Character Creation
Player Option Sources
All Pathfinder 2nd Edition book sources published by Paizo are allowed except those published in Adventure Paths and individual Adventures, and the following titles that contain options that do not fit the theme of the adventure:
- Guns & Gears
- Dark Archive
Ancestry Ability Boosts
The Alternate Ability Boosts from choice of ancestry and the change of Voluntary Flaw optional rule, as introduced in Core Rulebook 4th Printing Errata are not available in my campaign. Instead, use the rules up to 3rd printing of the Core Rulebook.
Alignment
True neutral alignment is not allowed for player characters. True neutral alignment is only allowed for creatures such as animals with no concept of good and evil, order and chaos; and for creatures who embody and serve a form of cosmic neutrality (such as monitors that hail from or have a strong connection to the neutrally aligned planes).
Uncommon Features
When creating a character at the start of a new campaign, limit yourself to up to one uncommon rarity option (ancestry, background, class, feat, heritage, item or spell) that must be well integrated in your character concept and backstory. The DM still has to approve your choice, and may build a personal motivation or events around it to further make it special. You cannot choose rare options: these are reserved for rewards unlocked within the campaign, or options unlocked at the end of a campaign and available for the next one.
As a rule of thumb, you should not pick the same uncommon or rare option for the next two characters that you make with the same DM or group unless the DM allows you to. This limits regular access to "must have" player-favorite features that are often chosen not because of their flavor or importance to the campaign, but because of their power and for the purpose of build optimization. It's okay to have other players in the group take options that you used for a previous character, in order to get a chance to enjoy them in a different way.
General
Hero Points
Players start a new campaign with one Hero Point each, and their use is described in Core Rulebook, pg. 467. Hero points are not lost between session. In addition for feats of heroism and rewards for quality roleplaying, players earn Hero Points in the following ways:
- Players earn a Hero Point at the start of each session, including the first session of a new campaign.
- Players may earn a Hero Point after overcoming a Severe or Extreme difficulty, or at the end of each Adventure Path chapter if it doesn't end with a such encounter.
Insight Checks
At any point, you can attempt a DC 15 special check modified by a target player's Wisdom modifier. If you succeed, you can pass a suggestion to the target player that his character may recall in the game as a spark of insight or recalled memory. If you fail the check, you may not attempt another such check until the end of the encounter.
Movement in Dangerous Areas
In a dangerous environment (such as exploring a dungeon or an enemy camp) and while out of initiative, all players are assumed to move at half speed. This allows every character to perform one of the half speed movement exploration activities best suited for their class or party role (such as Avoid Notice, Cover Tracks, Defend, Detect Magic, Investigate, Scout, or Track). Players need to announce what action they will perform by default only once when entering the area and it will apply until they make a different choice. The party moves at full speed without performing Exploration actions only if they announce that they do.
Also, as a part of the announcement of default actions, the party should decide on its front, middle and back positions in the party order, and a full order for situations cases where the party moves through tight corridors. This is useful for the GM when deciding how to place characters on the map when an encounter starts. The position of each player may restrict what exploration activities their character can take, such as only front position can perform the Scout activity or search for Traps, and only back position can Cover Tracks.
Creature Identification
When you succeed at Recall Knowledge about a creature you learn its name, traits and a little bit about its history or behavior as part of the creature's common lore. You can ask any question related to it, or any of the questions related to its statistics listed below. If you beat the DC by 2 or more, you ask two questions, if you beat the DC by 5 or more you can ask three questions, and if you beat the DC by 10 or more you receive an answer on every question you might have.
- Is the creature more powerful than you (higher level) or not (equal or lesser level)?
- What is the weakest saving throw out of all three?
- What are the creature's strongest skill and does it have any special bonuses from specific circumstances?
- What are the creature's best-known passive ability.
- What are the creature's most used special attack, its damage type and traits if any?
- What are the creature's best-known active abilitiy.
- What are the creature's highest level innate spell it can cast?
If a creature has multiple abilities of the same type such as more than one passive ability, the GM will give you one starting from the most common one, and let you know that you can try to remember more. This lets you use any unspent question or further attempts to Recall Knowledge to learn the next best-known item of the same type. The GM will also let you know if you exhausted everything about a question so you don't waste further attempts.
If a creature has an Uncommon or Rare rarity or a higher level because it is a modified version of a Common rarity creature of same or lower level (such as an Elite adjustment), an attempt to Recall Knowledge about it may also succeed if it beats the DC based on the level and rarity of the Common rarity base creature. Such success only provides information about the Common rarity base creature, and does not reveal the unique abilities or statistic changes of the Uncommon or Rare variant.
Each subsequent attempt to Recall Knowledge using the same skill increases the difficulty of the check by one step (up to incredibly hard at +10 to DC). If however you are able to use a different skill that is applicable to the creature and you have not used it before, you do not increase the difficulty by one step when you switch to that skill for the next check.
During combat, when you spend 
to Recall Knowledge that results to a failure, you can still attempt to Recall Knowledge again as long as you don't critically fail. Outside of combat, failing at Recall Knowledge works as normal.
Abilities that use Recall Knowledge
If you have abilities that require you to attempt a Recall Knowledge check, you may opt to make that check without learning anything beyond creature's name, trait and a little bit about its history or behavior as part of the creature's common lore. If you choose so, you make the Recall Knowledge check using the first attempt DC unmodified by difficulty due to multiple attempts. This check does not count towards your multiple attempts to get answers on questions regarding the creature.
Access to Summoned Creatures
Using a summon spell, you can summon any creature that is commonly available in your region or society, or is uncommon but you have been able to observe a living specimen for at least 10 minutes, or study its anatomy for at least an hour. If a creature is not among them, before you cast the spell attempt a hard Recall Knowledge (DC+2) at DC based on creature's level. If you succeed, you recollect that you have observed the creature or studied it in detail in the past and you can summon it. If you fail, you have no knowledge of the creature and need to find a specimen to observe or study its anatomy, or a source of research that details its physiology and behavior in detail (using indirect source of information increases the difficulty to very hard, DC+5). The DM may also increase the DC to very hard (DC+5) if it is very unlikely that the character have seen a specimen in the past based on its background, but it is still possible that this really happened.
Sickened Out of Combat
Conditions such as sickened that require an action during combat to decrease its value, will automatically expire if the target spends 1 minute performing the required action and have more than 5 percent chance to succeed per roll (such as succeeding if they roll 19 on a d20). This removes the need to make a lot of unnecessary rolls when timing is not essential.
Less Restrictive Fatigue
While you have the Fatigued condition, you can still use exploration activities performed while traveling, however, you suffer a -4 status penalty to all exploration activity checks and cannot forgo the check with an Assurance feat. With GM's approval, a fatigued character can take twice the time (or twice the travel actions during a Hexploration) needed to complete the exploration activity to lower the penalty to -2.
If another effect makes you Fatigued while you are already Fatigued, you stop being able to use exploration activities until you recover from fatigue after a full night's rest.
Repeating Force Open
If a character fails at an Force Open check to break a door or a container outside of combat, this means that they fail to open it on the first try within few seconds of time. The DM may grant the character an automatic success if they commit to 30 seconds of uninterrupted Force Open activity. If the player needs to roll 15 or more to succeed, the DM may increase the duration of the activity to 1 minute, if they need 18 or more the duration may be increased up to 5 minutes, if they need to roll 20 to succeed the duration may be increased up to 10 minutes. After the activity duration ends, the character gets the success result but cannot get the critical success result. During the activity, the character generates noise of breaking and cracking and may attract the attention of hostile creatures.
Throwing at an Open Space
Throwing an object within a space you can see rather than at a creature requires a ranged attack roll against a DC, with a range increment of 10 feet and no limit of total increments. The DC is equal to 5 for throwing anywhere within the square, DC 15 for throwing at a half of the square, DC 25 for hitting a tiny portion of the square no smaller than five inches (such as into a large jar), and DC 35 for hitting a slit or a crack that can be no smaller than an inch. If the square is occupied by creatures or objects, items thrown this way only deal splash damage. If you fail, the object falls as far and as accurately as your roll totals allows.
Ally Clarification
You are considered your own ally, and for all effects that allow you to target an ally you can also target yourself.
If you become Confused you no longer consider anyone an ally, including yourself, and may only use effects that explicitly target yourself.
Alternative Ways to Disable Hazards
Many Hazards allow for multiple skills in order to disable them, however, these skills are not automatically known by the players. Additionally, Hazards without clear physical or mechanical way of disabling may not allow for the default use of Thievery skill.
As long as you observe the Hazard, you can attempt to Recall Knowledge about the hazard. The skill depends on the type of hazard: mechanical hazards such as snares and traps use Crafting or Thievery, environmental hazards use Nature or Survival, magical hazards use Arcana, haunts use Religion or Occultism. On a success, the GM will reveal those options and their minimum proficiency level as long as you are at least Trained in these skills. If the Hazard can be disabled with a spell use, the GM reveals those options if you are at least trained in the skill related to the spell's tradition. On a critical success to Recall Knowledge, the GM reveals all the options regardless of your proficiency levels.
Gentler Massive Damage
This variant rule removes the automatic death when taking massive damage. Rather than you die instantly if you ever take damage equal to or greater than double your maximum Hit Points in one blow, when you become dying you also become doomed 1, or your doomed condition increases by 1. When you lose the dying condition, your wounded condition increases by 2 instead of 1.
Gentler Death Effects
If you fail a saving throw against an effect with the death trait, you can use any number of Hero Points to reroll the saving throw instead of only once.
Simplified Familiar Presence
Many groups treat familiars as a quantum creature out of lack of easy rules to manage their presence - they are not present during danger while they appear when needed, even during combat. To avoid such metagaming without adding complexity of managing one more creature on the combat map, these rules simplify the management of familiars.
At any moment, the master character can choose one of three modes for their familiar's presence during combat - Reach, Near and Far. It is suggested that one mode is chosen by default. Unless the master is Surprised or Distracted when rolling for initiative, they can instruct their familiar to switch to any other mode. During combat, the master can spend Command action to make their familiar switch to a different mode, and the familiar spends a number of Stride actions as listed below.
Reach The familiar is either riding on the master's body, is hidden in their clothing, or is hovering near them. The familiar is within touch distance for the purpose of actions and spell effects that require touch. While the familiar is unlikely to be targeted by attacks unless it or its master draws attention to the familiar, they both suffer the effects of area damage that target's the master's space. While in this mode, the master can use Command to instruct the familiar to use 1A interact action and enter a special container (such as Familiar Satchel) or any other container (such as their backpack, but it costs 2A interact to enter or leave a container not made to host a familiar creature). While hidden inside a container, the familiar benefits from the container material's Hardness but lacks awareness and line of effect to interact with anything outside of the container.
Near The familiar is instructed to stand by at a distance between 40 and 60 feet, and use whatever environment it can as cover against area effects. The familiar still maintains a line of sight and effect with their master and the rest of the combat. In this mode, the familiar is unlikely to suffer most of the area damage effects unless they area is larger than 60 feet in radius. The familar needs to use 2 Stride actions to reach their master if they are commanded to switch to Close mode, which happens within the master's current turn.
Far The familiar is instructed to run away into safe and explored nearby environment where it cannot be reached by enemies, usually at 120 feet or more. At this distance the familiar has no line of sight and effect, but will respond to Command by hearing. The familiar needs to use 4 Stride actions to reach their master if they are commanded to switch to Close mode; this means that it will appear at its master disposal not immediately but at the start of the master's next turn and cannot be commanded during the master's next turn.
Additional Familiar Uses:
Familiar Sacrifice In desperate situations where the master is unconscious or dying and their life depends on one hit deflected by any means a familiar may be willing to sacrifice for their Master. Without need of Command, at the start of the master's turn the familiar will appear near their body (if in Reach mode) or Stride to do so (if in Near mode). Enemies who lack the intelligence to recognize the futile attempt, will direct their attacks towards the familiar instead finishing off the fallen master. The master can also use 1A Command to ask the familiar to do the same for another fallen ally.
Backpack Familiar Familiars that hide in their master's backpack can take Command to Rummage for an item and Pass to Ally towards their master. The master can use their 
reaction to take the item passed by the familiar using a free hand.
Classes
Alchemist
Alchemist is considered a very difficult class intended for advanced players to play, even after the first errata to Core Rulebook improved on the class. The following changes are aimed to encourage players to pick it up more often. The changes are minimal and focus on making it more powerful on low levels and improve some of the class restrictions.
Combat
Balances to Critical Specialization Effects
Based on community feedback, the critical specialization effects of several weapon groups have been changed.
Axe: Choose between dealing one additional die of weapon damage to your target that isn't doubled by the critical hit; or pick one secondary creature adjacent to the initial target and within reach. If you choose a secondary creature, if its AC is lower than your attack roll result for the critical hit, you deal damage to that creature equal to the result of the weapon damage die you rolled (including extra dice for its potency rune, if any). The weapon damage dealt to the secondary target isn't doubled, and no bonuses or other additional dice apply to this damage.
Flail: The target must succeed at a Reflex save against your class DC or is knocked prone.
Hammers: The target must succeed at a Fortitude save against your class DC or is knocked prone.
Balances to Grievous Rune
The Grievous Rune (item 9) effects are changed to account for the changes applied to critical specialization effects:
Axe: The number of additional dice of weapon damage dealt to the primary target are increased by one; or you can damage a third creature, with the same restrictions applied to the secondary creature.
Stealth
Distracted Creatures
Creatures that are Refocusing, Searching, Investigating, Treating Wounds, Repairing, Detecting Magic, Identifying Magic, Repeating a Spell, Following the Expert, Hustling, Cover Tracks or busy with another activity that has their full attention away from a potential threat, are considered Distracted when engaged by undetected or hidden hostile creatures. The same applies to creatures who are the target of a Ready action from an undetected hostile creature. Distracted creatures suffer a -4 circumstance penalty to Perception checks and initiative rolls and can only use Perception for initiative rolls.
The following actions never make you Distracted: Avoid Notice, Defend, Scout, and Track.
Surprise Actions and Ambush
You can Ready a single action (usually a Stride, Strike or Interact, but the GM can allow single action feats such as Lunge or Quick Draw). You can trigger that Readied action before initiative is rolled, if you are Undetected or Hidden from hostile creatures, or you are Observed but the creatures do not expect an imminent aggression from you.
Creatures attacked out of initiative with a Readied action are considered Surprised. When a creature is Surprised, it is flat-footed to the attack and suffers -4 circumstance penalty to initiative and can only use Perception for initiative rolls.
Any of your allies can Ready an action as well, as long as there's enough time and preparation, such as communicating the plan of an ambush. However, once you trigger your Ready action, you can coordinate only with allies that have initiative order equal or higher than the Surprised creatures.
The reactions happen simultaneously in order of your choice. After all reactions resolve, combat starts and all players and opponents act in order of initiative.
Sneaking in Enemy Proximity
When one or several undetected characters choose to Sneak in a dangerous environment in close proximity of hostile creatures, the GM calls for an initiative.
As long as the party is undetected by enemies, the players always act first regardless of their order in the initiative. As long as they remain undetected by all hostile creatures, the hostile creatures always act last as if they Delayed their turn to the end of initiative order, and may telegraph their intended actions for the next round.
If a player is detected, the encounter turns into a regular combat. The creature that was detected during their turn can finish their turn. Then all creatures who haven't ended their turn this round act in order of their initiative, as normal.
Scout
The Scout exploration activity is upgraded with new options.
Scout EXPLORATION ACTIVITY
Before entering an encounter with undetected creatures, the GM will attempt a free secret check to Seek against a DC based on the level of the encounter modified by any circumstances, or the Stealth DC if the creatures are hiding. On a success, you may observe the creatures if they aren't hiding, or sense signs of danger and attempt to Seek to detect hidden creatures or Recall Knowledge using tracks they may have left behind. You also alert your allies who can cancel any activities that make them Distracted before they engage in the encounter.
Gear
Mundane Crafting
The GM may allow anyone trained in Crafting to manufascture simple everyday items that do not have the magical, alchemical, or mechanical trait within 1 day instead of 4 days. If the item has an item level -1, it is manufactured in 4 hours instead of 1 day. These items are always shoddy unless you critically succeed on the Crafting check, or you are a master in Crafting.
The GM may allow you to improvise with raw materials when crafting simple everyday items. If enough improvised raw materials are available or a proper workshop or stationary tools are unavailable, you must be at least expert in Crafting and the Crafting check is made at hard difficulty (DC+2). If the raw materials are scarce and some ingenuity is needed to compensate for up to half of it, you must be at least a master in Crafting and the crafting check is made at very hard difficulty (DC+5).
Rushed Crafting
Crafting items assumes that the character will work an average of 8 hours a day to produce the desired item. Alternatively, the character can rush the crafting process by working longer hours per day, taking few and shorter rests, and taking less precautions during the process.
You can cut down the time to craft from 4 days to 2 days by raising the number of hours worked in a day to 16 hours, and increasing the DC by 5.Additional days spent during Crafting to lower the item cost cannot be rushed.
If a crafting activity causes you to work a total of 12 hours or longer per day, you gain the Fatigued condition at the end of the daily crafting activity.
Crafting Together
Multiple creatures can contribute towards the completion of a single crafting process, and the period of four days can be distributed among them as they see fit. Each creature that wishes to contribute at least one day of crafting must be able to craft such items, and at least one of the creatures must have the formula for the item. Each creature must attempt the Crafting check at the same DC as the primary crafter. Among all crafting creatures, more than half of them should succeed for the crafting to be successful (so two out of two must succeed, or two out of three must succeed) and if any creature gets a critical failure, the crafting is a critical falure. If the crafting is successful, each contributing creature that succeeded on the Crafting check can spend additional days to lower the cost of additional raw materials.
Alternatively, a creature may instead opt to Aid one crafting ally during a crafting process with a skill other than Crafting. The aiding creature doesn't need to be able to craft such items, or need to know the formula to do so. Instead of contributing days of its completion, that creature must make an Aid attempt using an applicable skill against the Crafting DC of the item. The GM may allow any applicable skills such as Arcana, Nature, Occultism and Religion for crafting magical items, or an applicable Lore. If no skills apply, the aiding Creature can always use Perception to Aid, but such attempts to Aid cannot critically succeed.
Shields
Shield † ITEM 1+
Tower Shield † ITEM 1+
Other Gear
Torch † ADVENTURING GEAR
Poison Application
You can use a dose of a poison with the Injury trait and apply its contents to four ammunition (such as arrows or bolts), two thrown weapons (such as daggers), or one melee weapon. A dose of poison can be used fully at once, or used half. When half used, the remainder can be applied to half the weapons of of a specific type, rounded down.
Application of poison on weapons usually happens outside of combat and requires careful handling. In combat, you must use both your hands to hold and apply poison to your weapons. It takes Interact action to pull our your poison with one hand, Interact actions to apply on each one weapon or ammunition. You can spread these action across multiple turns, as long as the vial of poison is not disarmed from your hand. Feats may allow you faster application of poisons to a single weapon or ammunition.
Snares
Snare items with mechanical trait that were crafted using raw materials become broken once set and activated. Broken Snares can be repaired and reused with the Repair Snare trained Crafting exploration activity.
Repair Snare
Spells
Cantrips
Message † CANTRIP 1
verbal (the verbal component of the spell is non-audible movement of the lips instead of loud words of Power)Focus Sпells
Access Lore † FOCUS SPELL 3
somaticMagic Items
Identifying Common Magical Properties
Fundamental runes are widely known to all adventurers, merchants, and craftsmen as a basic form of permanent magic, and the runes (unless intentionally hidden) are easy to recognize. If an item has only fundamental runes, players do not need to Identify Magic to know its properties, and can estimate the base price of the item when they attempt to Assess Value before negotiating a sale or purchase.
If the item has property runes, special properties or unique powers activated with an interact, command or envision, the item must be properly identified before its latent magical powers can be awakened and understood. Until identified, such an item only applies its fundamental runes and the property runes that the players have encountered before.
Repairing Overcharged Items
The rules for overcharging magical items such as wands and staves consider them to be broken the same way as a physical object such as a shield would crack or bend, all repaired through Crafting. This approach is simple, but sets the wrong assumptions and lacks flavor. Instead using Repair activity to repair overcharged items, use Repair Overcharge.
Repair Overcharge
Rebalanced Magic Item Rarities
The following magic items are considered by the community to be grossly overpowered, and have their rarity changed or are marked as banned.
| Item | Was... | Changed To... |
|---|---|---|
| Shadow Signet (SoM 189) | Common | Uncommon |
| Battle Medic's Baton (TrV 114) | Common, Level 3, 60gp |
Uncommon, Level 6, 230gp |
Multiclassing
Archetype Feats
All Archetype feats that do not have the Multiclass trait have the General trait. This allows you to select them in place of a General feat at levels 3, 7, 11, 15 and 19. When a Dedication feat is selected instead of a General feat and it has the Common rarity trait, it changes to Uncommon.
Basic Actions
Choke a Creature 
Climb Clarifications
While the Climb action requires both hands free to move up, down, or across an incline, you can use up to one hand to make Interact or Attack actions as long as you used at least one Climb action on the same turn to sustain your grip on the incline. You can use use both hands in that way only if you use a climbing tool that is strapped to you and prevents you from falling.
Drag
Gag A Creature
Kick Object or
The GM can modify these distances, as some items may be easier or harder to kick due to their size, shape or the material they are made of. For some items it is appropriate that a hard kick moves it at a distance multiplied by your Strength modifier. For example, a leather ball during a game of Ruk, a sport game popular in Katapesh, would move 30 feet if kicked softly, and 50 feet multiplied by your Strength modifier if kicked hard. The GM may ask for a skill check (usually Athletics, Acrobatics or Sports Lore) if the kicked item has to land within a goal post guarded by a sentry player.
If the item is located in a space shared by a hostile creature, or both you and a hostile creature share the same space, Kick Object costs and you must Tumble Through its space. If your Tumble Through is successful, you may Kick Object during your movement into or out of the space occupied by both the item and the hostile creature. You can only Kick softly while you Tumble Through.
Pass to Ally
You can only Pass to Ally one item at a time, unless the GM rules otherwise due to the item's size, weight and ease of handling. When passing ammunition, you usually pass a single container rather than a specific units of ammunition. If specific units need to be directly passed, a handful typically holds 4 units of ammunition.
You can also throw an item to an ally outside of each other's reach who must spend a reaction to catch the item. Both you and an ally make an Athletics or Acrobatics check (each player can choose a different skill). The DC of the check is 15 plus 5 for each 10 feet of distance between you and that ally. The GM can modify the DC due to concealment or other circumstances. To catch the item both you and the ally must succeed on the check. If you succeed but the ally doesn't or the ally cannot use its reaction, the item falls in their feet and they can use an action on their turn to take it from the ground. If you fail, the item is thrown as far as the check result allows.
Reposition
If you are expert in Athletics, you can perform either movement two times, and if you’re legendary, you can perform it three times. If you are two or more sizes larger than the target, you can perform either movement an additional time. The distance this allows you to Stride cannot exceed your Speed.
Strap Item
A strapped item cannot be dropped as a free action. Instead, it costs one Interact action using a free hand performed by you or an ally to unstrap the item before dropping it on the ground.
Exploration Activities
Assess Value
-
Arcana, Nature, Occultism or Religion: magical items of the skill's associated magic tradition.
-
Crafting: mundane, alchemical and mechanical items.
-
Nature: precious materals, rare minerals, crystals and gem stones used to store value or used as magic cost or or crafting components
-
Occultism: items of unknown or supernatural origin, that may not originate from this world, and may have a greater purpose
-
Religion: sacred items of divine worship or anathema, of great importance to followers of that faith or collectors.
-
Society: objects of art such as paintings, sculptures, works of literature, luxury and ceremonial items.
-
Thievery: contraband and black market goods, stolen goods, and fakes.
Hide Item
The GM then rolls in secret a Stealth check if the item is hidden indoors or Survival if the item is hidden outdoors, and compares the result to the Perception DC of each creature that Seeks for hidden items or snares, applying +2 to the roll for cover or +4 for greater cover.
Downtime Activities
Befriend a Local †
Regardless of the skill you choose, the DC is 20, or the Will DC of the creature, whichever is higher. Once you make the check, the NPC becomes immune to further attempts to be befriend them for one month.
Research
If you spend 1 day researching the topic, you benefit from a +1 circumstance bonus on your next Recall Knowledge check related to the topic within the next week, as long as the check does not require expert or better proficiency. If you spend 1 week studying the topic, the benefit applies to all Recall Knowledge checks related to the topic within the next week, as long as the check does not require expert or better proficiency. If you spend 1 month studying the topic, you permanently gain the Additional Lore skill feat but the additional lore cannot increase above Trained unless you spend an additional 2 months studying for each proficiency level above Trained, up to the maximum your level allows as listed in the feat.
GM's Corner
Creature Adjustments
In addition to Elite/Weak adjustment meant to make creatures a challenge for party of ~1.5 levels higher or lower, the GM has access to the following adjustments used to create additional challenges to the players.
Tough Adjustment
Sometimes you'll want a creature at level equal or lower than the party average to be a bit tougher than normal so it can survive one additional turn of combat. To do this quickly, apply the tough adjustment to its statistics as follows:
- Increase the creature's AC, attack modifiers, DCs, saving throws, Perception, and skill modifiers by 1.
- Increase the creature's Hit Points by 5 per creature level, or 10 per creature level if it is a solo creature encounter or the party has more than 4 players. For creatures of level 0 or less, increase Hit Points by 5 or 10 respectively.
- Increase creature's level by 1 for the purpose of encounter balance and rewards.
Swift Adjustment
Sometimes you'll want a creature to be among the first to act at the start of combat in order to present a greater challenge, but not be tougher than the player characters. To do this quickly, apply the swift adjustment to its statistics as follows:
- Increase the creature's AC, attack modifiers, DCs, saving throws, Perception, and skill modifiers by 1.
- At start of combat, as long as the creature is not Distracted or Surprised, it gains a +3 circumstance bonus to its initiative check.
- Increase creature's level by 1 for the purpose of encounter balance and rewards.
Alert Adjustment
Sometimes a creature would be alerted by noise and have ample time to prepare to engage the players for an extended period of time, or you want a solo or boss encounter where further statistic increase would be too much to not be made easy by a bad initiative roll. Instead of using Readied action to start an encounter (see pg. 6), such creatures would likely apply the alert adjustment to its statistics as follows:
- At start of combat, as long as the creature is not Distracted or Surprised, it gains a +4 circumstance bonus to its initiative check.
Beefy Adjustment
- Increase the creature's Hit Points by 5 per creature level, or 10 per creature level if it is a solo creature encounter, or the party has more than 4 players. For creatures of level 0 or less, increase Hit Points by 5 or 10 respectively.
Combat Experience for Enemies
Hostile creatures have a level of combat training that allows only some of them to use optimal tactics and make assumption of the capabilities of the player characters by just observing their actions in combat in order to prioritize the best target of its attacks, spells and abilities. For each hostile creature, GM decides on its Combat Experience.
| Combat Experience | When the creature prioritizes its targets… |
|---|---|
| Instinct | Most beasts and monstrocities attack on instinct. The creature always prefers the closest opponent or the one that dealt it the most damage since the end of its previous turn. |
| Rookie | Common people and spellcasters are amateur in combat. The creature can prioritize targets that have below half of their maximum HP, or suffer visually identifiable negative Conditions such as being frightened, sickened, etc. |
| Trained | Fresh adventurers and soldiers tend to be at least trained in combat. The creature will likely Hide, if alerted and can spend a whole round to Ready an Action prior combat, but will not coordinate with allies multiple Readied actions. The creature can spend Concentrate action during combat to assess one observed hostile creature and make assumptions of their relative AC and the strongest Save for their class (only if the class is of Common rarity). |
| Experienced | Experienced adventurers and veterans know what to expect. The creature is likely to plan an elaborate ambush of with allies that triggers multiple Readied actions.The creature can assess one observed hostile creature as a  Concentrate action, once per turn. |