Your modifier for a task is usually made up of your relevant proficiency bonus and ability bonus, though it may also include various other bonuses and penalties. Other bonuses or penalties come in three types: circumstance, status, and item (you can also have untyped penalties, but not untyped bonuses). If you have more than one bonus of the same type, you use only the highest bonus. Likewise, you use only the worst penalty of each type. As the characters start with 5 gp, their adventures up to 1st level should account for the rest of a 1st-level character’s starting money. That means you’ll distribute treasure worth 10 gp × the number of PCs, a large percentage of which should be in currency. The default progression of skill proficiency ranks is simple and doesn’t require many mathematical calculations as a player assigns skills. However, some players prefer a more granular system with a greater ability to diversify their skills. This variant allows characters to assign their skill increases more flexibly, potentially having fewer skills at the highest possible rank in exchange for more skills at a lower rank. Alchemical items are powered by the reactions of alchemical reagents. Almost all alchemical items are consumable items that are used up when you activate them and this category includes bombs, elixirs, poisons, and other alchemical tools. If you want to keep parts of the existing alignment system, you can use either of the following variants to make changes without entirely removing or replacing alignment. Alignment-based effects still exist in both of these variants, but they might not be as useful as in standard Pathfinder.

Affinities The claws, fangs, horns, and tusks of primeval creatures (including all dinosaurs and megafauna, as well as dire animals) can be used in the creation of any magic item that has bear’s endurance, bull’s strength, or cat’s grace as a requirement. Proteans Sometimes, especially when you have a particularly small play group or want to play incredibly versatile characters, you might want to allow dual-class characters that have the full benefits of two different classes. Monetary treasure can be a rarity in the wild, but canny scavengers and survivalists know how to reap nature’s bounty. Eggs, furs, and ivory of exotic beasts are well-known commodities, but some have also studied the mystical sympathy between certain creatures and different forms of magic. To the right buyer, these components are valuable as more exotic materials. Determine the total XP award for the encounter by looking it up by its CR on Table: Experience Point Awards. This gives you an “XP budget” for the encounter. Every creature, trap, and hazard is worth an amount of XP determined by its CR, as noted on Table: Experience Point Awards. To build your encounter, simply add creatures, traps, and hazards whose combined XP does not exceed the total XP budget for your encounter. It’s easiest to add the highest CR challenges to the encounter first, filling out the remaining total with lesser challenges. In this variant, gear can provide bonuses even if it’s not magical. This is useful for games and settings that set out to give fine, non-magical items the same prominence as magic items. High-quality gear requires the corresponding proficiency rank in Crafting to Craft.The classic ability scores aren't of equal value in the rules. Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom tend to be more important unless a character requires a particular ability score from among the other three for a specific purpose. If you'd prefer ability scores to all be of roughly equivalent value in character building, this variant creates six ability scores that are in much closer balance with each other. Make the following changes.

If a character is dying at the start of their turn, their player can spend 1 Resolve Point to stabilize at 0 HP, gaining or increasing the wounded condition as normal for stabilizing. At the start of the character’s next turn, they gain 1 HP and wake up (unless they started dying again). The character can act on that turn. Consider this an optional rule best suited for groups that have little access to healing. When using this rule, you might remove the ability for characters to use Hero Points to stabilize. Affinities Scales harvested from a protean seethe with pure chaos and can be used in the creation of any magic item that has a spell with the chaotic descriptor as a requirement. Qlippoth You spend 1 minute encouraging your ally. Though this action typically has the auditory and linguistic traits, if you’re using the Performance skill, the GM might adjust the traits for this action to match the traits for your type of performance. Jewelry, Precious (500 gp or more): Truly precious jewelry is crafted from gold, mithral, platinum, or similar rare metals. Such objects include normal jewelry types plus crowns, scepters, pendants, and other large items. If you grew up with one or two family members, your closeness to them made you highly aware of their feelings, and you. Add an Intelligence ability boost and a Wisdom ability boost to your options.

Enemy Victory Points

Success You can continue encouraging your ally for a total of 10 minutes. If you do, they can spend 1 Resolve Point to regain all their Stamina Points. Level 0 Characters can play through the characters’ adventures before they take on character classes.

Certain spells are natural to your character, typically coming from your ancestry or a magic item rather than your class. If you have an innate spell, you can cast it, even if you aren't a spellcaster or it's not of a spell level you can normally cast. You can't use your spell slots to cast your innate spells, but you might have an innate spell and also be able to prepare or cast the same spell through your class. You also can't heighten innate spells, but some abilities that grant innate spells might give you the spell at a higher level than its base level or change the level at which you cast the spell.When choosing an ancestry for a simplified ancestry character, you gain the ancestry’s normal abilities at 1st level, choose a heritage, and gain the appropriate lore feat (Dwarven Lore for dwarves, for example) as your ancestry feat. Simplified ancestry characters never gain ancestry feats beyond that first lore feat. If you want to keep the power level of your game consistent, you can replace the ancestry feats gained at higher levels with general feats. The default method of generating ability scores in the Core Rulebook can help you learn your character’s story along the way, while the alternative method, rolling scores, is a nod to tradition. But other ways to generate ability scores might better suit the story you want to tell. If the story you want to tell is about characters who have started training to become a particular class, you can grant them a small number of additional abilities. An apprentice character is trained in the skill or skills specified for their chosen class (such as Occultism and Performance for a bard) in addition to the skills they gain through their initial proficiencies. They also gain benefits based on the class. Gems: Although you can assign any value to a gemstone, some are inherently more valuable than others. Use the value categories below (and their associated gemstones) as guidelines when assigning values to gemstones.