The purpose of the site is to give the players within the game an easy reference, but if you are a GM, or a player who would like to use the content within for your own game, have fun.
House Rules
Due to the thematic elements of the campaign setting there are certain alterations to the vanilla Pathfinder rules that we use. Some of these rules are a result of practicality, while others are a matter of game balance.
Core Rules
We only utilize material found within the core rulebook and the bestiaries. Although the additional material found in other books is tempting, the goal is to master the core rules before slowly incorporating material from the other books. The intention is to cut down on rules lawyering and wasting game time looking up obscure information. This helps the GM when it comes to designing the game, as it reduces the amount of factors to take into account when trying to come up with suitable challenges for the player characters. It helps the players by allowing them to gain a better understanding of the mechanics of the world their characters will function within, and help them to anticipate what they will need to prepare for.
Double Weapons
Our game does not feature double weapons, with the exception of the quarterstaff. According to modern melee fighting knowledge, wielding a double-sided weapon is not nearly as effective. Not only is such a weapon not as easily maneuvered into defensive and offensive positioning, there is a chance that in the heat of battle you will do your opponent's work for them and slice yourself open unintentionally. Although this game features inexplicable things like magic, when it comes to the mundane aspects of the game, we try to "keep it real".
"Flanked" is a condition
Being flanked in our game means that there are too may nearby dangers to effectively defend yourself. It has more to do with not being able to split your attention or your actions in every direction than exposing an area such as your back to an opponent. After all, the direction you are facing is assumed to adjust to combat factors as they develop. This means that ranged attackers get the same advantage as those who are creating the flank with their melee threats.
Half Sprint
If you have a straight, unobstructed path you can move as though running for half a turn, effectively taking a double move in half the time. During this movement you incur the penalties to AC that running normally incurs (unless you have a feat or ability that negates this). This cannot be used as part of a charge.
Magical Item Crafting Components
With the exception of scrolls, potions, and wands, magical items can not be crafted by buying supplies in town with coinage.
The advantage that the magic item creation feats give to the entire party can easily throw the game into imbalance. They allow the entire party to have twice the value of equipment that a party without access to this feat would normally have. A GM could increase the challenge rating of the encounters to match this, but this inevitably leads to extremely quick, risky encounters with creatures far beyond the party's level. These encounters often lead to character death, which is something that we like to keep to a reasonable level. When characters die before you get a chance to grow fond of them, the players can easily become detached from their assembly line cannon fodder.
Another risk is the player becoming more attached to their character's equipment than their personality. A character's personality and concept is something we like to focus on in our games. This is role-playing after all. Another aspect of this "RP killing" element is that no player in their right mind would make a spellcaster without taking at least a few of these feats. This constrains character builds and discourages RP based advancement.
To remedy this, we have instated a loose system in which crafting magical items is still possible, but more difficult to accomplish than collecting gold and spending a few days in town. In order to craft any magical item, the material costs must be covered by collecting the body parts of magical creatures. The creature must have an ability or nature that relates to the item you wish to craft. Dragons are a good example of a valuable creature, given their elemental affiliations, which might be applied to weapon damage or armor resistance. This forces craftsmen to utilize their imaginations, think flexibly, and craft items that relate back to the story their characters are in. The equivalent values of these parts is largely left up to the GM at this point, although they should be proportionate to the creature's challenge rating. As we develop this system more, a standardized value system will be established.
An exception to this rule is diamond dust, which acts as a wild card component, able to cover the component cost of any magical item. As such, it is deliberately scarce, making up less than a quarter of the overall treasure values of loot, even less in the early stages of the game, when the party is at lower levels (< 6th). The in game reasoning is that such a precious material would likely be horded by anyone who recognized it for what it was. Even if they had no means of crafting magical items, they would know that spellcasters are interested in it, and would use it as incentives or rewards to attain powerful allies.
Yet another reason for this rule is the relatively low-magic world that Kaledor is. Magical items are purposefully hard to acquire. For one, if they were common, they would inevitably be horded and have their collective power used to collect more magic items. This cycle would repeat itself until a totalitarian mageocracy arose, unless the inevitable war for supremacy created a post-apocalyptic world. These types of worlds are cool, but for another campaign, or at least another era of Kaledor's timeline.
Core Rules
We only utilize material found within the core rulebook and the bestiaries. Although the additional material found in other books is tempting, the goal is to master the core rules before slowly incorporating material from the other books. The intention is to cut down on rules lawyering and wasting game time looking up obscure information. This helps the GM when it comes to designing the game, as it reduces the amount of factors to take into account when trying to come up with suitable challenges for the player characters. It helps the players by allowing them to gain a better understanding of the mechanics of the world their characters will function within, and help them to anticipate what they will need to prepare for.
Double Weapons
Our game does not feature double weapons, with the exception of the quarterstaff. According to modern melee fighting knowledge, wielding a double-sided weapon is not nearly as effective. Not only is such a weapon not as easily maneuvered into defensive and offensive positioning, there is a chance that in the heat of battle you will do your opponent's work for them and slice yourself open unintentionally. Although this game features inexplicable things like magic, when it comes to the mundane aspects of the game, we try to "keep it real".
"Flanked" is a condition
Being flanked in our game means that there are too may nearby dangers to effectively defend yourself. It has more to do with not being able to split your attention or your actions in every direction than exposing an area such as your back to an opponent. After all, the direction you are facing is assumed to adjust to combat factors as they develop. This means that ranged attackers get the same advantage as those who are creating the flank with their melee threats.
Half Sprint
If you have a straight, unobstructed path you can move as though running for half a turn, effectively taking a double move in half the time. During this movement you incur the penalties to AC that running normally incurs (unless you have a feat or ability that negates this). This cannot be used as part of a charge.
Magical Item Crafting Components
With the exception of scrolls, potions, and wands, magical items can not be crafted by buying supplies in town with coinage.
The advantage that the magic item creation feats give to the entire party can easily throw the game into imbalance. They allow the entire party to have twice the value of equipment that a party without access to this feat would normally have. A GM could increase the challenge rating of the encounters to match this, but this inevitably leads to extremely quick, risky encounters with creatures far beyond the party's level. These encounters often lead to character death, which is something that we like to keep to a reasonable level. When characters die before you get a chance to grow fond of them, the players can easily become detached from their assembly line cannon fodder.
Another risk is the player becoming more attached to their character's equipment than their personality. A character's personality and concept is something we like to focus on in our games. This is role-playing after all. Another aspect of this "RP killing" element is that no player in their right mind would make a spellcaster without taking at least a few of these feats. This constrains character builds and discourages RP based advancement.
To remedy this, we have instated a loose system in which crafting magical items is still possible, but more difficult to accomplish than collecting gold and spending a few days in town. In order to craft any magical item, the material costs must be covered by collecting the body parts of magical creatures. The creature must have an ability or nature that relates to the item you wish to craft. Dragons are a good example of a valuable creature, given their elemental affiliations, which might be applied to weapon damage or armor resistance. This forces craftsmen to utilize their imaginations, think flexibly, and craft items that relate back to the story their characters are in. The equivalent values of these parts is largely left up to the GM at this point, although they should be proportionate to the creature's challenge rating. As we develop this system more, a standardized value system will be established.
An exception to this rule is diamond dust, which acts as a wild card component, able to cover the component cost of any magical item. As such, it is deliberately scarce, making up less than a quarter of the overall treasure values of loot, even less in the early stages of the game, when the party is at lower levels (< 6th). The in game reasoning is that such a precious material would likely be horded by anyone who recognized it for what it was. Even if they had no means of crafting magical items, they would know that spellcasters are interested in it, and would use it as incentives or rewards to attain powerful allies.
Yet another reason for this rule is the relatively low-magic world that Kaledor is. Magical items are purposefully hard to acquire. For one, if they were common, they would inevitably be horded and have their collective power used to collect more magic items. This cycle would repeat itself until a totalitarian mageocracy arose, unless the inevitable war for supremacy created a post-apocalyptic world. These types of worlds are cool, but for another campaign, or at least another era of Kaledor's timeline.
