Campaign Rules

The following are kept close to the Shattered Star rules for ease of remembrance.

1) Background Skills, your character gains two additional skill points per level that can only be used in selected background skills. This primarily a backstory convenience for characters, as everyone had some profession or craft they did or area of expertise they studied. With background skills, you have the ability to progress in said knowledge or craft without having to use your normal skill point allotment for flavor (we all know that for some classes, those skill points are truly precious).


2) Illusions: Illusions will not show up via a detect magic spell. More powerful magic, such as true seeing will be required to see them (or interacting with them, of course).

3) Ability Progression: +1 per 2 levels; an additional +1 every fourth level that cannot be put into the same ability.

Additionally, everyone will be expected to keep track of their primary stat (the one that you're putting the vast majority of the above bonuses into--as an example, a wizard would almost certainly be putting the majority of their ability points into Intelligence, so that would be their primary stat). You will not be able to magically enhance via items your character's primary stat save with one exception, which will be noted below. However, the other five ability stats will be allowed to be enhanced via magic items with no more than a +2 bonus.

4) Magic Items: Aside from the caveat regarding ability scores above, weapon and armor bonuses function normally.

Following are how I'm working magical item restrictions:

* ioun stones - These are the only magical items that will grant enhancement bonuses to any of a character's six ability stats (even their primary stat). Ioun stones have a cherished role in the Pathfinder game, so I want these to be the exception to the rule! However, I will be capping their enhancement potential at +2.

5) Inherent Saving Throw bonuses: You will get inherent saving throw increases by level, as follows:
* No cloaks of resistance
+1 at 2nd level; +1 at 6th level; +1 at 10th level; +1 at 14th level; +1 at 18th level

6) Magical Traps: Please remember that in order to use disarm device to disarm a magical trap, you must have the trapfinding ability.

7) Magic Item Creation- All Craft feats are fair game using the normal rules.

The Short Rest:(Same as Shattered Star) Characters will now have the opportunity to take short rests during an adventuring day. A short rest will take only 1 hour, and during that time characters will be able to replenish a limited number of hit points, spells, and daily abilities.

* hit points - A character will get a number of Rest Dice equal to their character level (a 4th level character would get 4 Rest Dice). A character’s Rest Die is two steps lower than his class’ hit die (ex. A fighter’s hit die is a d10, so his Rest Die is a d6; a wizard’s hit die is a d6, so his Rest Die is a d3). Thus, a 4th level fighter would receive 4d6 Rest Dice.

When a party stops for a short rest, the player chooses the number of Rest Dice from his available allotment to roll and recovers that many hit points during the resting period. The Rest Dice used are then gone for that day, only to replenish after a full rest period (8 hours). So, if you are a 4th level fighter, and the party takes a short rest, you may choose to use up to 4d6 Rest Dice to regain hit points during the rest. If you choose to use 3d6, then you roll them to determine how many hp are regained, and you only have 1d6 Rest Die left should the party choose to take another short rest later on. When you have used all of your Rest Dice for the day, then you cannot regain hit points again until after a full rest is taken.

* spells - All arcane, divine, and psychic spellcasters, as well as alchemists, will gain a number of Recovery Dice equal to their character level. A Recovery Die is a d3, so a 4th level Wizard has 4d3 Recovery Dice. These act exactly as Rest Dice do for hit points, except these work for the recovery of spell levels (or extracts for alchemists). Recovery Dice used during a short rest do not replenish until after a full rest is taken.

A magic user may memorize any level of spells he knows in any combination equal to the number of spell levels gained on his Recovery Dice roll. These need not be spells that he had already committed to memory that day, since the magic user is essentially studying his spellbook (or equivalent) throughout the rest. For divine casters, this it time spent in prayer or meditation or whatever is most appropriate for his magic replenishment.

* daily abilities - During a short rest, a character replenishes 25% of his maximum allotment of daily abilities. Daily abilities are any abilities that are given a character to use so many times a day, such as a cleric’s domain abilities, an oracle’s revelations, an alchemist’s bombs, and so forth. It also works for replenishing points, such as a magus’ arcane pool, a swashbuckler’s pinache, a gunslinger’s grit, etc. This always rounds down to a minimum of 1 replenished ability due to the rest.

If a character has no Rest or Recovery Dice remaining, they are fully depleted and cannot regain daily abilities either.

Note - A full, 8-hour rest will now permit character’s to regain 3 times their character level in hit points (a 4th level character would recover 12 hp after a full rest). However, any interruption from a random encounter at any time during this 8-hour rest will require the entire rest period be done again in order for complete rest benefits to be regained. Thus, a full rest period must be uninterrupted to completely replenish spells and abilities and full possible hit points.

During an interrupted full rest, a character may use whatever Rest and Recovery Dice they have remaining, and still get 25% of their daily abilities replenished if they have any short rest dice remaining at all.

Finally, short rests do not act as actual rest when it comes to pushing beyond a normal adventuring day. Characters that go longer than 12 hours in an adventuring day will be required to make the DC 10 Constitution check (+1 per extra hour) or be fatigued.

9) Character-to-Character Hand-Offs During Combat: (Same as Shattered Star) Sometimes, in the midst of combat, a character wishes to hand a potion or wand (or any other item) to another character in need. Obviously, to do this, the receiving character must have a free hand to take the item being offered.

Mechanically, the character giving this item may choose to use a move or swift action to do so; however, the character receiving the item must use an immediate action to take it (which is significant because this means they no longer have a swift action to use when their turn comes!).

10) For at least the first book, as a trial run, there will be a "Fog of War" regarding the statuses of your own character's health. This will be implemented as follows:
A) On a hit likely to bring down a character, I will instead ask how many HP the character has. If the character has enough to remain standing, I will announce the damage. If instead, the damage brings the character below 0 health, I will just announce the character is down.
B) Once a character goes down, the rolls to stabilize will be done blind and the outcome will not be announced.
C) Other characters within 30 feet can identify whether a character is stabilized or close to death by using a Heal check as a Swift Action. DC=10 in both cases.