Apotheosis Player's Guide

Character Creation

Ability Score Generation

Focus & Foible

Choose a Focus, an ability score at which you excel. You receive an 18 in that score. Choose a Foible, an ability score that is your weakness. You receive an 8 in that score. The other four, roll 2d6+6 four times in order. There are no rerolls or moving of ability scores. Those are your other four scores.

Races

The current list of playable races are as follows:
Core: Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Half Elf, Half Orc, Halfling, Human
Standard Races: Aquatic Elf, Catfolk, Gnoll, Goblin, Ifrit, Kobold, Oread, Ratfolk, Sylph, Undine
Advanced Races: Aasimar, Drow (Common), Fetchling, Tengu, Tiefling

Classes

All Paizo-published classes are allowed with the following exceptions:
The Unchained Summoner is used instead of the normal Summoner class. The variant multiclassing options (VMC) are also available, which can be read about here.

Traits

Pick two traits, which much be of different types (meaning you can’t have two campaign traits, or two religion traits). A list of traits can be foundhttps://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/here.

Starting Equipment

You start with the average starting gold for your class, plus the corresponding item kit.

House Rules

Automatic Bonus Progression

In this system, magic weapons, armor, and shields never have enhancement bonuses of their own; those bonuses are granted only through attunement. Any weapon, armor, or shield special abilities on attuned items count against a character’s enhancement bonus from attunement. To determine an attuned magic item’s enhancement bonus, subtract the cost of its special ability from the enhancement bonus granted by attunement. (This applies only to special abilities whose cost is equivalent to an enhancement bonus, not to those that cost a flat amount of gold pieces.) For example, if a character with a +3 enhancement bonus from weapon attunement wields a keen scimitar, she subtracts 1 point of her enhancement bonus (for the cost of keen), leaving her with a +2 keen scimitar. If a character doesn’t have enough of an enhancement bonus to afford the special ability (such as a 4th-level character with a vorpal longsword), she can still use the weapon’s power on its own, but the weapon gains no enhancement bonus.
Complete rules: Automatic Bonus Progression

Alignment & Loyalties

There are no alignments in Miranth. Instead, you use the Loyalties system. When you use the loyalties system to build a character, decide on three loyalties. These can represent ideals, people, organizations, or anything else to which the character is loyal, and might be as abstract as “my honor” or as concrete as “my beloved mother.” Rank these loyalties from strongest to weakest. One easy way to decide the order is to ask yourself what your character would do if these loyalties came into conflict. These loyalties then replace alignment as the standard by which characters’ actions are measured.

Identifying Creatures and Their Powers

As a free action during a player's turn, they can use a Knowledge check to identify the type and properties of a creature they face. In general, identifying a monster is a DC 10 + the CR of the creature. A success on this check reveals the creature's name and type (as well as the properties of that creature type). Beating the DC by 5 or more allows the PC to recall more information about the creature. PCs may choose one of the following categories for every 5 by which they beat the DC.

• HD, HP, AC & Saves
• Resists, DR & Immunities
• Special Defenses
• Basic & Special Attacks
• Spellcasting & Spell-like Abilities
• Ecology & Behavior

Feats

Weapon Finesse (Combat)

Benefit: With a light weapon, elven curve blade, rapier, whip, or spiked chain made for a creature of your size category, you may use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier on attack rolls and damage rolls. If you carry a shield, its armor check penalty applies to your attack rolls.
Special: Natural weapons are considered light weapons.

The Fading Spirit

If a character is dead, and a resurrection is attempted by a spell or spell effect with a casting time of 1 minute or longer, a Resurrection Challenge is initiated. Up to 3 members of the adventuring party can offer to contribute to the ritual via a Contribution Skill Check. The GM asks them each to make a skill check based on their form of contribution, with the DC of the check adjusting to how helpful/impactful the GM feels the contribution would be.
For example, praying to the god of the devout, fallen character may require an Knowledge (Religion) check at an easy to medium difficulty, where loudly demanding the soul of the fallen to return to the material plane may require a Intimidate check at a very hard or nearly impossible difficulty.
After all contributions are completed, the GM then rolls a single, final Resurrection success check with no modifier. The base DC for the final resurrection check is 10, increasing by 1 for each previous successful resurrection the character has undergone (signifying the slow erosion of the soul’s connection to this world). For each successful contribution skill check, this DC is decreased by 3, whereas each failed contribution skill check increases the DC by 1.
Upon a successful resurrection check, the player’s soul (should it be willing) will be returned to the body, and the ritual succeeded. On a failed check, the soul does not return and the character is lost. Only powerful magic like Wish or Miracle, or the direct intercession of a deity can bring a character back when a soul is lost.
If a spell or effect with a casting time of 1 standard action is used to attempt to restore life (via the Breath of Life spell or similar effects), no contribution skill checks are allowed. The character casting the spell makes a Rapid Resurrection check, rolling a d20 and adding their spellcasting ability modifier. The DC is 10, increasing by 1 for each previous successful resurrection the character has undergone. On a failure, the character’s soul is not lost, but the resurrection fails and increases any future Resurrection checks’ DC by 1. No further attempts can be made to restore this character to life until a resurrection spell with a casting time higher than 1 standard action is attempted.

What is West Marches?

To summarize, a West Marches style game is designed for a much larger group of players to play in a singular campaign world together. The players coordinate with each other to go on adventures based on hooks they’ve heard in town or based on their personal story. This is a combination sandbox and hex-crawl - there is a whole world that is unexplored, and it’s up to the PCs to find out what’s in the big wide world. Alongside that, the main story arc of the Planar Anchors will unfold around those who chose to ignore it, and envelope those who seek their power.
I highly suggest listening to Matt Colville’s video on the playstyle.

Pathfinder Resources

D20pfsrd.com - A free, comprehensive resource containing ALL paizo-published material that is under the OGL, as well as a wealth of 3PP material.
Archivesofnethys.com - everything else you need for Pathfinder reference material.