Pathfinder 1E What are your Pathfinder houserules?

[Wik]

One I'd like to see, but maybe in another campaign, is that after every fight, all players heal up to their full hit point value. However, during the fight, if they take more than x damage in a single attack, they are "wounded" and suffer a random wound on a table (sprained leg, broken wrist, etc.), or maybe just have each wound be a cumulative -1 penalty to various skill checks.

 

[billd91]

I'm Blarg's GM, and I am finding this thread very interesting. I was a bit nervous to get back into 3.5/Pathfinder, because when I switched over to 4th, I said loudly "Never again!". I had too many bad memories of 3.5E, and so when I realized I hated 4e worse, I was seriously considering switching to another system entirely.

However, I REALLY wanted to run Dark Sun again, and decided to do so using Pathfinder... with changes. It wound up being quite a few changes - some to tweak the rules to better fit the Dark Sun setting, and some just to fix major problems I have with the system. Here are a few of the house rules we have (most were argued over and tweaked by the group before entering play):

So how do you feel it's working? Have your house rules been enough to ameliorate the "Never again!" impulse?

 

[Wik]

So how do you feel it's working? Have your house rules been enough to ameliorate the "Never again!" impulse?

Yes. I've loved my house rules, and I've found they've fixed most of the problems I've had with the various 3e incarnations. While I still don't find the game perfect, there have been far fewer headaches than there were just prior to the release of 4e. That being said, I've found in hindsight that the headaches that are a 10th to 12th level group of 3.5E PCs are much less than those induced by 25th level 4E PCs (where I came close to giving up on D&D entirely).

The Constitution/Hit Point revamp is probably my favourite house rule, and will be in every game I run from now on. Background skills are also up there. I kind of like the idea of playing around with stunts to get around auto Attacks of Opportunity and stuff like that, but I can wait before I start tinkering in that direction.

 

[Voadam]

* Hit Points: You start with your constitution score in hit points, plus half your class's hit die. No constitution modifier. Every level, you roll just your class hit die for hit points - if you would have a bonus to your hit points from constitution, that will affect your minimum roll, while if you have a con penalty, it will act as a ceiling on your maximum roll, but otherwise, your modifier doesn't affect your hit points. As an example, a rogue with a +2 con modifier would have a hit point total ranging from 3 to 8, while a wizard with a -1 con penalty would have hit points each level ranging from 1 to 5. I love this rule, as it makes constitution much less important for characters.

That's pretty nifty. Con will be more important than default though at low levels. hp will be higher at low levels but much lower at high levels than default PF.

What happens with barbarian rage and con boosting items, do they have no impact on hp?

 

[Voadam]

I gave flat bonus hp at first level = to con. I wanted more hp at low levels with less impact from the bonus at higher levels.

I used half HD round up instead of rolling. I dislike random hp rolling.

I gave all saves an increase to 1/2 advancement, strong advancing ones keep the +2 at 1st level as a nonstacking competence bonus. I didn't want the 3e super vulnerable save discrepancies found at high levels.

I used a variation of reserve points, x2 hp in pool, they can be accessed in short rests, all magic healing comes from the pool, and 4e style current hp and the pool refreshes each day. Healing magic is only needed for in-combat use now and noncasting in the party is viable.

All casting classes get healing spells on their spell lists at the lowest they are available to anyone.

I used Unearthed Arcana recharge magic and spontaneous casting. I prefer those systems to straight vancian resource management.

I gave most spells a save each round with a cumulative +1 bonus. So they are easier to shake off over time.

I condensed climb and swim into athletics.

I used Trailblazer style solos and elites and 4e style minions and solo/elite type powers on my monsters. I used bloodied as a description. I like 4e monster design a bunch.

 

[blargney the second]

That's pretty nifty. Con will be more important than default though at low levels. hp will be higher at low levels but much lower at high levels than default PF.

What happens with barbarian rage and con boosting items, do they have no impact on hp?

We're playing E6, so the high level problem never comes into it. Mathematically, it works out to a larger initial starting total, with a more shallow slope. By level 6, it should be approximately a wash with the standard hit point system, depending on hit die rolls. Interestingly, since this is Pathfinder, we can use favoured classes to help shore up our hit points if we roll poorly on hit dice.

Barbarian rage just increases your hp by +4. Con boosting items don't exist. (or any of the Big Six items, for that matter)

On a tangent, we're looking at tweaking the magic item crafting rules to fit our campaign, and really could use some feedback.

 

[Matthias]

I want to add to my previous posts that when it comes to the +1 hp or +1 skill point allotted for favored classes, I simply award both (and have not considered allowing any of the alternative favored class bonuses).

 

[TarionzCousin]

We use an old dragon magazine for stat generation, using red dragon ante cards to determine starting ability scores - this is fun, and it makes players approach their characters in interesting ways.

Which Dragon magazine issue is this in? How does it work?

 

[Wik]

Which Dragon magazine issue is this in? How does it work?

#346.

Essentially, you get out your three dragon ante cards, or take a deck of normal cards and modify them slightly. You then take a number of tokens or pennies, depending on the point buy level you are using from the 3.5E DMG (We use the 3.5E method to determine abilities, and then port over to pathfinder, so we can use this article). I believe our group uses 28 points.

Anyways, you do a tarot-style spread for your abilities, and put the tokens in varying amounts on each card - there are five in the middle, and six on the outside, with each of hte outside six starting corresponding to an ability score.

The inner cards generally divide the tokens up into varying aspects of the charcter, depending on which card you drew (the magazine article explains this a bit better) and then the outer cards either steal tokens from other ability scores, or give their tokens to other abilities. In the end, you count the tokens on each ability, and figure out what point cost those abilities are at. And you're good to go.

We use an "organic" system, so players are allowed to switch one set of abilities to better fit their character. Generally, everyone has at least one stat of 15, and it's not uncommong to have a 16, though 17s and 18s are rare (I think we've only seen two so far). You tend to see odd character choices, and sometimes PCs have to make do with low abilities that they would otherwise not have - our inquisitor has an 8 strength, and one of the psions had to fight to counter his constitution of 8.

I like the system, because it lets us have random ability scores, without having the huge imbalance between characters caused by random ability scores - everyone's ability scores tally up to the same point total, after all.

 

[Wik]

I want to add to my previous posts that when it comes to the +1 hp or +1 skill point allotted for favored classes, I simply award both (and have not considered allowing any of the alternative favored class bonuses).

Hm. That's an interesting house rule. I agree that the alternative class bonuses are not very good. But do you have any power creep problems with your decision? How has it affected play?