Variant Rulings (Pathfinder 2e)

Variant Magic Item Progression

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1356

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Essence Manifestations

As your characters proceed through their careers they will come face to face with creatures of great pools of essence and the absorption of such creatures can cause for them to manifest their own unique powers. This will be represented in the table below (WIP) if your character successfully tolerates the Essence. Consuming the essence of a creatures especially those that harbor a great amount of corrupted essence such as Essence beasts. For a creature that goes to collect said essence they may be presented with checks to prevent the adverse effects of its absorption

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Trained Level Ups

Eventually in your ventures your characters will have developed their essence or skills enough to increase their level of power as Revenents. Once eligible you will be notified that you are eligible and in order to level up your characters will need to spend an amount of downtime within the Misted Isle to train, study, and harness your essence through communion, the amount of time needed to level up is dependent on the level at hand and will be designated by the DM however will generally fall in a time frame of a few days to a week.
Retraining character levels?: Retraining ones skills and essence development is a difficult process however not impossible and followes the rules provided here.

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Spell casting and magic limitations

Wish and Miracle is not accessible to choose as a learned or prepared spell, however it does exist within the game. And is accessible through other means. Additionally Magic Items are extremely uncommon in the setting beyond consumables and are generally reserved for rare artifacts or discarded relics, and hard produced items as you will likely only find them in the possession of noteworthy individuals.
Additionally, Revival magic is extremely uncommon and within the setting is reserved only for the most blessed of healers and even they can only salvage a soul shortly after its left the victim. However in the case of revenents this functions entirely differently as your characters will posses a semblance of the resiliance to death as essence beasts and will be effected by revival effects as normal.

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No Alignment

The simplest variant is to not use the alignment system at all. To many players, this feels like the variant closest to real-world morality. Creatures, NPCs, and players have complex and many-layered beliefs and motivations, just like humans in the real world. Not using the alignment system simultaneously embraces complexity and variance in what is seen as moral behavior. For example, worshipers of a powerful sun god might feel that spreading their deity’s light is virtuous behavior. Some might go so far as to say this means they should conquer their neighbors in order to achieve this. Another example might be a large and powerful government placing safety and security as its foremost concern, drawing the conclusion that it’s acceptable to sacrifice some individual liberties in favor of increasing the safety of its citizens.
Aligned Damage: Lawful and Good damage now does "Radiant Damage", And Chaotic and Evil damage deals "Shadow". This conversy changes the given resistances provided by feats, abilities and spells.
Detection: Alignment detection effects still exist however they instead inform you if creatures of great shadow or Radiant Essence pools are within the proximity.
Traits: Alignment traits don’t exist, and anything that has those traits loses them. Effects that require the traits to function, like protection, don’t exist.