ABILITY DAMAGE/DRAIN/NEGATIVE LEVELS
Instead of ability damage, ability drain, or negative levels, use the Unchained Progression rules for Disease and Poison. Every negative level is +1 further on the physical and mental disease track.
ACTION ECONOMY
Instead of 1 standard, 1 move, and 1 swift action, you get 3 actions on your turn and spend actions to do different things. Immediate actions are renamed "reactions".
- Activities that require more than 1 action can be performed over multiple turns as long as they are not interrupted by other actions in between (including reactions) and you don't lose concentration.
- Basic weapon attacks and combat maneuver checks cost 1 action instead of 2 but each attack action imposes a cumulative -5 penalty to all attacks made afterwards (max penalty -10). This penalty also applies to attack spells (nonharmless/nonpersonal ones) and attempts to escape bindings, grapples, entanglement. The penalty vanishes at the end of your turn.
- Free actions can only be used on your turn unless explicitly noted otherwise by a trigger in the action's description.
CHALLENGE RATING, HIT DICE, & LEVEL
A creature's level is equal to their total number of hit dice. Their CR is equal to 3/4 their level. Templates add racial hit dice equal to double the CR bonus (or reduce if negative to the normal minimum). For example, Vampire is normally a +2 CR. So making a creature a vampire would add 4 racial hit dice (levels) to it.
CRITICAL HITS (Laying Waste Critical Hit Cards)
- Instead of multiplied damage on a crit you draw 1 critical hit effect card per point of multiplier above 1: x2 draws 1 card, x3 draws 2 cards, etc.
- Crits resulting from a natural 20 are major.
- Crits resulting from a natural 19 are moderate.
- Crits resulting from a natural 18 or lower are minor.
- Natural 20s on attack rolls always hit and always threaten and deal a critical hit without need for confirmation rolls.
- Regardless of any RAW rules you cannot threaten a critical hit on a roll below a natural 16.
COMBAT TRICKS
You can improve your combat feats using the Unchained Stamina and Combat Tricks variant rules except that you do not get stamina. You spend mana instead.
DAMAGE REDUCTION
Damage reduction applies against all damage types except for persistent damage. All creatures that have Damage Reduction adjust it to be 1/4 its total hit dice plus a modifier based on how rare it is.
- Common Examples (+15 DR): Bludgeoning, iron, magic, piercing, slashing, stone, or wood.
- Uncommon Examples (+10 DR): Cold, cold iron, darkwood, electricity, fire, gold, mithril, or silver.
- Rare Examples (+5 DR): Adamantine, chaotic, epic, evil, force, good, lawful, orichalcum, platinum, quicksilver, or star ore.
- DR/- (+0 DR): Damage Reduction/- has no special weakness.
- Creatures with a DR that has "or" count as one degree more common while those that have "and" count as one degree less common. For example, a vampire has "DR/magic AND silver" so instead of it being uncommon it counts as rare. If it was "DR/magic OR silver" it'd count as common instead.
DAMAGE TYPES
There is no untyped damage. All damage types must fall within one of the following categories as determined by the GM: Acid, Bludgeoning, Cold, Electricity, Fire, Force, Mental, Necrotic, Piercing, Poison, Radiant, Slashing, Sonic.
*Anything immune to mind-affecting effects are immune to mental damage.
*Necrotic and Radiant are just negative and positive energy damage.
EFFECT TYPES
Creatures, objects and special abilities have many types such as type, subtypes, school, subschool, descriptor, etc. which are unified as just "types" now.
ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE
Environmental damage (ex. falling damage, damage from acid/lava immersion, etc.) become 2d10 instead of 1d6.
INITIATIVE
You now make Perception checks as Initiative rolls instead of using Dexterity modifier. Anything that adds to Initiative still adds to these types of rolls. If you successfully sneak up on a foe (usually as a result of a successful Survival check or other check used to survey the area), then you can roll Stealth instead of Perception. If it's a social scene rather than an exploration terrain, use Sense Motive instead of Perception and Bluff instead of Stealth.
MASSIVE DAMAGE
Every creature has a Massive Damage Threshold (MDT) equal to Constitution score + level. Player characters, boss monsters, and re-occurring NPCs do not die until their HP is reduced to the negative value of their MDT to or lower. All other creatures, including animal companions, familiars, summoned creatures, etc. die at 0 HP.
MAX DEX
The sum of your dex + dodge bonuses to AC, FFAC, TAC, & Reflex cannot exceed your max dex.
The sum of your competence + insight bonuses to AC, FFAC, TAC, & Reflex also cannot exceed your max dex.
MULTIPLIERS
Replace all multipliers in the game that apply to damage or healing and replace them with "+1 damage/healing per level of character/item dealing the damage/healing" per multiplier beyond x2. Critical hits replace x2 with "automax all damage die" (including Sneak Attack, Flaming, and other bonus damage) and x3 is just an additional +1 damage/level of attacker (x4 is +2 damage/level of attacker). Multipliers to ability damage or drain or level drain are simply +1 per multiplier beyond x1.
PROFICIENCY
All proficiency feats are altered as follows.
Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Rather than select 1 weapon at a time, selecting the Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat makes you proficient with all exotic versions of simple and martial weapons you're already proficient with.
Martial Weapon Proficiency: Rather than select 1 weapon at a time, you select an entire Weapon Group to become proficient with each time you select the feat.
Versatile Weapon Proficiency: If you have the Simple Weapon Proficiency feat and you've taken the Martial Weapon Proficiency feat 3 times, you can take this feat to become proficient with all martial weapons.
RESISTANCES
All resistances and immunities are simplified into minor, moderate, major, and immune.
There is minor resistance, major resistance, and immunity.
- Minor Resistance: +2 bonus to DCs and saves vs. effect type and damage dealt by such effects is reduced by 5 + 1/2 level (minimum 0).
- Major Resistance: As minor but +4 and 10 + level.
- Immunity: Unaffected unless the source is mythic and target is non-mythic, in which case immunity is only +6 and 15 + (1.5* level). All elementals are treated as mythic for the purposes of their immunities.
Spell Resistance: Spell resistance (SR) is removed from the game and replaced with a +2 racial bonus to saving throws against spells and spell-like abilities unless it was higher than 11+HD, in which case it's +4.
REST
A short rest is simply avoiding any strenuous activity for roughly 15 minutes or so while a long rest actually requires a creature to sleep for roughly 8 hours. Despite their durations, you can benefit from only 1 short rest per hour and 2 long rests per day.
Long Rest
With 8 hours of sleep you:
- Remove all nonlethal damage
- Regain all your missing MP
- Regain an amount of HP up to your level
- Regain a number of surges equal to your number of remaining surges (minimum +1)
Short Rest
A short rest is only a 15-minute break but you can benefit from a short rest only once per 2 hours:
- Remove an amount of nonlethal damage up to your level
- Regain an amount of MP up to your level
SIZE MODIFIERS
Remove all size modifiers from the game and replace them with the following:
- +2 Strength score, AC, CMB, CMD, and Brawn checks per size larger than medium (vice versa for smaller).
- -2 Dexterity score, Reflex, and Stealth checks per size larger than medium (vice versa for smaller).
- Carrying Capacity Multiplier: Fine 1/16, Diminutive 1/8, Tiny 1/4, Small 1/2, Medium 1, Large x8, Huge x27, Gargantuan x64, Colossal x125.
- Creatures gain +5 feet reach per size increase (and vice versa for size decreases) to a maximum of 5-foot reach for Small and smaller creatures.
- Food, drink, lodging, and gear costs for creatures are multiplied by their CC multiplier (not including magical or technological enhancements applied).
SURGES
Hero Points and Mythic Power are merged into "surges".
- You have a maximum number of surges equal to 5 + 1/2 level (round up).
- You get +1d6 or +1d12 to the roll instead of +4/+8 and there are no mythic surges.
- No hero point feats, items, or spells are allowed.
- If killed by anything other than massive damage from a mythic source while you have surges, you lose 1/2 all your remaining surges (minimum loss of 1) and return to 1 hit point instead of dying.
WEAPONS
All weapons (including natural weapons and unarmed strikes) are altered as follows.
- Small and smaller weapons use the same damage die as medium-sized weapons.
- Medium weapons that dealt 1d3 damage change to 1d4.
- Medium weapons that dealt 2d4 damage change to 1d8.
- Medium weapons that dealt 2d6 damage change to 1d12.
- Every weapon has an accuracy modifier to attack rolls with it based on its damage die: +4 if 1, +3 if 1d2, +2 if 1d4, +1 if 1d6, +0 if 1d8, -1 if 1d10, -2 if 1d12.
- Every weapon with a crit threat range of 18-20 or greater or crit multiplier of x4 or greater becomes exotic.
- Every weapon with a 19-20 crit threat range AND crit multiplier of x3 or greater becomes exotic.
- Every one-handed or light weapon with a damage die greater than 1d6 becomes exotic.
- Large and larger weapons don't increase die size but instead add +1 die and -1 accuracy per size larger. For example, a medium greatsword is -2/1d12 so a large greatsword would be -3/2d12 and a huge would be -4/3d12 and so on and so forth. Improved Natural Weapon adjusts to this pattern instead. Vital Strike and similar effects still only add the base weapon's damage die. For example, a huge greatsword (-4/3d12) would deal 4d12 with a regular vital strike, 5d12 with improved vital strike, and 6d12 with greater vital strike.