[Pathfinder] Little to No Magic Setting Help

[DonKalypso]

I was pondering a little to no magic setting for a Western styled Pathfinder game, but one thing keeps coming up when I ponder the idea aloud near my group: It would, apparently, be insanely lethal for the players, what with the guns and no healing magics available.

So I'm wondering, Playground, if y'all could help me figure out how to not turn the Wild Wastes into a character grinder, while remaining challenging and fun?

The two biggest complaints thus far seem to be that without magic, healing becomes a massive chore, and that mundane healing via Heal is poop; and that Pathfinder's guns are crazy powerful due majorly to their ranged touch attack and massive crits.

Obviously two obvious solutions are somehow tweak Heal to make it better/capable of more, and possibly nerf guns a little bit so that armors and weapons are still useful in setting.

[Sartharina]

I suggest bringing in/tweaking D20 Modern's heal rules.

And for keeping the math straight, you might want to bring in 4e D&D's inherent bonuses to replace magic items - everyone automatically gets the benefits of cloaks of resistance/magic armor/magic weapons/CMDB at appropriate levels.

[DonKalypso]

I'm not familiar with 4e's rules in general, would you mind explaining that?

I'll look into the d20 Modern healing rules, though, thank you.

[Sartharina]

You'll have to tweak the math to fit into 3.P's WBL values, but I think you can approximate it by essentially giving everyone a permanent "Greater Magic Weapon/Armor" effect at Caster Level=Character level, and similarly scaling Save bonus.

d20 modern's healing rules may be too narrow, and skill optimization is so wild in Pathfinder and 3.5 that tying healing ability to skill checks could get awkward. (One person might only have level+5 to the skill modifier. Another might double that). 5e's Hit Die mechanic could help, though, essentially doubling everyone's HP per day, but requiring resting to access the extra reserves of health.

[Milo v3]

Could use the technology guide rules to make non-magical healing items, but might clash with your flavour.

[Oracle_of_Void]

Perhaps the alchemists of your world could have come up with a "miracle tonic" that cures most wounds. Or if there is only a little magic in your world, perhaps it could be mostly healing magic that exists.

[Gemini476]

3.5's Unearthed Arcana had some decent variant rules that you could use.

Reserve points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/reservePoints.htm) seem to be the basis of 4e's Healing Surges, and serve to make healing easier on a daily basis without making surviving individual fights any easier.

Wound and vitality points (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm) make it so that you have two "hp" pools - one for your general endurance, and one extremely small one for actual wounds caused by critical hits or a lack of vitality points. It gives quicker healing unless you actually get wounded, in which case you still heal faster since your wound pool is smaller than your hp pool would be at that level. On the other hand, people can get killed really quickly if you aren't careful.

Injury (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/injury.htm) makes it so that you're either injured or you aren't and has some issues because of how damage scales but might be worth looking at anyway.

Armor as damage reduction (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm) makes it so that your tanky guys take less damage in the first place, as does Damage Conversion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/damageConversion.htm).

Pathfinder's Ultimate Campaign book also had some similar but different variants for Wounds and Vigor (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/wounds-and-vigor) and Armor as Damage Reduction (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/armor-as-damage-reduction).