Variant Campaign Rules

Being a living campaign, Roatera benefits from a number of the variant systems presented by Paizo to enhance the experience of our players. There are also some rules that make the game a bit more difficult to run sessions for a wide variety of players single sessions at a time. To handle both of these, below are presented the special rules that we use. You will find a number of variant systems from Paizo, as well as a few homebrew systems that we've devised presented below. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the Core Pathfinder Rule Changes page as well, to know what changes are made to default systems.

## Additional Variant Options

If you are curious about an option listed as ‘optional’ or ‘variant’ that aren't on this page, feel free to ask about it. If it is a system change that only affects options that are added (such as Vehicles) you will likely be able to take it. This is also true of options that allow you to make different choices with options already present. Variants that overhaul entire systems (such as Revised Action Economy) are likely to be denied, or at the very least, allowed for the individual character if the system can be incorporated into a single character without affecting the rest of the game. Variants that just add options to a character (such as Mythic) will not likely be approved unless the GM team wishes to add this to the entire game. So don’t get your hopes up if you’re interested in a variant or optional system that falls into the last two categories.

## Additional Character Options

### Background Skills

Artistry may be used to earn gold like perform or profession.

### Hero Points

The hero point system is in use with the caveat that characters gain a hero point when they hit a new level. Characters may pick the Antihero option (opt out of hero points in exchange for a bonus feat at 1st, 10th, 20th and 30th level). You may retrain this feat later to opt back into the hero points system, but you only get 1 hero point (as if you were a higher level character entering play). You don't need to be a "Hero" to use hero points.

### Skill Unlocks

Skill unlocks are available to only Unchained Rogue.

### Starting Occupations

Every character has an occupation that defined their pre-adventuring career. This can be a wide variety of things and doesn't necessarily need to be their first occupation in their life.

Select a bonus feat you qualify for that comes from this occupation (such as or Skill Focus (Stealth) for a Scout). Select two skills from this occupation as well (such as Ride and Profession (Soldier) for a Soldier or Survival and Perception for a Scout). You may either treat these skills as class skills or gain a +1 circumstance bonus on them.

## Downtime and Settlements

### Core Downtime Changes

The downtime system is used with the following modifications:

* Do not divide your check by 10 when earning gp.
* There is no spending limit on capital in metropolises (smaller settlements follow the normal spending limits though).
* Buildings and Organizations are all pooled together to determine your bonuses to Earning Capital rolls. This means that your businesses can make a maximum of 5 Earn Capital rolls per day (1 for gp, Goods, Influence, Labor, and Magic each).
* You may use Magic capital for expensive material components for spells or for spellcasting services and not magic item creation.

### Construction and Recruit Times

The time it takes to build a building or recruit an organization is equal to the build/recruit time of the longest room/team, plus the time for every room/team with a build/recruit time of 2 or less days, +2 days per room/team that takes longer than 2 days to build/recruit. The following time reductions are totals, not cumulative. You may only reduce the construction/recruitment time by 25% increments.

* The build time for buildings can be decreased by spending additional capital. After adding up the costs of the building, you may reduce the time it takes by 25% by paying an extra amount of Labor equal to the base Labor cost of the building.
* You may reduce the time it takes by 50% by paying an extra amount of Labor equal to twice the base Labor cost of the building.
* You may reduce the time it takes by 75% by paying an extra amount of Labor equal to twice the base Labor cost of the building as well as an amount of Magic equal to the base Labor cost.
* You may reduce the time it takes to one day by paying an extra amount of Labor equal to twice the base Labor cost of the building as well as an amount of Magic equal to 4 times the base Labor cost.
	+ This represents hiring spellcasting services like *fabricate* castings.
	+ If you are able to cast *fabricate* yourself, then you may instead use it yourself to speed up the construction speed. Every casting of *fabricate* grants you additional Magic capital that can only be spent on reducing the construction time equal to your caster level. If the Magic cost of reducing the construction time is more than what you can generate with *fabricate* within the reduced construction time you are shooting for, the building is completed once you cast the final *fabricate* that would generate the requisite amount of Magic. Alternatively, if you cannot generate enough 'free' Magic within the reduced construction time, you can spend the additional Magic as normal.
		- For example: You are constructing a building with a base Labor cost of 50 labor, and a construction time of 8 days. But your caster level is only 10, and you can only cast *fabricate* twice in a day. To reduce the time to 2 days (25% of 8 days), you would need to spend 50 Magic. Since you can only generate 20 'free' Magic a day (2 castings times 10th caster level), the building would finish construction after your first casting of *fabricate* on the 3rd day of construction.
		- For example: You are constructing a building with base Labor cost of 15 Labor, and a construction time of 16 days. Your caster level is still only 10, and you can still only cast *fabricate* twice a day. To reduce the time to a single day, you would need to spend 60 Magic. Again, you only generate 20 'free' Magic a day, so it would take 3 days to complete the building, instead of just a single day.
* Organizations can be recruited faster by spending more Influence. Reduce the time by 25% by doubling the base Influence cost, or by 50% by tripling the base Influence cost.

Separate buildings and separate organizations can be built/recruited at the same time. An organization that works in one of your buildings can likewise be recruited at the same time as the building is being built.

You may use a crafting skill appropriate for building buildings (such as carpentry or stone-masonry) to craft the Goods and Labor components of a room.

Buildings and organizations are assumed to be handled by NPCs. As such, unless you are using an appropriate craft skill or the Earn Capital action, build/recruit times do not take any downtime days on your part.

### Custom Rooms

#### Season Locked Mystic Greenhouse

**Earnings** gp, Goods, Influence, or Magic +6

**Benefit(s)** Bonus on Charisma-based checks attempted against creatures inside

**Create** 16 Goods, 6 Influence, 14 Labor, 15 Magic

**Time** 25 days; **Size** 10–20 squares; **Upgrades From** Mystic Greenhouse

### Downtime Events

Downtime events can happen once per IC week (Fireday) for one of your buildings or organizations. You may roll randomly to determine what happens for any or all of your businesses.

If the building doesn’t have a random events table use the closest approximation, or roll on the generic table if there is none. If the organization doesn’t have a random table, use the closest approximation.

When a downtime event happens, roll in the bot channel to determine which event happens, adding the settlement's Danger to the result.

### Downtime Actions

Declare what downtime actions your character is taking in the downtime channel on the discord (include the in game date, any of the randomly rolled market items you are buying, and the amount of gp you are making if you are earning gold). The following are new actions you can take, or modifications to downtime actions you could already take:

* Earning Gold: Artistry, Craft, Perform, and Profession ranks + Skill Focus Feat Bonus x 50 per day.
* Construct Buildings: This happens in the background and does not take downtime actions on your part.
* Craft Magic Items.
* Earn XP: You are limited to earning XP up to Level 5. You must play in one session before earning experience through downtime.
* Lead a Settlement: If you have a leadership role in a settlement, you must spend 1 day per week performing duties for that role (traditionally this is on Fireday).
* Recruit for an Organization: This happens in the background and does not take downtime actions on your part.
* Research an Occult Ritual: You must submit your occult ritual for approval if it is not a 1st party ritual or otherwise on this wiki. Rituals developed on their own or learned through an NPC require 1 week per ritual level. Rituals learned directly from other PCs take 1 day per level. This does not need to be done all at once.
* Research a spell: You must get the spell research approved first.
* Transport: Your team is assumed to move at a speed of 30ft for determining how long it takes them.
* Investigate a Crime- You can investigate a crime to find out who committed said crime.
* Exploring: You can take downtime to explore the world around the city in which you have arrived. Exploring happens in three steps, traveling, investigating, and clearing.
	+ Traveling: Regardless of actual speed, characters are treated as having a speed of 30ft. This means that you can travel across 3 plains hexes, 2 forest hexes, or 1 mountain hex with a single downtime day. Movement by water allows a character to travel longer in a day (5 open water hexes, 3 hexes of any other kind). If you are capable of flight, you may treat any terrain type other than mountains as plains. This movement uncovers the hex you traveled through as well as every hex around it.
	+ Investigating: If you uncover an anomaly or hex of interest you can spend a downtime day investigating the hex. This would provide you better information on what exactly you found and give you an opportunity to make knowledge checks if there is any.
	+ Clearing: Once you have traveled and investigated a hex you may request a session to clear said hex. This is mostly done in preparation for building a settlement or hex improvement however it could also be done to clear the hex of any danger for future Voyagers.
	+ You may take certain downtime actions while traveling in a group. Since these actions are done while resting, or in vehicles under non-ideal circumstances, they take twice the normal amount of time though. The actions are: Add Spells to Your Spellbook; Craft Magic Items; Craft Mundane Items; Heal Others; Spell Research; Research Facts and Lore; Retrain (assuming the individual retraining you is traveling with you); Train an Animal (assuming the animal you are training is traveling with you; increase the DC of handle animal checks by 4.
	+ The following spells and effects can increase your travel speed when traveling. Some may prohibit other downtime actions:
		- Wind Walk: If all members of a traveling group are under the effects of a *wind walk* spell, then they travel 10 hexes in a day (treat mountains as 2 hexes for this purpose). Travelers using this method cannot take downtime actions.

### Retraining

Characters can spend downtime retraining. Classes not explicitly spelled out can have their class features retrained as well. If there is a question about whether or not a particular class feature can be retrained, feel free to ask about whether or not it can be retrained on discord. You do not need to have a higher level character to retrain (meaning level 20 characters can retrain even their level 20 class features)

Traits can be retrained using five days of downtime.

Your INT modifier of favored class bonuses can be retrained using five days of downtime.

### Settlements (Available to players with Seasoned Player)

(Still a Work in progress)

The leader of the settlement can make up to 100k a month from the settlement. This is separate from your 10k personal gold cap. They are not allowed to pay their settlement leaders.

Every in game week on Fireday, the magic item markets refresh. This is when the randomly rolled magic items are rolled again (clearing out the previous magic items) and when you may roll a d% to see if a magic item is available.

The following rules are in place for **[FILL IN LATER]**:

* There is no buying or selling limit.
* The highest level NPC spellcaster is assumed to be 16, and the highest level spells that can be cast are 8th (this goes for spell services as well as magic items).
	+ Even if established that there is a higher level NPC spellcaster during a session, it is assumed that said NPC does not offer their services unless otherwise stated by the GM team.
	+ Even then, it will be for a limited time.
* All magic items that meet the above restriction are available.
* The randomly rolled magic items are sold for 75% market value. These will be posted in the #markets discord channel. When purchasing these magic items, be sure to include the item you purchased on the day you purchased it in the downtime channel.

For all other settlements there is no purchase limit (adventurers can sell items for 70% of the items market value no matter the settlement). Randomly rolled magic items are available to anyone in the settlement and may be purchased any number of times.

## Equipment and Magic Items

### Gifting

A player can gift an item to another player once a month (in real life). The gift can be an item or magic item worth the recipient's wealth by level or under. This item has zero gold worth for the purpose of hourglassing. Items can not be gifted to a player's own characters.

### Staff Recharging

Instead of requiring a spell be cast into a staff once per day to recharge it, all staves recharge at a rate of one charge per day. This counts as casting a spell into the staff, and so you may not recharge the staff by casting additional spells unless you have a feature that would normally allow you to do so.

## Magic

### Esoteric Material Components

These may be purchased from any NPC vendor that sells magical items or components. These are optional components. The Eschew Materials feat does not apply to Esoteric Material Components, but has been altered to interact with Esoteric Material Components.

Players cannot scrounge for components.

### Idols

These are a thing, expect them to crop up from time to time.

### Primal Magic

Areas of primal magic do pop up from time to time.

### Spellblights

Spellblights are a thing. They can be caused Arcane Spell Failure, Crafting Magic Items, Spell Turning, Teleportation Mishaps, and Use Magic Device as described on the spellblights page.

### Wild Magic

Like Primal Magic, areas of wild magic pop up from time to time as well.