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I need some help with my Pathfinder rules overhaul (I’m starting with Pathfinder, and house ruling it so heavily that it is barely recognizable) and campaign setting. I have an idea of what I want to do and how I want it to play, but it needs to be fleshed out more and I’m kind of burned out at the moment.
First off, I want to use a technology level loosely based off of the 18th century. Firearms have become the main weapon to carry, with swords, knives, axes, and other melee weapons being secondary weapons and armor being nonexistent. Firearms are smoothbores loaded with spherical rounds alchemically fused to a solid propellant, opening from the breech and loading fairly quickly. Artillery breech loads as well, but with separate round and charge.
Sailing ships rule the seas, using bound air elementals if the captain has the money and wind and current if the captain does not. Air elementals allow the existence of airships, which lack the durability or carrying capacity of ocean ships but have the advantage of being able to go almost anywhere, and generally a bit quicker. Railroads powered by lightning elementals dominate long distance land transportation, lightning elemental powered streetcars dominate transportation within large cities, and draft animals dominate transportation elsewhere.
One of the biggest rules adjustments I want to make is with magic. In my world, the ability to use magic is an inborn talent. If you are born with this talent, you can understand the glyphs used to write down magic and the invocations and rituals used to cast it. If you are not born with this talent, you will never be able to understand these things, no matter how long you look or listen to them. It will make no sense what so ever, and you won’t understand why it doesn’t make sense. You’ll be able to see what the spell does, but never how it was done. Having the talent does not give you the ability to use magic. What it does do is give you the ability to understand the makings of magic, which is a requirement for anyone wanting to learn to use it. The talent usually manifests between 6-7 years old and the start of puberty, though it has been known to manifest later on in life (but never earlier).
Do to the fact that people without the talent are unable comprehend how magic is done, there is a sizeable faction of people who fear it and it’s users greatly and are suspicious as to how they get their power. Accusations of pacts with infernal powers and the like are not uncommon from these sorts of individuals. This attitude is by no means universal, and whether it is the majority attitude depends on the region, but any spellcaster should be wary of the risk of witch hunts and lynching, because these things do happen.
Magic itself is rather different. There is no divine magic (do to a lack of involved gods and goddesses), and divine spells not directly related to religion are folded into arcane magic. Healing spells are Necromancy, not Conjuration, as the magics of death and life are intertwined together rather tightly. Healing magic makes you feel euphoric at first, but if you have a lot in a short time to start to get lightheadedness and nausea, with symptoms getting steadily worse the more healing you receive up until you pass out and die. Healing magic isn’t a bad thing, it’s just that too much of any medicine can hurt you. Resurrection magic ALWAYS brings back a damaged soul, not a whole one, as people are not meant to return from the abyss once they pass on. On the other hand, brain death takes a good 5-10 minutes after hitting -Constitution hit points (which is when your heart stops), and the soul does not depart the body until the brain has died, so healing magic can bring you back with soul intact if you haven't hit brain death yet.
Weak magic items are common, but anything stronger (including a +1 weapon) is very rare. I want such things to be legendary, so I degree that a powerful enchantment of an item is very hard to pull off.
The difference between the Wizard and the Sorcerer is that the Wizard, who gains the talent necessary to learn how to use magic from the same place a Sorcerer gains magic, doesn’t put much focus on their bloodline, and a Sorcerer does. The Witch class no longer exists, and it’s features are folded into many other spellcasting classes as class options.
Spells are cast off of a spell point system, and spells above third level don’t exist. Metamagic is easier to apply, requiring nothing other than the expenditure of some extra spell points. You don’t even need a feat. However, Mages (including Wizards, Alchemists, some Bards, and some Magi) must specialize in one spell school (gaining bonuses in this school), and ban another school. Sorcerers (including Sorcerers and some Bards and Magi) don’t have to ban any spells, but they gain bloodline special abilities instead of a specialized school.
If you take damage while casting a spell, you lose the spell.
Base attack bonus isn’t used, and neither is the accumulation of hit dice, skill points, or magic items with level. I see this as something that only leads to bigger numbers at higher levels, and I don’t see the need for bigger numbers. When you level up, you learn more, learning new tricks with the skills you already know or new skills, and doing the same with weapons, spells, and everything else. You gain versatility and knowledge with level, not out and out power. This means that, while a higher level character still has the advantage over a lower level character, it isn’t as pronounced as in true Pathfinder, and a lower level character is most definitely a threat worth considering to a high leveled one.
The Barbarian, Cavalier, and Ranger classes no longer exist, and their abilities are folded into the Fighter as class options. Some Ranger abilities are folded into the Rogue as class options. Sneak attack is a class option for the Rogue, not something they automatically receive. Archetypes are retained by this rule system, and I personally like them very much.
I use humans, who are divided into numerous races. The largest is the Magni, who are like normal people. Then there are Merfolk, who dominate the underwater world.
Angels and Demons were the rulers of humans thousands of years ago, but lost the powers that gave them this dominance long ago after the Overpower (It's kind of like a collection of deities, but different in that it exists to write the rules of the world and tweak them if absolutely necessary, not to interfere in day to day events. It has only gotten directly involved in the world a few times in written history, and it raises no Clerics or Paladins.) decided they should not be trusted with such power. Each belongs to an Animistic or Elemental lineage (the same is true of beings that make up the Overpower), with lineage effecting physical appearance. Some examples of Angels and Demons would be Catfolk, Kitsune, and Nezumi under the Animistic lineage and Oriads, Slyphs, and Tritons under the Elemental lineage.
Those three are the worldwide races of human. Due to their worldwide status, it is incredibly difficult to generalize them, as there are hundreds of different ethnic groups. There are also numerous races that are native to specific regions of the world, not the world as a whole. These races, do to their smaller numbers and homelands, tend to have unified cultures.
The Elves are native to the northern woodlands and seas. They are a people insatiably curious about the natural world, preferring to live in small villages inside wild eras they can explore, and are known for pulling off amazing feats of alchemy and herbalism using what is available in the wilds. They tend to be semi-nomadic, having two or three homes, usually a few hundred miles or more apart, and switching between them through the year, as they like living in permanent structures but also like a wide variety in their surroundings. They are also skilled sailors and ship builders, and were the first pioneers of overseas colonization.
Dark Elves are elves who bred with dark skinned Magni slaves during the colonial era . Elves, do to their wilderness lifestyle, are both hardy and disease resistant. These traits are highly desired in slaves, so elven slave owners bred with their own slaves or were hired to do so by Magni slave owners. The resulting childrenlooked like brown skinned elves, and were bred together, creating an entire race of slaves that were prized for their endurance and resistance to illness. Now most (but not all) of the countries involved have banned slavery, but they remain a poor underclass. They are generally an urban people, as they moved into the cities looking for jobs after being freed. The exception to this is those unfortunate souls who live in countries where they are still held in the bonds of slavery. They are mostly found near the equator in places where imported slaves were once common.
Dwarves are a people best known for their skill at building things. This manifests most obviously in their homes, which are built in architectually difficult areas such as underground, in the sides of cliffs, in treetops, in giant city-ships, and so on. They are also good at building weapons and tools, and make a fair amount of money selling them. They are native to the northern mountains. (This race is still under construction. When finished, it will look like a mash-up of Dwarven and Gnomish ideas.)
Skinwalkers are a race of people who can assume animal shapes, and are native to the western lands. They mostly assimilate with the local Magni, serving as either respected shamans or warriors or as distrusted rogues. (Under construction.)
The worldwide races are set in stone, but I am not opposed to adding more regional races. I think I could use some more. It should also be noted that I do not give any race a predilection towards good or evil. All races are equally capable of both.
With this setting, I want to be able to run games based around high seas adventure, darker sea tales, swashbucking adventure, crime drama, ghost tales, monster hunting, war, exploration of new lands, and political intrigue.
The trait system determines class skills instead of your class.
The trait system is composed of four trait groups, with everyone having one of each: ethnic background, childhood events, hobbies/interests, physical. Each adds a small bonus and three class skills chosen from a pool of five.
