Core Pathfinder Rule Changes

Paizo has done a decent enough job at creating a fun fantasy roleplaying game system. They've presented a number of awesome options for player characters that allow for a wide variety of characters in a high fantasy setting. Sometimes what Paizo gives us doesn't quite fit with what Roatera is aiming to achieve. Whether that comes from certain options that run counter to our themes or comes from certain rules that don't mesh terribly well with the format we use. Below you will find all of the changes that we've made to the default rules. You will find additional optional rules systems in the Variant Campaign Rules page.

## **Base Rules**

This section describes the various rules that have been changed for core rules. Check the Variant Campaign Rules for which optional systems we use, and how they're implemented.

### **Animal Companions**

Classes with limited companion lists can apply for alternate animal companions through Character Change Requests.

### **Earning Gold**

#### **Money Making Caps**

No matter how you do it, you are limited in the amount of money that you can make in a month. Whether it is from selling mundane items, magical items, or just performing a trade (Artistry, Craft, Perform, Profession, or the Earn Capital downtime action to earn gp). This represents the amount of actual wealth that you can extract from the settlements in a given month but also is meant to act as a growth cap due to downtime. You may only make up to 10,000 gp per month.

**Note:** This does **NOT** apply to treasure awarded from sessions. The gold you receive from sessions is entirely independent of this cap, and is meant to be your primary source of income at later levels anyway. If a GM rewards specific treasure in the form of mundane or magical items and you chose to sell those, treat them separate from this cap as well.

#### **Using Skills to make Money**

The Artistry, Craft, Perform, and Profession skills can all be used to generate gold directly. Instead of rolling to determine how much money you make in a day you make a flat amount of gold equal to 50 times your rank in that skill. Skill Focus feats that give you a bonus to these skills give you effective ranks for the purpose of determining how much gold you generate in a day.

#### **Selling to NPCs**

Whenever you sell items to an NPC vendor, you do so at 70% the market price of the item.

### **Fractional Base Bonuses**

To avoid cheesing saves or attack bonuses, we use the Fractional Bonus Progression system for multiclassing. If you have gestalt levels, your class has the better of base saves and base attack bonus of the two classes. For example, if you have 3 levels of Rogue, and 1 Fighter level, count your first 3 levels as having a 3/4 BAB (d8) and good Reflex and a poor Will and Fort save. Your 4th level gives you full BAB (d10), good Fort and a poor Will and Reflex save. This adds up to +3 3/4 BAB, +3 1/2 Base Reflex, +3 1/2 Base Fortitude, and +1 1/3 Base Will.

### **Inherent Bonuses**

Inherent bonuses from wish and/or stat tomes and manuals to ability scores stack. These bonuses cannot exceed +5 for any individual ability score, but having multiple wishes or reading multiple books that grant an inherent bonus are added together rather than taking the highest.

### Knowledge

Many Knowledge skills can be used to identify the abilities and weaknesses of monsters by succeeding on a DC 10+CR appropriate Knowledge check (or DC 5+CR for common monsters, and DC 15+CR for especially rare monsters). The following are defined as "bits of useful information" for when you exceed the DC.

* Creature's Type, Subtype, CR, and general and/or typical alignment

For every 5 by which you exceed the DC, you may learn one of the following to a cap of three each check:

* Senses (These are only the skills of a generic version of the creature)
* HD
* Best/Worst Saving Throws
* Special Defenses (For example: damage reduction, energy resistance, immunities, fast healing, regeneration etc etc)
* Weaknesses
* Speed (Including all types of speeds and maneuverability)
* Attacks and CMB (Special attacks that trigger on hit are not revealed with this information alone.)
* Special Attacks/Abilities
* Spell-Like Abilities/Spell Casting (Including Caster Level and the Spellcasting Ability. Spellcasting gained through classes is not revealed.)
* Special Qualities (Including the details of the special qualities)
* Ability Scores (These are only the ability scores of a generic version of the creature)
* Skills (These are only the skills of a generic version of the creature)
* Feats (These are only the feats of a generic version of the creature)
* Ecology

### **Losing Control of your Character**

Characters that lose control of themselves (e.g. an intelligent magic item, or medium's spirit influence) are under the GM's control during the session. After the session, said character is controlled by the player, but they should still act according to the controlling influence (e.g. a player can roleplay their medium character being controlled by a Champion spirit).

### **Monster Feats**

These feats are available for use by players as long as they qualify for the feat.

### **Natural Armor**

All natural armor bonuses that are not template based or given via an enhancement bonus are all considered the same type for the purpose of stacking.

### **Reach**

A creature with a reach weapon cannot attack within the green squares on this chart relating to their size.

### **Story Based Prerequisites (Feats, Prestige Classes, and Traits)**

Any option (most commonly Feats, Prestige Classes, and/or Traits) that have any prerequisites that are not purely mechanical (such as being from a particular region, or completing a particular task) are subject to approval. Ask (through application or simply in discord) before taking the option, as the story prerequisite may not be available in the world.

### **Untyped AC Bonuses**

All untyped AC bonuses granted by class features (i.e. Monk, Sword Devil etc etc) that no longer function or are reduced when wearing armor are changed to deflection

### **Skill Changes**

#### Fly

*Attacked While Flying*: ~~You are not considered flat-footed while flying.~~ If you are flying using wings and you take damage while flying, you must make a DC 10 Fly check to avoid losing 10 feet of altitude. This descent does not provoke an attack of opportunity and does not count against a creature’s movement.

#### Intimidate

**Demoralize**

You can use this skill to cause an opponent to become shaken for a number of rounds. The DC of this check is equal to 10 + the target’s Hit Dice + the target’s Wisdom modifier or if the target is trained in Intimidate, the DC is instead equal to 10 + your opponent’s Intimidate bonus, whichever is higher. If you are successful, the target is shaken for 1 round. This duration increases by 1 round for every 5 by which you beat the DC. You can only threaten an opponent in this way if they are within 30 feet and can clearly see and hear you. Using demoralize on the same creature only extends the duration; it does not create a stronger fear condition.

### **Traits**

#### Dispelled Battler

Change the wording to the following:

You also gain this bonus for 1 round after you are subject to an area or targeted dispel magic spell or Mage's Disjunction

#### Major Drawback - Spell Vulnerability

Cannot be taken with Abjuration, Conjuration, or Divination.

#### Major Drawback- Unlucky

Anytime you roll a natural 1 (the die shows a “1”) on an attack roll or skill check, you must roll 11 or higher on 1d20, or suffer a critical failure of some sort (as determined by the GM). Possibilities include: losing your weapon or striking a friend instead, breaking something, hurting yourself, causing an opposite effect, or drawing unwanted attention to yourself.

## **Magic Item Crafting**

You may ignore the caster level requirement of crafting constructs by increasing the DC. To ignore the caster level requirement of an item requires an increase to the DC of the spellcraft check equal to 5 + the amount by which the caster level of the item exceeds your own (e.g. a character with a 7 caster level would increase the spellcraft DC by 8 to craft an item with a caster level requirement of 10).

Class ability/alignment/level requirements cannot be ignored by increasing the Spellcraft DC.

Accelerated Crafting does not reduce the crafting time to 4 hours, but instead allows you to craft an additional 1,000 gp worth of magic items.

Multipliers to magic item crafting speed are not multiplied together. Instead, they grant an additional amount of gp worth of magic item crafting per day equal to the amount of extra gp they would normally grant, assuming 1,000 gp worth of item crafting. For instance, if you had an ability that doubled the amount of magic item crafting you could do in a day, instead you would be able to craft an additional 1,000 gp in magic items. If you also had an ability that increased your crafting speed by 50%, you would be able to craft an additional 500 gp worth of magic items (50% of 1,000), which would add up to 2,500 gp in magic item crafting.

A crafter may not reduce the price charged for an item below 75% of the item's base cost.

You may craft any number of items per day, so long as you craft no more than the above limits on gp per day.

Any spells, planes, or items that speed up time do not affect magic item crafting

### **Constructs**

Characters with the Craft Construct feat or the wealth to pay another PC for a construct are limited in the constructs that they can bring with them to sessions. The CR of any construct that a PC brings with them to a session must be within the ECL bracket of the session (a level 5 character that somehow got an adamantine golem would not be able to take it on their 3-7 level adventure). Multiple constructs follow the rules for adding CRs together when determining how many you can bring with you (e.g. two constructs of the same CR are equal to one construct of that CR + 2).

When modifying a construct to increase one of its ability scores, you are limited to increasing each ability score by +10.

### **Magical Plants**

Since Magical Plants require 1 week per 5,000 gp in the Market cost, there are some changes to how they are crafted to fit better with our system. After the final market price is determined (minus any material component costs), multiply the total by 7 to determine the 'crafting time' and use your daily crafting gp speed to make progress. This does not increase the actual progress, but rather changes the crafting process into a daily one, rather than weekly. When spending Magic Capital to speed up the crafting process of a magic plant, the Magic Capital contributes an additional 700 gp worth of progress per day, rather than 100 gp.

This way, if you have leftover gold worth of crafting from a given day, you can devote it towards completion of a magical plant, or if a magical plant is completed with some crafting gold left over, it can be devoted towards other magic items. Additionally, factors that increase crafting speed do not need to last for an entire week, nor do you need to devote a week at a time towards crafting.

### **Potions**

Potions can be designed as splash potions. When designed in this way, they can be thrown as ranged touch attacks in order to affect the target of the attack with the contained spell. Additionally, splash potions can be crafted using spells that affect an area. When these are thrown, instead the potion is thrown at the intended origin point of the area spell. Alchemical Formulae potions are also available to be purchased.

### **Scrolls**

You may craft 1000 GP worth of scrolls per day, rather than the 250 an hour limit that was applied to the feat before.