So, in general, the point of using an established system is to not have to make up a ton of rules on the fly. However, Pathfinder (and D&D 3e before it) was not designed with play-by-post in mind, but rather face to face in person play. Specifically, what this means is that the rules are meant to allow for a lot of back-and-forth between players and GM, as that's more entertaining and fun in person; however, the nature of play-by-post is such that these very same back-and-forth provisions slow it down considerably.

As a result, I'm gonna try to reduce the back-and-forth to a more manageable level, hopefully in a way that doesn't bothers people too much. Details below.

Saving Throws

So, saving throws are the core defense against magic. They also require a lot of back-and-forth reactive roll, so that if I have a villain cast an AOE spell that targets six players, I then need to wait for six saves. That's just not feasible.

So, what we'll be doing is swapping the rolls around: Saving Throws will now become static defenses instead of rolls, with each being equivalent to whatever Saving Throw bonus the character has +10. Meanwhile, save DCs will become "attack rolls" of a sort - so each DC will instead be reduced by -10, and the result will become a bonus on a d20 roll to hit. Abilities that would cause a save to "roll twice, take best" will instead now affect the attacking roll with a "roll twice, take worst". Instead of saves always succeeding on 20 and failing on 1, it will be the spell roll that always succeed on 20 and always fails on 1.

Hopefully, this will speed up combat considerably, without any meaningful loss of power or otherwise making any ability obsolete - it swaps around the mechanics but leaves everything else untouched.

Perception, Sense Motive, and otherwise not combat reaction rolls.

Again, rolling for perception or sense motive when reacting to a situation can quickly become obnoxious in play by post when it causes players to have to stop their actions and wait for answers, possibly once per post. Plus, it's always seemed weird to me that Perception is an active skill requiring activation when people are perceiving the world around them all the time.

Furthermore, constantly asking for Perception checks is incredibly immersion breaking - I think we're all familiar with the common joke of "gee, I rolled 2 on that Perception check, I wonder if something is sneaking up on us" - and the generally suggested alternative of making players roll at random times is an incredible hassle that, again, is based upon the back-and-forth nature of in person play, and thus doesn't work well at all in play by post.

So, I will instead assume that each player is always constantly taking 10 on their Perception and Sense Motive checks passively, and include in my posts of the environment any information that said result would give them. Since this means that some peple with high perception might be getting more information than others, I will be employing secret lines to make the experience more realistic; for those not in the known, secret lines are lines of dialogue that are only visible to one person, but unlike private lines, to that person they appear as part of the text.

Thus, if you find yourself reading a description were somebody is sneaking behind a fellow PC with knife in hand, and that player post indicates they aren't reacting, consider that you might be the only person in the group who's actually noticed the sneaking assassin.

Now, while this works for speeding up play, it does would limit the ability of player who truly invest in an ability to make use of it, and I don't want that. So, players will still be allowed to roll for their Perception and Sense Motive if they want to, but to do so, they will need to actively engage the setting in an attempt to discern more.

So, when speaking with somebody who they're doubtful of but which their Sense Motive gave them nothing on, it's not just a mere roll, they need to really engage in conversation to try and ferret out their motive thorugh it.

Similarly, when using Perception to check for traps, it will take more than just a glance, and instead require a thorough check of whatever it is they're examining for an extended period of time. I think this will help roleplay a lot; furthermore, if rolling less than 10, then you as players will alreadu know you're not gonna notice anything the original description didn't give you, and that also will speed up play by allowing you to not have to wait for an adjudication of your roll on my part.

Knowledge checks

Now, a lot of information should normally be available to people who have knowledge, and in this case, the approach I had for Perception doesn't really help. However, knowledge roll are less immersion breaking than Perception or Sense Motive. So, what I'll be doing instead is that, whenever you face something that rolling knowledge against would help you with, I'll place a small blurb at the end of the relevant post under spoiler, and atop it, the type and DC of knowledge check needed to know the information under spoiler.

This way, any player can make their own knowledge roll as they read, and if its good enough, they read what's under the spoiler, and can incorporate it into their own post without slow-down; and if it isn't, or they can't make the roll, then they won't. Yes, I realize that this means I'll be trusting those who fail the roll not to read the spoiler, but if I can't trust players to not metagame, well, what's even the point of playing?

Relatedly, I dislike the "absolute value" of money in the game, and the Appraise skill in general, which is a direct result of this mentality. So, I will be doing away with Wealth By Level entirely, and just like in an actual economy, items will have different values depending on where you buy them and who you decide to sell them to - a collector and a wizard will not be interested in paying the same for the same thing. And to tie this to the discussion, appraise as a skill will be dropped, and instead any appraise check will be a knowledge check, with different requirment depending on what value you're interested into - the value of something as an art piece would require Knowledge Nobility, while the value of items of worship would be Knowledge Religion, and so on. Bonus to the Appraise skill will still work, but instead of adding to the no-longer existing skill, they'll become circumstance bonus to the appropriate Knowledge skill check.

Initiative

Again, waiting for everybody to roll initiative before a fight is a disastrously long time-waster. However, the general procedure people use to shorten this (having all players go first in whichever order, then have all the villains go at once) is something that, I feel, somewhat damages the tactical aspect of Pathfinder (which I would expect is one of the things people are playing with the system in the first place), and I'd rather not have to resort to it (although I will if my idea detailed below turn out not to work).

As such, I will instead ask everybody to roll Initiative ten times at character generation, and have this list of current initiative results placed on their sheet. This will give me a list of the order in which character should be going when a combat shows up to post for you all to follow, as well as allowing the extra bonus of not having to ruin the shock of surprise attacks by having to roll initiative before them. Each player will be tasked with removing the initiative numbers from their lists as they get used up, and I will have everybody roll up a new batch periodically. I think this will work much better than any other alternative.

Speaking of posting in combat, as I said I will post the initiative order at the start of every battle; then, players will make their post in the listed order. Each player will get 48 hours after the post before them to make a post of their own; if the player does not make the post, I'll just take control of their character, having them do whatever seems reasonable to me based upon said character's personality, and then move forward with the next person. This should keep things going without too much slow-down.

Posting Speeds

Finally, a note on postings and absences. I am a weird person; I am very patient and can wait forever if I'm told "please wait for me due to (reasons)", but I become ansty very quickly when I get the feeling that I'm being ignored or dismissed - it makes me feel like less of a person and more of a piece of refuse, which isn't a good sensation. When I dedicate myself to something, I put in true commitment, and I want that to be returned.

What this sums up to, is that with me, it is much better to send a one-line message saying "sorry I couldn't post, RL problems, I'll be back next month" than disappearing for random times (even if much shorter than a month) without explanation. So, here's how we're gonna be running things.

The posting speed is "one post every two or so days", and if you can't keep up with that, you shouldn't have joined - and if you suddenly find youself unable to keep up with it after you joined for whatever reason, it is your duty to tell me immediately, so that we can brainstorm a solution to the problem, or some other way arout it.

I will generally poke people if I don't see any posts from anybody in a three days span; if you think your character wouldn't have anything to contribute to a scene but nobody else has posted anything in two days, then make an OOC post stating why you're not going to be posting on the situation, and asking if perhaps somebody else could push things forward - as a GM, I've lost count of the number of times two players were waiting for each other to go first.

Also, when in doubt, just make a post anyway, even if it's just in-character fluff about how your character is reacting with disinterest to the situation, maybe doing something quirky like petting their toad familiar or such. Even if you're not actively contributing to the scene, reminding people that you're around is important, and it helps in making them finish a scene and push it forward if they realize they're hogging the spotlight too much.

If somebody goes two weeks without making a post, I will consider that a sign of disinterest in the game (and lack of politness, since a polite player would just tell me that they're not liking the game anymore, and if also they told me why, I'd be more than willing to try and adress any complaints, but I can't do that if nobody speaks to me), and move things along regardless of wether it'd make sense for their character to go along with it normally; once we reach two months of absence, I'll just consider the player to have left, and start looking for replacements, while treating their character as an NPC from then on - including possibly killing them, if that makes sense in the situation.

On the other hand, if somebody tells me they have trouble and why, I will try to find ways to justify their limited interactions with others in-character by some means, sidelining the character until the player can come back to it, but also making sure they can then jump back into things quickly once they do show up again.

Fundamentally, remember that communication is key, and if you have a problem or disagree with me on something, tell me. Mature, adult people talk about their problems, so as to solve them; disappearing without warnings is a childish way to act. Yeah, this is just a game and not that important a thing, just a bit of silly make believe, but the other players are real and deserve a respectful treatment anyway, even if you dislike them. At least, that's what I think.

I hope that's all clear - if you have doubts or questions, don't hesitate to ask them, and if you think you have suggestions on how to make the game better with some other houserule, don't be afraid to suggest them to me - I might not agree, but you never know unless you try, right? :)
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:21, Mon 08 Apr 2019.

In addition to those House Rules meant to speed up play by post, which I outlined above, there's also a handful that I use for my own peace of mind, because they make the game easy to run on either a logistical or narrative level. These, I'm giving a breif overview upon here.

Spheres of Might & Power

Spheres of Might is a system that give martial characters BAB-scaling abilities that greatly increase the value of attacking by means of the standard attack action, allowing for them to feel more exceptional while also creating a more dynamic combat environment. It also allows for weapon proficiencies to be more interesting. There really isn't much more than that to the system, and integrating it in the PF core rules is very easy. I don't think much more than that needs to be explained - the wiki (wich can be found at speresofpower.wikidot.com) explains everything pretty clearly.

Spheres of Power is the sister system to sphere of might, and it offers an alternate way to handle magic. It is a much more involved system than Spheres of Magic, and for this game, it will be replacing Vancian magic entirely - Vancian Magic being the only thing I'm outright banning here.

The wiki has a much more detailed explanation of the system, and I suggest anybody interest read it up, but to summarize, there's three core concept to it:

1 - every class has a Caster Level, which is like BAB - 1 to 20 for fullcasters, 1 to 15 for midcaster, 1 to 10 for martials - and thus allows easy multiclassing. Abilities no longer have "spell levels", instead the DC are always based on "half/CL", so everything scales to keep having a powerlevel relevant to the character's own level.

2 - there are no spells, instead every character picks "magic talents", which are basically feats, allowing for either a basic spheremagic ability, or a modification applied to an ability somebody already has. Most of the base abilities can be used at will

3 - each caster gets a pool of points, which can be used to improve abilities - some of the magic talents are extra effect that require to pay additional SP to be used. This allows magicians to use more powerful magical effects a handful of times per day

4 - drawbacks can be picked that enhance the power of magic abilities at the cost of removing some functionality to them or imposing conditions (such as the need for somatic gestures or words) on the casting itself

So, the system essentially boils down to a feat-based magic system; it is really versatile and was designed with the clear purpose to allow any player to build anything based upon the concept in their mind, instead of having to fit their concept to the abilities the system offers. In certain sense, it's more powerful than standard vancian magic in what it allows the players to do (limited flight and teleportation, potentially at will, are accessible at first level), but this is curtailed by the necessary specialization required (you might be ablte to fly or teleport at will, but that's gonna be one of the only two things you're capable of doing with your magic), which overall means a lot more variation among magic character, instead of the omogeinity that Vancian magic forces.

The system also curtails more extreme abilities as "advanced talents" ("legendary talents" for spheres of might, but it's basically the same concept), which are only available with GM permission. And that's exactly how I'm gonna handle them - I'm not declaring anything out of bounds, but do not simply assume I will let you take an advanced talents - instead, you should ask me beforehand if you can take it, and offer me a pretty good reason as to why I should allow you to. I probably will, although certain abilities I might be more easily persuaded upon than others - expect long-range teleportation to be one of those things I will not simply let you have without extremely good rationale as to why, for example.

Overall, I think that being able to try out the Spheres systems is one of the things most people will enjoy most about this game - it's a really neat system, and I look forward to see what players will be capable of doing with it.

XP and progression

I dislike the way XP warp the game with their own existence - they tend to encourage reckless behaviour and favour combat over more diplomatic solutions. I don't think that fits at all with the kind of evil game I want to run here. However, simply handing out levels when I feel it fits, while practical, is something I'm not really that comfortable with. So, I found a compromise.

Somebody made the math on the pathfinder XP tables, and found out that, at normal progression, it takes about 22 encounters of CR matching your own level to level up. So, that's what I'm gonna use as baseline, and the rule is as follow: up to level 6th, it will take 22 XP to gain a level; afterwards, it will take 11 XP to gain a new feat.

XP will be assigned by overcoming challenge; these need not be combat challenges - stealing a crown from a dragon's horde without being noticed is as much of a challenge as fighting the dragon would be, or possibly an even greater one. This will allow me to give the same weight to combat and non-combat encounters, and make sure you're not penalized for going with more creatuve routes than merely charging in sword swinging.

As for XP values, overcoming an easy challenge will be worth 1 XP, overcoming a normal challenge will be worth 2 XP, and overcoming a really hard challenge will be worth 3 XP. Naturally, if something is no challenge at all (such as killing an unarmed civilian), then it will be worth no XP at all - that should help with keeping attempts at gaming the system at a minimum, I hope.

E6 environment

For those unawares, E6 is short of "Epic at level 6th". This is is a style of play that was originally devised for D&D 3e, meant to keep players at a human level while keeping the high-level magic from enroaching on the game, turning it into a rocket-tag experience with a multitude of story-breaking powers floating around.

Essentially, the playstyle involves players stopping to gain level after they get to lv 6; from then on, they gain feats instead - and prerequisites still apply, so that high-level feats remain out of reach. This results in players who have a great deal of feats, and thus options, but with number which remain smaller and more manageable, and a much smaller and comparatively minor number of abilities capable of actually breaking a setting apart.

Now, since we'll be playing without Vancian Magic and with Spheres of Power instead, most of the worries about "high-level play" aren't really relevant here. However, I personally prefer E6 as a playstyle becase it makes for a much more simplified and naturalistic worldbuilding, most importantly removing the "scale-to-threat" aspect of the PF experience that has always been my biggest dislike with the whole thing.

Essentially, in an E6 environments, people break down into these tiers:

lv 1 - normal people, professionals in their own field of expertise
lv 2 - exceptional or very experienced people
lv 3 - recognized masters of whichever fields they focus on
lv 4 - famous masters with great experience - anybody with this level of skills who's not secretive will be known to those who work in their field of expertise
lv 5 - world-class once-in-a-generation experts, even common people would at least know their exceptionability and anybody with experience in their field bow to their expertice
lv 6 - legendary figures, history books will be written on their actions

This means that there's barely an handful of people in every given field who are lv 4th or higher, and the overwhelming majority of people would be lv 1, and probably commoners at that. As an example of how this helps make more sense, in this AP there are two prisons the players can visit. The first is in book 1, the other in book 4. The prison in book 1 is one that no one has ever escaped from, and is guarded by lv 1 warriors; the prison in book 4 is a relatively minor location, and is guarded by lv 12 fighters. Naturally, this makes no sense whatsoever, but if the prison in book 4 was guarded by lv 1 warriors, the players would not have any challenge within it at that point.

In an E6 environment, however, this changes. Lv 1 warriors are still a dager to lv 6th characters in sufficient numbers, and now both prisons are guarded by the same guards because, in-universe, it's actually nearly impossible to find guards of a level higher than 1. The world makes more sense. And is also more open to rational exploration, since there's no area of "here live lv 20th monsters" around.

Now, one of the main worries people have with playing in an E6 environment is the lack of progression for class features, or the inability to gain some spefic tricks that are nift but not all that powerful, that'd require lv 8 for some specific combination. Luckily, this is is easily answered by custom feats. If you want some class feature or something else of the like from an higher level class, I will probably be amneable to create a feat or feat chain that can get you there; so long as I can be persuaded you're not attempting to break the game (and since you're playing villains, you have some leeway there, as well) I will be accomodating if I can affort to be.

Also, another problem is the threat of enemies with CR above 10. I will try to keep those to a minimum, but should I field any, while I will leave them their abilities and HD, I will likely be lowering things like Saves, DC and AC to be within reach of the party. This does not mean that you should challenge a Balor if you met one, but I will at least try to play fair, so long as you understand that a CR 13 enemy might well be out of your reach forever, at least in a normal fight - you might want to look at rituals or seeking the help of an army to deal with something like that. Which, I feel, is just as it should be.

Not that when I say "as it should be", I'm more referring to the numbers themselves than to anything else - as was proved in the "D&D: calibrating your expectation" article that can easily be found online, lv 6th character are already superhumanly capable in many respects, and I want that to be reflected in the narrative. E6 allows for this to happen, whereas the normal level progression doesn't, by keeping the threats around the players equal to them and thus depriving them of the chance to prove their own exceptionality.

This is probably the biggest "make it or break it" aspect of my houserules - most people are, for some reasons, reluctant to play in an E6 environment. I say, if you haven't ever done it, give it a try - you might discover that it allows your characters to feel much more epic than ending a fight with a single 7th level spell ever did. Perhaps it won't, but where's the harm in finding out?

Wealt by Level and item crafting

I dislike wealth by level, both in the idea that players are entitled to having certain things at certain levels, and the fact that it makes it impossible to make the characters genuinely rich and successful without that breaking the game. So, I'm gonna ignore it.

Very simply, anything that costs more than 1000 gp will not have a fixed cost anymore; instead, people will accept reasonable prices for magical items, based by me upon their crafting times, but things like "magic-mart" or such won't be around. People will need to hunt down items, and need to haggle or otherwise make deals if they want something very rare or particular, or otherwise be only able to purchause whatever it happens to be around.

Now, this does raises the problem of the big 6 items. Being in a E6 environment will already reduce the relevance of those by quite a lot, but I will also be using a modified variant of the Automatic Bonus Progression to make things more fair on everybody - details on this are found in the "RTJ" thread.

As for crafting, I'll just be using the "wealth" value of an item to instead determine their "magic power" value. This will be the amount of magical stuff that needs to be used to craft an item, and the remains of magical mosters (or other magical items) will have a value here, but neither will be something that can simply be purchaused by money, and gold itself won't count as an acceptable substitute either.

Honestly, crafting is a pretty big headache, since the Sphere of Powers rules for crafting are very different from the core PF ones, which also have multiple variations, so if any player wants to go into it as a character focus, I'll talk it up personally with them and try to find a compromise that will work for both of us.

All that is important to say here is that, since I'm removing Wealth By Level entirely, using crafting as a way to double one's wealth won't really be happening here - go into it if you think it'd fit your character, but otherwise, there will be other means I'll provide magical items to you, none of which requires you to worry about money. The two will be entirely separate things.

This should be all, but if any other House Rules should reveal themselves necessary, or otherwise be suggested to me, I'll add them here.