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Hi, I am new here.
My first post will be about changes I'd make to the game system in the way I think it should be.
One thing that shocked me about PF2 was how many magical items are required, excessive magical loot IMO. And the reason is the need of fundamental runes, as if lacking them players could simply get stuck and be too hard or impossible to beat the creatures incoming for that level.
Then I found the Automatic Bonus Progression. It is good to avoid all the fundamental runes dependency, but at the same time makes all the loot minimal interesting, unless you rain players with special features magical items, which is not good IMO too.
My idea is then use ONLY the Automatic Bonus Progression Devastating attacks, the reason, balance for martials. If we notice the cantrips and focus spells upscales by their own, just like monsters damage even using their natural weapon attacks. Making the martial characters depending so much of items is not fair for them, and makes the game something more like a Diablo, instead a RPG. I can't think about a 18th level character depending so much of the weapon it uses, instead its own capabilities.
In addition, eliminate all the runes, and convert them into item capabilities. It is the same but cannot be transferred, as now there is no need to have that striking fundamental rune to work. Preserve all the capabilities but for the striking one just use the greater of it or your own Devastating attacks, so getting a weapon with striking is for advancing the capability to your level (i.e. getting a striking weapon at level 3, later at level 4 you get it by your own capability).
So a weapon +2 striking greater flaming, could be a nice and unique treasure to get from a tough fight to level 9-10th characters (maybe from an Adult White Dragon), granting you an extra damage die before you get it naturally at level 12th. The wearer is going to appreciate it for sure a lot!
With all this said, well what I'd like to ask to more experienced parties, is what happens with other Automatic Bonus Progression, specially with the Saving throw potency, is it mandatory like the Devastating attacks, or can be left so from 0 to all party having different degrees of it depending the items in the loot?
At first, I think the only mandatory one is the Devastating attacks but not sure about the others. Not using them would make the players appreciate more the items they found for sure, which is an interesting part of the game. But I don't want to put excessive magical items in the loot and at the same time not making impossible to players to advance.
Agree with moving to homebrew. That is where people are going to go look for this type of changes.
In general, ABP is already a variant rule - so making changes to it to suit your table's needs is certainly appropriate. It isn't part of the core rules in the first place, and the ABP variant rule isn't going to be changed globally just because one person asks for it. Houserule it at your table to make it work for you.
Another known problem with ABP as it is currently printed - item bonuses from temporary consumable effects such as mutagens and spells (like Drakeheart Mutagen and Mage Armor). Those often let a character get a higher bonus at an earlier level than is allowed with permanent items and effects. Removing those does actually remove something from the game.
Well there is no intention to remove consumables.
So far as I've seen, a popular modification of ABP is to remove the item bonuses from the table and put them back into the game on the proper items, but keep the fundamental runes for weapons and armor. Remove the apex attribute boost as well and put it back into the apex items.
So far as I've seen, a popular modification of ABP is to remove the item bonuses from the table and put them back into the game on the proper items, but keep the fundamental runes for weapons and armor. Remove the apex attribute boost as well and put it back into the apex items.
So mainly would be using only the fundamentals of the ABP and the others for items.
The other runes are preserved as magical capabilities.