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Table of Contents
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These rules are from Diamond-Polished Subsystems: Aristeia and Accrual by Diamond Recreational Studios
Diamond-Polished Subsystems: Aristeia and Accrual
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In time, most every wound in Pathfinder can be healed. Conditions can be alleviated, curses removed, spell points can be restored, and hit points can be cured with minimal concern. Sometimes, a character may wish to tax themselves in ways that truly distort their prospects going forward, spending resources that can never be truly recovered for grand actions that represent the total investment of the character in a dramatic moment.
The Accrual system is a series of mechanics which impose permanent consequences on a character in exchange for tremendous momentary boons, revising and replacing the Aristeia system introduced in Champions of the Spheres: Study and Practice. Certain elements of accrual may require certain feats to utilize, while others are accessible to all characters who wish to sacrifice their long-term fortitude for a temporary boon.
All aspects of Accrual are an optional subsystem subject to GM discretion, and players should consult their GM before building characters which utilize one or more aspects of Accrual.
Accrual and its Penalties
Accrual Points are gained through Sources of Accrual and cannot be removed from a specific character by any means. If the character dies and is resurrected or even when they are reincarnated, they maintain these Accrual Points and the penalties they impose.
Whenever a character gains an Accrual Point, they gain one of the following penalties, chosen by the character when they gain the Accrual Point. A character may not select the same penalty from gaining Accrual Points twice in a row.
- Depleted Stamina: The character’s maximum hit points are reduced by 5.
- Depleted Magic: The character’s total spell points or number of spell slots/spells prepared of the highest level they can cast are reduced by 1 for every time this penalty is selected. A character must have spell points or spell slots to select this penalty.
- Diminished Expertise: The character’s base attack bonus and caster level are reduced by 1 for every time this penalty is selected (minimum 0).
- Diminished Insight: The character loses a number of skill ranks equal to their hit dice.
- Fragile Foundations: Two of the character’s base Fortitude, Reflex, and Will saving throws are all reduced by 1 for every time this penalty is selected (minimum 0).
- Mythic Dilution: The character’s mythic power per day is reduced by 1 (minimum 0). A character may not select this penalty if they do not possess mythic tiers or the ability to spend mythic power.
- Narrowed Mind: The character loses one feat or non-utility talent they possess for every time this penalty is selected
If a character with Accrual Points possesses subordinates, each of the character’s subordinates gains 1 Accrual Point for every 2 Accrual Points the character possesses. The Accrual Points of subordinates may only apply the Depleted Stamina and Diminished Expertise penalties and apply the same penalties to all subordinates of a character.
If a character’s total Accrual Points ever exceeds twice their character level, the character’s essence is completely destroyed, not only killing them but preventing them from being resurrected by any means. This destruction occurs at the end of the turn where the character attempts any actions they would have gained from gaining Accrual.
Players may wish to keep track of specific moments where they’ve gained Accrual Points as defining moments in their character’s career, so it may make sense to mark down when, how, and why each Accrual Point was gained.
Removing Accrual and Negative Accrual
Accrual Points should only be removed in exceptional circumstances, particularly those coinciding with major events in a character’s development. Completing an extensive personal quest, making a momentous personal development, or otherwise accomplishing a feat that is unique to the character or campaign may result in a character losing one or more Accrual Points to represent a newfound drive, clarity, or purpose. Certain events which affect the entire party may also cause multiple characters to lose Accrual Points.
Similarly, such important events may offer characters a “negative Accrual Point” which is consumed the next time they would gain an Accrual Point. Rather than a character gaining an Accrual Point from taking an action which would normally grant one, a single negative Accrual Point is consumed. There is no limit to the number of negative Accrual Points a character can gain, although a character gains no benefits for accumulating them.
Sources of Accrual
Aristeia
A character may gain Accrual Points to enter Aristeia, gaining one Accrual Point for each level of the Aristeia they enter.
Dominion
If using the Dominion rules introduced in Spheres of Power: Dominion, a character may gain an Accrual Point to gain a number of points of Dominion equal to their character level. If using this Dominion to Craft a Dominion Item or use Dominion Magic, the character suffers the penalties from any gained Accrual Points when the process is completed. Dominion gained through Accrual Points cannot be transferred and vanishes after 1 kingdom turn (or 1 month) if not used.
Hero Points
A character may gain an Accrual Point any time they may spend a hero point in order to immediately gain the benefits of having spent a hero point to accomplish a specific task (such as acting out of turn or rerolling a d20 roll). A character may gain multiple Accrual Points in order to gain the benefits of an effect which requires spending that many hero points (for example, gaining 2 Accrual Points to cheat death).
Rapid Retraining
A character may gain an Accrual Point to retrain an Ability Score Increase, Archetype, Class Feature, Class Level, Feat, pool of Hit Points, Language, Racial Trait, pool of Skill Points equal to your Intelligence modifier, or Spell Known in 1 hour rather than the normal period of days. A character may gain a second Accrual Point to retrain the selected option as a full-round action rather than a process that takes 1 hour. Alternatively, a character may gain an Accrual Point to retrain any number of the above options over the course of 7 days.
Sendoffs: Celebrating an Adventurer’s End [SM—]
Source: Baron’s Imposing Mausoleum
When a player character dies, their party members may wish to celebrate their accomplishments through a Sendoff, mourning their passing not only to ease their own burdens but to right the course of destiny for any successors who may come along to fill their place (particularly useful if a character picked up a great deal of metaphysical debt in the form of accrual).
A single time per deceased character, allies may attempt to perform a Sendoff for the deceased character. NPCs may not perform a Sendoff, although they may be involved in some of the processes involved in a sendoff. At GM discretion, a Sendoff may also be made for a character as they retire rather than when they die.
A Sendoff begins as a single d20 roll, but it can be improved by PCs taking one or more of the following actions.
- Holding some manner of funerary rite appropriate to the character, which may include a wake, a burial, a cremation, a keening, a performance in their name, a religious ceremony, or some other observance in reverence of the dead. Each unique rite made as part of the sendoff grants a +2 bonus to the Sendoff roll.
- Recounting a story of the character’s exploits within the purview of the campaign. Each unique story of the character grants a +2 bonus to the Sendoff roll.
- If the character’s equipment is interred or destroyed with them, the Sendoff roll gains a +4 bonus.
- Recounting a feature of how the character died and how it was in some way important to their values or legacy (such as them dying in battle, dying in service to a cause they believed in, sacrificing themself for somebody else, or some other circumstance that makes their demise exceptional). Each unique feature of their death grants a +1 bonus to the Sendoff roll.
When characters have taken all actions they wish as part of the Sendoff, the Sendoff roll is made. For every 5 points by which the Sendoff roll exceeds 0, the deceased character’s player gains one Sendoff Point which they can use for any future characters they create.
Sendoff Points
Sendoff Points can be used in the following ways. A character who is the subject of a Sendoff can be resurrected, but characters never gain any Sendoff Points from their own Sendoffs.
- A player may spend Sendoff Points to remove Points of Accrual gained by characters played before their current character. Each spent Sendoff Point removes one Accrual Point.
- A player may spend two Sendoff Points in place of a Hero Point for any future characters played after the character who was the subject of the Sendoff.
- A player may spend two Sendoff Points in place of gaining a Point of Accrual for any future characters played after the character who was the subject of the Sendoff.
Accrual Feats [SM—]
Source: Baron’s Imposing Mausoleum
Feats marked as (Accrual) grant benefits for a character accumulating accrual.
Accrual Endurance (Accrual)
Benefits: You may spend a spell point as a free action to ignore any penalties from Accrual that you possess until the start of your next turn. For every 5 points of Accrual you possess, you must spend an additional spell point to use this feat.
Bitter Resilience (Accrual)
Benefits: For every point of Accrual you possess, all of your ability scores increase by 2 for the purpose of determining when you fall unconscious from ability damage. If the total ability damage dealt to one of your ability scores is less than or equal to twice the amount of Accrual you possess, ignore any penalties to the ability score from ability damage.
Hardened Against Death (Accrual)
Benefits: For every point of Accrual you possess, your Constitution increases by 4 when determining when you die from negative hit points or Constitution drain. In addition, for every point of Accrual you possess, add your total Accrual points to your Hit Dice for the purpose of determining when you die from negative levels.
I Can Take It (Accrual)
Benefits: Whenever you use an effect which transfers damage from another creature to yourself, you gain one temporary hit point for every point of Accrual you possess. If at least one spell point is spent on the effect, you may instead heal 1 hit point for every point of Accrual you possess.
Inured Delay (Accrual)
Prerequisites: Guardian Sphere
Benefits: For every point of Accrual you possess, the size of your delayed damage pool increases by 5.
Offering of Self (Accrual)
Benefits: When crafting a magic item or paying for the material components of a spell or ritual, you may gain points of Accrual to reduce the cost of these effects. Each point of Accrual you gain reduces the cost by 400 gp per character level you possess (to a minimum of 0 gp). In addition, when making an opposed check to render a service from a trapped outsider (such as one within the planar binding spell), you may suffer a point of Accrual to gain a +5 bonus to the check.
Considerations for Accrual and Hero Points
The following considerations and modifications can be made when deciding how Accrual Points and hero points are implemented in a campaign.
NPCs and Accrual
Typically, NPCs won’t be able to gain Accrual Points for the same reasons that they don’t normally use hero points: they are typically relegated to a single encounter and have little reason to save such resources for the future, allowing them to “go nova” with resources that players are encouraged to conserve. In situations where a character is expected to work alongside or against the PCs for an extended period of time, allowing them to gain Accrual Points in the same manner as PCs may be more appropriate. If GMs wish to allow NPCs to gain Accrual Points in desperate situations, they are advised to impose certain restrictions regarding how many times the character can gain Accrual Points, typically between one and three times in an encounter.
Regulating Accrual
If a player doesn’t expect to play their character for an extended period (either due to a brief scope of gameplay or the expectation that they will soon shift to playing a new character), that player may gain Accrual Points at an extreme rate before retiring them, leaving minimal consequences for the extensive penalties that they’ve racked up. Discussing gameplay expectations around Accrual Points is the most direct method of dealing with this issue, and communication can help to clarify how extensively Accrual should be used to steer the course of a given game. Some mechanics to potentially rein in the accumulation of Accrual while still allowing for its use are as follows.
- Characters can only gain Accrual Points a certain number of times per round, per encounter, per day, or per play session, typically between one and three.
- Accrual Points carry over between different characters played by the same player in the same adventure.
- The penalties imposed by gaining Accrual Points are decided by the GM rather than the player
Hero Point Progression
Many official Pathfinder adventures have an expected rate of character progression that involves characters increasing in level once every 3 gameplay sessions or every 3 single-session adventures. This rate effectively offers a guaranteed hero point once every 3 sessions, with any additional hero points gained through specific actions increasing this amount. In games with unusually slow or fast rates of level progressions, GMs may wish to arbitrate hero points based on play time rather than level advancement, granting all characters a free hero point once every session or once every x number of sessions played (two, three, four, etc). Alternatively, a GM may grant hero points strictly through awards (such as heroic acts or character advancement) rather than giving them out as a regular resource based on play time or levels.
Uses for Hero Points
The uses of hero points from multiple books have been reprinted here for convenience.
Act Out of Turn: You can spend a hero point to take your turn immediately. Treat this as a readied action, moving your initiative to just before the currently acting creature. You may only take a move or a standard action on this turn.
Bonus: If used before a roll is made, a hero point grants you a +8 luck bonus to any one d20 roll. If used after a roll is made, this bonus is reduced to +4. You can use a hero point to grant this bonus to another character, as long as you are in the same location and your character can reasonably affect the outcome of the roll (such as distracting a monster, shouting words of encouragement, or otherwise aiding another with the check). Hero Points spent to aid another character grant only half the listed bonus (+4 before the roll, +2 after the roll).
Cheat Death: A character can spend 2 hero points to cheat death. How this plays out is up to the GM, but generally the character is left alive, with negative hit points but stable. For example, a character is about to be slain by a critical hit from an arrow. If the character spends 2 hero points, the GM decides that the arrow pierced the character’s holy symbol, reducing the damage enough to prevent him from being killed, and that he made his stabilization roll at the end of his turn. Cheating death is the only way for a character to spend more than 1 hero point in a turn. The character can spend hero points in this way to prevent the death of a familiar, animal companion, eidolon, or special mount, but not another character or NPC.
Empower: You can spend a hero point to gain a +2 bonus to your caster level and MSD for one sphere effect or to your MSB for one magic skill check.
Extra Action: You can spend a hero point on your turn to gain an additional standard or move action this turn.
Fuel: You can spend a hero point in place of a spell point to power a sphere effect, class ability, or feat.
Inspiration: If you feel stuck at one point in the adventure, you can spend a hero point and petition the GM for a hint about what to do next. If the GM feels that there is no information to be gained, the hero point is not spent.
Recall: You can spend a hero point to recall a spell you have already cast or to gain another use of a special ability that is otherwise limited. This should only be used on spells and abilities possessed by your character that recharge on a daily basis.
Recover: You can spend a hero point to regain a spent spell point, kismet point, shadow point, or hypnotism use.
Reroll: You may spend a hero point to reroll any one d20 roll you just made. You must take the results of the second roll, even if it is worse.
Special: You can petition the GM to allow a hero point to be used to attempt nearly anything that would normally be almost impossible. Such uses are not guaranteed and should be considered carefully by the GM. Possibilities include casting a single spell that is one level higher than you could normally cast (or a 1st-level spell if you are not a spellcaster), making an attack that blinds a foe or bypasses its damage reduction entirely, or attempting to use Diplomacy to convince a raging dragon to give up its attack. Regardless of the desired action, the attempt should be accompanied by a difficult check or penalty on the attack roll. No additional hero points may be spent on such an attempt, either by the character or her allies.