Variant Rules

Pathfinder Gamemastery Guide (Second Edition), page 180

CHAPTER 4: VARIANT RULES

While the rules presented in the Core Rulebook are designed to give you and your group a baseline experience that’s easy to learn and fun to play, sometimes you’re looking for more customizable options. That’s where variant rules come in: options to alter the game’s rules to fit your needs. This chapter adds a collection of variant rules to your toolbox, often with additional options for how to use them.

Most of the variant rules in this chapter involve characters, how they progress, and how those pieces fit together. The variants included in this chapter are divided into the following sections.

Ability Score Variants (page 182) includes an alternate ability score system that works entirely through Ability Points, plus ways to distribute what each ability score impacts more evenly.
Alignment Variants (page 184) contains options for removing alignment and an incremental alignment system.
Deep Backgrounds (page 186) replace simply selecting a background with a series of steps that flesh out more of the character’s backstory.
Feats and Features (page 192) shows how to build characters who gain feats and class features in different ways, from dual-classed characters with all the options of two classes to characters with a free archetype or more ancestry feats.
Level 0 Characters (page 195) can play through the characters’ adventures before they take on character classes.
Magic Item Variants (page 196) contains rules deconstructing the magic item bonuses, allowing you to progress them automatically or via craftsmanship to more easily run a lower-magic game.
Proficiency without Level (page 198) changes the fundamental math of the proficiency system to tell stories where being outnumbered by weaker foes remains a challenge and high-level characters are less superhuman.
Skill Points (page 199) offers a more granular system for characters to choose and hone their skills.
Stamina (page 200) grants characters a pool of Stamina Points that they lose before Hit Points and can recover with by resting to catch their breath.

In this section

Choosing Variant Rules When you and your group are deciding which variant rules to use, think about the types of stories you want to tell together, including the genre, themes, and characters, and use that information to choose which variant…
Ability Score Variants The default method of generating ability scores in the Core Rulebook can help you learn your character’s story along the way, while the alternative method, rolling scores, is a nod to tradition.
Alignment Variants The alignment system has a long history in roleplaying games, and it helps define several aspects of Pathfinder’s worlds and characters. Yet it doesn’t work well for all games or groups.
Deep Backgrounds The decision of a character background is not necessarily a complicated one; the player simply selects from the available background options to reflect their character’s life before adventuring.
Feats and Features The Core Rulebook presents a character progression carefully designed to offer plenty of options and depth without overwhelming players with too many choices at once.
Level 0 Characters Before they were heroes, every PC came from somewhere, whether they worked on a farm like Valeros or picked pockets on the streets like Seelah.
Magic Item Variants Pathfinder’s magic item system is calibrated for a high-fantasy world like Golarion, with plenty of access to magic. However, not all settings, games, or subgenres match those assumptions.
Proficiency Without Level This variant presents a change to the proficiency bonus system, scaling it differently for a style of game that’s outside the norm. This is a significant change to the system.
Skill Points The default progression of skill proficiency ranks is simple and doesn’t require many mathematical calculations as a player assigns skills.
Stamina In some fantasy stories, the heroes are able to avoid any serious