So, at some point in the future, after I finish my real life Rise of the Runelords campaign, I plan on running another campaign, but with some (meaning a lot) of rule variants to get what I feel is a more gritty and somewhat within the realm of realistic gameplay as far as Pathfinder goes. Here are the variant rules I am considering:
- 15-pt buy.- I realize this isn't a variant, but a choice, however I want to set a standpoint.
- 3d6 instead of 1d20.. I realize this changes the general idea of the game, but it gives more average rolls, making bonuses that much more important.
- Players roll all dice.- Fate in the hands of the players.
- Parry and Dodge rather than AC, but they would roll it, see above.
- Armor is DR, corollary to above. Makes no sense to have it add to dodge or parry. Or does it?
- I also enforce Background to earn traits, to help facilitate role-playing the character, but that's not so much a variant rule.
This is where I am at so far. I have other ideas, but this is the baseline. My question is would you play in this campaign and if so, what would you change, if anything?
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- 15-pt buy.- I realize this isn't a variant, but a choice, however I want to set a standpoint.
- 3d6 instead of 1d20.. I realize this changes the general idea of the game, but it gives more average rolls, making bonuses that much more important.
- Players roll all dice.- Fate in the hands of the players.
- Parry and Dodge rather than AC, but they would roll it, see above.
- Armor is DR, corollary to above. Makes no sense to have it add to dodge or parry. Or does it?
- I also enforce Background to earn traits, to help facilitate role-playing the character, but that's not so much a variant rule.
This is where I am at so far. I have other ideas, but this is the baseline. My question is would you play in this campaign and if so, what would you change, if anything?
...Huh. So that's how you do bulleted lists. =/
Anyways. Fifteen points, to me, is a little underpowered, but I made a pretty decent brawler for Iron Gods off fifteen points, so I'm cool with that.
Only real issue I can see with using 3d6 for everything is attack rolls. Unearthed Arcana has this as a variant rule, and mentions that critical threat ranges should be modified as follows:
- Anything that was already a 20 (such as the blunderbuss) threatens a critical on a natural 16-18.
- Anything that threatens on 19 or 20 (such as greatswords) now threatens on a 15-18.
- Weapons that critical on an 18-20 (rapiers, katanas) or a 17-20 (keen greatswords) now threaten on a 14-18.
- Weapons that critical on a 15-20 (keen katanas) now threaten on a 13-18.
Also, you can take 10, but not 20. You are able with 3d6 to take 16 (10 times as long) or 18 (100 times as long!) according to the Unearthed Arcana rules.
Since I've got the tab open, click this lil' ol' link for info on having the players roll all the dice. It mentions attacks/defense, saving throws, and spell resistance checks, so this might be a nice help for you. =)
Meh, if you really want grit, play with a different system. Pathfinder's awesome, but it's about heroics. You want grit, roll with some Savage Worlds, where one peon can get lucky with an exploding d4 and off you with a single hit, or World of Darkness, where you're probably going to die any time you lose initiative.
For grit that's baked into rules I prefer GURPS or one of the chaosium system games. For story/ ambiance grit, well that falls back on your GM style and world design. For d20 based grit, of both types, the best I've seen was the black company setting by Green Ronin. Not sure how well it would convert to PF, or if it would be worth the attempt.
For a real gritty feeling, consider E6, or alternately banning all full 9-level casters. The latter is actually very good for limiting class imbalances and enforcing a lower magic world.
You can theoretically do both, but I'd go E7 instead of E6 in that case.
I recommend highly against odd leveled Epic. It basically forces people out of the Sorcerer progression casters, in favor of those with Wizard progression. I also recommend against attempting to make E6-8 low magic. Just embrace a world with weaker magic, not less magic. Also you'll need to rework magic crafting, I limit magic crafting in my PF E6 game by requiring a magic crafter have blueprints for the item they want to make.
I find Wound/Vitality makes for gritty combat in straight pathfinder.
Knowing one lucky hit from an orc might knock you out, a hit from a giant could kill you, and a dragon...
Yeah, Wound/Vitality.
Good responses all around guys, thanks. I have kicked around the idea of Wound/ Vitality as well. Maybe gritty isn't the word I'm looking for. I still want the players to eventually toss around fireballs, etc. but have it so that even at such high levels, fate can step in and remind you of your place... With that thought, if I kept d20, I was considering the variable bonus variant as well, but that may make it too much reliant on dice and less on character skill.
Haven't played or read Savage Worlds, but I have heard great things. I have played Black Company, but the magic there, nice as it is with its free form, may be too much for the players I have to handle without having several spells written out for them first.
As far as E6/P6, I looked at that as well. Wanted to try that in a short campaign and get some experience with it before running it.
Anyone actually tried some of these variants I mentioned? Experiences? Good? Bad?
Wound/Vitality means that criticals become one-shots.
In Star Wars RCR, criticals required a 20 on almost everything (lightsabers were 19-20), and Improved Critical only increased the range by 1.
I think the best crit mod you could ever get with weapons, feats, and prestige classes was 17-20.
The condition track rules from Saga Edition might be better. You can still die from a couple of strong hits, but it isn't a 5% or more of dying every attack at high levels, where hit point damage will be well in excess of double your Constitution score.
E6/7 seems to be something GMs love, but players get frankly annoyed at. Every GM wants that gritty low-power feel, or at least it seems that way, and many players SAY they do, but if it comes down to it and they're sixth level and they worked their butts off to hustle to the next level, and their reward is just a feat after previously getting exponential increases in power, well, it tends to lead to serious player frustration in my experience. There was a long time I wanted to run an E7, but every player I presented it to looked at me with a sour face. Usually the reaction was along the lines of "Well, it sounds better than not gaming at all, but..." without flat-out saying that.
Most stats and skills are flat die rates with a flat number to hit, usually, but not always a 4. i.e. the weakest you can be in anything is a d4, the strongest is usually a d12, etc, and your goal is USUALLY to hit a 4 or higher. Still, any time you roll max on the die, it "aces", and you re-roll and add the result. This can happen repeatedly . It's a great representation of a mook getting lucky and offing you in one hit, (I've seen it happen) something that could probably happen in any fantasy genre book, but CANNOT happen in Pathfinder, even with e6. In Pathfinder, a 1st level character will NEVER, EVER kill a 6th level character in one hit (unless he has 20 strength, a x4 weapon, and crits...and even then, it might not off the 6th level barbarian with a mediocre con score).
This combined with the wound system, wherein your character gets progressively weaker as they receive more and more damage, receiving a flat -1 to rolls per wound, (including rolls to prevent further wounds or recover from existing wounds) leads to a very deadly scenario. Of course, it works both ways...a relatively weak PC can get lucky and one-shot that boss you spent hours putting together, (had it happen to me as a GM...although NPCs in SW tend to take like 5 minutes to put together, honestly) leading to supreme happiness on the player's behalf.
Plus the book is like 10$ hardcopy, I can't even remember how cheap PDF.
Like I said, Pathfinder is awesome, but it's a more "heroic" system. The PCs aren't really meant to be in danger from 90% of the world when they get to a decent level.
Another possibility, to help reduce reliance on magical healing, would be to give characters the ability to convert an amount of damage equal to their BAB + Con modifier into nonlethal damage, which heals much faster. Then you can force the party to rely on a bard, druid, paladin, or witch for healing.
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I recommend highly against odd leveled Epic. It basically forces people out of the Sorcerer progression casters, in favor of those with Wizard progression. I also recommend against attempting to make E6-8 low magic. Just embrace a world with weaker magic, not less magic. Also you'll need to rework magic crafting, I limit magic crafting in my PF E6 game by requiring a magic crafter have blueprints for the item they want to make.For a real gritty feeling, consider E6, or alternately banning all full 9-level casters. The latter is actually very good for limiting class imbalances and enforcing a lower magic world.
You can theoretically do both, but I'd go E7 instead of E6 in that case.
Uh...did you miss that I only suggested it if ditching full casters entirely which eliminates the problem you mention?
Besides, even with full casters, you can mess with spell progression and make it work (I've got a systematized E7 setup that never lets anyone get 4th level spells, for example), though that can get a little complicated, I admit.
I recommend highly against odd leveled Epic. It basically forces people out of the Sorcerer progression casters, in favor of those with Wizard progression. I also recommend against attempting to make E6-8 low magic. Just embrace a world with weaker magic, not less magic. Also you'll need to rework magic crafting, I limit magic crafting in my PF E6 game by requiring a magic crafter have blueprints for the item they want to make.For a real gritty feeling, consider E6, or alternately banning all full 9-level casters. The latter is actually very good for limiting class imbalances and enforcing a lower magic world.
You can theoretically do both, but I'd go E7 instead of E6 in that case.
Uh...did you miss that I only suggested it if ditching full casters entirely which eliminates the problem you mention?
Besides, even with full casters, you can mess with spell progression and make it work (I've got a systematized E7 setup that never lets anyone get 4th level spells, for example), though that can get a little complicated, I admit.
You said "alternately" and that was in regards to E6. The way it was written there was no way to assume that you were not suggesting E7 with full casting classes available.
When running with a grittier game I try to do a few things.
I lower the massive damage threshold. How low depends on tastes, and the exact tone you are trying to set for the game, but the lowest I would ever consider going is character's Constitution. You can also vary the danger associated with Massive damage by adjusting the Fortitude DC. For very low Massive damage threshold games you can even use damage suffered as your DC, but expect people to die with that.
I also use a variant of the Strain-Injury rules variant. As normal for Strain-Injury, Strain heals very quickly, requiring a few minutes of rest to fully recover as it represent combat fatigue. Injury, however, take much longer to heal, how long varies based on tone you want to set for your game, anywhere from days to weeks per point of Injury is reasonable. For extra gritty only powerful magic like Regeneration can heal Injury, normal healing magics only allows you to recover from Strain.
I also frequently make use of variant Critical hit rules that apply penalties to the character based on the wound suffered.
Simply, because of how poorly Armor as DR works in PF I tend not to use it even though I would vastly prefer it that way.
I've also experimented with bleeding Injuries, but never really found a satisfactory way to handle them. But if you want gritty, bleeding out is the way to handle your game, most physical injuries kill by blood loss and not the actual injury itself.
Edit: A not really gritty option, just something else that I almost always do and it influences the rest of my choices.
I only have absolute beginners a level 1. The typical person gains levels throughout their life. Most professionals at the peak of their career are going to be level 5. After level 5 the population drops of steeply. If you want to start your gritty game off at level 1 it makes the world's population much more dangerous to the inexperienced adventurer.