Rules References

A place for reference material to keep handy for the campaign. Please ask if you have any questions about anything.

1. The "Elephant in the Room Feat Tax" fix will be used. It gets rid of a lot of the common feat taxes and changes how some feats work in the game, even flat-out removing some.

2. A copy of the player's guide can be found FREE, here.

Fear and Loathing in Ustalav

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Notes on Fear and Tone for this Campaign
From the Players Guide: "Strange Aeons embraces numerous themes of Lovecraftian horror to present an entire campaign that pits Golarion’s latest batch of heroes against maddening menaces from beyond time and space. In this Adventure Path, you’ll find encounters focusing on locales such as insane asylums, creepy old houses, musty libraries, forgotten desert cities, and far stranger locations. At the same time, Strange Aeons remains fundamentally a Pathfinder game. Your characters will continue to gain power as they rise in level, and the expectation is that they will survive and persevere against seemingly insurmountable horrors."

Goal:

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In an effort to balance the cosmic horror aspects of this campaign with the traditional Pathfinder character growth and sense of agency over the conflicts in the story, I will attempt to do two things:

1. Maintain relatively standard character growth expectations to keep the "Pathfinder" feel, while
2. Simultaneously focusing on the tone of the material and attacks against the mind.

Strategy:

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To accomplish #1 is simple - don't get in the way more than I have to.

#2 will be the challenge. To accomplish this, I will try to engage the senses when describing new rooms, creatures, etc.

Each character is starting with a drawback - an immediate reminder that the characters are imperfect.

The missing five years themselves are a tool to accomplish this goal - the slow reveal of who you were and how that aligns with who you've become are could be jarring, maybe even worrisome, while leading you to question your sense of identity and come out stronger for it.

I will be using two systems, outlined below, to help accentuate the horror aspects of this game: expanded fear & corruptions. I thought about using the Sanity system Paizo developed, but found it too finicky and thought it not worth using in the long run.

Expanded Fear:

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The expanded fear rules can be found HERE.

In short, the way we will handle fear is a sliding scale from 0 (under no fear effects) to 7 (the worst). Closer to 7 you begin to lose control of you character, run away in terror, etc. Throughout the scale, characters can expect to have various debuffs that reflect the impact of everything they witness and deal with.

Will saves will be important to save against fear. Consider taking feats such as "Iron Will", or traits that help with these rolls. Consider magic that protects against mind-affecting effects, and be particularly thoughtful if your class does not have a naturally high will save score.

Fear Immunity will be handled differently as well, by being modified to be a type of Fear Resistance. Any source that provides immunity to fear, instead reduces the effects of fear, so that the character suffers the effects of the fear level two levels lower than normal.Corruptions:

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Corruptions may or may not even come up, but I want to keep the option open in case the right situation comes up. The rules for them can be found HERE.

In short, it is possible your character could become afflicted by a terrible corruption that provides a number of boons and drawbacks, which grow as certain conditions specific to your corruption occur. Vampirism, lycanthropy, demonic corruption, and more - all are fair game. Like most things, I will only use this if it makes sense to the narrative and characters.

A Note on Alignment

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You'll notice I asked everyone to start as True Neutral.

I do not want or expect you to play a True Neutral character, but rather I would like your actions and roleplaying to guide your alignment, not the other way around. This is a test of sorts, but I think fits the idea of waking in the fugue state, unsure of who you are exactly.

I'm not going to track alignment shifts in small increments, but rather, I think we'll determine (possibly as a group) where each character sits on the alignment chart at the end of the first book based on their actions/decision so far.

The only restrictions I place on this are NO Chaotic Evil characters. Neutral Evil and Lawful Evil - sure! You have to play nice with the group though, and should focus on your shared trauma and shared desire for learning the truth and righting the wrongs done against you as a means to keep your mutual interests aligned. If you're going to do something 'evil' let it service the story or your character in a meaningful way.

Finally, for character classes that have an alignment restriction (looking at you Paladin!), the requirement is waived at the outset of the game. However, you should play your character as if you plan to meet that alignment requirement by PC level 3. While an alignment is not set, if you do something that egregiously goes against your alignment requirement, there may still be repercussions.

As with everything else, please let me know if you have any questions about this.

Dungeoncrawl Management

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The entirety of book one, and much of future books, in this AP is set in dungeons. The first setting we're in, is a particularly cramped setting in same cases. The claustrophobic and sometimes oppressive tone of the setting in intended, but that doesn't mean we can't take steps to ensure that things flow smoothly from a game-management perspective.

When in a dungeon and not in combat, to maintain pace and prevent bottlenecking or decision paralysis, we will utilize the following strategies:

1. Anyone can decide which way to go and when to leave a room - just indicate clearly in your post that intend to enter the next room and in which direction. By default we all agree to follow without having to post agreement. If the GM knows there's something that may require more discussion, they can slow things down. Otherwise, the GM will reveal the next room and keep things moving.

2. Positions on the map, unless specifically stated by the player or called for by the GM, are only meant to be approximate. The GM will generally set these by what makes sense and in order to show general positioning relative to where you are on the map, but it is not meant to be a definitive representation of where your character is specifically standing.

3. A specific marching order can be declared if the players choose, otherwise the GM will indicate positioning based on what makes the most sense at the time based on context of the narrative and mechanics (i.e. the PC with the highest AC in front unless another player posts that they step ahead of the group)

4. Movement from one room to another will happen as a group, unless a player specifies their character would stay behind for a specific reason.

5. While the map may look crowded, outside of combat you do not block each other's line of sight for the purposes of perception and you do not block each other's movement (unless specifically posting your intent to do this for some reason). If you want to go a direction but the hall/room is crowded with friendly tokens, you can treat them as if they are not there. You do not have to address pushing them out of the way or them blocking you when writing your post.

6. When entering combat, please confirm a map position for your token in your first in-combat post (wherever they are at the end of their actions)

Critical Hits Homebrew

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A natural roll within threat range threatens a critical hit, but a natural 20 is always a critical hit dealing double damage. If your weapon has a critical multiplier greater than x2, you may roll to confirm the extra critical damage. If unsuccessful, you still roll double damage for the natural 20, but if successful you may roll damage any additional time normally allowed by that weapon's critical multiplier (i.e. a spear has a x3 crit multiplier - a natural 20 will always allow a second damage roll, but you roll to confirm for a third damage roll)

Examples:

Light Crossbow 19-20/x2
- Natural die roll: 20 = double damage
- Natural die roll: 19 = roll to confirm; confirmation roll beats AC = double damage
- Natural die roll: 19 = roll to confirm; confirmation roll does not beat AC = normal damage

Falcata 19-20/x3
- Natural die roll: 20 = roll to confirm; confirmation roll beats AC = triple damage
- Natural die roll: 20 = roll to confirm; confirmation roll does not beat AC = double damage
- Natural die roll: 19 = roll to confirm; confirmation roll beats AC = double damage
- Natural die roll: 19 = roll to confirm; confirmation roll does not beat AC = normal damage