D4's Guide Key - Guide Reading and House Rules

 D4's Guide Key - Guide Reading and House Rules

            This week, I delve into how to read the guides I release, as well as our personal homebrew character creation rules that you can use for your campaigns. This'll be a shorter post as I prepare to write the Alchemist Guide out (which may be out when you're reading this). In any case, let's get started!

            I'm going to be rating things on a scale of power from one to five. Keep in mind, everything here is my opinion, and while someone else might find Synthesis Summoner broken and Fighters weak, I might rate them the same. Everything will be getting a color grade as well as a star rating as follows:

  • Pink(*****): The option is best in class in terms of strength, borderline broken.
  • Blue(****): The option is strong, lying somewhere between Viable and Optimal.
  • Green(***): The option is Viable for most characters.
  • Yellow(**): The option has merit to make it strong, but has an inherent flaw that leaves it out of Viable. Many situational features will fit here.
  • Red(*): The option has a fatal flaw, leaving it to be a much weaker option than anything else available. Other characters might be able to do this better.

            In addition to the color rating, certain options will be marked with other markers to depict stuff to note about that feature:
 
  • (f): While the option may be weak, the option itself is very flavorful.
  • (F): A personal favorite option of mine.
  • (3p): This marks a feature that is Third-Party but isn't on d20pfsrd.

About Homebrew/3pp/3.5


            I am a proponent of Homebrew and Third-Party content; that being said, I cannot scour the internet for every single feature released nine years ago on a shutdown forum post. If a feature is coverable on d20pfsrd.com, then I will do my best to cover it. I do enjoy some of the off-site Homebrew and will attempt to shoehorn in some of my favorites, as well as some that I've developed. As for 3.5 material... I'm not very familiar with it, but I will do my best to see if any feature is usable.

House Rules

            Personally, my group uses a slightly modified ruleset for character creation, which I'll be posting for the viewers. Keep in mind that these rules increase the power of characters, but at the end of the day, I feel that a slightly more powerful character lets players take less-optimal options for flavor reasons. 

Bonus Feats: Each character receives a Bonus Feat at level 1, as per the Human racial trait. This is in place to allow people's builds to pop off a bit sooner: who wants to wait until 11th level to do what their character does? Alternatively, allow a bonus feat at each level that offers an ability score increase. This will greatly increase the power of characters (+6 feats at level 20) but I feel that it doesn't do too much to imbalance the game.

Elephant In The Room Feat Tax Removal: EitR has been a staple in my playgroup, removing some of the less-than-useful feats or combining feats to make room for more flavor feats. This works in the same vein as Bonus Feats above, and we've never had an issue with a character getting out of hand. You can find the latest version here: https://michaeliantorno.com/the-elephant-in-the-room-feat-taxes-in-pathfinder-third-printing

Background Skills: Yet another flavor-adder (we really like flavor), Background Skills let characters with low-Intelligence have things their character did before becoming an adventurer. Background Skills gives the character an extra two skill ranks at each level, but only for skills normally used out of combat. You can find the rules here: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/background-skills/

Stamina: Combat Stamina is a feature that lets you use Stamina Points to push certain feats you have. For example, leveraging a larger bonus on a skill check, repositioning, etc. I recommend the "Free for Fighter" variant of the rule. You can find the rules here: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/stamina-and-combat-tricks-optional-rules/

Hit Dice Boost: When it comes to Hit Points, sometimes you can roll really poorly, causing your character to die much quicker. We use Maximum hit points per hit die for levels 1-3, then reroll all 1's and 2's. You also get one reroll to use on a number larger than that. Animal Companions use the same rules.

Stats: I've recently become a fan of stat arrays and special point buy. For the stat array, we use the following scores: (18, 16, 15, 12, 10, 8). Special point buy works a bit differently: Your stats all begin at zero. Points are bought at a 1-1 ratio, and you choose a total they must add up to. For lower power games, I recommend 70-75. For higher power games, 85-90.

Starting Equipment: Give each player max for their class. Having an extra 20 gold at the start doesn't really matter in the long run, considering players will be getting multiple thousand gold per encounter soon. In addition, we use Equipment Kits, which negates the need to go find specific items to add at the start. Besides your gold given, you also gain an Equipment Kit under 25gp in value. You can find Equipment Kits here: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/community-creations/brreitz-s-lab/equipment-kits/








    That's all for this week. Within the next week, I'll be creating a Beginner-Friendly guide to character creation utilizing the rules before us, as well as how to establish a backstory. Please look forward to it! Remember to pin or like this blog so you can stay up to date on the next release! Until then, stay safe, and remember to check the floor for caltrops.

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