As we are building Golarion One, an open universe, within a greater multi-verse, where Eco the Exploiter, his adventures, and the fallout of his Spell Battery is in the early stages of turning "Golarion into Eberron", in terms of magic items at least.
And we will have plenty of inspiration from Endon, or Magical Industrial Revolution fame.
And while its true that the "meta-narrative" will be one of a technological and economic revolution due to magic item creation, there is one major way that we are going to nerf this world, and that is the absence of ability-increasing magic items. Perhaps they are not impossible to make, but there is no known way to craft these items, such as:
Headband of Inspired Wisdom
Headband of Mental Prowess
Headband of Mental Superiority
Belt of Giant's Strength
Belt of Physical Perfection
Belt of Incredible Dexterity
And all others of the like, for all core ability scores. Magic spells can still increase these stats (for a limited period of time), but these (like other temporary bonuses), do not add spell slots.
Instead, we will be using a partial (and altered) version of the automatic progression rules: as can be seen in this table:
| Level | Progression |
|---|---|
| 6 | Mental Prowess: +2 |
| 7 | Physical Prowess: +2 |
| 11 | Mental Prowess: +4 |
| 12 | Physical Prowess: +4 |
| 15 | Mental Prowess: +4/+2 |
| 16 | Physical Prowess: +4/+2 |
| 19 | Mental Prowess: +6/+2 or +4/+4 |
| 20 | Physical Prowess: +6/+2 or +4/+4 |
| 23 | Mental Prowess: +6/+2/+2 or +4/+4/+2 |
| 24 | Physical Prowess: +6/+2/+2 or +4/+4/+2 |
| 27 | Mental Prowess: +6/+4/+2 or +4/+4/+4 |
| 28 | Physical Prowess: +6/+4/+2 or +4/+4/+4 |
There are no additional advancement to abilities beyond character level 28.
Note: Regular advancement bonus of +1 to any stat without restriction at 4th level and every four levels after that still remains in effect.
In this world, all "races" get a single +2 to an appropriate ability, with an 18 point buy, maximum 18 in any one ability. Coupled with advancement bonuses and auto-progression, these are the relevant ways to calculate characters ability scores in Golarion One.
Let's say a player wanted to play a dwarf. They could justify constitution, wisdom, maybe even strength, as their racial ability +2. Other options seem less likely - although not forbidden, if a dwarf wants to justify a +2 to charisma or dexterity, this should be allowed but less discretion on traits, requiring specific related traits to allow this racial bonus.
So let's say they want a +2 charisma bonus, and for that they must take the Clearheaded trait.
Now they can allocate another 6 points to charisma (because 18 is maximum), 6 points to constitution, 2 points to wisdom, 2 points to dex and 2 points to strength to end up with ability scores for their Dwarf Sorcerer at level 1:
| ability | score | modifier |
|---|---|---|
| Strength | 12 | +1 |
| Dexterity | 12 | +1 |
| Constitution | 16 | +3 |
| Intelligence | 10 | +0 |
| Wisdom | 12 | +1 |
| Charisma | 18 | +4 |
A very charismatic dwarf, if I do say so myself! Probably with long luscious hair and trimmed beard:
Stay tuned for more information from our universe.
