Ghostfoot's Variant Rule Playtest [PF1] - level 10

[Ghostfoot]

Warning: The main purpose of this game is to test out some ill-conceived house rules & variant rules. The game is intended to be fast-paced, roll-play not role-play, and will very likely be unbalanced & perhaps require tweaking “on the fly”.

Exact adventure tbc probably Vaults of Madness from Serpent's Skull

Spoiler: The Big 16

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1. What game system are you running (D&D, Call of Cthulu, Palladium, GURPS, etc.), and if applicable what edition (Original, Classic, Revised, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 10th, etc.)?

Pathfinder 1E

2. What 'type' or variant of game will it be (i.e. "Shadow Chasers" or "Agents of Psi" for d20 Modern)? What is the setting for the game (eg. historic period, published or homebrewed campaign setting, alternate reality, modern world, etc.)?

To be agreed by the players, most likely a single dungeon from a Paizo AP.

3. How many Players are you looking for? Will you be taking alternates, and if so, how many?

4

4. What's the gaming medium (OOTS, chat, e-mail etc.)?

Here - GitP forums.

Ideally at least 1 brief post each day to keep things moving. Mechanics only, no fluff needed.

5. What is the characters' starting status (i.e. experience level)?

Level 10

6. How much gold or other starting funds will the characters begin with?

Standard WBL

7. Are there any particular character classes, professions, orders, etc. that you want... or do not want? What are your rules on 'prestige' and/or homebrewed classes?

Only official Paizo classes are allowed.
Must use Unchained variant where available.

8. What races, subraces, species, etc. are allowed for your game? Will you allow homebrewed races or species? 'Prestige' races or species?

PC must be Human only.
Cohort (see below) may be any official Paizo race.

9. By what method should Players generate their attributes/ability scores and Hit Points?

PF 15 point buy, with a range of 3-18 (That's right you can go below 7).
Humans have a maximum starting score of 18 after racial adjustments.

Max hp for 1st level. Half max + 0.5 (rounded up) thereafter.
You can buy extra maximum hp using retraining rules here

10. Does your game use alignment? What are your restrictions, if so?

Yes and it is mechanically significant (see below).

11. Do you allow multi-classing, or have any particular rules in regards to it?

Standard rules. You may use variant multi-classing for your character (VMC) if you wish.

12. Will you be doing all of the die rolling during the course of the game? Will die rolls be altered, or left to the honor system? If players can make die rolls, which ones do they make, how should they make the rolls, and how should they report them?

All die rolls on the GitPs forums - either in the OOC forum or in spoilers in the IC forum please. I will roll initiative, saves and certain skill checks for you. Basically anything reactive I will roll in order to speed play up. You can do all of the proactive rolls for your character.

13. Are there any homebrewed or optional/variant rules that your Players should know about? If so, list and explain them, or provide relevant links to learn about these new rules.

2 traits allowed
1 drawback (+ 3rd trait) allowed

Major gameplay changes:

1. Bell-Curve Rolls (based on Alignment)
   
   • If you are Lawful you roll 3d6 in place of 1d20
   • If you are Neutral you roll 2d10 in place of 1d20
   • If you are Chaotic you continue to roll 1d20 as normal
     New Critical Threat ranges will be provided for Lawful & Neutral characters.
2. Damage Conversion (3.5 UA)
   
   • When damaged with an attack vs AC, an amount of hp damage = Armour bonus is converted to nonlethal damage
   • This damage (less hardness) is also incurred by the armour
3. Slower Magical Healing (3.5 UA)
   
   • Magical healing converts lethal damage to nonlethal damage.
   • Magical healing only heals nonlethal damage once lethal damage is completely healed (ie sequentially not concurrently).

Major character generation changes:

1. Cantrips are nerfed (details tbc). They can be cast as nerfed 0-level spells or as 1st level spells with normal effect.
2. Everyone gets Combat Stamina as a bonus feat
3. Every PC gets a variant Leadership as a bonus feat
   
   • PC Leadership score is (level + Cha bonus). -1 penalty if party is 4+ PCs. -1 penalty for each X/Y alignment step difference of PC vs Cohort.
   • If Leadership is 0+ then PC receives a Cohort
   • Cohort minimum level is ½ (ie level 1 NPC Class). Subject to the minimum, the maximum Cohort level is PC level -2.
   • Cohort has a 3 point buy (15 point buy once heroic classed)
   • Cohort can be any playable race
   • Cohort begins with 0gp wealth, clothing only. You must pay to equip them.
   • Half max + 0.5 (rounded up) hp (again, you may purchase hp for them)
   • Warrior class Cohort can swap Medium and/ or Heavy AP for Combat Feats
   • Aristocrat class Cohort can swap Medium and/ or Heavy AP for non-Combat Feats
   • Cohort is generally player-controlled - but in combat must roll Int or lower each round or GM determines action for that round
   • GM will determine Cohort Morale periodically as needed

Minor character generation changes:

1. Background skills are in effect.
2. Illiterate
   
   • Bonus literacy in (Half Int bonus rounded up) languages, or spend a Linguistics skill point
3. Knowledge skills don’t identify monsters
   
   • You can take untrained ranks in new skill Monster Lore (separate skill per creature type)

14. Is a character background required? If so, how big? Are you looking for anything in particular (i.e. the backgrounds all ending up with the characters in the same city)?

None.

15. Does your game involve a lot of hack & slash, puzzle solving, roleplaying, or a combination of the above?

Hack & slash, no RP. This is an experiment.

16. Are your Players restricted to particular rulebooks and supplements, or will you be allowing access to non-standard material? What sources can Players use for their characters?

1pp Paizo

Party roster

Player	Character	Alignment	Race	Class	Cohort
Farmerbink	?	?	Human	Warpriest? Kensai Magus?	Unchained Rogue?
DarkOne-Rob	Richard Archleon & BattleCat	LG	Human	Paladin	Brawler/Lore Warden Fighter/Slayer
Auranghzeb	Friso	TN	Human	Unchained Barbarian	Druid VMC Witch or Oracle
Gyrfalcon	Belmark Aldori	LG	Human	Unchained Monk (Master of Many Styles, Sohei, Iron Mountain) 2 / Fighter (aldori defender) 8	disguised drow bard

[Da'Shain]

Posting interest. Current idea is a Bard or Sorcerer, with a Kitsune Alchemist as his "familiar".

[Farmerbink]

Yo ghosty. How set are you about all PCs being human?

[Farmerbink]

Alright. I'll put together a Warpriest for you. If he haaaassssss to be human, that'll be fine. The cohort will probably be unimpressive something like a.... rogue? I dunno, I wanna play with Butterfly's sting, but I'm not sure I see it ending well.

[Ghostfoot]

Thanks for working with my unreasonable demands

[Ghostfoot]

I'm thinking to run one of the following, if anyone has a preference:

1. Skum Tunnels from Carrion Crown 4
2. Cathedral of Minderhal from Giantslayer 3
3. Vaults of Madness from Serpent's Skull 4

[Farmerbink]

I'm thinking to run one of the following, if anyone has a preference:

1. Skum Tunnels from Carrion Crown 4
2. Cathedral of Minderhal from Giantslayer 3
3. Vaults of Madness from Serpent's Skull 4

Go big or go home? Vaults of madness sounds straight up brutal 🤣

[Farmerbink]

Alright, so I'm gonna prod DarkOne, but I can confirm that he's at least interested in putting together a paladin for this go round.

As I see it, we've got a lot of flexibility for the fourth prospective player. A paladin, a war priest (leaning into divine support with the "war" part as something like personal defenses), and a bard (or sorcerer) really leaves the 4th spot wide open. Ranged DPS could be great. A chaotic-aligned DPSer would cover all the "bases" with regard to new die rolling schemes.... A wizard or the like could lean into the new rules for monster identification (and the nerfed cantrips?).

Pretty sure my cohort will still be the weird butterfly's sting.... rogue? I dunno. It's a scheme, not a plan.

[Ghostfoot]

Cool, sounds good. I think that this will be a lot of fun to see how it plays out.

[DarkOne-Rob]

I can confirm my interest - working on the PC tonight.

Edit: Richard is a work in progress, but making progress.

To Do - Select Teamwork Feats, Purchase Gear, Prepare Spells, Build Cohort (including buying gear!) and Animal Companion (buy gear?)

[Farmerbink]

Hey so you'll be surprised to hear (or not) that I'm still scheming.

For our prospective fourth player: I'm equally interested in fleshing out a kensai magus or the (original idea) reach/support warpriest. To that end, I can give you some flexibility in "filling" the last spot. :-D

[Farmerbink]

Posting interest. Current idea is a Bard or Sorcerer, with a Kitsune Alchemist as his "familiar".

Just a quick prod to ask if you've fleshed out this idea any. I think DarkOne and I are trying to cover a broad spread, but I want to make sure we do it without stepping on your toes.

[DarkOne-Rob]

Alright, Richard Archleon, his trust squire Nibor of Lowkey, and his animal companion BattleCat are ready for review!

I may still buy some consumable items with Richard's remaining ~2K in GP, but the big stuff is done.

[Farmerbink]

Not to be a downer, buuuuuut....

One or two more people would be coooool.

[Auranghzeb]

Ok, as I told Ghostfoot, I don't really have much time until Friday. But I think I got a nice couple for this game. Hubby and Wife: Unchained BBN and Druid. Ill adapt them to the rules of the game over the next few days.

Friso the Old King

Ardid, the Astute

[Gyrfalcon]

Small world - my current plan is an aldori defender fighter with a bard sidekick to extol his virtue buff the party (by extoling his virtue)

[Auranghzeb]

Friso is ready, Ardid is ready too. Shell be a Druid VMC Oracle.

[Gyrfalcon]

Due to some family issues, it’ll be a few days before I’m ready. Sorry for the delay.

[Ghostfoot]

Due to some family issues, it’ll be a few days before I’m ready. Sorry for the delay.

All good. I'm happy to start with characters being ~80% complete and we can finalise during early game.

[Gyrfalcon]

Belmark Aldori - specializing in being absurdly hard to hit (+9 Dodge if full attack fighting defensively with combat expertise)

Most of the crunch is done - still need to do background skills, traits and equipment buying, then work out his cohort.

[DarkOne-Rob]

I will have to review where I am with my characters, but that won't happen until Friday at the earliest. Work the next three days will be 12+ hours starting early and ending late...

[Ghostfoot]

I think we've got enough to start...I'll aim to get an initial post up soon.

If there is any further finessing of cohorts to add in that is fine as we go, and binky can join us when ready.

Even if I get the initial post up, I'm away at a wedding this weekend so probably won't have too much attention for this until ~Monday.

[DarkOne-Rob]

That should be alright - Monday through Wednesday I'm working a 12-hour shift (5:30 to 5:30) each day. Thursday is recovery and making up for Valentine's Day. Friday is pretty light. I should be able to get up to posting something (after confirming the PC and cohort) by the weekend at the latest.

Given the forums and general real-life slowdowns, I hope that will be alright. I'm actually very interested to see how the mechanics play out!

[Gyrfalcon]

Myrissa 'Alice' Onsilla is now ready as well. Belmark doesn't know she's a drow because she uses her Hat of Disguise to appear as a human. He also doesn't know her name, despite being told repeatedly, and just calls her Alice. She's sort of given in and stopped struggling.