How Many People Use Homebrewed Material?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


Just wondering how many people use homebrewed material, either that they made or others have made. I keep hearing a lot of people talk about how their GM's don't allow homebrewed content so I figured I'd ask the community as a whole.

My group LOVES homebrewed content, but only if it is typed up in a professional manner and made available to everyone in the group. That way we avoid the, "but you saod it worked like this 3 months ago," arguments.

Sovereign Court

I'm very generous dm when it comes to allowed content for my players but yeah I double check homebrewed content before allowing it. I do allow some homebrew from time to time. I prefer using 3rd party before jumping to Homebrew tho.


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I use an entirely home-brewed universe including having all of the races as home-brew and several home-brew classes. I have also rewritten the monk, rogue, and fighter.

Honestly what will happen is usually my players will come to me with a concept that they cannot find a race/class/prc combination to fit and I will go write something and then come back and adjust it with them until the concept is fulfilled.

I always do hang a caveat on everything however and this is not just for home-brew, "If it because a problem I reserve the right to remove/adjust it during play."

Anyway just my two cents.


As I GM I don't rule out homebrew (I'm gathering you mean for character builds), but I'd be up front with the player about how a homebrew for flavor, at 80% of the power of official material, will be welcomed much more swiftly than a homebrew at 100% power or better. Then I say, "So if you want max raw power, talk to Whale" (our local alpha-geek for rules) "Because if you try to homebrew for power, we'll waste a lot of time that could have been spent actually playing."

Outside of character builds, I use a lot of homebrew, often building a monster or NPC or effect from an image I've found. That (hopefully) gives me a lot of practice balancing things.


There are groups that don't use homebrew? Does the GM never make their own monsters? Are all magic items in the campaign out of the CRB? No custom spells or feats?


Vivianne Laflamme wrote:

There are groups that don't use homebrew? Does the GM never make their own monsters? Are all magic items in the campaign out of the CRB? No custom spells or feats?

I can't really answer that because I don't know since my group uses home brewed options. But what I'm guessing is that a lot of GM's won't let players use those options. my group allows home brewed options but just like third party content we allow them on a case by case basis per option, not book.


I keep a stock of home brewed weapons available to PCs in my game. I believe them to be fairly balanced and always confirm this with another GM before adding one to the list. Aside from that I regularly embellish stock material adding villages between towns on the map or more flavorful NPCs where generic ones underwhelm. Particularly in Faerun there are sometimes hundreds of miles between settlements suggesting unnamed villages between.

Silver Crusade

I don't normally use home brewed anything because I find them difficult to balance. Especially considering how many options there are it becomes increasingly more difficult to consider how changing something might combine with any of the options available. I allow my players to use any official pathfinder source.

I guess if you want to consider homebrew as "any change to the written material " we are homebrew lite (don't have to roll to confirm criticals, occasional custom monsters, very rare custom macigal items). Lol I know that's not much but it keeps the game focused on game play and figuring out what can be done within the presented rules instead of figuring out things to add that could break the game. We have done homebrew settings but tend to stay away from custom feats, classes, weapons, spells, and races.

We play more than pathfinder so if there are things we want to explore we switch rules systems to a game that already handles what we want to do.


Vivianne Laflamme wrote:

There are groups that don't use homebrew? Does the GM never make their own monsters? Are all magic items in the campaign out of the CRB? No custom spells or feats?

Yes.

Except for the -5 to Climb to GM gave my Merfolk for having no legs.


Hello everybody, I thought I would share my groups limited experience with homebrew.

We have a very small group, usually a gm and two to three players, so we use a lot of homebrew. We Round-Robin GM, I think we have five campaigns currently active in Golarion, all based on downstream events from the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path.

Two players are playing homebrewed classes, and I think we have about 20 to 30 traits and feats we've changed or created based on our take on gameplay.

In our experience, the bigger the group, the harder it is to make sure 3rd party content and homebrew are still balanced when stacked up against the 1st party stuff.

Homebrew content can be a lot of fun, as long as the gm and players don't have adversarial relationships, and you can really create some fun stuff for the world. If the group is willing to experiment, and doesn't mind occasionally dropping a rule that is obviously broken, you can really expand and grow your world from a mechanical perspective.

Hope this was helpful!


I have a homebrew world, adventures, some classes are tweaked some are fine as is. I've made homebrew magic items and spells. I let players make them as well, but it has to be approved.


I'm not big on homebrew stuff (unless you include making dungeons as homebrewing). I've never felt like Pathfinder was lacking in options (if anything, the opposite), so don't see much reason to gild the lily.

Liberty's Edge

The world I play in is designed with being a blank canvas, so I have to homebrew practically everything.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I have no problem with homebrew. My groups are just usually too busy to come up with much, so we used published material.


I'm a bit of a fan of homebrewing items just for fun. Also will sometimes mix in elements from various other campaigns just to see how well they work for the PCs.

So, you might encounter a warforged titan in Golarion with me, once I start GMing Pathfinder.


If it helps, OP, I'm a lot more comfortable homebrewing something that (1) is mostly fluff or (b) is impermanent. New village? Fine. New potion? Knock yourself out. New spell? Eh...not so much.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

I use homebrewed material of my creation as quest rewards. For example, an alchemist got a free homebrew discovery after studying the big bad's evil experiment notes. Alternatively, I give unique magic items and sometimes story-related boons that come with a drawback.


Thanks for the feedback and I hope to hear more. I was mostly curious because I'm close to finishing a 200+ page supplement book for Pathfinder and I'm wondering who would be interested in it. It's free, and I know my group will use it, but I'm hoping others will utilize it as well.


Fnipernackle wrote:

Just wondering how many people use homebrewed material, either that they made or others have made. I keep hearing a lot of people talk about how their GM's don't allow homebrewed content so I figured I'd ask the community as a whole.

My group LOVES homebrewed content, but only if it is typed up in a professional manner and made available to everyone in the group. That way we avoid the, "but you saod it worked like this 3 months ago," arguments.

Not only do I love good homebrew options, I write a lot of the homebrew elements for my games and the people I play with. After 14 years of experience with the system and its nuances, sometimes it's easier to just write your own material that's needed for your niche stuff rather than waiting for publishers to put out something that fits.

Also it's about the only way to fix some issues in the system without waiting for entirely new editions.


We also use my friend's Piece meal armor rules. Basically breaking armor mechanics down by piece for a percentage of each suit with ACP etc for each piece. Only Martial classes are considered to be proficient with Piecemeal but its a feat besides. Its a fun mod and more realistic for scavenging equipment.


I've always homebrewed. Every once in a while I use published material to supplement the world I'm making.


I am currently running the Wrath AP and some of my players are gestalting based on the 2nd edt multi-class rules (homemade xp tracks), we are using an advancement point system instead of +1 to a stat every 4 levels, custom spell points, one of my players is using a custom race (Hell Born) and a custom single class that is balanced to be a gestalt class in power (Dark Champion, think Death Knight)

Do we use homebrew? Lol the better question is do we use core rules!

Sovereign Court

I would love to homebrew but my players dont care for it. I put in way too much work and the players just dont grab hold and run with it. They adore Golarion and the APs so thats what we do. Probably for the best I get real lazy eventually when GMing.

As far as making up classes and abilities we stick to paizo material. We are a boring bunch the paizo supplements more than suit our needs.

I am interested in making up some monsters but not sure when I would use them.


I homebrew custom content and modify existing content for my group, but the basis of the campaign and world is still an adventure path run in Golarion. It makes both the AP and my homebrew better imo.

I've had wickedly bad experiences with 100% homebrew in the past. Time waster.


I like homebrewing. When I started Jade Regent, I almost rewrote whole golarion campaign setting. After I got wiser, I decided to stay with some houserules and most flavouring ideas.


Pan wrote:

I would love to homebrew but my players dont care for it. I put in way too much work and the players just dont grab hold and run with it. They adore Golarion and the APs so thats what we do. Probably for the best I get real lazy eventually when GMing.

As far as making up classes and abilities we stick to paizo material. We are a boring bunch the paizo supplements more than suit our needs.

I am interested in making up some monsters but not sure when I would use them.

P-dawg, you sound very much like me. When I say I homebrew, it's usually adventures or monsters; I use the core rules and stuff stolen off the SRD all the time for gameplay. I don't think I've created a mechanic on my own in over a decade.

That being said, finding ways to use a homebrewed monster is easy. Got an adventure? Does that adventure have minions? Reskin them and make them different monsters.

I grabbed an adventure from an old dungeon mag that featured kobolds and little lizards for Level 1. I updated it for PF, then thought "I don't want lizards, I want something more draconinc." Since the lizards translated to CR 1/6 monsters anyway I took the base creature, added the Simple:Giant template to make them size Small and gave them short-range, low-damage breath weapons. I made them CR 1/3 instead, used them sparingly through the adventure, and called it a day.

Reskin; reuse; recycle and repeat.

I love homebrewing adventures. Even when I have a module I usually tweak it somehow. I have Master of the Fallen Fortress; I moved the tower to an overgrown woodland, broke up the tower with wild growth going through it instead of earthquake rubble, then changed the primary monsters to mites. Finally I tossed in some vermin and other support creatures here and there. I wholeheartedly encourage folks to make stuff up as much as possible and just see where it goes.


With homebrewing stuff, I'll only go as far as some simple balance-minded house-rules, like the Fighter gets 4+Int skills, or the Monk gets a couple of tweaks. With 3rd party stuff, I recognize that there's a lot of good stuff out there, but the phrase "90% of anything is crap" still stands, and I'm not interested in looking for that 10%, unless a player came to me and it was the only reasonable way to make the character they had in mind. But beyond just well or poorly balanced, the big issue I have with homebrew is that the vast majority of it is simply unnecessary to the detriment of the rest of the game.


My group uses some homebrew. The setting is original, the classes have some minor tweaks, like having more skill points, there are some items and monsters, and we also allow homebrew classes. Obviously, everything depends on the DM approval, and if the extra content starts giving problems, we make changes.


I'm a prolific homebrewer. When I create new monsters or tweak monsters, I don't apply templates or use any kind of set rules to advance them. I simply adjust the stats or create them whole cloth.

My players actually don't like running published material. They want a unique experience each time, rather than running the same adventure that 1,000 other people have also played.

I also create races, magic items, and spells frequently. I tend to stay away from creating entirely new classes, unless a player specifically requests one and the group is okay with it.

I use the same rule as Covent, all homebrew is added to the game on a probation basis. If something turns out to be far more/less powerful than intended, adjustments are made. This usually occurs when something is added at lower levels, and then some splatbook feat/ability with dubious mechanics modifies the homebrew to an unintended result.

Dark Archive

I enjoy homebrewing new options, even if some of them are for my antagonists only.

My group's rule basically is: bring the homebrew item you want, then the group decides if it's okay. Usually, we don't mind as long as it doesn't completely wreck the game.


I use homebrew in many aspects of the game. Like pricing/trading, social interaction, visibility/lighting, overland travel, and probably more...

I (would) allow homebrew in builds, but it hasn't come up for my current game(other than gestalt, I guess).


i like using homebrew, but not every group agrees.


Future campaigns I'll run will use a few house-rule adjustments to a few classes.

Aside from that no homebrew. 3rd party If I like it.


homebrew for flavor, concept, or to fill a gap i am fine with, homebrew for Raw power, not so much.

yes, i am fine with a race with +2 strength +2 dexterity -2 charisma as racial modifiers, i am fine with races with a 40 foot base speed. just don't nickle and dime too many racial advantages or too many large ones. a race tailored to a given category of roles is fine, like an elven wizard, as long as it isn't overfocused on one specific build or facet.


Would the people who have posted in this thread be interested in a homebrewed pdf I created? All the material is all homebrewed and can be used for any setting, although much of it is Golarion specific.


My world is my own. I've built it for years.

I have my own Epic Rules (they come off a lot like P6 but are more P20). I use classes and races from multiple D20 sources - and an insane amount of spells and monsters.

And I always look for more.

Actually in all my years of fantasy gaming, I've never GMed, or played in a published world, it's always been a home campaign.

So yeah - lots of homebrew.


Lord Mhoram wrote:

My world is my own. I've built it for years.

I have my own Epic Rules (they come off a lot like P6 but are more P20). I use classes and races from multiple D20 sources - and an insane amount of spells and monsters.

And I always look for more.

Actually in all my years of fantasy gaming, I've never GMed, or played in a published world, it's always been a home campaign.

So yeah - lots of homebrew.

Good stuff. I on the other hand could never put that much work into it. I rely on the rules to keep my game balanced.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Fnipernackle wrote:
Would the people who have posted in this thread be interested in a homebrewed pdf I created?

I'm always interested in new ideas for the game.


Fnipernackle wrote:
Would the people who have posted in this thread be interested in a homebrewed pdf I created? All the material is all homebrewed and can be used for any setting, although much of it is Golarion specific.

I am. And as soon as I'm updating my own homebrew stuff to Pathfinder, I will have it ready for posting as well.


Covent wrote:

I use an entirely home-brewed universe including having all of the races as home-brew and several home-brew classes. I have also rewritten the monk, rogue, and fighter.

Honestly what will happen is usually my players will come to me with a concept that they cannot find a race/class/prc combination to fit and I will go write something and then come back and adjust it with them until the concept is fulfilled.

I always do hang a caveat on everything however and this is not just for home-brew, "If it because a problem I reserve the right to remove/adjust it during play."

Anyway just my two cents.

Would love to see your revised monk, fighter, and rogue?


Since I ruled all my Early Flintlocks are matchlocks(Except for masterwork which are wheel lockes), I had to come up with home brew rules to cover how both work, like lighting the matches, keeping powder dry, how easy the matches are to see etc.


Here's the link to the other thread where you can download the pdf and leave comments and opinions. Link


I use homebrew, some of it is my own (I like making magical items), some of it is others.

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