The primary purpose of this thread is to clarify which changes I'm making to the rules to fit my vision for the game, as well as to clarify how people should go about creating their own characters.

As was noted in the RTJ thread, while I encourage any interested player to read this thread in its entirety before making a commitment to join it, actual character creation will only take part once somebody has been accepted in the game; while it's perfectly fine (encouraged, even) to mention planned build choices and ideas in your RTJ, in the end each character will require some back and forth between me and the interested player before it can be finalized.

So, if anything in these rules isn't to your liking, or there is some doubt you have on how they will work, just mention it to me in PM; unless I specifically say here that something is banned, I will be willing to hear arguments as to why some specific rule or limitation is in place. Even if something is specifically banned, I would still answer and explain why if people weren't sure as to the reason, and would hear argument as to why I might want to reconsider, even if I retain the right to not do so.

For Races, Classes, and other mechanical aspects of a build, I'm willing to give a shot to anything I can find online for free; this means, if it's on the PFd20SRD, or the spheresofpower.wikidot page, or on Archives of Nethys, or someplace else where I can consult the material whenever I want or feel like it during the game. I will need you to give me a clear explanation about why you need a specific race and/or class, both from a narrative and mechanical standpoint, and I might still say no or require some conditions if I think something about the race could cause balance or narrative issues, but otherwise, go nuts - psionics, path of war, veilweaving, old 3.5 feats never converted to pathfinder, strange third party races, or anything else you might want to try, I might just let you.

I want to make it clear that, while I'm open to hear even the weirdest and wildest ideas out, I'm  not promising I'll agree to them; I am the GM after all, and if I say no to something, I expect that to be final. But I'll always allow anyone to make their case, and while I could still tell them "no" after hearing their arguments, I'll go into any discussion with an open mind.

The one big exception that I want to make a particular note about is Vancian Magic; that, for those who don't recognize the term, would be the traditional style of Pathfinder magic, with memorizing a spell and forgetting it after it has been cast.

As this game is something I started upon request to have a game for the Sphere of Powers system in Pathfinder; to encourage this, I will ask that any player who wants to be a Caster pick the Sphere Archetype for it - every Paizo class has at least one. The Sphere system is honestly more flexible and thematic than the Vancian system, and I am very doubtful that there exists any concept that could not be borne out using it. That said, I will still hear people out, if they can make an extremely solid case about why their concepts absolutely requires them to use Vancian magic; however, unlike anything else, I will not be going into it with an open mind, so if you want to convince me, you better have extremely solid arguments, and a very persuasive answer ready when I ask "why couldn't you just use Spheres of Magic for it". So, keep that in mind.

I think that's it for the general introduction to things; the following posts all each about a specific aspect of the rules I have altered in some form or want to draw attention to for some reason, so I encourage people to pay very great attention to them.
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:20, Tue 11 Jan 2022.

As I'm very strongly encouraging players who have interest in casting to do so by means of the Spheres of Power system, I'm making the first of these post about it, to clarify any doubts people might have about it and make sure everybody is aware of what the system has to offer. That said, my explanation is unlikely to exhaustive, so I'm including a link to the free wiki as well, where you can find anything about the system that you might ever possibly need.

http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/

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.

Mechanically, it works like a flexible feat chain with a lot of width but no depth: a single feat-like ability (known as a Sphere) grants a base ability, and then there are between one and three dozens more feat-like abilities (known as Talents) which have the base sphere as their only prerequisite and modify its effect, with the player free to select those they think more useful to their build. It also allows for weapon proficiencies to be more interesting via the "Martial Tradition" system, which trades proficiency in Martial weapons for Talents granting specific proficiency based around particular concepts.

There really isn't much more than that to the system, and integrating it in the PF core rules is very easy, while making for far more flexible builds, since any one interesting ability is generally only one Talent away.

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, as I mentioned in the post above.

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

1) Every class has a Caster Level, which is like BAB: it goest from 1 to 20 for fullcasters, from 0 to 15 for midcaster, and from 0 to 10 for low-casters (like the Paladin) and martial classes. This allows easy multiclassing: just like one level of Barbarian and one level of Fighter stack up to a BAB of 2, a level of Sorcerer and one of Wizard also stack up to a CL of 2. Since all DCs are always based on "half/CL", this lets every low-level ability scale and remains relevant to the character's own level, removing the process of low-level spells becoming obsolete that is typical of Vancian casting.

2) Similar to the explanation I provided above for Spheres of Might, Spheres of Power makes magic a feat-based system; the base feat-like ability (called a Sphere) grants an effect that is then modified by whichever feat-like abilities with the base Sphere as a prerequisite (called Talents) the player select across levels. A thing worth noting is that magic talent can sometimes alter or even outright replace the effects of a base sphere, not merely improve it, and that some talents gain additional effects when a player combines them, so the system is extremely flexible.

3) Similar to the psionic system, each caster gets a pool of points they can spend to boost the abilities granted by the magical Spheres and Talents, some of which require the SP payment to be used at all. That said, a majority of the abilities have lesser uses that are free of these SP costs, so it is best to see SP as a way to empower one's magic, rather than putting a limit to it.

4) Drawbacks can be picked that enhance the power of magic abilities, either by adding special effects to them (called boon) or providing more SP, at the cost of imposing some conditions on the use of magic, such as the need for somatic gestures or the inability to cast in armor. As these are optional, a player can, by default, use magic without any component limitation, and many of the drawbacks allow for creating a unique, personalized casting style.

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 to achieve those effect, which overall means a lot more variation among magic character, instead of the homogeneity 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 just because it exists. 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, and things like specialization (I'll be more likely to let somebody have a more powerful ability if they've invested a lot in that particular field over a person who is dabbling to get just one trick) and the total number of advanced talents I've already allowed you (the more you already have, the less likely I am to let you get more). Essentially, just like with everything else, I might allow it, but I'll want a good rationale to justify doing so, and I might still say no even then.

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; I find that it's a really neat system, and I look forward to see what players will be capable of doing with it, especially at the high level we'll be playing at.
This message was last edited by the GM at 12:22, Tue 11 Jan 2022.

You'll be starting at level 15, but I'm going to apply a number of changes to what you would normally get in a traditional Pathfinder game. That'll take a few posts to explain, so I'll put a bullet point summary of what everybody will receive here at the start; this is the information you need to give me once I, in the PM thread after you've been admitted into the game, give you the go ahead to finalize your characters.

If you have received that go ahead and are ready to provide me with the information so I can double check it before you put it in your character sheet, just go down this list. If you want to know what changes I've made to the rules that resulted in this list, read the posts below that explains the various changes.

1) Pick one of the two arrays below and assign the numbers to your ability scores in whichever order you wish.
- High Array: 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8
- Medium Array: 16, 16, 14, 14, 12, 10

2) Add three +1 inherent bonuses to your ability scores (gained at lv 4th, 8th and 12th) as you please

3) Four times, you can assign a +2 Enhancement bonus to a Physical Ability score of your choice; no ability score can be assigned a greater enhancement bonus than +6.

4) Four times, you can assign a +2 Enhancement bonus to a Mental Ability score of your choice; no ability score can be assigned a greater enhancement bonus than +6.

5) Select four traits; one of these traits must be a Faith or Religion trait. No two traits can belong to the same category.

6) Select your race, and note down its abilities.

7) Select fifteen feats; three of these feats (those gained at level 2nd, 8th and 14th) need to be Racial feat, as appropriate for your selected race.

8) You start at level fifteen, so select fifteen levels from classes as per normal leveling rules. Note down any and all class abilities in the order you gained them, and any relevant choices you made regarding them. Make sure to include your base CL (Caster Level) alongside things such as BAB and HP. You do not need to roll for HP, instead you gain the max amount for your class every level.

9) Assign the skill ranks you gained from your class levels; however, if any class would grant you 2 + INT mod skill points per level, you gain instead 4 + INT mod skill points per level in that class. Furthermore, Perception is considered a Class skill for you even if none of your classes would grant it.

10) You gain a further 2 skill points for each class level you possess (thus, a total of 30), which can only be assigned to background skills, as noted in the Background skills rules (see post below).

11) You gain a +5 Deflection bonus to your AC, and a +5 Resistance bonus to all of your Saves.

12) You gain the Attunement ability; when you do this, select three option out of the list of Armor, Shield, Weapon and Caster Level (you can select Weapon and Caster Level multiple times, if you wish). More explanations about this ability can be found in the "Automatic Bonus Progression" post below.

13) As per wealth by level guidelines, you receive 240'000 gp to spend on items of your choice; however, a number of limits exist on how this money can be spent (as noted on the "Automatic Bonus Progression" post below), the most important of which being that no more than 36'000 gp (15% of the total) can be spent on any one individual item, and that every individual item will require GM approval. Putting all the items in a clear list will simplify the approval process.

That should be all for the character creation; I will provide a template character sheet that every player should fill with the information from this list.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:04, Tue 11 Jan 2022.

As noted above, when choosing ability scores, you pick either the High Array or the Medium Array.

High Array: 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8

Medium Array: 16, 16, 14, 14, 12, 10

You can assign these numbers to the various ability scores in any order of your choice.

I prefer going for static arrays because they make it easier for me to know what to expect from a player and because they keep people from the temptation of trying to min-max. The way I see it, the High Array work perfectly for people who have a single ability score to focus on, while the Medium Array lets people who want to play a class that need a more balanced ability score distribution do so.

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For HP, I'm letting everybody keep the maximum amount for their Hit Die every level. I find that doing things this way makes the benefits of having a larger Hit Die count for more, as well as making the characters more survivable, which leaves me feeling less guilty when I'll be throwing harder challenges at you. :)

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Normally, the rules suggest to give players just two Traits; however, I've found that Traits help a lot in building a character's background, and I like the personality they add to a character, so I'm fine with letting people take a few. That said, since you're all being selected by a deity as their champion, I'd like for one of your traits to be a representation of this connection you have to a god. Because of this, I want one of your traits to be either a Religion or Faith trait, and I would very much prefer it if this was a trait that spoke of a positive relationship between your character and the goddess who is calling for your help.

The other three traits are up to you, although I want to make it clear that I'd be open to things like regional and campaign traits even if they don't fit the setting of this story, so long as you can make a valid argument as to why I should. Additionally, I've been known to actually just create a trait upon request, so long as you could point me to a similar enough trait to use as a template. A typical example would be Bruising Intellect, which lets people use INT in place of CHA for Intimidate, making an argument for other traits that allow to use a different ability score for a single specific skill to be allowable. Just try not to cheese the system too much, and I'll try to help you better realize your character concept.

I also want to point out that the Sphere wiki has a lot of magic and combat traits that work much better with the system (especially on the magical side of things) that are worth at least a once over. I'm pointing this out because some traits (for example, Magical Knack) aren't really applicable to the Sphere system, so you might want to take that into consideration.

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Finally, I want to make a note about racial traits (which, yes, are a different thing from Race traits; Pathfinder terminology is confusing at times), and specifically, the ability to replace some of the basic traits of a race with others. I'm very open to this, and in fact, in some cases, I might actually require that you do it.

This has to do with Spell-Like abilities. Since, as I said, I would like to keep Vancian magic out of the game entirely, I don't feel like letting it back in from racial traits or feats, and so any race that offers Spell-Like abilities will need to replace them for something else. The Sphere wiki has plenty of replacement options for a lot of races, but if your chosen race for whatever reason doesn't have any, I'll be willing to work with you to replace them with something appropriate.

Similarly, while this isn't the post about feats, I might as well mention that I will have a very dim view of feats that grant Vancian Spell-Like abilities, and will likely suggest some replacement for anybody who wants them. I know that some concepts are very heavily built on Spell-Like abilities (Kitsune characters come to mind), so I want to assure that I'll try my best to help realize those, I'll just also do my best to achieve that without using Vancian Spell-Like abilities at all. I ask that you work with me on this, and I'm sure we'll find a way to make it work somehow.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:21, Tue 11 Jan 2022.

I like feats, and a common problem people have with PF is not having enough feats to make their build work. So, I'm going to open things up a bit on that front.

First is that, instead of gaining a feat every odd level, I'll let character progression grant a feat every level; however, since I like Racial Feats (I find they add a lot of unique personality to a character and also make the choice of race more significant), four of these new feats will need to be Racial Feats - the ones gained at level 2nd, 8th, 14th and 20th. That still leaves players with an extra 6 feats across the character progression (which, starting at level 15, means you'll start with 4 of those already gained), which I feel is pretty good.

Second, a lot has been made of the problems Pathfinder has with prerequisites and feat chains; in fact, an entire set of extra rules has been developed by many people to counter this phenomenon, with the most popular such fix being the "Elephant in the Room" pdf. It's pretty easy to find, just search for "Elephant in the Room" "Pathfinder" and it'll lead you to the page where the document can be downloaded for free.

I won't be going the route that particular fix went; however, a number of the modified feats they created in the process are interesting enough that, if somebody wants any of them for their build, I'll be open to let people take them, just let me know and, like with any other content, we'll talk it out and see if it works. This also applies to anybody who has interest in feats from 3.5 that have never been adapted to Pathfinder - I don't promise that I'll let you take them, but, so long as you can point me to somewhere I can check the feats for free on the internet, I'll hear out your argument for why you need that specific feat and why no other would work.

Instead, what I'll be doing is removing a handful of prerequisites; specifically, any feat that requires a minimum Ability Score will have that requirement removed. Also, if a specific feat you're interested into has feat prerequisites, but none of those feats in any way relates to what the feat allows you to do (for example, the swathe of archery feats who demand you have Point-Blank Shot while in no way relating to close range archery), I might be inclined to remove a couple of those; mention your interest to me and I'll consider whether it's acceptable to do so.

Additionally, I'm also going to be very receptive to suggestions of feat consolidation. What I mean by this is that, when a feat chain is considered, if all the feats in the chain do the same thing, and they all have prerequisites of the previous feats in the chain plus a progression limit (like BAB, skill ranks, or class level), I will be very much open to condense the feat chain into a single feat with a scaling effect.

Examples of this would be condensing Improved and Greater Vital Strike into Vital Strike (a perfect example, where each feat does the same thing as the previous one, just keeping up with the benefit of increased BAB), absorbing Greater Weapon Specialization into Weapon Specialization (Weapon Specialization already has reasonable prerequisites of being a lv 4th Fighter with Weapon Focus, so it's fine to me to let the damage bonus double once the person who already took Weapon Specialization reaches Fighter lv 12th), or any of the Style feat chains.

I can't make a full list here, but I can make clear what the guiding principle is: if a feat grants a completely new, unrelated ability, I'll probably want it to stay standalone, but if all a feat does is keep another feat, which you already have, keep pace with the requirements of level progression, I'll probably let you have it as part of the first feat which it is keeping current.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:50, Tue 11 Jan 2022.

I feel that Pathfinder has a strange relationship with skills, in that they tend to have little use and limits put on their distribution that leaves characters unable to make full use of what skills they have, while at the same time becoming very overpowered if somebody invests too much on it. So, I'm making a few changes.

First of all, I'm giving every single class the Perception skill as a class skill. It's the most used anyway, and I think it will encourage creativity if people don't have to jump hoops to get what should be a very basic ability.

Secondly, to let people actually make more use of skills in general, any class that would grant 2 +INT mod. skill points per level will instead grant 4 +INT mod. skill points per level.

Furthermore, I'll be applying the Background Skills optional rule; this means that, in addition to their skill points from leveling up, each character will also gain a further 2 skill points every level; however, these can only be spent on the Skill which are marked as Background skills. The full list can be found at the link below, but I'll also mark them out in the character sheet template I'll have everybody fill in.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/background-skills

In addition, to make the skills pack more of a punch, I'm allowing everybody who has the skill ranks for it benefit from the "Skill Unlock" rules that can be found under any skill; basically, I'd be granting everybody the equivalent of the "Signature Skill" feat on every single skill. The way I see it, the benefits are a nice way to keep skills relevant at the levels we'll be playing at, and minor enough to not be worth placing a feat cost upon.

So, that's about it for helping skills shine a bit. However, to keep things from getting out of hand, I'll be putting a general ban on the boosting of skills via items. I'm fine with items that grants small bonus (say, the +2 to Disable Device from masterwork thieves' tools), but I'd rather not see things like items of +20 bluff or such.

If a magical item provides a bonus to skills, I'll want to check what sort of bonus that is, and, depending on the item, I might either remove the bonus from the item while leaving its other abilities (reducing the item's price somewhat to compensate for the loss), modify it heavily (if it's an item with thematic uses for a skill that comes with too high a numerical bonus), or ban it entirely (if a huge numerical bonus to the skill is all that the item has to offer).

I'll be making a call on this on a case-by-case basis, so I'm fine with players asking me if a certain item can be used, I just want players to be aware of the reasoning behind my answers.

I believe that's all I had to say about ability scores, HP and skills, but if anybody thinks I've forgotten anything important, feel free to mention it to me in PM; this also applies to all other parts of this general house rule overview thread.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:57, Tue 11 Jan 2022.

So, for those who aren't aware, Automatic Bonus Progression is a set of alternate rules that replaces what are known as the "big six" items in general Pathfinder metagame discussion. This is also known as the "magic item Christmas tree" effect. For those completely unaware, the "big six" items are the following:

A weapon with an Enhancement Bonus to hit and damage.
Armor (and Shield) with an Enhancement Bonus to AC.
Ring of Deflection, which grants a Deflection Bonus to AC.
Amulet of Natural Armor, which grants a Natural Armor Bonus to AC.
Items which grant Enhancement Bonus to Mental (Headbands) and Physical (Belt) Ability Scores.
Cloak of Resistance, which grants an Enhancement Bonus to Saves.

Spheres of Power actually adds to this, as there is a set of items (called implements) which grant enhancement bonuses to caster levels (not unlike weapons add to BAB).

A lot of people find the fact that over half of the amount of magical items a character has on them are mere numerical boosters to be boring. I agree deeply with that sentiment. The Automatic Bonus Progression is a set of alternate rules that provide these bonus directly to the character as they level, leaving those magic item slots free for more interesting stuff; however, the rules themselves weren't well received. I also had my own opinions about them, so I made a few changes to them, and what we'll be using for this game will be as follow.

First, at lv 3rd, everybody will gain a +1 Resistance bonus to all saves and a +1 Deflection bonus to AC; these each grow by +1 at level 6th, 9th, 12th and 15th, to a maximum of +5. This will leave you all starting the game with the maximum boost a Cloak of Resistance and a Ring of Deflection can offer already factored in.

Second, at lv 6th, everybody must choose one Physical and one Mental score, and gain a permanent +2 enhancement bonus to both chosen scores. Players can do this again at level 9th, 12th, 15th and 18th; the bonus can be stacked, however, there is a cap of 1/3 of your level +1. So, when you start, the cap is 15/3 = 5+1 = 6, and when you get your last stat boost, the cap will be 18/3 = 6, so the same. That's, obviously on purpose.

Overall, this means that, when you start the game, you will either have a +6 enhancement on one ability score and a +2 enhancement on another, a +4 enhancement to two ability scores, or a +2 enhancement on two ability score and a +4 enhancement on the last. And that, when you reach level 18th, you'll get a further +2 to assign to one of the scores who isn't already a +6. And this is true for both your mental and your physical ability scores, which I feel like it's the only way to keep the bonuses fair.

While the static items are easy, things like Armor and especially weapons are a bit more complicated. So, I decided to go with something called Attunement.

Attunement is an active ability that can be used an unlimited number of times per day, and takes one minute of time to use, to keep it as an out-of-combat option, since there's classes that grants enhancement bonuses in combat, and I didn't want to step on their toes. The bonus granted by the ability lasts the entire day, but whenever it's applied to a new "item", it is removed from the previous item. Also, the one who used the ability is the only one who benefits from the effect.

The ability is gained at level 2nd, and grants an enhancement bonus of +1, which increase by +1 at level 5th, 8th, 11th and 14th, at which point it caps at +5. This is what everybody will be starting the game with.

When gaining Attunement at level 2nd, the user must choose one out of Shield, Armor, Weapon, or Caster Level; this is the type of Enhancement bonus the Attunement grants. The effect must be put on a suitable item, but this is flexible. For example: the Weapon bonus can be put on one's own body to improve Unarmed Strike, on a specific portion of the body to improve a Natural Weapon, on a chair that is being used as an Improvised Weapon. The Armor bonus can be put on normal clothes, letting the user benefit while retaining any benefit or class features that depend upon not wearing armor. And the Caster Level bonus can be put on any worn or wielded item, as preferred.

When choosing Weapons, you can select up to three individual weapons to grant this bonus to at once (two light weapons, or a group of 50 ammunitions, count as one individual weapon for he purpose of this ability). These three individual weapons taken together count as "one item" for Attunement purpose.

When applying the Enhancement bonus to Caster Level, the user must select a specific Sphere of Magic; only effects cast from this sphere will benefit from the boosted Caster Level. Naturally, the currently benefiting Sphere can be changed by attuning a different item, which, as noted above, can be done an unlimited number of time a day but takes one minute of time to do.

At level 8th and 14th, characters can pick an additional type of Attunement to grant; while Armor and Shield can only be taken once, Weapon and Caster Level can be taken multiple times, which allows the characters to apply the bonus to an additional "item" in the case of Weapon, and allows for being attuned to multiple spheres at once in the case of Caster Level.

This means that, when starting the game, players will be able to have three types of Attunement of their choice, each at a +5 enhancement bonus level.

Put together, this combination of effects replaces almost all of the "big six" I listed above, with the notable exception of the Amulet of Natural Armor; I will however remove that one as well. That's intentional, as there is a larger number of class abilities that provide Natural Armor bonuses than any of the others; this way, in my opinion, that extra AC can be a benefit for somebody who is building an actually though character.

Now, while I don't think I've ever heard anybody complain about not having to buy the items themselves, some people do think that this approach is somewhat artificial. My answer to this is that, as far as fluff is concerned, I'm saying that these bonuses are a result of high level characters, due to the benefit of experience, being able to channel the magic from the environment into their body, clothes and weapons, granting them the effect. In addition, this also gives a justification for why the effects would fail in an anti-magic field, as these effects normally do: because there is no ambient magic there for the characters to channel.

I hope that makes sense; I really feel that doing things this way will allow for far more variety to show in the magical items everybody will be using.

So, as discussed above, the Automatic Bonus Progression rules were criticized to some extent; one of the critics was annoyance at the fact that the rules, to compensate for the granted items. That, to me, always felt especially silly, since the whole point of the rules is to let player have a more varied collection of magical items.

That said, there is a point to be made that being able to spend too much of the suddenly free wealth on super-powerful items would be somewhat damaging to game balance, since (much to my annoyance, to be frank) wealth by level is one of the measures of character power; in addition, the fact that I'm prioritizing Spheres of Power and removing Vancian magic means that a lot of items will require me to consider them individually to decide if they are acceptable. Although, I should probably point out that the Sphere of Power wiki has plenty of interesting items built in the Sphere system.

The point of explaining all of this was to make it clear why I'm doing things the way I am. As level 15 PC, you'll begin the game with 240'000 gp to spend on items, but no individual item can cost more than 36'000 gp, which is 15% of the total wealth. I find like that's a good compromise, since the only thing kept out of reach by that tag price are Major Magic Items, and not even all of the Lesser ones.

If anybody think that's a bit limiting, I ask that you keep in mind that the total cost of the entirety of the effects that I'm providing free of charge is the equivalent of 255'000 gp, which is more than the money you would have had for this level. I hope that'll quell the tempers of anybody who was annoyed at me being a bit stingy here.

Anyway, as I said above, this setup requires a number of considerations. The first and most important are probably magical weapons, armors, and shields. Due to the Attunement rules, weapons with enhancement bonus to attack and damage don't exist; the same goes for enhancement to AC for armors and shields. All of the magic on weapons, shields and armor is exclusively special weapon properties, which in this new paradigm can be applied to any masterwork weapon and doesn't require a +1 enhancement bonus to be present on the weapon first.

This is easy enough for custom weapons: a keen sword costs 2000 gp, and will only have an enhancement bonus if the wielder is attuned to it, at which point it will have whatever amount of enhancement bonus that wielder has the ability grant. However, if people want to buy one of the many named weapons which exists, that can tricky; in those case, I'll remove any enhancement bonuses the weapon might have and reduces prices as appropriate, which, depending on the item, might not always be the same as what a corresponding reduction in enhancement bonus would result into - I'll decide on a case-by-case basis.

That's also how I'll determine what to do with items that actively cast Vancian magic. For ones where the spellcasting is the sole purpose of the item, such as scrolls, wands and staves, I'll probably simply ban them; here, I should again point out that the Sphere system has its own set of such items, built around the system, that can be found on the sphere wiki I linked at the top. For other items, especially wondrous items that have some ability to cast magic, I'll take it on a case-by-case basis; some things might be fine, especially generalized effects that aren't exactly a spell but rather work "as spell such and such", where a simple modification might be all that's required, while others I might have to say no to. I'll see depending on the circumstances.

Additionally, as I've mentioned in posts above, any item that provides a large bonus to skills, as well as anything that provides a bonus that is covered by one of the "big six" items (enhancement bonuses to ability scores, deflection or natural armor bonuses to AC, resistance bonuses to saves), will need those factors to be modified or removed; as with weapons and other items I mentioned above, these changes would likely result in reductions to the item's price. And, of course, Cloak of Resistance, Amulets of Natural Armor, Rings of Deflection, and the various Headbands and Belts of various stats simply do not exist.

Also, I'm aware that a lot of people pick crafting feats as mean to "double" their wealth by level. That's not something I approve of; if wealth by level is supposed to be a measure of character power, then it should be as fixed and unchangeable as levels are. And that's without even taking into account the fact that Pathfinder crafting system is not very good at all. So, regardless of any ability to craft a character might have, any item bought at character creation will be paid for at full price. This one, I'm not about to hear argument about, it's not negotiable.

However, this is not to say that I have anything against a character being a crafter as part of their character concept; while, 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, 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. If handled properly, it can be a very interesting challenge to play a crafting-focused character, especially if the result of the RTJ ends up being a "survival focused" setting. And I would try my best to make that a rewarding and gratifying process for a character that wanted to make crafting their specialty. I just wouldn't allow them to use it to affect their wealth-by-level, the benefits would be of a different sort.

As a final extra note, it was pointed out to me that size-changing abilities can become a bit obnoxious. I don't think it fair to ban them, because I'm sure there's some interesting character concepts that could be enabled through their use, I would prefer if any big numbers achieved were the result of character abilities rather than items. In fact, that's something that I prefer for pretty much any build, since class abilities and feat choices should define a character, not their gear.

As a result, I'll for now state that no weapons can be bought whose base damage dice (that is, the dice that is multiplied when using Vital Strike) is higher than 2d6 when wielded by a medium sized creature. I might make more equipment restrictions at later points if I find them necessary, or relax this if a valid point is made to me as to why I should, but the ruling will remain until then.

I hope that works fine for everybody; I tried my best to keep things as clear and simple as possible, within the confines of what the system complexity would allow.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:21, Tue 11 Jan 2022.

I said in the RTJ, where I encouraged people to bring along any concept they like, I said I am open to any class that anybody wants to play, and if I think a class doesn't work or I don't want to allow them, I will try to work with people about it. I feel like this will work better with an example, so I'm making one.

First, I will say that the Fighter, especially with my offer of a free feat a level for normal character progression, is a somewhat disappointing class, and if a player picked a class like that, I would likely be very open to suggestion from them on how to make it better.

On the other hand, the Brawler is a class that I wouldn't really want to see in use, for a variety of reasons, both thematic and mechanical.

For the former, the problem is that it basically replaces monk by being better at its job, but due to its lack of mystical elements, it actually shrink the amount of viable character concepts people can play; and while the idea of having it be a flexible counterpart to the fighter without being actually better than it has merit in the abstract, in practice what it does is make the fighter feel less special by stealing the title of "feat master" from it.

Mechanically, while the martial flexibility is iconic, once the ability to use it for an immediate action it becomes very cumbersome in actual play, creating a lot of breaks in the action, and the capstone that lets the user gain thirteen feats at once is just unwieldy to use, and since I expect you to reach lv 20th in this game, it would see use. And while the maneuver training is intended as their offensive scaling bonus, it doesn't really offer enough as an ability to stand on its own, working against the class concept by having diminishing returns on multiple maneuvers on a class that can actually change which maneuvers they have fight-by-fight. It's a very scattershot approach.

So, ideally, I'd want to make the fighter better, make it feel more special and unique as well as better fitting the role of feat master, while removing the brawler without losing the ability to let people mess with its coolest abilities - without giving them access to the game breaking levels of it.

My solution to that is to improve the Fighter. This is accomplished through the following modifications:

At first level, grant the Fighter the Combat Stamina feat as a bonus. There's no need to make it exclusive, since the Fighter will still be the class that can best take advantage of it; getting it for free should be more than enough.

For their bonus combat feats, instead of giving them one every two levels, expand it to one feat every level. That should compensate for me giving everybody a free feat from level progression, and also make the fighter's claim to feat mastery much more iron clad.

For Armor Training, the normal procedure is that the players trades away the meaningless numerical bonuses for the Advanced Armor Training; that being the case, I don't see the point in offering the players a false choice here, so I'd change it to make the third level ability scale as stated but without any conditions, and instead at level 7th, 11th and 15th the players would just get one of the Advanced Armor Training options of their choice.

Then, at level 4th, I'd grant to the fighter the brawler's Maneuver Training, having it retain its four level scaling (improving at lv 8th, 12th, 16th and 20th up to +5), but with a slight change that, instead of the maneuvers picked at the levels having increasingly less of the bonus, each newly picked maneuver will benefit from the full bonus; so, at level 12th, three different maneuvers would get a +3 bonus. This makes the ability far more useful as a means to let somebody use multiple maneuvers. Furthermore, I'd say that it'd be fair that, if an archetype requested that the fighter trade away their bonus feats gained at lv 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th and 20th, the player could trade instance of this ability in its stead.

Weapon Training has the same issues of the diminishing return issue that Maneuver Training had, and due to that, the problem of a meaningless choice that Armor Training offered is even worse, as in Weapon Training case, the players doesn't even lose the numerical bonus, just the additional weapon groups that were never as good as the primary one anyway. I think that, in this case, applying the same solution as Maneuver Training works: make the full bonus apply to any new weapon group that the player selects. This will still likely not encourage people to actually pick more than one weapon group, but at least now there's an actual tradeoff, in that, especially combined with Attunement, the base ability would really open the number of combat styles a fighter can excel at.

Finally, the fighter should get a reduced version of Martial Flexibility. I would give this to them at level 6th, and have it scale up at level 10th, 14th and 18th, with a few changes. Specifically, while the first stage would stay the same, granting one feat as a move action, the second level would only reduce the cost to a swift action, then the level 14th option would allow for getting two feats as a move action, and finally the 18th option would allow for getting two feats as a swift action and one feat as a free action.

So, here's what the ultimate result would look like, in a table:

FIGHTER (redesigned)


So, this means that, if anybody wants to use a Fighter in this game, they'll get to use this version, and if anybody wants to use a brawler, I'll offer them this compromise instead. If I come up with any other class modification for other classes that people ask me about, I'll post them in this thread so that people can make use of them if they want to.

Furthermore, while I don't really want the Brawler to be used as a class, some of the abilities I didn't transfer can be converted to feats (for example, their Knockout ability could make a nice feat with BAB +4 requirement that scales up at BAB +10 and BAB +16), so that people can still access them if they want; this allows me to give player access to some non-problematic abilities of the class they wanted while keeping problematic abilities out of play. That's also a possibility to keep in mind; I can't think of everything myself, but anything that people bring up to me, I'll consider, and generally try to find a way to make it work.

I hope this will help people understand that, when I say "I'll do my best to work with what you bring me", I do actually mean it. As long as you can justify me why your concept requires me to do the work and would not work with any other alternative I might propose, doing the work isn't a problem for me.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:43, Sat 15 Jan 2022.

I dislike the way XP warp the game with their own existence; they tend to encourage reckless behavior and favor combat over more diplomatic or creative solutions. It also engenders a mentality of "must kill everything" and of never retreating in face of overwhelming opposition (by the way, making that mistake in this game will lead to a TPK: if somethings seems unbeatable, it might actually be unbeatable, and you should trick it or run away) that I really, really don't care for. However, simply handing out levels when I feel it fits, while practical, is something I'm not really that comfortable with either. 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: it will take 22 XP to gain a level. Should we make it to level 20th and still be far enough from the end of the game, I will let any further 11 XP collected afterward be exchanged for a feat.

XP will be assigned by overcoming challenges; 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 creative 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. Also, keep in mind that, given you are level 15 character to start with, and that I expect the game will see you all make it to level 20, there's a lot of things that will qualify as little or no challenge to you; be sure to keep that in mind.

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

Saving throws are the core defense against magic, as well as a number of additional effects that are somewhat impersonal, like poisons. 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. On the other hand, some effects (again, poisons come to mind) are triggered by actions a character makes or just by their turn.

Normally, I would suggest swapping the rolls around; I find that's generally easier, however, some players have shown a dislike for the idea, especially due to the fact that, as I stated above, sometimes the players do need to roll. So, what I'm going to suggest is that players, at the beginning of the game, roll something like two dozens d20, and save the result. Then, whenever a reactive roll is required, I'll just pick the first number on the list, use it, and cross it off. I realize this means that people might be able to use this foreknowledge of when they're going to get good or bad roll to take strategic actions, but I think I'm fine with that; after all, sometimes illusions will pop up, or somebody will unknowingly eat something poisoned, and I'll delete failed saves without telling the involved people what they saved against, and for illusion, I might delay when I provide the information to avoid making it pointless. I'm confident that'll work fine.

Hopefully, this will speed up combat considerably; should it not, or should people find it unpleasant, I'll be open to discussion for implementation of something simpler.


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 people 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 would limit the ability of players 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 through it. Tell me how you're using your ability to notice more than would be visible at a glance, and I'll let you use it. I find this also helps with immersion.

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, and an explanation of how you're doing the checking. I think this will help roleplay a lot; furthermore, if rolling less than 10, then you as players will already 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 offered 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 it's 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?


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 turns out not to work).

As such, I will instead ask everybody to roll Initiative twenty times at character generation, and have this list of current initiative results placed on their sheet, just like with saves; in fact, I might just have a list of rolls that counts for both Initiative and Saves, if that's simpler for people to keep track of.

This will give me a list of the order in which characters should be acting in combat that I would tell people 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, just like the normal posting speed; 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.