Provided link is to Wound Thresholds from Pathfinder Unchained as reprinted on Legacy.aonprd.com, for a reference point.

I run a Pathfinder 1e game set in Ustalav. In my campaign, we use a lot of variant rules. Among those rules are the Wound Thresholds rules from Pathfinder Unchained. These apply mechanical penalties as a character's hit points decrease. (Specifically, we use the Gritty Mode Wound Thresholds, which double the penalties.)

I introduced Gritty Mode Wound Thresholds at level 9 of the campaign on a trial basis, but the players seemed to like them so we've been running with them since. (They like them because I apply them equally to monsters as well, which means they can death-spiral monsters. I rule that anything immune to critical hits is also immune to wound thresholds, so incorporeals, oozes, and such.)

Background information about my campaign and my situation is behind a spoiler tag as it's extraneous information.

I told my campaign players that I will seek to run some one-shots or smaller stuff while our campaign is on hiatus, so I can get my game fix.

So the meat of the situation is this:
We've been playing with Gritty Mode Wound Levels and I like them. I want to incorporate them into my games in the future. However, we started using them at level 9 in our campaign, when the players had high enough modifiers that it wasn't game breaking that they take some penalties. If I introduce them to a campaign at level 1 (and I also like to run at "level 0" (NPC classes) at the start of a campaign), I think they'll make the game far too hard.

So I'm considering scaling Wound Thresholds instead. Because Gritty Mode is -2 at every wound threshold, and there are three (75% or lower hp is -2 penalties, 50% or lower hp is -4 penalties, and 25% or lower hp is -6 penalties), I'm thinking I should introduce them gradually. But I don't want to surprise the players with them, so I want to write them into my table rules appropriately.

Basically, because the Gritty Mode is -2 at the first penalty, I think I should house-rule that the first penalty (Grazed, hp 75% or lower, -2 penalties) starts at level 4, the second penalty (Wounded, hp 50% or lower, -4 penalties) starts at level 6, and the third penalty (Critical at hp 25% or lower, -6 penalties) starts at level 8.

The Wound Thresholds system has a benefit as well, and that is that the Disabled condition isn't just at 0 hp, but at 0 hp to the negative of the CON modifier for characters that have a positive CON modifier. So a fighter with 16 CON is disabled at 0 hp to -3 hp, and only begins dying at -4 hp (but still dies at -16 hp). I would leave this benefit of the Wound Thresholds system intact from level 1 onward. (If we do "level 0," it would not apply at level 0.)

I have also buffed the Critical Cure feat to make it more effective, but it just now occurs to me that I need to recover my revised wording for that feat from a file format I can no longer easily access.

Anyone have any thoughts about this idea?
Besides the general consensus that "Wound Thresholds are terrible," I mean? I've heard that already.

This is the latest monster from Pathfinder Unlocked, a blog of free third-party monsters (and some traps and haunts) with a focus on cool boss fights.

I'm a filthy 5e casual, what sort of madness should I expect?

(I've played a couple of PF1e one-shots and built a few characters so I know the surface-level differences, but what sort of 5e thinking do I need to un-learn?)

This is a guide to achieving durable total concealment in combat. Durable in this case means that the concealment does not end or degrade the moment you attack your opponent.

This guide is derived from a comment I made back on Reddit years ago, but I believe it would be appreciated here. I made the comment to answer a question about sneak attacking at range, and so it is mostly written from that perspective, but I have made some slight alterations to post it here and it could also be useful for other purposes.

Categories

There are four practical ways to become concealed from an opponent in combat in such a way as it will not wear off the moment you make an attack. They are as follows: Blind your target, utilise darkness, utilise obscuring conditions such as fog or smoke, or finally becoming invisible.

Blindness

Several spells can blind your opponents, including the 1st-level spell touch of blindess and the classic glitterdust. As a bonus, convincing a friendly mage to go this route should be pretty easy, since blinding your opponents is a great debuff anyway.

The dirty trick combat manoeuvre can apply blindness for a round. A familiar with the prankster archetype should be able to pull this off, though a friendly melee fighter can also build for it. Greater Dirty Trick is important here to make the blind last more than one round, and Quick Dirty Trick lets them do it in place of one of their normal melee attacks. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to reliably perform dirty tricks at range, so if you prefer to attack at range you will be relying on the melee combatants to do this for you.

Darkness

If your opponent doesn't have darkvision, but you do, a simple darkness spell (or other way to turn out the lights) will grant you total concealment. This is unreliable since so many of your opponents will likely have darkvision, but the night blindness spell can turn this off.

If you can get the "See in Darkness" ability, you can use deeper darkness to disable regular darkvision, which will work for almost all opponents apart from devils. Ways to get See in Darkness include the advanced rogue talent by the same name, getting a Rod of Shadows, or playing a tiefling and taking Fiend Sight twice.

Wielding a rod of shadows could be tricky. You could use a one-handed weapon or get an extra arm to hold it in. If you fight in melee, you could also use the spellsword spell, which has a good duration.

Obscuring Conditions

Very few creatures can see through effects like obscuring mist, so if you can get some way to see through such effects yourself, you can gain very effective concealment.

If you're playing an Ifrit, you can take the Firesight racial feat to be able to see through smoke, then find some way to fill the fight with smoke, such as using a smokestick, either on its own or as an alchemical power component for an obscuring mist spell.

Ashen path cast on you will allow you to see through not only magical smoke but also magical fog and mist and similar obscuring effects, while a Goz Mask will work for even nonmagical obscuring conditions.

Obscuring mist is the obvious way to create obscuring conditions here, but you could also get a Saltspray Ring (GM permitting, it is from an Adventure Path) and have as much mist as you want, and it follows you.

Invisibility

A very obvious option is to use greater invisibility, although that only lasts a very short duration.

If you play a ninja, the vanishing trick ninja trick will let you get one sneak attack as a swift action, and later invisible blade will extend it to the whole fight, letting you get full attacks with sneak attack on every hit.

An Amulet of the Blooded can get you Fey bloodline powers as a 9th level sorcerer, including the ability to use greater invisibility for 9 rounds per day. The action to do this is unclear; since it isn't stated, RAW it's a standard action, but based on the comparable Illusion Wizard school power, I believe it should be a swift action.

I used the #Pathfinder1e #redkind as the base creature on which I built this back-conversion of the Pathfinder2e #bogey, but it still has some redkind abilities I thought were cool for the bogey, so it's not an exact conversion. Notably it has the redkind's situational blindness and twisted shadows abilities, as well as some of the redkind's spell-like abilities. It's also got some tweaks I made to my #P1e #bogeyman as well, specifically unspoken name as a constant spell-like ability. The creature is intended to replace the redkind at my own table in my #Ustalav campaign so the overlap in special abilities is a non-issue for my use.

You'll note that it can hear "a personal name" and "bogeyman" but not "bogey" with its unspoken name constant spell-like ability. This is intentional, as I thought it should only be able to hear mention of the final form, not just the creature it is, though it can hear its own name if spoken. This also might help the bogey locate a bogeyman if someone is talking about one and it is not already in the company of one.

It has the devour soul ability of the Pathfinder2e bogey. I also gave my Pathfinder1e bogeyman the devour soul ability of the Pathfinder2e bogeyman, as this gives mechanics to a concept that was only hinted at in the P1e bogeyman lore. I haven't statted a bugaboo yet, though it's mentioned in the stat-block below. I'm not sure if I will stat one. If I do, it will just be a bogey increased to medium with increased sneak attack dice, and more hit dice, falling roughly halfway between a bogey and a bogeyman.

In places a superscript V (^V^) appears. This is my notation of a variant ability I'm giving the creature. It's essentially meaningless in this context, but makes sense when compared with my bogeyman and the standard redkind. I left it in anyway. The sources listed in the stat block are for the P1e redkind and the P2e bogey, as listed on aonPRD.

Bogey CR 3
XP 800
Source Taldor, The First Empire, page 62, Pathfinder #152: Legacy of the Lost God, page 78
NE Small fey
Init +4; Senses low‑light vision, unspoken name; Perception +7
Aura twisted shadows (30 ft., DC 14)
DEFENSE
AC 18, touch 18, flat‑footed 13 (+2 deflection, +4 Dex, +1 dodge, +1 size)
hp 27 (5 HD; 5d6+10)
Fort +5, Ref +8, Will +3
DR 5/cold iron; SR 14
Weaknesses situational blindness
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft.
Melee 2 claws +7 (1d4)
Special Attacks devour soul^V^, sneak attack +2d6
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 5th; concentration +7)
Constant—unspoken name^V^ (a personal name, “bogeyman”)
At‑will—darkness, detect thoughts (DC 13), ghost sound (DC 12), knock^V^, lullaby (DC 12), message^V^
1/day—gaseous form, minor image (DC 14)
STATISTICS
Str 10 (+0), Dex 19 (+4), Con 14 (+2), Int 10 (+0), Wis 9 (‑1), Cha 15 (+2)
Base Atk +2; CMB +1; CMD 15
Feats Dodge, Great Fortitude, Weapon Finesse
Skills Disable Device +9, Escape Artist +12, Intimidate +9, Perception +7, Sense Motive +7, Stealth +16 (+20 in darkness); Racial modifiers +2 Intimidate, +4 Stealth in darkness
Languages Aklo, Sylvan
ECOLOGY
Environment any
Organization solitary, pair^V^ (bogeyman and bogey), or gaggle^V^ (2‑5 bogeys, plus 1 bogeyman)
Treasure standard
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Devour Soul (Su) When a bogey is adjacent to a creature he has killed within the last round, the bogey can consume the creature’s soul. Consuming the soul is a full‑round action. The soul is utterly destroyed—nothing short of a miracle, wish, or a similar effect can restore it to life, and only after the bogey has been slain. The bogey regains hit points equal to double the hit dice of the consumed creature. After devouring three souls within a year, the bogey transforms into a bugaboo.
Situational Blindness (Su) Bogeys have trouble targeting creatures who can’t see them. Any creature that can’t see a bogey (such as by closing its own eyes) gains partial concealment from it. Any creature that covers itself entirely (such as by hiding under a blanket) gains full concealment, even if the creature would not otherwise be considered hidden.
Twisted Shadows (Su) In areas of dim illumination or darker, a bogey’s presence animates the shadows within 30 feet of it into leering or wicked shapes. The first time a creature ends its turn within this aura, it must succeed at a DC 14 Will saving throw or become shaken for as long as it stays within the aura. If the creature succeeds at the saving throw, it cannot be affected again by the same bogey’s twisted shadows for 24 hours. This is a fear effect. The save DC is Charisma‑based.

@[email protected]

I'm interested in posting my #Pathfinder1e modified and variant monsters, as well as related content.
Is the #P1e General Discussion community the best place to do that?

Also, what is the URL field for in creating a post?

This is the latest monster from Pathfinder Unlocked, a blog of free third-party monsters (and some traps and haunts) with a focus on cool boss fights.

Yes, I know Bongo Bongo is a very stupid monster name. I didn't name it! It's from Ocarina of Time! I just converted it into Pathfinder.

I've been looking for an Int-based chassis for an artful dodge TWF build, and one of the options that come up is the Alchemist. Trouble is, alchemist needs a free hand for bombs! Looking for archetypes that could replace that, I stumbled upon the Blood Alchemist.

It replaces Mutagens and Bombs for the ability to make magic circles out of your extracts that let you cast certain specific spell-like abilities at-will so long as you stand in them and don't re-prepare your extract slots. It's a huge trade for a unique benefit.

I'd imagine you could get up to some really funky construction shenanigans, having access to expeditious construction, shape stone, and fabricate. And then the potential of having a nearly always-on Magic Vestment & Greater Magic weapon for your entire party opens up a lot of options for situational weapons & armor sets.

What do you think of the archetype? Does it have potential? Does it give up too much?

The Medium class, introduced in the Occult Adventures book, has a pretty wide selection of skills and abilities, but hasn't been well supported since release. Only 4 feats interacting with the class at all - Legendary Influence (& it's improved version), Spirit Focus, and Channel Spirit. I certainly like it, but there are a few aspects of it that are pretty much universally disregarded as unusably bad, that probably could've used some buffs and extra features to support it.

Like the Guardian spirit.

The guardian spirit is two of twelve spirits a medium can potentially channel on a given day (One base Guardian, and one Legendary Guardian, of which 3 have been published... none of which are particularly noteworthy). These spirits focus your Spirit Bonus into your AC, Con checks, your Fort & Reflex saves, and thaaaaat's it. Nothing active, only passive defenses. The Seance boon bosts your CMD... Which again, not something that helps you interact with the world. Your lesser spirit power grants Armor and Shield proficiency. Who has enough money to buy a second fully enchanted suit of armor they don't wear most of the time? And you don't need shield proficiency if you find a shield with no ACP.

To summarize, it's not a great foundation. Barely better than not channeling a spirit at all.

So what if you're hanging out in a castle and it's your only option for the day? Just give up and go to sleep? No, that's silly. You've got a world to save or something similar, so let's make the most of this spirit with as little investment as possible, because I KNOW you'd much rather put the rest of your build towards support the other spirits.

To start, I would ask that you dedicate precisely ONE feat exclusively to the guardian spirit. This is a tough ask, but I think it's worth it. That feat is Nature Soul. That's right, the +2 Survival and Knowledge (Nature) feat solves the Guardian's issues and it is now a completely viable spirit! Thanks for coming to my post.

I kid, it's just a pre-requisite for your Legendary Influence feats. When you hit Lv 4, you qualify for Animal Ally, so retrain your Legendary Influence to Legendary Influence, replacing whatever you picked initially for the ability to pick up a new Animal Companion that only exists when you're Guardian'd up.

Since you don't have the feat and don't gain it until you Seance up, you can "prepare" a new companion as if you were gaining the feat for the first time every time you channel. Horses, Birds, and Wolves are my main 3 recommendations. Horse with the Bodyguard archetype is a good "Default" pick, but on days you know you'll be delving indoors, prepare a Wolf. On days you know you'll need an aerial scout, prepare a bird. Easy!

At lv 9, you gain access to Improved Legendary Influence. Prepare "Blades Above & Below" as your Guardian feat, acquire a Horsemaster's Saddle, a pair of Training Spiked Gauntlets attuned to Outflank & Paired Opportunists. You might not have a spirit bonus to anything worthwhile, but now when you ride your temporary ally, you have an always-on +5 to hit medium or large enemies, and whenever you crit, you provoke an attack for yourself and gain a +4 bonus to that swing!

Your ally can come with the feat "Intercept Blow," letting it sponge 50% of incoming damage as an AoO-equivalent. It's unclear if you can proc Paired Opportunists off of this, but what you can do for sure is make much greater use of that DR and ER that comes from Guardian's Intermediate Power.

If an enemy wises up to your companions tricks and targets them, great! That's actually ideal. You have effectively "pulled aggro" off your team an onto what amounts to a summon. Remember that you do not have Animal Ally on days you don't prepare the guardian, so it doesn't matter as much to you as it would a ranger or druid if your buddy makes it the whole day or dies. You gain a new companion every time, as if you were gaining the feature for the first time. You can use Paladin's Sacrifice to protect them if you want to preserve them for another encounter, too.

You don't end up ever really needing to spirit surge on a Guardian, so you can Propitiate from Influence 3 to 2 at the start of the day and just never touch the Influence Penalty, enjoying the benefits of having this bonus buddy instead.

This is a lot of words to say "Get yourself a guardian for your Guardian". I hope this might be helpful to anyone who just doesn't know what to do with their weakest spirit.