Character Creation Rules

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Amalthea is a Pathfinder roleplaying community that uses the Spheres of Might & Spheres of Power mechanics. Contrary to many such servers found on the DDS discord, Amalthea is designed for a niche set of interests, rather than for broad appeal. You will enjoy Amalthea if you:

• Prefer heroic fantasy with a moderate (but still superhuman) level of power
• Prefer morally nuanced conflicts, where right and wrong aren’t always obvious
• Value in-depth, internally consistent lore
• Want a smaller community where you can get to know most, if not all, of its active participants.

Amalthea is probably not the right community for you if you:

• Like playing highly optimized characters designed for extreme challenges, or demigod characters using variant rules such as mythic, gestalt, or templates
• Prefer the Vancian magic system of vanilla Pathfinder
• Prefer old-school settings with clearly delineated good and bad guys
• Prefer kitchen-sink or crossover settings with little to no limits on player-created lore
• Want a large community with potentially hundreds of players and characters.

Characters in Amalthea are expected to be heroes and anti-heroes fighting monsters in a dark world. Whether this means they’re knights in shining armor, cynical mercenaries just doing their job, or self-serving scumbags looking for wealth and power, the basic assumption remains the same: player characters aren’t just victims of horrific circumstances, but neither are they demigods detached from the struggles of common men. In addition, characters are expected to conform to the setting’s tone and lore. At base, the following types of character are not allowed:

• Excessively grimdark or edgy characters.
  • While evil alignments are permitted, outright villains such as serial killers and insane cultists are not.
• Excessively cutesy, precious, or childlike characters.
  • All characters must be unmistakably adults for their species, both mentally and physically. This includes any reference artwork you may use.
• Characters whose appearance or abilities are gratuitously sexual or fetishistic.
• Caricatures, joke/parody characters, or characters based on a pun.
• Characters whose backstory would allow them political power or knowledge of setting secrets far above anyone else.
• Amnesiacs.
• Characters from a setting that is not Amalthea.

In addition, please respect the medium power level of the server. Avoid extreme optimization, but also make sure your character is not so suboptimal that they struggle with consistent contribution. You start with two character slots, and you gain an additional character slot each time you gain 3 levels on your highest level character.

Table of Contents

• The Basics
• Races
• Spheres and Magic
• Classes
• Traits and Misc
• Equipment and Wealth
• Higher Level Characters
• Replacing Characters

The Basics

• Assign ability scores with 25 point buy. You may not reduce any ability score below 8, before racial adjustments.
• The starting level is 3, and the maximum level is 10.
• Characters can advance above level 10 in specific circumstances, found in the Higher Level Characters section below.
• You gain the maximum HP from your hit dice at each level. For example, a fighter with a d10 hit dice gains 10 + Constitution modifier HP per level.
• You start with 3 Hero Points, and can hold up to 3 unless a feat or class feature says otherwise. You receive an additional Hero Point each time you gain a level, and each time you write an article for an in-universe newspaper (details on the Newspaper Articles page).
• Antihero rules are not in play.
• You may spend up to 1 Hero Point per game session. The exception is when you wish to avert death: you can always spend 2 Hero Points to avert death, even if you've always spent a Hero Point on something else.
• To prevent minmaxing, the following statistics are capped, as noted below. Temporary bonuses that raise your stats above the maximum simply remain at the maximum, except for positional bonuses, and Hero Points.
  • Attack and saving throws bonuses can’t exceed 10 + your level.
  • Skill bonuses can’t exceed 15 + your level x 1.5.
  • AC can’t exceed 20 + your level.
  • Saving throw DCs can't exceed 15 + your level.
  • CMB cannot exceed 15 + your level, and CMD cannot exceed 25 + your level.

Races

• The following races are permitted:
  • All core races: Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half-Elf, Halfling, Half-Orc, Human
  • The following 1PP races: Changeling, Dhampir, Drow, Duergar, Goblin, Kobold, Orc
  • The following homebrew races: Beastfolk, Dragonkin, Planetouched.
• If a race doesn't offer flexible ability score adjustments, you may move one racial adjustment from one ability score to another. You can cancel out a bonus and a penalty, but not gain a +4 to any ability score. For example, you can change an elf's +2 Dexterity to +2 Charisma, or remove both the +2 Dexterity and the -2 Constitution.
• You can ignore racial prerequisites on traits, feats, archetypes or prestige classes, as long as your race has the appropriate physiology, at the GM’s discretion. For example, you can take the Tail Terror feat as a beastfolk, but not as a human.
• Races with Vancian spell-like abilities must trade them out for alternate racial traits.
• Racial languages are not in play. Instead, all characters begin by speaking two languages of their choice, found on the Languages of Amalthea page. Characters with high Intelligence scores can choose any languages they want (except secret languages, such as Druidic).
• For house rules on specific races, check the Races section of our house rules.

Spheres and Magic

• We use Spheres of Might and Spheres of Power.
  • Classes and archetypes that make use of mechanics from Spheres of Guile are not allowed. However, we do use the Expanded Skills Rules found in Spheres of Guile, with the following modifications:
    • Skill Leverage rules are not in use.
    • Outwit, SoG Conditions (such as Impressed and Angry), and Diplomacy variants are not in use by default. However, GMs may optionally include them in social quests if they wish.
  • We also don’t use any 3PP Spheres or classes.
• Vancian spellcasting is not allowed, including spell-like abilities granted by race or feats.
• Spell-like abilities granted by class features or companion creatures (such as improved familiars) are permitted on a case-by-case basis.
• Rules on magic items that bestow the effects of, or cast, Vancian spells, can be found in the Equipment section of our house rules.
• Custom casting and martial traditions are in play, but unified traditions are not. You may not use premade casting or martial traditions.
• You must declare if your casting tradition is Arcane, Divine, Occult, or Primal, which determines two of your casting drawbacks. You are free to customize all other aspects of your casting tradition. More information on casting traditions can be found on the Magic page.
• Martial traditions must follow the format below:
  • Two talents from the Athletics or Equipment sphere.
  • Two talents from any combat spheres.
• When using the Tinker sphere, custom tinker traditions are in play. You must declare if your casting tradition is Achemical, Clockwork, Electrical, Magitech, or Steampower, which determines two of your tinker drawbacks. You're free to customize all other aspects of your tinker tradition. More information on tinker traditions can be found on the Technology page

Classes

• All 1PP vanilla classes are allowed, except for Omdura and Vampire Hunter.
• Spellcasting classes must use a spherecaster or champion archetype.
• All 1PP Spheres classes are allowed, except for Prodigy, Sage, Troubadour, and Wraith.
• Characters who multiclass must use fractional multiclassing.
• All characters gain 3 bonus class skills at 1st level.
• All characters receive 2 background skill ranks each level.
• Artistry and Lore skills are not in use.
• All classes with 2 + Intelligence modifier skill ranks per level instead have 4 + Intelligence skill ranks per level.
• For house rules on specific classes, check the Classes section of our house rules.

Feats

• We use the browser (not PDF) version of Elephant in the Room, which can be found here, with the following changes:
  • The Powerful Maneuvers feat includes the benefits of Improved Grapple.
  • Dodge provides a +5 bonus vs attacks of opportunity.
  • If a racial trait or class feature grants you a feat you already have due to EITR, you may instead gain a free feat of your choice.

Traits and Misc

• You may take 2 traits, or 3 traits and a drawback. Your traits must come from different categories.
• The Umbral Unmasking and Warded Against Nature drawbacks do not grant you an additional trait.
• The Born Healer and Fate's Favored traits are banned.
• The Magical Knack trait adds to your MSB instead of your caster level.
• All other traits are allowed, except for campaign traits. In addition to existing traits, the following traits have been added; these traits don’t have an associated trait category, and can be taken repeatedly, but their effects don’t stack:
  

  Magical Polymath Choose 3 magic spheres. You gain a +1 trait bonus to caster level when using talents or abilities from those spheres. This bonus cannot cause your caster level to exceed your Hit Dice. Skilled Select two skills. You gain a +1 trait bonus to those skills, and the first selected skill becomes a class skill for you. Unorthodox Methods Select a single skill modified by a mental attribute. You can add a mental attribute of your choice to this skill instead of the original one

• Deities and regions are not required for feat, trait, or item prerequisites. However, a character may not take such features associated with more than one deity or region.
• Aristeia, Oaths, and other variant subsystems are not in play.

Equipment and Wealth

• Assign gear using the standard Wealth By Level table. At level 3, your wealth is 3000 GP. You can purchase any allowed magic item that costs 1500GP or under. To obtain more expensive magic items, consult the Factions of Tisoria page. You start with 3 Favor to assign freely between Factions. If you play at a level higher than 3, you have a 4 additional Favor for each level above 3 to freely spend on any Faction.
• Amalthea uses Commonplace Guns rules, with the following changes:
  • Guns don't hit touch AC without class features that specifically allow them to.
  • Guns never misfire.
  • All firearms cost 1/10 their listed price.
  • Characters that obtain a battered firearm from a class feature, feat, or talent can choose a revolver, rifle, or shotgun.
• Regular ammunition (including default ammunition for advanced firearms but not other types of alchemical cartridge) is not tracked in combat. You're always assumed to have enough on hand, although this does not affect reloading.
• You don’t have to spend all your gold. However, you can’t use starting gold to craft during character creation. The only exception to this is upgrading the battered firearm granted by the gunslinger class, or your martial tradition.
• The following items do not exist:
  • Amulet of Natural Armor
  • Belt of Physical Ability
  • Cloak of Resistance
  • Headband of Mental Ability
  • Ioun Stone of Physical/Mental Ability
  • Manual of Physical Ability
  • Protean Cloak
  • Ring of Protection
  • Ring of Resistance
  • Tome of Mental Ability
• Magical weapons and armor, as well as Amulets of Mighty Fists, Bodywrap of Mighty Strikes, Bracers of Armor, and Gloves of Improvised Might, can’t have numerical enhancement bonuses, unless provided by a class feature or Sphere effect.
  • These items can otherwise have any special ability, but don’t need an enhancement bonus to have these applied to them
• Implements cannot increase caster level.
• Magical items that incorporate a Big Six numerical bonus simply do not. Use the following equation to determine the new cost of the item: ([Original item cost] - [No longer available item])/1.5 = [New Cost].
• No matter your wealth, a character may not equip items with a total purchasing cost greater than wealth by level +1 when entering a quest. For example, a level 10 character can own as many items as they like, but may only benefit from up to 82,000GP’s worth of equipment in any given quest.

Downtime and Crafting

Refer to the Downtime and Crafting page for details on crafting in Amalthea.

Higher Level Characters

In Amalthea, characters do not have to level up when they reach enough XP to do so. Rather, they can bank their XP indefinitely to stay at a specific level, gaining wealth and favor as usual. Such characters may never bring gear with a total cost higher than WBL+1 into any quest. A character with banked XP can level up whenever they wish, but may not level up more than once at a time. If a character has enough banked XP to increase their level by two or more, they must attend at least one quest at each level before reaching the next level.
Normally, the maximum level a mortal can reach on Amalthea is 10. This is largely a worldbuilding consideration, as class abilities and talents at very high levels can transform a familiar fantasy world to a surreal superhero setting. This is not to say that the surreal and superheroic are unwelcome in this server. When gaining enough XP to reach 11th level, you have a decision to make for your character: they can remain mortal, or they can ascend and become something greater.

Mortal Characters

When reaching 11th level, a mortal character instead sacrifices any XP earned above level 10. Doing so allows them to receive a free retrain of up to 10 days or two class levels, as well as add a single significant change to the world that they have directly caused. The most simple example of this kind of change is the creation of a new guild or settlement led by the character, with influence below the major Factions, but with the potential to grow to rival them. If you’ve already marked your own little corner of Amalthea, each sacrificed level from then on will further increase the power of that guild or settlement. Making your mark on the world is an optional, and largely narrative reward, and doesn’t require mastery of any subsystems like kingdom building. The details are left up to your imagination, as long as the general themes of your little corner of Amalthea fits the heroic fantasy flavor of the world, subject to moderator discretion.

Ascended Characters

A character that ascends may instead reach up to 20th level as normal. Keep your level 10 character sheets regardless, because this is the physical limitation imposed by the Material Plane of Amalthea itself, and you use these stats when interacting with the rest of the world. However, your higher level character sheet is used when adventuring in the Aether, the Shadowfell, the Feywild, and the Spiritual Planes, detailed in the Cosmology and Faith section. These conceptual dimensions have somewhat fluid laws of reality, and allow for a much higher potential of power. Adventures in the Planes can have direct influences on the Material Plane as well; for example, a city may be besieged by monsters that pour out from a planar rift, and only heroes that far surpass mortal potential can enter the rift and defeat the source of these monsters.

Replacing Characters

Sometimes it happens: your character just stops being fun to play. Perhaps they’ve reached a narrative conclusion, or their build reached a dead end. Or maybe they died in an emotionally significant way and you don’t want to cheapen it with a resurrection. Regardless of reason, you’re free to retire and replace your character with a new one. Your new character must follow all character creation rules above, but they may begin at any level, to a maximum equal to the lower of your previous character’s level - 1, or level 10. If your character has died, your replacement character can instead be the lower of your previous character's level, or level 10. If you want to replace a level 3 character, you must wait for a grace period of 4 weeks after you have created that character.
Retired characters may remain in the world as NPCs and even act as questgivers, but they may not use any of their abilities to directly aid other player characters. A retired character’s possessions can’t be gifted to any other character, but they may be sold to other PCs at regular purchasing cost.
This rule can also be used to fully rebuild the same character if you simply found their build nonfunctional, but still enjoy roleplaying them. If replacing a character engaged in an ongoing quest, you must obtain the GM’s permission first.