PF 1e - Joey's House Rules
Character Creation & Leveling
- Any first party class is allowed, as well as any first party core race. Other races, along with any third party or homebrew material, require explicit GM approval.
- Unchained barbarian, monk, rogue, and summoner should always be used over the normal, "chained" versions of those classes, unless the player wants a chained archetype that can't easily be converted; the player should talk to the GM about this.
- Level-based attack and save bonuses are given by the unchained fractional base bonuses variant rules. Characters with a single class are completely unaffected, but multiclassing characters now round their base attack and save bonuses after adding all of their class bonuses instead of before, so their progression isn't ruined if they have any levels in non-full-BAB classes.
- Ability scores are generated with a 20 point buy, rather than the usual 15 point buy or 4d6k3 rolls.
- The ability score increase that characters get every 4 levels now grants two +1 bonuses instead of one, but they must go to different stats.
- The party levels up as a group when the GM decides it's appropriate, rather than leveling (individually or together) by collecting a certain number of experience points.
Fumbles & Crits
- Rather than just automatically missing, rolling a natural 1 on an attack also threatens a critical failure, or fumble (the opposite of a critical hit, or crit). It confirms similarly: the attack is rolled again, and if it misses then the fumble is confirmed. Fumble effects vary based on the situation, either set by the GM or pulled from the fumble deck. Optionally, crits can also pull effects from the crit deck instead of doing extra damage (higher multipliers = more choices from the deck).
Magic Weapons & Armor
- Magic weapons and armor only need to be masterwork (rather than having at least a +1 enhancement) before acquiring any special abilities.
- Instead of being capped at +10, there is no upper bound on the total equivalent bonus that magic weapons and armor can have (but their enhancement bonuses still cannot exceed +5). Pricing still follows the existing formula: price = bonus2 × 2000 for weapons, or half that for armor.
Feat Tax Stuff
- Some of the more annoying feat taxes get in the way of fun and unique builds, like taking advantage of VMC or interesting feat chains. To counteract this, every character starts with one additional bonus feat (as long as they meet the requirements) from the following list: