DMing a new D&D3.5 campaign, looking for advice.

[maddermax22]

G'day all, first post and all, long time reader, first time poster and all that :smallsmile: Sorry for putting up so much stuff straight off, but if you can give me a little advice on any or all of it, It would be super appreciated!

I'm going to be DMing a new 3.5 campaign for our group, and thought I might ask some advice of some more experienced DMs. While this isn't my first time DMing, I'm still a little green at it, and this will be my first time trying to get a long campaign running, and creating my own world.

I might just start of asking about your thoughts on homebrew rules :smallbiggrin:

Rules wise:
Currently, I'm looking at putting in quite a few homebrew rules into effect, to smooth things out a bit. While my group doesn't like 4E, I'll admit 3.5 needs a few tweaks. So, as a general question, what are your favourite homebrew rules? what tweaks and changes can't you play without?

Ok, so advice on what I've got down so far:
1) Inititive = D20 + Reflex save (rather than dex. modifier). I like this one, as faster characters who react better should go first, rather than using base dex.

2)disabled and dying - between 0 and -10 you are disabled, between -11 and -20 you're dying. I like the idea of characters being down but not out, so the fact you always needed to be at EXACTLY 0 to have that happen always annoyed me. Having characters down, but able to perform some minor actions means that players don't have to be completely out of the game just because they took an unlucky hit.

3) Massive damage: massive damage will be caused at (2xlevel+con score). I'll have players note this down on their sheets. So for a 4th level player with a con of 14, Massive damage would be caused if he took more than 22 damage in a single hit. Instead of just dying to massive damage, I've created a d100 chart, which includes "broken (leg/arm)", "unconscious d4 hours" "maimed (hand/foot/face)", to lesser effects, like bleeding, being dazed for a few rounds or being winded (exhausted for d6 rounds), and several other fun options. The idea is to give characters the chance to take real injury from a hit (something they'll remember), while killing them less often. You roll on this table also if you get taken under -10 HP by a normal hit.

4)I'm changing the skills around quite a lot. Because there are so many lesser skills that it's hard to find a use for in a normal game, I'm going to sort of combine some together. Rather than just making new skills from 2 old skills, players will just get to use skill ranks in one skill for other "combined" skills. So combining Animal Handling/Riding, putting 5 skill points into riding gets you 5 in Animal handling. Other skills I'm combining: Climb/Swim/Jump, Bluff/Disguise/Forge, Balance/Tumble, Use Rope/Disable Device, Diplomacy/Gather Information.

5) I'm also Changing the Knowledge skills, cutting them down to 4, and giving each one a particular "normal" skill associated with it. So:
Knowledge Adventuring (nature/dungeoneering and survival)
Knowledge Science (Architecture/Engineering, Geography, Appraise)
Knowledge Social(religion/nobility/History/Decipher script)
Arcana (Arcana, the plains, Use Magical Device)

6)I'm looking for some way to improve the healing skill. As the parties best healer is a paladin, I want some other way for them to recover without dragging around a few bags of health potions.


Anyway, I'm sure that's enough for the moment! I'm also planning changes to some common feats. So yeah, what do you think of those pretty basic rules changes for the start? Any more you'd suggest adding, weather for ease or to make things more characterful?

[Curmudgeon]

Your reduction in skills is going to worsen class balance. For instance, Knowledge Devotion just became even better, so you're going to increase the power of Wizards. And Scouts and Rogues will be disadvantaged because you've cheapened what they're good at.

[Godskook]

1) Inititive = D20 + Reflex save (rather than dex. modifier). I like this one, as faster characters who react better should go first, rather than using base dex.

This is dangerous, and allows a lot of play, given that arcane casters can get their casting stat to reflex saves. I'd rather see d12+initiative personally.


2)disabled and dying - between 0 and -10 you are disabled, between -11 and -20 you're dying. I like the idea of characters being down but not out, so the fact you always needed to be at EXACTLY 0 to have that happen always annoyed me. Having characters down, but able to perform some minor actions means that players don't have to be completely out of the game just because they took an unlucky hit.

A lot of people do something like this.


4)I'm changing the skills around quite a lot. Because there are so many lesser skills that it's hard to find a use for in a normal game, I'm going to sort of combine some together. Rather than just making new skills from 2 old skills, players will just get to use skill ranks in one skill for other "combined" skills. So combining Animal Handling/Riding, putting 5 skill points into riding gets you 5 in Animal handling. Other skills I'm combining: Climb/Swim/Jump, Bluff/Disguise/Forge, Balance/Tumble, Use Rope/Disable Device, Diplomacy/Gather Information.

Eh....that worries me, as it crosses class-skill lines in some cases, and also for what Curmudgeon said.


5) I'm also Changing the Knowledge skills, cutting them down to 4, and giving each one a particular "normal" skill associated with it. So:
Knowledge Adventuring (nature/dungeoneering and survival)
Knowledge Science (Architecture/Engineering, Geography, Appraise)
Knowledge Social(religion/nobility/History/Decipher script)
Arcana (Arcana, the plains, Use Magical Device)

Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. First off, as mentioned by someone else, Knowledge Devotion is just too good now. Not only that, but wizards/sorcerers typically take Know(Arcana) by default, and probably the same with divine casters and Know(Religion or Nature) and the Psionics and Know(Psi). (I know mine all sure do). Rolling some of the less important ones(Read: Ones that don't have monsters tied to them) into other skills is probably ok, but even then, meh.

I'd go with just giving your players a few more skill points per level. That'll accomplish much of the same thing without having to worry as much about balance.

[maddermax22]

Your reduction in skills is going to worsen class balance. For instance, Knowledge Devotion just became even better, so you're going to increase the power of Wizards. And Scouts and Rogues will be disadvantaged because you've cheapened what they're good at.

Ah, I should have mentioned. Though I'm not restricting it to Core, I am letting stuff be taken from some of the other books (PHB2/scoundrel/warrior/adventurer but we don't have Champion) but only on the understanding with the players that it won't be horribly abused (they're a good bunch at heart). Anything too iffy will get vetted by me, though I'm pretty lenient :) So No Knowledge devotion. As for cheapening the Rogue, he'll be fine, he's still got the most skill points, and is the only one with a lot of the "Class Skills", which mean he'll usually have double what the other characters do in some skills. This just means he'll be able to be fleshed out a bit more, skills wise.

People are thinking that combining some of the knowledge skills is bad, but besides the "Knowledge Devotion" thing, is there anything else wrong with it? I usually only see one or two knowledge skills on a character, and hardly ever see things like "geography" "Nobility" or "the plains". Often players will just go without a knowledge skill, or put it into one that is useful more often (arcana, nature or religion for wizards/druids/clerics of which the party has none anyway).


This is dangerous, and allows a lot of play, given that arcane casters can get their casting stat to reflex saves. I'd rather see d12+initiative personally.

We don't actually have a full level caster, so hopefully this won't become a problem. Since we're going to try to take this to lvl. 20, everyone thought that having a wizard would be unbalancing at that point. Everyone's in somewhat softer classes, which makes it a rather interesting campaign:smallcool:



Eh....that worries me, as it crosses class-skill lines in some cases, and also for what Curmudgeon said.

The cross-skill thing won't be a problem, so you only get the skill ranks, not the actual full skill across. For example, animal handling and riding with 6 ranks, if you only have a class skill in riding, you'd only be getting half that (so 3) skill points in animal handling. makes it easier to keep everything as is, while bringing up some underused skills.




I'd go with just giving your players a few more skill points per level. That'll accomplish much of the same thing without having to worry as much about balance.

This is always another option, but the extra points often just disappear into the "combat ready" skills, rather into the more situational skills. This was just an idea to get some points into them, to flesh out the party a bit.

[ka_bna]

Hi! I'm a new DM too, so my thoughts won't be very authoritive, but anyway, some thoughts:

1. Initiative: When you are taking the game to level 20, won't it penalize classes with a bad reflex save?

4. How about combining spot/listen turn into perception?

5.
Arcana (Arcana, the plains, Use Magical Device)
I'd turn "the plains" into "the Planes":smallwink:

6. Maybe some fix of NWN? Introduce healing kits, every kit has 10 uses. When you use an use, you make a heal check. You get the result of the heal check as HP (so my heal check is 22, you heal 22 hp).

[PinkysBrain]

Ah, I should have mentioned. Though I'm not restricting it to Core, I am letting stuff be taken from some of the other books (PHB2/scoundrel/warrior/adventurer but we don't have Champion)
I'd include MiC (just ban the circlet of rapid casting into oblivion and change the belt of battle to allow a standard action attack and a full attack ... it's a belt of battle, not a belt of spell battle). PHB2 has a lot of ban worthy spells BTW.

As for a house-rule ... let spontaneous casters use quicken spell without increasing the casting time (Pathfinder did get some things right).

[maddermax22]

I'd include MiC (just ban the circlet of rapid casting into oblivion and change the belt of battle to allow a standard action attack and a full attack ... it's a belt of battle, not a belt of spell battle). PHB2 has a lot of ban worthy spells BTW.

As for a house-rule ... let spontaneous casters use quicken spell without increasing the casting time (Pathfinder did get some things right).

yeah, the Magic Item compendium has some good stuff in it, and I might include some of it as available from towns/cities or adventuring, but maybe not generally available all the time :)

Quicken Spell .... I like that Idea, they have the +2 spell level thing as the downside anyway. I'll have to think of how it could be horribly abused, but generally that won't be too much of a problem.


Hi! I'm a new DM too, so my thoughts won't be very authoritive, but anyway, some thoughts:

1. Initiative: When you are taking the game to level 20, won't it penalize classes with a bad reflex save?

4. How about combining spot/listen turn into perception?

5. I'd turn "the plains" into "the Planes":smallwink:

6. Maybe some fix of NWN? Introduce healing kits, every kit has 10 uses. When you use an use, you make a heal check. You get the result of the heal check as HP (so my heal check is 22, you heal 22 hp).

1) yeah, that was sort of the idea - class matters for Inititive more than your base stats. I suppose though it could become a bit much at lvl. 20, but it's still only an advantage of +6 at level 20 over what it would normally be, which can be easily be gained by other methods too.

4) While I do like the idea, the general idea was to get some lesser used skills out to air, while everyone I know has someone with a good spot/listen skill.

5)Haha, no, it's to go along with knowledge The Valleys :smalltongue: Good catch there:smallsmile:

6) Yeah, that could work as a simple fix. Maybe make it a full round (or 2 round?) action to use bandages, so it's not as good as magical healing, but a good way to recover HP after action. Maybe have it so that you can't recover more than 50% (or 75%) health with it? it would mean that magical healing still has a big place, but you can still get healing outside of that.

Thanks for the suggestions/opinions guys, they're all very helpful :smallsmile:

I've also thought of a new one.
7) levelling up. Every level you get one stat point to spend (rather than every 4th level). However, you can't upgrade the same stat more than once per 3 levels, and every third stat point has to be spent on one of your lowest 3 stats. As power items are going to be harder to come across, this will let them boost stats a bit more without having to have the crown of whatnot, or the belt of thingmy. As everyone will have it, (and the common stat's we rolled are pretty low - 16-15-12-10-10-10) It should be right, as players would have a Max of 23 in a stat by level 20, without items. Thoughts?

Any more favourite house-rules, or ideas about the one's I've put down? Thanks in advance!:smallsmile:

[Curmudgeon]

People are thinking that combining some of the knowledge skills is bad, but besides the "Knowledge Devotion" thing, is there anything else wrong with it?
Depends on how strictly you enforce the Knowledge checks for creatures. By RAW, you can't know what type a creature is (even another humanoid) without making the required Knowledge check. There are 6 different Knowledge skills related to creatures in the current game. Casters can't use any of the shapechanging spell line (Alter Self and so on) unless they can first identify the creature's type:
You assume the form of a creature of the same type as your normal form. Your rules make acquiring that Knowledge a lot easier for spellcasters.

[JeenLeen]

The main problem I see is combining Use Magic Device with knowledges. Although it makes sense when one thinks of what the character is learning, I think it gives too much option to classes (usually full casters) that do not have UMD as a class skill.

Even as you have 6 ranks in Knowledge: Arcana only yields 3 in UMD, that still opens up cleric wands and scrolls to wizards or sorcerers, and vice-versa, for free.

(And as a personal note on the skill combinations, I've always thought Pick Lock and Disable Device make sense as the same skill, since both are finely manipulating mechanical things, be they traps or locks, to bypass their purposes.)
Are you eliminating synergy bonuses (since the skill groups give something similiar but far better), or keeping them? I don't think keeping them gives too much, but it might be something to take into consideration. The only skills I've found very important in battle are Tumble and UMD, although some uses of Balance as outlined in Complete Adventurer let you use it to resist tripping, making it very useful against certain foes.

Due to how magic works in D&D, I would place Religion in the 'Arcana' group instead of the 'Social' group. The gods have a large impact on magic, and some such as Boccob probably created a good number of arcane spells. Also, Spellcraft fits in the 'Arcana' group, although that does make 'Arcana' very strong.