penalty on one type of monster, as that's creating more work for me. It's probably easier to say that PCs with Mark of the Beast have a +2 trait bonus to their AC when attacked by animals.

And I'm glad you liked Wyrm-blooded! Your idea to force Draconic Sorcerers to take Black as their color choice should be spelled out, so consider that included on my list whenver I make this up. On a similar note, I'll probably include resist negative energy 1 on Long Shadowed as well. Which leads to the next question - how common is negative energy in PF? Evil clerics can channel it, and...? If it's not that common, maybe bumping it up past 1 is in order.

Dream Haunted HAD to be changed - I saw it as a barbarian's best friend. Now it at least has a decent benefit without being a must-pick. I'm still not satisfied with it, as I'm not sure it's powerful enough now.

It's still a work in progress - I'll let you know if I get a more refined version of the traits.


I'm running a group of three through it (we just did character creation last week) and 1 of them settled on a barbarian. Sure enough, he went STRAIGHT for dream haunted. It was right then that I realized why you'd changed it the way you had =P

Since there are only 3 of them and none of them have played since 3.0, I figure I'll let it stand just to give them a bit of an edge.

I had considered what you'd brought up about negative energy being pretty uncommon, but I don't think it's all that much more rare than acid as an energy type. Bumping it to Negative Energy Resist 2 or even 3 isn't going to break anything though (it'd be a big edge at level 1 if there are any negative energy channelers, but I don't think there are)


So I tweaked Dreamhaunted a little bit further - the version I'm currently running with is this:

Dreamhaunted: Whenever you would become fatigued, you become winded instead. There are no benefits or penalties to being winded, but if you should become winded a second time while already having the winded condition, you then become fatigued.

So, I basically added another step on the fatigue-exhaustion stair for this trait. I'm tempted to tweak it a little further and have the winded condition just prevent the character from running or charging, kind of like a lesser version of fatigue - but I've only got three players running through this AP and they could probably use the edge.


I like the change to the +2... that makes good sense.

I'm debating whether the Resist Neg Energy going up to 5 is too rich. I think I like your ideas of bringing it down, but I'm wondering if Negative Energy is rare enough that it might not be too bad to keep it as written.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I admit my own inexperience with PF on this - I honestly don't know how common negative energy damage is. The best I can find is evil clerics channeling, and if that's the only way you encounter this damage source, I'm actually fine with keeping at 5.

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