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Posting my groups house rules. The aim of these rules was the following:
1.Make playing a caster more fun and flexible
2. Smoothing over Swashbuckler play.
3. Giving the alchemist an item worth taking that they were most likely to use.
4. Make the wizard more desirable and competitive as a class.
5. Make Polymorph spells operate in a more internally consistent manner within the world.
6. Make summons spells threatening to enemies of an equal or level+2.
7. Make the crossbow a competitive weapon someone might use.
It's a fairly small list of house rules compared to PF1.
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MAGIC ITEMS
Alchemist Goggles: Item 4+ Invested Magical Transmutation Usage worn eyepiece
These brass goggles are engraved with flame patterns and have thick, heavy lenses. While worn, they give you a +1 item bonus to Crafting checks to Craft alchemical items and add +1d4 precision damage to attacks with alchemical bombs. The extra damage is not applied to splash or persistent damage or a bomb that does not do damage. You can also ignore lesser cover when making Strikes with alchemical bombs.
FEATS
Shield Block: change to, “You and the shield each take any remaining damage, possibly breaking or destroying the shield, divided between the shield and the player equally with the player taking the higher damage in the case of odd totals.”
SPELLS
Magic Fang:[b] add line, “This spell works for animal companions.”
[b]Acid Splash:: Add the splash trait.
Chill Touch, Produce Flame, Ray of Frost, Divine Lance: Increase damage and heightened non-persistent damage to d6.
Summons: Summon spells use the caster’s spell attack roll for their attack roll for their attacks.
Polymorph: These effects transform the target into a new form. A target can’t be under the effect of more than one polymorph effect at a time. If it comes under the effect of a second polymorph effect, the second polymorph effect attempts to counteract the first. If it succeeds, it takes effect, and if it fails, the spell has no effect on that target. Any Strikes specifically granted by a polymorph effect are magical. Unless otherwise stated, polymorph spells don’t allow the target to take on the appearance of a specific individual creature, but rather just a generic creature of a general type or ancestry.
If you take on a battle form with a polymorph spell, the special statistics can be adjusted only by circumstance bonuses, status bonuses, and penalties. Your battle form can speak if a common creature of the type you are transformed into has the means to speak. You can cast spells if the form you transform into allows manipulate actions that would allow somatic components. You can only cast spells using verbal or somatic components while in a battle form that allows speaking and manipulate actions. You may use any actions including skills and skill feats the battle form would allow. (If there’s doubt about whether you can use an action, the GM decides.) Your gear is absorbed into you; the constant abilities of your gear still function, but you can’t activate any items.
ENCOUNTER RULES
Switching Hands: Switching from one hand to two hands or vice versa is a free action for a weapon.
Drawing a Weapon: You can draw a weapon as part of a move action and you can draw two weapons as part of move or as a single action if you are trained in dual weapon fighting of some kind.
Downtime Healing and Persistent Damage
Post-Combat Persistent Damage: Post combat persistent damage will continue for 1d4 rounds if a standard 15 check. If a natural 20 is required to end persistent bleed damage it will continue on for 1d20 rounds or until a check or healing is completed that would end it. A DM should adjust the number of rounds up or down by 1 for every five points of the DC lower or up 1 round for every 2 points of DC higher than 15.
An Administer First Aid check to halt persistent bleed damage reduces the post-combat bleed damage by 1 round on a success and 2 rounds on a critical success.
Hero Points
Your heroic deeds earn you Hero Points, which grant you good fortune or let you recover from the brink of death. Unlike most aspects of your character, which persist over the long term, Hero Points last for only a single session.
The GM is in charge of awarding Hero Points. Usually, each character gets 1 Hero Point at the start of a session and can gain more later by performing heroic deeds—something selfless, daring, or beyond normal expectations. You can have a maximum of 3 Hero Points at a time, and you lose any remaining Hero Points at the end of a session.
You can spend your Hero Points in a variety of ways. Neither of these is an action, and you can spend Hero Points even if you aren’t able to act. You can spend a Hero Point on behalf of your familiar or animal companion.
Spend 1 Hero Point to do the following:
You can reroll a check. You must use the second result or a 10, whichever is higher. This is a fortune effect (which means you can’t use more than 1 Hero Point on a check).
Roll twice on a single attack or saving throw. You can choose to roll twice before making the roll. You must accept the result of the higher dice roll. This is a fortune effect (which means you can’t use more than 1 Hero Point on a check).
Regain a key ability that can be used more than one time per day. You cannot use this on an ability that can be used only once per day. You can regain a focus point, start a rage, gain a panache, or any similar ability by spending a hero point. You can only use one hero point in this fashion per ten minute rest.
Use an additional reaction. You can use one hero point to use an additional reaction ability. This is a fortune effect (which means you can’t use more than 1 Hero Point on a round).
Heroic Action. You can use a hero point to modify a spell on the fly to put out a fire, use one of your skills in an unusual and heroic way, or something else similar. The GM will determine what is possible after hearing the player’s suggestion.
Spend all your Hero Points (minimum 1) to avoid death. You can do this when you’re dying condition would increase. You lose the dying condition entirely and stabilize with 0 Hit Points. You don’t gain the wounded condition or increase its value from losing the dying condition in this way, but if you already had that condition, you don’t lose it or decrease its value.
EQUIPMENT
Crossbow: d10 Fatal trait.
Heavy Crossbow: d12 Fatal Trait.
CLASSES
Class Abilities
Bard, Cleric, Druid, Magus, Oracle, Sorcerer, Summoner, Witch, Wizard
Weapon Specialization: You’ve learned how to inflict greater injuries with the weapons you know best. You deal an additional 2 damage with weapons, unarmed attacks, and cantrips, focus spells, or spells with the attack trait that require an attack roll to hit in which you are an expert. This damage increases to 3 if you’re a master, and 4 if you’re legendary.
Unlimited Signature Spells (All casters and multiclass casters): All of your spells are signature spells. That means that if you know a spell, you can heighten it freely by casting it from a higher-level spell slot, up to the maximum level of spell you can cast. You can similarly cast any of its lower-level versions without learning them separately.
Note: These rules alter the rules for heightening, but do not alter any additional rules such as spellbooks, special focuses, or the like.
Class Feats
Nimble Dodge: Change to, “Trigger A creature hits you with an attack and you can see the attacker.”
Swashbuckler
Thrill of Battle (lvl 1): The swashbuckler gains panache when he rolls initiative.
Finisher Tag: Finishers are spectacular finishing moves that use your panache. You can use a finisher only if you have panache, and you lose your panache immediately after performing a finisher. You can only use one finisher per round.
Some actions that have the finisher trait also grant an effect on a failure. Effects added on a failure don't apply on a critical failure. If your finisher action succeeds, you can still choose to apply the failure effect instead. For example, you might do this when an attack deals no damage due to resistance.
Wizard
Arcane Thesis: During your studies to become a full-fledged wizard, you produced a thesis of unique magical research on one of a variety of topics. You gain a special benefit depending on the topic of your thesis research. The arcane thesis topics presented in this book are below; your specific thesis probably has a much longer and more technical title like “On the Methods of Spell Interpolation and the Genesis of a New Understanding of the Building Blocks of Magic.”
You gain the Spell Substitution Arcane Thesis for free and can choose one additional Arcane Thesis.
Arcane Focus Spells
Protective Ward Focus 1 Uncommon Abjuration Wizard
Cast Single Action somatic
Range: 60 feet Targets: 1 creature
Duration sustained up to 1 minute
You place a shimmering aura of protective magic around a target. The target gains a +1 status bonus to AC and damage resistance to magical attacks equal to the spell level. Each time you Sustain the Spell, you maintain the ward around the creature.
Heightened (+2): Increase the number of targets by 1.
Augment Summoning Focus 1 Uncommon Conjuration Wizard
Cast Free Action verbal
Range 60 feet; Targets 1 creature you summoned
You augment the abilities of a summoned creature. The target gains a +1 status bonus to all checks (this also applies to the creature's DCs, including its AC and damage) for the duration of its summoning, up to 1 minute.
Heightened (+4): Increase the status bonus by +1.
Diviner's Sight Focus 1 Uncommon Concentrate Divination Fortune Wizard
Cast Reaction verbal
Range 60 feet; Targets 1 willing living creature
Duration the triggering saving throw or skill check.
You glimpse into the target's future. Roll a d20; when the target attempts a non-secret saving throw or skill check, it can use the number you rolled instead of rolling, and the spell ends. Casting it again ends any active diviner's sight you have cast, as well as any active diviner's sight on the target.
Heightened (+4): Roll an additional d20 as your glimpse into the future allows you to better assess how best to influence events.
Force Bolt Focus 1 Uncommon Evocation Force Wizard
Cast Single Action somatic
Range 120 feet; Targets 1 creature or object
You fire an unerring dart of force from your fingertips. It automatically hits and deals 1d6+1 force damage to the target.
Heightened (+2) The damage increases by 1d6+1.
Call of the Grave Focus 1 Uncommon Arcane Attack Necromancy Wizard
Cast One Action somatic
Range 60 feet; Targets 1 living creature
You fire a ray of sickening energy. Make a spell attack roll.
Critical Success The target becomes sickened 2 and slowed 1 as long as it's sickened.
Success The target becomes sickened 1.
Failure The target is unaffected.
Heightened (+2): 1d4 negative damage. Double damage on critical.
Physical Boost Focus 1 Uncommon Transmutation Wizard
Cast Single Action verbal
Range 60 feet; Targets 1 living creature
Duration until the end of the target's next turn
You temporarily improve the target's physique. The target gains a +2 status bonus to the next Acrobatics check, Athletics check, Fortitude save, or Reflex save it attempts.
Heightened (+4): Increase the bonus by +1.
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Thats a significant boost to wizard focus spells, and summons. I'd be happy with those. Note that it typically will leave summons attack rolls below that of martials, and summons will still get criticalled a lot, so typically a martial character will be able to negate a summons very quickly. So I don't see it as unbalanced.
Plus I like how you have made crossbows a bit more relevant.
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Really like these changes. My only suggestion is Augment summons should possibly be a reaction when you case a summoning spell as opposed to a free action unless you intend to be able to use it on turns other than when you summon a creature.
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I also like what you did with crossbows, although I would adjust it if it turns out gunslingers receive some kind of bonus with crossbows once the G&G drops.
The Switching Hands rule does too much for weapons with the two-hand dX trait and invalidates some Fighter and Duelist feats, as well as certain weapons entirely. Drawing a Weapon weakens Quick Draw.
I think your changes to Polymorph will lead players to choose forms where they'll be able to cast spells, like Natural Spell did in 1E. No idea if that's intended.
I like the changes to Wizards Focus Spells so they're actually worth using. Unlimited Signature Spells weakens the Flexible Caster archetype, especially for wizards since they get free Spell Substitution.
Weapon Specialization isn't unbalanced, but the problem with attack roll spells isn't damage but rather accuracy, which your rules don't address.
Really like these changes. My only suggestion is Augment summons should possibly be a reaction when you case a summoning spell as opposed to a free action unless you intend to be able to use it on turns other than when you summon a creature.
It lasts for the duration of the summon. So you would use the free action while you cast the summon, then not worry about it except to sustain the summon round to round.
I also like what you did with crossbows, although I would adjust it if it turns out gunslingers receive some kind of bonus with crossbows once the G&G drops.
The Switching Hands rule does too much for weapons with the two-hand dX trait and invalidates some Fighter and Duelist feats, as well as certain weapons entirely. Drawing a Weapon weakens Quick Draw.
I think your changes to Polymorph will lead players to choose forms where they'll be able to cast spells, like Natural Spell did in 1E. No idea if that's intended.
I like the changes to Wizards Focus Spells so they're actually worth using. Unlimited Signature Spells weakens the Flexible Caster archetype, especially for wizards since they get free Spell Substitution.
Weapon Specialization isn't unbalanced, but the problem with attack roll spells isn't damage but rather accuracy, which your rules don't address.
I spent time thinking about this. My thoughts are as follows:
1. I don't like that Quick Draw is an action by itself. It used to be a free action to draw a weapon, so you could draw and use other feats with it. If that isn't the way Quick Draw works, then I don't feel like anyone will take it anyway. Even before I made the change, no one in my group took it because it doesn't feel like it does anything. In the PF1 rules it at least felt like Iajutsu combined with other feats, now it just feels like a waste of time.
One side effect does harm monks a bit. I still require them to take an action to enter a stance. But I've also found high monk movement and Flurry of blows makes this far less of an issue for them. They can usually cover a move and a half to two moves in a single move and flurry is great action economy. They don't even notice the action it takes to get in a stance as much as another martial notices drawing a weapon as an action.
2. Switching Hands. The few feats like Dual-handed Assault provide other benefits for using one-hand to switch to two. It's such a niche fighting style that no one is likely to take it in my group.
A one-handed fighting style is good for other reasons, usually defensive.
The switching hands just hurt casters like war clerics or multiclass casters unnecessarily. They would have to free action release a hand, cast, then another action to regrasp their weapon preventing them from attacking.
Even fighters and other martials ended up limited if they want to draw a potion and drink it or do something else like grab someone.
It slowed down combat for something we felt should be natural and easy for anyone trained to fight with a two-handed weapon. It annoyed my players using 2-handed weapons to have to use an action out of 3 to do something trivial like go from one to two hands.
And we forgot the rule so often that we weren't following it. It didn't make combat more interesting or balanced, so we agreed to eliminate it.
3. Polymorph. Even with this new rule, no one is playing casters a whole lot other than someone who can heal and buff.
Casters are very tough to play in PF2 if you want to feel strong fighting the strongest monsters. Killing mooks is ok. But it's not super fun to get to a powerful boss dragon as a caster and have it shrug off your most powerful spells, while the martials are teeing off doing loads of damage with no resistance.
If a casters gets to fight a little and do some extra damage in battle form and can cast spells as needed, I'm ok with it. Let's them shine a little more against bosses maybe and gives them a reason to build up their unarmed attack some. Even with this rule not many of my players are playing attack casters.
PF2 is a real strong martial edition. They made martials very fun, powerful, and interesting as well as being able to do tons of damage.
Whereas casters get magic items that give them more spells. Those spells are resisted or reduced 50% to 80% of the time against the strongest challenges. It's like you have this powerful ability that doesn't work most of the time. So a battle form at least let's them try to do some damage while only costing a single spell slot. If they can still cast, then maybe they can try to land something while fighting.
Life as a battle caster feels terrible most of the time when you try to do some damage to something challenging. It's like you're supposed to sit back and buff martials, so they can kill the boss monster while hoping one of your good spells lands for some kind of damage. It's been tough for the caster players in my group to enjoy this shift as they are used to being highly effective against everything in PF1 and previous editions of D&D. And no matter how many times you get told to leave the damage to the martials against boss monsters, it's not fun to watch them do nutty damage while you're launching beebees.
I'm hoping the polymorph and summon change will help some, since both can be used in addition to casting, especially against high save enemies. They won't do as much damage as martials, but at least they have a chance to do something while not losing their casting.
A little typo ( I guess ) for the Agument Summoning.
The way it is written gives the creature a bonus on his check to hit concealed/hidden creatures, removing persistant damage and so on.
The wording of Augment Summoning wasn't changed at all, though (except to add to damage):
You augment the abilities of a summoned creature. The target gains a +1 status bonus to all checks (this also applies to the creature's DCs, including its AC) for the duration of its summoning, up to 1 minute.
Flat checks also explicitly take no bonuses or penalties of any kind:
When the chance something will happen or fail to happen is based purely on chance, you’ll attempt a flat check. A flat check never includes any modifiers, bonuses, or penalties—you just roll a d20 and compare the result on the die to the DC. Only abilities that specifically apply to flat checks can change the checks’ DCs; most such effects affect only certain types of flat checks.
Casters are very tough to play in PF2 if you want to feel strong fighting the strongest monsters. Killing mooks is ok. But it's not super fun to get to a powerful boss dragon as a caster and have it shrug off your most powerful spells, while the martials are teeing off doing loads of damage with no resistance.
Since it seems like you get a lot of playing time, curious if you've tested some of the Incapacitation fixes proposed such as
* Remove Incapacitation and replace with roll 2d20 and take the best (only crit fail for most higher level creatures is if they roll a double 1)
* Remove Incapacitation and replace with +4 to saves and crit fails become normal fails (normal fails and success are not changed)
* Applying Incapacitation as a Monster trait. (sort of like Magic Resistance). Some tough monsters are especially magic resitant some aren't.
* Require some percentage loss of Monster HPs to "use" the Incapacitation trait
I think some people play around with accuracy buffs to hit as well for attack roll spells.
I did theorize about the removal or modification of the incapacitation trait, but after more testing I determined the following:
Many incapacitation spells have an effect on a success. Fights are short so even a one round effect can be useful.
The more important reason I did not remove or modify incapacitation is that it would benefit enemy casters and monsters far more than players. Enemy casters can blow their spell slots in one fight against a PC party. If their low level incap spells can have full effect given they usually have very high spell DCs, that would make them extremely deadly. If monster incap abilities worked at full DC given how high their ability DCs are, the PCs would get hammered.
In the cost-benefit analysis, PC casters would get a minor benefit from the removal or modification of incap with the occasional incapacitating a boss slightly faster than the PCs beating on it while enemies would gain a huge benefit from being able target PCs with incap spells and abilities at nearly full strength. Even with a +4 modification, the NPCs would benefit more than the PCs.
In the end, it wasn't worth it to remove or modify incapacitation.
We do let staves with a potency rune apply the rune to spell attack rolls. Seems to work fine.
It's the summons I still can't get to work too well. They are just too far behind what you fight at a given level using a max level spell slot. I wish they would do like they did with battle form spells and template summons with some scaling. You can summon a given creature and replace its attack rolls with a given attack roll, saves, and damage range or something. Right now summons are mostly a waste of time.
The more important reason I did not remove or modify incapacitation is that it would benefit enemy casters and monsters far more than players. Enemy casters can blow their spell slots in one fight against a PC party. If their low level incap spells can have full effect given they usually have very high spell DCs, that would make them extremely deadly. If monster incap abilities worked at full DC given how high their ability DCs are, the PCs would get hammered.
In the cost-benefit analysis, PC casters would get a minor benefit from the removal or modification of incap with the occasional incapacitating a boss slightly faster than the PCs beating on it while...
This seems fairly easy to solve, by making it a PC Class feature not available to enemy casters (or not many...). PF2e already has PC/NPCs created differently so no problems there.
Maybe give one of the incapacitation modifications to the Wizard as a class feature to throw them a bone. I kind of like that the Wizard should be the master of incapacitation spells -- they become the one class that has a chance to save or suck a boss, occasionally.
If I can ever get my group back together for Strength of Thousands I may try to playtest this.
It still may not be worth using on a level +2 boss, but it would make using say color spray on at level foes potentially worth it. 3 level 9 Dragon Turtles, DC 27 against Color Spray. Using the +4 to saves, only crit fails become fails variety you get -- 0% chance of crit fail, 30% chance of fail, 50% of success, 20% chance of crit success. Hmm. Lower level spells might be too good then...
If people in your group are still not playig Wizards with your house rules, are you contemplating any additional house rules to make Wizards better?
I've written the most house rules for the wizard. I was thinking of turning all their school spells into school cantrips.
What they really need is more interesting feat builds, which I hope happens as they release more metamagic feats. The wizard as the master of metamagic would give them something.
Right now the most commonly use metamagic feat is Reach Spell for non-bards. Not much else has proven overly useful.
Maybe giving them a +1 DC to their school spells as well or have their school spells cast as +1 level higher for incap effects.
I'd really like to wait and see a wizard get played up before making the change. I think a higher level wizard would perform better like all higher level casters do.
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I'm changing Haste to be more useful to higher level casters. I think the Stride action is too limited and haste should help casters and other characters maneuver in three dimensions as they get higher level.
Haste: Change the last sentence to the following: It gains the quickened condition and can use the extra action each round only for Strike and single actions with the Move trait that allow you to move a distance or perform a movement maneuver such as Hover or Step.