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52. The PCs have somehow earned the persistent attention of a Q-like entity, and have a relationship with it not incomparable to Q's relationship with Jean-Luc Picard. The entity will send the PCs on the occasional trippy diversion, but like a dog getting a biscuit for doing tricks, the PCs will be rewarded afterward with a wish (the logical consequences of poor wording for these will be enforced, but in a manner that errs on the side of mercy).
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I once knew a paladin who convinced the GM to let him have a split personality literally.
Determined randomly on some days he was a lawful good paladin and sometimes he was a chaotic evil anti paladin. it was really cool, because then the anti paladin tried to convince us it was the paladin and chaos ensued. (He was still helpful to our goals in both forms it was just his methods and abilities differed)
I don't know if that counts or not.
#[shouldn't be numbered]: the GM lets the daggum Aldori Swordlord archetype, you know, actually grant proficiency with the Aldori Dueling Sword.
... not that I'm bitter.
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56. You get nothing! You lose! Good day,sir!
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Yet another Council of Robber Barons Campaign/Curse of the Ivory Mansion Campaign Trait (now with the idea in mind of setting this on Earth in the 1920s):
57. Budding Superhero: Having grown up in a world that at least officially has no magic and seems to enforce a lack of magic as a real rule, you have adapted and gained some skill at breaking through this prohibition against magic. Benefit: You get the benefit of the Breaching class feature of the Blackfire Adept prestige class (level 5), but it applies to any spell, spell-like ability, or supernatural ability that you use. At character level 10 (or 5 if you gain levels of Blackfire Adept), this ability becomes the equivalent of the Blackfire Adept's level 10 version of this. If you gain 5 levels of Blackfire Adept, you only need to make a caster level check to determine whether you destroy an anti-magic effect, not to determine whether you overcome it. If you gain 10 levels of Blackfire Adept, if you succeed at a caster level check to destroy an anti-magic effect with Breaching, you create a permanent rent of 30' radius even in a permanently magic-dead area. Note that Breaching (especially when it creates permanent rents) often attracts the attention (generally unfavorable) of secretive organizations that have vested interests in keeping reality shaped their way, but if you manage to keep your reality-bending actions sufficiently secret or gain enough public support with your public reality-bending actions, you may be able to escape retribution or make such organizations not feel safe in moving against you directly.
I was merely wondering since I wouldn't want anyone to get in trouble, Paizo staff can get cranky randomly at us for doing something slightly wrong, like breathing incorrectly.
Agreed.
Uh, sorry if this is off topic, but arcane, how are you getting these and second of all, should you be posting them?
{. . .}
The AP names ought to tip you off . . . .
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58: Just for this game, and just for this game only, you may play a summoner.
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Still another Curse of the Ivory Mansion/Council of Robber Barons Campaign Campaign Trait (continuing with the idea in mind of setting this on Earth in the 1920s, but reversing the order of the names for a better match to the presidents of the time):
60. Secret Trans-World Traveler: Having crossed from one world to another that is hostile to aliens, you have learned how to plug holes in your knowledge of your adopted world, and to fake it when you come across a remaining hole in your knowledge. Benefit: You gain the Superficial Knowledge 3rd level ability of the Master Spy prestige class, and you begin play with 1 bonus rank of the Disguise skill. If you gain 3 or more levels in this prestige class, you use your total character level instead of your Master Spy class level to determine your Superficial Knowledge bonus. Special: If you are not Human, you MUST take this trait, but you have the option to count this as a Regional Trait instead of a Campaign Trait and pick another Campaign Trait. Not required, but recommended, is for non-Human characters to ensure that Disguise is a class skill, including taking Additional Traits if necessary to acquire Disguise as a class skill.
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Apologies for interrupting our programming, but:
61. You make house rules as needed to allow your players to play a Mystic Theurge or Arcane Trickster (or any other prestige class that needs early entry just to be usable) despite this new FAQ (see this thread and this thread).
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62. The party came to the campaign world from another planet, one which has noticeably higher gravity than it. PCs are 10% shorter than their listed normal racial height, 20% heavier, and add +2 to their Strength.
63. Each PC gains their choice of two extra magic item slots, chosen from the following list (each can only be selected once): small tattoo, large tattoo, earring/nose ring, false eye, dentures, legwear, kneepads, greaves/anklet, and/or socks. The DM must, of course, ensure that a decent number of all such magic items exist and are potentially available in the campaign.
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I give all classes that receive only 2 Skill Points 4.
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I give all classes that receive only 2 Skill Points 4.I was thinking they could do the same with skill points that they did with Hit Dice, bumping all classes up by 2 (I'd prefer that to upping the bottom level alone).
I've given that some serious thought. I may do it, now. I'm a big fan of skills and using them in game.
64. An unusual ninja order requires its third level initiates to serve for a fortnight as a secret guardian for a randomly chosen person as a way to develop awareness of the lives or ordinary folks and bring to their awareness some of the challenges of the guardian, and alternately, the assassin. The glass blower's blind daughter was his first assignment, you are his second. You won't even notice he's there, and we won't tell you when it will start...
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65. A little more oomph! Spells reach an extra five feet further from the caster, arrows fly ten feet farther, hand held weapons do one extra point of damage, but you have to flip a coin, heads yep, tails nope.
66. Quirky killer~ an enemy made by an ancestor of yours has sworn to kill you personally at a certain time in a certain way, to make it clear it is payback for the mistake your great grandmother made during the crusades. He will not allow you to die any other way, but then he himself gets killed , you think, or maybe you lost him, or perhaps this is him now with the catapult full of hot stew!
67. A deity gives very veiled and ambiguous clues about distant parts of the adventure once a day, possessing ordinary folk around the character and speaking easily through them. This deity is also asking one survey question per prediction, once a day. ( did this, it was a little odd but made for a bit of a mystery while they sorted out what was actually going on)
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68: Three rolls off the Central Casting table Unusual Birth Circumstances pick the one result you like best.
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69: If a character worships a deity fairly closely, give them the one-time ability to summon a representative of their deity with CR equal to their HD using the framework of planar ally, with the caveat that no two people can have that representative summoned simultaneously. For a character not deifically inclined, maybe the one-time ability to gain an appropriately-sized bonus or an automatic hit on an attack roll as a substitute, from some great gathering of inner strength and will.
It's a decent way to add some flavor to their choice to worship a deity, or their choice not to, either way. Since it's a one-time bonus, it shouldn't be too game breaking, but can heighten drama if it's used at the right time, especially if it's roleplayed well.
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I also give players max hitpoints for levels one and two before rolling the rest normally.
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70. The PCs have invented among themselves a language that only they know and understand, and each start with it as a bonus language. They may teach it to NPCs if they should ever wish to do so, but otherwise, other characters cannot learn the language save by the most powerful of divinations.
71 allow them to add a luck score much like str, dex, int, etc. Their bonus can be used once per game session, or once per adventure to reroll a save/to hit/etc and take the better of the rolls.
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72. Each PC is mystically bound to their own special "secret word" (words like "sleep," "arrow," "blueberry," "wizard," "platinum," "Chaos," et cetera) that grants some kind of bonus to them whenever an NPC happens to speak it (including slight grammatical variations on the same word), as well as summoning the fleeting figment of a cigar-smoking duck for some reason.
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Couple things I like to do:
73. Second wind. Everyone gets the innate ability to cure 1d4+1 hp twice per day as a standard action.
74. Free NPC level to represent pre-adventuring days. It's a boon for BAB, HP, Skills, and saves.
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I wish I'd found this thread BEFORE I started my current campaign. I give out a free skill rank usable only for a Craft/Performance/Profession skill at character creation but that's it. Then after the game starts I always feel like I'm being a Scrooge of a GM.
I will say though that I used to have people roll their starting gold but then gave them one item needed for the class like a spellbook or thieve's tools. Nowadays I just give everyone 150 GP to start.
I should start creating homebrew campaign traits and then giving them out for free at character creation.
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Right after I bought the Ultimate Campaign book I thought it would cool to start a sandbox game as follows: PCs begin on the verge of the wilds, each with a Shack (as per the Downtime rules) representing a few permanent peasant cotes or huts they'd built for themselves. This then qualified as a Hamlet; merchants would occasionally come to their settlement to trade but for the most part it would be on the PCs to adventure into the wilds, gather GP and experience and then translate that into Capital. Then on their first mission they accompany a merchant caravan there, save it from attacks and get a couple of the laborers from the caravan as permanent residents. Now these new settlers can be used to spend the Capital the PCs build up.
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75. Cookies
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Not really as big as a lot of these, but I usually a) do the common freebie rank in a craft/profession, and b) at character creation, they make a roll, d20 + [one craft/prof skill]. Whatever the total is, they get that as extra gold to reflect recent earnings from practicing their livelihood.
In higher-level campaigns, I will stick in a multiplier, like the result times 30 to reflect the extra gold you earned in the last month, or something.
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77. I gave this bonus out in my Rappan Athuk game after the players were selected:
Stat Bonuses
One (1) bonus ability point that must be used in either your current 4th or 5th lowest ability scores. No adjusting other scores to account for this bonus.
2/2 Skill points* bonuses to be used in one of the following pairs of skills (this does not make it a class skill):
A. profession –cartographer/Know – geography; or
B. profession – guide/Know-nature.
*This means you get 2 skill pts in cartography and 2 skill pts in geography: or 2 skill pts in guide and 2 skill pts in nature.
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78: Free Handy Haversack
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79. Before the curtain rose on your adventure, you'd been helping a friendly necromancer out, who rewarded your kindness with the gift of a 3-HD skeleton servitor for each PC; these do not advance, and will not be replaced if destroyed, but will otherwise loyally serve you in any manner they are able.
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81. Bonus background trait. If a player writes a good background for their PC they are granted a bonus trait by the GM. This trait is chosen by the GM based on the background written, but should take player intent into account when assigning the bonus trait. The GM granted bonus trait can be of a type the PC already has from character creation; but such traits never stack with an identical bonus from another trait.
*When traits were first introduced to Pathfinder instead of changing our already in progress game I gave out a trait as a bonus to players that had written good backgrounds for their character. Now if I get a good background during character creation I give an appropriate bonus trait to the character. Not always what they want, but I have a much larger library of books and try to give them something close.
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82. Its not much but I give my players +4 HP at 1st level.
+4 HP at first level is huge; but it does have the advantage of not being unbalancing later on as 4 HP will get completely swamped by the full HP of most 5th or higher level characters anyway (though it is almost 15% of my character Myrlan's 9th level HP). I might offer that as an alternative to a bonus trait for PCs. Nice idea.
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83. One character rebuild before 2nd level.
Okay it's not really a boon during character creation; but it gives new players a chance to figure out what's going on and lets them test out character classes and concepts to see what works for them. I can't think of a better small boon that GMs could do for their players than to let them take their PC out for a test drive before they have to buy in for the long drive.
I sometimes let a player rebuild his character after the first session, sometimes two if it's just not exactly what he had mapped out. I don't do it often, though.
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84. The village hunter, a grizzled old ranger, spent a lot of time hunting game. He'd be gone for a week at a time, then come back with nary a word of explanation. That said, this antisocial man took a liking to you and taught you the fundamentals of hunting. When you took up the adventuring path, the day you left town you found a parting gift: a quiver of arrows. Included in the quiver were two dozen cold iron arrows and two dozen silver-tipped arrows. Then there was the note: "Put the dark heads into fey you don't like. Put the light heads into shapechanging beasts you don't like. And good hunting."
85. Didn't see this one but that doesn't mean I didn't just miss it. I always let my players start off with maximum hp.
85. Didn't see this one but that doesn't mean I didn't just miss it. I always let my players start off with maximum hp.
You mean past first level? 'Cause that's standard for 1st level.
86. Players may Roll 1D20+class die upon leveling up, with a penalty equal to their maximized class die.
Example: Barbarians roll 1d20+1d12-12
I let them tempt fate.
This may result in effective HP loss upon leveling up.
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87. Brownies
87. Brownies
Both kinds. And one kind both in and out of character!