Advice for a new campaign full of variants and houserules

[Omry Bass]

Hi everyone! Long time Pf2e player here, about to start a new Pf1e campagin for the first time in about 10 years. :)

I've been reading guides, articles and posts about the general power balance of the system, and would like your opinions on building a character (Gameplay-wise) with the following:

1. Mandatory use of spellpoints for all casters

2. Consolidated skills with minor changes

3. Unchained action economy with following changes:

3a. Each cantrip using spellcaster can choose one "Signature" cantrip which grows similiarly to the arcanist's elemental exploits, but with 1d3 die (1d3 every 2 levels + casting ability modifier). That cantrip also takes only 1 act to cast but each additional cast gives it a -5 to bab (like attack tag usage of pf2e).

3b. Summons / Familiars / Companions need to be commanded using a single act, otherwise do "go on the defensive or act independently".

3c. Summons have only 2 acts, but can use the "Make all natural attacks" attack + using step, mainly to prevent spellcasting abuse.

3d. Knowledge check / Pinpoint cost a single act.

4. Spell related houserules:

4a. Teleport spells are unavailable, but conjuration school abilities are allowed

4b. Fly spells reduced significantly.

4c. No conjure demiplane / similiar spells allowed.

4d. Summons / buffs with 1 round / level duration change to 1 minute (not per level).

4e. 1 round / level debuffs changed to 1 round per level + 1d4 rounds.

4f. No compulsion spells allowed.

4g. Other magic twicks that are less important, such as Mage armor being better, mirror image have decreased duration.

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Now regarding the gameplay choices:

1. My party is composed of a melee oriented druid, gish oracle, tank paladin and a conjuration wizard (my character)

2. Starting at level 1, ending at level 17-20.

3. Rather low magic, low resource campaign.

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Discussion points:

1. From your experience, how will the above house rules effect a "normal" conjuration / summoning wizard build? Will previously "golden" selections turn weaker mainly due to way spellpoints work or the other way around?

2. Same as 1, but for the rest of the group?

Many thanks!

[Azothath]

have fun

[Ju-Mo.]

I never unterstood 3b/3c/3d.

Spoiler:

3b) Would make sense for a horse when the party fights a dragon, but not for a huge combat trained Wolf (Mommothrider) when the party fights humans. "act independently". He is perfectly trained, why should he do anything else than the last 50 combats I commanded him to attack?
He knows what to do with a single word or even his instincts, especially if his best friend gets attacked right before his eyes.
It would just make a distingtion between harbivor and carnivor (fight or flight), however if you have ever seen a gezalle and her baby running from a lion, the baby trips and the mother attacks the lion like there is no tommorow, than you will see that "acting independently" can be anything, it depens how you argue. What would make the whole point meaningless.

3c) How does this prevent them from casting a spell? Once per round still is once per round? Just say they cant cast spells.

3d) Pinpoint I get (I think thats in the rules that it costs a move action to make a perception check to find someone)
But knowledge? You see a creatur/thing and if you know it you know it.
It doesnt take a dog loving biologist 3 seconds to know a lot about dogs, he just knows. It normal for him like breathing or knowing that 1+1=2.
It takes 6 seconds (or more) to tell that information to others (the whole knowledge about dogs takes way more than 6 seconds to convey). However just shouting: "They will attack your nearest limb, so put your non weapon hand in front of you" sould still be a free action.

For your charakter if I unterstand it correctly:
You can summon monster in one round (because it only costs 3 actions and you can finish the spell at the end of your turn).
However because of this houserules they wont be able to attack until you take an action in the next round to tell them to attack?
If so: To they still help with flanking/blocking the way/making attack of oppertunity?

If no, your charakter is weaker.
You can only summon once every two rounds because you need an action to command them and you gain no benefits from them.
If yes, at least you can block enemies, force the enemy spellcaster to cast defensiv/move, disable their charge abilites and so on.
You can sommon less monster per combat, but its harder to interrupt you and you can surprise your enemies with your summons.
Only drawback you cant to anything in a surprise round.

If you focus on summoning monsters with spellpoints you will lose a lot of spellpoints per day because you will cast the same spell more then once. And if you dont use it more then once you will have wasted a lot of feats you need to make you summons stronger.
If you dont take the feats, why even bother with summons.

In early game your summons will be better cause you can cast less spells (so it doesnt cost so much extra spellpoints) and the duration is buffed heavely.
In late game you will have more problems with "wasted" spellpoints because you cast the same spell more than once and the duration is much weaker, which means scounting or longer fights are harder because your summons have a shorter duration.

Low resources/Low Magic should make your summons stronger in comparision.
The enemies of a paladin with a +5 longsword and a +6 Str-belt (+8 to attack) need a better AC, then the enemies of a palading with a +2 longsword and a +2 Str-belt (+3 to attack).

You monsters in both scenarios have only their normal attacks, so if the enemies AC goes down their usefullness goes up. Same with DMG and the DC of saving spells from enemies.

In conclusion:
There are a few disadvantages and a few advantages.
All in all there are to much houserules to tell you how it will play out.

So Azothath is right:
Have fun.

[TxSam88]

So, in my experience with spell casters, the spell point system makes them much more powerful. You no longer are forced to have 2nd and 4th level spell slots (these spell levels for wizards are typically the utility spells), and suddenly you have extra 1st, 3rd, and 5th level slots, on top of that, you can apply metamagic on the fly. or, if the s@!& hits the fan, just pump out all max level spells you want. Pick up a Ring of Wizardry and, and you got spell points aplenty.