[PF] Houserules sanity check

[Bovine Colonel]

I'm about to start a campaign with a set of relatively inexperienced players and would like to know if the following houserules are good ideas:

-Gunslingers and Ninjas are banned. They simply don't fit the flavour of the campaign.

-Full attacks, charges, and any other weapon attacks that would normally take full-round actions are standard actions instead; it is also possible to full attack on a charge as a full-round action. In addition, standard attacks and any other weapon attacks that would normally take standard actions take move actions instead, simply because that way there's actually a difference between a standard attack and a full attack.

-Power Attack, Weapon Finesse, Combat Expertise, and Two-Weapon Fighting are feats given to all characters for free.

-Paladins, Fighters, Cavaliers, Samurai, and Monks get 4 + Intelligence skill points per level, not 2. In addition, Fighters and Monks can designate any 3 skills except Fly, Knowledge: Arcana or The Planes, or Spellcraft as class skills.

-Monks have full Base Attack Bonus.

-Monks use Dexterity for attack and damage with all monk weapons.

-Paladins and Rangers can cast harmless spells with a 1 standard action casting time as a swift action instead.

-Sorcerers, Wizards, Druids, and Clerics take full round actions to cast any spell that would normally take a standard action. They also take 1 round to cast any spell that would normally be a full round action, which means that the spell takes effect at the beginning of their next turn. The Quicken metamagic feat allows a spell to be cast as a standard action for +1 spell level or a move action for +3 spell level.

-The Planar Ally line of spells is banned. No sending random angels to complete the quest for you.

-No infinite or arbitrarily long sequences.

-Loot is handled out of character. Everyone gets the same amount of nonexistent gold that they can spend at a nonexistent shop during party downtime in order to get new items. This way I don't have to draw up loot tables.

[faceroll]

Full attacks after moving gives monsters a huge advantage.

[Godskook]

1.New players are not going to need this much houseruling to have a fun game, especially cause of how invasive it is to the fundamental design of classes. More likely, they'll be frustrated(especially the casters) over the huge disparity between what's written and what's seen in play(more experienced players can just learn to deal with it).

2.Casters have a 'skill-floor', at which point, they'd be better off with a rogue, fighter or barbarian, due to how much better the chassis is(HD, skills, basic attacks). Nerfing them so 'directly' makes it really hard for new players to learn them, cause they weren't easy before. It'd be better to put hard limits on the abuses involved in being a caster, and let the more beginner players enjoy the basic class for what it is.

3.Your caster nerfs hurt 'active' casters a lot more than 'passive' casters. Since almost all of the 'bad' spells are 'active', and a lot of the best ones are 'passive', I'm not sure how bad you've hurt casters played well, but you've probably nerfed the Evoker into the ground.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

1. The way you've worded it, if I'm a 5' step or closer to a foe, I can spend a move action for one attack, then a standard action for a full attack. Might want to put something in like "you can't do both in the same round" unless that's what's intended. Certain encounters, like a pair of dire wolverines, could shred even a moderately optimized level-appropriate group with these rules, especially with the caster nerfs. Which brings me to...

2. What's the optimization level of your group? I was going to write something up about the caster nerf, but Godskook put it pretty well. If your caster players are optimizers, it's probably okay, but nerfing particular spells works better. Remember that Paizo mostly worked on levels 1-4, so if you want to nerf spells you can focus on what they ignored: 5-9. Banning Planar Binding takes care of a lot. If you want, I can dredge up a list of other potential problem spells in PF.

3. If I'm a Paladin 1/Cleric X, can I cast harmless Cleric spells (quickened to a standard action for +1 meta) as a swift action? I anticipate a "no," but it helps to clarify your wording.

[etrpgb]

-Gunslingers and Ninjas are banned. They simply don't fit the flavour of the campaign.


Oh, come on... with DM like you we would never have games like Assassin Creed 2!
DM: I am preparing an adventure set during the Renaissance in the 15th century...
Player: I want to play a Ninja.
DM: What? In the Renaissance? In Florence?
Player: Ninja I said!
DM: ok, ok. I see what I can do.