As the title implies, this is a place to list and discuss houserules that you would use/want in PF2, as well as a place for me to catalog and organize my own thoughts on houserules. I'm going to list out the houserules I intend to use when running the Playtest, and anyone can feel free to comment on them or list their own prospective houserules.
A few ground rules:
Don't post about if/how you think someone's houserules are bad. If a houserule is one you wouldn't use then of course that's fair but these are rules people would use at their own tables and it generally really isn't anyone's place to tell someone else what would or would not work for their own groups. That said constructive feedback is welcome if you have an idea to expand on or possibly improve what a given rule is going for, as is stating if you find a houserule to be something you might use yourself.
If the PF2 Playtest is a system you would not play/GM even with houserules or alterations then please refrain from posting about it here. Your opinion is perfectly valid, but this is a place for discussing changes for actual play, not whether or not someone will play.
I know full well +level is a hot-button issue around here. If your houserule involves altering or removing +level then please say such with a decent amount of brevity. Dissertations on +level are a valid opinion but the place is elsewhere. Likewise if someone posts an opinion against (Or for) +level in their houserule then there is no call to start debate over whether or not you agree with the opinion. Again, there are places for it but this isn't one of them.
Just in general be civil. Everyone knows what is and isn't civil, and I hope to have this thread be productive and constructive rather than negative and argumentative. I'm not trying to create a positive echo chamber or anything, but there is plenty of negativity going on the forums to where there is no risk of that, but this particular thread is meant to be a positive one.
So, on to the houserules!
While feat chains are less abundant than in PF1, I'm not overly fond of the ones that do exist in PF2. So I'm consolidating many down. For example the Brutish Shove feat will automatically grant the effects of Improved Brutish Shove at an appropriate level, Counterspell will also grant Reflect Spell at 14th level, Monk Style feats will grant their follow-ups, etc. I feel that in general classes could use a bit more feat access but I already tried running a non-DD session with just extra feats handed out and while fun it was a bit of a mess. I think consolidating like this to avoid levels where you feel compelled to pick a certain feat because it is an extension of an earlier choice is a more elegant solution.
In a similar vein, some class paths will be expanded. For example Barbarians will automatically get the feats with their totem as a prerequisite at the appropriate level (I will need to think of an equivalent for Rage totem. Possibly being able to take lower-level effects from other totems similarly to the Universalist Wizard's level 8 feat.). Wizards get their advanced school power at 8 automatically, Sorcerers will probably get their bloodline powers for free again but keep their level 6 and 10 feat slots, Druids will get Order feats automatically, etc.
Resonance will be slightly altered. No longer do potions and elixirs cost RP (Likely exception is given to repeated use of a Dragon's Breath Potion). Most if not all items with limited uses per day will have that limit removed (The only one I am iffy on seems to be the single action Invisibility armor rune). However items may have a 10 minute cooldown a la Ring of the Ram and Spider Climb.
Any use of a magic or alchemical item that requires RP and has a set DC will have that DC raised to the user's Class DC (Or possibly spell DC for casters) if that is higher. You are expending the same resource for a level 1 item as you are a level 20 item, and the higher level item already has stronger effects, so I see little cause to penalize the lower level item further with an unusable DC.
If an item has a DC but does not require Resonance (Potions, elixirs, and poisons namely) you may spend 1 RP while using them to raise the DC to your class DC as if it were a magic item using RP. This is partly to allow lower level poisons to be used at higher level, again with the same reasoning of using a daily resource that is the same regardless of item level.
All uses of Hero Points are reduced to costing 1 hero point, hero points reset to 1 each session (Maybe, not sure on that) and cannot go above 3, but are now handed out for doing cool stuff and not hard-capped per session.
I am buffing the Enfeebled condition as it's a bit weak compared to Sluggish. This is largely due to the flat damage penalty meaning very little at higher levels while the AC and Reflex penalties of Sluggish are very much still relevant. So the idea is for the damage penalty to be higher. After some thought what I think I'm going for is that Enfeebled applies a penalty to damage equal to the severity of the Enfeebled condition to each damage die rolled, but cannot reduce any individual die rolled below 1. If the attack does not roll dice, then it simply takes a flat penalty equal to the severity of the condition. This is what I felt was the best option to go with, after a fair bit of thought trying to make it in such a way that it was a significant damage penalty but not one that would completely cripple someone with a small die weapon and low Str. Making the lower cap on the Enfeebled penalty essentially equivalent to dealing minimum damage with the attack seemed fitting, and applying the penalty to each die individually with a minimum damage of 1 per die allows me to avoid some awkward phrasing I would have if I simply multiplied the condition level by the number of dice to get the penalty but still wanted to keep the same minimum damage cap.
In wishing to differentiate the damage types beyond where resistance and weakness apply (Admittedly this is partly done with certain weapon traits generally sticking to a given damage type, but I'd like to go further and also I don't think I can live in a universe where a battleaxe is almost always straight better than a Longsword. XD), as well as to make Versatile weapons a bit better, I'm adding a rule where any critical hit with an attack or critical failure against a damage spell will apply a minor status effect for 1 round depending on the damage type, as follows: (This is in addition to any critical specialization effect. IIRC though this means Spear needs a new effect)
Slashing: Sluggish 1
Piercing: Enfeebled 1
Bludgeoning: Stupefied 1 (Iffy because of its extra anti-mage effect above and beyond the other effects, but I'm not sure Drained is right either.)
Fire: Enfeebled 1
Electricity: Sluggish 1
Cold: Hampered 5 (10?)
Acid: Not sure yet, maybe Enfeebled 1?
Sonic: Stupefied 1? Sluggish 1?
Mental: Stupefied 1? Sluggish 1?
Positive/Negative: Considering Drained 1. It feels a bit stronger than the other conditions but Pos/Neg damage is fairly uncommon, plus the limited duration probably makes it less severe than Drained normally is. May consider Drained for other damage types (Bludgeoning perhaps) as well with this in mind.
Force: Probably nothing. Most force damage is auto-hit, and the ones that aren't, like Spiritual Weapon, give the option to use another damage type. No status effect on Force makes this choice less duh.
(The specific status effects for specific damage types is actually something I'm looking for feedback on)
Furthermore (Playing into my desire to make higher weapon/spell proficiency tiers do more than just a +1 to make them more interesting like what is done with skills), Expert proficiency with a weapon grants you access to a special activity which allows you to spend 2 actions to make a Strike that automatically inflicts the status effect on a hit (For Expert casters, they can add an action to casting and have the effect proc on a hit for attack spells or a failed save for others), and either inflicts a level 2 version of the effect or inflicts the effect for a 1-minute duration on a critical hit (Or fail for save spells). Not sure which of the two would be better.
Master proficiency would cause the normal crit effect (Normal hit effect on the 2-action attack) to be a level 2 version of the status or a 1-minute duration, with a crit on the 2-action attack applying the level 2 effect for 1 minute.
Legendary... I'm really not sure. The logical step coming off of the previous effects would be for a crit or a 2-action hit to apply the level 2 effect for 1 minute and for a 2-action crit to apply level 3, but that all seems a little too strong. I'm really not sure.
Also Expert proficiency automatically grants access to critical specialization effects for your weapon. There were only a few corner cases where this wasn't so, but I'm removing them for simplicity.
Similarly Master proficiency in a save grants Evasion or its equivalent for that save automatically, and Legendary does the same for Improved Evasion. Again, there were only a few cases where this wasn't so but I'm removing them and tying Evasion and its comrades directly to proficiency. Also this gives Monks an actual reason to bump a save to Legendary. Monks will also need something to replace their Second Path to Perfection as it is now redundant. I'll figure that out later.
ACP may well just be removed, speed reduction will likely be removed or reduced. I think armor is fine with equivalent Armor+Dex cap across the board, but I don't think heavy armor needs the penalties. It's already the hardest armor type to achieve, I don't think just having the benefit of needing less Dex for full defense merits the penalties. Also the Clumsy armor trait can screw right off, Noisy may be right behind it. Might try to actually work on some positive armor traits sine those worked so well for weapons, and heavy armor can have more traits to be better without throwing off the numbers.
I am also considering granting casters higher spell proficiency at earlier levels, but I'm not sure if or when I would do so,
So that's all the general houserules I have offhand, now for some class-specific bits: (Only stuff outside of the general feat and class path stuff from before will be listed)
Alchemists, ANY item with the infused trait has a minimum DC equal to the Alchemist's class DC. Potent Poisoner is redundant. This is another "The level 1 item already uses the same resource as the stronger level 20 item, why penalize it further?" deal.
Alchemists also either get access to mutagens regardless of path or get better access to an item bonus on attacks.
Bards, they are now prepared casters. Their magic is now flavored as coming from pieces of music that they "Rehearse" each day in the way a caster prepares spells. This is partly to make it so that there is a prepared caster option for every magical tradition and partly to solidify Sorcerer as having the monopoly on spontaneous casting.
Clerics, I am currently working on a very WIP alternate version of Channel Energy that is detailed here:
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42fb3?Looking-for-feedback-on-an-alternate-Cha nnel
(Apologies if this counts as using a thread to plug another thread, but just reposting that thread here in its entirety isn't exactly viable)
Druids, nothing yet.
Fighter, looking at expanding their armor proficiency boosts to be equal across all armor weights.
Monk, need a new feature to replace Second Path to Perfection.
Paladins, the Step-Strike and ranged Strike effects of Ranged Reprisal are automatic. Ranged Reprisal instead grants the ability to Stride up to half your speed to make the Retributive Strike. I may look at further tweaks to this and the other Reaction-boosting feats (They do seem like something I would make automatic due to how much of a duh choice they are), but I have not seen a 1.6 Paladin in action so I don't know them well yet. Also, Righteous Ally (But not Second Ally) may be one of those things where I give the follow-up feats automatically. If I do this the I probably won't do the same for the Paladin Reaction feats.
Ranger, Snares will automatically hit Class DC and will likely gain stronger versions, possibly incorporating the stronger alchemical bombs from 1.6. Also will likely gain Expert armor proficiency.
Rogue, going to give them some TWF support, possibly something like Twin Takedown but without the hunted target requirement, or possibly just Double Slice. Also possibly Expert armor proficiency.
Sorcerer, probably going to give additional spontaneous heightening, likely scaling with level. I'm not quite sold on automatically being able to spontaneously heighten anything but I am considering it.
Wizard, don't really have anything. I think they are in a good place.
And I think that's it! At least, that is all of the houserules I have in mind that I can think of right now. Looking forward to seeing what others have come up with!
I'm working on a lot of house rules for my upcoming PF2 Rise of the Runelords game, even some really huge ones like using Arcanist (I really, really hate Vancian) casting and buffing spontaneous casters for that matter, but I'm still working on that. Probably going to steal some of your stuff too.
There is one houserule however that I've been using ever since we finished Doomsday Dawn. Armor. I've reduced the speed penalty from 5 feet to 0 and from 10 to 5, removed the Clunky trait, ACP is now reduced by your Strength modifier and the classes that get increased armor proficiency with one type of armor (like Paladins and Fighters with heavy armor) get it with all types of armor the class grants proficiency.
Oh, forgot one. Scare to Death, on a success it allows a Will save vs. Intimidation DC to resist the fleeing effect (But not the Frightened effect).
Scare to Death as-is is insanely strong and feels problematic to use against players while being potentially encounter-breaking as well. The Will save involved may be hard given that Intimidate can potentially be pumped higher than Spell DCs, but it still provides an important mitigation to the chances of that fleeing effect landing.
Forgot another. Trinkets are either changed to permanent items or have permanent variants, priced appropriately for permanent items of their level. They retain the methods of affixing and limit of 1 per weapon/armor/shield, but instead of being destroyed when activated with resonance they remain and can be repeatedly activated. Some or potentially all use requirements will be removed or adjusted (I am cool with many of them but Owlbear Claw REALLY needs changed). Also the Quick Repair feat will allow trinkets to be swapped faster, likely 1 minute for Trained, 3 actions for Expert, 2 for Master, and 1 for legendary (This is a different scale than mending dents but I want this to be usable in combat a bit earlier. May change it to match the repair time if it seems too quick. Not sure how often people would be swapping trinkets in combat before Master rank anyway.). This gives non-shield-users more use for the feat. I really like the idea of Trinkets as special weapon and armor customizations that often augment skills or class features and I like the idea of swapping them out as situations warrant but not losing them after each use.
I'm working on a lot of house rules for my upcoming PF2 Rise of the Runelords game, even some really huge ones like using Arcanist (I really, really hate Vancian) casting and buffing spontaneous casters for that matter, but I'm still working on that. Probably going to steal some of your stuff too.
There is one houserule however that I've been using ever since we finished Doomsday Dawn. Armor. I've reduced the speed penalty from 5 feet to 0 and from 10 to 5, removed the Clunky trait, ACP is now reduced by your Strength modifier and the classes that get increased armor proficiency with one type of armor (like Paladins and Fighters with heavy armor) get it with all types of armor the class grants proficiency.
And one more, this idea just came up from another thread:
Multiclass Dedication feats that give an ability like AoO or Hunt Target once per day will now give that ability at-will come level 6 probably, rather than requiring another feat.
Read most of it, some rules are amazing. A few i can disagree with but none i would say seem crazy or unintuitive. And i think you reached an perfect balance with Impervious.
With our not knowing what is or isn't going to make it into the final rules, I'm not sure how to comment on houserules to rules that may not exist...
If this is about houseruling the playtest rules until the actual game comes out then I really have nothing to add... I'm one of those people that isn't going to torture myself with playing the playtest as/is: I'm waiting to see what the final looks like.
With our not knowing what is or isn't going to make it into the final rules, I'm not sure how to comment on houserules to rules that may not exist...
If this is about houseruling the playtest rules until the actual game comes out then I really have nothing to add... I'm one of those people that isn't going to torture myself with playing the playtest as/is: I'm waiting to see what the final looks like.
Yeah, this is definitely for the Playtest. I find myself really wanting to try to run a Playtest game between now and the CRB because of how much I like the system, but I also like making tweaks for my own table that I feel will improve things. Probably some trial and error, but eh.
Of course I may well end up with a list of houserules for the final system, but as you say we don't have a clue what it will look like and I am trying to make sure I give the CRB a good thorough look before doing any houseruling rather than preemptively making up my mind that something will need changed before I see it in final form.
If someone drops a Die on the floor, it reads as the worst possible result. Oh, you've got a Greataxe Damage roll coming up? Blip-CraCK! rrrrullurlrulrlrlllrlruuruuulllll.... WHERE IS IT!?! What does it say to me?!
"That's a 1, we'll find it later."
People have lost far too many beloved dice to basement floors, slats of wood on the deck, and ventilation systems for me to stand idly by as player and GMs alike bounce their dice off the table with reckless abandon.
Plus we are getting old, and it is SOOOO much faster than going to look at its face, finding it, getting it and/or rerolling it.
LOLLL XD
I might have to use that. I get a lot of if-its-a-good-floor-roll-lets-use-it-but-if-its-bad-lets-reroll-it from my players and I'm running out of new ways to mess with them when they try that. XD
My table rule is this: Anything that can be done in encounter mode is automatically successful in exploration mode. This can also apply to exploration/downtime mode, but that never came up. This is a variant of Take 20 and saves a LOT of die rolling. Want to open that lock? You can either roll 200+ die rolls, or you can spend 10 minutes in encounter mode to just succeed.
And yes, encounter mode is played in "turns" of 10 minutes - I like that is what a "turn" was in 1E AD&D as well.
My biggest house rules are definitely my re-write of the general feats chapter and overhaul of the skill feats list. I've also done the "save to master" grants evasion thing because the monk progression is weird. I am probably going to bump up their graceful mastery to 11th since they also got unarmed mastery at 13th. I am considering letting them have their critical specializations for free at 13th as well. The unarmed crit effect might be one of the best, otherwise I'd just hand it out at 3rd when the other classes get them.
I'm going to have the hit dice of animal companions go up a step every time they "evolve" with another feat.
I have given some of the powers a buff to match the buff blast spells got.
I've done various tweaks to how lances work for mounted combat to make the shield and lance cavalier viable again.
I've had various other house rules probably, but they are fairly minor and I'm mostly drawing blanks. I have a goal to try and avoid changing too much, because with the all updates as is, there's a lot for folks to keep track of. Part of why I redid skill feats rather than proficiency is because adding or tweaking feats is easier than the underlying rules.
Edge, one thing I'm very curious about is how your results with "class paths" go. I've been advocating for those for a long time. I too feel like we need more class feats, and class paths is my ideal solution. But I don't think my players feel that way, and I'm afraid throwing more abilities at them could be overwhelming so I have been hesitant to try it out. Skill feats, on the other hand, really needed an overhaul so my players would find them exciting.
Can I ask folks their thoughts on how they would houserule something?
Like how would folks divorce save and damage increases from magic weapons and armor, and put them on character leveling where they belong?
Mine would be magic weapons don't change a thing(Only property runes do) expert, master and legendary give +1,+3,+5(Their prices need to be adjusted to match the levels)
You gain an extra damage dice on levels 5,9,13,16,20.
Can I ask folks their thoughts on how they would houserule something?
Like how would folks divorce save and damage increases from magic weapons and armor, and put them on character leveling where they belong?
Oh yeahhhh, I totally forgot that one too. I had a draft of Automatic Bonus Progression to work with too. I haven't actually looked at Ediwir's version of this so this is just my own take:
First off, unlike PF1 ABP I don't reduce wealth or item allocation for this. Part of the whole point is removing these things as a mandatory cost, so taking them out of wealth allotment wouldn't really do this. Besides, I felt in a lot of cases like a little less treasure was given using the standard measure than I would like, so removing mandatory items without reducing wealth fits for me.
Weapon and armor potency runes are removed, but higher quality weapons and armor retain the same effects. Magic items no longer provide item bonuses to skills but retain their other properties. Mundane high quality skill-boosting items still exist as normal. Bracers of Armor have the same cost and effect for their weakest variant but then are simply upgraded in quality like physical Armor probably.
So the table is like this:
1: Gain a +1 item bonus to one skill.
2: Gain a +1 item bonus to another skill.
3: +1 item bonus to AC and saves if wearing no armor or expert quality armor
4: +1 item bonus to accuracy and any manufactured weapon you wield deals an additional die of damage if it is at least expert quality (To clarify for this and all other entries, this bonus applies to non-weapon attacks also and those do not have a quality requirement but do not gain extra damage dice)
5: Increase your item bonus on two skills by 1 (Max of +2)
6: Increase your item bonus on two skills by 1 (Max of +2)
7: Item bonus on AC and saves increases to +2 if wearing no armor or at least Expert-quality armor.
8: Item bonus on accuracy increases to +2 and manufactured weapons now deal two additional dice of damage if they are at least Expert quality
9: Increase item bonus on three skills by 1 (Max of +3)
10: Increase item bonus on three skills by 1 (Max of +3)
11: Item bonus on AC and saves increases to +3 if wearing no armor or at least Master-quality armor
12: Item bonus on accuracy increases to +3 and manufactured weapons deal three additional damage dice if they are at least Master-quality
13: Increase item bonus on four skills by +1 (Max +4)
14: Increase item bonus on four skills by +1 (Max +4)
15: Item bonus on AC and saves increases to +4 if no armor or Master+ quality
16: Item bonus on accuracy increases to +4 and deal 4 extra dice if at least Master quality
17: Increase your item bonus on five skills by 1 (Max +5)
18: Increase your item bonus on five skills by 1 (Max +5)
19: Item bonus on AC and saves increases to +5 if no armor or Legendary quality.
20: Item bonus on accuracy increases to +5 and weapons deal five additional dice if weapon is Legendary quality.
Lastly, if you have better than Trained proficiency in a weapon you are wielding or armor you are wearing, then you treat that weapon as having that level of quality (If that is higher than the weapon's quality) for the purposes of how high an item bonus you get when using that weapon or armor.
So essentially martials gain the ability to deal hefty damage even with random mook weapons they get their hands on, while non-martials will hit a lower cap depending on their specific abilities. And Fighters and Paladins learn to use even trash armor to great effect.
Can I ask folks their thoughts on how they would houserule something?
Like how would folks divorce save and damage increases from magic weapons and armor, and put them on character leveling where they belong?
Oh yeahhhh, I totally forgot that one too. I had a draft of Automatic Bonus Progression to work with too. I haven't actually looked at Ediwir's version of this so this is just my own take:
First off, unlike PF1 ABP I don't reduce wealth or item allocation for this. Part of the whole point is removing these things as a mandatory cost, so taking them out of wealth allotment wouldn't really do this. Besides, I felt in a lot of cases like a little less treasure was given using the standard measure than I would like, so removing mandatory items without reducing wealth fits for me.
Weapon and armor potency runes are removed, but higher quality weapons and armor retain the same effects. Magic items no longer provide item bonuses to skills but retain their other properties. Mundane high quality skill-boosting items still exist as normal. Bracers of Armor have the same cost and effect for their weakest variant but then are simply upgraded in quality like physical Armor probably.
So the table is like this:
1: Gain a +1 item bonus to one skill.
2: Gain a +1 item bonus to another skill.
3: +1 item bonus to AC and saves if wearing no armor or expert quality armor
4: +1 item bonus to accuracy and any manufactured weapon you wield deals an additional die of damage if it is at least expert quality (To clarify for this and all other entries, this bonus applies to non-weapon attacks also and those do not have a quality requirement but do not gain extra damage dice)
5: Increase your item bonus on two skills by 1 (Max of +2)
6: Increase your item bonus on two skills by 1 (Max of +2)
7: Item bonus on AC and saves increases to +2 if wearing no armor or at least Expert-quality armor.
8: Item bonus on accuracy increases to +2 and manufactured weapons...
- replace +1/level with 5e's prof chart
- add a level of proficiency (Untrained+0, Novice+1, Journeyman+2, Expert+3, Master+4, Grand master +5 (no using skills untrained, skills that can currently be used untrained, everyone just gets novice for free)
- Vit/wnds
- armor as DR
- taking wnd dmg adds penalties to rolls
- 4 actions 2 reactions standard
- light weapons take 1 action, medium take 2, large take 3
- remove multi attack penalty entirely
- replace most spells with variation on channel energy (use an action to generate power points based on a casting roll, multiple actions give bonus to the roll, spend power points to increase range, add damage, boost dc, add elemental effects, etc.)
- gate all feats by proficiency level, not character level
- remove classes entirely, while providing "classes" simply as prepackaged advancement for new players
Actually at this point I should probably just make my own game....
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My Houserules
Racial Weapons:
Racial Weapons should be easily accessible to members of that race. This houserule splits 'Weapon Familiarity' into two parts.
Ancestry Weapon Familiarity - Part of the base Ancestry.
You have access to the uncommon weapons for your ancestry during character creation.
For the purpose of proficiency you treat Martial Weapons for your ancestry as Simple Weapons.
For the purpose of proficiency you treat Exotic Weapons for your ancestry as Martial Weapons.
Ancestry Weapon Training - Available as an Ancestry Feat.
You are trained with several weapons specific to your ancestry all of your ancestry weapons.
High Quality Mundane Tools:
While I really do like the idea of having different quality on tools it does seem like some things scale in strange ways. Some tools only seem to have a normal version available while others allow for expert or master quality bonuses. This seems a little inconsistent and whenever I run across something I ask myself, why couldn't legendary tools for this exist?
This houserule is to make quality tools available to any craft, trade, or adventuring skill and to standardize costs to make it more intuitive to play.
Add the following to table 6-19: Item Quality (pg 190)
Update the wording of this skill feat to the following.
Prerequisites master in Crafting
You are a genius at Crafting, easily able to determine how things are made and create new inventions. You can spend downtime to invent a common or uncommon formula that you don’t know. This works just like the Craft skill: you spend a number of days in preparation and half the Price of the formula up front, roll a Crafting check, and on a success either finish the formula by paying the difference or work for longer to decrease the Price. The difference is that you spend the additional time in research, design, and development, rather than in creating an item.
When you become Legendary in Crafting you can work with the Dungeon Master to invent a Rare or Unique formula with approval.
Untrained Proficiency:
If they follow-through with removing +level from Untrained Proficiency then my first house rule will be to add it back in and to adjust the proficiency scale that they provided to the following.
With the multiple degrees of success and failure that were introduced in PF2 it feels like auto-success and auto-failure on a Natural 1 or 20 are completely left up to fate. When dealing with luck I prefer using a d100 roll as that leaves a much smaller margin for fate.
Critical Success only happens when you roll 10 or more above the target number.
Critical Failure only occurs when you roll 10 or more below the target number.
Selling Items:
When using downtime to sell items you are normally able to sell any items for half of their price. This houserule adds an additional untrained action to Diplomacy to allow you to gain better rates at the cost of time. You may be able to sell several items in a single day using this action at the discretion of the DM.
Haggle Downtime Secret
Success: You are able to sell an item an item for three quarters of its price.
Critical Success: You are able to sell an item for its full price.
Failure: You are only able to sell the item for half of its price.
Critical Failure: You are unable to find a buyer for the item.
Player Businesses:
Setting up your Business
There will be an initial investment of time and money required to start up a business. This is to either purchase an existing business or to purchase the land and build your own. The purpose of these businesses is not to earn a passive income as a landlord buying up a ton of property like it was in First Edition Pathfinder but rather to facilitate additional roleplay options and make it easier for players to practice their trade or craft during their downtime.
Employees
Employees are NPCs.
Employees do earn a wage that is paid through the normal income of the business. This is effectively handwaived during play for simplicity.
Employees are simply there to run the day to day operations of your business and typically will not serve any other mechanical benefit.
Downtime
Players can practice their trade using Lore (Mercantile) or any skill appropriate to the business.
Specialty Shops such as a Smithy typically have a workshop attached that can be used during downtime time craft items.
Employee Loyalty
Loyalty is a scale of your employees opinions of you. It scales from 1 to 100.
When a business is created it starts with a 'Loyalty Rating' of 50.
While you are in town and maintain at least casual contact with your employees your 'Loyalty Rating' will not decrease.
Spending downtime working at your business either by crafting items or practicing a trade improves your 'Loyalty Rating' by 1 point per day.
Upkeep, Taxes, and Neglect
Your business makes an income on its own to cover the cost of upkeep, maintenance, and taxes. These are effectively hand waived for simplicity.
One month after you leave town on planned business such as trade or adventuring your business 'Loyalty Rating' will start to decrease at a rate of 1 per week.
One month after you leave town unexpectedly your business 'Loyalty Rating' will start to decrease at a rate of 1 per day.
Losing Your Business
If your business reaches a 'Loyalty Rating' of 0 it may be taken over by one of your employees or a competitor.
You will need to retrieve any remaining items or money.
At the discretion of the DM this may end up being a social challenge for your character to convince them to return your property to you.
If you fail this challenge then you may need to go through the settlement authorities.
Shops and Selling Items
If your business is a storefront or shop then your employees will be able to sell items for you to help free up your downtime.
When an item is sold through a business it is normally sold at full price.
There is a limit to the total amount your shop can sell in a day based on the size of the settlement it is located in. (See Settlement Size List Below)
You can sell items at a lower price to have them sell faster. For every 10% prices are reduced it will result in a 20% increase to your daily sales limit.
When you are selling items that have a price higher than your daily sales limit you will deduct a portion of the total price from the daily sales limit each day. Once you have reached the full amount the item has been sold.
Example: Blacksmith is running a specialty shop in a Large City, with a daily sales limit of 50000sp. He recently created a Legendary Longsword that has a price of 65,000sp. He wants to sell it off, but still wants to sell some other items that he made. He deducts 2,500sp from his daily sales limit and sells another 2,500sp worth of items each day. After a total of 26 days the shop is able to find a buyer for the sword and it finally sells.
Settlement Daily Sales Limits
Thorp: Population less than 21. Daily Sales Limit of 100sp.
Hamlet: Population of 21 to 60. Daily Sales Limit of 300sp.
Village: Population of 61 to 200. Daily Sales Limit of 500sp.
Small Town: Population of 201 to 2000. Daily Sales Limit of 800sp.
Large Town: Population of 2001 to 5000. Daily Sales Limit of 1000sp.
Small City: Population of 5001 to 10000. Daily Sales Limit of 2500sp.
Large City: Population of 10001 to 25000. Daily Sales Limit of 5000sp.
Metropolis: Population greater than 25000. Daily Sales Limit of 10000sp.
Planar Metropolis: Planar Hub Cities, typically have population well over 100,000. Which cities qualify and their Daily Sales Limit is Completely up to the DM.
Simplified Spellcasting:
Prepared Casters
When you prepare spells those spells are able to casted with any of your available spell slots that are a high enough level.
Spontaneous Casters
When learning a spell you must take the base version of the spell and not the heightened version.
Remove Class Feats or Class Features that provide a limited number of Spontaneously Heightened Spells.
Spontaneous Heightening is available by default for all of your spells.
Improved Staves:
Staves
Attuning a staff can be done during your morning preparations.
Only one staff can be attuned at a given time.
You can attune yourself to a different staff during a short 10 minute rest outside of combat.
Staves provide an item bonus to spells while they are attuned and wielded as a spellcasting implement.
Staves have a limited selection of spells imbued into them that you are able to cast by expending a spell slot of the appropriate level or higher.
Cantrips can be casted from a staff without expending any spell slots.
In order to cast a spell from a wand that spell must be an available spell on your spell list.
When you cast a spell from a staff it must be used at the level listed and cannot be heightened.
Cantrips are auto-heightened as if you were casting it yourself.
Example
Greater Staff of the Pyromancer
Item Bonus: While the staff is attuned to you all of your fire spells gain a +6 item bonus to fire damage.
Special: The tip of the staff can be touched to flammable materials to cause them to ignite.
Greater Staff of the Pyromancer has the following spells imbued into it.
Produce Flame(Cantrip) Burning Hands (Level 1) Burning Hands (Level 2) Flaming Sphere (Level 2) Flaming Sphere (Level 3) Fireball (Level 3) Fireball (Level 4) Fire Shield (Level 4) Wall of Fire (Level 4) Wall of Fire (Level 5) Fireball (Level 5)
Improved Wands and Trinkets:
Wands
Attuning a wand can be done during your morning prepartions.
Only one wand can be attuned to you at a given time.
You can attune yourself to a different wand during a short 10 minute rest outside of combat.
Wands can provide an item bonus to the spell that they cast while they are attuned and wielded as a spellcasting implement.
Wands have a single spell imbued into it that you are able to cast by expending a spell slot of the appropriate level or higher.
Cantrips can be casted from a wand without expending any spell slots.
In order to cast a spell from a wand that spell must be an available spell on your spell list.
When you cast a spell from a wand it must be used at the level listed and cannot be heightened.
Cantrips are auto-heightened as if you were casting it yourself.
Example
Wand of Heal
Item Bonus: A Wand of Heal adds +1 to the amount of hit points your restore any time you cast the Heal spell.
Wand of Heal has the following spell imbued into it.
Heal (Level 1)
Trinkets
Trinkets are no longer consumable items and can instead be activated once per day.
Oh, I forgot a significant house rule I've been using: combat maneuvers don't intersect with multiple attack penalties in anyway. The game hasn't broken yet.
Just remembered that I forgot another houserule here.
Spells like Remove Fear, Remove Curse, etc. that involve counteract checks but are only for clearing up a specific thing (Rather than being more general like Dispel Magic) treat their counteract level as 1 higher than the spell level (Counterspell is NOT a case of this, I think that would be overpowered TBH seeing as it's a Reaction). This way a Remove Fear against an equal level fear effect is an auto-success, and using a lower level spell isn't guaranteed but is less hard. It makes preparing counters in slots below your best more viable, and if you do use a counter like this in your highest slot then it gets a decent shot at even a boss' spells.
I'm also looking to drop the per-level penalty for dispelling with a lower level by a point or two. This is mainly because there is kind of a double-dip effect with higher level foes. Equal level spell vs. dispel from matched foes is about 50-50. But a higher level foe may have higher level spells than your best, so even your best vs. their best is only about 25% success for you. But they also have a higher level bonus and possibly higher stats so it tanks even further. So I want to reduce the penalty to make your best vs. a boss' best more viable. Still majorly risky but it might be worth the payoff now. And I think it works well for equal level mages too, if they cast a level x spell and you try to counter with a lower one then you still have poor odds but it's more reasonable.
Oh, I forgot a significant house rule I've been using: combat maneuvers don't intersect with multiple attack penalties in anyway. The game hasn't broken yet.
I'm surprised it hasn't broken anything yet. That free Trip replacing the waste of the 3rd attack seems solid. I'd probably grant it to Fighters and Monks only to start, since that appears more thematic than giving it to everyone.
The only houserule I've used with the playtest - which was more of a creative rules interpretation - was that you can ready a two-action spell by taking the first action and then readying the second.
That was partly because I couldn't decide if RAW allowed it or not and partly because my sorcerer player was clearly going to rebel if he couldn't ready spells at all.
Oh, I forgot a significant house rule I've been using: combat maneuvers don't intersect with multiple attack penalties in anyway. The game hasn't broken yet.
I'm surprised it hasn't broken anything yet. That free Trip replacing the waste of the 3rd attack seems solid. I'd probably grant it to Fighters and Monks only to start, since that appears more thematic than giving it to everyone.
Well, my players may not be using it to its full tactical potential yet, but there are several mitigating factors here.
1) Critical failure conditions still apply to maneuvers, so they carry some risk.
2) Trip and Grab mostly just make an enemy flat-footed, and there's already a 1 action way to inflict that, and it is called "move into flanking."
3) Demoralize is always a viable alternative, which never suffered MAP and stacks with flanking.
4) You can usually undo a maneuver with an action: pick up a dropped weapon, break a grapple, stand up from prone. In some cases, that can be really effective, like when trying to pin down casters (cast >> strike is so strong) but in the case of brute enemies you are probably just trading your -10 attack for theirs.
Generally where this rule gets powerful is in corner cases circumstances, like shoving an enemy off a cliff. But taking advantage of terrain like that makes combat more cinematic, and there's always that critical failure risk that you're gonna be the one falling down.
Think I am stealing your racial weapons rules... maybe.
Captain Morgan wrote:
Oh, I forgot a significant house rule I've been using: combat maneuvers don't intersect with multiple attack penalties in anyway. The game hasn't broken yet.
OK, I am stealing this, because I have players who just spam attacks.
But anyway to my own stuff.
A few setting specific changes are:
Nobody has starting gold, but then at the beginning of the campaign there was no currency.
Multilingual is split into two feats, Learn all common languages and learn an exotic (uncommon) language.
And Hero Points have completely new actions which only relate to the setting (making areas more accessible is the main one right now)
Equipment:
Robes: Basically armour that requires no proficiency and gives no bonuses, beyond the ability to attach runes, alternative to bracers.
Alchemical Bombs splash damage scales with the dice, so a moderate bomb has a splash of 3, to keep things balanced the Alchemists Expanded Splash does not increase the damage, just the range.
I have changed how weapon proficiencies work, each weapon has base traits and martial traits, so martial proficiency gives you access to the martial traits, and bard and rogues get access to the martial traits of finesse weapons. Some weapons are martial only. Basically the rules of Simple = Max D8 in 2H, D6 in 1H.
My altered weapons table, The other tabs are just to give people a class based reference. I did change/delete/merge a whole bunch of the weapons. I have been considering going back and remaking the standard table as a tool for other people to use. But hey I don't expect it to catch on.
Spells:
I have only tweaked cantrips so far and quite a few of them were just srsly inferior options. so anyway...
Acid Splash: Splash damage scales 1/2/3/4/5 and persistent on crit damage scales 2/4/6/8/10, and like alchemical bombs splash damage is applied even on a fail, but not a crit fail.
(Very low, but guaranteed damage is the theme of this cantrip, so I am working with that)
Chill Touch: Changed to D6, 30ft range.
(I first thought of just changing it to a D10 as it was melee, but there is still no valid use for it IMO when it's melee range)
Conviction (was Disrupt Undead): Removed from the Arcane and Occult Spell Lists, also does D6 and flat-footed on crit to living targets.
(This makes it the mirror thematically to Chill Touch, so you have your Good Cleric and Evil Cleric cantrips, also removing this from the Wizards and Bards keeps the idea that Wizards go for easy power and Bards are tapping into potentially darker powers)
Produce Flame: The base damage is D6 at all levels, and the persistent on crit damage increases to D6 when you gain access to 3rd level spells.
(This means whilst it doesn't quite compete with Electric Arc and Ray of Frost, the kings of cantrips, until it crits, once it crits, you have the options of swapping targets, swaping cantrips, or just being happy it's now awesome damage)
I added one of these myself to a campaign I am running.
In this case, Treat Wounds. My brain just cannot accept mundane healing that works on 6 people at once, essentially giving the healer 1.5 minutes with each person. Over and over. So this one is more realistic time wise, mundane wise, and only needs a single roll. Unless you fail of course.
TREAT WOUNDS
Requirements: You must use healer’s tools (see page 186). Healer's kits have 10 charges.
You attempt a Medicine check on a single creature using 1 charge from a healer's kit. The DC is the highest ability DC that caused damage to the creature. The check determines how many HP are healed per minute, and the healer may spend any number of minutes healing. A creature healed in this mundane way cannot go above 75% of total HP.
Critical Success- Healer's Character Level+Wis Mod + Wounded Character's Con Mod
Success- Healer's Wis Mod + Wounded Character's Con Mod
Failure- No healing is done
Critical Failure- 1d8 points of damage is dealt to Wounded Character and the healing kit charge is wasted.
