Introduction
Alignment, combat, and the consequences of combat are three fundamental components of the Pathfinder RPG. But in an unchained game, all the fundamentals can be shaken up! Maybe you want alignment to have more substance and consequences, or perhaps you don't need it at all. What might happen if the basic processes of combat were dramatically altered? This chapter contains a variety of exciting alternative systems, from altered alignment to a progression for disease and poison. It even gives a streamlined and revised action economy that allows you to totally change how combat plays out.
The unchained alignment system provides a new way to track alignment, as well as new effects that make your alignment much more than just a tag you wear. With new rewards called affirmations, you can channel your conviction to gain abilities tied to your alignment.
Some game styles just don't mesh with defining characters by their alignments. This system provides a selection of tools for removing alignment from your game entirely. Each option presented here fits a different style of game, and includes an explanation of its consequences.
This simplified action economy allows characters to capture the excitement of combat without worrying about all the different action types used in the core rules. Under this system, a character receives 3 simple actions per turn and 1 reaction on others' turns, and can combine her simple actions into complex actions.
As fun as it is to roll tons of dice, it can take a long time to resolve multiple attack rolls, each at a different bonus. With this system, you can roll a single d20 and use that to measure a round's success, including multiple attacks. The system keeps the math relatively on par, and includes advice about changes to other abilities to fit with the single-roll paradigm.
This system grants characters a stamina pool that they can use to supercharge their combat feats. With sample options for incorporation directly into the fighter class, the stamina system can give fighters (and other characters) a powerful edge to defeat their foes.
Characters normally act at full capacity down to the last hit point, and the tempo of a battle reflects this. In real life, however, combatants are less effective the more injured and worn out they become. This new system does away with the traditional all-or-nothing take on wounds, and instead adds penalties as characters are increasingly injured.
Diseases and poisons function as ability damage in the core rules, which can lead to odd side effects. The unchained disease and poison system treats these afflictions as worsening progressions, making them less likely to instantly incapacitate a character but more dramatic in the long term.
