Pathfinder Fate Accelerated

Character Concept

You should start off with some idea of what kind of character you want to make, in broad strokes. Often this comes down to a broad archetypical statement such as "I want to play some kind of wizard", or perhaps a reaction against a stereotype such as "I want to play a warrior...but a clever tricksy one".

The big idea, so to speak. This will likely get refined down and polished into your High Concept or Aspects later, but for now it is enough just to have a sense of what you are aiming for.

Name

You need a name, and though obviously you can fill this in when it comes to you, it's handy to have a handle for the character as you go thru the creation process. If nothing appropriate is coming to you, just pencil in a joke name or a placeholder for now; you can always change it later once you settle on something permanent.

Starting Refresh

By default, characters are assumed to start with 3 Refresh. However, the GM may alter this up or down if they want to start play with more or less experienced characters.

Refresh determines your character's default Fate point threshold; the number of Fate points you are guaranteed to start every session with. However, it also serves as the primary "currency" or resource that you use to gain other abilities for your character, primarily Stunts.

If you want to be flexible and interact with the narrative more by spending Fate points to invoke Aspects, you'll want to keep your Refresh high. If you prefer a less reactive style of play and want reliability and predictability you can trade Refresh for extra Stunts which give you well defined bonuses or abilities.

Having a high Refresh affords you a comfortable amount of Fate points to lean on each session, which gives you a measure of plot protection and lowers the impact of bad dice rolls. If you are unsure how you want your character to be or how actual game play will shake out, it is best to not trade Refresh for Stunts at this time.

High Concept and Trouble

You need to define a High Concept, which is intended to convey the essence of your character. High Concepts are usually pithy, and ideally an interesting attention getter...the equivalent of an elevator pitch or a newspaper headline.

You also need a Trouble, which is the counterpoint to your High Concept. While the High Concept describes your character's essence, your Trouble describes the main source of dramatic tension in your character's ongoing story, the thing that holds them back, or causes them to get involved in circumstances that they'd rather avoid but which provide interesting interludes to their existence.

Though it seems counterintuitive, a Trouble that doesn't really complicate your character's existence will make your character weaker, not stronger. You want to be compelled and involved in the narrative, and your character's Trouble is a primary enabler of that goal. A good Trouble will not only make your character more "real", it also will provide your most reliable means of regaining Fate points during play.

Not Yet Sure

Sometimes you may not have a fully crystallized concept when you start the character creation process, and thus balk at this step. Don't worry, you can change your selections later if your concept gets refined as you go through the process. However, if you are drawing a blank, just skip this and come back to it later when you are more confident that you understand what the character is going to be about.

The Power Of A Good Image

It can be helpful to have a good mental or visual image of how a character looks; you may be able to draw inspiration for the character's concept from their appearance. You may want to take a few minutes to sketch your character, or find something usable that is in the public domain online.

Race

Note: Race is an extra Aspect; it does not take up one of a character's standard three Aspects.

Pathfinder characters must also choose a Race Aspect, which acts as a sort of supplementary High Concept. However unlike a High Concept, Race usually cannot be changed (without some serious magic, at any rate). All the standard Pathfinder Races (Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, various halfsies, different Human cultures, etc) are available.

A character's Race is a fact about the character that is always true, and can be interacted with by other abilities that reference the Race.

Like all Aspects, Race has no direct mechanical effect unless invoked; it primarily provides a justification for a character to do something that a member of that Race is supposed to be able to do, per the source material. Actions are resolved using Approaches and Archetypes, and characters have the option to pay a Fate point to invoke their Race Aspect in the same way as they use any other Aspect.

For instance the player of an Elf could justify spending a Fate point to invoke their Elf Aspect to get a +2 bonus or a reroll on a notice check due to the stereotypically keen senses of elvenkind, while a Dwarf could justify spending a Fate point to invoke their Dwarf Aspect to get a +2 bonus or a reroll when defending against a magical attack due to the legendary spell resistence of dwarvenkind.

If there is some special ability that a character wants that pertains to their Race, at their prerogative the GM might hand wave it away and allow the character to use their Race Aspect to justify actions and rely on Create Advantage in particular to handle this sort of thing, or they might allow an occasional use of a special ability with the expenditure of a Fate point, or they may require a character to take a Stunt defining the ability. This is left to GM preference, but by default Pathfinder Fate assumes that the more permissive method is generally preferred.

For instance many Races have the ability to see in the dark, but it may not always be relevant to the larger story, and making all members of such Races take a Darkvision Stunt can be unnecessarily taxing. Thus a GM might allow a character of such a Race to simply see in the dark due to their Race Aspect, or similarly may just require them to use the Create Advantage action to put a situational Aspect on themselves. Alternately the GM might require the expenditure of a Fate point to "turn on" Darkvision for a scene.

But if they are a stickler, a GM might require characters of a Race that can see in the dark to take a Darkvision Stunt (and so on for other such abilities). However, such GM's may want to consider bumping up the number of "free" Stunts or base Refresh to compensate for this sort of Stunt "tax", otherwise members of Races that have a lot of common abilities expressed as Stunts will be very similar to each other and will have a lessened ability to define other abilities unrelated to Race.

Aspects

Aspects are at the heart of Fate, and play an important role in helping you to define your character.

In Pathfinder Fate Accelerated it is assumed that characters start with 3 Aspects.

Your Aspects can be whatever makes sense for your character, but it can be particularly useful if they help to fill in the character's background and provide a foundation for how they came to have their abilities and how they became adventurers.

If you are at a loss for coming up with Aspects, try the following. Have your first Aspect hinge on your character's formative years, or their Race. Then, focus the second Aspect on the character's early adulthood and early successes or perhaps failures and perhaps how they picked up their Archetypes. Finally have the third Aspect ground what the character has been doing most recently prior to play starting, and perhaps anchor their career as an adventurer.

Approaches and Archetypes

Pathfinder Fate Accelerated uses the standard Approaches defined by Fate Accelerated; they represent how a character goes about doing something. Pushing the idea that how characters do things is often as interesting (or more so) than what they are actually doing is at the heart of what makes Fate Accelerated such a fun and rewarding game to play.

Pathfinder Fate Accelerated extends Fate Accelerated with the concept of Archetypes intended to capture a character's competencies in broad areas of capabilities modeled on various tropes of fantasy roleplaying in general and the D&D or Pathfinder gaming experience specifically. The separation between divine, arcane, and nature-oriented magics, the unlikely stealth con artistry and burgling ability of various rogues, the feats of combative arms displayed by warriors of different stripes, adeptness at more esoteric abilities such as displayed by monks and psions and similar fringe concepts.

Approaches

Archetypes

For instance, a Cavalier might be defined as Combative +4, while a "Fighter/Mage/Thief" might be defined as Combative +1, Arcane +2, Roguish +1, and a Ranger might be defined as Combative +2, Primal +2.

Unlike Approaches which cap at Superb (+5), Archetypes do not cap. However, as characters only get another +1 to a Archetype at major milestones, progression is generally slow and each opportunity to advance a Archetype should be carefully considered.

Each Archetype has three thresholds that represent increasing depth of a character's immersion in a particular area of ability, and also increasing the breadth of what the character can apply the Archetype to within the context of the story. Thus the difference between a +1 and a +2 in a given Archetype is more than just a probability bonus; the higher level of ability also provides expanded narrative justification for actions pertaining to that Archetype.

Assigning Starting Bonuses

Character creation is slightly modified from standard Fate Accelerated rules.

Characters start with one Fair (+2), two Average (+1), and three Mediocre (+0) Approaches.

However, you also get four +1's to distribute any way you like among the six Archetypes of Combative, Roguish, Primal, Focused, Arcane, and Divine. You can assign your four +1's however you like; you could take +1 on four different Archetypes or +4 on the same Archetype or any other combination adding up to +4.

Taking Actions With Approaches And Archetypes

When taking actions, you get to add one (1) Approach and up to one (1) Archetype if one applies to the situation; thus a character with Forceful +2 and Combative +2 would gain +4 when being Forcefully Combative.

Archetypes can be applied to all four actions (Create Advantage, Overcome, Attack, Defend).

Defending With Archetypes

Archetypes can always defend against themselves directly without need of extra narrative support.

For instance you can always defend against an opponent's Arcane with your Arcane.

Defending against a Archetype with a different Archetype is possible, but it requires some narrative support (i.e. you have to creatively explain how you are using the Archetype in the situation), and if it doesn't seem plausible it doesn't work, or works at a penalty. However, some Archetypes explicitly provide narrative support for defending against various things when a character passes a threshold of ability.

For instance Roguish +3 and higher explicitly allows a character to justify defending against any kind of indirect or surprise attack and to avoid harm by getting out of the way of it.

Milestones and Advancement

Approaches cannot be raised above Superb (+5), as is normal for Fate Accelerated. Archetypes on the other hand are not capped and can be raised as high as a character is able to progress.

At minor milestones, Pathfinder Fate Accelerated doesn't change anything; just use the rules as written in the Fate Accelerated rulebook.

At significant milestones, again nothing is changed. You may raise an Approach by +1, as normal. You may not raise a Archetype by +1.

At major milestones in addition to the various things you are already allowed to do, in Pathfinder Fate Accelerated you may also raise either an Approach or a Archetype by +1, your choice.

Unlike Approaches you generally cannot switch your Archetypes around after play starts. A GM might allow you to take a +1 off of a Archetype and put it on a different Archetype during a milestone if you can make a strong enough case for it, but this should be an uncommon occurrence...perhaps in conjunction with a change of High Concept.

Stunts

A number of additional Stunt templates and options are provided in the Stunt Options document.

Stunts allow you to differentiate your character. They represent the "signature" abilities or items or whatever that makes your character really stand out.

Aspects cost Fate points to invoke for mechanical benefits, Stunts usually don't (though some very powerful Stunts might). Thus in addition to offering you a way to individualize your character, Stunts also allow you to "pin down" the things that your character is reliably good at.

Is your character supposed to be a "swashbuckling sword-master"? You would almost certainly have an Aspect to anchor that (it might even be your High Concept), but to really ensure that your character is always awesome at it when it mechanically matters (i.e. a dice roll is involved) without having to spend a Fate point for a bonus, you should define one or more related Stunts.

You get up to 3 Stunts for free. You can also take more Stunts by lowering your Refresh by one (1) for each additional Stunt.

However, player characters cannot drop below Refresh: 1. Thus, when starting, you can take up to two (2) additional Stunts. You gain +1 Refresh at major milestones, and can use this to take more Stunts if you like.

You don't have to pick your free Stunts if you don't want to or aren't sure. You can start play and pick later, even during the course of the game if the GM allows it.

You can also swap a Stunt at milestones, so if you take a Stunt that seems like it would be cool but it doesn't play out so well, you can change your mind later.

Stress

Pathfinder Fate Accelerated uses the default Fate Accelerated settings of 3 Stress boxes, shared for all kinds of stresses.

Consequences

Pathfinder Fate Accelerated uses the default Fate Accelerated settings for shared Mild, Moderate, and Severe Consequences.

Magic

By default, it is assumed that the Simple Magic guidelines are being used.

Money and Equipment

Though simulating some of the tropes of D&D style gaming Pathfinder Fate Accelerated isn't a loot-based game. PC's don't generally wander around "killing things and taking their stuff". The focus is on allowing players to cooperatively tell a dynamic story full of excitement with a focus on the "fiction"...which is to say cinematic or prose-worthy narratives.

Unlike a more loot oriented game where over the course of adventuring characters accumulate power-ups in item form and eventually become walking magical weapon platforms defined more by their swag than anything else, in Pathfinder Fate Accelerated trappings are only useful to the extent that they help describe and enrich a character concept and further the story.

Thus, these guidelines take a very loose, abstracted stance on character trappings and wealth rather than bog things down with crunch.

Money

Pathfinder Fate Accelerated doesn't concern itself about the economy in the game setting a GM is using, or defining "starting funds", or even tracking money by default.

From a character definition perspective, wealth or a significant lack of it should be reflected in a character's High Concept and / or Aspects, and that is sufficient.

Unless the GM objects, gear can just be written out narratively as trappings without worrying about associated monetary considerations.

If you are a player, ask your GM how they plan to handle money in their campaign. Then seed your character with trappings appropriate to their concept, taking your GM's guidance on what they'll allow into account.

If you are a GM, the Money Options document goes into detail on various options and recommendations on how to handle economic considerations in Pathfinder Fate Accelerated.

Equipment

Pathfinder Fate Accelerated handles mundane equipment narratively, as just a written out list of stuff.

Magic Items

A variety of alchemical and magical items are available via the Items document.

Of course, in a Fantasy setting Magic is always the special case. By their very nature magic items can't be hand waved away as easily.

Pathfinder Fate Accelerated makes a distinction between permanent magic items (or items with so many "charges" that they are very long lasting) and expendable magic items with one or a few uses.

A Pathfinder Fate Accelerated character with around six major milestones under their belt should be roughly equivalent to a "20th level character" in the source material. Such experienced characters can potentially generate bonuses of +15 or even higher in their main areas of expertise.

This is expected, and intended. For most play groups and campaigns it will all work out. Very few campaigns would progress beyond a few major milestones in the first place, rendering power scaling at higher echelons of ability a moot point.

For campaigns that do make it to the higher end of play, or which start at a higher power level to begin with, the 4dF dice roll has a nearly insignificant effect on resolutions unless the characters are facing similarly powerful opposition.

Fortunately, being a narrative game, Fate Accelerated tolerates this just fine. Simply handle inconsequential resolutons narratively and save the dice rolling for situations where the variance of +/- 4 from a 4dF roll might have a meaningful effect on the outcome.

In context, this means that most resolutions between very powerful endgame characters and lesser opponents should just be narratively asserted in most cases. Not only is this perfectly reasonable (Archmages and world-class warriors are at most inconvenienced by stock opposition), it helps keep the game focused on interesting challenges by not wasting time diceing out resolutions with a basically foregone conclusion. A quick narration between the player(s) and GM about what happened, roughly how long it took, and what it cost the hero (if anything) is generally sufficient.