Epic Path

A modified Pathfinder campaign, set in the iron city of Fane.

Core Rules and New Rules

• Character Creation
• Core Rule Changes
• Money and Merchants
• Heroic Feats
• Epic Feats

Classes

Not all classes were ported over, but some elements from the un-ported classes were (selectively) rolled into our classes. For example, the Alchemist's mutagen form is similar to the Summoner's Eidolon, except they're more like a single player character now, instead of a full-party equivalent. A lot of the core functionality of the Cavalier was integrated into the Warlord. Witches, inquisitors and oracles are all mechanically similar to many existing classes, with a lot of role-playing flavor thrown on top. We recommend playing a druid, cleric or sorcerer (etc.) and role-playing them with suitably appropriate quirks. Gunslingers don't really fit the swords and sorcery meme very well, in our opinion. If you need to see what happens when you introduce guns to a medieval fantasy setting, go watch Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. (Spoiler: Guns are bad news.)

Anyway, there should be something here for everyone. If you just can't live without some particular class, talk to your GM.

• Alchemist -- Added fetishes and tweaking. Revamped mutagens to be much more Hyde-like.
• Barbarian -- Minimal changes. Added a few new Rage abilities, removed some others.
• Bard -- Massive overhaul. See 'Harmony' for starters.
• Brawler -- New unarmed non-Oriental class. Hits seldom but hard.
• Cleric -- Major upgrades. See 'Castigate' and 'Channel Divinity'.
• Druid -- Adjusted hitpoints down a bit, otherwise no changes.
• Fighter -- Massive overhaul. See 'Warrior's Challenge' and 'Tactics' for starters.
• Monk -- Improved damage, adjusted Flurry of Blows.
• Paladin -- Moderate adjustments, mostly buffs, with the occasional nerf. Now any lawful alignment. Added more Smite.
• Prowler -- A class for the cat burglar types. Charges and spring attacks.
• Ranger -- Extensive rebuild and large buffs. Reduced number of required stats. Merged combat styles. Replaced spells with poultices. Added wolfpack tactics.
• Rogue -- Updated daggers, crits and sneak attack. Added a few Rogue Talents. MASSIVE damage boost.
• Sorcerer -- Bumped hit points down, other than that, no changes. No, seriously, not one.
• Warlord -- A defensive pseudo-healer (temp hp's instead of healing) who buffs adjacent allies.
• Wizard -- Added 'powerful cantrips',bumped hitpoints down a bit. Otherwise, unchanged.

New Exotic Weapons

• Weapon Properties - Added some new ones, slightly altered Sunder.
• Exotic Light Melee Weapons
• Exotic 1-Hand Melee Weapons
• Exotic 2-Hand Melee Weapons
• Exotic Thrown Weapons
• Exotic Ranged Weapons - And ammo listings.
• Exotic Armor and Shields

Magic Items

• Magic Item Crafting Rules
• Magic Item Properties

Fane Bestiary

• CR 1 Creatures
• CR 2 Creatures
• CR 3 Creatures

Statistical Nerdery

These are some tables I've been using for reference when tweaking the character classes.

Monster Stat Comparison

The monster analysis was created by comparing the counter-stat from the PC Statistics By Level table. For example, the average monster AC is based on the average PC to-hit numbers, and an assumption that high to-hit PC's should hit approximately 75% of the time unbuffed. Monster hit points were determined by taking the average PC damage per round, and deciding that most fights will include one monster per PC and the fight should last around 3 rounds.

Gear Estimations By Level

This is a broad estimate of the bonuses the various classes would get from gear, broken out by level, and loosely based on the wealth-by-level table in Pathfinder. This is by no means meant to represent anyone's real gear, just a general baseline for how big the to-hit, damage and AC bonuses get as PC's level up.

PC Statistics By Level

I've got a giant Excel spreadsheet with all of the classes worked out to level 35, showing how much damage they do based on average gear, and a reasonable feat build-out. If anyone wants to see it, I can throw it up onto a server somewhere for people to download. The linked page shows averages across all classes under the new rules.

In general, non-caster classes have been boosted a LOT over RAW Pathfinder. The general attitude has been to buff weak classes rather than nerf strong classes. The only nerfs that have occurred in the above classes are:

- Limiting smite to no more than 4 attacks per round (at high levels), and removing smite's AC boost. (We did, however, give Paladins more uses of smite, and it affects pretty much anything now, instead of just evil things.)

- Removing all occurrences of Pounce or Pounce-like abilities

- Removing all versions and variants of the Vital Strike feat

- Removed a bunch of the extra super bonus attacks that ranged weapons got, since they replicated Pounce (full attacks every round without wasting actions on moving), which skewed damage way too high. Bows are competitive with melee, but melee is slightly better, to make up for the fact that melee folks get hit a lot more.

In all of these cases, the nerfs were a direct result of giving all weapons more dice at 8th and 15th levels. This allowed us to balance all the weapon classes (as opposed to pure caster classes) without having to worry about some of the extreme burst damage possible from abilities like the Barbarian's pounce attack from the Bestial Rage path. Under RAW Pathfinder, Barbarians were the kings of damage. Under these house rules, melee rogues are the kings (since they have the crappiest defenses of all the weapon classes).

Again, if anyone wants to see the numerical basis for all the changes, I can make that available.

Monster Roles

Monsters need a little class, too, and these roles should give you a good idea of just how much more powerful the base classes are, after all our tweaking. Roles are generic sets of abilities that are applied AFTER templates, and stack WITH templates. These guys will keep the players wishing they had even more dice than the 30d6 the rogue rolls on his first sneak attack of the fight.

New Templates

There are lots of templates out there, but after a pretty thorough review, we're seeing that many of the templates are of fairly limited scope, or thematically matched to a given campaign setting, or just pretty darn weak. So here's a new 'generic' template with plenty of muscle that can be added to just about any monster to give it some more zest.

Campaign Milieus

What are adventurers called when they're low level? Is there life after Epic? At what level should my hero start sitting down on thrones and dubiously accepting the crown?