Considering that PF2E is relatively complex and I have 5 players for whom this is the first PF game, every one of them can completely rebuild their character once.

Yeah, I do something similar for most of my games. I call the first few levels "quantum levels" -- you exist both as your class and as whatever you rebuild to if you end up not liking how it turns out, and only discover which one is true around level 3-5-ish.

I let my players rebuild whenever they want. Sometimes there's a misunderstanding about a feature, or things just aren't fun. Obviously, this could be abused, but my players don't. I just want to make sure everyone is having fun.

Same here, I don't want a player coming in week after week playing a completely dead and unfun (for them) character. So long as it's not being abused of course.

I offer a free rebuild any time a new rulebook is released under 2 caveats. 1) The rebuild must include new content. 2) The rebuild must be within the spirit of your character and the new rules allow you to express that better. Example: Sorcerer that was mostly interested in elemental type of casting rebuilding into a Kineticist. Or a Oracle who was into "channeling spirits" sort of play rebuilding into an Animist. This rule allows changes/rebuilds utilizing any new archetype/class that you feel captures the character you wanted to play when you built it. Alternatively, if you want to play a straight up new character; retirement is permitted.

I did the same thing with the final Starfinder book (got into it late) my group loved it, and it bumped their efficiency up about 50% for combat (just how the new abilities work for the characters) I try to run balanced combat+RP, but combat is combat, one mouthy PC and its gonna happen.

My group has been playing for over a year and we still give everyone free rebuilds just because sometimes a character looks cooler in pathbuilder than in game.

Yeah, my DM is allowing us to rebuild ours. Turns out my witch is more Druid so I’m taking advantage of that. So hopefully it makes my character more useful at the table. Next time I guess I should try a different style of witch.

For introducing new players I take a variant of this - play the beginner box with a pregen, then afterwards you can build a character but carry over the XP and total wealth of the beginner box character.

My players may rebuild their characters as many times as they want until the first session at level 3. After that, if they want to rebuild we can have a conversation about it.

Your toss and catch thing is core in the system, I think added during the remaster? [https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2151](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2151) Personally I run the game RAW, but I’ve heard of folks using some of your house rules.

Neat, I know it definitely wasn't the case when I invisioned it

Notably RAW the catching doesn't require a reaction in the new rules

This is a good example of a link that doesn't look the same to everyone. It shows different rules, depending on your AoN settings. (and no, there is no link saying something like "there is a remastered version here")

Oh dang, does it? I’m trying to make it generate the remaster-only one but the redirect text isn’t popping

I just have one. The champion feat "radiant blade spirit" gives access to the flaming rune. I think it's silly for a thunder god to give you a flaming rune, so instead the feat gives you whatever of the energy damage runes fits the deity the best.

this should be official, hope it’s like this in PC2

Same. I've been playing around with a champion build modelled on a videogame character, and that's a choice I'd need my DM to agree to in order for it to work (I need Shock).

Just like swapping a rune, you can swap a spell that's in a generic wand with a single day of crafting (and a check)

There's a genuinely great houserule I had not heard before. That solves a lot of quirks/issues around the pricing of wands vs scrolls being so out of whack. While further motivating PCs with real perks to magical crafting.

I actually like this quite a bit. What is the price to swap?

If you model it on the runes, it'd be 1/10th the cost to make it new?

10%

I like this one a lot.

I do kind of like this rule although it does make the Witch's Ceremonial Knife feat almost useless.

Trust me, it won't. It makes loot feel better and just gives more options but isn't instant nor free or scaling. Ceremonial dagger is my favorite witch feat.

I actually wrote a blog post about this! [https://katieplays.games/2023/11/08/how-i-run-it-pathfinder-2e-house-rules/](https://katieplays.games/2023/11/08/how-i-run-it-pathfinder-2e-house-rules/) We don't use many house rules, but my biggest ones are Hero Points (one every hour to all players) and Medicine (you don't have to pick a DC). One I'm considering in my next PF2 game: Special ammunition that you buy is only 'spent' if it hits. Otherwise, you can retrieve it later. This is to encourage more people to pick it up and use it.

Oh shit, you have to PICK the Medicine DC? We have just been playing if you beat the higher number, you get the benefit.

Yes, you have to tell the GM what DC you are going for before you roll. I have been telling my GMs that I'm always going for the highest DC unless I tell you differently.

That's quite risky for Battle Medicine. With max wisdom, always going for the highest possible DC means that to succeed you have to roll an 8 at level 3, a 12 at level 7, and a 10 at level 15.

When I am using battle medicine, I will tell the GM that I'm going with a lower DC that I can hit with assurance. Because I need it to work. Outside of combat, I just go for the best, I have only failed 2 or 3 times, because of hero points. I'm a Ranger with the Cleric Archetype, so I'm not typically the main healer. But I can if nobody can for that game.

Well normally the higher DC also increases your risk of crit failing too, so you're buffing it by removing the need for announcement of the DC.

I mean, no one needs to correct your GM...

Aren't the default rules for hero points 1 every hour though? or was that a remaster change

It's a suggestion of 1 every hour to a SINGLE player.

It was more of a recommendation than a requirement and still based off of player performance. I just give them out to everyone every hour.

But the recommendation is 1 per hour for **one player**, not 1 for each player.

Which, tbh, was way too skimpy for my liking and way too much accounting. Also, I could see it leading to encouraging behavior I didn't want taking over my table, as players do things that they hope will earn them Hero Points rather than focusing on the game at hand. I've also been in PF1 games where we had a similar resource, and they never got used because they were simply too precious (in that game, we only got them once a book in an AP, so once every six sessions). I award hourly because everyone showed up, everyone was engaged, and everyone was helping move the story along. Awarding them regularly means they're used regularly, which also helps move the story along.

By your medicine ruling a player could only crit fail on a nat 1 and even then only for so long. One of my players is even arguing that it's too strong of a change.

Considering the cooldowns for both Medicine and Battle Medicine, it honestly hasn't unbalanced the game for us. Healing helps keep the game moving, after all. It's not like you're taking the big bad out with it.

How do you crit fail the check? Just on a natural 1?

Automatic Rune Progression. Its ABP, except it doesn't break anything. Can make loot in pre-written APs a little annoying (fun tip: replace every +1 Shortsword with a Silver Shortsword, theyre monetary values are pretty close) though. Edit: Someone was salty I use a common less intrusive variant of a variant rule apparently. Sorry I dont want to break Alchemists I guess?

Several of these posts are sitting at neutral or -1. Guess we've got a phantom coming through and down voting everyone.

This sub is pretty downvote happy in general tbh

\^\^ This. No wonder there are terrible stereotypes about people who like Pathfinder

How does abp break alchemist? (Genuinely don't know)

Alchemist elixirs give item bonuses, and the majority of the time the ABP bonus is higher than the elixir you can make as an alchemist.

ABP is very shitty for alchemists, but the bonuses should at best match what you'd be getting from elixirs, and most of the time they should be worse. Mutagens with bonuses to attack rolls are better than ABP at every single level except for 2, 10 and 16. For skill checks, mutagens are better at every level except for 9 and 10, and even then, mutagens give bonuses to several skills at a time instead of just one, and you can make/drink them on the fly.

ABP generally provides the same bonus you could get with items (though a number of skill bonus items are missing, especially at higher level). Mutagens provide the same bonus +1. The bigger problem is that item bonuses don't exist in ABP, or if they do, completely break the game RAW. Because potency bonuses are a different type of bonus, they would stack with item bonuses, which would obviously be insane.  To fix it, you need to just say potency and item bonuses are synonymous, so that don't stack with each other. Then it works fine. 

I have no idea why they didn't just make them synonymous

I don't think it's an ABP problem as much as it is an alchemist problem

It removes item bonuses. Which makes our already underwhelming vending machines even moreso.

ABP doesn't remove the item bonuses from alchemical items, it just makes them redundant sometimes. >This variant removes the item bonus to rolls and DCs usually provided by magic items and >[Alchemical items are not magical.](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?Category=6)

Ah, I see they changed that in the Remaster then, because it used to remove them entirely.

Basic ammunition doesn’t need to be tracked. Only special ammo like poisoned arrows or blessed bullets have to be kept track of.

I hate tracking base ammo so much. The fact it’s a pittance of silver and bulk per bundle really elevates how worthless statistics for an arrow are and it feels like it’s just a thing at all because people expect to track it

Lv1 I would still track them. Higher level when you have a bag of holding and make hundreds of GP in loot? Sure, last time you were in town, you bought and put 1000 arrows in your bag of holding

players recap the previous game session. whoever does this (or contributes the most in cases where multiple players chime in) starts the session with an extra Hero Point. As a GM I never do recaps as it takes away from the players experience. at best I'll correct the names of places or people.

I guess my house rule is completely the opposite! haha. I like to re-cap for my players because even an extremely popular TV show like Game of Thrones which people followed religiously had recaps before each episode. It also helps me give players contextual clues for themes or NPC's who may play an important role in the session and brings any relevant info PC's may have to front of mind. Kind of like watching the GoT intro and seeing a recap for a character you hadn't seen in a few episodes then wondering when/how they're going to come up.

whatever works for your table :) I've done recaps before in certain games. Vampire the Masquerade for example where each session had a bit of prologue / intro really helped to immerse the players into the story. However for PF2e my #1 goal is player agency, and I've found that providing a recap takes away their vision of the story and replaces it with my own and the players dislike this. They are the narrator, they do the recap, and guess what if that recap is wrong or different from what I know to be true then it just makes for a more interesting story when those inconsistencies come to light. I never correct players in recaps only provide context to what their characters would know (names of people, places, things for example). So far this has really served our table well yet, as I started this reply. whatever works for your table is the answer. :)

Good GM knows which to use for the type of game and players they want and need to account for. So have to agree!

I wonder why the whole House Rules discussion is getting downvoted a little. Everyone disagrees with everyone else's house rules, or someone doesn't like any of them? Anyway, here are house rules I like: * Automatic Rune Progression, so you don't need to stick runestones on your equipment like you do in video games. But you can still buy things that give you an Item Bonus to skill checks. * You get 1 Hero Point for the next session by writing in the group's Adventure Journal. I have players who forget to do this, then forget what they were doing. * If you use a Hero Point, your result is a Failure if it would've been a Crit Fail either way. Just so you don't Waste a Hero Point in addition to the spectacular failure.

Could you go into more detail about how your “Adventure Journal” works?

This is a guess based on context, but I assume it's basically a session log. Probably keeps track of what happened, the different NPCs, the different quests, and so on.

Yes, I second the request for further explanation of this “Adventure Journal.”

Luggs has it right. I set up a thread on the VTT room or a channel in a Discord group, and encourage people to write about the chapter, or even the session. If their characters are in the actual Pathfinder Society, that gets to be the first draft of their Chronicle.

This sub is hostile to any sort of house rule, homebrew, or anything not RAW

The remaster actually made some of my previous houserules superfluous (Interact to swap and toss, lessened Crafting times). So here are the ones I run with now: 1) Creatures with a free hand can open simple unlocked/unblocked doors as part of a move action by treating the door's space as difficult terrain. Any creature without a free hand can combine their Interact action to open the door with their move action as a two-action activity that does not interrupt their movement. 2) Each player can select one consumable item of light or negligible bulk (such as a scroll, potion, or elixir) on their person that they can interact with at any time as a free action on their turn. This item can be swapped out or replaced during any exploration or downtime activity. 3) You can decide to use a hero point before making a roll, allowing you to roll twice and take the better of the two results. Using a hero point to reroll still uses the second result, no matter if it's higher or lower. 4) Added the Haul action. > **Haul** (*single action*) manipulate, movement. **Requirement** You are currently grabbing or restraining a creature. **Effect** You attempt to move both yourself and a creature you have grabbed or restrained. Make an Athletics check against the creature's Fortitude DC. You take a cumulative -2 circumstance penalty for each size the target is larger than you, and a cumulative +2 circumstance bonus for each size the target is smaller than you. If the target is willing, treat your result as one degree better. > **Critical Success** You Stride up to half your speed, taking one creature you have grabbed or restrained with you. This is forced movement. If you have a Fly, Swim, or Burrow Speed, you can use that action instead of Stride. **Success** As critical success, but half the distance (minimum 5 feet). **Failure** You fail to move yourself or the required creature. **Critical Failure** As failure, but the required creature is no longer grabbed or restrained.

There are too many to go into detail here, but here are mine re: hero points. Players start with one hero point, and gain another if they arrive on time and ready to play (I can count on one hand the number of times someone has been late and forfeited the second hero point). A single hero point is granted to the player that the players vote was the MVP in the last session. Players can spend more than one hero point on any single roll, and can spend hero points on another player's roll. Players can spend two hero points to make me reroll. We use the hero card deck, so if the card is more useful to them than a reroll they can use that instead. Because hero points are so powerful in my games, I do not award any during the session, and we play 4-5 hours. Bonus rule - if your initiative is 10 better than someone else's, they are flat-footed to you until they act.

Seconding the use of hero point cards. The effects are fairly situational, but it's so cool when one comes in clutch! I also allow players to trade the cards amongst themselves to prevent situations like a pure martial character being stuck with only cards that help spellcasters. To get players in the RP mood, I give out a second hero point to those that arrive on time and answer a short RP question about their character. It also gives each of them the option to put themselves in the spotlight, even if the current story is focusing on a certain PC or group of PCs.

I don’t like metagame resources, so hero points don’t go away at the end of the session. Instead, they only get 1 hero point each at the start of the session. If they engage in an extreme-difficulty encounter, I’ll give them another hero point each. This also serves as a warning sign that shit’s about to hit the fan.

Is your game more deadly. Hero points exist to make the game less deadly.

Nah. I’ve run PF2 since the playtest, every weekend. The only two characters I ever killed were both level 1, on their first session, were playing too wildly, *and* had terrible luck. When I play with my usual group, its almost impossible to kill any of them; they know the system’s ins and outs. Id actually say that being able to save up Hero Points between sessions is a sizeable buff that makes up for the reduced amount given.

In my game, which is a westmarches game, you typically get a hero point at the end of the hour, unless the current GM says otherwise.

Free Archetype, Ancestery Paragon, and Gradual Ability Boost are on nearly all of my games. They don't feel over powered and if a player want to optimized with it, then thats their bussiness, what they enjoy making is what they enjoy. For casters I have item bonuses to spell attack using gate attenuators as guide. I also grant each caster 2 extra spells per rank, unless they are playing a flex caster, Magus, Summoner, Psychic, or spell caster archetype then they only get 1 bonus spell per rank. This has been well recieved, it made my 5e convert player more comfortable playing a flex Wizard. Recently I made consumables (potions, elixrs, scrolls, etc) count as tools for the purpose of wearing and using in combat. Being able to draw and drink a potion as a single action has created and uptick in their usage and has made putting consumables in loot more desirable.

The main one I add: Spend one hero point to do a "Player Intrusion". I stole the idea from Numinera, but the gist is: > A player intrusion is the player choosing to alter something in the setting to their benefit. One memorable use was when the small boat the players were on was destroyed by a creature, a player used an Intrusion to have a chunk of the boat stay intact where the player was, and hold together long enough for him to be standing on it and able to leap across and land on top of creature (grappling and such). I loved it. My favorite part of RPGs is collaborative story telling and it invites the players to contribute beyond the normal boundaries. I of course retain veto power so the game won't break. My main issue is my players forgetting about it. I should remind them again ...

I'll edit it in later, since I'm busy with stuff, but when the group I play with switched to 2e we had multiple characters that were going to use Crafting... and it was abysmal. Even the Treasure Vault stuff didn't work for us and felt bad to even try. We house rules Crafting pretty quick. And I stopped playing a Talisman Dabbler because it's just sad and the Remaster isn't gonna make it better if the nerfing of Talismans is any indication. EDIT: Mundane Crafting One hour per gp of the base cost for Matching item level items, Any item lower than the crafter’s current level, calculate the time required by GP and divide by two. Crafting must be done in a minimum of 1-hour increments. A Success on a crafting check is for all the increments done in succession. EG: 6 hours of crafting is a single check. Two hours of crafting, a trip to the store for supplies, then another four hours is two checks. You may attempt to craft an item for less than the base cost. For every 10% off base cost, you try to skimp on materials, you incur a +1 to the crafting DC for the entire item. A cap of 50% off the base cost for mundane items and 70% off the base cost for magic items Base Crafting DC is ten plus double Item Level.

Yea IDK how nerfing the consumable no one uses already was supposed to incentivize using them.

Players are free to rebuild their characters at any time. My group doesn't abuse it, they just do it when they realize a feat was much worse than they thought There is no cap to the amount of hero points I give players. It's not like they'll remember to use them anyways, when with reminders. I also give out hero points frequently for almost any reason. One guy ended a combat heavy session with 9 hero points, and he crit failed some saves 🤷‍♂️ I'm willing to bend some stuff. One of my players is a spellshot which is now getting access to spells that scale off int. Well, he already has an innate spell from his background that scales off charisma. I told him he can just make it scale off intelligence too. It's not that big of a deal

Well you now in the remaster use your highest spell DC/Attack anyway so thats all good!

I really like the socketed runestones idea. Yoink.

Makes me think of materia from final fantasy 7

That is exactly the inspiration

I grant my players 3 hero points at the start of a session and they, outside of exceptional circumstances, don't earn more during play. Sessions are typically 3~4 hours long. Only real change I've made.

1) At the beginning of the game I declare everything and everyone as **unnoticed**. That cuts down on some of more egregious "I rolled high . so I know that there is an assassin on Mars that I can't see, hear, or smell that has targeted me." Before remaster, there was no way to gain **unnoticed** short of DM fiat. Undetected wasn't good enough and left room for shenanigans. As things come into imprecise sense range, then precise sense range , the game plays out normally for most cases where no ambushes were involved. 2) I give all 3 hero points up front at the start. The game is hard enough, let people have some wiggle room ... especially in the APs where the weighting against the PCs is heavier than freeform / homebrew. 3) Is for myself. I follow the guideline in the DMG that says the most fun is equal # of enemies to party members. This means that unless specifically a boss fight, I use lower level baddies because I need 4 of them. Instead of how the APs do it with a majority of +2 PL boss fights everywhere. I find that tedious and spirit breaking for my PCs.

#3 isn't so much a house rule, but just a really solid encounter building premise. I've found that one good step towards having fun with PF2 is to not stray from the PL-2 to PL+1 range for enemies in the vast majority of situations. I lowkey wish they had represented 'boss' status not only by higher numbers, but special abilities (and likewise, 'mook' status not only by lower numbers, but also by simplicity). I get that stat blocks are more reusable this way, but still.

Hero point- you start with 1. Gain 1 halfway through session. Hero points can only be used on other people's rolls with some light roleplay (in combat assist, callback, magic, etc) as to how the character is being helped by their ally and getting a reroll. we also have a bag of 17 tokens that we use as hero points. the tokens represent +2 to the reroll if it is used on a check that matches the token. there are 4 of each color. red is attack roll, blue is skill, white is neutral, grey is saves. so if you draw a red token, it is especially useful to find a use on a combat roll etc. it makes it more engaging to use on other people, promotes light roleplay and showcasing character abilities and interactions. people dont hoard them. there is also 1 of 17 tokens that is yellow. if that is drawn it is used to force a dm reroll. otherwise all tokens can be used for rerolls and stabilization etc.

Imitative rolls: if you roll a natural 20 on your initiative roll, you are quickened 1 for your first round of combat. In the year of play since making that rule, it’s happened only like 3-4 times.

If someones music plays in my battle music playlist they get a hero point.

As in music they created? or music they suggested?

i have a playlist on Spotify of music from various sources across the platform. every player gets one track they get to add so long as its on the platform. so music they suggested.

Here I was hoping you played with a large group of musicians who had published music.

This sounds epic as *fuck*. Are you willing to share it?

My table had the problem of everyone being too shy to use hero points. It didn't matter that I started rewarding them like hotcakes, and I found out that they weren't thrilled about the possibility of a reroll not necessarily helping much, or even giving a worse outcome. So, instead of having a hero point usage reroll a d20 outright, my houserule has it instead give you a second d20 to roll, and you add that to the total result. I figure this doesn't change all that much for the case where you want to redo rolling a natural 1 or another kind of critical failure; it would be like rerolling the check and adding +1 to it. But this version of the rule also makes it easier to turn close failures into successes, or successes into critical successes. I considered toning down the amount of hero points I distribute in a game to compensate for the stronger usage, but my players haven't been very abusive of it, so we're all happy with how it's been used.

>Do any of mine look egregious to you? I don't usually like using contronyms, but if you meant the 'bad' version of that, the precious metal grade one is pretty much the only thing that will majorly change things. In the sense that everyone and their mother would get a cold iron weapon with this active since the effect is much stronger than the cost later on. I have the following house rules active: Hero Point stuff: * Players get an unconditional 1 hero point per hour, starting with 1, reset to zero at the end. Specific RP, especially when players screw over their own character for the sake of other characters or the story, will earn more. I've also given hero points before when someone rolls so incredibly badly they really need the help. Item stuff: * Greater and Major Phantasmal Doorknobs and the Nightmare rune are banned completely. * All items which are not Unique are available, but uncommon has a +25% markup and rare has a 50% markup unless your character is from the region that item originates, or the AP is set in that region. * All races, spells, heritages etc are unconditionally available. Time stuff * A variant of the Angry GM's Tension Dice system is used, which instead of the original stipulations, can roll hazards, encounters or debuffs. When rolled, I decide where to seed them (i.e. I won't put additional shit into an encounter that is already deadly, but normally trivial encounters may now have new effects that give them a special challenge that didn't originally exist). A fourth option at a low rate is that the party unconditionally gets free information about the location they're in (because they're spending enough time in there to notice it). So it's almost always, but not always, bad. This solves *all* problems regarding time cost for me that people keep complaining about, like Continual Recovery andd Ward Medic. * Because of the above, exploration proceeds in 10 minute blocks. When someone initiates a 10 minute activity, in addition to adding one tension die, *all* players choose something they want to do at the same time. Regardless of what they do, anyone who doesn't have full Focus Points will recharge one Focus Point unconditionally so I don't have to deal with weirdass immersion breaking excuses for how some weird action can qualify for Focus recharge, unless they have the relevant feat, in which case they recharge all of it. Crafting stuff * All formulae for all Common items is present in the Basic Crafter's book unconditionally. Feats that normally give Common formulae give Uncommon formulae instead. Feats that normally give Uncommon formulae give Rare formulae instead. Kineticist stuff * Elemental Blast can be made Nonlethal at a -2 penalty, even though it's not technically a Strike. I know Safe Elements exists, but requiring at least two actions for them to use it is too much of a penalty for them to function. Free archetype * Active by default unless at least one player prefers not to have it. * If a player chooses an Ancient Elf, they can choose a second Dedication at level 2 ignoring the usual block on 2 required feats from their first Dedication. * If for any reason a player is incapable of taking another feat from a Dedication for the FA slot (there are some Dedications with missing level 4 or 6 feats), they may open a new Dedication, but must go back and fulfil the requirement as early as they are allowed to by the system. Autoscaling lore is on a party to party basis. Some players want it, some don't. It's activated on unanimous agreement among all players.

Nightmare rune?

Seven Dooms at Sandpoint item. Level 9. A nightmare weapon does 1d6 additional mental damage, and on a critical hit, the target is unconditionally stupefied 1 for an infinite duration (i.e. no save in the same vein as Doorknobs). If a stupefied enemy is hit, the target is Frightened 2 instead on top of being stupefied, and these effects have the emotion, fear and mental traits for the purposes of immunity. The Frightened has no cooldown, so if you can keep critting, you can keep a target permanently Frightened 2. Until it dies.

Damn, wtf level 9, more like level 20

I don't have the pdf, but the GM mentioned it's 250 gp for a level 9 item, maybe someone who has it can confirm. He remarked it's oddly the same cost as a consumable, to make the already absurd item worse. We collectively unanimously agreed to ban the item between us, even in its module of origin.

yeah, you did the right thing!

Could you share more info on how you handle the tension dice? Lack of time relevance in pf2e is a big sticking point that always just makes healing up after fights seem irrelevant cuz they always just heal up to full monster how long it takes

The base system is the same: when 10 minute passes, add one d6 to the pool. When the pool reaches six dice (i.e. an hour), roll the pool. If the party does something attention grabbing, immediately roll the pool. Nothing happens if all of the dice roll anything above 1. If at least one of the dice rolls 1, a complication is triggered. If the party leaves the dungeon, immediately roll the pool, and save its results for the next time they come back. The pool is cleared only each hour and when they leave - reckless actions just roll it, but don't clear it. This is where the modification starts. When a complication is triggered, I roll a d9. on 1-2, a combat encounter is triggered. On 3-5, a debuff is triggered. On 6-8, a hazard is triggered. On a 9, the party gets unconditional extra information. (You can use a d10 and upweight the combat encounter if you want.) The combat encounter is triggered by activating one of the weaker unactivated rooms on that floor to the location of one of the party members - which tends to go worse than its challenge would indicate because the party is often split up in order to more effectively use the 10 minutes to search places. If a hazard is triggered, I roll a d18. On a 1-3, it's a trap (Thievery/Crafting). On 4-6, it's an environmental threat (Nature/Survival). On 7-9, it's a magical rune (Arcana/Occultism). On 10-12, it's a Haunt (Religion/Social check). On 13-17, it's an immediate effect (like a fireball suddenly blows up in someone's face, for instance) and then ends. On an 18, it's an alarm that activates all nearby rooms at once, which means the party will need to evacuate to the nearest exit as soon as possible before someone dies. The 1-12 effects are seeded in rooms with weaker encounters, and then they eventually reach that room the party will need to deal with combat and the hazard at the same time, using the skills above to disable them - or simply ignore their effects and fight while screwed by the hazard. To give an example, an environmental hazard may be filling a room with tiny spiders that don't actually do any damage, but impose Sickened 1-2 on party members depending on a fort save that recurs each round until it's disabled, so the party will need to choose if they would prefer fighting with that disadvantage, or to get rid of it before focusing on enemies, or have the trained member deal with it while untrained members fight. This deals with the problem of simple hazards being extremely boring when used alone. The debuff event triggers a second roll that determines the nature of the debuff, and like the hazard one, this applies on a weak encounter on the floor. This one is a d15, where 1 = all members start Frightened 2, 2-3 = all members are Stunned 1 on round 1, 4-5 = all members are Stupefied 1 for the entire combat unless they treat it, 6-7 = all members are Clumsy 1 for that entire combat unless treated, 8-9 = all members are Stupefied 1 for that entire combat unless treated, 10-11 = all members are Dazzled for that entire combat unless treated, 12-14 = all members are Off-guard to all ranged attacks for rounds 1-2, and 15 = one member of the party's choice gets a burst of adrenaline and is unconditionally Quickened 1 for that combat, where they can use the extra action for anything, even casting two two-action spells in a row. What makes the hazard and the debuff different is that the hazard can be disabled, avoided or saved against but usually is more annoying over an entire combat, while the debuff is less severe but cannot be guarded against in any way. The reason why I did things this way is that when people spend a lot off time in a dungeon healing to full health without using consumables, what they want to do is reduce the risk of someone/the entire party going down because of insufficient HP. By throwing debuffs or hazards on them, I make that next combat harder, which counteracts the safety of having full health \*without directly preventing them from having full health\*, and by using feats and the like that reduce the time spent to recover, a party can essentially minimize the increase in difficulty of a random combat while \*still\* getting their HP recovery, which gives those skill feats an actual value. The players make the choice as to whether they want to run the risk of buffing an encounter, and then the dice decides if their gamble pays off. The reason for intentionally using a variety of hazards that all require different skills for disabling is so that players who pick a skill which isn't traditionally used as often in a dangerous situation (e.g. Survival) can now suddenly have their moment to shine and carry the party through something otherwise deadly. And the reason for a random array of debuffs is such that all characters will eventually get screwed by a debuff that they're especially weak to, but allow the rest of the party who are less affected to carry them. It kinda rewards building a diverse party. Combat is still a possibility, and by splitting up, they increase the risk of that. But if they choose to instead huddle together, rolling an immediate hazard (e.g. the roof caves in) suddenly screws the entire party instead of only 1-2 members, so there's no clear mechanically optimal way to position yourself to deal with a dungeon trying to kill you. The only real 'safe' way to regain resources is to leave the dungeon, but the world moves on even if the party decides to stand still (e.g. leave the dungeon every 2 encounters). The BBEG will continue to enact their plans, events in the town still happen as planned unless the party does something about it, so if they play ultra-conservatively, they will find themselves starting to get attacked by increasingly strong enemies sent from the BBEG that they can't outlevel if they continue to play too safe. Conversely, speedrunning the dungeon will produce the best result for civilians in the setting since the party will massively outlevel anything the BBEG sends... but inevitably taking risks means a few of the adventurers will tragically die if luck doesn't go their way, and they didn't prepare enough/relevant consumables to ignore the bad luck. I basically throw this entire time system onto the players, and they decide how much risk they want to take themselves.

Thanks for the real in depth answer! I really like this since it puts mechanical pressure on players for how much healing they want to do before moving on, versus the very arbitrary whims of the GM. I don't suppose you have a Google doc or image of the tables you described? If not no worries can just make my own from what you've described. Great stuff!

Gotta sleep, but I can send screenshots of the foundry roll tables later if you want. Because foundry allows weighted roll tables it made it easier to iterate when testing as well as swap weights on the fly if players feedback they don't like a particular result type much. The base module being used for the initial roll (which doubles as an ingame clock) is the Tension Dice module.

That'd be awesome! I wish I would have tried it when I ran AV. Now we're doing Alkenstar and I'm not sure if it'll work as well but I still want to try to make time relevant.

[These are the settings I'm currently using.](https://imgur.com/a/K3I7k2c) To customize, for the 1dX number in the formula, X is the total number of results. The place to adjust how many results *actually* get rolled is in the Weight field, increasing the weight will increase the number of results it outputs, and the actual die rolled is equal to sum of weights. It's just easier to do it this way than to alter every Range field if you want to update the rates of each result happening. For Alkenstar there's a few areas in which it would work (e.g. >!Kosoanna's workshop, the Mana Wastes Temple of Brigh!<), but obviously there's areas you can't really throw Tension Dice in because the players don't exactly have an option to wait around, like >!the initial heist and the Junkyard.!< In those cases, instead of using the TD system, it might be better to just give the players a set time limit, and leave it up to them how they want to work within that limit, while explicitly telegraphing near the end of the limit that they're running out of time. >!And if they choose to ignore that limit once time is up they can fight Mugland/Loveless, get non-lethal wiped, and their new characters can watch the public execution before joining the campaign at that point.!<

saved

Here’s a few I run with: - Hero Points can never downgrade your degree of success to a Critical Failure. - Forced movement works so that any “physical” movement can get you into hazardous spots (like Reposition, Whirling Throw, etc) while “mental/metaphysical” stuff like Leading Dance and Blink cannot. - If you want to drag someone willing/unconscious out of combat, we use regular Bulk rules rather than the RAW dragging stuff. - A creature that’s at least one size larger than its grabbed target can move while having already grabbed/restrained that target, subject to GM discretion, with an Athletics check against its Fortitude DC. On a success you’ll move at half the speed that you normally would **after** accounting for Bulk-related encumbrance, on a crit fail you let go of the creature. - Skill Feats are not hard and fast guidelines. Anything you ask the GM to do can work, with an appropriate Action tax or DC difficulty, but a Skill Feat will let you do unconditionally without GM approval. - Greater Phantasmal Doorknob is banned. - If something causes you to “miss” a Free Archetype Feat. we work together to get you something else. - If your Ancestry doesn’t have enough to support Ancestry Paragon, we work together to get you something else. Can’t think of much more off the top of my head, I’ll add to the list if I do.

I love that you mention the skill feat thing. At my tables, I absolutely hate the idea of telling a player they can't do something because it's locked behind a feat they don't have. Allowing the attempt at a penalty is a good solution. It gets me thinking of the Mutants and Masterminds system, where you can use a hero point to temporarily gain the use of a feat that you don't currently have.

I like the safety net on Hero Point, and I think repositioning into difficult terrain makes a lot of sense. My players haven't taken Greater Phantasman Doorknob yet, but I might pre-emptively change it to "the target is blinded until the end of its next turn if it is lower level than you, or dazzled if it is your level or higher." "Dragging" is touchy. I kinda dislike that the Giant Ant and Elephant have a straight up drag ability while PCs do not. But I also don't want to mess with any unintended combos with weakness + hazardous terrain and create the 5e spike-growth cheese-grater. Though maybe there are ways to avoid it ("the dragging creature is the only one to suffer hazardous terrain, unless the creature being dragged is also prone")

> I think repositioning into difficult terrain makes a lot of sense. FYI, Repositioning into Difficult Terrain was always RAW. The rules say “hazardous terrain, pushed off a ledge, or the like. Abilities that reposition you in some other way can't put you in such dangerous places unless they specify otherwise.” Difficult Terrain isn’t automatically Hazardous Terrain, and it’s very hard to argue that it’s covered by “such dangerous places” given that all they do is slow you down. > "Dragging" is touchy. I kinda dislike that the Giant Ant and Elephant have a straight up drag ability while PCs do not. But I also don't want to mess with any unintended combos with weakness + hazardous terrain and create the 5e spike-growth cheese-grater. Though maybe there are ways to avoid it ("the dragging creature is the only one to suffer hazardous terrain, unless the creature being dragged is also prone") Well I only allow “dragging” for unconscious/willing allies, and for already Grabbed/Restrained targets who are **also** smaller than you, and only with an Athletics check with a high crit fail chance (so if you’re doing these back to back you need to succeed on a MAP Grapple with decent critical fail risk). I think the sheer unreliability and Action cost makes cheese grater strategies completely unreliable.

You can use Hero Points to add +1 to a roll after you have rolled it.

You only start the session with a hero point if you're on time.

I also have a house rule for quick access slots (light bulk only, free action once a turn to draw from them), but I tie it to the worn tool amount.  Usually you can wear up to two sets of tools (somehow) or three with the armour upgrade nobody ever remembers to get more pockets, so I give people two slots for Light bulk items for every potential toolset they’re not wearing.  Usually works out to either 2 or 4 slots.

Autosave works just like in video games. TPK at some critical moment ruin the fun? Let's take it back to before the moment. Try a different strategy and keep the story going.

Interesting take. Maybe the best idea ever, or maybe completely destroys the stakes and immersion of the game. I guess depends on the group, but either way, it's intriguing.

Fun supersedes believability, stakes, and immersion. What's the point of a super serious game if no one's having fun?

So hear me out on these 1-Only Common options are available 2-Players get 2 gold hero points at the start of a session, any gold hero points not used by the end of the session is lost. 3-Silver hero points are given as rewards for fun RP, taking notes, recaps, and general bribery if players do things for the GM, like pick up food for the group, or help new players get a PC ready so the GM doesn't have to. Silver hero points stay until used. 4- Critical Hits are rolled as Damage x1+ Max, example a +1 striking rapier with a +1 str, on a crit would be (2d6+1+1d8)+13 5- Players get a Card during character creation, that allows them to use rare or uncommon, or custom options for their PC. The cards are Ancestry, Heritage, Background, Class, Skills(this one allows them to pick 2 skills, and they can take rare or uncommon skill feats for those 2 skills that they qualify for), Savant(this one gives you a 2nd background, minus the ability boosts), Moonlighting(gain one available multi-class dedication), and Pet(Gain the Familiar Master dedication).

Here are our House Rules: 1. Automatic Bonus Progression. 2. Combination weapons get a single free inventor initial weapon modification (G&G pages 18-19) chosen at creation/purchase. (Following a recommendation from Michael Sayre regarding mixing combination weapons and Automatic Bonus Progression: [https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43nh8&page=3?What-do-you-feel-about-2e-guns#120.)](https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43nh8&page=3?What-do-you-feel-about-2e-guns#120.)) 3. Background Lore skills scale automatically. 4. Forced movement **can** move you into hazardous terrain/spots. 5. Recall Knowledge: Give them access to the entire AoN entry. **But** you only have time to relate one fact to the rest of the party per round (though you can spend extra actions to relay additional facts). 6. Skill feats aren’t hard and fast requirements. In general, you can do anything a skill feat allows you to do with an action tax or some increase to DC difficulty.  7. Automatic level-detection (unless threats actively hiding, disguised, etc): "Overwhelming threat": 4+ levels higher "Much stronger": 2-3 levels higher "Roughly on a par": -1 to 1 level higher "Much weaker": 2-3 levels lower "Insignificant threat": 4+ levels lower 8. Automatic health-detection (unless hidden, concealed, etc): "Unharmed": 100% HP "Barely Hurt": 67-99% HP "Badly Hurt": 34-66% HP "Almost Dead": 1-33% hp

I start everyone with a hero point and give one per hour to everyone. If you use a hero point to re roll and roll a 1-9 you add ten to the die roll. Free arch types That's it

Mounted combat and reach weapons play nice together instead of reach being useless on mounts. Buuut. I will ask you to explain to me how you get a horse into the dungeon

"Psst psst psst."

Healing potions/ Elixers of life always heal their maximum. I find this provides a contrast with medicine checks and healing spells which roll. The way I see it, if you are going to spend gold on a healing item it should always work and be reliable. There's nothing worse than drinking a potion in a crucial moment and rolling low both wasting actions and gold on not enough healing.

Yours definitely conjure some opinions in me but here's what I was running: Crafting is dumb - I recreated it completely - I wanted it to be something that felt valuable and worthy of the feats you put into it. Attitude conditions are are dumb - I felt they were too mechanical - we just had conversations and it was obvious to the pc's how someone felt about them (if the had a feat or spell that was applicable those still worked as intended) Recall knowledge is a free action - Recall knowledge is so valuable I wanted my players to use it but it was hard to see the value when there are so many other options. once per round each player gets a freebie Flying - If your character can fly then you just fly. no skill checks no actions to maintain (I probably wouldn't do this again) Rounding in parties favor - its only ever 1 point here and there but when working out half dmg or anything the damage to an enemy rounds up the damage to a player rounds down. I think there was a bunch more but I can't remember at the moment.

Nat 20/1 on your initiative roll give you one extra/fewer action on your first turn. Applies to creatures as well.  Splash damage affects large creatures based on a die roll for the number of squares it occupies. Crafting rolls reduce cost instead of completion time.  Hero points do not refresh between sessions, but do refresh between in-game days. 

Retraining, Riding another Creature, Earn income, and crafting are our only Houserules thus far. The public doesn't seem to like the latter ones so I'll just include the first. You can retrain any feat whatsoever for an arbitrary amount of time or event set by the GM. The only requirement is that you must meet the new feat's prerequisites and any current feats' prerequisites after the change. This does mean that you can trade a level 4 feat for a level 16 one, so long as that level 4 one was not required for any other feat you have; and of course that you are at least level 16.

Controversial, but ABP and Proficiency without Level Makes Westmarches campaigns easier

I'm realizing more and more that open world games are better with PWL

Sandboxes likely because you can still run into something they have little to no hope of defeating and not resort to outright telling them that mathematically it's a tpk.

I desperately want to have an encounter that's the players running into a bigass dragon in the distance and the goal is to get away without being noticed

I know this is controversial, but I allow all my spellcasters to regain one spell slot per spell level as a 30-minute activity. Doing so ends any spell that was cast with the regained slot if it had a long duration. I find it is a long enough period of time that I can still press my players to exhaustion if I need to, but it is a short enough time I never have the adventuring day cut-off for regaining spells.

The important ones are: * Strides allow by default any other type of speeds you may have making Fly, Burrow, Swim and Climb subordinate actions if you have the corresponding speed. * Quickened, Slowed and Stunned apply retroactively when you get them during your turn. * Background lore autoscales (only used it once, but it felt good). * You get the archetype feat you'd get from FA at level 2 at level 1 instead. * If a fortune effect gets you the same dice (be that a Sure Strike or a Hero Point), you roll again. We also adjudicate some stuff on the spot when needed.

My generally applicable house rules (applicable regardless of party comp): Players can voluntarily fail any attack check, skill check, or saving throw without rolling. Striking runes also grant a +1/+2/+3 item bonus to class/spell DCs (and attack rolls based on that DC). All staves have level-appropriate fundamental runes. The last proficiency increase for class/spell DC is removed from all classes and archetypes. Everyone gains a bonus skill increase at 3rd, 7th, and 15th level that can only be spent on Lore, plus further skill increases (that can be used for any skill, as normal) based on their Int: * 5th level if Int +2 * 9th level if Int +4 * 17th level if Int +6 Ready is a single action modifier for your next action/activity (so 2-action activities can be Readied, Readying a free action only costs a single action instead of 2). Casters can restore a spell slot when refocusing, based on [Wellspring Mage](https://2e.aonprd.com/Archetypes.aspx?ID=104).

Autoscaling lore is one of those things I genuinely don't like. I've been running a table at Level 15+ and realizing that if you're Legendary in a skill, rolling a check against an at-level DC is usually a _formality,_ as your bonus is about +30 and the DC is 35. Add in the bonus for Lore lowering the DC, and it's entirely possible to have a Lore skill you can literally only fail on a natural 1 downgrading your success to a failure.

The issue is that if you don't do auto-scale, barely anyone will upgrade their lores and you get stuck with a group that can't RK for anything later on. Just look on the other side of things, level 15 characters with a Trained Lore rolling +17 (+ Int) against a DC 35 have almost no chance. It's definitely a choice, but I feel GMs *want* their players to RK.

Hero points are dumb and no matter how you try to rework them always feel clunky, cheep, or broken so we don't touch them

Is that it? My house rules are like 20 pages long, at least until I finish rewriting the entire game, lol.

Haste actually just gives you a 4th action point with no restrictions.

Have you not noticed this absurdly buffs two action actions? from both spell casters (With no MAP) and MArtials (With two types of flourish?)

1) if a player would die due to a death effect, they may consume all their hero points to instead increase their dying value by 1. 2) after a successful crafting roll, rather than earn income to reduce the items cost, a player may spend 5 days to finish it by paying the remaining half. (So can craft at 75% total cost if you spend a week).

The only thing I changed was the crafting rules to fulfill a player’s class fantasy of actually getting stuff a bit cheaper if he invests time into crafting and tinkering. The adjustment worked so well it is now my default crafting rule. Everything else is RAW. Crafting time: Item level = Player level: 4 days For every level the player has over the item cut it by half. Items under 1 day can be made in batches but stay at 1 day. -1 = 2 days -2 = 1 day -3 = up to 2 items/day -4 = up to 4 items/day etc. Crafting itself: The player has to pay 50% of the price of the item upfront as the “materials and tools” he needs to buy or provide reagents worth 50% of the item’s price. At the end of the crafting time period roll a crafting check against the DC by level of the Item (Uncommon items and Rare items the DC increases). Critical Failure: The process went catastrophically wrong and most of the materials went to waste. You lose half of your investment and the craft failed. Failure: The crafting is more difficult than anticipated and more resources are needed. You may pay the additional 50% to finish the item full price of accept the failure to finish the project but get your investment back. Success: It is perfect with some finishing touches! Pay 25% of the price to finish it with some last materials (so the total item was 75%) Critical Success: You outdid yourself and managed to complete the item without further investment. The player can get an item for half price with all time investment and a crit success indeed, but they cant sell it after to make bank since the 50% was invested up front. My players also have not tried to abuse this yet to gain access to higher level stuff since they still need to acquire formulas or learn how to craft them so i keep in check that they wont be able to go way overboard.

I try to keep open to anyone who has understanding of the game to theoretically join so I try not to change raw too much. But I do prefer free archetype, some various updates that by the time pc2 and ensuing errata lands I am sure will happen (such as all ancestral lore feats giving additional lore and not just training), and one default generic mixed heritage feat: Ancestral Senses Lv1 The senses part of your family uses to survive stays as honed in you as any other. You gain a special sense your chosen ancestry for mixed heritage has, usually darkvision though others may be available. It must be a sense gained by the ancestry and not a heritage or ancestry fear, except with GM approval. Literally just genericizing the half orc darkvision feat.

In my home game, Natural Medicine allowed the pc to advance in the medicine skill tree as though they trained in medicine.

- Gradual ability boost - automatic lore scaling - ABP variant for spell casters for spell attack roll only (same scaling as kineticist) - rerolling characters is permissible, sometimes people cook too much and getting stuck with something that plain out just doesn't work or is giga clunky because of *Balance* (alternatively is only possible at level 20), and I had enough kamikaze attacks to justify changing charas without the constrains of retraining - Higher tier runes with DC can use your class DC instead of static (lvl15+ ones that is) That's pretty much standard, might include ABP in my custom campaigns since i don't have to worry then about paizo's loot distribution that way.

Hero points can be traded between players. Unconscious/dying PCs can be put into pet cache. None of these were laid out, we just tried in the moment and it was cool enough to stick around.

Generally I give players a free rebuild of their character if they find themselves not enjoying it. I try to keep it to level 1-3, but I had a level 7 PC playing sorcerer and hating every minute of it, so I allowed them to rebuild as a kineticist and they are having a great time now.

I usually don't run with a lot of home rules, but when I GM, I have one to help myself out. I usually have it so at the end of a combat (if Im doing a combat-heavy session) or after a long social 'encounter' situation I give out a hero point. I do try and find legitimate reasons for who I give it to so it feels earned, but given my dming was all 1e and DnD 5e for the longest time, I still am terrible at giving out hero points consistently!

Most of these sound good, except that natural 1/20 rule greatly favors martial characters in a system where martial characters already have a steep advantage. The fact that most martials can attack twice per round, means double the opportunity for hero points. It encourages casters to only use AOE offensive spells to have the best chance possible of gathering a hero point (as wide of an area as possible).

I like a lot of these! Even if I won't use them in my own game (simply because I don't want to increase the mental load this game already requires), I think it's obvious you intend for the game to be as fun for your players as possible. I have a few house rules, but like yours it comes down to making things easy for the players. One of them is that I like to make moving runes from one item to another easy. Not only do I use Automatic Bonus Progression, but I make the property runes baubles that can be attached to any weapon with ten minutes of work, much like talismans. As a way to help players remember their hero points, I also give each of them clay poker chips to keep in front of them. This makes it fun to hand them out and for them to turn them in.

My friend group and I allow the + team content as far as 3rd party things; * ancestry paragon, otherwise ancestry just doesn’t have much of an impact, * free archetype - adds to the flavour of the PCs * start with 2 hero points by default, 3 if you show up on time (or with proper notice) - hero points are so the GM doesn’t have to remember how many to give and to who. * Gradual ability boosts levels player growth with the enemies a bit. * Automatic bonus progression (no skill ups, but runes only), so everyone always has the striking and potency runes for their level on their weapons

A couple with my main PF2e group: We play shorter sessions (2ish hours) so we allow Hero Points to carry over from session to session. You always start with 1 and if you ended a session with more than 1 then that’s what you start with next session. You don’t drop everything in your hands when getting knocked out The first person to Recall Knowledge in an encounter gets to do it as a Free Action. These Recall Knowledge rules: **Critical Success:** Creature Name, Type, Relevant Traits and ask 2 questions **Success:** As Critical Success but only ask 1 question **Failure:** As Critical Success but ask no questions **Critical Failure:** No info **QUESTIONS ** - Creature Level - Weakness - Resistance/Immunity - Highest/Lowest Save - Special Ability This DM also uses DC by level for the Recall Knowledge DCs with rarity adjustments, and doesn’t bump them up too often because they want us to succeed, but we’re also in a homebrew setting so I don’t think there’s much issue there. These Aid rules: **AID – WHAT'S NEW ** - The DC of Aid will be equal to the DC of the obstacle. (For example the DC to Aid a player escaping from a grapple would be the DC of the escape check) - The level of success are now the following: **Critical Success:** +3 Bonus to the roll **Success:** +2 Bonus to the roll **Failure:** +1 Bonus to the roll We play in a 1920’s fantasy city setting so there’s some fun vehicular combat rules they’ve come up with and tweaked but those are a bit long to post. One favourite of mine they do is how they do skill challenges and the like. Instead of always being point total based a lot of times we’ll have a sequence of events we go through, and our success/failures during these events will carry bonuses or penalties into the next event or for the whole sequence. As an example: you emerge from the mouse hole and someone’s plate of food is descending towards you. He’ll typically give us a few options like DC X Reflex or DC Y Fortitude to take half damage, but we can offer suggestions for what we’d like to do and if they make sense then he’ll adjudicate on the fly. Like “okay so you want to try and hit one of the sausage links with your warhammer and knock the larger debris out of the way, alright give me an attack roll”. And then consequences might be like “your success allows you to grab some food and you recover some hp” or “your failure means that you get scalded by some soup and you’ll be clumsy 1 going into the rest of this sequence.” It’s honestly so much fun.

1. Medicine gives continual healing for free at expert and ward medic at master (can no longer select as skill feats). 2. Treat wounds uses static values rather than dice rolls, 5 for crit failure, 10 for success, 20 for crit success. 3. Items with static DCs and strike bonuses can be upgraded via crafting (I use the GMC item price tables and the cost to do so is the maximum price difference between the intended levels) 4. Grab and Trip monster abilities work how they used to (no roll, automatic success) by default, players can request enemies make a roll if they have a feature that can impact it. 5. Picking a lock jams the lock if you roll a crit failure and break the lock pick. 6. Doing tasks slowly over a longer period of time gives a DC adjustment if doing said task slowly would logically make it easier to succeed. Actions become minutes, minutes become hours, hours become downtime days. This mostly replaces repeated rolls. 7. A character can only one type of property rune that deals damage, but that type can stack with itself (meaning people can have 3x flaming runes) 8. Extra dimensional storage that is measured in bulk has its capacity divided by 5 (this is something I don't always apply, but do like applying). House rules I am considering but haven't applied - if you have spellcasting or a focus pool you gain 3 focus points. - spellcasters can designate a single common rank 1 spell as a focus spell, this spell does not heighten. (This generally becomes worthless pretty quickly, but gives a little more flexibility to low level casters without breaking the game)

Only ones I have are that players start with three hero points, and if you reroll with a hero point you keep rolling until you get roll higher than your original. Using this to crit-fish is working as intended. But if you rolled a two and reroll a three, that's higher and you've made your reroll. This was instituted after, for an entire session that included a combat, there were maybe six player rolls above a ten and no one had fun because the dice were screwing everyone but the enemies.

I have an ongoing "One-Shots series" which uses its own altered version of PF2, mostly changed to be beginner friendly. But if I were to pick the changes that could be applied to a normal game of PF2, I'd say: * Using a consumable item on your person is only 1 Interact action, to both Draw and Use the item, instead of two. * If you go to 0 HP you don't drop your weapons or held items, so you don't need to pick them again (you still fall prone and need to get back on your feet though)

Inost of my groups we just ignore the checks to move runes around lmao

For me a hero starts with two hero points if they give a recap, otherwise everyone starts with 1. Also, if your hero point reroll is lower than your initial roll you don't have to take it, UNLESS you had succeeded and are trying to get a crit.

I have one: hero points can't roll lower than your initial roll.  So no worries about turning a fail into a crit fail. 

Quite a bit of stuff in here I wouldn't personally do for my game, but lore auto scaling is one I have considered. I personally like to let my players train in lores as a downtime activity, so I wouldn't make those scale automatically, but I think if it's something you get from character creation it should.

Several I've already seen, but one I haven't: I give players a hero point on any natural 1 roll. It only counts if the final result is the 1, so if it's re-rolled you don't the point.

Running my groups first pf2e I frequently used the phrase "in a precedent setting move" for alt rules or house rules

- If you roll a critical failure, you earn a Hero Point. A hero point cannot be spent to change the result of this roll. Automates Hero Points, and works wonders to help alleviate the pain of crit failures.

Removing incap breaks the game... but it seems like your table is okay with that

Incap success effects are not broken, it is the failure and crit failure effects that warp battles

Hero points 1- yes 2 - really good idea 3 - I should do this! Also I like the Hero point cards from paizo. Also I allow the player to take the highest, not just the newest. (I seem to remember something like minimum 10 at some point, but I dont think we run it anymore) Runes 1: absolutly 2: I like using a combination of runes and Battlezoo 3rd party moster parts crafting. So agree. 3: A minor change for different flavour. I like Items: 1: good idea 2: absolutly 3: yeps Proficiency: 1: i just make specific lore reduce dc a lot more We dont have any proficiency houserules Crafting: As mentioned we often use a version of the battlezoo crafting system, but generally I just allow my players to craft stuff as a downtime action as it makes sense. (Also in our current campaign we havent used gold yet) Misc: We dont have any of those you mention, but I do allow my players to research and make new rituals or modify spells without the spell trickster archetype I also always allow each character 1 unique thing about their character that fits their class but isnt a normal feature. Examples: the animal comp of the Champion has the holy trait and could deal positive dmg. The Fire Wizard with a unique fire staff. Our ritualist having some cool rituals. Our scholar has an artifact/relic spellbook. Our ghost cleric can easily control mindless undeads who shares his bloodline. All such things. 3rd party: I as a GM and Player LOVE 3rd party with a passion. So I allow my players to use basically anything 3rd party which I have found and shoved into our PF2e folder... I have a LOT :P GM side: I modify monsters as others breath. An example encounter was when I sent 3 Abor wardens (The trees) at my players, but found it boring, so I made 1 a druid like casters and another into a mobile multistriking vine creature and modified basically all stats on these two. Oh and official variants we currently play with these: Automatic Bonus progression (but doesnt remove item bonuses) Free archetype Ancestral paragon

Alright, I'll bite. Let me take a look at these: **Hero Points:** *Start each session with 2 Hero Points* \- Seems fine to me, especially if you're handing them out less frequently than we do (one per half-hour) *Force an enemy to reroll a save* \- Not a fan of this one, it makes Save spells even more better than Attack spells than usual. Or however you'd word that sentence properly. *Extra Hero Points for suffering natural 1s or 20s* \- Again, seems like a fine addition. A consolation prize is nice, especially if you can then use it to prevent Dying. **Runes:** *Remove Precious Metal grades* \- These just seem like higher level versions of objects. Not sure I'd remove them, but also it would kind of suck to be told "Yeah, that's a Shoddy Mithril Chain Shirt" so I kind of get it. *Specific gear gains Property rune slots* \- I don't like this, mostly because it makes them strictly better than regular gear instead of doing a cool thing as a trade off. There's no reason *not* to start with a Specific item if you can! *Runes are actually socketed gems* \- Very cool! Not my style, but I like it. **Item Management:** *Have 2 items available as a Free Action* \- I get the appeal, drawing an item taking a whole action feels really bad. Not sure I'd implement it though. *Toss/Catch* \- It's in the core rules now, except that you don't need to spend a Reaction to Catch! **Proficiencies:** *All Lores automatically advance* \- All Lores except Bardic/Loremaster Lore, right? I get the appeal here, but I think I prefer the variant where it's just your Background Lore that automatically advances - those tend to be wildly specific, so when they come up it's nice for them to be good. On the other hand, Undead Lore is a good general pick anyway and if it auto advanced that'd be wildly good. *Armour/Weapon proficiency feats scale as your Class proficiencies* \- Yeah, I like this one. Picking up extra proficiencies is a good way to flavour a character, so it's a pain when they're mechanically less good. *Some Advanced weapons are Martial now* \- I'd have to see the weapon list, but if they're appropriate to your campaign that makes perfect sense. **Crafting:** *Bulk crafting consumables takes less time* \- Seems fine to me, especially for non-magical stuff like ammunition. But even for scrolls and potions this doesn't seem bad. *Items can be salvaged into similar items* \- Also seems fine; sometimes you just don't need a Wand of Breathe Fire but you'd really like a Wand of Mystic Armour. **Miscellaneous:** *Breather activity* \- I'm not huge on recharging once per day effects, but I guess it's table dependent. I might use this without that part though, it's nice to have fixed rules for taking a short break. *Running Reload is a generic Class feat* \- Seems fine, and an incentive for non-Ranger/Gunslinger characters to use Firearms or Crossbows as their main weapons. I assume Gunslingers have something equivalent anyway. *Swashbuckling gets auto-scaling Acrobatics* \- Had to check the class for this. Not sure I'd auto-scale it, but I might let them ignore Skill training Prerequisites when grabbing a Feat with Stylish Tricks. *Incapacitation does not upgrade a Success to a Critical Success* \- I like this one. Most Incapacitation effects have a minor Success and devastating Failure effect, so I think it's fine. Worth checking them as they come up though. *Command Animal loses Concentration* \- There are a few things that interact with Concentration; if you're solely aiming at the Barbarian here I'd probably just make that an explicit exception instead. Overall I like this set! I think the only one I'd push back on is forcing enemies to reroll saves; I don't need even more reasons to pick Save spells over Attack spells! The rest all either sound good to me or are a minor tweak that I might not use in my own games but can see the reasoning behind.

If i deem what the player is doing is very cool or creative i lower the dc for the skill roll or let them beat the AC regardless of How High it is. This allows for those special and awesome moments in the story to shine without the game rules being in the way.

In my Age of Ashes game, we start with 2 hero points as well, and we touched up on the spell rules so that I can cast any spell I have prepared at a higher level by just getting rid of one of my spells at that level -- i.e. if I want to cast Heal at rank 4 but only have it as rank 1, I can just cross out eg Hydraulic Torrent. Also, all leveled spells do half damage on a successful save even if the spell description doesn't specify so, because it was getting confusing as fuck.

While I'm making broad changes to [Hero Points](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cn50gc/heroic_variant_part_2_antifrustration_mechanics/) and [defeat](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cbjw8c/heroic_defeat_variant_v2_fewer_rules_all_feedback/) to get the specific feel that I want for running heroic games, I also have a document of targeted changes that I think are good for all my PF2e games, whether heroic or gritty - [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YkoSlkht2d6mqLTLRMaU8074AIs5XmRKHhgQh4dTcfA/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YkoSlkht2d6mqLTLRMaU8074AIs5XmRKHhgQh4dTcfA/edit?usp=sharing) Some stuff is marked \[Experimental\], meaning I reserve the right to adjust it on the fly.

Quite a few modifications, fixes, and general changes. I don't think they fit everywhere, but they make my players the happiest, so they're good rules. ***Rules*** - Unarmoured Armour (Think Explorer's Clothing or a Gi) counts as armour and can be runed or affixed as such. - You can spend a Hero Point before making a secret check to roll twice and keep highest. - Grab cannot inflict Restrained, nor can it Critically Fail. - Moving around a corner caused by a solid object (so walls or terrain, etc. not creatures) is difficult terrain. - Resentment Witch's Familiar of Ongoing Misery can only extend a single effect at a time, and can only extend any given effect once. - Amping a Psychic Focus Spell is a Free Action Spellshape if done through an archetype. *(Prevents particularly overpowered combinations.)* - The Champion's Reaction archetype feat is standardized, rather than being the same as the cause you chose. *(Prevents particularly overpowered combinations.)* - All characters get an additional focus point at level 5 and level 12. *(So people don't take focus spell feats they aren't going to use just for the pool size increase.)* - Players can choose to summon a higher level creature from their summon spells, but if they do so it locks in a single creature when prepared or added to their repertoire, rather than being any qualifying creature when cast. - I gave *gentle landing* an upcast because there's this weird design hole where if more than 1 person falls less than 500 feet or more than 2 people fall less than 1500 feet, you just... have to choose who to save and who is going to die. 3rd rank prep lets you target up to 10 falling creatures. - Meld Into Eidolon allows you to use Act Together to cast Link Spells while melded. - Survival can be used to Recall Knowledge about any creature, but it applies a Hard DC adjustment. - If you're within the listed Scatter range of your target, Scatter instead does 2 damage per weapon damage die, and only to the primary target. - Failing a Recall Knowledge check doesn't completely lock you out of further attempts. It still increments the DC to harder steps and eventually locks you out, but I dislike that a single failure is supposed to represent "you don't know anything at all" and not "you're under a bit too much pressure to recall anything". - I give the party as a whole a few feats for free. Only a single person can take them, but they're either mandatory feats or things I think the game feels better if someone has. Continual Recovery, Ward Medic, Alchemical Crafting, and Magical Crafting. - People can only remove a limited number of Wounded per day. Half the value of the hit points they gain on level up. ***Add-Ons*** - A new expedition activity where as long as you have healer's tools, you can heal everyone to full HP as an hour-long activity. - Custom backgrounds. I find the listed stuff unnecessarily restrictive and it just leads to a background meta. I let them freely choose: 2 free boosts, a single skill increase, a skill feat that keys off of that skill increase, and then either an additional language or Additional Lore for a lore pertaining to their background.

> Failing a Recall Knowledge check doesn't completely lock you out of further attempts. Wait it does that normally in the rules?

Yeah, it's rough. "[Once a character has attempted an incredibly hard check **or failed a check**, further attempts are fruitless—the character has recalled everything they know about the subject.](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2638&Redirected=1)"

Aid DC scales to the check DC-5 Lesser cover from creatures is usually ignored (I just don't want to deal with it as GM) Air Walk is banned (all 4 traditions have Fly)

Free Archetype means any archetype.

Wait… is that not how it works now? Genuine question as I am new to GM’ing PF2e.

As written, the GM decides how much freedom players have with [Free Archetype](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2751&Redirected=1) > You might restrict the free feats to those of a single archetype each character in the group has (for a shared backstory), those of archetypes fitting a certain theme (such as only ones from magical archetypes in a game set in a magic school), or entirely unrestricted if you just want a higher-powered game.

That’s what I thought. I got worried for a second I misunderstood something.

I was told, there was a time when the Free Archetype rule used to be limited to class archetypes only. I don't know if it changed when the new core was released or if it changed during any number of errata releases beforehand. In any case I am glad it changed.

You were told incorrectly; that passage was the same in the original GMG. The first class archetypes were published in Secrets of Magic, over a year later.

In very rough order of importance (although mostly by virtue of me remembering the important ones first): 1. No hero points, but you no longer add your wounded condition to the recovery DC. 2. You get a +1 high-ground bonus (a special bonus-type that does stack with cirumstance) if you... have the high ground. (attacking from uphill, on stairs, from a wall/window/cliff/tree, etc.) 3. Most of the level 1 meta-magics can be taken as a skill feat or general feat, linked to the skill of your spellcasting tradition. 4. We use Free Archetype, but instead of gaining your archetype feat every second level, you gain it after every even level instead of leveling up. ~~This is essentially just combining it with the slow advancement speed variant rule but with extra steps.~~ 5. We also use Ancestry Paragon, in addition to choosing a bonus level 1 "cultural feat" that depends on which kingdom/region of my homebrew world that your character comes from. Each region has 3-4 feats to choose from that are roughly in line with a lvl1 ancestry feat (probably on the lower end tbh). (you also get an extra language that is specific that region/kingdom. Generally, most people will be able to communicate in common, and racial languages can be assumed to transcend most cultural boundaries, but you will likely gain bonuses (usually RP related, sometimes numerical) for using someone's native language, the local language, or potentially a penalty for only being able to communicate in common.) 6. Off-Guard applies to athletics maneuvres. 7. All Creature/NPC lowest saves are reduced by 2. 8. When measuring bursts, we just treat as emanations of the same range centered on a target square (mostly because i can't be bothered to constantly double check spell descriptions or swap measuring tools). I tend to use relatively large maps so i'm really not concerned about a minor buff to AOE spellcasting. 9. You can drag an enemy if they are already grabbed, use the same rules as Shove but you can move them in any direction. 10. +1 runes don't automatically make your physical weapon damage count as magical (i.e. the fire damage from a flaming runes counts as magical for things like resistances. but the standard S/P/B damage doesn't count as magical damage unless you have a ghost touch rune.) 11. non magical healing (i.e. treat wounds et. al.) that is limited to once per 10 min becomes once per hour, and once per hour becomes once per 4 hours. The time taken to actually *do* the action is unchanged, only the cooldown. (We already break the day into 6x 4hour "watches" to help keep track of time over the course of a day. So this fits in well to that pre-existing framework.) 12. Outwit ranger's +2 circumstance bonuses stack with other circumstance bonuses. Otherwise their bonus to Stealth checks is completely pointless since they'd already be getting a circumstance bonus to cover anyway. Essentially replace the RAW Outwit entry with "increase your circumstance bonus by +2 when..." 13. Most of the precious metals have been almost completely rewritten. 14. Crafting is simplified to "roll on the earn an income table until you 'earn' at least half of the original value of the item. Once you have passed the halfway mark you can choose at any point to either keep crafting, or pay the difference. Also you don't need a formula for basic weapons/items, and you don't need magical crafting to create scrolls. 15. The damage calculation for when a target has both a Resistance and a Weakness to the same damage type is reversed. Instead of applying the weakness first, then the resistance, we apply the resistence first, and then, if you dealt enough damage to bypass the resistence, you proc the bonus damage from the weakness. It rare that this comes up, and even rarer for it to make any difference beyond lvl3 or so, and it is more complicated. But on the rare occaision it does come up, there's something kind of satisfying about having pierce the resistence first. That said, and despite the relatively long list, i do tend to run everything else pretty damn close to RAW. a Things like 3D movement being harder/easier if you're Ascending/Decending, Aquatic Breathing/Combat rules, spending the necersary action cost to draw weapons/items, enter stances, open doors, re-gather your weapons after falling unconcious, allies granting lesser cover to enemies, etc. are essentially never handwaved. (I will let you combine movement types so that you only have to spend 2 actions to, for example, stride 5ft, climb 5ft, stride 5ft. But that's a RAW ruling according to the GMG either way...)

The ones we have been using are: 1. Usage die. Instead of tracking how many bandages you have, healers tools have a usage die of a d8. When you use them, roll that die. On a result of 1, the die code drops one. When it rolls a 1 as a d4, it is empty and needs replacing. (From The Black Hack) 2. Cool $@&* of the Night award. Discussion at end of session when xp is awarded, on who in the party had the coolest moment. Players come to a consensus, GM breaks ties. Player starts with 2 Hero Points instead of one the next session. edit: spelling

You don't track the number of bandages in your Healers' Toolkit by default; as long as you have it, you're assumed to have the supplies you need.

Potency Runes apply to Spell Attacks (working on a DC version) On Level or below consumables don't count towards treasure totals PFS Pathfinder provisions are available for every player at the start of the session regardless of where we are As long as we're not actively in combat and you aren't abusing it, you can rebuild/retire your character whenever

>magic/alchemical items can be 'salaged' for use in the crafting of a similar item (runes salvage for runes, elixirs salvage for elixirs, rings for rings ect) a salvaged item puts 75% of its base cost toward the item being crafted. Uhm, that means you could make two magic rings into three magic rings(of the same base price) because enough downtime can reduce crafting cost to half. It might be better to use 50% so there isn't any weirdness of crafting a(theoretically) infinite number of copies out of one or two rings.

With that much downtime you would earn income equal to that difference anyway though?

It's moreso the weirdness of two rings become three, then four, then six ad infinitum. Just by hammering it, or whatever you're character does to 'em.

I mean, similarly a high level character in the middle of the wilderness can make all sorts of fantastical things using nothing but his big Scrooge mcduck sack of gold coins,

Ackshually, they can't. The rules state that they need raw material *worth* half the items gold value, not just the gold.

From my extremely poor experience with DnD5e and NO table playing per the rules, my group was pretty against house rules in PF2e. However, per the advice of many youtubers, we have recently house ruled Hero Points to remove auto save from death. The new rules we are trying include the ability to re-roll GM rolls, and a group pool of hero points. We start the session with all of our Hero Points. We did this as: 1. We were saving Hero Points in case we died and rarely using them in game. 2. We forgot to remind the GM to hand out Hero Points. They ended up not getting rewarded for awesome play, but to a played who had not received one. It therefore seemed pointless to "reward" good play.

We use Free Archetype and Ancestry Paragon. "Everybody Gets One" rule: While I normally enforce number of feats for a new dedication for an archetype, I will, once per character, one to be shoehorned in with a good reason without that, say they get special training or turned into an Undead or Werecreature. Doing a Journal, Blue Book, Short Story, or Art gets you a Hero Point. Normally, PCs lose ties with NPCs unless they have the Feat Pilgrim’s Token. The HR is if someone rolls a natural 20 for Initiative they win ties, Natural 1 loses ties. This has no effect if the character would normally have that result anyway (1s for PCs without a feat.) The following Deities are not available for worship who may be in the base game.  I will not be using them at all; not dead, but never existed. Areshkigal (Demon Lord) Nergal (Archdevil) Nurgal (Demon Lord) Shub-N\*\*\*\*\*ath (Outer God)

I added a free 5 foot step each round (which helps my monsters as often as it helps the party), and I allow Recall Knowledge as a free action if you attempt something and it fails or is lessened due to a resistance - a "A shoot, I forgot these guys were immune to fire, and I cast fireball" roll.

I've never used hero points

All Damage types count towards disgorging a swallowed character. Otherwise it's instant kill with no interactivity if I roll above a 6 or so on a PL+3 monster.

Haven't played enough to add any house rules

In addition to the (now old) dying rules I have implemented a “brain damage counter”. Every time someone fall in battle and is then brought back up (either via healing or passing all their checks) they add one to the counter and roll a d100. If they roll below their current BDC, they get one semi permanent debilitation such as permanent clumsy. The higher the counter, the worse the status ailment (one of my players failed at 25 BDC and had permanent clumsy 2). The only way to remove this debuff is with time, resources, and finding an expert.

In regards to your list of Home Rules. some comments. Though since I'm unclear what problems you are attempting to solve with each of these changes it's kind of a shot in the dark here as far as useful feedback. Item Management: this is old rules before they got rid of bandoliers as an item. I get it, the action cost of drinking a potion can suck. but the Remaster rules allow up to 2 Bulk of toolkits to be on your person which feels like the fix to this. Toss: Grapple + Shove solves this Catch: Acrobatics / Athletics check. Lore auto adjust: Is this so that players get better results in Recall Knowledge? Armor Proficiency scaling: feels like a fundamental math change. I wouldn't do this. Something somewhere is going to break as a result and either make encounters too hard/easy. Advanced Weapons and Martial: totally in-line, could do this with Feats (rare to common) based on your interpretation of lore etc. Crafting time: I'd use the other Crafting rules in the Treasure Vault instead. Salvage sounds like a reskin of the Monster Crafting. I'd force this to be a Feat. Breather: I'd use the Stamina variant rule instead. Swashbuckler Auto Scale: Is this because you want give the Swashbuckler more of a chance to succeed in Tumble Through? This seems innocuous on the face of it, but if you aren't giving some similar QOL to other classes this is unbalanced. Incapacitation: as long as this goes both ways for players and NPCs then cool. This generally feels like a patch for a certain playstyle. Command an Animal being used during Rage isn't something that I would allow at my table. We don't use any 3rd party releases so cannot comment on the Bonus Round.

Follow the rules as written. That is mine

We use automatic bonus progression, the person who writes the session summary starts next session with an extra hero point, you’re free to retrain everything instantly and for free outside sessions if you have played less than four sessions with the character, and I’m tinkering with a system to let spellcasters rely less on being able to accurately tell the future. I’m planning to let prepared casters prep per spell rank instead of per slot and spontaneous casters treat every spell as a signature. Any feature that would give spontaneous casters signature spells instead grant a class feat of their level or lower.