From here.
1. Ability score generation method?
Best 3 of 4d6 and use them in any order. If you have 2 below 10 or no 18 you can re-roll (all of them).
2. How are death and dying handled?
Pathfinder rules: you are dead when you go below your negative constitution. 0 and negative are unconscious but heal-able. Don't forget to stabilize -- I'll even give you a condition card to remember.
Exception: If you have a karma point you can use it to instantly stabilize at 0 hit points or get a save from death.
3. What about raising the dead?
If there is a recoverable body, you can raise the dead. No body = really, really dead.
Sorry Wil Wheaton -- Aoefel + acid = really, really dead, unless your party pulls him out quickly.
4. How are replacement PCs handled?
Replacement PCs are inserted wherever in the game makes sense. I let the new PC and the party drive how/why they get integrated into the party. PCs are rolled at the lowest party member's level.
"As you enter the next room, you find a elven female, young of age, sleeping in the corner near the dying embers of a fire."
The party can choose to ask her to join them or shoot her with arrows or, perhaps, both.
5. Initiative: individual, group, or something else?
PCs get their own. GM gets the option of keeping them together or breaking them up.
6. Are there critical hits and fumbles? How do they work?
1 is a miss, 20 is a hit. Critical hits and fumbles have to be driven by the situation, like missing with that firebomb or using an arrow of returning... OUCH!
7. Do I get any benefits for wearing a helmet?
Of course, if the circumstances call for it. Called shots to the head, specific head-affecting situations. Boots do similar things for the feet. And so on...
8. Can hurt my friends if I fire into melee or do something similarly silly?
Oh yes. There is no rule against stupidity. Entangle your friends and fireball them. Run into a room with a pit trap at full speed when no one in the party remembered to tell you about it. You're going to get hurt. *nods*
9. Will we need to run from some encounters, or will we be able to kill everything?
Circle of life -- sometimes you eat and sometimes you get eaten. It's no fun if you know the answer before you get there. And sometimes the GM makes mistakes on CR... or does he?
10. Level draining monsters: yes or no?
Yes, but I don't have to like them.
11. Are there going to be cases where a failed save results in PC death?
Yes, otherwise it wouldn't be called a save.
12. How strictly are encumbrance and resources tracked?
Encumbrance should be kept to non-ridiculous. Resources like arrows and potions and wand uses should be tracked. No coin encumbrance. Don't bother me with when your torch burnt out.
13. What's required when my PC gains a level? Training? Do I get new spells automatically? Can it happen in the middle of an adventure or do I have to wait for down time?
Leveling up will happen once you get back to a safe civilization. This allows for training, contemplation, findings of new abilities and spells, etc. New spells come when you level up. Spellbooks can be filled during the adventure as relevant to the adventure.
14. What do I get experience for?
1. Ability score generation method?
Best 3 of 4d6 and use them in any order. If you have 2 below 10 or no 18 you can re-roll (all of them).
2. How are death and dying handled?
Pathfinder rules: you are dead when you go below your negative constitution. 0 and negative are unconscious but heal-able. Don't forget to stabilize -- I'll even give you a condition card to remember.
Exception: If you have a karma point you can use it to instantly stabilize at 0 hit points or get a save from death.
3. What about raising the dead?
If there is a recoverable body, you can raise the dead. No body = really, really dead.
Sorry Wil Wheaton -- Aoefel + acid = really, really dead, unless your party pulls him out quickly.
4. How are replacement PCs handled?
Replacement PCs are inserted wherever in the game makes sense. I let the new PC and the party drive how/why they get integrated into the party. PCs are rolled at the lowest party member's level.
"As you enter the next room, you find a elven female, young of age, sleeping in the corner near the dying embers of a fire."
The party can choose to ask her to join them or shoot her with arrows or, perhaps, both.
5. Initiative: individual, group, or something else?
PCs get their own. GM gets the option of keeping them together or breaking them up.
6. Are there critical hits and fumbles? How do they work?
1 is a miss, 20 is a hit. Critical hits and fumbles have to be driven by the situation, like missing with that firebomb or using an arrow of returning... OUCH!
7. Do I get any benefits for wearing a helmet?
Of course, if the circumstances call for it. Called shots to the head, specific head-affecting situations. Boots do similar things for the feet. And so on...
8. Can hurt my friends if I fire into melee or do something similarly silly?
Oh yes. There is no rule against stupidity. Entangle your friends and fireball them. Run into a room with a pit trap at full speed when no one in the party remembered to tell you about it. You're going to get hurt. *nods*
9. Will we need to run from some encounters, or will we be able to kill everything?
Circle of life -- sometimes you eat and sometimes you get eaten. It's no fun if you know the answer before you get there. And sometimes the GM makes mistakes on CR... or does he?
10. Level draining monsters: yes or no?
Yes, but I don't have to like them.
11. Are there going to be cases where a failed save results in PC death?
Yes, otherwise it wouldn't be called a save.
12. How strictly are encumbrance and resources tracked?
Encumbrance should be kept to non-ridiculous. Resources like arrows and potions and wand uses should be tracked. No coin encumbrance. Don't bother me with when your torch burnt out.
13. What's required when my PC gains a level? Training? Do I get new spells automatically? Can it happen in the middle of an adventure or do I have to wait for down time?
Leveling up will happen once you get back to a safe civilization. This allows for training, contemplation, findings of new abilities and spells, etc. New spells come when you level up. Spellbooks can be filled during the adventure as relevant to the adventure.
14. What do I get experience for?
- Overcoming obstacles (monsters, traps, situations)
- There are no penalties for solving a situation by an alternate method. (Diplomacy and a blade give the same XP).
- Exceptional roleplaying gives no XP, but gives Karma points to allow saves from death, re-rolls, extra turns, etc.
15. How are traps located?
PC must actively engage in searching to get the dice rolls to locate a trap. Obvious exception is a rogue with trapspotting, which is automatic. You have to roleplay where you are searching... "I want to search the ceiling.. oh crap... what is that... pfft ..grrlrlggl... get this cloaker off of me!"
16. Are retainers encouraged and how does morale work?
Role played. Each individual character in the game is under control of either the DM or the players. This controlling person gets to take on the best intentions of that entity and act accordingly. Is the character you are paying to help really honorable, or are they going to stab you when you're in trouble, turn invisible, and take your stuff?
17. How do I identify magic items?
Magic (identify), knowledge, by paying someone with magic or knowledge, or by dumbly seeing how something works. The later is not recommended, but can be quite entertaining, at least for the GM i.e. the Boots of Skipping.
18. Can I buy magic items? Oh come on, how about just potions?
If someone is selling you can buy. It is all role played.
19. Can I create magic items? When and how?
Crafting needs be logically role played, which means crafting and creating is mostly going to occur in 'down time'. Pathfinder has a solid set of rules for this type of thing. This goes for other non-adventure activities, like if you wanted to use expeditious excavation to dig your own underground lair.
20. What about splitting the party?
Splitting the party can be the choice of the party or may happen naturally as part of the ongoing story. This doesn't mean it is recommended. Individual party members may always be 'split' in their knowledge of the situation.
I am a PC and I recently asked that part of the loot in this dungeon was a 'cloak of the bat.' Sure enough, behind a stuck door (weak rogue) there was a brown/black cloak. I was so excited! Ran and grabbed it after the fighter busted the door down.. It grabbed back. No our bard has a pet cloaker.
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