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The rather wonderful idea to make Illusions less susceptible to Detect Magic got me thinking. This might be the time to finally get Illusions right, like REALLY right, in PF, because they have always been a little lame and situational. So, if you will indulge me, I’d like to talk a little bit about the most ubiquitous of illusionists in the real world: peppers (as in, jalapeño peppers).

Humans detect heat via a biochemical reaction to infrared radiation. The greater the amount of radiation, the faster the biochemical reaction. It happens in your mouth if you eat hot food and on your skin if you sit near a fire. Peppers trigger the exact same biochemical reaction. Unless you know it is a pepper that is causing it, your brain cannot tell the difference between the triggers. Accordingly, I think the simplest of all illusionary signatures should be the thermal signature, which D&D illusions have traditionally not been able to pull off until 3rd Level. There are a few animals (some snakes and bats) in the natural world that are capable of a form of heat vision, which they accomplish using heat sensitive pits in their noses, but most, including humans, can only detect magnitude. I think an illusionary thermal signature should cover both of those and should work regardless of the INT of the target; if it can feel infrared radiation, you can trick it with illusion.

The easiest signatures to mimic in D&D have always been sound (audible glamour) and vision (silent image). I think they should work just like a thermal signature in that anything with eyes can have a visible signature mapped onto its retina and anything with eardrums can have a sound mapped onto its eardrums (I guess?). The visible signature is a bit tricky because the illusion cannot create its own visible light, so at relatively low levels of control, the mapping onto the retina should only occur if the eyes are directed toward the illusion and are already detecting visible light. Although an illusionist should not be limited to no-light illusions, if you don’t do it that way, then the illusion of a person carrying a torch would not cause you to see the wall behind the illusion, which should have been illuminated by the torch (because there isn’t actually any light). I would include darkvision illusions as just another aspect of a visible illusion, but a reasonable person could also decide a darkvision signature is different than a visible signature.

Illusions with smell are also traditionally higher-level, but a particulate signature should not be much more difficult to pull off than a thermal signature, IMO, because they are both biochemical reactions. I would combine olfaction and gustation into a single signature, but would imprint slightly differently depending whether you sniff or lick the illusion. Almost all animals are capable of smell (absent abnormalities) and all macroscopic animals are capable of taste (not sure about microscopic, but some of microscopic animals can taste, too!). Accordingly, an illusionist should be able to map an illusion onto the olfaction and gustation receptors of any multicellular animal or animal-like creature, regardless of INT.

A first signature we can detect in real life, but that is not mentioned in illusion spells is what I would characterize as “vibration,” including infrasound and tremors. I think they should have their own signature as distinct from audible signatures because they are not mapped onto the ears. Again, any creature that is capable of feeling vibrations should be susceptible to such illusions, regardless of INT, which includes pretty much all macroscopic animals. You would need this to make an illusion of a gargantuan creature stomping towards you to feel real.

Some other senses common to many real animals include balance, time, pain, hunger, thirst, and direction (magnetoreception—not very strong in humans, but there is some indication it exists).

A sense that deserves special mention is the kinesthetic sense, which an illusionist would need to trigger if the illusion changed the target creature (e.g., by growing tentacles or something). This sense, also known as proprioception has even been detected in flowering land plants! As you may be able to guess from what I have said about INT before, yes, I think this illusion should work on certain plant creatures. I would make this include pretty much all of the plant senses, making the plants do a bonsai or grow around a void or the like, all using illusion.

Some signatures for animals that humans do not have are electroception, detection of polarized light, and detection of water pressure and currents. An artificial sense that might be worth mentioning is X-Ray, which a transmuter might use to pierce illusions if the illusionist didn’t include it. An illusionist should be able to manipulate all of these.

Now I get to the signatures that don’t exist in real life, only one of which is magic, the signature that was added to all illusions, in a sense, by making illusions harder to identify with Detect Magic. There should be a signature for every single possible detection spell, including Detect Animals and Plants (e.g., an Animal Signature or a Plant Signature), Detect Evil, Detect Poison (e.g., a Poison Signature), Detect Scrying (makes you think there is scrying when there is not or hides scrying attempts), Detect Secret Doors (makes you think it is secret--and they just got lucky finding it or they cannot find the illusion with the ability to detect secret doors), Detect Thoughts (e.g., a Surface Thoughts Signature and, maybe with some more complexity, a Deep Thoughts Signature), Detect Snares and Pits (e.g., a Trap Signature), and Detect Undead.

With all of these possible signatures for illusions, the illusionist character can impact a wide range of different creatures, including those that are non-intelligent. They can do crazy stuff like make a person think they have been walking for hours, when it has been seconds, and that they are starting to feel pain in their feet from blisters, thirst, hunger, etc. The greatest of illusionists can treat any living thing like a brain in a jar, where the illusionist provides whatever stimulation he wishes and shuts out all other (real world) stimuli. You don’t even need to introduce the semi-real phantasms to make this specialty really powerful.

Sorry to go so long.

I would like the core rulebook to include a paragraph about the social contract between the DM and the players. I think it should say something along the line of DMs (or appropriate copyright term) can ask players to build PCs that are not interested in doing things that may make other players have less fun, including rape (assuming they want to use the r-word in a publication), harm to other players (though cinematic punching of one another is fine), and taking an unequal share of treasure (though players can still steal trinkets from one another if they are thieves). You may be able to play an Evil character that does none of these things, but if you are not creative enough to play an Evil character who does none of the prohibited things, just pick a different alignment.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but SF attribute point-buy, IMHO, sucks. You can always voluntarily gimp yourself (it’s even in SF core that you can start with a lower attribute with no benefit), but gimping doesn’t work with attributes; it works in a system like Fate where you get a cool, crunchy effect for it. Like “You are weak so the strong megalomaniac is more responsive to your groveling.” In SF, it’s more like the other soldier in the party is just as strong, dexterous, tough, wise, and charismatic as you, but you are worse at lore checks because you dump INT without benefit. That’s not good game design. The only other options are designed to prevent min-maxing or something, but end up falling flat.

I find the SF point buy to be simple, yet unintuitive (particularly with the +1 theme and how you don’t want to put it in an ability you plan to increase to 18, even though that is the theme of your character). I find the increase of 4 attributes every 5 levels to be underwhelming; increasing all 6 makes more sense to me, which is just as boring, but doesn’t have any false choices. Also, you spend half of your levels from 1-20 with an odd (and therefore lame) primary ability, so most of the time you are getting better at stuff that is far less significant to your character. Fewer ability increases makes the increases more meaningful, even if you spend several levels with odd primary abilities; the barrel-loads of ability increases actually diminishes your most significant ones.

The point-buy choices you get with Pathfinder: Kingmaker crpg are so much more fulfilling than SF. I would even double down on the graduated point buy by giving players the option of +2/+1 to any two attributes every 5 levels OR +1 to four. That’s a real choice. Also, ancestry bonus + theme bonus gets you to 21 at 1st Level, if you want.

If not, just get rid of the ancestry and theme bonus because they serve no useful purpose if you are just going to cap at 18. It can serve as a detriment to getting ability scores you want for certain ancestries, but it will never serve to make you more like the ancestry. Specifically, a +2 INT ancestry bonus doesn’t make you a better Wizard because everyone puts 18 INT when they play a Wizard; it gives you a better DEX or CON. I think it would be better to just say “Dwarves tend to have high STR, CON, and WIS, and low DEX and CHA, but you are free to play against type.”

To be clear, I like the ancestry bonus if there is no cap, but I don’t like it if there is an 18 cap. I personally saw no problem with point buy as in PF.

I rather like this one. Wizards get 1 bonus wizard feat every even levels. The bonus feats are as follows.

Consistent Spell: Variable numeric effects are constant (-50% from maximum). Spell Slot 1 level higher. [Used with Empower Spell II, this metamagic feat enables you to cast maximized spells. This combination replaces the Maximize Spell feat.]
Empower Spell I: Increase numerical effects of spell by 25%. Spell Slot 1 level higher.
Empower Spell II (prereq. Empower Spell I): Increase numerical effects of spell by 50%. Spell Slot 2 levels higher.
Empower Spell III (prereq. Empower Spell II): Increase numerical effects of spell by 75%. Spell Slot 3 levels higher.
Empower Spell IV (prereq. Empower Spell III): Increase numerical effects of spell by 100%. Spell Slot 4 levels higher.
Enlarge Spell I: Range is x2. Spell Slot 1 level higher.
Enlarge Spell II (prereq. Enlarge Spell I): Range is x4. Spell Slot 2 levels higher.
Enlarge Spell III (prereq. Enlarge Spell II): Range is x10. Spell Slot 3 levels higher.
Enlarge Spell IV (prereq. Enlarge Spell III): Range is x20. Spell Slot 4 levels higher.
Extend Spell I: Duration is x2. Spell Slot 1 level higher.
Extend Spell II (prereq. Extend Spell I): Duration is x4. Spell Slot 2 levels higher.
Extend Spell III (prereq. Extend Spell II): Increase Duration by 1 step (rounds --> minutes --> 10s minutes --> hours --> half days --> weeks). Spell Slot 3 levels higher.
Extend Spell IV (prereq. Extend Spell III): Duration after increasing by 1 step is x2. Spell Slot 4 levels higher.
Quicken Spell I: Cut casting time by 1 step (½ day --> 1 hour --> 10 minutes --> 1 minute --> full round --> standard --> move --> swift), but no faster than a full round action. Spell Slot 1 level higher.
Quicken Spell II (prereq. Quicken Spell I): Cut casting time by 2 steps, but no faster than a standard action. Spell Slot 2 levels higher.
Quicken Spell III (prereq. Quicken Spell II): Cut casting time by 3 steps, but no faster than a move action. Spell Slot 3 levels higher.
Quicken Spell IV (prereq. Quicken Spell III): Cut casting time by 4 steps, but no faster than a swift action. Spell Slot 4 levels higher.
Widen Spell I: Increase numerical measurements of area by 1/3. Spell Slot 1 level higher.
Widen Spell II (prereq. Widen Spell I): Increase numerical measurements of area by 2/3. Spell Slot 2 levels higher.
Widen Spell III (prereq. Widen Spell II): Increase numerical measurements of area by 100%. Spell Slot 3 levels higher.
Widen Spell IV (prereq. Widen Spell III): Increase numerical measurements of area by 4/3. Spell Slot 4 levels higher.
[Silent Spell, Still Spell, and Eschew Materials are unchanged.]

Brew Potion enables you to brew a potion of up to 3rd level. If you take Improved Brew Potion, you can brew potions of up to 6th level. If you take Greater Brew Potion, you can brew potions of up to 9th level.
Craft Wand enables you to craft a wand of up to 4th level. If you take Improved Craft Wand, you can craft wands of up to 8th level. If you take Greater Craft Wand, you can craft wands of, theoretically, up to 12th level.
[My item creation feats get kind of funky; I'm omitting the details because they are chock full of house rulage, but you get the idea.]

Thought I'd share what I think is a gem. Very simple.

Rogues get slow BAB progression, and get +1 to attacks per odd level when in a position to sneak attack (regardless of whether the target is immune to sneak attack damage).

I noticed that high level rogues start losing their edge compared to fighters as the levels advance. Fighters do more average damage than rogues even if you assume the rogue gets a sneak attack every time. By 20th level, Fighters have about a +11 better to hit than Rogues without even taking into account how many resources go into weapons (+4 weapon training, +5 good BAB progression, +2 IWF/GWF). This house rule reduces the difference to +6, which isn't too bad considering the 10d6 of sneak attack damage on a hit. I think this house rule makes rogues good at every level compared to Fighters.