Pathfinder 2E PF2 house-rules / variant rules

[Thomas Shey]

If folks only have 5E experience, I guess I could see this. The thing about PF2 is once you start making decisions (ancestry, background, class) your feat pool narrows greatly. At level up its pretty easy to find the 2-3 feats that apply, and then decide on the one that helps you. In the past, you just had a mountain of feats to choose from and perquisites was the only limiter.

Yeah, the siloing of feats by type and level really means that getting worked up about the total number seems odd to me (though that said, you can have a situation where you're looking back at lower level feats because the current level ones are either impossible or uninteresting; I had that happen a couple times with my current character).

 

[JmanTheDM]

my house rules:
1) Hero Point variant. Anytime you score a crit. earn a hero point. I forget to award HP's - this mitigates that. also, with max 3, start a session with 1, it does lower lethality. I find my players always keep 1 HP in reserve for death and I find this House rule increases its use, for, like, heroic deeds.
2) you can spend HP on flat checks
3) you can spend HP on "hidden" rolls. treat as an Advantage roll for GM - where GM must take highest result.
4) Recall Knowledge. success = 1 "mechanic" rule reveal. player choose. (in addition to the name, lore details etc). crit success = 3 questions

Cheers,

J.

 

[dave2008]

I have some house rules I would want to implement in PF2 since I have used a version of them in 1e, 4e, and 5e. I would love to know what issues might come up from these house-rules so I can trouble shoot them before I play.

1. Bloodied Hit Points: In addition to Hit Points (HP) you have a 2nd pool of hit points called bloodied hit points (BHP). You only lose BHP when your HP are zero or on a critical hit. BHP = (STR mod + CON mod) x size*
2. Death at 0: At 0 BHP your dead.
3. Armor with DR: AC is used and calculated normally. However, when you take a hit to your BHP, the damage is reduced by your armor's DR. In 5e I used the armor AC-10 for the DR value. I am not sure what to use in PF2 (note I would use PWL).

There are others, but some variant of the above would be required for my group to play PF2.

 

[MaskedGuy]

I have some house rules I would want to implement in PF2 since I have used a version of them in 1e, 4e, and 5e. I would love to know what issues might come up from these house-rules so I can trouble shoot them before I play.

1. Bloodied Hit Points: In addition to Hit Points (HP) you have a 2nd pool of hit points called bloodied hit points (BHP). You only lose BHP when your HP are zero or on a critical hit. BHP = (STR mod + CON mod) x size*
2. Death at 0: At 0 BHP your dead.
3. Armor with DR: AC is used and calculated normally. However, when you take a hit to your BHP, the damage is reduced by your armor's DR. In 5e I used the armor AC-10 for the DR value. I am not sure what to use in PF2 (note I would use PWL).

There are others, but some variant of the above would be required for my group to play PF2.

First one sounds like Starfinder's Stamina/HP/Resolve point pool thing to some extend. Heck pathfinder 2e has stamina point variant rule as well, I don't remember if it had resolve though which fits the idea of "point pool to spend to avoid dying".

Third one kinda conflicts with stuff like plate armor specialization bonus that gives you slashing resistance.

 

[dave2008]

First one sounds like Starfinder's Stamina/HP/Resolve point pool thing to some extend.

I am not familiar with Starfinder. We developed from 4e's bloodied condition.

Heck pathfinder 2e has stamina point variant rule as well, I don't remember if it had resolve though which fits the idea of "point pool to spend to avoid dying".

Is that in the GMG? I think it is, I will have to check it out. Thank you for the reminder.

Third one kinda conflicts with stuff like plate armor specialization bonus that gives you slashing resistance.

Good point, that is the type of feedback I need to help flesh these out.

 

[Staffan]

Similarly I wish Paizo had been brave enough to just make Automatic Bonus Progression the standard.

One of the developers (I think it was Jason Buhlman, but I'm not sure) pointed out a subtle benefit of magic items: they provide more incremental increases in capability. With ABP, your bonuses are strictly tied to your level. When you level up, both your proficiency bonus and your ABPs go up. With items, you will gain some increases mid-level which means you get more frequent "dings". And dings are fun.

 

[Philip Benz]

IMHO, PF2 doesn't really need any major house rules. The design team has been pretty thorough, and there aren't any glaring holes in the game, as far as I can see. Every time some PF2 detractor pops up and starts complaining about this or that part of the game, I just shake my head and gather the arguments to show how much they are wrong.

This said, a few houserules could be helpful...

• It's true that standard PF2 PCs often seem feat-starved. I've started to use the Free Archetype optional rules, but I'd still hesitate to propose that to new players who may already be overwhelmed by all the choices they have to make. Ancestry Paragon seems fairly tame, but using both together might be a step too far.
• Every time a Magus uses spellstrike, he draws an AoO. This just feels wrong, since it's the class's main schtick.
• Medicine checks to heal wounds are unnecessarily complex when you have to start choosing between healing more with a harder DC and healing less with a lower DC. It'd just be simpler to add a flat bonus for expert and higher proficiencies. So that's what I plan to start doing.
• I'm seriously considering adding in a special wand item that will give a +1 to +3 bonus to spell attacks, like striking runes for weapons. So far, in my homebrew campaign it hasn't really been an issue, thanks to the next point.
• I tend to prefer encounters with larger numbers of lower-level adversaries, rather than a smaller number (even solo) creature that is 3 or 4 levels above the PCS. Much of the frustration I have heard about combat math from published APs can be directly linked to their preference for high-level adversaries. But I've talked about that a lot already in other threads.
• Last point: it often feels like magic items have an inflated item level. So I haven't hesitated to give out the occasional loot item that is 2-4 levels above the PCs, especially if it's not a strictly combat-oriented item.

What else? Alchemists could use a boost, but I'm not sure what it should be. My campaign is up to session 56 or so, and frankly, the RAW seems sufficient for nearly everything. Any DM needs to stay open to on-the-fly fixes, but as for real

 

[dave2008]

IMHO, PF2 doesn't really need any major house rules.

I would say the same thing of 5e.

The design team has been pretty thorough, and there aren't any glaring holes in the game, as far as I can see. Every time some PF2 detractor pops up and starts complaining about this or that part of the game, I just shake my head and gather the arguments to show how much they are wrong.

The house rules we use in 5e aren't meant to fix anything, but to change things to our taste. And that is want I would want for PF2 as well. I think the game is great for what it is, but ideally I want something a bit different. I just want to change things to be more to my taste. But, after thinking about it some more, I am starting to wonder if PF2 can't be stretched that far. In addition to the 5e house rules I listed in post #23 that I would want to include, I want the following in my PF2 game:

• Max PC ability score of 18 (for most races)
• Magic items generally don't give a bonus to hit
• I want a more bounded game numerically. I am note sure of the range but I am thinking lvl 20 should get you +10-12 over lvl 1 without magic items/spells. So lvl 20 legendary fighter with maxed ability score will have a +12 to hit and a lvl 1 trained fighter will have +2, or something like that.
• Low magic (can't but magic items & crafting is either very hard/expensive or impossible).

Would these break the game?
Would it be to difficult to implement?
Should I just play a different game?

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Our Hero Point System is that you get One + (1/2 Charisma Mod) that reset on daily preparation.

We do use the Free Archetype Variant, its our group's chosen default.

I have a system where you spend gold to level up, complete with a table, for our West Marches Hexcrawl.

We most recently gave all familiars the Tattoo Transformation Familiar Ability to create a "the familiar is active/not active" binary.

We boosted the proficiency on the Alchemist to bring it into line with the Inventor, and banned Quicksilver Mutagen.

Oh, and I don't make the 'usual' exceptions to allow players to special order high level magic items in lower level settlements, to provide niche protection to crafting.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I would say the same thing of 5e.

The house rules we use in 5e aren't meant to fix anything, but to change things to our taste. And that is want I would want for PF2 as well. I think the game is great for what it is, but ideally I want something a bit different. I just want to change things to be more to my taste. But, after thinking about it some more, I am starting to wonder if PF2 can't be stretched that far. In addition to the 5e house rules I listed in post #23 that I would want to include, I want the following in my PF2 game:

• Max PC ability score of 18 (for most races)
• Magic items generally don't give a bonus to hit
• I want a more bounded game numerically. I am note sure of the range but I am thinking lvl 20 should get you +10-12 over lvl 1 without magic items/spells. So lvl 20 legendary fighter with maxed ability score will have a +12 to hit and a lvl 1 trained fighter will have +2, or something like that.
• Low magic (can't but magic items & crafting is either very hard/expensive or impossible).

Would these break the game?
Would it be to difficult to implement?
Should I just play a different game?

I think they'd be fine,

- You're looking at 1/2 proficiency to level (which would be +10 at level 20).

- Automatic Bonus Progression, to cover the item math so they have their essential bonuses.

The only one that doesn't work is the first one (the need for ability scores beyond 18 is baked into monster DC tables), I wouldn't even try that one. As for ease of use, I believe that you can use this browser extension to do half level to proficiency for monsters through nethys assuming the extension still works, and your players can either track half prof manually, or if they use Pathbuilder, can turn level to prof off, and give themselves half level instead. Character Generators have ABP built in, or your players can track it manually using the directions in the GMG. Then you can just give whatever amount of treasure you want, and it won't matter.