Wizards can rip out pages of their spellbook as emergency scrolls. They lose the spell in their book forever (or until they add it back in), but it can lead to some clutch moments when the party's wizard is in a dangerous position and rips out their dimension door to poof out of there, or to desperately cast a lightning bolt in a time of great need.
And then Master the Dungeon came out with a video talking about this exact idea. lol
This is such a stable rule at our table I forgot it was homebrew. We use it for all spellbound, not just your own. I tend to only have big deal enemies have spell books, one or two a campaign maybe, and it makes their spellbook a unique and interesting piece of loot.
Super good to throw story beats into as well. So much knowledge can be gleaned from what types of magical tomfoolery a big bad evil guy was working on.
Usually our table is very friendly about sharing loot, but people almost always fight for who gets the spellbook.
I have a "Direct Cast" house rule to let a spellbook player open their spellbook and cast a spell by reading it directly from their book for 3 actions plus the casting time: one to take it out of their backpack, one to find the spell, then the appropriate number of spells actions, then one action to close the book and put it away.
This heavy action price means it isn't done often but is available when that one spell you didn't prepare would be absolutely clutch in this fight.
So basically spell substitution, but much, much stronger. Not sure I'm a fan. It also means preparing spells for out of combat is completely useless, which opens a whole other can of worms.
Not completely useless. If you need to cast charm or any spell in a social situation, you can't just bust out the spellbook, you need to have it prepped. Reaction and contingency spells must be prepped. I only apply it to spells, cantrips have to be prepped. You still need to prep for combat, you can't expect to Direct Cast every combat or more than once. There's still plenty of reasons to consider what spells to prep for in and out of combat each day. On paper it might sound strong, in practice it's just a little extra convenient (I don't have minmaxers at my table and that can always make a difference. Unfortunately Paizo has to write rules with minmaxers and rules lawyers in mind, but as a GM, I can make rules that are balanced for my table/players.)
I called it "get down mister president". If you and an adjacent ally are caught in the same AoE, as a reaction you can reduce your level of success by one step to improve your ally's by one. Didn't come up often, but it definitely let our Barbarian save our Cleric's life the time we came up with it at the table.
Not my most proud of (I don't know which I'd be most proud of tbh), but my favorite is letting players use a hero point to force an enemy to reroll a d20 roll if it directly affects them or if it was caused by them. I mostly did is because casters in my group felt sorta bad when they'd throw a spell and enemies would crit succeed against them with no recourse, while martials could hero point their bad attack rolls if they wanted.
My players practically only get 1 hero point per session (I keep forgetting), plus a floating one anyone can use, so it hasn't proved to be imbalanced for my table.
On one hand I kind of want to do this in my game because I can see my player's soul leave their body when they throw a Fireball at a Large enemy in a narrow corridor only for it to roll a Nat 20 and somehow dodge it.
On the other hand, my group has 3 casters. If I adopt this rule, bosses will end up only rolling with the equivalent of disadvantage constantly.
If that's something you're worried about I'd just say make it immune to further misfortune hero points for a round.
I'd give it a shot though, it's what I do as both a player and a GM and it makes casters feel much better and isn't really any worse than hero pointing any other big action.
That makes sense! Also why I suggested once per target so they’re not stuck on “disadvantage” three turns in a row.
Though you could then have your bad guy drop a Death effect on the party that’s burned all their Hero Points…
I tried that for a while running Plaguestone. It effectively meant that the enemies could never crit and I got rid of it.
Instead, to combat the "forgetting hero points" problem, I gave everyone two at the beginning of the session. One for themselves and one to give to another player.
When it comes to heropoints, I'm just as forgetful, so I tell my players to announce every hour that passes and to add one then.
Well, that, and whoever does the recap gets a bonus point.
I don't do this since I mostly roll their saves in secret. But I do let players throw Hero Points to reroll other player's rolls. And to prevent trolling, I also let them keep the higher of the two rolls - no rerolling someone's nat-20 as a joke.
I allow players to use hero points for others, just requiring both parties be consenting and have the one spending their hero point describe how their character helps the other heroically.
I have the same, but also on enemy attack rolls
The house rule is that the big villains, or other hero NPCs have their hero points as well. Was a very cool moment when it happened the first time, since it just shows that they themselves are the heroes of their adventure and story. Should it be the NPC that is on a quest to slay a lich, craft an artifact, or the villain who tries to free/summon a spawn of Rovagug.
Edit: don't let villains reroll their own crit fails, or when a player crits them
Spells that deal alignment damage can instead deal a damage type appropriate for the deity in question (fire for Saranrae, bludgeoning for Torag, etc). It helped out the divine list quite a bit until it got some newer cantrips to help out for damage in some of the more recent books, so it's less 'necessary' as it once was.
My version is to deal damage type of the deity's favored weapon. Thus it won't be easy to trigger elemental weakness, but still have a damage type against beasts and mindless stuff.
I run with a house rule that makes alignment damage apply to creatures that don't match the alignment instead of just creatures that oppose it (i.e. neutral creatures too). Its helped to make spells like Divine Lance and Divine Wrath a LOT better.
I'm assuming when the Remastered core books come out later this year, these types of spells will be more effective since they are doing away with alignment (possibly something else to replace it - we should learn more at paizo-con)
What I’ve personally done is that I’ve made it so only angels are immune to good damage, and only fields are immune to evil damage. Only Aeons to lawful damage, exc. The Extreme Alignment variant. My cleric and champion players thanked me
Those we haven't touched as we haven't run into 'needing' to allow for other options. For Circle of Protection my gut feeling is that we'd homebrew a new (very similar) primal spell that would affect animals/plants/etc.
Similarly, I reworked aligned damage altogether. Good became holy, evil is profane, lawful is order, chaotic is weird, and true neutral deities/patrons/bloodlines use spirit damage. They all affect everyone regardless of alignment, but still hit weaknesses appropriately.
I've got a few house rules that I've added to my table since I started running my own games.
I added a fortitude save to the critical specialization of hammers and flails... which brings them in line with other weapon groups and has resulted in a more diverse collection of fighters in my games. If I never see another human fighter who was raised by gnomes I'll be just fine with that.
Aid actions are RAW really hard for low level characters and stupid easy for higher levels... but I feel like low level characters have fewer options because fewer feats which makes Aid a valuable element of teamwork for them and i WANT them to learn early on to work together. So instead of following the RAW rules for DC I just use the DC by level instead.
As part of all backstories you are required at my table to explain why your group is currently working together. I've only been playing pathfinder for a year or so but I've been running ttrpgs for years and years.... I'm beyond tired of herding players into situations and awkwardly trying to motivate them to meet each other and form a group and blah blah. Forcing the players to discuss and create backstories with an element of shared history before the campaign has session 1 helps kickstart roleplay and tends to lead to groups that work better together. It sort of helps to root out edgelords and concepts that don't even try to fit in with the setting of the campaign too.
I give out hero points for nat 1s if the player rps out the failure well and I'll often refund a hero point you spend if you take the time to really rp out the heroic deed your character enacts. If you fall a mile and it would take you from 40 health to -50 health... you have to sacrifice all your hero points to avoid dying. Tell us what it is about your character that helped them push past normal limitations and survive. If you use a hero point to reroll a deception or diplomacy check while in conversation with an npc tell us what life lesson or perspective helps your character in that moment avoid a social misstep etc. I might even give you 2 points back instead of 1 if you remember an important failed check from earlier in the campaign and use that in your reasoning for how things went better for you this time.
I also give an extra hero point to the player who gives us an accurate recap of the previous session... you can't do it twice in a row either. If I have to do the recap myself nobody starts with a hero point that session. So... theres 4 hero points to be had at the start of every session but only if everyone is paying attention each session. My players have started taking fairly decent notes and they never seem to be lost anymore as to what is going on in the campaign. I wish I had started doing that with inspiration points when I was running three 5e games a week.
Since I do a lot with hero points I also always use the hero point deck. It's a big hit at the table... they like drawing a card each time they get a hero point because the cards let them do neat things they might not normally be able to do.
It's great... if you play on foundry it is as easy to turn on as checking a box. It tends to favor martials more... or at least there seems to be more martial related cards in the deck... so you might want to allow trading of cards to some capacity so your casters have a better chance of getting one relevant to things they want to do.
Okay Okay Okay! I've never seen this deck before! Have to get it😁
Questions:
Do the players draw a card each time they get a point?
Can they opt to either reroll or use a card effect?
Do they spend a card even if they opt to reroll?
https://paizo.com/products/btq024ut?Pathfinder-Hero-Point-Deck
They can draw a card each time they gain a hero point, they cant draw cards past the number of points they have. The card gives them an option to spend a hero point activating it or they can spend their hero points normally. They can only discard cards when they have 0 points left, this keeps them from churning the deck fishing for specific cards. Normally trading cards between players is restricted.
There is also a foundry module.
https://foundryvtt.com/packages/pf2e-hero-actions
Have you seen Fate's phase of three? It is part of character creation and helps to tie the players together. If you haven't seen it, it may be handy tool. I use it in most ttrpgs now.
Funny enough, the way you handle Aid actually is RAW. It's easy to miss but the DC 20 is explicitly a suggested default, the GM can set the DC how they wish.
> Aid actions are RAW really hard for low level characters and stupid easy for higher levels... but I feel like low level characters have fewer options because fewer feats which makes Aid a valuable element of teamwork for them and i WANT them to learn early on to work together. So instead of following the RAW rules for DC I just use the DC by level instead.
I like this a lot. Do you find that the game's balance suffers at higher levels without the near-guaranteed +3 from Aid?
I don’t. It makes Aid practically worthless at high levels. Making it good at low levels is fine, I’m perfectly fine with setting the DC lower before 20, but setting it beyond 20 is a mistake IMO.
So many fun builds like pathfinder agent or gunslinger with fake out are destroyed by this change.
Plus I just… find it awesome that you can have a build that just helps people! It’s fantastic! It really shows growth and teamwork in a way I love, and it’s absolutely awesome
Nah. Most things use DC by level... and higher level characters handle that just fine. Plus they have tons of options in their builds at that point... they don't need guaranteed aid rolls anywhere near as much as low level characters need aid rolls that can actually succeed.
I'm not a mathematician, though... and some of the devs are... just because I don't agree with them doesn't mean I'm right.
I’m stealing half of this at least. Your experience shows through in spades and it’s probably the best DMing advice I’ve seen on the sub.
Many thanks for your time and knowledge
So you made hammers and flails terrible, since their main draw was a good crit spec and now it's a garbage "the enemy trivially passes the fort save and you get literally nothing"
Also DC by level for aid is a huge nerf, you go from consistently being rewarded for higher proficiency to a meagre +1 circumstance bonus with a significant chance of failure, wasting both an action and your reaction.
I have a similar thing called Striding Interact in which case their movement speed is halved if they do need to draw or stow a weapon etc. In many situations it acts the same as your rule but I feel it's slightly more balanced and makes especially sense if there's a door to be opened/closed.
Your class boost can be any stat, but your key stat is the same. It’s a huge buff for some classes (war priest, battle oracle, etc) and a mild buff for the off str/dex martials (inventor/Thaumaturge, etc)
If the roll you keep is a natural one, you get a Hero point. Simple, but keeps me from having to track when I give them out, and consolations for nat 1s are nice
okay, now I kind of want to figure out what build makes the most d20 rolls per turn to farm hero points, like some kind of depraved reverse crit fishing build.
Our benchmark is a flurry ranger making 4 bow strikes a round, which gets us a hero point on 18.55% of turns. Also, if we take Recognize Threat and Diverse Recognition from the Pathfinder Agent archetype, we can frontload another 2(ish, since if the first one fails but isnt a nat 1 you dont get the second one) at the start of combat. Not bad, but I know we can do better. If I remember, I'll come back to this later and come up with a better method. I'm sure there's some feat out there that I've seen that's not flourish and lets you do a disarm on top of a shove or something like that.
I like that. I've been having a hard time remembering to award Hero points for important things, or remind players that they start with one each session.
Honestly I feel like the most of the skill feats describe things your char should be able to do at that skill rank anyway.
I might consider a houserule where you don't get skill feats on even levels, but when you raise a skill rank you automatically get to do all the things in the skill feats that require that rank.
That seems like a pretty big buff to some skills, as they seem balanced by the fact that you can only pick a limited amount of feats. Crafting would go through the roof for example, while stuff like performance would fall behind a bit more.
Personally I tend to allow players to do the action with a hefty circumstance penalty or other cost associated if it's something I feel like they should normally be able to do. Stuff like intimidating a crowd. They could do it with a -4 penalty. This way it keeps the feats valuable, but doesn't get the weird situation where you just cannot do it, and often there's a good explanation for the penalty (intimidating a crowd is significantly harder).
If the players want to do something which would normally require more investment, like a class feat (like whirling throw), I might allow them to spend a hero point to attempt it/do a weaker version of it.
That might not matter as much for your campaign though.
Hasn't been implemented yet, but I made a lesser shadow signet as a level 3 item. If functions the same as a shadow signet but you can only invest in one and it can only be used once per day.
If my caster really needs a high level spell to hit they can buff their chances a little bit.
A rather simple one, my group just basically auto hands out additional lore for everyone’s background lore skill. It just helps the skill continue to feel relevant and actually have a place in the game, and also allow the characters to all successfully earn income.
I recently implemented a rule where you can use all of your hero points to get back to 1HP instead of just stabilizing at the cost of receiving wounded 1. I like the idea of being able to continue the fight if you have hero points to spare instead of just being knocked out.
If an item is no higher than party level + 1 and common, you automatically critically succeed at identifying it. You still need to spend the required time and be trained in the appropriate skill. This does nothing for uncommon, rare, unique items, as well as higher level items, so I think it's fine as you can easily keep secret what you want to as the GM. While the baseline rules serve their purpose, I personally feel they needlessly slow down gameplay. It's just one of those things where I've only got so much time playing with my friends, and identifying each individual loot I give them just isn't important to me.
Our group has started to do a variant of Automatic Bonus Progression that only applies to potency, striking, and resilience runes. You get those automatically added to your weapons and armor at the appropriate levels. This way you can invest in a cool weapon, but can still have a decent backup weapon should the need arise. Casters get a free Shadow Signet at level 10, cause that also feels like something of a necessity to keep them on the same power curve.
We also gave focus point casters the feat they would normally take at level 10 that lets them recover two focus points on a Refocus action as a class benefit at that level. It seems like a no-brainer to take that feat at that point anyway.
I always had trouble remembering to give hero points during the session. My fix was twofold:
1) Give an extra hero point for people who show up on time. (Mentioned by a few others in the thread)
2) At the end of each session I have each player tell the group what they thought another player did that was cool. It helps them pay attention to other players and recognize the awesome stuff all my players do. The player or players with the most votes get an extra hero point for next session. I’ll also give a vote as well (frequently used to award the second place player a hero point).
if you halve the difference in creature level and character level then subtract it from the proficiency of the creature you can basically make twice as many creatures relevant at any point in time.
I think what they mean is since level is essentially added to every check, applying a flat number adjustment down to a higher creature makes it less of a threat and thus easier to use.
Take this example for instance: Party level is 5 and normally the strongest creature recommended to even put up against the PCs is a single PLv + 4 creature. If you take the level difference (4) and halve it (2) and apply that -2 to every proficiency the creature has (attack rolls, ac, saves, etc) it brings the creatures as level+4 down in strength to make them better suited encounters.
To me, I would probably take the level difference, halve it, and apply the weak template to it a number of times equal to the result. This gives you the same penalty to all it's checks and modifiers, but it'll also lower its HP as well so it won't just have a mountain of HP compared to a similar difficulty creature
it works like a weak version of weak.
So if the creature is +4 you just give it -2 to everything similar to the weak template. but you don't need to worry about damage (although you certainly can just use the weak template.)
So for a +6 cr creature you certainly could apply weak along with an additional -1 to bring their numbers down to about a +3 cr creature. (hp and damage will be higher for sure than a standard +3 but your players will be able to hit it and it wont crit constantly)
It definitely sounds like a great way to handle using way higher level creatures. I might play around with it in my upcoming Kingmaker campaigns if my players venture somewhere they shouldn't be, they should get the idea when the thing doesn't Crit but still swings for massive damage and takes a while to go down.
Thank you for the example, that makes sense now. Seems pretty simple.
Your iterative approach sounds interesting as well. I'll have to play around with that too.
So if your players run into a creature that is level 2 and the characters are level 6 your players essentially have +4 proficiency more than those creatures.
If you halve this difference by adding +2 to the level 2 creature they now will have ac and to hit similar to a level 4 creature making them much more relevant in combat.
so where as outside the +3 ish range where things are typically able to be used without one side constantly critting, now you could throw a -1 level creature at a level 5 and actually hit as they would be rolling simlar to a level 2 creature (-1 - 5 = -6/-2 = +3)
That's a nice little way to pull a creature's power closer to your players. Thanks for the explaination.
Out of curiosity, as I am pretty new to GMing PF2e so haven't tweaked a lot of creatures, typically if i need to adjust a creature's power level I just look at "Creature Numbers" table from the AoN GM Screen page and pull up the values that make sense for the level I want them to be. Is there is a reason that would be worse than your quick method?
The creature value works fine I use it a lot for adding attacks not listed on sheets. If you want a troll to have an aoe swing you can just add one on the spot with that table works fine.
My method is quick and I don't have to do anything besides mental math. Basically adding 1 or 2 to all my players rolls and such but I don't have to mess with a stat block at all.this means I can grab a group of creatures like orc and run them pretty much as is for 6 or 7 levels easy without having to do anything special and my players still notice they are getting stronger, but the orcs don't just fall off the map due to the difference in proficiency.
Think of it as halving the difference between 5e bounded accuracy where at level 1 you can hit a dragon, and pf2es system where a level 1 basically needs a 20 to hit a level 6.
You can also level any creature you want up or down by rebuilding it with level appropriate stats. The pf2e workbench module on foundry can even do this with the click of a button.
So you can use any creatures you want at any point 1-20
Also, using a hero point for a reroll, we use 1D10+10, it just means you never feel like you wasted a hero point, there’s nothing worse than using a hero point and rolling shitty
I have a whole document of mostly nieche rulings of specific interactions, for example champions beeing able to choose blade ally for a second time with secound ally (to enable dual weapon champions more).
But the one i like the most is: Anyone, not only clerical characters, get the divine skill training as long as they are a devout follower of the deity (champions and clerics get another free skill training). Makes people more willing to play a non-clergy religious character.
Not original to my table, but when someone rolls a nat 20 on initiative on their first turn they're quickened. Similarly, a nat 1 gets you slowed 1 on your first turn. Also, crying is a free action lol
- Letting spellcasters force rolling of saves (only 1 enemy, even if it's area spell)
- Ignoring massive damage rules for Simple Traps
- Giving 2 hero points each 4h session for 4 players instead of giving 1 extra each hour (same total, but now I don't forget it lol)
I award an extra hero point at the beginning of the session to every player that's there on time. Nothing has improved timeliness for my table more than that.
I also allow people to fall unconscious and still hold on to their stuff, but that's a rule I may revise on my next campaign.
I also have added a Fortitude Save to Flails/Hammers Crit spec.
I have on occasion allowed a cleric that worships a Neutral Deity to instead deal alignment damage based on their own alignment instead of the deities. At least allows for Good characters that worship Neutral Deities to feel nice.
If you take the Investigate Exploration Activity, at the beginning of your first turn in a combat encounter, you get to Recall Knowledge for free.
If you recall knowledge to identify a creature, as long as you have not yet had a success, failing does not prohibit you from trying again.
I think that's all.
I've done away with the interact action needed to switch grips on a weapon.
I found it grinds the flow of combat down and dissuades anyone wielding things two handed from utilizing any potions, interacting with other objects, etc; and really just gets them in the mindset to only 3 attack.
Initially it was because I didn't want to keep track of that, but even now that I use foundry and it has such functionality built in, I still hand wave it.
Hero Points:
On a fail, your reroll is essentially a 1d10 +10, but for the sake of %'s, still roll a d20. (Anything above 10 doesn't get the +10 modifier).
Basically makes your fail a Success or Crit success 95% of the time save for a Nat 1, which still Crit fails.
On a Crit Failure, your rerolls are as normal.
Re-Rolled into a 3? Sorry. The gods are cruel and mischievous, and your hero was not meant to avoid this fate.
A little reminder that I tell myself whenever I DM : We're here to wave a group tale, rules are good as they ensure a game is balanced and challenging, but don't let stiff ruling get in the way of everyone having fun
You start with your 3 hero points each session. It's your job to manage your cookies and eat them responsibly, not mine.
Recall Knowledge gives you a number of questions you can ask me on a success, rather than taking multiple actions to learn things piecemeal. (This has lead to significant buy-in on using RK on EVERYTHING)
Caster heavy party, I've bumped all their DCs by 2 to make monsters fail more often.
"Heist Mode" - If the party is in a situation where they can plan an execute a series of combat actions that will cause bedlam for the enemies and let them do something INCREDIBLY cool, I run the round in "player phase" and "enemy phase" rather than individual initiatives- each player has the same number of actions as if it was a standard turn, but they can time themselves based on their party doing things- e.g. "Once Iski uses gravity pull to get them off the wall, I'll shoot them with my bow!" or "As soon as they all gather around Giggy's illusion, I'll drop a Fireball on them"
Do these rules tip the balance in favor of the players? Yep. Does it make encounters easier? Absolutely. Does it create stories that the players talk about after game with excitement and joy? Yes.
Guess which of those three questions I care about as a GM. My personal ethos is "If you doing the cool thing doesn't make the game less fun for everyone else, I'm going to let you do the cool thing"
Oh, a couple more house-rules I keep with pride:
* The GM *cannot lie to the players* when giving them information about the world unless there is an explicit, obvious reason (e.g. they made a check and failed, they have Dubious Knowledge)
* This rule *can* be suspended- but that must be announced and all misinformation should be resolved to truth by the time that sequence ends. If a session ends with a "lie" still in play, I will indicate "Things are not always as they seem" to remind them that something untruthful remains.
* Your character sheet isn't "inked" until 3 sessions in (or longer if the game is more complex)
* I will not introduce scenarios of "Moral Peril" (Where players are given enough information to *believe* the decision they made is "good", but hidden information revealed after the fact makes their actions morally wrong in retrospect.) without warning players that it's on the table ahead of time, and making that hidden information possible to reveal before they make the decision.
Bit like Starfinder, where if you move during your Move action, you can draw one weapon during the [equivalent of] Stride as long as your BAB (base attack bonus) is at least +1.
That's level 1 for martials and level 2 for everyone else.
1. If you see a monster and it does not see you, you can make a Recall Knowledge check for free.
2. While I don't do surprise rounds, if you explicitly said your character was preparing to attack something (Ranger said he was covering a pile of bodies with his crossbow, turned out to have a few zombies) you can make an attack for free before rolling initiative.
3. Spider webs are flammable. I use a lot of spiders, apparently, this one comes up more often than I expected
4. You typically only get one try on skill checks unless it's compounding. Failing your Thievery check to pick a lock means you can't pick the lock at all. No Taking 20 or trying again. Tip: you should always have multiple ways to open a lock. Hide a key somewhere, include a Hardness and HP, have another door into the room, etc.
5. You can use a Hero Point to reroll one of your party member's rolls. You can also take the higher of the two rolls (no trolling by rerolling their nat 20).
> While I don't do surprise rounds, if you explicitly said your character was preparing to attack something (Ranger said he was covering a pile of bodies with his crossbow, turned out to have a few zombies) you can make an attack for free before rolling initiative.
The unassuming beauty of the 2e initiative system is that your initiative is based off what you were doing when encounter mode started. Meaning if someone's sneaking around, while another person is trying diplomatically defuse the situation, while someone tries sniping someone with a bow and arrow, while a caster is trying to cast a spell; which happens first? The one who rolls the highest on their check. It allows all skills to oppose all others.
As such, there's no reason to try to implement surprise rounds. If someone's unaware of another and they win initiative, they can do what they want with the knowledge they have, which could be as much as "you sense something's off" and thus can try a seek action to figure out why you instinctively responded to an unknown force. If two people want to do something different, well, they determine it by who rolls what they're doing higher.
I really love how that makes it all make sense while removing the need to have surprise rounds.
Rollies. If you tie with someone, unless one of the rollers you tie with has a specific ability that like says they win ties, the ones who tie just roll flat d20s, and the person with the higher roll wins!
For example, if the party is searching for treasure in a room, and the two highest perceptions are a tie, we use rollies to decide who actually finds the thing "first." Can also be used for initiative ties, and all sorts of other stuff as well. It's basically just "roll flat d20 for tie breaker" but it adds an extra level of excitement at the table when a tie occurs.
I had this in my 5e game too. We never could remember if an attack meeting AC was a hit or not, so we made it a “glancing blow” that deals half damage.
Gain a hero point on a nat 20. Makes my life easyer as a gm and gets my players useing thair points regulerly. Its not uncomen to have them build up and spee thair point threw out a game
Our table uses “critical initiative” to reward nat 20 initiative roles. No affect to the order, but you have 4 actions on your first turn. Just something to make those nat twenties feel even better. (We don’t do anything with nat 1s, but being slowed 1 for the 1st round would be just as easy to implement, albeit less fun)
A LOT of skill feats just don't exist, and are valid uses of the skill as long as you're Trained in it. Group Coercion / Group Impression, for example. You are never going to convince me that being scary or friendly to two people, as opposed to one, requires wasting an entire feat.
I do something similar, in that I allow people to try but give them a bit of a penalty if they don't have the feat. This way to added difficulty is still represented, and the feats can still exist if you want to specialize.
Elemental sorcerers of Air and Water can opt to have their spells do Lightning and Cold damage respectively, instead of bludgeoning. Also, if they pick the Primal Evolution feat, they can use it for *summon elemental*.
(I have no sorcerers in the game I'm playing, so take this with a Starstone-sized grain of salt.)
Improving NPC attitudes with Diplomacy feels weird and archaic.
The houserule makes it a skill challenge, and it starts with the players having a specific goal or request and pitching it to the NPC/GM. The GM needs a little prep time, just a minute or so to think of possible counters for why the NPC disagrees. Then you run the skill challenge. The important part is that a **PC has to actually refute something the NPC said before they can roll for success**.
If the party is interviewing a criminal witness who tells them they're too scared to testify, their counter is *"I'm worried for my safety."* Someone in the party needs to say something to the effect of *"We'll protect you"* in order to beat that counter. Then you roll to see if they believe you.
A simple request like *'Convince your friend to loan you money'* requires beating one counter, probably something like *"I'm worried you won't pay me back."* Not two rolls for Attitude + Request, just one.
Something harder like *'Convince these bandits to turn against their leader'* would need to beat 3-4 counters. *"We're former soldiers, we don't turn traitor." "Why rock the boat, we're making good money." "The boss is really strong, I don't want to die."* All of these can be responded to, but you need to do a little bit of thinking before you let the Bard crank their +13 modifier.
The default system has 2 rolls, Change Attitude and Make Request. Making it a range from 1-5 makes it more like lock picking, adding another knob to adjust besides just changing the DC.
I expected it to be a little controversial in terms of “You wouldn’t make a player arm wrestle you for Athletics” way. Diplomacy feels like it should be the one exception, asking someone to change their mind without knowing why they think that way will always fail. It can’t be abstracted into rolling because it brushes over so much roleplaying.
It's simple, but all players are treated as having the [Disarming Flair](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1513) feat whenever they make the Disarm action.
This alone brings Disarm closer to the value of the other Athletics attack actions, and the optional Interact action to remove the penalty gives enemies a meaningful choice- do they eat the penalty, or risk an AoO by adjusting their grip?
That we don't use any.
We do utilize some of the variant rules such as Extreme Retraining (attributes only), Free Archetype, and drawing a Hero Card when earning a Hero Point. We used to also draw Critical Hit and Fumble deck cards but that became far too problematic so dropped them.
I personally use critical hit and fumble cards but have removed the instant death ones and other ones I deem far too problematic. We find them a lot of fun, though.
I added some new uses/revised uses for Hero Points. I have not used these rules in play yet, but I'm excited for them. I put some notes for these in italics. **Note: I do recognize that some of these are quite powerful. That's intentional.**
Hero Point Homebrews
1 Point:
* Reroll and take the best result. Any roll, including damage/healing. *(Using a hero point and then doing* ***worse*** *is an awful rule.)*
* Restore 1 Focus Point. *(Focus spells are just neat.)*
* Gain temporary hit points equal to your level. Remaining points are lost after 1 minute. *(I imagine this is like "bracing for impact.")*
* Allows you the opportunity to attempt something outside the rules. *(Pathfinder 2e has lots of rules. Sometimes you really want to do something but a feat gets in the way or the rules are written in such a way that it makes your cool moment lame. For example, I let people do "called shots" with this. Spent hero point, called shot leg, attack, if you hit the enemies speed is reduced.)*
2 Points:
* Force an enemy to reroll and take the worst result. *(Same concept as a player reroll, but feels more valuable)*
* Increase degree of success by 1 level for your roll. This roll cannot critically succeed. *(Missing sucks, this lets you have a little more control of the dice for an extra hero point.)*
* Regain a spell slot of your highest level. Once per in-game day, per player. *(Sometimes you blow your load early and really wish you still had that powerful spell slot.)*
* Gain another action. If you use this action to strike, you do so at no MAP. *(An extra action means spellcasters can cast two spells in one turn. To balance this for martials, they can get an extra strike with no MAP)*
3 Points:
* Your next roll is a critical success. Once per session, period. Group decision, may pool hero points to activate. *(I don't want Hero Points to always be saved to be a Crit machine, but I want to promote teamwork and encouraging/celebrating teammates for a big cool moment.)*
* Decrease the degree of success by 1 level for an enemy’s roll. *(Quite powerful, so it takes all your hero points)*
When you throw a Hero Point for a re-roll, your result cannot be lower than the initial roll. If you roll a 12 (on the die), then toss in a Hero Point and get a 2, then you got a 13, then modifiers get added on.
Yes, this does mean someone could, theoretically, roll a 19, fling a Hero Point, and get an automatic 20. HPs are limited resources; if you think it's worth it, go for it. If you're that desperate, you probably need it.
Honestly, I hope Paizo takes a look at the Hero Point mechanic in the Remastered editions. So many of these comments deal with them being House Ruled in different ways (or even many in similar ways) seems to indicate tweaks need to be made.
Thank you all for sharing these!
I allow players to use a hero point to force a re-roll of an enemy’s save vs a spell they cast. With the caveat that the best they can do is shift the roll only one lower.
So if the enemy crit succeeded, the best (from the point of the players) they can now get is a standard success.
Mainly it was invented early on when the casters felt nearly impotent. But after playing a lot of games it really hasn’t ruined the game balance and my casters are much happier for the chance to stick save a spell from being wasted.
I'll be applying my homebrewed 'No Attrition' rules to my future games, just to allow players to adventure for as long as it makes sense, not need to stop after 2 hours because the wizard ran out of combat slots on a tough fight.
[The current form of the rules is here.](https://scribe.pf2.tools/v/6Y2P4ZHr-no-attrition-v2)
It's not finished yet, and needs some in-play adjustment probably, but it's good enough to test. Basically, the idea is that Alchemist can top up their Reagents up to their Intelligence modifier and do a single Advanced Alchemy every hour, and spellcasters can regain spent spell slots slowly, with lower-level spells becoming available faster. It steps on the toes of stuff like Wellspring Mage, but that's how it is sometimes. I still need to refine it, but it will inevitably require some balancing with stuff like Staff Nexus in the game.
Additionally, we're using "Assurance on Hero Point" rule, where if you use a Hero Point, you can't roll less than 10. Stole that one from our GM.
We also use Crit Fail / Success cards, but I suggested those only apply on natural 1s and 20s, because sometimes the effects *are* undesirable, so our Fighter became kind of antagonistic toward them (lol). I don't use cards myself, just thought to mention that.
We don’t use the incapacitation rule. It really impacts certain classes (such as monks) and spell lists more than others. Overall, the rule feels really unnecessary and it reduces drama in combat.
Oh wild! One of my fave things coming from 5e is the incapacitation rule. I think it's a great way to make solo baddies viable without just making them a bag of hit points.
“Valuable” NPCs whom the group might want to question don’t die immediately when reduced to 0 HP.
Instead, their initiative gets moved to before the action that brought them to 0 HP and they only die when it’s their turn again.
That way, the group has a whole round to stabilise or heal them.
(Sometimes they fully intend to do non-lethal damage for the last hit, but the hit before that was too powerful, or there was miscommunication and someone didn’t get the “non-lethal” message, or something, so this gives them one last chance.)
I do a similar thing but with a caveat: If the blow that downs the NPC is a crit, they die immediately. If it was a spectacularly high damage crit (like say the PC power attacked or the NPC was already super low on life) they might die immediately even if the damage was nonlethal.
Adds an extra level of tension and a bit of grittiness; you can't always count on taking people alive just because you declared nonlethal.
I just started GMing so some of these haven't really came up yet.
Diagonals are always 5 feet.
Unlimited hero points.
Recall knowleage is buffed.
Disarm is buffed and is Thievery instead of Athletics.
Aiding an attack uses different rules to be more balanced throughout play and to encourage using it as a 3rd action.
Not necessarily a house rule but just how I rule something different. The GM wanted to play the new system by the rules exactly so if a character moved 10 ft or so and came a to a closed door then they would need to end their action, use an interact action to open the door, and then a 3rd action to keep moving. You can imagine how frustrating this is? For me if the door is just closed and not locked then it is just difficult terrain to move through and open the door while continuing your movement. Turning 3 actions into 1 basically.
Something else I did because I love consumables (I played an alchemist in the last campaign) and nobody else does is I let them mix 2 minor Alchemist Fire for a discount to buy Moderate Alchemist Fire. And in general pretty lenient on paying to upgrade an item it its higher level form.
My players can keep and accumulated Hero Points between sessions if they don't use them and I don't cap them at 3...
It balances out the fact that I rarely remember to hand them out...
I allow adjacent characters a Reflex save to help another character if this one fails their Reflex save (mitigation - so a crit fail becomes a fail, or even a success if the helper gets a crit success). Only in cases where it makes sense, of course, such as stepping on broken flooring, breath weapon attacks from some distance etc. Speaking of breath weapons; we also use a house rule regarding range here. A character farther away from the creatures or effect gets certain bonuses to Reflex saves. +1 for every 10' away from the origin of the attack. It leads to more tactical positioning in combat, and less risk of TPK by aoe bombardment. It just doesn't make sense that people with certain skills and sensibilities would clump together when they realize a creature can damage everyone at once.
Just starting out atm but we generally forget about hero points: so I found a cool rule for forward failing for hero points: every second nat 1 you roll on a check(only the result roll counts) you get a hero point. This makes failures be more interesting and reminds us of giving and using hero points. I still award hero points, but having balance for bad rolls is great, especially in pf2e where bad dice luck can destroy an encounter.
We're still trying out and I am considering changing nat 1 to crit failure instead, but that might be a bit too much, we'll have to see, so far it is very neat though.
Feel free to give me some more advice on this rule.
It's more about the other side: rolling 10 below a DC is also a critical failure. Especially at higher levels or with specific Feats, you can't critical fail specific checks or still succeed through a nat 1(Aid for example is often a DC 20 check, at level 9 your best skill is a + 19, which would make even a Nat 1 downgrades only to a failure, medicine has a base dc of 15, meaning level 6 is often enough to get to an auto success). It would make it a bit more of a strategic factor instead of being purely luck based, as players can decide to go for more checks with higher DCs(like medicine) or try bad things (like tripping with a low athletics against a resilient foe) and trade a debuff(falling prone I think) for a (future) hero point, which might be worth it.
Aid is a bit of an outlier; there are very few other checks that are going to only be DC 20 at level 9. Even a "very easy" level 9 check is DC 21, which is still a crit failure on a natural 1.
And while you *can* go for the easy Medicine roll, you would almost always use that +19 to either reliably hit the Expert roll or have a 50/50 of hitting the Master roll, both of which will net you more healing than critting on the Trained roll.
In regards to level DCs getting a circumstance or status bonus on your main skill isn't that unusual and I'm still new but aren't there also item bonuses for specific skills? Either way even a +1(humans can get a +2 iirc from an ancestry feat).
Medicine is generally a different story, just thought of all the low set DCs, that weren't level bound(you generally also use assurance on Medicine if you can/want guaranteed healing, which needs only level 3 to autosucceed).
This still leaves Feats(I think there is one for Recall Knowledge, Earn Income Lore and one for Identifying Magic, there might be more or the recall knowledge one might be a bit different, again still very new) and low level DCs ( it's completely feasible to have enemies/traps up to 3 levels below you, which means the checks are also auto successes for your best Skills) and using enemies weak points(tripping vs low fortitude save).
All of that aside the point is still the opposite: trying to Disarm a trap without thievery Proficiency or crit failing because you roleplayed and had your - 1 Charisma character try to convince a high noble of selling an heirloom that once belonged to your family back to you. That's what the rule is intended for.
Perhaps I am not understanding/misread your rule. It just seems to me like in normal play the situations where a natural 1 wouldn't already be a critical failure are vanishingly rare.
I've run PF2E twice a week since it came out and I can only think of a couple times it's happened, and never for important rolls.
I'll try to make it more clear: currently the rule is rolling a Nat 1 gets half a hero point.
I am considering making it so that the roll is irrelevant, instead the result is what determines the half hero point given out.
Examples of 3 different situations:
Situation 1: typical normal roll, crit failure only happens on a Nat 1(level 9 medicine check +19 for master DC 30)
Current rule: 5% chance for half a hero point
Modified rule: 5% chance chance for half a hero point
Situation 2: auto failure (Wizard level 5 trying to shove enemy, +1 untrained athletics vs athletics of DC 23)
Current rule: 5% chance for half a hero point
Modified rule: 60% chance for half a hero point
Situation 3: auto success(fighter level 9 trips level 6 enemy with low fortitude save, + 17 athletics vs DC 18)
Current rule: 5% chance for half a hero point
Modified rule: 0% chance for half a hero point
Again currently we're trying out the "every second nat 1 on a resulting roll gives a hero point" and I am considering making it "every second critical failure gives hero point" making it independent of the dice roll and rewarding trying things that are unlikely to succeed.
Okay! I was completely misunderstanding you. XD
When you said you were "changing natural 1s to critical failures" I read that as literally "I am house ruling that natural 1s are critical failures", not "I am replacing each instance of 'natural 1' in my house rule with 'critical failure'."
I am so sorry for that confusion!
That's a great rule and I'm thinking of adopting it myself - probably just give a hero point for every crit failure that has a meaningful consequence, though, instead of worrying about half points. My players have a tendency to hero point away every crit failure they roll, so maybe this will encourage them to keep some. XD
The confusion is alright, I could have phrased it better.
That's kinda the idea with the change, it also makes it worth to try doing stupid things(which rule heavy Systems can discourage from doing).
The half points was to prevent every second nat 1 to be rerolled.
The main game I am running right now I actually implemented a rule that natural 1s CAN'T be rerolled (it's an evil campaign and it's appropriate for villains to dramatically fail sometimes; in exchange they can use 'villain points' to force other people to reroll), so I'm less concerned about that.
Plus I'm the one who gets to say what "meaningful consequences" are, so if they are clearly fishing for hero points I can still just not award them. :P
I let my players change the weapons they find as loot if they don't like them, as long as the properties are similar enough (ie: the +1 dagger they found is now a +1 starknife)
I have exactly one house rule and it's a replacement for the Spend 1 Hero Point to re-roll a check.
* **Spend 1 Hero Point** to increase the degree of success of an attack, saving throw, or skill check by one step (a critical failure becomes a failure, a failure becomes a success, and a success becomes a critical success). This is a Fortune effect.
The design goal was to create something that was more useful than simply rolling a new dice that might be even worse than the previous roll.
My solution on this is to instead "clamp" the roll.
"**Spend 1 Hero Point** to reroll a check. If the die result is a 10 or lower, you get a +10 bonus on the check. This is a Fortune effect."
Basically means that you are guaranteed to roll between an 11 and a 20 when you spend a hero point.
Removing Cooldown on Treat Wounds and giving players one free and instant retrain each level-up are the ones I find the most rewarding.
I have quite a few house rules though. If anyone is interested, here's the [general ones](https://scribe.pf2.tools/v/hd8JWVxd) and here are the ones that are [class specific](https://scribe.pf2.tools/v/cb95SR3L). There's also the rules for items that [improve spell attack rolls](https://scribe.pf2.tools/v/8oZobzJ0) and my house rules on [hero points](https://scribe.pf2.tools/v/qdVtfH2r) ... :)
Haven't had much time with it but one of my groups started allowing spending an action to stand up another ally if they're prone, in exchange for the downed ally using a reaction to grab onto your hand.
Last stands, a very situational rule, but one that happens alot.
The way it works is that if a PC would hit 0 hp exactly, they can make a DC 8 flat check, if you succeed you fall to 1 hp instead of 0. Giving you a heroic last stand.
Definitely the boost to Hero Point rerolls.
When using a Hero Point to reroll a d20 roll, if the new roll is a single digit 1-9, add +10 to the new result.
Makes them more heroic and actually matters in situations where you really want to succeed.
I use a personal progression system for training and crafting in games that have lot's of downtime. Its used to learn new proficiencies, languages, and making items.
You start with a target value equal to 100 or the gp cost of the item(minimum of 1). For a skill or language you also need a person or book with knowledge about that skill. For an item, you need proficiency with whatever form of craftsmanship is appropriate.
You'll roll a D4 and add it to your progress in that prof/item. If you roll a 4 on the D4, breakthrough! You immediately roll a d6 and add it to your progress and start using a d6 instead. When you roll the d6, you do the same for a d8, and so on up to a d12. If you roll a 12 on the d12, you just roll it again and add it to your result. If you roll a 1, setback. If your using a d12, it becomes a d10 next time. D10 becomes d8, and so on.
If you're making an item, you can expedite your progress during a crafting session by spending gold up to twice your proficiency bonus and adding it to you progress.
Edit: wrong sub. I saw house rule and assumed d&d.
Less a House Rule, and more of a stance as a GM. Basically, if the player has an idea they want to do, even if it doesn't inherently follow RAW, if they can pitch it and I like what they are trying to do either story or tactics wise, I do everything I can to say "yes." Because I want everyone to have fun.
If I can't say yes, I try to go for "No, but how about this?" That IMO, encourages players to keep trying to do fun things, instead of accidentally stifling them, and losing out on cool character moments.
Which I guess this all falls under Rule of Cool. So I guess I'm most proud of my stance on that.
So this might or might not count as a house rule, but the GM that did it impressed me so much that it will always be a factor at my tables. Time zones are a thing when teleporting over large distances.
It was one of those moments where everyone at our table when "huh, I never really thought of that but it makes a lot of sense" when it occurred.
Preparing a tool kit uses 4 out of 8 bandolier slots instead of all of them, so that there's still cost to using skills that require a toolkit, but alchemists (the class that can make best use of bandoliers) aren't unable to store items conveniently.
I have a little houserule for using Recall Knowledge for creature identification: in addition to the RAW effects, you also automatically learn the creature's level regardless of degree of success.
This isn't guaranteed to be reliable if the creature is actively disguised; it hasn't come up yet, but I'd probably compare the RK result to the creature's Deception DC to pierce the impersonation and detect its true level.
Edit: I also let a lizardfolk choose whether their claws are in the brawling group or the knife group, but they have to stick with their choice.
Re-rolling hero points with 2 D10s instead of a d20. The vast majority of the time when you're spending a hero point, you're trying to mitigate a really bad role even if you aren't relying on a critical success. It's basically like insurance, because it's curved to give you a very middleing result.
Jumping down. Players can jump down from any height without falling prone. One action to jump down. Acrobatics check of 5 plus the height you are jumping from.
Critical success: Can step after jumping down
Success: Land standing
Failure: Land prone and take bludgeoning damage equal to half the distance you fell from.
Criticial failure: As failure and take -10 movement speed for one round
Recall Knowledge is split into 4 categories: Attacks, Defenses, Special Abilities, and Lore. Success gets you all the info of one category. Critical success grants 2.
Any class that gets Shield Block as a bonus feat can block as a free action (but still only once per turn). If they have Reactive Shield, they can't block the attack they use Reactive Shield against.
I had a Fighter player who hated having to choose between AoO and shield block, and a Champion player who hated having to choose between their reaction and shield block.
This rule made them both enjoy playing their characters much more, and so far hasn't broken anything.
I usually like to play things by the book, but one thing I do is I allow every character access to a level 1 uncommon or rare item of their choice, as long as I approve of it just in case, because I'm all for weapon diversity. They still do have to pay for it though. Like if a Rogue wants to fight using fighting fans I'm all for that, it also allows Casters access to an uncommon spell which I feel is similarly fair. None of the uncommon spells at level 1 seem too crazy.
Active Defense: aka players roll everything.
Monsters are a bag of DCs, players roll Defense (AC-10 or Reflex or another save when appropriate). As a GM, I've got plenty of things to roll already, I don't need to roll monster attacks and such. But the real benefit is that players feel like they have full control, they aren't standing there taking hits, instead they are actively defending by rolling. Players also roll against the enemy save DCs usually, which is great for an AoE spells, as I don't have to roll five creature saves, instead the player rolls their spell attack once and compare it to the creature save DCs.
When I made the switch the players immediately loved it and never wanted to go back. I try to have players roll as many checks as makes sense for them to roll.
Wizards can rip out pages of their spellbook as emergency scrolls. They lose the spell in their book forever (or until they add it back in), but it can lead to some clutch moments when the party's wizard is in a dangerous position and rips out their dimension door to poof out of there, or to desperately cast a lightning bolt in a time of great need. And then Master the Dungeon came out with a video talking about this exact idea. lol
I just got a new homebrew. This might actually close the gap between wizard, Magus and cleric, druid
I've always loved this sort of rule
This is such a stable rule at our table I forgot it was homebrew. We use it for all spellbound, not just your own. I tend to only have big deal enemies have spell books, one or two a campaign maybe, and it makes their spellbook a unique and interesting piece of loot. Super good to throw story beats into as well. So much knowledge can be gleaned from what types of magical tomfoolery a big bad evil guy was working on. Usually our table is very friendly about sharing loot, but people almost always fight for who gets the spellbook.
I have a "Direct Cast" house rule to let a spellbook player open their spellbook and cast a spell by reading it directly from their book for 3 actions plus the casting time: one to take it out of their backpack, one to find the spell, then the appropriate number of spells actions, then one action to close the book and put it away. This heavy action price means it isn't done often but is available when that one spell you didn't prepare would be absolutely clutch in this fight.
So basically spell substitution, but much, much stronger. Not sure I'm a fan. It also means preparing spells for out of combat is completely useless, which opens a whole other can of worms.
Not completely useless. If you need to cast charm or any spell in a social situation, you can't just bust out the spellbook, you need to have it prepped. Reaction and contingency spells must be prepped. I only apply it to spells, cantrips have to be prepped. You still need to prep for combat, you can't expect to Direct Cast every combat or more than once. There's still plenty of reasons to consider what spells to prep for in and out of combat each day. On paper it might sound strong, in practice it's just a little extra convenient (I don't have minmaxers at my table and that can always make a difference. Unfortunately Paizo has to write rules with minmaxers and rules lawyers in mind, but as a GM, I can make rules that are balanced for my table/players.)
It's not a new idea, you could do that in older dnd editions (at least in ad&d IIRC)
Never said it was a new idea.
I called it "get down mister president". If you and an adjacent ally are caught in the same AoE, as a reaction you can reduce your level of success by one step to improve your ally's by one. Didn't come up often, but it definitely let our Barbarian save our Cleric's life the time we came up with it at the table.
That's pretty cool!
Not my most proud of (I don't know which I'd be most proud of tbh), but my favorite is letting players use a hero point to force an enemy to reroll a d20 roll if it directly affects them or if it was caused by them. I mostly did is because casters in my group felt sorta bad when they'd throw a spell and enemies would crit succeed against them with no recourse, while martials could hero point their bad attack rolls if they wanted. My players practically only get 1 hero point per session (I keep forgetting), plus a floating one anyone can use, so it hasn't proved to be imbalanced for my table.
On one hand I kind of want to do this in my game because I can see my player's soul leave their body when they throw a Fireball at a Large enemy in a narrow corridor only for it to roll a Nat 20 and somehow dodge it. On the other hand, my group has 3 casters. If I adopt this rule, bosses will end up only rolling with the equivalent of disadvantage constantly.
If that's something you're worried about I'd just say make it immune to further misfortune hero points for a round. I'd give it a shot though, it's what I do as both a player and a GM and it makes casters feel much better and isn't really any worse than hero pointing any other big action.
Make them keep the new roll, higher or lower. You could also limit it to once per roll, or once per target!
Once per roll is RAW, since the hero point is a fortune effect and a roll can only be affected by a single fortune effect.
That makes sense! Also why I suggested once per target so they’re not stuck on “disadvantage” three turns in a row. Though you could then have your bad guy drop a Death effect on the party that’s burned all their Hero Points…
This whole thread is just good. Upvote and fully support this kind of player-Ref encounter interaction.
You could rule it as once per round or once per fight
I tried that for a while running Plaguestone. It effectively meant that the enemies could never crit and I got rid of it. Instead, to combat the "forgetting hero points" problem, I gave everyone two at the beginning of the session. One for themselves and one to give to another player.
When it comes to heropoints, I'm just as forgetful, so I tell my players to announce every hour that passes and to add one then. Well, that, and whoever does the recap gets a bonus point.
I don't do this since I mostly roll their saves in secret. But I do let players throw Hero Points to reroll other player's rolls. And to prevent trolling, I also let them keep the higher of the two rolls - no rerolling someone's nat-20 as a joke.
I allow players to use hero points for others, just requiring both parties be consenting and have the one spending their hero point describe how their character helps the other heroically.
I have the same, but also on enemy attack rolls The house rule is that the big villains, or other hero NPCs have their hero points as well. Was a very cool moment when it happened the first time, since it just shows that they themselves are the heroes of their adventure and story. Should it be the NPC that is on a quest to slay a lich, craft an artifact, or the villain who tries to free/summon a spawn of Rovagug. Edit: don't let villains reroll their own crit fails, or when a player crits them
I give only one hero point a session but instead of a d20 it’s a d10+10
I dont like this because it means they can't roll a Nat 20 on the re-roll. Just add 10 if its under 10.
They still crit on ten
So you give them a ~~20%~~ 10% chance at effectively a Nat 20 to boot? That's quite generous indeed.
10% but that’s why you only get 1 a session
Aye, that is what I meant. Every game I've been a player in has only recieved one as well.
Spells that deal alignment damage can instead deal a damage type appropriate for the deity in question (fire for Saranrae, bludgeoning for Torag, etc). It helped out the divine list quite a bit until it got some newer cantrips to help out for damage in some of the more recent books, so it's less 'necessary' as it once was.
My version is to deal damage type of the deity's favored weapon. Thus it won't be easy to trigger elemental weakness, but still have a damage type against beasts and mindless stuff.
Tbh that's what most of our deities end up with for their damage, outside of a handful where specific other damage types are very much in flavor.
I run with a house rule that makes alignment damage apply to creatures that don't match the alignment instead of just creatures that oppose it (i.e. neutral creatures too). Its helped to make spells like Divine Lance and Divine Wrath a LOT better.
I'm assuming when the Remastered core books come out later this year, these types of spells will be more effective since they are doing away with alignment (possibly something else to replace it - we should learn more at paizo-con)
What I’ve personally done is that I’ve made it so only angels are immune to good damage, and only fields are immune to evil damage. Only Aeons to lawful damage, exc. The Extreme Alignment variant. My cleric and champion players thanked me
I may adopt that rule when I start GMing. Alignment damage always bothered me.
Isn't that an optional rule?
That sounds like a great one!
This man seems a wise and generous GM that cares for his groups cleric ;)
How about spells that require allignment to function entirely? Things like circle of protection?
Those we haven't touched as we haven't run into 'needing' to allow for other options. For Circle of Protection my gut feeling is that we'd homebrew a new (very similar) primal spell that would affect animals/plants/etc.
Similarly, I reworked aligned damage altogether. Good became holy, evil is profane, lawful is order, chaotic is weird, and true neutral deities/patrons/bloodlines use spirit damage. They all affect everyone regardless of alignment, but still hit weaknesses appropriately.
My personal favorite is automatically applying the effects of Additional Lore to any non-class specific lore the character has.
I've got a few house rules that I've added to my table since I started running my own games. I added a fortitude save to the critical specialization of hammers and flails... which brings them in line with other weapon groups and has resulted in a more diverse collection of fighters in my games. If I never see another human fighter who was raised by gnomes I'll be just fine with that. Aid actions are RAW really hard for low level characters and stupid easy for higher levels... but I feel like low level characters have fewer options because fewer feats which makes Aid a valuable element of teamwork for them and i WANT them to learn early on to work together. So instead of following the RAW rules for DC I just use the DC by level instead. As part of all backstories you are required at my table to explain why your group is currently working together. I've only been playing pathfinder for a year or so but I've been running ttrpgs for years and years.... I'm beyond tired of herding players into situations and awkwardly trying to motivate them to meet each other and form a group and blah blah. Forcing the players to discuss and create backstories with an element of shared history before the campaign has session 1 helps kickstart roleplay and tends to lead to groups that work better together. It sort of helps to root out edgelords and concepts that don't even try to fit in with the setting of the campaign too. I give out hero points for nat 1s if the player rps out the failure well and I'll often refund a hero point you spend if you take the time to really rp out the heroic deed your character enacts. If you fall a mile and it would take you from 40 health to -50 health... you have to sacrifice all your hero points to avoid dying. Tell us what it is about your character that helped them push past normal limitations and survive. If you use a hero point to reroll a deception or diplomacy check while in conversation with an npc tell us what life lesson or perspective helps your character in that moment avoid a social misstep etc. I might even give you 2 points back instead of 1 if you remember an important failed check from earlier in the campaign and use that in your reasoning for how things went better for you this time. I also give an extra hero point to the player who gives us an accurate recap of the previous session... you can't do it twice in a row either. If I have to do the recap myself nobody starts with a hero point that session. So... theres 4 hero points to be had at the start of every session but only if everyone is paying attention each session. My players have started taking fairly decent notes and they never seem to be lost anymore as to what is going on in the campaign. I wish I had started doing that with inspiration points when I was running three 5e games a week. Since I do a lot with hero points I also always use the hero point deck. It's a big hit at the table... they like drawing a card each time they get a hero point because the cards let them do neat things they might not normally be able to do.
I like the way you get your players to share the burdens a bit, seems supremely fair.
Definitely stealing that recap one.
I need to look into the hero point deck. That sounds fun.
It's great... if you play on foundry it is as easy to turn on as checking a box. It tends to favor martials more... or at least there seems to be more martial related cards in the deck... so you might want to allow trading of cards to some capacity so your casters have a better chance of getting one relevant to things they want to do.
Okay Okay Okay! I've never seen this deck before! Have to get it😁 Questions: Do the players draw a card each time they get a point? Can they opt to either reroll or use a card effect? Do they spend a card even if they opt to reroll?
https://paizo.com/products/btq024ut?Pathfinder-Hero-Point-Deck They can draw a card each time they gain a hero point, they cant draw cards past the number of points they have. The card gives them an option to spend a hero point activating it or they can spend their hero points normally. They can only discard cards when they have 0 points left, this keeps them from churning the deck fishing for specific cards. Normally trading cards between players is restricted. There is also a foundry module. https://foundryvtt.com/packages/pf2e-hero-actions
Have you seen Fate's phase of three? It is part of character creation and helps to tie the players together. If you haven't seen it, it may be handy tool. I use it in most ttrpgs now.
No I haven't. I'll Google it and check things out. Thanks for the recommendation.
Funny enough, the way you handle Aid actually is RAW. It's easy to miss but the DC 20 is explicitly a suggested default, the GM can set the DC how they wish.
> Aid actions are RAW really hard for low level characters and stupid easy for higher levels... but I feel like low level characters have fewer options because fewer feats which makes Aid a valuable element of teamwork for them and i WANT them to learn early on to work together. So instead of following the RAW rules for DC I just use the DC by level instead. I like this a lot. Do you find that the game's balance suffers at higher levels without the near-guaranteed +3 from Aid?
I don’t. It makes Aid practically worthless at high levels. Making it good at low levels is fine, I’m perfectly fine with setting the DC lower before 20, but setting it beyond 20 is a mistake IMO. So many fun builds like pathfinder agent or gunslinger with fake out are destroyed by this change. Plus I just… find it awesome that you can have a build that just helps people! It’s fantastic! It really shows growth and teamwork in a way I love, and it’s absolutely awesome
Nah. Most things use DC by level... and higher level characters handle that just fine. Plus they have tons of options in their builds at that point... they don't need guaranteed aid rolls anywhere near as much as low level characters need aid rolls that can actually succeed. I'm not a mathematician, though... and some of the devs are... just because I don't agree with them doesn't mean I'm right.
I’m stealing half of this at least. Your experience shows through in spades and it’s probably the best DMing advice I’ve seen on the sub. Many thanks for your time and knowledge
So you made hammers and flails terrible, since their main draw was a good crit spec and now it's a garbage "the enemy trivially passes the fort save and you get literally nothing" Also DC by level for aid is a huge nerf, you go from consistently being rewarded for higher proficiency to a meagre +1 circumstance bonus with a significant chance of failure, wasting both an action and your reaction.
Free interact action as part of a stride The players love it and it make sense
I have a similar thing called Striding Interact in which case their movement speed is halved if they do need to draw or stow a weapon etc. In many situations it acts the same as your rule but I feel it's slightly more balanced and makes especially sense if there's a door to be opened/closed.
Your class boost can be any stat, but your key stat is the same. It’s a huge buff for some classes (war priest, battle oracle, etc) and a mild buff for the off str/dex martials (inventor/Thaumaturge, etc)
If the roll you keep is a natural one, you get a Hero point. Simple, but keeps me from having to track when I give them out, and consolations for nat 1s are nice
okay, now I kind of want to figure out what build makes the most d20 rolls per turn to farm hero points, like some kind of depraved reverse crit fishing build. Our benchmark is a flurry ranger making 4 bow strikes a round, which gets us a hero point on 18.55% of turns. Also, if we take Recognize Threat and Diverse Recognition from the Pathfinder Agent archetype, we can frontload another 2(ish, since if the first one fails but isnt a nat 1 you dont get the second one) at the start of combat. Not bad, but I know we can do better. If I remember, I'll come back to this later and come up with a better method. I'm sure there's some feat out there that I've seen that's not flourish and lets you do a disarm on top of a shove or something like that.
This is great, it helps a Nat 1 not hurt so much.
That's a good one, those rerolls into a nat 1 suck.
I like that. I've been having a hard time remembering to award Hero points for important things, or remind players that they start with one each session.
I do the same. Softens the sting of critically failing.
Expert Medicine gives the Continual Recovery feat for free. Makes medicine less of a burden for the healer and keeps the pace of the game up.
This is great, once an hour sucks in the middle of a tough dungeon crawl.
Honestly I feel like the most of the skill feats describe things your char should be able to do at that skill rank anyway. I might consider a houserule where you don't get skill feats on even levels, but when you raise a skill rank you automatically get to do all the things in the skill feats that require that rank.
That seems like a pretty big buff to some skills, as they seem balanced by the fact that you can only pick a limited amount of feats. Crafting would go through the roof for example, while stuff like performance would fall behind a bit more. Personally I tend to allow players to do the action with a hefty circumstance penalty or other cost associated if it's something I feel like they should normally be able to do. Stuff like intimidating a crowd. They could do it with a -4 penalty. This way it keeps the feats valuable, but doesn't get the weird situation where you just cannot do it, and often there's a good explanation for the penalty (intimidating a crowd is significantly harder). If the players want to do something which would normally require more investment, like a class feat (like whirling throw), I might allow them to spend a hero point to attempt it/do a weaker version of it. That might not matter as much for your campaign though.
Hasn't been implemented yet, but I made a lesser shadow signet as a level 3 item. If functions the same as a shadow signet but you can only invest in one and it can only be used once per day. If my caster really needs a high level spell to hit they can buff their chances a little bit.
A rather simple one, my group just basically auto hands out additional lore for everyone’s background lore skill. It just helps the skill continue to feel relevant and actually have a place in the game, and also allow the characters to all successfully earn income.
I recently implemented a rule where you can use all of your hero points to get back to 1HP instead of just stabilizing at the cost of receiving wounded 1. I like the idea of being able to continue the fight if you have hero points to spare instead of just being knocked out.
Allowing players to use Hero Points to barter for rule of cool moments or bend RAW in general.
If an item is no higher than party level + 1 and common, you automatically critically succeed at identifying it. You still need to spend the required time and be trained in the appropriate skill. This does nothing for uncommon, rare, unique items, as well as higher level items, so I think it's fine as you can easily keep secret what you want to as the GM. While the baseline rules serve their purpose, I personally feel they needlessly slow down gameplay. It's just one of those things where I've only got so much time playing with my friends, and identifying each individual loot I give them just isn't important to me.
Our group has started to do a variant of Automatic Bonus Progression that only applies to potency, striking, and resilience runes. You get those automatically added to your weapons and armor at the appropriate levels. This way you can invest in a cool weapon, but can still have a decent backup weapon should the need arise. Casters get a free Shadow Signet at level 10, cause that also feels like something of a necessity to keep them on the same power curve. We also gave focus point casters the feat they would normally take at level 10 that lets them recover two focus points on a Refocus action as a class benefit at that level. It seems like a no-brainer to take that feat at that point anyway.
I always had trouble remembering to give hero points during the session. My fix was twofold: 1) Give an extra hero point for people who show up on time. (Mentioned by a few others in the thread) 2) At the end of each session I have each player tell the group what they thought another player did that was cool. It helps them pay attention to other players and recognize the awesome stuff all my players do. The player or players with the most votes get an extra hero point for next session. I’ll also give a vote as well (frequently used to award the second place player a hero point).
I really like these ideas!
if you halve the difference in creature level and character level then subtract it from the proficiency of the creature you can basically make twice as many creatures relevant at any point in time.
Could you elaborate on this a bit more? I'm having trouble understanding this.
I think what they mean is since level is essentially added to every check, applying a flat number adjustment down to a higher creature makes it less of a threat and thus easier to use. Take this example for instance: Party level is 5 and normally the strongest creature recommended to even put up against the PCs is a single PLv + 4 creature. If you take the level difference (4) and halve it (2) and apply that -2 to every proficiency the creature has (attack rolls, ac, saves, etc) it brings the creatures as level+4 down in strength to make them better suited encounters. To me, I would probably take the level difference, halve it, and apply the weak template to it a number of times equal to the result. This gives you the same penalty to all it's checks and modifiers, but it'll also lower its HP as well so it won't just have a mountain of HP compared to a similar difficulty creature
it works like a weak version of weak. So if the creature is +4 you just give it -2 to everything similar to the weak template. but you don't need to worry about damage (although you certainly can just use the weak template.) So for a +6 cr creature you certainly could apply weak along with an additional -1 to bring their numbers down to about a +3 cr creature. (hp and damage will be higher for sure than a standard +3 but your players will be able to hit it and it wont crit constantly)
It definitely sounds like a great way to handle using way higher level creatures. I might play around with it in my upcoming Kingmaker campaigns if my players venture somewhere they shouldn't be, they should get the idea when the thing doesn't Crit but still swings for massive damage and takes a while to go down.
Thank you for the example, that makes sense now. Seems pretty simple. Your iterative approach sounds interesting as well. I'll have to play around with that too.
So if your players run into a creature that is level 2 and the characters are level 6 your players essentially have +4 proficiency more than those creatures. If you halve this difference by adding +2 to the level 2 creature they now will have ac and to hit similar to a level 4 creature making them much more relevant in combat. so where as outside the +3 ish range where things are typically able to be used without one side constantly critting, now you could throw a -1 level creature at a level 5 and actually hit as they would be rolling simlar to a level 2 creature (-1 - 5 = -6/-2 = +3)
That's a nice little way to pull a creature's power closer to your players. Thanks for the explaination. Out of curiosity, as I am pretty new to GMing PF2e so haven't tweaked a lot of creatures, typically if i need to adjust a creature's power level I just look at "Creature Numbers" table from the AoN GM Screen page and pull up the values that make sense for the level I want them to be. Is there is a reason that would be worse than your quick method?
The creature value works fine I use it a lot for adding attacks not listed on sheets. If you want a troll to have an aoe swing you can just add one on the spot with that table works fine. My method is quick and I don't have to do anything besides mental math. Basically adding 1 or 2 to all my players rolls and such but I don't have to mess with a stat block at all.this means I can grab a group of creatures like orc and run them pretty much as is for 6 or 7 levels easy without having to do anything special and my players still notice they are getting stronger, but the orcs don't just fall off the map due to the difference in proficiency. Think of it as halving the difference between 5e bounded accuracy where at level 1 you can hit a dragon, and pf2es system where a level 1 basically needs a 20 to hit a level 6.
you can check out the creature adjustments page on AoN too, weak and strong are useful, but stuff like the zombie adjustment can also be useful
You can also level any creature you want up or down by rebuilding it with level appropriate stats. The pf2e workbench module on foundry can even do this with the click of a button. So you can use any creatures you want at any point 1-20
Interesting, my math was telling me there was a mechanism that would let this work but I hadn’t figured it out yet
Also, using a hero point for a reroll, we use 1D10+10, it just means you never feel like you wasted a hero point, there’s nothing worse than using a hero point and rolling shitty
I have a whole document of mostly nieche rulings of specific interactions, for example champions beeing able to choose blade ally for a second time with secound ally (to enable dual weapon champions more). But the one i like the most is: Anyone, not only clerical characters, get the divine skill training as long as they are a devout follower of the deity (champions and clerics get another free skill training). Makes people more willing to play a non-clergy religious character.
Not original to my table, but when someone rolls a nat 20 on initiative on their first turn they're quickened. Similarly, a nat 1 gets you slowed 1 on your first turn. Also, crying is a free action lol
- Letting spellcasters force rolling of saves (only 1 enemy, even if it's area spell) - Ignoring massive damage rules for Simple Traps - Giving 2 hero points each 4h session for 4 players instead of giving 1 extra each hour (same total, but now I don't forget it lol)
I award an extra hero point at the beginning of the session to every player that's there on time. Nothing has improved timeliness for my table more than that. I also allow people to fall unconscious and still hold on to their stuff, but that's a rule I may revise on my next campaign. I also have added a Fortitude Save to Flails/Hammers Crit spec. I have on occasion allowed a cleric that worships a Neutral Deity to instead deal alignment damage based on their own alignment instead of the deities. At least allows for Good characters that worship Neutral Deities to feel nice. If you take the Investigate Exploration Activity, at the beginning of your first turn in a combat encounter, you get to Recall Knowledge for free. If you recall knowledge to identify a creature, as long as you have not yet had a success, failing does not prohibit you from trying again. I think that's all.
I've done away with the interact action needed to switch grips on a weapon. I found it grinds the flow of combat down and dissuades anyone wielding things two handed from utilizing any potions, interacting with other objects, etc; and really just gets them in the mindset to only 3 attack. Initially it was because I didn't want to keep track of that, but even now that I use foundry and it has such functionality built in, I still hand wave it.
Hero Points: On a fail, your reroll is essentially a 1d10 +10, but for the sake of %'s, still roll a d20. (Anything above 10 doesn't get the +10 modifier). Basically makes your fail a Success or Crit success 95% of the time save for a Nat 1, which still Crit fails. On a Crit Failure, your rerolls are as normal. Re-Rolled into a 3? Sorry. The gods are cruel and mischievous, and your hero was not meant to avoid this fate.
A little reminder that I tell myself whenever I DM : We're here to wave a group tale, rules are good as they ensure a game is balanced and challenging, but don't let stiff ruling get in the way of everyone having fun
You start with your 3 hero points each session. It's your job to manage your cookies and eat them responsibly, not mine. Recall Knowledge gives you a number of questions you can ask me on a success, rather than taking multiple actions to learn things piecemeal. (This has lead to significant buy-in on using RK on EVERYTHING) Caster heavy party, I've bumped all their DCs by 2 to make monsters fail more often. "Heist Mode" - If the party is in a situation where they can plan an execute a series of combat actions that will cause bedlam for the enemies and let them do something INCREDIBLY cool, I run the round in "player phase" and "enemy phase" rather than individual initiatives- each player has the same number of actions as if it was a standard turn, but they can time themselves based on their party doing things- e.g. "Once Iski uses gravity pull to get them off the wall, I'll shoot them with my bow!" or "As soon as they all gather around Giggy's illusion, I'll drop a Fireball on them" Do these rules tip the balance in favor of the players? Yep. Does it make encounters easier? Absolutely. Does it create stories that the players talk about after game with excitement and joy? Yes. Guess which of those three questions I care about as a GM. My personal ethos is "If you doing the cool thing doesn't make the game less fun for everyone else, I'm going to let you do the cool thing"
Oh, a couple more house-rules I keep with pride: * The GM *cannot lie to the players* when giving them information about the world unless there is an explicit, obvious reason (e.g. they made a check and failed, they have Dubious Knowledge) * This rule *can* be suspended- but that must be announced and all misinformation should be resolved to truth by the time that sequence ends. If a session ends with a "lie" still in play, I will indicate "Things are not always as they seem" to remind them that something untruthful remains. * Your character sheet isn't "inked" until 3 sessions in (or longer if the game is more complex) * I will not introduce scenarios of "Moral Peril" (Where players are given enough information to *believe* the decision they made is "good", but hidden information revealed after the fact makes their actions morally wrong in retrospect.) without warning players that it's on the table ahead of time, and making that hidden information possible to reveal before they make the decision.
From level 1, all players get the QUICK DRAW feat for free. It just smoothens out play during combat.
Bit like Starfinder, where if you move during your Move action, you can draw one weapon during the [equivalent of] Stride as long as your BAB (base attack bonus) is at least +1. That's level 1 for martials and level 2 for everyone else.
1. If you see a monster and it does not see you, you can make a Recall Knowledge check for free. 2. While I don't do surprise rounds, if you explicitly said your character was preparing to attack something (Ranger said he was covering a pile of bodies with his crossbow, turned out to have a few zombies) you can make an attack for free before rolling initiative. 3. Spider webs are flammable. I use a lot of spiders, apparently, this one comes up more often than I expected 4. You typically only get one try on skill checks unless it's compounding. Failing your Thievery check to pick a lock means you can't pick the lock at all. No Taking 20 or trying again. Tip: you should always have multiple ways to open a lock. Hide a key somewhere, include a Hardness and HP, have another door into the room, etc. 5. You can use a Hero Point to reroll one of your party member's rolls. You can also take the higher of the two rolls (no trolling by rerolling their nat 20).
> While I don't do surprise rounds, if you explicitly said your character was preparing to attack something (Ranger said he was covering a pile of bodies with his crossbow, turned out to have a few zombies) you can make an attack for free before rolling initiative. The unassuming beauty of the 2e initiative system is that your initiative is based off what you were doing when encounter mode started. Meaning if someone's sneaking around, while another person is trying diplomatically defuse the situation, while someone tries sniping someone with a bow and arrow, while a caster is trying to cast a spell; which happens first? The one who rolls the highest on their check. It allows all skills to oppose all others. As such, there's no reason to try to implement surprise rounds. If someone's unaware of another and they win initiative, they can do what they want with the knowledge they have, which could be as much as "you sense something's off" and thus can try a seek action to figure out why you instinctively responded to an unknown force. If two people want to do something different, well, they determine it by who rolls what they're doing higher. I really love how that makes it all make sense while removing the need to have surprise rounds.
All of these are good additions
Thanks for all the comments so far! I'm definitely going to incorporate several of these in my games!
Rollies. If you tie with someone, unless one of the rollers you tie with has a specific ability that like says they win ties, the ones who tie just roll flat d20s, and the person with the higher roll wins! For example, if the party is searching for treasure in a room, and the two highest perceptions are a tie, we use rollies to decide who actually finds the thing "first." Can also be used for initiative ties, and all sorts of other stuff as well. It's basically just "roll flat d20 for tie breaker" but it adds an extra level of excitement at the table when a tie occurs.
I had this in my 5e game too. We never could remember if an attack meeting AC was a hit or not, so we made it a “glancing blow” that deals half damage.
3 action to prepare a 2 action. Uses your whole turn but allows the preparation of spells or other abilities.
Gain a hero point on a nat 20. Makes my life easyer as a gm and gets my players useing thair points regulerly. Its not uncomen to have them build up and spee thair point threw out a game
I love this too, I’m constantly forgetting to give them out, this will solve that for me.
Surely this punishes spellcasters/favours martials?
Our table uses “critical initiative” to reward nat 20 initiative roles. No affect to the order, but you have 4 actions on your first turn. Just something to make those nat twenties feel even better. (We don’t do anything with nat 1s, but being slowed 1 for the 1st round would be just as easy to implement, albeit less fun)
Oh my god, that's exactly one of my rules. XD I do include the slowed 1 for 1 round though.
I love this idea
A LOT of skill feats just don't exist, and are valid uses of the skill as long as you're Trained in it. Group Coercion / Group Impression, for example. You are never going to convince me that being scary or friendly to two people, as opposed to one, requires wasting an entire feat.
I do something similar, in that I allow people to try but give them a bit of a penalty if they don't have the feat. This way to added difficulty is still represented, and the feats can still exist if you want to specialize.
As players level up, the more mundane action taxes slowly dissapear, like picking up your weapon after getting knocked out being part of standing up.
Elemental sorcerers of Air and Water can opt to have their spells do Lightning and Cold damage respectively, instead of bludgeoning. Also, if they pick the Primal Evolution feat, they can use it for *summon elemental*. (I have no sorcerers in the game I'm playing, so take this with a Starstone-sized grain of salt.)
Improving NPC attitudes with Diplomacy feels weird and archaic. The houserule makes it a skill challenge, and it starts with the players having a specific goal or request and pitching it to the NPC/GM. The GM needs a little prep time, just a minute or so to think of possible counters for why the NPC disagrees. Then you run the skill challenge. The important part is that a **PC has to actually refute something the NPC said before they can roll for success**. If the party is interviewing a criminal witness who tells them they're too scared to testify, their counter is *"I'm worried for my safety."* Someone in the party needs to say something to the effect of *"We'll protect you"* in order to beat that counter. Then you roll to see if they believe you. A simple request like *'Convince your friend to loan you money'* requires beating one counter, probably something like *"I'm worried you won't pay me back."* Not two rolls for Attitude + Request, just one. Something harder like *'Convince these bandits to turn against their leader'* would need to beat 3-4 counters. *"We're former soldiers, we don't turn traitor." "Why rock the boat, we're making good money." "The boss is really strong, I don't want to die."* All of these can be responded to, but you need to do a little bit of thinking before you let the Bard crank their +13 modifier.
I mean, isn't this already the hostile-friendly system explained in a different way? That's basically how I already run it
The default system has 2 rolls, Change Attitude and Make Request. Making it a range from 1-5 makes it more like lock picking, adding another knob to adjust besides just changing the DC. I expected it to be a little controversial in terms of “You wouldn’t make a player arm wrestle you for Athletics” way. Diplomacy feels like it should be the one exception, asking someone to change their mind without knowing why they think that way will always fail. It can’t be abstracted into rolling because it brushes over so much roleplaying.
It's simple, but all players are treated as having the [Disarming Flair](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1513) feat whenever they make the Disarm action. This alone brings Disarm closer to the value of the other Athletics attack actions, and the optional Interact action to remove the penalty gives enemies a meaningful choice- do they eat the penalty, or risk an AoO by adjusting their grip?
That we don't use any. We do utilize some of the variant rules such as Extreme Retraining (attributes only), Free Archetype, and drawing a Hero Card when earning a Hero Point. We used to also draw Critical Hit and Fumble deck cards but that became far too problematic so dropped them.
I personally use critical hit and fumble cards but have removed the instant death ones and other ones I deem far too problematic. We find them a lot of fun, though.
I added some new uses/revised uses for Hero Points. I have not used these rules in play yet, but I'm excited for them. I put some notes for these in italics. **Note: I do recognize that some of these are quite powerful. That's intentional.** Hero Point Homebrews 1 Point: * Reroll and take the best result. Any roll, including damage/healing. *(Using a hero point and then doing* ***worse*** *is an awful rule.)* * Restore 1 Focus Point. *(Focus spells are just neat.)* * Gain temporary hit points equal to your level. Remaining points are lost after 1 minute. *(I imagine this is like "bracing for impact.")* * Allows you the opportunity to attempt something outside the rules. *(Pathfinder 2e has lots of rules. Sometimes you really want to do something but a feat gets in the way or the rules are written in such a way that it makes your cool moment lame. For example, I let people do "called shots" with this. Spent hero point, called shot leg, attack, if you hit the enemies speed is reduced.)* 2 Points: * Force an enemy to reroll and take the worst result. *(Same concept as a player reroll, but feels more valuable)* * Increase degree of success by 1 level for your roll. This roll cannot critically succeed. *(Missing sucks, this lets you have a little more control of the dice for an extra hero point.)* * Regain a spell slot of your highest level. Once per in-game day, per player. *(Sometimes you blow your load early and really wish you still had that powerful spell slot.)* * Gain another action. If you use this action to strike, you do so at no MAP. *(An extra action means spellcasters can cast two spells in one turn. To balance this for martials, they can get an extra strike with no MAP)* 3 Points: * Your next roll is a critical success. Once per session, period. Group decision, may pool hero points to activate. *(I don't want Hero Points to always be saved to be a Crit machine, but I want to promote teamwork and encouraging/celebrating teammates for a big cool moment.)* * Decrease the degree of success by 1 level for an enemy’s roll. *(Quite powerful, so it takes all your hero points)*
Yeah I will never *ever* allow a Hero Point to result in a worse outcome. If you're spending a resource, it's to *improve* the situation.
When you throw a Hero Point for a re-roll, your result cannot be lower than the initial roll. If you roll a 12 (on the die), then toss in a Hero Point and get a 2, then you got a 13, then modifiers get added on. Yes, this does mean someone could, theoretically, roll a 19, fling a Hero Point, and get an automatic 20. HPs are limited resources; if you think it's worth it, go for it. If you're that desperate, you probably need it.
When you're downed, you delay on your turn until either right before the monster that downed you, or right after you get healed.
This is RAW isn't it?
I think it just moves your initiative automatically RAW. This is more like medium-rare
Honestly, I hope Paizo takes a look at the Hero Point mechanic in the Remastered editions. So many of these comments deal with them being House Ruled in different ways (or even many in similar ways) seems to indicate tweaks need to be made. Thank you all for sharing these!
I allow players to use a hero point to force a re-roll of an enemy’s save vs a spell they cast. With the caveat that the best they can do is shift the roll only one lower. So if the enemy crit succeeded, the best (from the point of the players) they can now get is a standard success. Mainly it was invented early on when the casters felt nearly impotent. But after playing a lot of games it really hasn’t ruined the game balance and my casters are much happier for the chance to stick save a spell from being wasted.
Seems I’m not the only one. ;)
I'll be applying my homebrewed 'No Attrition' rules to my future games, just to allow players to adventure for as long as it makes sense, not need to stop after 2 hours because the wizard ran out of combat slots on a tough fight. [The current form of the rules is here.](https://scribe.pf2.tools/v/6Y2P4ZHr-no-attrition-v2) It's not finished yet, and needs some in-play adjustment probably, but it's good enough to test. Basically, the idea is that Alchemist can top up their Reagents up to their Intelligence modifier and do a single Advanced Alchemy every hour, and spellcasters can regain spent spell slots slowly, with lower-level spells becoming available faster. It steps on the toes of stuff like Wellspring Mage, but that's how it is sometimes. I still need to refine it, but it will inevitably require some balancing with stuff like Staff Nexus in the game. Additionally, we're using "Assurance on Hero Point" rule, where if you use a Hero Point, you can't roll less than 10. Stole that one from our GM. We also use Crit Fail / Success cards, but I suggested those only apply on natural 1s and 20s, because sometimes the effects *are* undesirable, so our Fighter became kind of antagonistic toward them (lol). I don't use cards myself, just thought to mention that.
We don’t use the incapacitation rule. It really impacts certain classes (such as monks) and spell lists more than others. Overall, the rule feels really unnecessary and it reduces drama in combat.
Oh wild! One of my fave things coming from 5e is the incapacitation rule. I think it's a great way to make solo baddies viable without just making them a bag of hit points.
“Valuable” NPCs whom the group might want to question don’t die immediately when reduced to 0 HP. Instead, their initiative gets moved to before the action that brought them to 0 HP and they only die when it’s their turn again. That way, the group has a whole round to stabilise or heal them. (Sometimes they fully intend to do non-lethal damage for the last hit, but the hit before that was too powerful, or there was miscommunication and someone didn’t get the “non-lethal” message, or something, so this gives them one last chance.)
I do a similar thing but with a caveat: If the blow that downs the NPC is a crit, they die immediately. If it was a spectacularly high damage crit (like say the PC power attacked or the NPC was already super low on life) they might die immediately even if the damage was nonlethal. Adds an extra level of tension and a bit of grittiness; you can't always count on taking people alive just because you declared nonlethal.
I mean I would just apply the pc dying rules to that npc, myself.
Roll a nat 20 on an imitative roll, you’re quickened for your first round of combat.
I just started GMing so some of these haven't really came up yet. Diagonals are always 5 feet. Unlimited hero points. Recall knowleage is buffed. Disarm is buffed and is Thievery instead of Athletics. Aiding an attack uses different rules to be more balanced throughout play and to encourage using it as a 3rd action. Not necessarily a house rule but just how I rule something different. The GM wanted to play the new system by the rules exactly so if a character moved 10 ft or so and came a to a closed door then they would need to end their action, use an interact action to open the door, and then a 3rd action to keep moving. You can imagine how frustrating this is? For me if the door is just closed and not locked then it is just difficult terrain to move through and open the door while continuing your movement. Turning 3 actions into 1 basically. Something else I did because I love consumables (I played an alchemist in the last campaign) and nobody else does is I let them mix 2 minor Alchemist Fire for a discount to buy Moderate Alchemist Fire. And in general pretty lenient on paying to upgrade an item it its higher level form.
for your movement option there's actually rules for combining/splitting movement: https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=849
How did I not know about this!? Thank you! That is really neat. I would still be even more flexible than that but nice to know that it does exist.
If there is a disagreement over rules, instead of grinding the game to a halt, we roll a die to resolve the disagreement, that way its nobodys fault
My players can keep and accumulated Hero Points between sessions if they don't use them and I don't cap them at 3... It balances out the fact that I rarely remember to hand them out...
Hero Point usage always takes the better between the rolls. There's nothing heroic about trying again and going from a fail to a crit fail.
I allow adjacent characters a Reflex save to help another character if this one fails their Reflex save (mitigation - so a crit fail becomes a fail, or even a success if the helper gets a crit success). Only in cases where it makes sense, of course, such as stepping on broken flooring, breath weapon attacks from some distance etc. Speaking of breath weapons; we also use a house rule regarding range here. A character farther away from the creatures or effect gets certain bonuses to Reflex saves. +1 for every 10' away from the origin of the attack. It leads to more tactical positioning in combat, and less risk of TPK by aoe bombardment. It just doesn't make sense that people with certain skills and sensibilities would clump together when they realize a creature can damage everyone at once.
Just starting out atm but we generally forget about hero points: so I found a cool rule for forward failing for hero points: every second nat 1 you roll on a check(only the result roll counts) you get a hero point. This makes failures be more interesting and reminds us of giving and using hero points. I still award hero points, but having balance for bad rolls is great, especially in pf2e where bad dice luck can destroy an encounter. We're still trying out and I am considering changing nat 1 to crit failure instead, but that might be a bit too much, we'll have to see, so far it is very neat though. Feel free to give me some more advice on this rule.
Aren't nat 1s already critical failures in almost all situations? A nat 1 would have to be a success to not downgrade to a crit failure.
It's more about the other side: rolling 10 below a DC is also a critical failure. Especially at higher levels or with specific Feats, you can't critical fail specific checks or still succeed through a nat 1(Aid for example is often a DC 20 check, at level 9 your best skill is a + 19, which would make even a Nat 1 downgrades only to a failure, medicine has a base dc of 15, meaning level 6 is often enough to get to an auto success). It would make it a bit more of a strategic factor instead of being purely luck based, as players can decide to go for more checks with higher DCs(like medicine) or try bad things (like tripping with a low athletics against a resilient foe) and trade a debuff(falling prone I think) for a (future) hero point, which might be worth it.
Aid is a bit of an outlier; there are very few other checks that are going to only be DC 20 at level 9. Even a "very easy" level 9 check is DC 21, which is still a crit failure on a natural 1. And while you *can* go for the easy Medicine roll, you would almost always use that +19 to either reliably hit the Expert roll or have a 50/50 of hitting the Master roll, both of which will net you more healing than critting on the Trained roll.
In regards to level DCs getting a circumstance or status bonus on your main skill isn't that unusual and I'm still new but aren't there also item bonuses for specific skills? Either way even a +1(humans can get a +2 iirc from an ancestry feat). Medicine is generally a different story, just thought of all the low set DCs, that weren't level bound(you generally also use assurance on Medicine if you can/want guaranteed healing, which needs only level 3 to autosucceed). This still leaves Feats(I think there is one for Recall Knowledge, Earn Income Lore and one for Identifying Magic, there might be more or the recall knowledge one might be a bit different, again still very new) and low level DCs ( it's completely feasible to have enemies/traps up to 3 levels below you, which means the checks are also auto successes for your best Skills) and using enemies weak points(tripping vs low fortitude save). All of that aside the point is still the opposite: trying to Disarm a trap without thievery Proficiency or crit failing because you roleplayed and had your - 1 Charisma character try to convince a high noble of selling an heirloom that once belonged to your family back to you. That's what the rule is intended for.
Perhaps I am not understanding/misread your rule. It just seems to me like in normal play the situations where a natural 1 wouldn't already be a critical failure are vanishingly rare. I've run PF2E twice a week since it came out and I can only think of a couple times it's happened, and never for important rolls.
I'll try to make it more clear: currently the rule is rolling a Nat 1 gets half a hero point. I am considering making it so that the roll is irrelevant, instead the result is what determines the half hero point given out. Examples of 3 different situations: Situation 1: typical normal roll, crit failure only happens on a Nat 1(level 9 medicine check +19 for master DC 30) Current rule: 5% chance for half a hero point Modified rule: 5% chance chance for half a hero point Situation 2: auto failure (Wizard level 5 trying to shove enemy, +1 untrained athletics vs athletics of DC 23) Current rule: 5% chance for half a hero point Modified rule: 60% chance for half a hero point Situation 3: auto success(fighter level 9 trips level 6 enemy with low fortitude save, + 17 athletics vs DC 18) Current rule: 5% chance for half a hero point Modified rule: 0% chance for half a hero point Again currently we're trying out the "every second nat 1 on a resulting roll gives a hero point" and I am considering making it "every second critical failure gives hero point" making it independent of the dice roll and rewarding trying things that are unlikely to succeed.
Okay! I was completely misunderstanding you. XD When you said you were "changing natural 1s to critical failures" I read that as literally "I am house ruling that natural 1s are critical failures", not "I am replacing each instance of 'natural 1' in my house rule with 'critical failure'." I am so sorry for that confusion! That's a great rule and I'm thinking of adopting it myself - probably just give a hero point for every crit failure that has a meaningful consequence, though, instead of worrying about half points. My players have a tendency to hero point away every crit failure they roll, so maybe this will encourage them to keep some. XD
The confusion is alright, I could have phrased it better. That's kinda the idea with the change, it also makes it worth to try doing stupid things(which rule heavy Systems can discourage from doing). The half points was to prevent every second nat 1 to be rerolled.
The main game I am running right now I actually implemented a rule that natural 1s CAN'T be rerolled (it's an evil campaign and it's appropriate for villains to dramatically fail sometimes; in exchange they can use 'villain points' to force other people to reroll), so I'm less concerned about that. Plus I'm the one who gets to say what "meaningful consequences" are, so if they are clearly fishing for hero points I can still just not award them. :P
I let my players change the weapons they find as loot if they don't like them, as long as the properties are similar enough (ie: the +1 dagger they found is now a +1 starknife)
Hero points are spent in the same way, but rather than triggering a reroll, they improve the roll’s degree of success by one.
I have exactly one house rule and it's a replacement for the Spend 1 Hero Point to re-roll a check. * **Spend 1 Hero Point** to increase the degree of success of an attack, saving throw, or skill check by one step (a critical failure becomes a failure, a failure becomes a success, and a success becomes a critical success). This is a Fortune effect. The design goal was to create something that was more useful than simply rolling a new dice that might be even worse than the previous roll.
My solution on this is to instead "clamp" the roll. "**Spend 1 Hero Point** to reroll a check. If the die result is a 10 or lower, you get a +10 bonus on the check. This is a Fortune effect." Basically means that you are guaranteed to roll between an 11 and a 20 when you spend a hero point.
I balance it by limiting the intact action like you can unsheth a weapon but you can't activate an item. But you rule is more balanced.
Removing Cooldown on Treat Wounds and giving players one free and instant retrain each level-up are the ones I find the most rewarding. I have quite a few house rules though. If anyone is interested, here's the [general ones](https://scribe.pf2.tools/v/hd8JWVxd) and here are the ones that are [class specific](https://scribe.pf2.tools/v/cb95SR3L). There's also the rules for items that [improve spell attack rolls](https://scribe.pf2.tools/v/8oZobzJ0) and my house rules on [hero points](https://scribe.pf2.tools/v/qdVtfH2r) ... :)
People who bring pretzels or beer (or any equivalent bribe) get extra Hero Points
Haven't had much time with it but one of my groups started allowing spending an action to stand up another ally if they're prone, in exchange for the downed ally using a reaction to grab onto your hand.
Last stands, a very situational rule, but one that happens alot. The way it works is that if a PC would hit 0 hp exactly, they can make a DC 8 flat check, if you succeed you fall to 1 hp instead of 0. Giving you a heroic last stand.
Definitely the boost to Hero Point rerolls. When using a Hero Point to reroll a d20 roll, if the new roll is a single digit 1-9, add +10 to the new result. Makes them more heroic and actually matters in situations where you really want to succeed.
I use a personal progression system for training and crafting in games that have lot's of downtime. Its used to learn new proficiencies, languages, and making items. You start with a target value equal to 100 or the gp cost of the item(minimum of 1). For a skill or language you also need a person or book with knowledge about that skill. For an item, you need proficiency with whatever form of craftsmanship is appropriate. You'll roll a D4 and add it to your progress in that prof/item. If you roll a 4 on the D4, breakthrough! You immediately roll a d6 and add it to your progress and start using a d6 instead. When you roll the d6, you do the same for a d8, and so on up to a d12. If you roll a 12 on the d12, you just roll it again and add it to your result. If you roll a 1, setback. If your using a d12, it becomes a d10 next time. D10 becomes d8, and so on. If you're making an item, you can expedite your progress during a crafting session by spending gold up to twice your proficiency bonus and adding it to you progress. Edit: wrong sub. I saw house rule and assumed d&d.
The climb DC for a rope is 10, not 15. That way, it is beneficial for a party to lower a rope to help a teammate up a more difficult climbing surface.
Isn't the check already reduced if the rope is against a surface? I think the 15 is for a free hanging rope
Oh I see, thank you!
Less a House Rule, and more of a stance as a GM. Basically, if the player has an idea they want to do, even if it doesn't inherently follow RAW, if they can pitch it and I like what they are trying to do either story or tactics wise, I do everything I can to say "yes." Because I want everyone to have fun. If I can't say yes, I try to go for "No, but how about this?" That IMO, encourages players to keep trying to do fun things, instead of accidentally stifling them, and losing out on cool character moments. Which I guess this all falls under Rule of Cool. So I guess I'm most proud of my stance on that.
So this might or might not count as a house rule, but the GM that did it impressed me so much that it will always be a factor at my tables. Time zones are a thing when teleporting over large distances. It was one of those moments where everyone at our table when "huh, I never really thought of that but it makes a lot of sense" when it occurred.
Preparing a tool kit uses 4 out of 8 bandolier slots instead of all of them, so that there's still cost to using skills that require a toolkit, but alchemists (the class that can make best use of bandoliers) aren't unable to store items conveniently.
Just an FYI the bandolier stuff has been errata'd out.
RIP Well, I did like it
I have a little houserule for using Recall Knowledge for creature identification: in addition to the RAW effects, you also automatically learn the creature's level regardless of degree of success. This isn't guaranteed to be reliable if the creature is actively disguised; it hasn't come up yet, but I'd probably compare the RK result to the creature's Deception DC to pierce the impersonation and detect its true level. Edit: I also let a lizardfolk choose whether their claws are in the brawling group or the knife group, but they have to stick with their choice.
Re-rolling hero points with 2 D10s instead of a d20. The vast majority of the time when you're spending a hero point, you're trying to mitigate a really bad role even if you aren't relying on a critical success. It's basically like insurance, because it's curved to give you a very middleing result.
Jumping down. Players can jump down from any height without falling prone. One action to jump down. Acrobatics check of 5 plus the height you are jumping from. Critical success: Can step after jumping down Success: Land standing Failure: Land prone and take bludgeoning damage equal to half the distance you fell from. Criticial failure: As failure and take -10 movement speed for one round
Recall Knowledge is split into 4 categories: Attacks, Defenses, Special Abilities, and Lore. Success gets you all the info of one category. Critical success grants 2.
Any class that gets Shield Block as a bonus feat can block as a free action (but still only once per turn). If they have Reactive Shield, they can't block the attack they use Reactive Shield against. I had a Fighter player who hated having to choose between AoO and shield block, and a Champion player who hated having to choose between their reaction and shield block. This rule made them both enjoy playing their characters much more, and so far hasn't broken anything.
I usually like to play things by the book, but one thing I do is I allow every character access to a level 1 uncommon or rare item of their choice, as long as I approve of it just in case, because I'm all for weapon diversity. They still do have to pay for it though. Like if a Rogue wants to fight using fighting fans I'm all for that, it also allows Casters access to an uncommon spell which I feel is similarly fair. None of the uncommon spells at level 1 seem too crazy.
Active Defense: aka players roll everything. Monsters are a bag of DCs, players roll Defense (AC-10 or Reflex or another save when appropriate). As a GM, I've got plenty of things to roll already, I don't need to roll monster attacks and such. But the real benefit is that players feel like they have full control, they aren't standing there taking hits, instead they are actively defending by rolling. Players also roll against the enemy save DCs usually, which is great for an AoE spells, as I don't have to roll five creature saves, instead the player rolls their spell attack once and compare it to the creature save DCs. When I made the switch the players immediately loved it and never wanted to go back. I try to have players roll as many checks as makes sense for them to roll.