House Rules

Permitted Sources

• Pathfinder Core Rule book
• Advanced Players Guide
• Curse of the Crimson Throne Players Guide
• UC and UM (though run it by me)

Character Background

• Feel free to flesh out your background as much as you like, though there is one caveat: the adventure begins with each of you sharing a common enemy. A small time, yet sinister crook known as Gaedren Lamm. In Korvosa, he is known to run a gang of pickpockets made up of orphaned children. This man has slighted you and is someone you would dearly like to get even with or bring to justice. Don’t concentrate too much on your history with him … his will be short lived but it will be the initial thread that draws you all together.
• The Curse of the Crimson Throne Players Guide has some background information that you may find useful (or not)
• Major faiths in Korvosa are Abadar, Pharasma, Asmodeus, Sarenrae and Shelyn. Though there is a communal worship area where almost any faith can be worshipped.

Languages

Korvosa is originally a Chelaxian colony, as such Chelaxian is considered its official language. However there is significant minority class of varisians who make up approximately 10% of the population. This proportion is much large amongst the poorer districts and varisian is usuallu spoken in these areas.

There will be no Common tongue

Point Buy

• Standard – 15

Advancement

• HIT POINTS: Maximum for the first two levels, ¾ for the remaining levels.

Advancement

• Fractional SAVING THROWS

• Goods saving throws +1/2 per level
• Poor saving throws +1/3 per level
• First Level only: +2 bonus on each good saving throw

• Fractional BAB

• Goods BAB +1 per level
• Medium BAB +3/4 per level
• Poor BAB +1/2 per level

Alignment

Good-aligned characters are preferred, however those that like to sit on the fence can be Neutral. Neutral characters get benefits withregards to alignment based spells and effects, therefore these morally uncommitted characters will not benefit from ‘Good’ related xp awards.

Wealth

• Average for first level characters
• Otherwise wealth as per wealth chart, maximum of 50% on one item, minimum 10% on consumables

Fate/Luck Points

• Curse of the crimson thrones uses Harrow cards as a form of luck/fate points. This system is weaker (and more specific) to what we used in rune lords, but I’m going with the adventure path flavour and will be using Harrow cards/points. To be explained during the adventure path

Experience awards

• Character Background, 250xp

Standard bonus awards is 100xp per character level to givenin the following situations

• Written Journals, stories etc
• Notable in character drama moments
• Genuinely funny moments in character
• Altruistic behaviour

Magic Items & Item Creation

• Permanent Magic Items that have a save DC, the DC will be based on the spell level being employed + charisma + 10
• Permanent Magic Items are crafted at full market value cost (ie no 50% discount)
• Items that provide a constant bonus in the form listed below are crafted at full market price. These are nuts and bolts magic items that contribute most to character power. My reasoning for doing this is to make characters pay the true cost for popular magic items, and let other less used (or less attractive items) more attractive because they can still be made at 50% market price.
• AC (ie armour, amulet of natural armour, ring of protection etc)
• Saves (ie cloak of resistance)
• Ability Scores (ie belt of giant strength)
• To hit (ie magic weapons)
• Damage (ie bracers of archery, holy weapon enchantment)
• Other items maybe added at my whim ...
• Consumables are crafted at the usual 50% cost (ie potions, wands, charged miscellaneous items, rings etc). Staves will also be included here, even though they are no longer really consumables.
• An items caster level is the minimum caster level to meet the items spell prerequisites. Ignore the listed caster level for the item, this is just a typical example of the item. So a fly spell would usually have a minimum caster level of 5, an amulet of natural armour +3, needs a bark skin cast at 9^th level
• Out of slot item add +4 to the caster level
• Secondary, tertiary additions to a slot items have a cumulative increase of +4 caster level, ie a cloak of resistance +3 would have a caster level of 9, adding a cloak of elvinkind to it would make it 13, adding a third ability such as muleback cords would make it 17
• Specific weapons and armour will be more constantly to improve, incurring a further +50% cost to all extra improvements.
• Item Availability will be as per core pathfinder rules, which means you may buy any item under the base purchase limit (which is significantly lower than 3.5) plus a selection of random items above this value. I’ll use my random generator for choosing these items. This list will refresh approximately once a month. Note: When teleport/fast travel becomes available, I am just give a flat 10% per month of finding a specific item.
• To craft items you must have converted your gold to crafting materials.
• There will be times that downtime is limited so set your expectations accordingly.

Leadership Feat

No Leadership feat, though you may acquire a cohort if you wish though normal role-playing mechanisms or spells like Awaken. Cohorts do not suck up party XP awards, though they do take a half share of treasure. Generally I’ll have DM veto over what a cohort does, it will be role-played by me but the players can advance the cohort and I’ll expect I’ll normally let the player run it in combat. (I’ll step in if I think the cohort would do something out of character)

Double Barrelled Firearms

I’ve had a bit of a discussion with Jason who pointed out the rort that is double barrelled firearms; using the rules as written there isproblem when using one-handed double barrel weapons.

A double barrel pistol may be fired twice in a single attack(one for each barrel) but at a -4 penalty to hit for each shot. To reload theweapon it costs one standard action for each barrel.

With Rapid Reload the reloading time can be reduced to amove action and if you use alchemical cartridges this reduces the reloading totime further to a free action. Thus one could use this combo to reload bothbarrels as a free action, effectively doubling the rate of fire.

This means one could use rapid shot and iterative/hasteattacks to pump out a massive amount of attacks,

Ie a hasted 11^th level fighter might looksomething like this:

+6/+6/+6/+6+/+6/+6/+1/+1/-3/-3

This is before you start adding magic weapons, point blank,dexterity and other feats.

Clearly wrong.

I’ve flip-flopped a lot on ways to handle this, but I’llthink I’ll settle on the following:

a)      Regardlessof what manner of feats/equipment you are using, the quickest you can reloadboth barrels of a firearm is a move action. You may choose to reload a singlebarrel instead in which case the quickest you can reload the weapon is a freeaction. No funny business with the timing of the free action to reload, even ifyou start the round with one barrel loaded, it will cost a move action to loadthe second barrel

b)      Anyprecision based damage is applied to the first attack only.

Essentially these rules pretty much mimic the doublecrossbow.

Death

I’ll be using a variation of Pom’s system. Rather than tryto build a large table full of death after-effects I’m going to try andsimplify it and instead choose an effect to fit the situation on the fly.

I’ll probably yet tinker with these tables, they are a workin progress but for expediency I want to get this document out so you can startcreating your characters.

Also I’m, open to alternative ideas here. Alex you mentionedyou had other ideas which I’m willing to try

First determine the location by rolling a d10

Location of Injury		Associated Mechanic
1-2	Head	Sight, hearing, mental, will saves, wisdom, intelligence & charisma
3-4	Psychological	Will Saves, Confidence, Fears & Phobias, Mental
5-6	Body/Torso/Other	Constitution, Stamina, HPs, Strength, Fort Saves
7	Right Leg	Movement, Reflex, Strength, Dexterity, AC
8	Left Leg
9	Right Arm	Dexterity, To hit, Damage, Strength, Spellcasting, Shield AC
10	Left Arm

           

Then determine the impairment byrolling a d10, the lower the roll the worse the severity. The penalty shouldapply logically to whatever location the injury has been sustained

Some injuries can be consideredcontinuous or situational, continuous means the effect is constantly applied.Situational means only under certain circumstance. Generally situationalpenalties are more severe but only applied some of the time. Examples ofsituational injuries might be when hit by a critical hit, subjected to anenchantment spell, when flying etc. This will usually relate to the manner inwhich the person almost died.

Severity of Injury The descriptions given are samples of what might be applied
1	Reroll twice on this table. If a 1 is rolled again then a more severe debilitation, such as arm or leg being severed, a severe condition permenant condition such as insanity, blindness, exhaustion or constant flatfootedness. Do not make any more Rerolls
2	The injuries manifest as a Condition being applied to you. Situational: confusion, cowering, dazed, frightened, panicked, paralysed, staggered, stunned Constant: dazzled, deafened, fatigued, shaken, sickened
3	-2 penalty to a saving throw, -2 to hit and damage, -1 saving throw DC, -2 caster level
4-5	-10ft movement, can’t run or charge, 10% arcane failure,  -2 ability checks, HPs
6-8	-2 penalty to set of skill checks, the specific skills will be dependant on the injury and normally keyed to an ability score, -2 concentration checks
9-10	No significant game mechanical penalty, ie scarring, nervous habit, etc