I never liked the idea of having the majority of your power coming from magic items, so the inclusion of ABP is very welcome.
On No-Alignment, it has given me the suggestions for changes regarding damage types, like replacing alignment based damage types with radiant and shadow damage, and the removal/alteration of alignment based detection and spells. However, it didn't mention anything specific about champions, or if it would require changes to their tenets or cause abilities, or even their feats. Would I need to do anything with the champion kit or focus spells if I were to use the No-alignment variant?
For the Champion kit, not really, I don't think. The mechanics for the three flavors (Paladin, Redeemer, Liberator) work fine without alignment.
Looking over it, the only Feat that might require a rework would be Radiant Blade Spirit, because it allows the Champion to choose the alignment weapon properties (which deal the corresponding damage).
The rest of them either don't interact with alignment at all, or provide Focus Spells, of which only Litany Against Wrath and Litany of Reighteousness interact with alignment damage and would need to be reworked if you get rid of it.
I’ve found the ABP to work really well. My party uses it and aren’t around a city. With it they don’t have to stubble into specific items to keep up with the math curves.
I haven't had a chance to try 2e's APB yet, but it was a rule I used enthusiastically in 1e. I'm going to be running Kingmaker 2e when that comes out, and that will use APB most likely. Little concerned about how to manage an adventure with lots of important artifact weapons while using APB, but the flip side - not having to worry about finding the right magic items in a wilderness adventure - is worth it IMO.
I can't speak to No-Aligment as I haven't tried that and have no plans to; that Kingmaker campaign is going to be an evil campaign, in fact.
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Should work fine. Dial back the treasure a tad and make armours and weapons all mundane and it will be fine.
Personally I like tying the values to weapon and armour tiers as I love craftsmanship being a bigger role than magic runes in a campaign. But ABP is great for streamlining.
As for alignment I like treating it as "how the gods, fallible creatures themselves, judge people" as opposed to it being hard set.
Then keying spells and weaknesses off of how that person feels/their gods view on the matter. But I haven't done this in PF2e yet.
Should work fine. Dial back the treasure a tad and make armours and weapons all mundane and it will be fine.
Personally I like tying the values to weapon and armour tiers as I love craftsmanship being a bigger role than magic runes in a campaign. But ABP is great for streamlining.
As for alignment I like treating it as "how the gods, fallible creatures themselves, judge people" as opposed to it being hard set.
Then keying spells and weaknesses off of how that person feels/their gods view on the matter. But I haven't done this in PF2e yet.
I was actually considering something like that in place of alignment, but it might feel a bit to finicky with some abilities. I do like the idea of the gods in my setting being flawed creatures.
I do plan on using property runes though
I use what the Gleeful Grognard suggested in my homebrew world, everyone's alignment is based on the perspective of a single god that sees himself as lawful good.
Now how about Champion tenents? Would it be a good idea to swap em out for the ones 5e uses, or should I just leave them alone?
Now how about Champion tenents? Would it be a good idea to swap em out for the ones 5e uses, or should I just leave them alone?
Well that'd depend on what kind of champions you want to have. All the ones in 2E are different flavors of Good, while 5E offers quite a bit more flexibility.
The class itself would work with any tenets, but if you change the current paradigm for another (say, you scrap the ones in the book and use Devotion/Ancients/Vengeance from 5th), you just need to be very clear who gets what specific Reaction and associated feats.
Also keep in mind 2E assumes a strict hierarchy of the tenets, while 5E is more loosey-goosey (this is a scientific term!) in the tenets of each Oath, with all of them being more or less equal in importance. That's more a roleplaying thing for you and your group but it's something you should consider.
As long as each flavor of Champion you want has their own Code Tenets and an appropiate Reaction (and if you have more Codes than Reactions you can just repeat them) , you should be fine.
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If this is your first attempt at GMing I strongly suggest that you use the regular rules first and see how they work.
Thorin's advice isn’t bad.
I think alignment is easier to mess with, depending on your campaign it may not even come up... if you never throw enemies with weaknesses, immunities or resistances to alignment damage, then alignment becomes simply a clue about a character's mindset.
The whole ABP thing, you are giving yourself a little more work. If you are running a published adventure, probably only a tiny bit more work.
Still safest to play “stock” at first, but your two choices there are fairly straight forward. As opposed to dual class shinanigans, for example...
While I'm squarely in the "Try everything as written with an open mind first camp", my biggest thing to note is to remember to address shields.
I dont believe the ABP rules cover shields, and Sturdy Shields serve as a kindof "fallback" option to make sure those who want to go all in on Shield Block have an amazing option to support it.
If you do ABP, I'd highly reccomend something like "A shield which has no other special abilities has the durability of a Sturdy Shield"