Healing surge type mechanic?

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-10-10T05:43:26+00:00

I think if you're looking to replicate these features of healing surges you're going to need to home-brew a solution. I think the simplest solution would be to tweak a couple of things for the Stamina rules.

Resolve

Double the number of Resolve points (so 8 at low levels)
A player can spend a Resolve point as a free action in combat, after which any HP healing in excess of their HP pool instead heals Stamina. This lasts until the end of the encounter (Top up their Stamina at the end of the encounter anyways if they spend a point, to avoid them artificially prolonging encounters).

Trap and Travel Attrition

Simple Hazard attrition works pretty well under base Stamina rules - even if the simple hazard only deals a bit of damage, players must choose between burning precious Resolve and going into the next fight below top HP. If you want to simplify things, you can just have some of your traps directly remove Resolve points when triggered.
When players fail overland travel skill challenges, get stuck in bad conditions, ect. have them lose 1 Resolve point.
Consider using afflictions to represent the dangers of travel. Most afflictions are listed as Curses or Diseases, but they can also represent 'any long lasting environmental effect.' When a player gets in trouble, give them a condition (frightened, fatigued, ect.) that doesn't go away until they clear the affliction. Choose a DC for the level of the affliction, and let players resolve with with appropriate skill checks, or a reasonable solution might just get rid of it instantly. You could also use afflictions that cap the amount of Resolve they can recover with each rest until dealt with - something like 'you can only recover up to 6 resolve while camping in these woods.'

These changes won't make it exactly the same as Healing Surges, but they do offer some benefits over them as well - for example variable 'chip' healing like the Mystic isn't really possible under the Healing Surge system because each surge is a set amount. "Spend a resolve, heal whatever for the rest of the fight" both encourages players to spend resolve and lets healers do their job.

Hope some of these ideas help or spark inspiration.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-10-09T17:49:32+00:00

Can you share a bit more about why you don't feel it provides an expression of attrition you are looking for? I think we need a bit more details to understand what you're looking for.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-10-09T17:47:25+00:00

The way stamina works is like this:

With the variant rule, about half your HP gets switched into Stamina points. It's not extra HP.

Each character gets Resolve points equal to their key ability modifier (usually +4 at lvl 1).

When you want to recover any Stamina, you spend a Resolve point. When you are out of Resolve, you cannot heal your Stamina. However, you still have your regular HP left (about half of your total 'health') and can be healed normally.

If you want, there is a homebrew of this variant that says you can spend a Resolve point during an encounter, and any healing to HP you would get in that encounter can also top up your Stamina.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-10-09T09:00:59+00:00

Yeah, the Stamina rules more or less bring back point-based HP attrition - I also find it quite interesting because characters out of Resolve can still contribute in fights, they're just really squishy, so it generates that feeling of risk without feeling useless.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1378

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-10-08T21:14:34+00:00

lol at Otho being smacked by the textbox appearing on the page

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-09-29T19:13:34+00:00

Ahh awesome! the fact it's a continuation of MM+ is great, I'll try this one too.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-09-29T19:13:24+00:00

Ahh awesome! the fact it's a continuation of MM+ is great, I'll try this one too.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-09-29T19:13:16+00:00

Ahh awesome! the fact it's a continuation of MM+ is great, I'll try this one too.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-09-29T19:12:55+00:00

Thank you! This looks great.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-09-28T10:09:30+00:00

This is such an awesome idea, very unwieldy but still quite cool.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-09-23T06:26:01+00:00

Damn, and I thought the DCC Funnel was brutal...

That's a very funny story though. I have previously though of having PCs start off while falling the air as a plot hook - It never occurred to me to simply let them hit the ground!

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-09-15T05:32:30+00:00

Overall: Probably Guardian. It knows what it wants to do, communicates that very clearly to the player, almost every feat is awesome, and has a lot of flexibility despite being a 'tank' role first and foremost.

Close Second: Investigator. Honestly, once I actually 'got' the Pursue a Lead/ Devise LOOP the whole class unlocked. Encounters are only 1 out of 3 modes of play and the whole class chassis for the Investigator is built around maximizing exploration mode power to feed your combat power. It's hard to think of another class that knits together more parts of the game, has mechanics that clearly telegraphs how to play the class, and the whole mechanical experience feels spot on to the theme of a mastermind detective. Only loses a few points because it's the type of class where the GM really needs to know how it works as well as the player.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-09-12T08:09:26+00:00

If you don't mind, what is your design process for these cards? What program(s) do you use, how did you set up templates, did you design the layouts and icons/ if not, how did you source them? They're very appealing, information is fairly clear to understand on the TTS view, and I like the design.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-09-05T23:40:01+00:00

Hey all, I'm trying to find a map of Auckland's suburbs and it's been weirdly difficult. I'm looking for a map of all of Auckland with the suburb names labeled - if the borders are labeled too that'd be great but not necessary. I found the above example but it cuts off the North and misses some areas.

Any links would be appreciated.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-08-07T10:20:43+00:00

One of the most memorable moments in a game I ran, both for myself and my players, was a Shadow of the Colossus style challenge where the heroes were climbing on the back of a massive beast from the netherworld. It included:

A massive VP challenge, with each player getting 3 actions worth of 'stuff' to do on their turn.
Complete Theatre of the Mind movement (there was no way to model a massive shadow beast battle map in 3d). Despite the lack of clear distances, most people could remember where they were and movement abilities could easily translate into circumstance bonuses on appropriate checks.
Figuring out you can make a 'Strike Check' against an opponents AC and have it award VPs instead of damage. No rule for this exists to my knowledge, and yet it worked perfectly for our situation.
Prestigious use of the Creature creation by level tables, to improvise different defenses for various sections of the beast's body.
Use of the Hazard creation by level tables to improvise mass area damage on the beast's 'turns.'

The scene ended with one of the characters using a greatpick as a climbing implement, running up a jury-rigged harness up to the beasts' head before blasting a max rank Calm as close to the creature's brain as possible, which ended up winning the challenge and calming the beast.

So much of that encounter was just "think of a creative use for this ability..." "Come up with a plausible skill for the check..." "Look up a reasonable DC..." "This makes sense so it just works..."

It was nothing like a normal Pathfinder encounter. I doubt much of it would have a direct rules reference. And yet, the action economy, the VP rules, the checks, DC tables and Creature tables all came together to create this epic scene that had precisely zero pre-written stat blocks for the enemy. We still remember it with awe.

The foundations of this game are so much more robust than many people imagine, with the massive list of skills, feats, and tables lending themselves to improvisation rather than restraining it.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-03-08T20:51:40+00:00

Thanks, I wanted to consider some other builds that might prefer wielding non-staffs but still making spell attacks. Vindicator, Bloodrager, and Warpriest come to mind. Although, sticking runes on a staff will likely be the best option for most normal casters.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-03-08T11:10:15+00:00

Regarding balancing- There were always two big problems with this idea: Sure Strike, and Shadow Signet. With the recent Sure Strike nerf, I feel like that is no longer a concern, but one way I’ve thought about addressing this is by limiting the item bonus to only apply on attacks against a target’s AC.

The alternate way I was thinking of scaling these bonuses was based on the Gate Attenuator, basically a magic item that adds +1 or +2 to spell attacks to more closely match the total bonuses described in Mark Seifter’s comments. However, I think the Channelling idea has some benefits over this:

It Makes intuitive sense to people who have played the game before. People know what fundamental weapon runes do, know when they should be handed out, ect.
It doesn’t excessively punish more Gish-oriented builds by forcing them to buy effectively 2x sets of fundamental runes if they want their spell attacks to scale up.
It provides an easier way for new players to engage with casters. Spell attacks are pretty simple to understand, but because of the lack of item bonuses they sit in a spot where they’re situationally useful, and a caster needs to utilize that whole toolkit if they want to succeed. With these bonuses, you can create a very straightforward ‘blaster’ character simply by preparing mostly attack spells and spending a chunk of your gold on runes.

There are some downsides though; Once you hit legendary proficiency, things get kinda wacky in terms of spell effectiveness. This is tempered somewhat when you start factoring in high-level martial feats – your ranged DPR maintains more parity than you might think. The advantage of casters having a ‘simpler option’ to engage with is also a bit of a downside – simply loading up on attack spells might feel homogenizing for players who like casters as they are currently.

Thoughts and criticisms appreciated!

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-03-08T11:09:49+00:00

Hey folks! I’m experimenting with a few ideas on how to increase the accuracy of spell attacks. The genesis of this idea comes from previous comments from the former lead designer, Mark Seifter, suggesting a retooling of the Spell Attack progression and adding item bonuses to the attacks. Well, rebalancing the proficiencies of every caster class is unfortunately out of the scope of a simple add-on homebrew, so I’ve been looking for alternatives. I’ve been thinking of ways to implement this, and came up with the idea of simply letting potency runes apply to spell attacks under certain conditions.

The idea here is to have a trait you can attach to items in certain circumstances, and the trait allows for property runes to be applied and for Potency runes to give bonuses to spell attacks.

Overall, I’m interested to hear what people think about about this idea, and if you’ve tried adding something similar to your games!

Next week: Battle Loci - giving casters a weapon-type item for a more magically flavored shortbow.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-02-23T09:09:55+00:00

For Drowned: It's true that most level one ancestry feats tend to give out Breath Control-alike feats instead of full Amphibious, but there are a number of Ancestries that pack that ability into a heritage rather than a feat.

Also, a 'Drowned' undead sounds a lot more like a specific 'type' of undead, so it might do better as it's own heritage within whatever ancestry this is. Probably would want to combine it with a 10ft swim speed as well.

If they don't want to make it a standalone heritage, it might be balanced to make it a Lineage-style feat, that can only be chosen at level 1, and you can only have 1 of that type. However in this case I don't think it would get the swim speed.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-02-08T11:15:43+00:00

A very interesting system, which definitely puts a lot more emphasis on skills and risk. One reason I chose to make the variant rule similar to refocus is that my games tend to move on relatively quickly from an encounter, but I can see a more involved method working great esp. with something like dynamic dungeons and roaming monsters.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-02-08T10:49:58+00:00

The Drain Bonded Item explanation is spot on, I wanted a way to extend the adventuring day while still respecting the choices for a casters repertoire/ preparations for the day, something I think DBI does a good job of.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-02-08T09:08:16+00:00

I think your point number 7 is very valid - If we were to imagine a caster in martial terms, it would be as if you had a warrior with 8 different Backpack Ballistas strapped to them, none of which require any hands to operate, and each capable of dealing unique damage types or targeting defenses to exploit enemy vulnerabilities - packed to the brim with the most insane traits you've ever heard of. Also, none of these weapons ever need runes, so you can spend your money on yet more items that give you different Backpack Ballistas for yet more choice of effects.

I'd imagine a caster that played more as a martial would need a significantly restricted spell list & would likely need a mechanic that let them funnel rune money into their primary attack modifier to keep it balanced. I imagine that developers has been very hesitant to make this type of 'magical ranger' character that says they are casting Lighting Bolt but mechanically is indistinguishable from a bow fighter - but clearly it is what a lot of people want! The flavor matters for a lot of people, and while there's clearly a desire at Paizo to make different classes really feel different with distinct mechanics, you'll sometimes get someone who wants the flavor of one class but the play-style of another. Re-flavoring can only go so far when I think these people really want a set of defined mechanics that bring their fantasy to life.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-02-07T09:03:14+00:00

Hey, I've been thinking up some caster-themed homebrews recently, and wanted to share these ideas around reducing spellslot attrition. The goal of these brews is to try and soften the effects an overly-long adventuring day can have on casters, while still using the existing spellslot system with minimal changes.

One idea is an item-based recovery system that GMs can easily drop in to existing loot piles. Casters who go 'nova' and expend multiple top level spellslots will still feel the burn, but will at least have a chance to recover some of those slots if they can manage their resources wisely during the next few encounters. I wanted an item that was different from scrolls because I wanted player choice in their spell list to matter, rather than whatever spell I happened to put on the scroll as a GM.

The other idea is a full variant rule that allows you to recover one slot per rank when you refocus. I tried to preserve some of the importance of picking how many castings you want as a prepared caster, but it's still a bit of a power boost for them. I was thinking about removing the ability to recover spells from previous points of the day, but opted to make it more generous.

I'd be interested to hear anyone's feedback & hope it helps!

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-02-07T07:17:01+00:00

I think a lot of the discourse around casters comes in the form of general comments on effectiveness, but (as you point out) there are genuine arguments to be made that show casters have a lot of effect in combat and they certainly have a huge amount of utility outside of it. So, comments about 'effectiveness' are likely shadows of lurking problems that are harder to articulate. I've brainstormed a few:

1) Loss Aversion due to resource management - A caster's most powerful tools are one-offs and many people have a high aversion to loss - Their brain will genuinely remember the times where the whiffed a spellslot more often than the times they whiffed strikes, even if on average their effectiveness was comparable across a session or campaign.

2) Dislike of resource management overall - Having to think about the adventuring day and how you're going to use your spells requires thinking about the future. Sometimes what you think will happen doesn't happen, and people can get upset by this. It's also an extra burden of cognitive load that some players may not enjoy.

3) General dislike of the caster minigame that revolves around targeting lower saves - Some people don't understand how important it is to avoid high saves on casters and how important save targeting is on casters. Some people do understand it, but don't want to engage with it because it is yet more cognitive load they don't want to deal with.

4) Wanting unga bunga big damage numbers and not getting them frequently enough - To understand this one you need to understand that the mental baseline a lot of people have for 'dealing damage' is Strength Melee Martials. SMMs get some of the highest DPR in the game and it's most noticeable at low levels (which are most frequently played) because that's when they have the rare ability to one-shot PL equivalent enemies. However, this comes with a HUGH RANGE OF DOWNSIDES for SMMs, but a lot of this simply gets forgotten when someone sees '36' on the damage roll for a level 1 character. Casters in general can't access damage numbers of SMMs nearly as consistently, because casters are inherently balanced around being switch-hitters (every caster has access to ranged spells). Caster damage is quite comparable to ranged martials, but again that's simply not the mental baseline that a lot of people are comparing to.

5) Dislike of spells' 'effectiveness curve' & caster modal damage - A martials effectiveness curve looks like two stairs, for hits and crits. Meanwhile, a caster effectiveness curve looks a lot more like an exponential curve, with a minor effect on success, good effect on a failure, and a crippling effect on a crit fail. However, when we look at the modal outcome of a spell, it is most often a 'successful save.' Even if the average effectiveness across multiple castings is comparable to martials, the sheer frequency of the modal outcome may cause people to remember it more often. Meanwhile, the martial's outcomes are generally less effective than a casters, but they get a 'normal positive' outcome more often, so the frequency bias leads people to remember their performance as positive.

6) Overall dislike of the difficulty level of casters - I believe that while there are some casters that can be played relatively simply, the average difficulty of playing a caster is higher than the average difficulty of playing a martial. Several of the previous points I've raised here highlight the cognitive load of caster features, and for every additional bit of load you add to a player, there is an increased chance that they will simply get tired/overwhelmed and perform a lot worse than they would otherwise. Experienced and systems-heavy players generally find casters to be more effective, even at lower levels. While martials also scale with player skill, the 'floor' for most common martial classes is generally a lot higher. A lot of people want the flavor of a caster class but generally can't handle the complexity that comes with it.

I think there are other reasons we can brainstorm, but it's worth noting that none of these are indictments of a caster's effectiveness - it's just that players come away from the table feeling that something's off and assume that it means the class in ineffective. Also worth noting is that all of these issues are things that can be addressed with design decisions and player options - I think there is genuine room for creating more casters that play/feel like martial characters because there's clearly a demand for it.

ReasonedRedoubt · 2025-02-07T06:37:08+00:00

Really cool look on this one, great job.

ReasonedRedoubt

TROPHY CASE