Hacking Pathfinder

Spoiler: I end up not making any changes to Pathfinder Second Edition and we are playing rules as written with one very minor yet thematic exception.

---

I recently began the process of starting up a new TTRPG adventure with some friends. I'm extremely excited to dive into this new world and and see where the story goes. As the Game Master, I find the opening sessions some of the most challenging. TTRPGs often take a good amount of up front work to get started. In fact, they take so much work that many games advertise a "quick and easy character creation process". Pathfinder Second Edition is not one of those quick to setup games.

My friends and I played Pathfinder Second Edition (PF2e) as the system of my previous campaign and it went really well! However, in the past year and a half I've been exposed to a ton of new TTRPGs and the new ideas they bring to the table.  So I was eager to dive into something new, wondering if it would be more fun for the players, or maybe more fun for myself as the Game Master. My players are definitely open minded about what system we use, but they have a comfort zone in Pathfinder. So I tried to hack up Pathfinder to suit my interests instead of introducing an entirely game. 

I am a big fan of the Monster Hunter series and with the recent release of Monster Hunter Wilds, I was inspired to try and shoe horn in Monster Hunter concepts into a RPG. 

No More Experience Points

A key aspect of Monster Hunter is that your character never levels up, at least not in the traditional sense. There are no experience points that reach predetermined check points and increase stats and abilities like HP,  Attack, etc. Instead, the Player Character (PC) will go on "hunts" to kill or capture monster and use it's body parts to create stronger, better gear. (As I write this explanation of Monster Hunter I'm realizing how gruesome and morbid this premise is.) So naturally I wanted to do this in a TTRPG. Remove "levels" and replace them with gear. Sounded great in my head.

Spells, HP, and Class upgrades are all heavily integrated with the concept of a Level Up. So my solution was to move Level Ups on to the gear itself. When the players obtain new gear it would have all the same aspects of a traditional Level Up. As I dove down this rabbit hole I ran into numerous problems. I thought I had a pretty elegant solution to most things, but in the end the exact Monster Hunter flavor I was looking for would require too much work for the time I was willing to invest.

Other TTRPGs are more flexible, but at the time of brainstorming this Pathfinder re-work I hadn't come across any system that removes level ups entirely. So I took up the mantle to try and build on top existing PF2e systems and see what crazy things I could make. I've since learned about Index Card RPG. there aren't any level ups, and the whole game is centered around fun wild loot you can uncover.

What is a Level Up in Pathfinder

Part of a PF2e character are their attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdon, and Charisma). I decided that it made the most sense to keep these values intrinsic to a PC. They are the most static values in a game of Pathfinder, and they are often such a major part of a character that they should not be changed so easily as putting on or taking off a special pair of boots. This is a deviation from the Monster Hunter philosophy, but I had to make some compromises. I genuinely asked myself, "At what point do I just abandon the PF2e framework and and make my own RPG?". Pathfinder offered so much content that it was hard to move off of it. I wouldn't have to come up with my own Classes, or Feats, or anything. The world of Pathfinder is also rich with inspiring lore that I can draw from to make my own custom Monster Hunter world for the players to explore.

Leveling up in PF2e can be pretty complicated and has a number of moving parts. Simply put you gain more of, or better versions of the below characteristics:

• HP
• Feats
• Skills
• Proficiency
• Spells and Spell Slots

As you'll soon read, I had a plan for each of these points. I was able to move something incredibly intrinsic about a character and make it extrinsic. I made it something that could be malleable, removed, or even sidestepped entirely. I also opened the door to a ton of multi-classing options. I felt proud of this idea and wanted to see if I could make it work for an entire adventure.  It might flop and my players hate it. Or it could be too complicated. Or the most likely scenario, that it wasn't well documented enough. I believe my player should have knowledge of all potential character upgrades and that information shouldn't be hidden for them to discover. Half their enjoyment comes from thinking up interesting combinations for their character. But with all the changes I would be making, a great deal of information in the core book would be changed and un-reliable. Putting the burden on me for providing as much written detail and explanation as possible.

HP

I decided to tackle the HP problem first. It proved to be the right decision and guided my thoughts in a way that also addressed and solved the other problem areas that I would need to change.

In PF2e a character typically gains HP (not starting HP) based on the Class that he/she is playing. But in Monster Hunter fashion, your Class - which isn't really a "Class" - is dictated by the gear you are wearing. My mind immediately though it would be great to make PF2e gear associated with a Class. And it would be as free-form as possible.  So you could have Rouge Leather Armor, or Fighter Leather Armor, or Wizard Leather Armor! It felt limitless. Certain combinations stood out as the natural choice for a given Class for both mechanical and thematic reasons, but I was inspired by the flexibility.  You also add your Constitution (one of the attributes from earlier) to the class HP bonus for your total HP gain. 

Thinking about this more mathematically:

1. HP per level = Class Bonus + Con
2. Total HP = (Class Bonus + Con) + (Class Bonus + Con) + (Class Bonus + Con) + ....
3. Total HP = Character Level * (Class Bonus + Con)
4. Total HP = (Character Level * Class Bonus) + (Character Level * Con)

Combing the concept of having gear associated with level ups and mathematically how you are intended to gain HP, it makes it quite easy to say how much HP a piece of gear provides. You know your Constitution isn't changing so you will always gain that much HP every level. And a piece of gear is has a class associated with it that dictate the HP you would can from that Class' Bonus.

Feats

When considering how to introduce Feats, I had another inspiring idea. It seemed obvious to have a piece of gear associated with a Feat related to the gear's Class. But how does this work when there are certain Feats you gain at higher levels, beyond first level? Well we can attach levels to the gear. So now you have a "Level 2 Rouge Leather Armor" that provides HP equal to 8 + Constitution , and has a feat that the Rouge class has access to at level 2. The rules for gaining feats still apply, but instead of your PC gaining an intrinsic detail about themselves, it's the gear they wear providing the boost in power.

Introducing levels to gear slightly complicates HP as well. If you have a two level 1 pieces of gear (because that should be allowed for multi-classing purposes) and two level 2 pieces of gear, what should your HP be? I decided that a PC should only gain HP for a single piece of gear at each level. In the example earlier, the PC would only gain HP for one of his level 1 pieces and one of his level 2 pieces. However the feats granted by the other pieces of armor are still valid and active. This "one piece per level" detail only affects the HP growth. 

This was partially a balancing decision so that PCs couldn't farm up level 1 gear and have massive HP pools. But also an encouragement to the players to continue to push harder and harder enemies to find, buy, or craft better gear.

Skills and Proficiency

Skills in Pathfinder have a Proficiency bonus that gets added to one of the innate attribute described above (Str, Dex, Int, etc). This Proficiency comes in multiple flavors: Untrained, Trained, Expert, Master, and Legendary. Each with their own bonuses described below:

• Untrained = +0
• Trained = 2 + your level
• Expert = 2 + your level
• Master = 2 + your level
• Legendary = 2 + your level

As you level up, you increase your training and become more proficient. These increases are moved to equipment. Level 2 Rouge Leather Armor will grant an identical skill increase that reaching level 2 in Rouge typically would. The rules are outline in the core rules how this works. In more concrete terms: the rule says that reaching Rouge level 2 rewards the player with training in any skill. This means advancing from from Untrained to Trained, Trained to Expert, Expert to Master, and Master to Legendary in any single skill. In the book there are clearly outline minimum level requirements for Reaching Expert, Master, and Legendary that still hold true in this new system. Back to our Level 2 Rouge example, if they are gaining Training in Stealth, but they are already Trained in stealth, this piece of equipment wouldn't actually add any additional training. However, if this same equipment was worn by a player that wasn't yet Trained in Stealth, this would grant them that level of proficiency. The piece of equipment now contains the following information: Level, Class, and Skill Proficiency.  

Putting skills on gear is advantageous to the player and extremely thematic within the game world. In real life you might switch your clothes depending on what you wanted to do. For example if you want to be sneaky and quiet you wouldn't wear loud, clunky armor, or carry a giant battle axe. If a Player accumulates enough of gear to have multiple combinations, they can swap around combat gear, exploring/dungeoneering gear, layman clothes to wear around a populated city. Each set making them better or worse at the skills that matter most in that moment. 

I thought this was a really neat idea and it gave me confidence that I was on the right track. I had a really good thing going and it was shaping up to be an extremely engaging experience for the players as well. They would be able to create unique characters like never before. No longer confined to a narrow set of options. Instead they could combine ALL Classes gaining expertise and proficiency in many different areas . 

Spells and Spell Slots

This was a hurdle that I would have to tackle sooner or later. If Wizards and Witches are leveling up through gear, then how do they gain spells? What dictates their spell slot maximums? What dictates the magical traditions they have access to? All of these questions were in the back of my mind as I was working through HP, Skills, and Feats. And I was waiting for the right inspiration to find a clever solution.

I took inspiration from the Final Fantasy 7 materia system and thought about Spells as Orbs (or materia) that could be attached and detached from gear. This gave a certain modularity to spells. Casters could cast anything they had an orb of, while still meeting the magical tradition requirements (Primal, Divine, Arcane, and Occult). As the GM, I could also give them the ability and opportunity to find, make, and buy Spell Orbs over the course of their adventure. It came back to the free form, fully customizable nature of what I was hoping for. 

This raised some more questions about how many Spell Orbs could fit in a single piece of gear? Or if  Spell Orbs could be used when they weren't attached to gear? Leading me to a couple of conclusions. 

Spell Orbs should be usable in one way or another whether they are attached or not. This felt right to me, and allowed for a lot of creativity and potentially dramatic moments; like when the Wizard realizes the spell he needs isn't attached to his gear, but he might still be able to use it directly form the orb for one, epic, clutch cast! Which naturally lead to the idea that Spell Orbs should be stronger when attached to gear and weaker when detached to promote proper planning and strategizing. This would also emulate the "morning preparations" that most spell casting classes are required to do PF2e where they decided which spells they will have access to for that day. 

Equipment that is associated with a spell casting class would have both innate spells and be able to attach spells into a finite number of sockets (like materia). Innate spells are ones that part of the specific equipment and cannot be swapped in or out. They are decided upon creation or purchase of the specific piece. Sockets refer to where Spell Orbs can be attached. Each piece of gear would have a finite amount of these and the wearer would decide what to put in them. They could swap them out, but it would take some time for the Spell Orb to attune to the new piece of gear. Meaning they couldn't decided to swap them out in the middle of combat.

What a spell casting Class is, seem obvious to most, but what about the classes that gain access to magic at higher levels? Well to handle that situation, if a Class would either gain new spells on level up, or gain the ability to cast a certain tradition of magic (think Level 1 of Wizard with Arcane spells, or Level 1 Druid with Primal), then a piece of gear belonging to that class, at that specific level, would have spell sockets and one innate spell of that tradition.

In pursuit of a method to track spell slots, the burn out system came to mind. Every time a spell was used there was a chance that it was overloaded and would need time to recharge. Recharging would require a long rest's worth of time for the orb to return to full power. If the orb was used while detached, the chance for burnout would be greater. Spells could be used as many times as you wanted until they burned out. This is the same for innate spells though those are always attached to a given piece of gear and can't be swapped around. I settled on an attached burnout chance of 25% and detached burnout chance of 75%. EVENTUALLY your spells will burn out, but until then you can keep casting as many times as you want. 

One thing I probably should have done is take into account any probability involved in this system. I think right now its possible (and likely) for spells to be cast more times than than rules as written Pathfinder. And that seems fine to me considering the overall number of spells available to a caster might end up being fewer than rules as written. Fewer options, but you can use those options more often. It felt like a fine trade off. And while balance is important, fun and meaningful decisions are more important. This was a trade off my players were comfortable trying out so I figured it was acceptable. It also gave the casters the option to acquire spells in less conventional ways, by crafting or buying Spell Orbs. And when there is plenty of magic in and around this made up world, I felt it was reasonable for low level spells to be common items. Mid and high level spells could and would be locked behind quests and fun challenges. Making the acquisition of spells just like loot instead of an innate thing that happens when you've killed enough goblins. To me, that's an amazing, thematic, engaging spin on things that gets players invested in the world.

Cantrips

Given everything above, Cantrips are tricky. I think that if you are wearing a piece of level 1 gear of a spell casting class that has access to cantrips, you have access to cantrips. This is actually a road block I haven't worked out yet. But I'm sure given more time plus the input from my players we could come up with a clever solution. Maybe we'll see that day in the future.

Monster Parts and Materials

In addition to changing the PF2e rules to fit my Monster Hunter needs I had never forgotten about the core gameplay loop of Monster Hunter, carving up monsters for their body parts to make new equipment. In Monster Hunter games the developers have given a unique crafting recipe for each piece of equipment and unique name for each body part the monsters. This likely took a tremendous amount of effort and was done by an entire team of professionals. Not something an armature Game Master should try to emulate and reproduce. 

I had a couple of iterations on this concept but ultimately I didn't like any of them and never came to a good conclusion. Maybe sharing them here could inspire you to come up with something better. 

The Monster Hunter Way 

I tried to create a few monsters and give them specific body parts and raw materials, that could be carved. Like a giant bird who would reward the players with a beak, talons, and feathers. Coming up with a single monster wasn't too difficult to accomplish, but doing this for every single monster the players will come across would be a ton of work. Doing this on the fly makes it even harder and would bog down gameplay. Additionally, I would have to create uses for each of those body parts. What could you do with a beak? Well in Monster Hunter you would collect multiple of them and take them to an NPC that would transform them into a new piece of gear. For me to create crafting recipes for every item in the game and have a use for every raw material was too much work. I quickly realized the implausibility of this method.

Abstract Monster Parts

Maybe instead of specific parts, the players collected a generic "Monster Part" that was fungible with any other "Monster Part". That would simplify the process of coming up with both raw materials and crafting recipes. But it felt like I had taken out one of the core principles of monster hunting. I also struggled to incorporate this into the crafting system over all.

Now would be a good time to mention that one of my goals underpinning this entire idea was to make Crafting as relevant as possible. In most of the PF2e campaigns I've participated, and in some online forums, Crafting in Pathfinder has a pretty negative reputation. I hoped to breathe new life into it with my Monster Hunter makeover.

I came up with a chart that would determine the quality of a item being crafted by the players. They would roll a d20, add the quantity of Monster Parts to the roll  as a bonus, signifying the amount of raw materials they are investing into the project. Then normal Crafting rules would come into play and it's business as usual. Now there is the added challenge of making sure the players can reliably Craft, or at least one player can, and that they feel comfortable enough with the rules to take the Crafting action. A small hurdle, but a hurdle none the less. While on theme this does force one or more players to specialize in Crafting.

So far so good, it lacks a certain presence and engagement compared to specific, detailed monster parts, but it's much more functional. Now I need to figure out how many monster parts to give out. If I give them out too fast or too slow, the pacing could be all wrong. Additionally, tying it to a dice roll felt like levels ups had a random chance of failure. No one would like that. Then I realized giving out monster material as rewards for killing monsters is no different than giving Experience Points! It's the same thing but with more steps. Definitely not enough flavor to justify the additional work. 

Monster Parts for Magic Items

I felt really clever when I thought of this. I would give specific, detailed parts to the players as a reward for killing specific monsters; just like the first iteration on the broader concept. Except now they could only be used on specialty Magic Items either by crafting it themselves or by having an NPC do it for them. While I would still have to come up with recipes, the scope is much narrower. Gear intended for Level Ups would follow mundane crafting rules and recipes. 

This is a condensed and focused version of the first attempt I spoke about earlier, "The Monster Hunter Way". And I would inform my players that they should tell me what the would like to to craft ahead of time so I could prepare all the crafting specifics in advance. Including the Monster(s) they needed to track and hunt as well as the parts those monsters would drop. They would have been comfortable with this and it would still emulate the experience of tracking and killing a rare, strong monster and using it's body parts to make power equipment. 

Rewriting Chapters of the Rule Book 

After all that work figuring out how to handle so many different scenarios, I realized I was basically re-writing 4 different chapters of the rule book spanning some 200 pages. Without realizing it, I was undertaking a much larger journey than I ever expected. It was super fun coming up with everything above, but I never anticipated or wanted to completely rewrite Pathfinder. This was supposed to be a fun homebrew not a total rework. I felt like I wasn't simply putting a new coat of paint on Pathfinder Second Edition, I was entirely rebuilding how each of the underlying systems interact with each other. 

It was a daunting realization.

What I landed on instead of Monster Hunter

The final solution I decided on was Relics. For those who don't know, Relics are considered extremely powerful and rare items in the world of Pathfinder. A campaign should only have one, or maybe two if they are narrative focused. And I decided to give one to each of my players from the start of the game. I also completely abandon my Monster Hunter homebrew (for now). Instead we will be playing nearly 100% rules as written Pathfinder. The one exception is how leveling up works. Additional elaboration of Relics might help explain this change. 

Traditionally, Relics level up when the players level up. The item has a growing, changing level that always matches the players level. And at certain milestone levels it gains new abilities. This shares same same DNA with what I had set out to accomplish, attaching level ups to gear instead of making it Experience Points based. So I flipped it around and instead of the Relic level based on the player, the players' level is based on the Relic. A subtle semantic difference offers so much potential for creatively handling level ups. In my best attempt to retain the Monster Hunter feel, I thought it appropriate for Relics to level up when they killed a strong monster. But not just any strong monster, one that matched the Aspect of the Relic. (Relics have Aspects, like Pokemon have types). So an Electric Aspect Relic would need to kill Electric Aspect monsters! 

This promotes "the hunt" and players will need to seek out specific monsters in order to level up. They'll also have to agree and work as a team to do so because it's unlikely they'll all share the same aspects. So some of them will have to specifically help their team mates succeed, in a situation where they expect to gain very little or nothing at all besides the satisfaction of helping and being a team player.

This has a tack on effect of allowing me, the Game Master, to steer the story in any direction I want without worrying about creating too easy or too difficult encounters. I am never the one to decide when the players level up, they are. They must choose when they want to seek out and hunt down a monster that will level up their relics. Along the way they'll come across quests and plot hooks, dungeons, loot, and hopefully other exciting secrets, all while exploring an unknown world excited to see what surprise it holds.