Awesome House Rules

[Fax Celestis]

Related to this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=299020), what are your favorite house rules from games you've played in?

I'll start: I ask the players at the end of each session to name something another player did during the course of the game that they thought was awesome: the named player gains an action point (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/actionPoints.htm). Multiple players cannot name the same player for the same thing, and we've altered action points somewhat: if you want to bend the rules a little bit ("I'm falling off a cliff: can I use Tumble to slow my fall enough so I don't die/convert one of my spells to feather fall?" "Yes, if you spend an action point.") or automatically confirm a critical, you spend an AP.

[Morphie]

The group I play with use a rule for hit point dice: Instead of the 1d6, 1d8, 1d10 and 1d12, we just use 1d4 + x (2 for 1d6, 4 for 1d8, 6 for 1d10 and 8 for 1d12) + Con bonus. That way everyone gets more Hps, except for the Wizards and Sorcerers, but they don't need much help to survive.

[Diarmuid]

Cross class skills cost 1, max skill ranks must still be adhered to.

Hit points are rolled as half max plus roll: d10 rolled as 5+1d5, etc.

[A_S]

"There is no multiclass XP penalty."

[AuraTwilight]

My group uses a modified form of Action Points we call Awesome Points. For each level you roll 1d6 and gain that many AP, which can be used to boost any 1d20 roll by +1d6 for each point spent. However, AP can be awarded and spent effectively at GM fiat to smooth over Dumb Stuff (TM) or do Cool Stuff (TM). "Wait this altar drains a permanent hit point for a 24 hour bonus to a weapon? Screw that." "I will let you spend, oh...an entire 6 AP points to instead of a permanent improvement." "Deal."

[lsfreak]

"There is no multiclass XP penalty."

+1 for a "mundane" and common rule, but that opens up so many possibilities.

[Hylas]

It's for Pathfinder, but whenever you take Improved <maneuver> (e.g. trip, grapple, feint, sunder, disarm, etc) you automatically get the greater version at +6 BAB (or when appropriate). Same thing for a lot of feats made for mundanes.

[Dimers]

One of my DMs has a 3-by-3 alignment chart filled with different types of paladins, who all have notably different abilities, not just alignment-flipped. He also allows barbarians to pick which secondary stat to boost with a "rage", refluffed as appropriate. This game's main damage-dealer is a barbarian archer who boosts Str+Dex. She calls the ability "focus mind".

Heard about, haven't used, but it's too awesome not to talk about: When the players order Chinese food, once during the game they can crack open a fortune cookie instead of making a d20 roll, and let the fortune indicate the results of the action.

[AmberVael]

Heard about, haven't used, but it's too awesome not to talk about: When the players order Chinese food, once during the game they can crack open a fortune cookie instead of making a d20 roll, and let the fortune indicate the results of the action.

That is really bizarre and very creative. I approve entirely.

Personally, one of the houserules that I like (though I've never entirely worked out the balance on) is tying Charisma to the innate luck or fate of the character. That is, you get something like action points for having higher charisma- the ability to adjust rolls just a bit in your favor every so often.

[erok0809]

We use a thing called "theatricality points," basically in the same vein as action points and the aforementioned awesome points. We get one theatricality point per session, and it can basically be used to break the rules in some relatively minor ways, but we have to do so in a "theatrical" manner. For example, one character used his theatricality point to pass a use rope check to swing over a lava pool (we were first level, this was a pass-or-die situation) when he would have failed. He had to say that he managed to jump off the rope, land on the wall, run for two steps, and kick off the wall to reach the other side. Another use was for a sorcerer to autokill 12 zombies bearing down on him with a single use of burning hands, leaving the corridor of the cave filled with melted flesh, and the sorcerer laughing maniacally as he watched the corpses burn.

[Maginomicon]

One of my DMs has a 3-by-3 alignment chart filled with different types of paladins, who all have notably different abilities, not just alignment-flipped.Dunno if your GM already uses this, but in-canon there's already a set for this (in fact, CG, LE, and CE have two entries each).
{table=head] | L | N | C
G | Paladin [of Honor] | Sentinel | Paladin of Freedom or Avenger |
N | Enforcer | Incarnate | Anarch |
E | Paladin of Tyranny or Despot | Corrupter | Paladin of Slaughter or Anti-Paladin |
[/table]
More details are described in my Real Alignments Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=283341) (including where they're sourced).

He also allows barbarians to pick which secondary stat to boost with a "rage", refluffed as appropriate. This game's main damage-dealer is a barbarian archer who boosts Str+Dex. She calls the ability "focus mind".Dunno if your GM already uses this, but for STR+DEX, that already exists in-canon as "Ferocity" (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a).

[DoughGuy]

TWF is a single feat and you never suffer more than -2/-2

[PaintByBlood]

I'm not certain if the Rebalancing Compendium is well known or well liked, but there are many house rules from it I like as both a player and a DM.
Collapsing TWF, Improved TWF, Greater TWF, and a 4th iterative of it all into one feat is one such thing.
Similarly, combining Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and the Greater versions all into a single Weapon Focus makes that feat much more appreciable. (I also decided it ought to be fully available to all classes, not just fighter, but that's entirely me.)

[Kasbark]

The most awesome houserules we use, in my opinion are:

No full attack action. You can make all your attacks with a standard action.

Flanking gives +2 to hit and +2 damage.

Tumbling to avoid AoO is harder.



Those three make combat feel a lot more engaging and dynamic, there is way less of the 'i hit him, he hits me until one of us is dead' that combat can sometimes boil down to.

[Pink]

This was a house rule suggested by Monte Cook that I tried in my game for a while and it added a bit of a bonus for rolling a crit threat, even if it wasn't confirmed.

When a character rolls a crit threat with a melee weapon (regardless if the crit is confirmed or not) they may either take a free 5-foot step (in addition to any that have already been taken this turn) or move the target of the attack five feet (movement does not provoke)

[AuraTwilight]

I have to steal that Fortune Cookie thing.

[nedz]

Clerics don't get Spontaneous Healing, instead they get Spontaneous Domain casting. I now know that you shouldn't boost T1s, but in the game in question this isn't an issue [long story about useless scouts who always need rescuing omitted].

[Doorhandle]

Jeff's game-blog has a few that I'm going to share:

Carosuing + table: EXP FOR PARTYING! What more do you want?. (http://jrients.blogspot.com.au/2008/12/party-like-its-999.html)

The big purple d30 rules among these. (http://jrients.blogspot.com.au/2008/11/draft-cinder-house-rules-part-1.html) Also, the "Have a drink regain H.P rule that I can't find.


One not from him: Making shields sort of useful again. (http://trollsmyth.blogspot.com.au/2008/05/shields-shall-be-splintered.html) (Personally, I'd allow the shield to apply hardness to any damage taken, and bonuses to sunder to work on the part of the aggressor. )

[DarkEternal]

If you play a melee class, Intimidate can use strength instead of charisma.

Also, when you fall to -1 or more hp, you are not bleeding per normal rules, but rather get strikes. Each round you throw a d20. 1-10 you get a strike, 10-19 nothing happens, 20 you stabiilise. Three strikes and the character dies. Bear in mind, the character does not die when he reaches -10 either with this way. However, if the attack was strong enough to bring him to a minus equal to half or more of his maximum hp, he still dies.

[Eldan]

Shields really suffer with the invention of power attack.

One that I've seen mentioned: a shield bonus applies to flat-footed AC and reflex saves. Additionally, if you are not flat-footed, a shield doubles your dex bonus to AC, if any.

[Curmudgeon]

You can split a regular move around a non-moving move action. This lets you move to a door, open it, and then continue through to finish your movement. (Or walk and chew gum at the same time. :smallsmile:)

[Altair_the_Vexed]

You can split a regular move around a non-moving move action. This lets you move to a door, open it, and then continue through to finish your movement. (Or walk and chew gum at the same time. :smallsmile:)
^ This - totally! The door example is a classic.

Me, I've messed up criticals a whole lot. See my blog for reasoning. (http://running-the-game.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/taming-chaos-probability-and-heroes.html)
I'm using PF as a base here...

Threat ranges are adjusted - because you don't directly deal extra damage. If you have a threat of 20 but a x3 multiplier, the threat range becomes 19-20 - and so on.
When you score a critical, you choose from three options: attack, maim or move.
Attack lets you take an AoO against the target (including combat manoeuvres) Maim lets the player choose to inflict some injury on top of the regular damage, so that the defender starts to bleed each round, or has reduced movement, or some similar effect. The defender gets a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 level + STR or DEX modifier) to resist this effect.
Move lets the attacker re-position themselves in the fight as a free 5ft step
This stops the PCs - and the monsters - from scoring randomly massive damage and throwing the game off balance, but still rewards players for awesome attack rolls.

My combat manoeuvres have also had a minor but significant tweak: you only provoke an AoO when you fail the manoeuvre. This means that players are more encouraged to try manoeuvres when they don't have the relevant Improved XYZ feat.

[Azoth]

A few I have used that have made my players happy are:

1) weapon profficiencies can be bought for GP during downtime or chargen. They still have to hunt down a trainer, but can gain proficiency in a weapon for a couple gold instead of a feat.

2) Each class has a number of class skills assigned and you add your Int bonus to that number to determine the total number of skills you can select as class skills(For example: say the fighter got 10 skills as class skills and you had 14 INT, you could select 12 skills to have as class skills). If you multi class into a class that has a higher base number of class skills you gain the difference as new class skills(Lets take the fighter with 10 and say that Barbarian had 15. you would gain 5 new skills as class skills). (This removes the premade class skill lists and lets players select their own for their characters. It has helped them flesh out concepts better than having them dip just for a few skills needed for a PRC or the like)

3)All classes gain 2 more skill points per level

4) Everyone gains 2 free bonus feats at 1st level.

5) Traits/Flaws/Feats can be granted at any time based on how your character is played.

6) Characters gain 2 stat increases every two levels. These increases can not be spent on the same stats consecutatively. (I.E. LVL2 you boost STR/DEX at level 4 you can not raise STR/DEX.)

[Eldan]

I forgot my personal favourite: there are no class and cross class skills. There are just skills and they all cost 1 point and have the same maximum.

[Beardbarian]

I remember the awesom "Fist-throw"
1/session, if the roll was awful, the player coul knock the fist on the table in order to make the dice roll again and take the result.
This saved my ass a countless amount of times

[Jon_Dahl]

This is a real king of house rules:
If you use Core only, you get +2 bonus to any ability score.

[Hyena]

If you use Core only, you get +2 bonus to any ability score.
Even if it was +10, it wouldn't be worth it.

[Zombimode]

This is a real king of house rules:
If you use Core only, you get +2 bonus to any ability score.

So you like a house rule the incentives players not to make cool and varied characters that are possible with the whole 3.5 library and using unique classes like the binder and incarnate?
People are weird :smallconfused:


As a DM I'm always VERY happy to see a player to pick something from beyond the PHB, even if its just a feat from Complete Warrior.

[falloutimperial]

If a player character would be damaged to below 0 HP, the DM may offer to ignore that damage, provided the character loses a hand or is otherwise permanently disfigured at the DM's discretion. Usually not worth it, but eventually...

[Talderas]

There's a lot of good ones that we have but I'm forgetting a lot of them.

1. All iterative attacks are made at -5. So +16/+11/+11/+11 rather than +16/+11/+6/+1.
2. You gain a Dodge AC bonus equal to one half your BAB.
3. Armor doesn't impose a speed penalty so your penalty to movement speed and running is determined only by your encumbrance.
4. Shield AC bonus granted by a shield increases based on BAB and shield type.
5. Hide and Move Silently are combined into Stealth. Spot and Listen are combined into Perception. Ride includes Handle Animal. Diplomacy includes Gather Info. Appraise includes Forgery.
6. Improved Combat maneuver feats don't require Combat Expertise.
7. Size benefits for combat maneuvers are reduces from +/-4 to +/-2.
8. Disarm: Disarm no longer provokes an AoO. The opponent does not get an opportunity to disarm you in return. Improved Disarm's bonus is changed from +4 to +1/2 BAB and on a successful disarm you get a free attack.
9. Feint: Feint is a move action rather than standard action. You roll Bluff + Dexterity or Bluff + Charisma. Opponent opposes with BAB + Dex or Sense Motive + Wis. Improved Feint grants 1/2 BAB or Bluff skill on feint attempts rather than +4 and success on a feint gives you bonus damage equal to 1/2 of your (BAB + Dex) or (Bluff + Cha).
10. Two Weapon Fighting: By default two weapon fighting gives a -4/-4 penalty to your attacks instead of -6/-10. You gain offhand iteratives as you gain main-hand. Wielding a 1handed weapon in a hand confers an additional -2 penalty. The only TWF feat is Improved Two Weapon Fighting which gives you a +4 bonus on attack rolls. So dual wielding two light weapons is at no penalty.

We have... a lot of melee house rules....

[Amphetryon]

Death occurs at Negative CON, or -10, whichever is more beneficial to your Character in her healthy condition (so taking CON damage can make this stink).

[Eldan]

This is a real king of house rules:
If you use Core only, you get +2 bonus to any ability score.

That's just weird. Three quarters of the most broken stuff is in core. The indication, to me, seems to be that power gamers who know what they are doing simply build core CoDs or Wizards, while everyone else who wants to have some variety instead of power must suffer.

[Chester]

We don't use XP. We level up when we all agree that we've earned it.

It has actually worked out well so far.:smallsmile:

[Raven777]

Crits automatically confirm. The end. Crit confirmation is stupid.

[Eldan]

An interesting one I wanted to try for a while: no rolling for stats or buying them. Players choose their own stats.

Of course, that's for mature players you can trust.

[Gigas Breaker]

This is a real king of house rules:
If you use Core only, you get +2 bonus to any ability score.

This is the awesome houserule thread. I think you wanted the other one.

[Larkas]

Appraise, Forgery and Search are rolled into Investigation. Balance, Escape Artist and Tumble are rolled into Acrobatics. Climb, Jump and Swim are rolled into Athletics. Decipher Script and Speak Language are rolled into Linguistics. Gather Information is rolled into Diplomacy. Hide and Move Silently are rolled into Stealth. Listen and Spot are rolled into Perception. Open Lock is rolled into Disable Device. Ride is rolled into Handle Animal. Psicraft and Spellcraft are rolled into Mysticism. Use Magic Device and Use Psionic Device are rolled into Use Mystic Device.

So... Yeah... :smallbiggrin:


If a player would be damaged to below 0 HP, the DM may offer to ignore that damage, provided the player loses a hand or is otherwise permanently disfigured. Usually not worth it, but eventually...

I... Really hope no one gets hurt while playing with you, guys. :smalleek:

[Segev]

Why would you hope that? The house rule allows an option for PCs, not a requirement.

[Dusk Eclipse]

It was a joke, the way falloutimperal worded the houserule the loss of a limb was inflicted upon the player not the character.

[Vedhin]

One my DM made, after someone wanted to play an archer: Order of the Bow Initiate's Ranged Precision does not require a standard action to use. It is instead added to every eligible ranged attack.
And another precision-damage rule: You can take a -1 penalty on your attack roll to allow 1 die of precision damage to affect a creature that normally would be immune, with a greater penalty allowing more precision through. So a rogue could take a -5 penalty to deal 5d6 sneak attack to a vampire he flanked, for instance.
Also, we use Unearthed Arcana's Weapon Group Proficiency rules, with feats like Weapon Focus applying to an entire group.

[Talderas]

Decipher Script and Speak Language are rolled into Linguistics.

This one makes no sense since the skills don't even remotely function similarly. They have entirely different mechanics. There has to be something else going on since 1 rank in Speak Language translates to a new language learned. The only way combining the two makes sense is granting a new language known for every rank of Linguistics.

[Segev]

This one makes no sense since the skills don't even remotely function similarly. They have entirely different mechanics. There has to be something else going on since 1 rank in Speak Language translates to a new language learned. The only way combining the two makes sense is granting a new language known for every rank of Linguistics.

*cough* The post you're quoting was actually listing the changes to skills that PF made, if I'm not missing something.

Therein, Linguistics, as a skill, gives you 1 language per rank, and functions (among other things) as Decipher Script. Neither Speak Languages nor Decipher Script exist as stand-alone skills in PF.

Given that Decipher Script has always been about puzzling out meaning from collections of legible symbols, it actually does make a certain amount of sense. Danial Jackson, from Stargate SG-1, has Linguistics; he speaks a lot of languages, and he is often deciphering scripts. And as the character is portrayed, these ARE highly related skills.

[Larkas]

This one makes no sense since the skills don't even remotely function similarly. They have entirely different mechanics. There has to be something else going on since 1 rank in Speak Language translates to a new language learned. The only way combining the two makes sense is granting a new language known for every rank of Linguistics.

That's the Pathfinder way of doing things (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/skills/linguistics.html#_linguistics) (though PF rolls Forgery into Linguistics too, which I don't). Myself, I use that rule, though I'd have no problems of keeping things separate: every rank in Linguistics help you decipher scripts, but you only learn a new language for every 2 ranks put into it. Makes perfect sense. Ever tried learning a new language? I can read some 8 myself, but can only reasonably speak 4. Seems pretty spot on to me.


*cough* The post you're quoting was actually listing the changes to skills that PF made, if I'm not missing something.

To be honest, you are missing quite a few things. :smallbiggrin: I like the spirit of what Pathfinder did, but I usually don't like the way they did it, and I think they didn't go far enough in a few places. Hence, my own list of consolidated skills. :smallwink:


It was a joke, the way falloutimperal worded the houserule the loss of a limb was inflicted upon the player not the character.

Exactly. :smallbiggrin:

[Dusk Eclipse]

Oh I remembered one that is fun, though sometimes frustating.

Every 4th level you can get your single bonus to a score normally or you can roll 1d6 and get +2 to the corresponding stat (1-Str, 2-Dex, 3-Con, 4-int, 5-wis, 6-cha).

[Talderas]

That's the Pathfinder way of doing things (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/skills/linguistics.html#_linguistics) (though PF rolls Forgery into Linguistics too, which I don't). Myself, I use that rule, though I'd have no problems of keeping things separate: every rank in Linguistics help you decipher scripts, but you only learn a new language for every 2 ranks put into it. Makes perfect sense. Ever tried learning a new language? I can read some 8, but can only reasonably speak 4. Seems pretty spot on to me

Right, Speak Language just had a vastly different mechanic from other skills that wrapping it in seems a bit silly. Remember that a 1st level Human Bard with 10 Int can technically start off knowing 25 languages. Since there is no rank for Speak Language there's no limitation on how many languages you've learned via it. I would actually go no lower than 3:1 for languages but would probably end up at 4:1.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Right, Speak Language just had a vastly different mechanic from other skills that wrapping it in seems a bit silly. Remember that a 1st level Human Bard with 10 Int can technically start off knowing 25 languages. Since there is no rank for Speak Language there's no limitation on how many languages you've learned via it.

How is that a problem? He would have to spend all her skill points for that level.

[Talderas]

How is that a problem? He would have to spend all her skill points for that level.

I'm not saying it's a problem. However that bard, with 25 languages known at 1st level and potentially 138 languages by 20th would, under pathfinder, only be able to know 24 languages at 20th level and 5 at first. The underlying mechanics of Speak Language are drastically different from any other skill in the game. That rule introduces a far more restrictive cap on the number of languages a character can know.

[Dusk Eclipse]

I get your point, but do you really need that many languages? Even more when there are relatively cheap ways to completely obviate the need of learning them in the first place (tongues spells for example). On principle it looks like a bad design, but since it works I don't see the issue.

[Fax Celestis]

I'm not saying it's a problem. However that bard, with 25 languages known at 1st level and potentially 138 languages by 20th would, under pathfinder, only be able to know 24 languages at 20th level and 5 at first. The underlying mechanics of Speak Language are drastically different from any other skill in the game. That rule introduces a far more restrictive cap on the number of languages a character can know.

Who cares? There aren't even that many languages in the game.

[The Rose Dragon]

Someone who took the Arcanum feat can, at the Narrator's discretion, take arcane feats branching off the arcanum even without getting the Arcane Training necessary for it.

The Arcanum feat is already inefficient as is, so I am all for this particular house rule.

[Talderas]

I get your point, but do you really need that many languages? Even more when there are relatively cheap ways to completely obviate the need of learning them in the first place (tongues spells for example). On principle it looks like a bad design, but since it works I don't see the issue.

Which just serves to make magic even more powerful. The rules for speak language actually permit a character to speak all languages without the aid of magic. That combination of the skills makes it impossible. Since, if you start with an 18 Int and a race that knew two languages the maximum number of languages you could know is 29. A higher starting Int or a race that knows 3+ would, of course raise that. There's upwards of 90 standard languages in D&D published books and that's not even touching campaign specific languages like those from Forgotten Realms.


Who cares? There aren't even that many languages in the game.

There's in excess of 90 standard languages in D&D. With Forgotten Realms this can easily be pushed up to 120.

[Segev]

I find the claim that you can speak every language if you blow all your SP on it, so reducing that scope makes magic even more overpowered, to be spurious at best. First off, I don't quite follow how PF's reduced the number of languages you can know; Speak Language and Linguistics function identically for that purpose, don't they? Secondly, no actual character that would see play would build that way, so the claim they "can" is equivalent to claiming you "can" play a wizard with 8 int. It's true! You can! Nobody is going to.

[Harlot]

Our most important rule is, that if the PC is not present, and his character is played as NPC, that NPC can't be killed - it's just rendered unconscious, not dead, no level loss, even in a TPK.

[137beth]

Critical fumbles apply the same to everyone, including spellcasters:
--If you make a full attack, or any other situation allows you to attack multiple times in one round (like an AoO), only the first attack roll risks a fumble. This prevents the odd situation of being more likely to fumble as you level up.
--Spells can also fumble if you roll a natural 1 on the attack roll, the check to overcome spell resistance, or if the target rolls a natural 20 on their saving throw.
--Like with martials, a spellcaster only risks a fumble. So if you cast enervation, you risk a fumble on the attack roll but not the SR check, while if you cast fireball, you risk a fumble on one SR check, but not the others, and from none of the saving throws.
--Regardless, each PC/NPC can make at most one fumble per session.

[Fax Celestis]

Secondly, no actual character that would see play would build that way, so the claim they "can" is equivalent to claiming you "can" play a wizard with 8 int. It's true! You can! Nobody is going to.

Except for that Pratchett guy. What was that character's name? Washbreeze? Soakgust? Rincewind?

http://i.imgur.com/mixErzT.png

[Dusk Eclipse]

Critical fumbles apply the same to everyone, including spellcasters:
--If you make a full attack, or any other situation allows you to attack multiple times in one round (like an AoO), only the first attack roll risks a fumble. This prevents the odd situation of being more likely to fumble as you level up.
--Spells can also fumble if you roll a natural 1 on the attack roll, the check to overcome spell resistance, or if the target rolls a natural 20 on their saving throw.
--Like with martials, a spellcaster only risks a fumble. So if you cast enervation, you risk a fumble on the attack roll but not the SR check, while if you cast fireball, you risk a fumble on one SR check, but not the others, and from none of the saving throws.
--Regardless, each PC/NPC can make at most one fumble per session.

Better than most fumble rules I've seen, but still fumbles sucks!

Edit: I just remembered a pretty good one, every class had their skill points increased by 50 % (minimum 4+int in case of 2+int classes), yes that means that rogues had 12+int SP, but seriously even like that I feel I don't have enough SP to cover what I want to do.

[HalfQuart]

I've played with a DM that house-ruled initiative to be modified by Charisma rather than Dexterity. At first I thought it was sacrilege, but after thinking about it it really makes sense: Initiative is supposed to be how fast you formulate what you're going to do and act -- a mental ability -- not how fast you physically react (that's Reflex). So the ones that should be out front leading the charge are the Paladin, Cleric, Bard, etc. Anyway, I've grown to really like that rule.

[Asteron]

Some of the rules that our gaming group uses:

-No Crit confirmation. If you roll something in your threat range and it is enough to hit their AC, it's a crit. Exception: Nat 20 is always a crit, even if it wouldn't hit.

-Imp. Crit stacks with Keen ala 3.0.

-Use 3.0 Haste, Heal and Harm (Harm allows for a will: half, in which case you have half your current HP +1d4...)

We've also messed with the pricing of items a bit, but those are too numerous to list here.

[Jon_Dahl]

This is the awesome houserule thread. I think you wanted the other one.

Ahhh, it seems that my house rule has drawn has some criticism here. Fair enough :smallsmile: It's just that I HATE reading rules. I have the original Player's Handbook, Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide right here on my desk. I want us to play by these books and ONLY by these books, but I'm willing to have players that want to use splatbooks. Splatbooks are the source of creativity and varierty, but also power creep and powergaming.

My house rule makes the game more suitable to beginners, and I've had more total newbies than experienced players in my games. For me, the first (or second) DM some players have ever had, it has been nice that I reward those who understand nothing of the finer intricacies of the game.

TBH, I just don't like the splatbooks and I have a mile long ban-list :smallsigh:

[Oko and Qailee]

Something my first DM did, and I stick to it is:

When rolling for HP, if you roll too low you get a re-roll depending on your HD

d4: reroll on a 1
D6-D10: reroll on a 1-2
D12: Reroll on 1-3

[Philistine]

One DM's homebrew setting was so awash with magic that everything - PC, NPC, monster, whatever - with a non-negative Cha mod got limited, low-level casting from the Sorc/Wiz list. This made dumping Cha a serious decision, rather than the default for most characters. Also, PCs seemed more likely to splash a few skill points into socials since they had a little Cha to work with anyway.

[HylianKnight]

I've played with a DM that house-ruled initiative to be modified by Charisma rather than Dexterity. At first I thought it was sacrilege, but after thinking about it it really makes sense: Initiative is supposed to be how fast you formulate what you're going to do and act -- a mental ability -- not how fast you physically react (that's Reflex). So the ones that should be out front leading the charge are the Paladin, Cleric, Bard, etc. Anyway, I've grown to really like that rule.

Ooo that's really interesting. I also like how that, on first glance at least, might better solve the 'Charisma = dump stat' problem. Where a character either has Charisma be one of their key stats (spell casting/class abilities) or they just dump it with little to no repercussions. Every other stat has game mechanics repercussions for dumping it, Charisma as of now has none besides the skills that key off it.

However, wouldn't both Intelligence or Wisdom work better for your flavor justification? What about your force personality makes you better at solving or reading that combat situation? Whereas you could make cases for how smart or wise you are.

[navar100]

Upon being raised you lose (level - 1) x 1,000 XP. Regardless of your new XP total, you retain your level in all ways it means to be that level. The amount of XP needed to gain a level is as per the XP chart. Essentially, while you get delayed gratification of gaining a level, you do not lose the level you already have.

This became moot when we switched to Pathfinder since you don't lose your level (class abilities) but gain negative levels (minuses) that can be Restored. DM added in other house rules I'm not thrilled with, but they aren't "stupid".

[gurgleflep]

In the group I play in/with, we roll three sets using 4d6s for our ability scores rerolling only ones and twos. You take the three highest and drop the lowest... but if they're all the same number there is no lowest so you just add them all together... So if you roll three 4s and a 3, you get a 12 but if you roll four 4s you get 16. Everybody usually gets one in one of their sets.

[Talderas]

I find the claim that you can speak every language if you blow all your SP on it, so reducing that scope makes magic even more overpowered, to be spurious at best. First off, I don't quite follow how PF's reduced the number of languages you can know; Speak Language and Linguistics function identically for that purpose, don't they? Secondly, no actual character that would see play would build that way, so the claim they "can" is equivalent to claiming you "can" play a wizard with 8 int. It's true! You can! Nobody is going to.

Decipher Script and Speak Language use different mechanics on what happens when skill points are assigned to the skill. There is a general rule that the number of ranks in a class skill is equal to your character level +3 and half of that value for cross class skills. When you add a skill point to to a class skill you gain 1 rank in that skill and when the skill is cross class you gain 1/2 a rank. So in the best case scenario, a class skill can have class level +3 skill points invested into it for class level +3 ranks. Speak Language has specific rules that override the general. When you invest a skill point in speak language you do not gain a rank but instead learn a new language. Since you do not gain ranks there is no limitation on how many skill points you can invest in it. This means the only limitation on how many languages you can learn is how many skill points you're willing to invest into it and not a function of your level.

So in order for a mundane half elf rogue with 18 int rogue to learn all 90 (I'll use that number since it's approximately accurate), he would need to reach level 81. By investing skill points he could do it by level 14. Meanwhile, a wizard can achieve the same feat by level 5 with tongues. Now a rogue could UMD a wand of tongues but that hardly matters when you're talking about how mundane actions are much lesser to magic.

[ahenobarbi]

In the group I play in/with, we roll three sets using 4d6s for our ability scores rerolling only ones and twos. You take the three highest and drop the lowest... but if they're all the same number there is no lowest so you just add them all togetherthey all are lowest so you discard them and en up with - ability score...

FTFY :smallwink:

[Ashtagon]

You don't get a size modifier on your attack rolls, and size modifiers do not affect your AC for melee attacks. In effect, size only affects ranged attack rolls, and only the size of the target counts.

This makes giants and dragons tougher, since they no longer suffer the massive melee penalty due to their size. Conversely, smaller creatures (and Small PCs) become that little bit squishier.

[Segev]

Speak Language has specific rules that override the general. When you invest a skill point in speak language you do not gain a rank but instead learn a new language. Since you do not gain ranks there is no limitation on how many skill points you can invest in it. This means the only limitation on how many languages you can learn is how many skill points you're willing to invest into it and not a function of your level.

So in order for a mundane half elf rogue with 18 int rogue to learn all 90 (I'll use that number since it's approximately accurate), he would need to reach level 81. By investing skill points he could do it by level 14. Meanwhile, a wizard can achieve the same feat by level 5 with tongues. Now a rogue could UMD a wand of tongues but that hardly matters when you're talking about how mundane actions are much lesser to magic.I...don't think that the bolded part is correct. Speak Language says you gain a language for every rank of the skill you have. That's it. It doesn't lift the cap on how many ranks you can have.

[Talderas]

I...don't think that the bolded part is correct. Speak Language says you gain a language for every rank of the skill you have. That's it. It doesn't lift the cap on how many ranks you can have.

It's is very much correct. Straight from the SRD.


You can purchase Speak Language just like any other skill, but instead of buying a rank in it, you choose a new language that you can speak.

There is no such thing as a rank in Speak Language.

Now, I like the idea of gaining bonus languages based on how many ranks you have in decipher script. I think it makes sense. I don't think a 1:1 ratio makes sense. I believe 4:1 to be more appropriate, but I also don't think Speak Language should be removed.

[Fax Celestis]

You can purchase Speak Language just like any other skill, but instead of buying a rank in it, you choose a new language that you can speak.

Your interpretation of "just like any other skill" baffles me.

[gurgleflep]

FTFY :smallwink:

Oh that's just cruel :smalltongue: If me (or any other group members) were told that, the DM wouldn't just get a book thrown at them, they'd get the bookshelf dropped on them! :smallbiggrin: Also: It took me three minutes to figure out what "FTFY" meant.

[Talderas]

Your interpretation of "just like any other skill" baffles me.

Perhaps that's because you're confusing skill points with skill ranks. Skill points are spent in skills to purchase things. What you gain from the purchase or the cost varies based on the skill in question and whether it is a class or cross class skill. For most skills you spend skill points to gain skill ranks. For Speak Language you spend skill points to gain new languages known. You have a cap on how many skill ranks you can have with a skill based on level. Since you never purchase skill ranks via skill points with Speak Language (as per the remainder of the sentence) you never reach the cap and prevent yourself from spending more skill points in speak language.

Edit: To elucidate skill points and purchasing, here's the following purchases you can make with skill points (SkP) (there may be others).
1 SkP : 1 rank in a class skill, 1/2 rank in a cross-class skill, 1 new language if Speak Language is a class skill
2 SkP : 1 rank in a cross-class skill, 1 new language if Speak Language is a cross-class skill, Skill Trick

The simple fact is that what can be done with Tongues by a 5th level wizard can potentially be done without magic by Lv 8-13 with the Speak Languages skill. To obtain that same result with the Linguistics skill would require Lv 84.

[Fax Celestis]

The simple fact is that what can be done with Tongues by a 5th level wizard can potentially be done without magic by Lv 8-13 with the Speak Languages skill. To obtain that same result with the Linguistics skill would require Lv 84.

Level 22.


Polyglot [Epic]
Prerequisites
Int 25, Speak Language (five languages).

Benefit
You can speak all languages. If you are literate, you can also read and write all languages (not including magical script).

I don't think that's unreasonable.

[ZeroNumerous]

TBH, I just don't like the splatbooks and I have a mile long ban-list :smallsigh:

I hope you fixed up all the stuff in Core that's dumb and broken first.

[Talderas]

Level 22.

I don't think that's unreasonable.

Polyglot can be taken at level 21 if you meet the requirements. Without a tome of intelligence, however, the earliest a standard race can obtain it is Lv28. That can be lowered to 21 if you have at least a +3 intelligence tome and Lv24 if you have a +4 or greater tome.

The fact is that it's still at about twice the level of what a mundane can do with the speak language skill natively and four times the level of what it takes a wizard. The fact still is that the Linguistics skill restricts speak languages far more than it improves it. When you combine skills, it should be to the benefit of both skills and not cause a detriment. You're making that mistake that since you are going to probably get more languages that the skill is somehow better. The strength of the Speak Language skill is not that you get more languages but the flexibility in how you acquire those new languages. You find you need Ignan, Terran, Auran, and Aquan ASAP, well you have to wait four levels with Linguistics where as you can do that at your next level up with Speak Language.

[Fax Celestis]

Whatever. This thread isn't about that. If you want to argue some more, go make another one. I'm not going to continue discussing it here.

[Zombimode]

Ahhh, it seems that my house rule has drawn has some criticism here. Fair enough :smallsmile: It's just that I HATE reading rules. I have the original Player's Handbook, Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide right here on my desk. I want us to play by these books and ONLY by these books, but I'm willing to have players that want to use splatbooks. Splatbooks are the source of creativity and varierty, but also power creep and powergaming.

My house rule makes the game more suitable to beginners, and I've had more total newbies than experienced players in my games. For me, the first (or second) DM some players have ever had, it has been nice that I reward those who understand nothing of the finer intricacies of the game.

TBH, I just don't like the splatbooks and I have a mile long ban-list :smallsigh:

Well, the thing is, even IF all books are open, newer players will rarely look outside the PHB. All that "sticking to core" accomplishes is to frustrate more experienced players who would like to use non-core stuff. It won't make the game more balanced. Also, have fun playing a warrior type character with just core.

If you don't like reading through tons of rulebooks, well, you don't have to. You, the DM, are not responsible to know your players characters abilities. Thats their business.

[Talderas]

Whatever. This thread isn't about that. If you want to argue some more, go make another one. I'm not going to continue discussing it here.

Yes. Yes it is. This is a thread about awesome house rules. If someone brings up a house rule which someone believes isn't awesome then it is perfectly acceptable to explain why it isn't. That is well within the purview of the rules for the threat cited by your initial post.

Awesome or horrible house rules actually can have a very simple metric of two pieces. The first is does this increase or decrease power, remembering that versatility is a function of power, and whether this increase or decrease is justified. Linguistics is not awesome by that simple metric. It decreases the versatility of learning new languages. That is a simple objective statement. At each new level, you can only learn 1 new language because since you've got the skill linked to Decipher Script. It's either that or you're not raising your Decipher Script ability because you want to be able to more accurately obtain languages you will use rather than having to predict ahead of time what languages you're going to need. So either your Deceipher Script usage languages because of the language necessity or you're getting a bunch of languages you have no reason to suspect you'll need.

[Fax Celestis]

Yes. Yes it is. This is a thread about awesome house rules. If someone brings up a house rule which someone believes isn't awesome then it is perfectly acceptable to explain why it isn't. That is well within the purview of the rules for the threat cited by your initial post.

Awesome or horrible house rules actually can have a very simple metric of two pieces. The first is does this increase or decrease power, remembering that versatility is a function of power, and whether this increase or decrease is justified. Linguistics is not awesome by that simple metric. It decreases the versatility of learning new languages. That is a simple objective statement. At each new level, you can only learn 1 new language because since you've got the skill linked to Decipher Script. It's either that or you're not raising your Decipher Script ability because you want to be able to more accurately obtain languages you will use rather than having to predict ahead of time what languages you're going to need. So either your Deceipher Script usage languages because of the language necessity or you're getting a bunch of languages you have no reason to suspect you'll need.

I don't disagree. I just would prefer the argument be taken elsewhere so this thread can continue being about houserules rather than one specific houserule.

[Eldan]

Except for that Pratchett guy. What was that character's name? Washbreeze? Soakgust? Rincewind?

http://i.imgur.com/mixErzT.png

Rincewind couldn't cast spells due to a lack of intelligence. In D&D terms, he's very intelligent, even the Colour of Magic mentions that he speaks over half a dozen languages. Even apart from that, he has a lot of academic knowledge in all kinds of fields.

What he has a is a custom-made, story based curse, the Spell, which prevents him from memorizing any other spells.

[JohnDaBarr]

Since I'm a DM that suffers form a crit-a-lot syndrome I introduced a houserule that makes negative HP equal to half of the character total HP (rounded up) if that number is greater than 11. People still get to die but this way not so often.

Also, if character receives dmg more than 50% of total HP in a single blow he has a chance of losing body parts (legs, arms, eyes...) or permanent Con penalty.

[Jon_Dahl]

I hope you fixed up all the stuff in Core that's dumb and broken first.

I tried but failed.
Or did I? I had a classical sword 'n shield single-class fighter in my campaign. He rose from the 2nd level to the 9th, until the player moved to another city. The fighter was always the Man throughout the campaign and contributed meaningfully 99% of the time.
Sometimes when I think about my game balance, I think about this character and I feel ok about my game :smallsmile:

[nedz]

If you don't like reading through tons of rulebooks, well, you don't have to. You, the DM, are not responsible to know your players characters abilities. That's their business.

Except that you could run into the problem of player supplied house rules, especially with spells. Maybe the player is a secret Munchkin, maybe they didn't read the spell description properly, maybe they remember how it worked in a previous edition, ...

I have had this, always with the same player. I was new to 3.5 and the player had played 3.5 before, so I assumed he knew what he was doing.
Examples

Planeshift to the ethereal, without the 500 mile error
Break Enchantment cast in 1 round rather than 1 minute
Hemispherical wall of force around the party to allow them time to buff

It is the DM's responsibility to adjudicate the rules.

[Tvtyrant]

Rincewind couldn't cast spells due to a lack of intelligence. In D&D terms, he's very intelligent, even the Colour of Magic mentions that he speaks over half a dozen languages. Even apart from that, he has a lot of academic knowledge in all kinds of fields.

What he has a is a custom-made, story based curse, the Spell, which prevents him from memorizing any other spells.

Actually from a D&D perspective I don't think he should be written up as a caster at all. He is a master of running and parkour, and an inveterate survivor without access to any magic at all. I would place him as a level 6 Scout with the craven feat actually. He is even stated to be pretty good at combat when he isn't so afraid he simply runs from everything.

[Eldan]

Good point. Though he has a lot of typical wizard skills and he did cast magic at least once (I forgot what it was, but he was damn happy to be rid of the Grand Spell so he could cast other magic).

I'd say he took one level of wizard, got some kind of curse or flaw from his DM and then decided to level in rogue and scout instead.

[Eldan]

If you don't like reading through tons of rulebooks, well, you don't have to. You, the DM, are not responsible to know your players characters abilities. Thats their business.

Uhm, what?

No, seriously. How can you run a game when you don't know what your player's characters are capable of? How do you challenge them if you have no idea if they have any way of solving that challenge or whether it will be trivial?

[Darkhope]

1. Nat 20 is an automatic crit, other threat ranges must confirm
2. hide and move silently = Stealth, spot and listen = Perception, Jump Swim and Climb = Athletics, Balance and Tumble = Acrobatics ( i did this way before PF came out).

[Raendyn]

You die at -Con

[Krobar]

One that I've liked, but we haven't used in a while:

Leadership is a fighter-only feat, and fighters gain it for free at 10th level.

A few others that I like:

Craft Contingent Spell can only make contingent one spell LEVEL per caster level, not one full spell. So a 12th level caster can only have 12 spell levels contingent (2 sixth, 3 4th, a sixth and two thirds, etc.).

Same with Persistent Spell. It's limited to one spell level per caster level.

Bards and sorcerers can learn additional spells above what is shown on the Spells Known chart, in an amount and level equal to the bonus spells they can cast daily.



I don't usually implement this one, but it's still one of my favorites: All metamagic feats are banned. I understand many of you will hate this one. But so be it. I like it.

[Zombimode]

Uhm, what?

No, seriously. How can you run a game when you don't know what your player's characters are capable of? How do you challenge them if you have no idea if they have any way of solving that challenge or whether it will be trivial?

I think you have point. My statement was much to broad.
Let me clarify:
I agree that it is useful to have a general knowledge about your players characters abilities: if someone is a good melee fighter, has lots in terms of AoE attacks, relies on Sneak Attack, has healing abilities etc.
What I don't think is necessary is detailed knowledge. I will provide two rather different reasons:
1) Responsibility. I want my players to take responsibility of rules knowledge for at least their characters. As a DM, I have enough to do. Its not my job to have detailed knowledge about the rules of my players characters. Thats their job.
2) Design philosophy: this is a bit more complicated and probably a lot can be said about it, but I will try to do so with few words. In my view the best way to accomplish actual and meaningful challenge (and to facilitate meaningful choices at character creation and build choices) is to turn a blind eye to the party abilities while designing challenges. Now, don't take it as an absolute statement. In the end, the game is about fun, and you will always have to ask yourself: "will this lead to an enjoyable situation?". But as a guideline it holds. If you don't tailor your challenges to your party's abilities (and your players know this - this is important!) the difficulty will feel more natural and less artificial because it was generated in more "realistic" fashion: in reality, problems and challenges are independent of the people facing them. If a challenge can be passed with great ease because of specific abilities of the party its a reward for "making the right choice" when building the characters, and most players will feel that way. If the party has no answers to a problem, the inability will be perceived as an actual weakness of the party.
If you, instead, tailor the challenges to your party's abilities (or at least of your players believe that you do), these situations are likely to be seen as an easy victory handed to them by the DM, or the DM screwing with them, respectively. In any case, it reinforces the notion that you're playing a game.

Now, this design philosophy doesn't work with every kind of adventure. If your adventure has a very compact structure the DM probably has to make sure that the party proceeds in the planned way. For this concept to work best, your adventure needs to be able to handle overwhelming success as well as failure.

Yeah, "few words" didn't really work out.

But, I realize that it is rather easy for me to make such statements, since I actually do have a very good general knowledge of most of the stuff in D&D 3.5 so I'm not in a position where I'm easily surprised by the abilities of my players characters.

[jedipotter]

A couple:

1.Clerics are always proficient in the favored weapon of their deity, even if martial or exotic. Temples train their priests in the use of their deity's favored weapon.

2.All spells with the (Healing) descriptor, including Heal, all Cure spells, Raise Dead, etc, are now back in the Necromancy School, as they were in earlier editions.

3.Sacred and profane bonuses don't stack.

4.You can only emulate spells you know or have in your spellbook with shadow evocation and shadow conjuration.

5.A character can not believe in her own illusions, even if he wants to.

[Larkas]

Oh, forgot about this one! I use this spell progression table for Sorcerers.

http://imageshack.us/a/img703/6774/xr0i.png

Makes them more intuitive to learn, and better able to multiclass! Of course, I don't usually allow this and Loredrake shenanigans at the same time.

[nedz]

A couple:

1.Clerics are always proficient in the favored weapon of their deity, even if martial or exotic. Temples train their priests in the use of their deity's favored weapon.

2.All spells with the (Healing) descriptor, including Heal, all Cure spells, Raise Dead, etc, are now back in the Necromancy School, as they were in earlier editions.

3.Sacred and profane bonuses don't stack.

4.You can only emulate spells you know or have in your spellbook with shadow evocation and shadow conjuration.

5.A character can not believe in her own illusions, even if he wants to.

4. Strongly favours Wizards over Sorcerers.
Also: What happens if a Beguiler takes either spell via Advanced Learning? They know very few Conjurations or Evocations.

So, the lower your tier: the more you are restricted.

I think this rule belongs in the other thread.

[Grod_The_Giant]

<things>
I agree with everything here, especially the "don't think to hard about player capabilities when designing encounters" bit. (Within reason, of course.) I'll also add one more reason to the list: trust. If you distrust your players to the point that you feel the need to double-check every spell and feat on their character sheet, that's not a healthy game environment, and you're going to run into a whole host of other issues. When I play with my friends, I trust that they've made their characters properly, and that they're not going to try to break the game.


Anyway, back on topic, the last game I played had a shared xp pool-- anytime someone gained experience, everyone else got the same amount. While I don't know how it would have worked with crafting (never came up at the time), most of the players really liked it. Even if, say, the sorcerer did a bunch of talking and earned roleplay experience, everyone benefited, which they thought helped defuse any resentment over spotlight-hogging or being unable to contribute.

[magwaaf]

well first we switched to pathfinder which has been absolutely amazing. we do use 3.5 stuff but try to make it fit somehow.

we have alot but i really love my dm's

"Feats that give +1's are not worth taking."

all feats that give +1 give +2's and its fantastic

backstory feat

a prayer check system that's pretty sweet.

the system works as such:
say what you want to happen and pick what god you are praying to
roll a d20, add your charisma mod
if over 20 get desired effect in some dm fluffed way
if you nat 20, get a miracle effect that is something awesome and the dm fluffs it however

my last one was when fighting manticore mounted zhent wizard adventurer killers. i used an item that allows me to spend a prayer point to activate and hit me up with form of the dragon 3 and i turn into a gargantuan old silver with form of the dragon 3 stat boosts.

instead because i nat 20'd on my prayer to bahamut to keep my item from being dispelled instead turned me into an old garg silver dragon and i got to add my dragon shaman (new version) stats and bonuses to everything i did.

blew away half a zhent army in 1 turn.

[kaminiwa]

If you distrust your players to the point that you feel the need to double-check every spell and feat on their character sheet, that's not a healthy game environment.

I just want to chime in and say I audit everyone's character sheets occasionally simply because I've had a lot of players who were legitimately bad at math, or just forgot a step when leveling up.

So, don't assume a GM audit is a sign of distrust! :smallbiggrin:

[magwaaf]

we do audits every few months to keep track of all of our stuff. we write it all down and where it came from if we can remember then the group helps and we combine our stuff and see if it all adds up. it lends to great moments of 3 people using the same item lol.

[TuggyNE]

I just want to chime in and say I audit everyone's character sheets occasionally simply because I've had a lot of players who were legitimately bad at math, or just forgot a step when leveling up.

So, don't assume a GM audit is a sign of distrust! :smallbiggrin:

More generally, I personally feel that any attitude similar to "checking up on someone shows distrust and is hurtful and wrong" is unwise; people make mistakes, deliberately or otherwise, and being unwilling to let people cross-check your work shows a fear of being wrong that is unnecessary and counterproductive. This applies to all kinds of things.

[Curmudgeon]

5.A character can not believe in her own illusions, even if he wants to.
It doesn't matter if they believe or not:
A character faced with proof that an illusion isn’t real needs no saving throw.

[jedipotter]

It doesn't matter if they believe or not:

The rule is to stop the illusion cheats. When a character makes an illusion and wants to ''fail the save and believe it is real'' to cheat.




4. Strongly favours Wizards over Sorcerers.
Also: What happens if a Beguiler takes either spell via Advanced Learning? They know very few Conjurations or Evocations.

So, the lower your tier: the more you are restricted.

I think this rule belongs in the other thread.

True the rule favors wizards over sorcerers, but only by the already set limits on each class. A wizard can have hundreds of spells in books and a sorcerer can only know a handful. That is the basics of both classes.

Still, the rule is just there to prevent abuse. So a player can't just look through a book and find a spell for anything. It's even worse when players try to go for special spells.

[Kerilstrasz]

2 simple houserules..
No Mutliclass Xp penalty
Your class skills follow you for ever

[Maginomicon]

It doesn't matter if they believe or not:I beg to differ. Consider the following scenario:http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20130703.png
Willfully believing your own delusions has been a staple of society for millennia. I'm not saying it's right, but it's certainly been used.

[The Random NPC]

Your class skills follow you for ever

Isn't this already a rule?

[Gigas Breaker]

It probably means that everybody has Able Learner.

[jedipotter]

I beg to differ. Willfully believing your own delusions has been a staple of society for millennia. I'm not saying it's right, but it's certainly been used.

My house rule blocks abuse like : using Shadow Conjuration to duplicate Phantom Steed or using Shades to make a Magnificent Mansion.

[nedz]

My house rule blocks abuse like : using Shadow Conjuration to duplicate Phantom Steed or using Shades to make a Magnificent Mansion.

So basically you have removed the Shadow line of spells.

[Larkas]

My house rule blocks abuse like : using Shadow Conjuration to duplicate Phantom Steed or using Shades to make a Magnificent Mansion.

Wait, you're confusing apples and oranges here. Shadow Conjuration and Shades are specifically partially real.

[nedz]

My house rule blocks abuse like : using Shadow Conjuration to duplicate Phantom Steed or using Shades to make a Magnificent Mansion.

Actually, thinking about this a bit more (from a player's perspective); what this house rule actually says to the players is: If you want to play an Illusionist: Don't play a Sorcerer, play a Wizard. So the unintended consequence of this houserule is to bump your PC's up a tier, and to tier 1 at that.

[bekeleven]

So basically you have removed the Shadow line of spells.

Yes. All shadow spells are useless, unless some splatbook contains a conjuration or evocation with any effect on a person other than the caster, for some stupid reason.

[Mezmote]

I was thinking of implementing this as a houserule for my next campaign in 3.5. The general purpose is to increase costumization across the board, without giving too much to anyone.


Every core class (except clerics, druids, sorcerers and wizards) gain a +2 increase to their skills per level.
Spot and Listen are always class skills for anyone.
Cross-class skills only cost 1 skill point per rank, but their max rank is still half that of a class skill. (I know that clever multiclassing can give you a lot of class skills, but that doesn't matter too much in my opinion).
Feats are divided into two categories: Major Feats, and Minor Feats. A list of Minor Feats will be provided below (and you are certainly very welcome to comment on that, for changes and additions :smallsmile:). Everything else is a Major Feat.
At each odd level, starting from level 1, a character gains a Major Feat.
At each even level, starting at level 2, a character gains a Minor Feat.
A feat can be taken at any time, even if you do not meet the prerequisites. But for it to have any effect at all, you need to meet the prerequisites without the use of class features, spells or items. Thus, a barbarian with 12 strength, can take Power Attack, but can't use it, even if he rages. He just have to wait for level 4 to pump his strength. (Inno, inno, that's a sucky barbarian, but the example illustrates the way it works :smalltongue:)


List of Minor Feats:
Acrobatic
Agile
Alertness
Animal Affinity
Athletic
Deceitful
Deft Hands
Diligent
Dodge
Endurance
Diehard
Great Fortitude
Investigator
Iron Will
Lightning Reflexes
Magical Aptitude
Negotiator
Nimble Fingers
Persuasive
Run
Self-Sufficient
Skill Focus
Stealthy

In addition, a character can choose to take a skill trick in place of a Minor Feat. This skill trick counts against the maximum number of skill tricks a character can have. You can still obtain a skill trick by paying 2 skill points.

[Than]

My players seemed to really enjoy:

"Any Hit Dice roll at level up below half gets ignored and re-rolled."

So a D10 would be a 6-10. Since we were in Pathfinder we didn't have anyone under a d6 (4-6).

[Firechanter]

This one made playing a Ranger really fun in a previous campaign, am thinking of adopting it in my upcoming game:

Favoured Enemies Creature Types have been consolidated:

- Goblinoids include Orcs
- Magical Beasts include Monstrous Humanoids and Shapechangers
- Outsiders are a single category, and also include Elementals

Ranger FE bonuses rose simultaneously for all FEs, so by level 20 you'd have 5 FEs with +5 each. Also, FE damage applies to creatures immune to critical hits.

Note that this classification made a lot of sense in the setting we played; for a standard D&D setting I'd arrange it somewhat differently.

[bekeleven]

This one made playing a Ranger really fun in a previous campaign, am thinking of adopting it in my upcoming game:

Favoured Enemies Creature Types have been consolidated:

- Goblinoids include Orcs
- Magical Beasts include Monstrous Humanoids and Shapechangers
- Outsiders are a single category, and also include Elementals

Ranger FE bonuses rose simultaneously for all FEs, so by level 20 you'd have 5 FEs with +5 each. Also, FE damage applies to creatures immune to critical hits.

Note that this classification made a lot of sense in the setting we played; for a standard D&D setting I'd arrange it somewhat differently.
Ugh, yes, favored enemy types are entirely out of whack. Did you know that in MM 1-3 and the Fiend Folio, there are a total of 23 Fey under 20HD? That includes both Redcaps. The next lowest is 27 giants, so unless your games take place place in the faerie lands or something you shouldn't take either. I can tell you for certain the encounter tables won't support it.

For those wondering, the largest category is outsider (169) followed by Animal in a distant second (116) and magical beast (100).

I've got an excel sheet I'm using to track all of the monsters for my shifter class. I'm likely indexing more books in the future.

[ahenobarbi]

Yes. All shadow spells are useless, unless some splatbook contains a conjuration or evocation with any effect on a person other than the caster, for some stupid reason.

I think the rule "removing" them was



4.You can only emulate spells you know or have in your spellbook with shadow evocation and shadow conjuration.

Actually it's much, much worse than that. It removes them from everyone except wizards (seriously why would you cast a higher-level, quasi-real version of spell you can simply cast, because you are a spontaneous spellcaster???) and very slightly nerfs it for wizards (chances are you want the spells you'd emulate in your spell book anyway).

So IMHO kina horrible.

Can't believe-your-own-illusions OTOH is kinda good.

[oball]

My old DM had a concept she called "tuna damage". Basically, any time a player started blatantly metagaming, a large tuna would materialise in the air above their character's head and smack them for 1d4 non-lethal damage. For subsequent offences, it would go to 1d6, 1d8 and so forth. The rationale was that what the character was saying/doing didn't make sense in-game, so they would suffer damage from a nonsensical source. It got especially fun when she bought a set of oversized dice made from squeezy foam, and used those to deal tuna damage by flinging them at the head of the offending player.

Not really a houserule that changes the mechanics of the game much, but I always thought it was funny. Even when I was getting smacked in the face with a foam d8.

[ahenobarbi]

My old DM had a concept she called "tuna damage". Basically, any time a player started blatantly metagaming, a large tuna would materialise in the air above their character's head and smack them for 1d4 non-lethal damage. For subsequent offences, it would go to 1d6, 1d8 and so forth. The rationale was that what the character was saying/doing didn't make sense in-game, so they would suffer damage from a nonsensical source. It got especially fun when she bought a set of oversized dice made from squeezy foam, and used those to deal tuna damage by flinging them at the head of the offending player.

Not really a houserule that changes the mechanics of the game much, but I always thought it was funny. Even when I was getting smacked in the face with a foam d8.

Now, that's really abusable. Say your character is starving, so start metagaming which causes tunas falling from the sky, which it can eat :smallwink:

Pretty cool rule. In one of my games we had something similar. When you started abusing system/OOC knowledge a brick would fall. First would fall a meter away from you or so. Second would (harmlessly) fall right next to you. Third would fall on you, instantly slaying the character. No one ever got to the second brick :smallsmile:

[Amphetryon]

I was thinking of implementing this as a houserule for my next campaign in 3.5. The general purpose is to increase costumization across the board, without giving too much to anyone.


Every core class (except clerics, druids, sorcerers and wizards) gain a +2 increase to their skills per level.
Spot and Listen are always class skills for anyone.
Cross-class skills only cost 1 skill point per rank, but their max rank is still half that of a class skill. (I know that clever multiclassing can give you a lot of class skills, but that doesn't matter too much in my opinion).
Feats are divided into two categories: Major Feats, and Minor Feats. A list of Minor Feats will be provided below (and you are certainly very welcome to comment on that, for changes and additions :smallsmile:). Everything else is a Major Feat.
At each odd level, starting from level 1, a character gains a Major Feat.
At each even level, starting at level 2, a character gains a Minor Feat.
A feat can be taken at any time, even if you do not meet the prerequisites. But for it to have any effect at all, you need to meet the prerequisites without the use of class features, spells or items. Thus, a barbarian with 12 strength, can take Power Attack, but can't use it, even if he rages. He just have to wait for level 4 to pump his strength. (Inno, inno, that's a sucky barbarian, but the example illustrates the way it works :smalltongue:)


List of Minor Feats:
Acrobatic
Agile
Alertness
Animal Affinity
Athletic
Deceitful
Deft Hands
Diligent
Dodge
Endurance
Diehard
Great Fortitude
Investigator
Iron Will
Lightning Reflexes
Magical Aptitude
Negotiator
Nimble Fingers
Persuasive
Run
Self-Sufficient
Skill Focus
Stealthy

In addition, a character can choose to take a skill trick in place of a Minor Feat. This skill trick counts against the maximum number of skill tricks a character can have. You can still obtain a skill trick by paying 2 skill points.

I wouldn't place Sorcerers on the same list with Wizards, Clerics, and Druids in (relatively) restricting their Skill Points, personally.They're less versatile than the other 3 Classes on the list, and don't have a Wizard's built-in advantage of using INT for a casting stat, or even a secondary or tertiary stat, in many cases.

I'm also not a fan of the "Barbarian cannot use Power Attack, even when Raging, if his base STR isn't high enough" rule - although I see the reasoning behind it - because it feels punitive to an already sub-par build decision.

[Perseus]

As blasphemous as this sounds, I actually use a lot of the 4e rules for 3.5. These are some of mine.

Grab instead of Grapple which in 3.5 grants the target a reflex save or fort save.

Standard/Move/Minor/Interrupt and how you can mix them up.

Moving diagonal doesn't make you waste extra squares of movement, I'm not sure who decided that for 3.0 but I'm pretty sure no matter which way I walk 20 feet I'm always 20 away from my starting point.

There are a ton of other rules in 4e that either simplify or help 3.5 as weird as that sounds.

Races from Pathfinder or custom made races made by the players and approved by the DM.

From 2e I have players roll a d8 as initiative, but only once per combat as with 3.5.

(From Next) As a DM I've started giving advantage out to players who really roleplay along with their roll play. This won't work for every group and they don't get it every time but... When the monk said "I run up the side of the wall and along the wall then kick the monster in the head" I gave him advantage on the balance check to run across the wall and them advantage on the first attack due to the monster being surprised. I've found it helps motivate players to do more movie like stunts which tend to get "oooh cool!" from other players.

But from 3.5, when you gain class skill points your Int mod is at a minimum of 1. This reduces mad but at the same time keeps it from being more of a dump stat for classes with int skills.


I was making a project where I take each phb and make a ruleset based on each edition but then I found Heroes Against Darkness and I'm seeing how well that person already mixed the editions (looking great so far).

[Ashtagon]

Moving diagonal doesn't make you waste extra squares of movement, I'm not sure who decided that for 3.0 but I'm pretty sure no matter which way I walk 20 feet I'm always 20 away from my starting point.

Actually, this is a case where 3.x has the maths right. If you travel north 20 feet then east 20 feet, you end up about 28.5 feet (rounded to 30 for game purposes) from your original location, since you're travelling along the hypotenuse of a right triangle.

[PaintByBlood]

Actually, this is a case where 3.x has the maths right. If you travel north 20 feet then east 20 feet, you end up about 28.5 feet (rounded to 30 for game purposes) from your original location, since you're travelling along the hypotenuse of a right triangle.
For operative definitions of the word "right". It's a really clumsy hack, but it is closer than 1 for each diagonal, yes, and of course far simpler than trying to get it exactly correct.

[bekeleven]

But from 3.5, when you gain class skill points your Int mod is at a minimum of 1. This reduces mad but at the same time keeps it from being more of a dump stat for classes with int skills.
I have no clue what you mean by "keeps it from being more of a dump stat for classes with int skills." What do you mean by "int skills"?

Because to me it sounds like this would just encourage int as a dump stat, not prevent it.

[Alex12]

Everyone gets Able Learner. If your first level is Factotum, you get all skills as class skills forever.
Skill Focus feat makes the skill a class skill if it wasn't already.
Favored Soul gets Knowledge(religion) because for some unfathomable reason, they normally don't.
Martial Lore, in addition to being "Spellcraft for initiators" also works as "Knowledge(combat and the military)"
Open Lock and Disable Device are folded into a single skill.
Ranged attacks add Dex to damage.

[137beth]

I have no clue what you mean by "keeps it from being more of a dump stat for classes with int skills." What do you mean by "int skills"?

Because to me it sounds like this would just encourage int as a dump stat, not prevent it.

I would assume that INT skills are skills which key off of your intelligence modifier.

[TuggyNE]

For those wondering, the largest category is outsider (169) followed by Animal in a distant second (116) and magical beast (100).

But how many of each Outsider subtype are there? Given there's eight subtypes specified under Bane, and Rangers have to pick one for each FE selection, I expect it ends up as somewhere around 15-30 per subtype, which is terrible indeed. (Although some subtypes overlap, of course, like Lawful and Evil.)

[bekeleven]

But how many of each Outsider subtype are there? Given there's eight subtypes specified under Bane, and Rangers have to pick one for each FE selection, I expect it ends up as somewhere around 15-30 per subtype, which is terrible indeed. (Although some subtypes overlap, of course, like Lawful and Evil.)

Good point. Since that had no bearing on my shapeshifting, I never took notes on it. But I would estimate that Outsider (Evil) has at least 50-60, putting it ahead of elemental, fey, giant, humanoid, monstrous humanoid, ooze, plant, vermin, and very possibly undead. Obviously, some types (such as humanoid) will likely appear in many more encounters than these numbers indicate. Also, there are 20 oozes, fewer than fey - I missed them my first glance.

[Alaris]

My DM (and consequently me when I started running) have a house rule for casters of any kind.

First, whenever they cast a spell, they have to roll a d20. If they roll a 1, automatic failure, and loss of Spell Slot. Adds a bit of balance, since all the fighter-types have to go through the same thing.

The counter to that is that the d20 roll also helps set the DC. D20+ Spell Level + Int Modifier (or Cha for Sor/Bar, etc). Which can result in a fantastic DC, a Mediocre DC, or a low DC.

It's worked so far in our games, so I consider it good. Though I imagine that part of the rule could be thrown in the "Stupid House Rules" thread without issue.

[Jon_Dahl]

I have one house rule that has been 100% success since Day 0.
Variant Sorcerer: Receive +2 to saves against spells/spell-like effects. This bonus increases to +4 on 13th level. You don't receive a familiar.

But to be honest, I have to say that even if the benefit would be the ability to pick your teech with a dagger as swift action, my players would still take it instead of having those annoying little vermins following them around...

[Raendyn]

I have one house rule that has been 100% success since Day 0.
Variant Sorcerer: Receive +2 to saves against spells/spell-like effects. This bonus increases to +4 on 13th level. You don't receive a familiar.

But to be honest, I have to say that even if the benefit would be the ability to pick your teech with a dagger as swift action, my players would still take it instead of having those annoying little vermins following them around...

Seems like nor your players neither you, know what those vermins are capable of...

[Krobar]

Seems like nor your players neither you, know what those vermins are capable of...

Speaking for myself, I know what familiars are capable of bringing to the table, and I still don't like them.

No spellcaster I've ever run over the last 30 years has ever had one.



I'm not the only player out there who feels this way about familiars.

[Soranar]

STR and CON are now a single stat, undead do not get a bonus to their hitpoints from a high STR/CON

when a creature type/template/spell/magic item gives a bonus to both stats, only apply the highest

This makes a lot of MAD classes very very happy and lets the mage carry his own gear. It also makes dumb encounters (high str anything) much tougher so it balances out

[KnightOfV]

Some that seem popular that I've used.

Don't worry about tracking non-magic arrows, etc. (and only give away +1 Bows as treasure instead of +1 arrows) Assume your character purchases the correct amount while in town, and/or scavenges used arrows and enemy arrows.

Every Player gets one 'reroll' per session. This can be used on any dice roll, attack, saving throws, crit confirm, and so on.

Anyone failing a saving throw for a death, instakill type effect is reduced to -8 hp and bleeding instead of dying. (If you have Diehard feat or similar, you automatically stabilize)

Two Weapon fighting is one feat, and automatically upgrades when you have the right BAB

Combat Expertise prerequisite is 13 INT or 13 WIS

[Firechanter]

Ugh, yes, favored enemy types are entirely out of whack. Did you know that in MM 1-3 and the Fiend Folio, there are a total of 23 Fey under 20HD? That includes both Redcaps. The next lowest is 27 giants, so unless your games take place place in the faerie lands or something you shouldn't take either. I can tell you for certain the encounter tables won't support it.

Well, the number of species in a category isn't really relevant in terms of FE benefit. Humanoid (Humans) is only a single species and still pretty much the single best choice in most games. In some games, I've found Giants to be an excellent choice because they were rather often encountered. On the other hand, there may be a lot of Animals, but you rarely have reason to fight them.

That's pretty much the only real question, in terms of game balance: how often do you actually have to fight these?

[Firechanter]

Question: do you think this would be an awesome house rule?

* All characters except 2/3 or primary casters can fuel any Devotion feats as if they had Turn Undead attempts like a Cleric. This does not stack with actual Turn Undead uses, nor can this ability be used to actually turn undead.
Characters who gain a class with 6 more spell levels progression immediately lose this ability.

My reasoning behind this prospective houserule is that I hate this "Everything you can do, I can do better" attitude of spellcasters. I also don't want to force Mundanes to dip CCl1 just to get as much out of a feat they paid for as a Cleric who probably even got it for free. Other full casters really don't need more sugar thrown at them.

[Amphetryon]

Question: do you think this would be an awesome house rule?

* All characters except 2/3 or primary casters can fuel any Devotion feats as if they had Turn Undead attempts like a Cleric. This does not stack with actual Turn Undead uses, nor can this ability be used to actually turn undead.
Characters who gain a class with 6 more spell levels progression immediately lose this ability.

My reasoning behind this prospective houserule is that I hate this "Everything you can do, I can do better" attitude of spellcasters. I also don't want to force Mundanes to dip CCl1 just to get as much out of a feat they paid for as a Cleric who probably even got it for free. Other full casters really don't need more sugar thrown at them.
Don't mind the Healer and the Warmage; they'll be over in the corner, sulking. :smallwink:

[ericgrau]

Public monster AC & SR on a white board so we can pre-roll attacks. It hurts way less than you'd think and saves a lot of battle time. Plus we have a general encouragement for everyone to select their action before their turn.

[Lactantius]

1.) Skills
- Any character gains +2 skill points per level.
- Cross-class-skills cost only 1 skill point. Their maximum rank is still halved.

2.) Stacking Rule
- inherent bonuses (such as from wish effects, tomes) add each other. So, a Fighter which already got a +1 inherent bonus would profit from the useage of another +1-bonus source (making it a sum of +2).
- numeric bonuses (AC, Saves, Ability enhancer, Weapon enchantments etc) coming from items can be upgraded on a step-by-step-base. So, a +1 short sword could be upgraded to a l2 shot sword. The price to do so will be calculated normally (difference between the market price of the +2-sword and the +1-sword). Ingame, a suitable crafter should be visited to do so (magic smithery, alchimist etc).

3.) Interaction, Trading
- diplomacy rules from Rich Burlew.
- diplomacy DC to sell items: DC 15: 55% market price, DC 25: 65%, DC 30: 70%, DC 35: 75%. aid another is possible as long as the supporting character succeeds against a DC 20.

4.) Hits, hit points, injuries, resurrection:
- no massive damage rule (50+ dmg = instant death).
- the death of a character does not include a XP-loss.
- A character who drops below -10 hp may do a fortitude save (DC = 10 + damage, which brought him under -10). A success stabilizes the character automatically.

5.) Feats
- Every character gains one additional regional talent (Forgotten Realms). This talent should reflect the background of the character and taken in accordance to his home region.
- Any feat may be retrained (retraining rules, PHBII).
- spell focus grants a +1 bonus on the Save DC. But greater spell focus grants a +2 bonus. Reason: A character who spezializes in one school with 2 feats should get an extra boost. Plus, spell focus gets a balance shift again back to the 3.0-rules.

6.) Spells
- Changed duration: some spells get a longer duration from 1 min/level to 10 min/level. Reason: such spells gain a bit more dynamic and flexibility to keep the game running smooth and steady. Secondly, 1 min/level is too poor to use it in a "dungeon mode" and too long for only one encounter. Spells with 1 min/level should be useable for a longer run. Third, 10 minutes/level is still short enough compared to 1 hour/level so that those spell still got a reasonable time limit. Next, broken stuff like persistan spell / DMM gets less attraction since you gain a good basic duration. Plus, less booking for spellcasters.
The following spells increase their duration from 1 minute to 10 minutes per level: any ability enhancing spell (bull's strength, cats grace etc), shield of faith, mass shield of faith, protection from [alignment], magic weapon, magic fang, invisibility, invisibility sphere, entropic shield, fly, levitate, true seeing, clairaudience/clairvoyance, arcane sight, greater arcane sight, arcane eye, align weapon, align fang, death ward and polymorph.

Certain spells gain more apllicances. ability enhancers are a good alternative for the usual item enhancers. magic weapon becomes a good buff for the party fighters at low levels. Some divinations gain a broader and more flexible field of application. stealth based spells get more attrative for gish characters. For example, invisibility comes with a minimum of 30 minutes (@ CL 3) from the start.

- school changes: Orbs of [Energy] transfer from conjuration to the evocation school. They are pure arcane energy and no summoned, quasi-elemental energy, so spell resistance applies (SR: Yes).
Reason: orbs with such a huge damage scale should be pure arcane energy instead of merely elemental damage. Secondly, it balances known problems between the conjuration and evocation school. A spellcaster which foregos evocation (by bannind the school) should have a real disadvantage by not being able to use energy based attack spells. In other words: to forgo evocation must come with a cost.

- other spell changes:
a) darkness works a written in 3.0. So the spell does not merely creates a shadow illumination. It creates a pitchblack area. This leads to a change in the status: no concealment, but effective blinded within the area.
b) polymorph works only at the caster himself (Range: Personal, Target: You). The caster must know the creature he want to make use of.
c) sword of deception: such as with any other summoned weapon spell, the attack bonus = caster level + relevant casting stat modifier.

7.) Item Crafting
- Xp and gold costs to craft a magic item must be paid by the character who commissions the certain item. So, the party wizard with the craft woundrous item feat can craft items for the party fighter. The fighter must pay Gold and XP, not the crafting wizard.
In the game world reflection, crafting works as economic tool. NPC crafters would not drain out of XP just because they do their profession.

- brew potion: you can craft as many potions per day as you wish as long as you don't exceed the sum of 1000 gold market price.

8.) class ability specific rules:
- Sorcerers gain eschew materials as bonus feat at level 1. diplomacy and knowledge (planes) are class skills. They have the same spell progression as wizards. They gain +1 spell per level on the spells known table.
- Wizards pay only 1/10 of the spell cost to add the spell to his spellbook (10 gp per page; 1 spell level = 1 page).
- Rogues can detect traps by passing by a certain trapped spot (such as elves can detect secret doors).

[Selein]

We mostly stick to modifying feats. In 3.5 there was a lot of power creep on feats as the game developed and I don't mind some feats being traps but some shouldn't be.

Quick Draw: A lot more latitude allowed with it and it's now a skill trick.
Toughness: Now grants 1 hp/lvl beginning at the level you take it.
Removed XP costs from pretty much everything except Wishes. But now things take longer that previously needed XP

[Equinox]

My death rule: if a character has more than 40 hit points, their death level is -(1/4 of their HP) rather than -10. For example, a 60 hp character will die at -15.

Gives a small buffer of life to those 10th level fighters who are supposed to be tough and be able to cheat death by sheer physical prowess.

(It may seem stolen from 4E, but in fact I had this long before 4E came out)

[Curmudgeon]

Quick Draw: A lot more latitude allowed with it and it's now a skill trick.
So it's limited to one use per encounter? :smallconfused:

[Talderas]

For operative definitions of the word "right". It's a really clumsy hack, but it is closer than 1 for each diagonal, yes, and of course far simpler than trying to get it exactly correct.

It's why I argue for a hex grid for D&D where ever possible.

[Segev]

It's why I argue for a hex grid for D&D where ever possible.

That does have its own shortcomings.

[Talderas]

That does have its own shortcomings.

All of these are ones I can think of.

Pros:
Spheres are easier to shape.
Cones are easier to shape.
Reach is easier to handle.
Movement is easier to handle.

Cons:
Slightly more difficult to model rooms after.
3D space may be slightly more difficult to handle. You can set the center of a hex directly over the interection of hexes on the Z-Layer below it and everything aligns well. Managing and tracking flying creatures may be a PITA but every time I've played with fliers it's always been handwaivium.

[Segev]

The biggest difficulty is with charging. While a touch messy, diagonals with squares mean that the corners lead to adjacent squares. Hexes lead to more wiggling and to actually odd paths that make it questionable whether there's a straight line there or not.

Walls, not just in a dungeon, are also a bit messy. You basically have to have them occupy hexes rather than the borders.

Though to be honest, no small part of it is just that we as a culture tend to be more used to thinking in square grids than hex grids.

[Fax Celestis]

The biggest difficulty is with charging. While a touch messy, diagonals with squares mean that the corners lead to adjacent squares. Hexes lead to more wiggling and to actually odd paths that make it questionable whether there's a straight line there or not.

Walls, not just in a dungeon, are also a bit messy. You basically have to have them occupy hexes rather than the borders.

Though to be honest, no small part of it is just that we as a culture tend to be more used to thinking in square grids than hex grids.

Draw line from center of starting point to center of desired ending point. Count number of hexes line goes through. Multiply by 5. That is the required speed.

[mattie_p]

The biggest difficulty is with charging. While a touch messy, diagonals with squares mean that the corners lead to adjacent squares. Hexes lead to more wiggling and to actually odd paths that make it questionable whether there's a straight line there or not.

Walls, not just in a dungeon, are also a bit messy. You basically have to have them occupy hexes rather than the borders.

Though to be honest, no small part of it is just that we as a culture tend to be more used to thinking in square grids than hex grids.

I usually use hexes outside and square grids inside in games I run. In the gaming group where I play, the DM has done away with grids altogether, we use a ruler or tape measure to move on the map.

[Talderas]

The biggest difficulty is with charging. While a touch messy, diagonals with squares mean that the corners lead to adjacent squares. Hexes lead to more wiggling and to actually odd paths that make it questionable whether there's a straight line there or not.

Walls, not just in a dungeon, are also a bit messy. You basically have to have them occupy hexes rather than the borders.

Though to be honest, no small part of it is just that we as a culture tend to be more used to thinking in square grids than hex grids.

Anything involving distance on the same Z-Level is easier with hexes. Charging isn't difficult. Since hex grids model distances much better you know your max charging distance (go X feet out in the basic 6 directions then connect the end points with straight lines). From your point of origin to any hex within that range is a valid hex to charge to. At this point you draw a line between your origin and destination. If that line passes through an occupied square then the charge would be spoiled. That's no different from standard charge rules. Really, a charge on any axis except the basic 8 for a square grid runs into the same "issue" as hex.


You must have a clear path toward the opponent, and nothing can hinder your movement (such as difficult terrain or obstacles). Here’s what it means to have a clear path. First, you must move to the closest space from which you can attack the opponent. (If this space is occupied or otherwise blocked, you can’t charge.) Second, if any line from your starting space to the ending space passes through a square that blocks movement, slows movement, or contains a creature (even an ally), you can’t charge. (Helpless creatures don’t stop a charge.)

[Equinox]

In the gaming group where I play, the DM has done away with grids altogether, we use a ruler or tape measure to move on the map.That's .... very Warhammerish of him, isn't it? Not that there's anything wrong with that... I'm actually tempted to try it.

[Fax Celestis]

That's .... very Warhammerish of him, isn't it? Not that there's anything wrong with that... I'm actually tempted to try it.

That's how 2e worked, AFAIR, which is why everything's speeds were measured in inches.

[Equinox]

That's how 2e worked, AFAIR, which is why everything's speeds were measured in inches.

Well, as long as that's the only thing you're taking from 2E, I'm fine with it :smallbiggrin:

[Talderas]

That's .... very Warhammerish of him, isn't it? Not that there's anything wrong with that... I'm actually tempted to try it.

I like it because it has the highest accuracy. My issue with it is that it takes much longer to resolve things. Warhammer, at least 40k, solves it by having templates for various area effects that tend to be relatively standard without variation. D&D has a lot more variance with area effects making it a much bigger headache.

I like hex grids because they do accuracy a lot better than square grids but they're a LOT easier to use than the warhammer style.

[Equinox]

I like it because it has the highest accuracy. My issue with it is that it takes much longer to resolve things. Warhammer, at least 40k, solves it by having templates for various area effects that tend to be relatively standard without variation. D&D has a lot more variance with area effects making it a much bigger headache.Of the top of my head, you can solve this by having the party spellcasters prepare cardboard cutouts to match their spells' areas of effect.

If you have Color Spray in your spellbook, just make a 15-foot (ie. three inches) cardboard cone before the game. Glitterdust? A 10' radius circle (ie. 2 inch radius). And so on.

It's a lot of work, so I'll be the first to admit this idea isn't for every playgroup, but if your players are into this sort of stuff, could be made to work.

[Malimar]

I'd have switched to hexes ages ago, except that I use Excel to store all my maps.


Of the top of my head, you can solve this by having the party spellcasters prepare cardboard cutouts to match their spells' areas of effect.

If you have Color Spray in your spellbook, just make a 15-foot (ie. three inches) cardboard cone before the game. Glitterdust? A 10' radius circle (ie. 2 inch radius). And so on.

It's a lot of work, so I'll be the first to admit this idea isn't for every playgroup, but if your players are into this sort of stuff, could be made to work.

I have two such templates, made out of stiff wire: a 30' cone and a 20'-radius circle. For effects in these shapes, I houserule "don't bother trying to figure out the actual correct shape on the board. If you can fit it in the template, it's affected". It makes these effects very slightly more powerful (by making the shaping slightly more versatile), but speeds up play enormously. Especially with parties that love darkness, obscuring mist, and fireball as much as the parties I play with do.

[TuggyNE]

I'd have switched to hexes ages ago, except that I use Excel to store all my maps.

And now I wonder if someone has made an addon or clone that would do the job. Hexcel, perhaps? :smallwink:

Oh (http://brianaltonenmph.com/6-gis-ecology-and-natural-history/hexagonal-grid-analysis/hexagonal-cells-excel-spreadsheet/) my, the (http://www.knowexcel.com/view/1453523-hexcel-creating-hex-tile-game-maps.html) web (http://secretgeek.net/hexcel.asp) provides (http://www.ozgrid.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52953).

[pwykersotz]

Similar to one mentioned earlier with re-rolling if your Hit Dice roll is under 1/2, I have had wild success with auto-granting 1/2 the value of your hit die and rolling the other half.

Wizards get 2 + 1d2
Fighters get 5 + 1d5
etc...

It keeps some randomness to the hit point process, but you never have a Barbarian with fewer hit points than a Sorcerer (without con stacking, anyway).

[Maginomicon]

Of the top of my head, you can solve this by having the party spellcasters prepare cardboard cutouts to match their spells' areas of effect.
I found this (http://www.superdan.net/gaming/dnd3/spellar/spellar2.html) and never looked back (https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1GMJyN1l2WPF_E-CeUcW2M1M83AbOvfDtSb8NqtdqB60/pub?w=408&h=1199).

(However, I do house-rule that you can center the given 5-foot Circular AoE that would normally be centered on you as instead centered on an adjacent square, as otherwise you can only affect your own square.)

[Yondu]

A DM i've played decided to help Fighters in his games, any player with enough fighter level to have iteratives attacks (so at least 6 levels) could make them in a standard action (it was only permitted for Fighters not another classes).
He also strongly limited the spellcasters (Cleric, Druids, Magician mainly) by imposing a GP cost for each spell level ( a complicated formula it was around CL multiplied by Spell level multiplied by 50 GP, I think) with exception for protection and healing spells which were standard, this was pretty funny because they became even more greedy (we were making a slot machine sound each time the wizard launched a haste spell).... We had easy access to magical Items but they were pre-made, no as-you -wish items... It was pretty fun to play like this

[Firechanter]

Oh, why haven't I mentioned this before? Here's a houserule that I've begun instituting in my games, and which most of my players love:

WBL is treated as a meta resource.
I developed the rule in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=260047), but the long and short of it is the following:
Gear and monetary wealth are decoupled. Magical gear / special materials cannot be bought for gold, or at least not for gold alone. Your WBL still applies, but it's abstract resource points now - Gear Points, not Gold Pieces.
Money has nothing to do with it. You can be poor or you can be rich, but you will always have the gear that the game needs to function, regardless. Either you find it, or you improve your existing gear, or it simply gets better by itself as you level.

This opens up a wide range of possibilities. You can play a campaign about altruistic heroes that turn down all the rewards, and have more realistic Orcs that don't all lug pounds of gold around. And you can have dragon hoards that are worth the millions of gold pieces that they should be, if we're talking about a "bed of coins" that an adult dragon can sleep on. All without breaking the mechanical balance in the slightest.

[Amphetryon]

Oh, why haven't I mentioned this before? Here's a houserule that I've begun instituting in my games, and which most of my players love:

WBL is treated as a meta resource.
I developed the rule in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=260047), but the long and short of it is the following:
Gear and monetary wealth are decoupled. Magical gear / special materials cannot be bought for gold, or at least not for gold alone. Your WBL still applies, but it's abstract resource points now - Gear Points, not Gold Pieces.
Money has nothing to do with it. You can be poor or you can be rich, but you will always have the gear that the game needs to function, regardless. Either you find it, or you improve your existing gear, or it simply gets better by itself as you level.

This opens up a wide range of possibilities. You can play a campaign about altruistic heroes that turn down all the rewards, and have more realistic Orcs that don't all lug pounds of gold around. And you can have dragon hoards that are worth the millions of gold pieces that they should be, if we're talking about a "bed of coins" that an adult dragon can sleep on. All without breaking the mechanical balance in the slightest.
Sounds similar to how Legend approached wealth.

[Qwertystop]

Heard about, haven't used, but it's too awesome not to talk about: When the players order Chinese food, once during the game they can crack open a fortune cookie instead of making a d20 roll, and let the fortune indicate the results of the action.

I want to hear some examples of this now...

[Segev]

Yeah, the fortune cookie one makes me wonder what happens if you get one along the lines of "You should explore your feminine side" (which a friend of mine got two weeks in a row on the only two trips to a chinese restaurant we visited) or "An opportunity for travel will come soon."

[Fax Celestis]

"An opportunity for travel will come soon."

"What does th--" *is bull rushed*

[MesiDoomstalker]

My group plays with one houserule I love. Two-Weapon Fighting, and all its derivatives and add-on feats, are one single feat. You get the same number of Off-Hand as you have main hand, you can make a Main and Off-Hand attack as a Standard action (and on a Charge). This includes things like Two-Weapon Rend, and Two-Weapon Shield. The penalties were also reduced. If you used a One-Handed weapon and Light weapon in the Main and Off-Hand respectively, its -1. Two Light, there is no penalty. 2 One-Handed was only way to get -2 (though people without the Feat took the RAW penalties).

We also rule that Invisibility, even if it breaks mid-Full Attack, still gives your target the Flat-Footed condition. We thought that if you suddenly got stabbed from nothing (and a Halfling appeared behind you), you wouldn't be able to react in time for a proper defense for his successive blows.

That was a fun game to throw around 13d6 Sneak Attacks at level 20.

[Thunderfist12]

My favorite house rule: whenever the DM opens a beer, he places the cap on the board and it becomes a 1 HP monster with stats otherwise like the most powerful creature in combat (usually my brother's character), and the person who kills it gains XP as though he killed that creature with absolutely no help.

Level up, level up.:smallamused:

[Kansaschaser]

We don't use XP. We level up when we all agree that we've earned it.

It has actually worked out well so far.:smallsmile:

Er, how do you handle magic item creation and spells that require XP for a component then?

[Firechanter]

Taking a wild shot, I would assume they don't create their own items and waive XP and gold component costs of spells. ;)

[Kansaschaser]

Taking a wild shot, I would assume they don't create their own items and waive XP and gold component costs of spells. ;)

If they are playing in Pathfinder it wouldn't be much of a problem. There is no XP cost to craft magic items in Pathfinder. If they are in 3.5 or 3.0, then they would have to waive the fee..

OR

...maybe they don't let the Wizard/Sorcerer/Cleric (who ever is creating the magic item) level at the same time as everyone else.

[Sarison]

Skill Focus is +5, not+3. "Twofers" are +3+3 not +2+2. But no one has taken them yet....

Meta magic gets a one level discount on the total spell level increase. Originally came from E6, where maximize spell is almost useless, but I play core only, so it's not that rough. Still no one has taken meta magic feats though...

Some one mentioned their fighter rocking the game, our fighter kicked butt and took names, the rogue kinda sulked around, not doing much, and the cleric was not much better. Everytime I think "I need a 20 to hit him" I can't help but think that maybe the wizard is not all that and a box of... Whatever the box was supposed to be full of...

[Hytheter]

Skill Focus is +5, not+3. "Twofers" are +3+3 not +2+2. But no one has taken them yet....

I haven't put it in play, but I had an idea for Skill Focus and the +2/+2 skill boosters to optionally grant those skills as class skills instead of giving a bonus (or maybe both in the case of Skill Focus).

[bekeleven]

I haven't put it in play, but I had an idea for Skill Focus and the +2/+2 skill boosters to optionally grant those skills as class skills instead of giving a bonus (or maybe both in the case of Skill Focus).

Try both for both feat types, and they're still not very good.

[Dusk Eclipse]

It would make entering some prestige classes (mostly "mundane" ones) easier.

[Ravens_cry]

I've considered upping all 2+Int Skills classes, except for intelligence based casters, to at least 4+.
Another houserule I had the idea for is the 'flavour point', a single extra skill point a level that must be used to help round out your character and help make them more than Fighter McFighter the III.
Note that this is in Pathfinder, so none of those half rank headaches.

[Dimers]

I've considered upping all 2+Int Skills classes, except for intelligence based casters, to at least 4+.
Another houserule I had the idea for is the 'flavour point', a single extra skill point a level that must be used to help round out your character and help make them more than Fighter McFighter the III.
Note that this is in Pathfinder, so none of those half rank headaches.

You might be interested in "backgrounds" as presented by Green Ronin. That company publishes some bad material, no question, but their "backgrounds" are a really useful idea.

A background is a set of traits -- four skills, one minor feat and one other ability, all of which tie together thematically based on character history. Someone who grew up as a mage's apprentice might have Spellcraft, Arcana, Alchemy and Concentration for their skills and a choice of feat from the ones in Complete Arcane that let you replicate low-level spells as Su abilities once per day. Then for a special ability, the apprentice might start with a partially-charged wand, or be able to quicken a cantrip once a day, or get Diplomacy bonuses when talking to mages or something. A character with a thief background might have Move Silently, Hide, Sleight of Hand and Open Locks for skills, the Stealthy feat and a bonus to sneak attack damage during surprise rounds.

You get the chosen skills as Always Class Skills, but you have to spend one rank on one or more of them per level (4 at first level).

The rest of the Green Ronin rules assume you're playing a human -- I found them published in a humans-only gamebook for The Black Company. IIRC, the background feat has to be your choice for your human extra feat, or else you don't get the special ability. But I prefer to give a background as a freebie to each character. It's flavorful without being unbalancing. (As long as you balance the special abilities better than Green Ronin did. :smallamused:)

[Hytheter]

Try both for both feat types, and they're still not very good.

Well no not exactly, but they could be helpful for specific builds, or for thematic reasons.
Not every character has to be combat optimised. :P
It's just that often I find myself thinking "man, I wish this was a class skill for this class..."


I've considered upping all 2+Int Skills classes, except for intelligence based casters, to at least 4+.

That's another one I want to use.

Come to think of it, a lot of my ideas revolve around skills. I think I just like the idea of skills being more useful.

[Ravens_cry]

*lots o' good ideas*

Thank you, I'll have to take a look at that.:smallsmile:



That's another one I want to use.

Come to think of it, a lot of my ideas revolve around skills. I think I just like the idea of skills being more useful.
Yeah. I like skills. Even just a few ranks in a profession skill can help delineate and expand your character beyond the optimized template.

[oball]

Another houserule I had the idea for is the 'flavour point', a single extra skill point a level that must be used to help round out your character and help make them more than Fighter McFighter the III.

My current campaign is a mostly wilderness-based, post-apocalyptic kind of deal, so the DM gave us each 8 free skill points to spend in one Craft skill and one Profession skill (4 points to each) of our choice. So while we can't simply buy healing potions off the shelf (and cleric is a banned class due to the lack of organised temples, so no easy healing), our ranger used his Profession (Herbalist) skill to identify and collect some useful herbs and lichens that we found in our wanderings, and when we got back to our village my bard was able to use his Craft (Alchemy) skill to make us a stash of healing potions. Others in the group have Weaponsmithing, Mining, Bowmaking and other useful abilities to help us survive.

[rexreg]

If you threaten & confirm a crit against creatures that can't normally be critted, you do max damage.
The confirmed crit still reflects a very solid shot.

[bekeleven]

If you threaten & confirm a crit against creatures that can't normally be critted, you do max damage.
The confirmed crit still reflects a very solid shot.

Which in turn leads to the odd issue where low-strength creatures deal more "critting" constructs and undead. But I suppose that's a fairly uncommon edge case.

[Mjollnir075]

I have been reading up on some houserules from other sites and the wiki, and I came out with some of them that didn't sound too bad. Any critiques would be welcome.

Also, my group plays primarily Pathfinder, so these are geared towards that.

Scaling Feats: All feats that have better versions go up based on BAB or skill ranks, possibly fusing some of the weaker feats related to them. Some skill related feats could grant a PF equivalent of Skill Tricks from 3.5

Example - TWF. Gain Imp. Twf at bab+6, Greater twf at bab+11, Master (would be homebrewed) at bab+16


Scaling Armor Bonuses: Armor would work similarly to the above, where wearing certain armor and having specific amounts of BAB or skill ranks would give you bonuses

Example - Full Plate, Bab+1 lets you wear it, Bab+6 gives you DR 5/, Bab+11 gets you Light Fortification, Bab+16 DR/10

Shields Shall be Splintered: (I would link to the site I found this on, but I dont know the rules for linking to other sites) You can use a shield to negate damage from a melee attack. Regular shields would take a single hit, Masterwork could take another hit, and +1 - +10 would negate that many hits. Magic shields would be able to negate magic damage, but would count as 2 hits instead of 1. Magic Shields would regenerate hits at +1 a day (or more, haven't decided)


Granting Small-Fry Feats for In-Game Actions - All those "+2 to x and y" style feats and other small time bonuses could be awards for cool things the players did in game.

Example - Say the Rogue in the party was able to navigate a good chunk of a prison without getting caught to release the other players. Grant him the Stealthy feat.


Weapons With Free Feats: Simple. Light, one handed weapons get Finesse for free, heavier one handed weapons get Power Attack for free, two handed weapons get Cleave for free. These wouldn't be feats, per se, but you could simply use those maneuvers without having to take a feat.


Encumbrance: Their are Significant and Insignificant Items. Significant items are the bigger ones such as weapons, armor, specific loot, rations and ammunition. Insignificant items cover pretty much everything else. Your max encumbrance would be something like.. Str mod + Con mod. Basic weapons and armor would be +1 Encumbrance a piece, while bigger weapons (two handed) and heavy armor (full plate) would be +2 encumbrance. 1 week of rations is +1, ammunition (arrows) would be +1 per 20 units. When you go above this rating, your speed drops 10 feet, and strenuous activity (combat, str skills) cause you to be fatigued afterwords.

Example - Blarg the Barbarian, who has a Str Mod of +4 and a Con Mod of +4 would have a max Ecumbrance of +8, where as Dorf the Wizard with his measly Str Mod of +0 and Con Mod +2 would have a max Encumbrance of +2.


Nat 20s and Nat 1s: Nat 20s in combat are an automatic critical, no confirmation needed. Crits from having bigger crit ranges still need to be confirmed. Nat 1s are always a fail, and I was looking to find a good crit fumble chart for this. Nat 20s for skill checks aren't auto succeeds, but instead count as rolling 25. Nat 1s, however, count as rolling -5 (so it's still possible to succeed, but only if you are damn good)

Flavor Skills: Grant the players free 2 skill points per level, but only for Performance, Profession and Craft. Mostly for flavor, though trying to make them applicable to in-game is recommended.

Example - Dingus the Ranger could try and use his Profession (herbalist) to try and find certain herbs in a forest to cure a player who contracted a disease on a dungeon-run (This would come up more for players who were lacking someone with a certain required skill, ala Survival, and not punishing them too hard for it

So these are just a few that I had found/come up with. Any tips on how to best implement these without gumming up the works too bad?

[falloutimperial]

Encumbrance: Their are Significant and Insignificant Items. Significant items are the bigger ones such as weapons, armor, specific loot, rations and ammunition. Insignificant items cover pretty much everything else. Your max encumbrance would be something like.. Str mod + Con mod. Basic weapons and armor would be +1 Encumbrance a piece, while bigger weapons (two handed) and heavy armor (full plate) would be +2 encumbrance. 1 week of rations is +1, ammunition (arrows) would be +1 per 20 units. When you go above this rating, your speed drops 10 feet, and strenuous activity (combat, str skills) cause you to be fatigued afterwords.

Example - Blarg the Barbarian, who has a Str Mod of +4 and a Con Mod of +4 would have a max Encumbrance of +8, where as Dorf the Wizard with his measly Str Mod of +0 and Con Mod +2 would have a max Encumbrance of +2.

I am not especially familiar with pathfinder, but isn't the "average" person supposed to have a strength and constitution score of 10 or 11? If you were wearing only a quiver of twenty arrows over your clothes, would you be fatigued? Any anyway, that seems restrictive to many types of characters. A knife-thrower with more than a handful of knives would need to be incredibly strong, and a rogue would have to increase strength just to wear leather and carry bows and arrows.

You might be using a forgiving stat-generation method, but that still might be harmful.

[bekeleven]

Shields Shall be Splintered: (I would link to the site I found this on, but I dont know the rules for linking to other sites) You can use a shield to negate damage from a melee attack. Regular shields would take a single hit, Masterwork could take another hit, and +1 - +10 would negate that many hits. Magic shields would be able to negate magic damage, but would count as 2 hits instead of 1. Magic Shields would regenerate hits at +1 a day (or more, haven't decided)

I've seen this before as a sacrifice of mechanical stability to the "cool imagery" gods. You can smash both with a haversack full of light shields and Quick Draw.

[Eldan]

One I've seen discussed before that I like in theory, especially together with the armour as DR rule, is changing DR from defined values to percentages.

I.e. there's light, medium and heavy damage reduction, which reduce 10/25/50% of damage, respectively. And armour of the same weight class gives you that kind of damage reduction.

It would probably help with several problems, namely that TWF and flurry attackers can't deal damage to things with even moderate damage reduction without tons of bonus damage and the fact that DR just doesn't scale and a lot of sources of it simply don't matter anymore at the higher levels.

[Mjollnir075]

I've seen this before as a sacrifice of mechanical stability to the "cool imagery" gods. You can smash both with a haversack full of light shields and Quick Draw.

Hence the reason it would be a houserule. A gentlemens agreement, or non-optimizing players who wouldnt break this to pieces would be required.

[Dimers]

One I've seen discussed before that I like in theory, especially together with the armour as DR rule, is changing DR from defined values to percentages.

I like that very much.

[Zombulian]

We don't use XP. We level up when we all agree that we've earned it.

It has actually worked out well so far.:smallsmile:

My group does that too. It makes crafting hard >.>

[Segev]

Honestly? Make the shields provide a DR/- based on their size and material (and balanced thus against their cost) rather than just "negate a hit" and it would probably not be broken even to allow the quick-drawing fighter to have a haversack of shields. He still can only draw on his turn, so he can't even use it against every hit. (Which is a point in favor of 'negating hits' anyway, I guess: it's still just one hit per round.)

[Yora]

My group does that too. It makes crafting hard >.>

Since Pathfinder has no ways of spending XP, I instead award the PCs a progress percentage. Like 15 to 25% for an adventure. When a character reaches 100%, he gains the next level (and keeps any excess points).

[Larkas]

About Eldan's idea, I don't think it would be that simple to implement: DR would be comparatively worthless against creatures with low damage dice and very strong against heavy hitters. That's... Not really a bad thing, mind you, but I think it would be better as a new defense (Damage Mitigation, or what have you) than as a direct substitute to DR, specially because the imagery is totally different (tough hide impossible to penetrate with feeble attacks vs. creature able to brush aside part of the damage). But I like the concept, and would like to run some numbers regarding it.

On a side note, I've been toying with the idea of precision damage and critical hits negating DR. If a rogue hits for 1d8 + 3d6, the 1d8 will be subject to DR as normal, but the 3d6 won't. That should represent a precise or lucky hit better, and properly enable a few builds.

[Segev]

I've commented on this before, but every now and again I contemplate running a PF game by having different classes use different tracks. Essentially, full casting classes use the slow progression exp chart, half-casters (bards, probably paladins and rangers, etc.) use the medium chart, and non-casters (fighters, barbarians, etc.) use the fast chart.

Combine this with a multiclassing rule that says you pay for the "next" level of the class you most recently took in order to level up, and then pick whatever class you want upon doing so, and multiclassing may become OP, or it may be simply more fair to those who split-class.

As an example, a wizard 1 who got enough exp to reach wizard 2 would be able to choose either to take wizard 2 or any other class 1. If he multiclassed, he'd only have to get enough exp to gain the second level of that new class, not enough to gain wizard 3 from 2. Thus, multiclassing lets you level up faster.

Really helps non-casters a lot, because the "2 level dip into fighter" is actually relatively inexpensive.

Downside is, as I'd still use the exp-award system based out of 3.5, leveling faster means you earn less exp overall.


This may not be "awesome" house rules, but I felt like sharing the idea. I have never had a chance to playtest it.

[Dimers]

Downside is, as I'd still use the exp-award system based out of 3.5, leveling faster means you earn less exp overall.

Unearthed Arcana has an alternate XP system that hearkens back to pre-3rd edition rules. The writeup starts on page 213. I think it would mitigate that problem for you.

[bekeleven]

On a side note, I've been toying with the idea of precision damage and critical hits negating DR. If a rogue hits for 1d8 + 3d6, the 1d8 will be subject to DR as normal, but the 3d6 won't. That should represent a precise or lucky hit better, and properly enable a few builds.

The only reason why this distinction would make a non-zero difference is if the 1D8 was entirely mitigated by the DR and the DR had at least 1 point to spare.

So if you deal so little damage you can't even get through the hide of the enemy to reach his vitals, you still hit him for ~double what your weapon would deal against an aware human?

[Eldan]

About Eldan's idea, I don't think it would be that simple to implement: DR would be comparatively worthless against creatures with low damage dice and very strong against heavy hitters. That's... Not really a bad thing, mind you, but I think it would be better as a new defense (Damage Mitigation, or what have you) than as a direct substitute to DR, specially because the imagery is totally different (tough hide impossible to penetrate with feeble attacks vs. creature able to brush aside part of the damage). But I like the concept, and would like to run some numbers regarding it.

The imagery is different, I agree. The last time I brought the idea up, it was discussed a bit.

One suggestion was that DR always prevents at least one damage, but that's still not quite enough.
Of course, if you just include both DR and Damage Mitigation, you are back to the same old problems: DR does not scale well and punishes some styles more than others. Though at least you'd have one defence punishing some forms of attacks and another form punishing another form, so that should be more or less balanced if both are equally common.

[Rosstin]

My group does that too. It makes crafting hard >.>

We just assume the crafter goes one level behind the other characters for a session. If you heavily craft it's worth it. The downtime issue is always a problem, too, though.

[Larkas]

Though at least you'd have one defence punishing some forms of attacks and another form punishing another form, so that should be more or less balanced if both are equally common.

That is more or less what I had in mind. Keep DR in creatures perceived as having tough hide and substitute for mitigation in creatures such as outsiders, which don't always register as "tough".

... The Tarrasque would probably have both. :smalleek:

[Icewraith]

Skill, spell, and weapon focus can be gained for free once every four levels as virtual feats because they are boring. You need to be focusing on the particular spell/skill/weapon for those levels in game, however.

Most sucky feat chains are condensed into one (TWF, weapon focus) or grant the next feat in the chain (dodge->mobility, cleave->great cleave, spell focus->greater spell focus) 2-3 levels after acquiring the feat or when the character would qualify. Anything gained as a virtual feat does not grant chained feats (if the fighter blows a real feat on weapon focus he gets the rest of the weapon spec chain when he would qualify for it, but not if he gains it as a virtual).

Don't bother with the crafting feats. If you have the downtime, resources, and caster level (especially once teleport is a thing), you can make whatever it is that you want, but you are constrained to the vicinity of WBL and have to OK whatever it is with me first. Don't waste a feat slot that can be duplicated by a plane shift or teleport to a trade zone and forces me to waste all kinds of time right-sizing your WBL, and additionally is totally dependant on my storyline having large gaps of time with nothing interesting for the other players to do in them. Remember that having far too much gear for your level attracts the attention of people who covet your stuff and are capable of taking you out, as well as dire pseudonatural half-dragon advanced rust monsters and living Disjunction spells. Also remember you have a week to locate the Eye of Ilgaz and stop it from collapsing the entire continent into the sea.

[Mjollnir075]

This rule is taken from the same site that had Shields Shall Be Splintered.

A much simplified leveling system. Keep in mind, its geared for PF, so no XP for spells or crafting.

At slow progression, each level requires 44 experience points.
At normal progression, each level requires 30 experience points.
At fast progression, each level requires 20 experience points.

Characters receive 1 experience point for: overcoming an easy battle; escaping from a difficult battle or boss battle; overcoming a non-combat challenge such as a trap, or diplomatic negotiation; other misc tasks the GM would like to offer rewards for.

Characters receive 2 experience points for: overcoming an appropriately leveled combat encounter.

Characters receive 3 experience points for: overcoming a very difficult encounter or boss battle, or completing a major task such as completing a dungeon or quest.

Edit:

Speaking of Shields Shall Be Splintered, I was checking out the Rebalancing Compendium that was mentioned ealier in the thread, and came across this feat

Shield Specialization
Prerequisite: Proficiency with shields.
Benifit: Choose a type of shield with which you are proficient. The shield bonus granted by that shield increases by +1. In addition, when making a Reflex save for half damage, you add your shield's shield bonus (including any enhanecment bonus it might have) to Reflex saves you make. You may also add your shield bonus (including any enhanement bonus it might have) to Tumble checks made to avoid attacks of opportunity.

In addition, you may use your shield to block any physical attack (melee or ranged). Doing so takes both an immediate action and uses one of your attacks of opportunity for the round. You roll an attack roll opposed by the attack roll of your opponent's attack. Your attack roll is your base attack bonus plus your Str mod (or other modifier such as Dex if using Weapon Finnesse) plus any other modifiers affecting your attack rolls. You also add +1 bonus to attack rolls, which corresponds to the +1 bonus to AC granted by this feat. If your roll succeeds, the attack is blocked and you take no damage. Effectively, you replace your AC with your attack roll for this one attack.
Special: You may take this feat multiple times. Each time it applies to a different type of shield. A fighter may take Shield Specialization as a fighter bonus feat.


I like it when melee gets nice things, but I wouldn't want it to be far too out of balance. Does this seem like an acceptable medium?

[T.G. Oskar]

Languages: Since all my players are bilingual, we usually set one language as Common and the other as Elven, Dwarven, etc. When I first saw this houserule in effect, it was English for Common and Spanish for everything else; in my table, it's Spanish for Common and English for everything else...but only on D&D. Everywhere else (such as d20 Modern, or Shadowrun, which uses English as the "basic" language), it's English for the basic language, Spanish for everything else.

Leadership: No longer a feat. I never felt it deserved being a feat, because of the irregular cost. I usually give it as a form of DM fiat, but only if it's story-relevant. For example, a player of mine started to do his barbarian horde at around 7th level or so, after a spirit journey to find his totemic animal (justification for Spirit Lion totem!) and allowing some orcs to survive.

Action Points: All of my D&D games have them, but not right at the beginning. Usually, they appear after a certain point in time. Afterwards, they apply as usual. Since we use the action points based off Eberron (where they're essentially replaced with a fresh new batch every level), we have a "one chance" rule where someone who's about to die can expend all its remaining action points and survive at -9 but stable. This is a rule I inherited from the groups I played with.

Feats: This overlaps with homebrew (and a very heavy amount of homebrew, BTW, that I haven't released). Fighter feats (those feats available to the fighter as bonus feats) scale, but they depend on the class' "Effective Fighter Level", which every martial class has (including Monks, Psychic Warrior, Soulknife and Swordsage, despite having medium BAB). This is because I don't want to hurt those classes, but I don't want most spellcasters (aside from half-casters such as Paladins, Rangers, Hexblades, Sohei and Duskblades) to reap those benefits (they've got spells, why not throw a bone to martial classes?). Skill feats (those feats that advance or require skills, such as Alertness or Stealthy) also scale, but based on skill ranks; some, like Alertness, grant a special ability if both of the skills it advances are class skills (in the case of that feat, you cannot be surprised at all, ever, unless the guy that attempts to ambush you has the Stealthy feat). Skill Focus grants the skill as a class skill (and might work as how Occupations work in d20 Modern, now that I think about it); Greater Skill Focus (that's totally a thing) grants the equivalent of Skill Mastery but ONLY with that skill. But, as you can see, it's a LARGE list of feat changes, and thus it's better as homebrew rather than houserule.

Magic: All full spellcasters (able to cast up to 9th level spells) cast their spells as full-round actions; the rest (Bards, Paladins, Rangers, etc.) cast their spells as standard actions. ALL metamagic is added on the fly, but without increasing the casting time; however, you may only add one metamagic at once (or two at once with a specific feat). This increase to casting time only applies to spells that would otherwise be cast as standard actions; the other spells (those that are cast as swift, move, full-round, or that require more than 1 round) are cast at their normal time. All full spellcasters that prepare spells learn their spells at even levels (4th, 6th, 8th, and so on) while spontaneous spellcasters (including Warmage, for example) learn their spells at odd levels (3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and so on). Healer and Warmage may feel hosed, but those have been homebrewed so they're not as hosed as before.

XP: I give bonus XP if people do something great, that might transcend the gaming table. For example, one of my players is a Composition graduate, and he usually composes songs related to the adventure when he plays a Bard; that's enough for XP. Another, being a student of Chemical Engineering, gets free XP if he assists me in a scientific endeavor. The XP award is small (usually 50-200 xp), but it's a nice incentive. Bringing their own dice gets a one-time XP award, and also bringing materials for the game. This also includes doing things that may seem exceptional, which is good because playing other systems have pretty much bled that idea into us. This is also an inherited houserule from the groups I played with, where I usually got some free XP for being the party's chronicler (good that I was playing a Bard at that moment).

Not exactly a houserule but rather a campaign feature from the longest campaign I've DMed; at certain moments, to give me some rest from playing high-level characters and let my players try other options, we play using different, lower-leveled characters. This is shortly after the highest-leveled characters in the game founded a guild. This allows my players to mix and match characters for different sessions, making the campaign feel a bit more alive, and gives my players different options to play every few sessions. This has halted somewhat because this summer we were basically alternating between d20 Modern and Shadowrun, but so far my players have three different characters they play with, and the last duo of characters is about to meet their other counterparts. I say this is a campaign feature because it has only happened on this campaign, and I'm not sure if, after all the distractions, I'll continue with it.

Another thing that's not a houserule, but rather a callback to old systems of D&D: I like when players integrate somewhat into the campaign, so I motivate them (at least the group I have right now, and this has bled into one of my players who's doing the same thing with his d20 Modern campaign) into making a guild (Charisma be darned) and getting resources. This includes strongholds (my Eberron group has a keep, and we're about to, hopefully, get a small office in my friend's d20 Modern campaign), allies and resources (both human...oid...esque and wealth-wise). I love the idea of the organizations from the Player's Handbook II, from the fluff to the mechanical crunch, so that's something I motivate as well (though it's not something I've pushed my players at, though), and also the companion spirit and teamwork benefits. It really makes building group cohesiveness an incredibly valuable asset.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Not sure if this is an awesome rule or not, but I think this is the best place to discuss it.

You can buy 1 LA every three levels, XP cost is ( ECL-1)*1000 points and racial HD do count as levels. So for example a Karsite could buy his first point of LA at level 3 (ECL 5) and the next at level 6 (ECL 7).

I feel that low LA races/templated will be unaffected, but it would give some more leeway to higher LA ones (half-dragon/outsider for example).

[Firechanter]

Leadership: No longer a feat. I never felt it deserved being a feat, because of the irregular cost. I usually give it as a form of DM fiat, but only if it's story-relevant.

That's funny, considering that Leadership is widely regarded as so retardedly overpowered that it's banned at most tables. =D But of course that's just due to the Cohort application - you essentially get a second PC with all its feats, spells and abilities, for the low low price of a single feat.

If you nix cohorts, then yeah, it's not necessary to take Leadership as feat, if you only need the effect for roleplaying purposes anyway.

[Eldan]

Not sure if this is an awesome rule or not, but I think this is the best place to discuss it.

You can buy 1 LA every three levels, XP cost is ( ECL-1)*1000 points and racial HD do count as levels. So for example a Karsite could buy his first point of LA at level 3 (ECL 5) and the next at level 6 (ECL 7).

I feel that low LA races/templated will be unaffected, but it would give some more leeway to higher LA ones (half-dragon/outsider for example).

That sounds pretty much like the LA-buyoff method in UA/the SRD. Though I'm too lazy to compare the numbers.

[Dusk Eclipse]

In the SRD you can only buy your LA when you have reached LA*3 class levels, which makes LA higher than 3 impossible to be bought pre-epic, also RHD don't count towards those levels so a Marrulurk (3 RHD LA +1) would need to be ECL 10 to buy it out.

Under my houserule the same Marrulurk could buy the LA a session or two into the game.

[mattie_p]

In the SRD you can only buy your LA when you have reached LA*3 class levels, which makes LA higher than 3 impossible to be bought pre-epic, also RHD don't count towards those levels so a Marrulurk (3 RHD LA +1) would need to be ECL 10 to buy it out.

Under my houserule the same Marrulurk could buy the LA a session or two into the game.

Actually, I believe that under your houserule, the Marralurk could begin the game with the LA bought-off.

An ECL 4 character has 6,000 xp. With an LA of 1, the character is eligible to buy off the LA at level three, meaning (with each HD counting as a "level") now. They spend the 3,000 xp and become an ECL 3 character.

Normally the Marralurk needs to be ECL 7 in order to buy it off, because that is when they get 3 class levels.

[Dusk Eclipse]

My bad, didn't remember the XP needed for ECL 4, not a big problem in my opinion, though perhaps Marrulurk wasn't the best example... perhaps Varags? They have 2 HD and LA +1, so normally they would need to buy the LA at ECL 6, now they can at ECL 4.

[Diarmuid]

My current campaign is a mostly wilderness-based, post-apocalyptic kind of deal, so the DM gave us each 8 free skill points to spend in one Craft skill and one Profession skill (4 points to each) of our choice. So while we can't simply buy healing potions off the shelf (and cleric is a banned class due to the lack of organised temples, so no easy healing), our ranger used his Profession (Herbalist) skill to identify and collect some useful herbs and lichens that we found in our wanderings, and when we got back to our village my bard was able to use his Craft (Alchemy) skill to make us a stash of healing potions. Others in the group have Weaponsmithing, Mining, Bowmaking and other useful abilities to help us survive.

Did the DM also houserule that potions of healing can be made with Alchemy?

[Toomarc]

I have a couple house rules my players seem to enjoy.

No one wants to play a healer. So for Clerics if they give up one spell slot per level. They no longer have to memorize their spells.

For sneak attacks using a dagger only all crits the sneak attack damage is included.

Initiatives are Dex bonus plus Chr bonus. (those who are fast physically and mentally go first)

We also have another magical weapon enhancement called sharpness. each level increases the damage die of a weapon. And vorpal can only be added after sharpness 5.

I also have the .5 cost weapon enhancements. You can have a +6 to hit +0 to damage (equating to a +3 weapon)

[Ravens_cry]

I have a couple house rules my players seem to enjoy.
For sneak attacks using a dagger only all crits the sneak attack damage is included.

Could you rephrase this? I think I might have an idea what you mean, but it's largely unclear to me.

[Keneth]

I don't get the whole Charisma to initiative bonus rule that's been mentioned a couple of times. What does being charismatic have to do with acting faster in a combat? I could get behind Int or even Wis, but Cha just seems ridiculous. :smallconfused:

[Eldan]

No one wants to play a healer. So for Clerics if they give up one spell slot per level. They no longer have to memorize their spells.

Uhm...
This makes clerics better at everything but healing. HEaling spells can already be cast without preparing them.

[Forrestfire]

In the games I'm currently in, the DM's method seems to boil down to "if the PC wants something and can justify it and it's cool enough and not too strong mechanically, we can figure out a way to have it."

So players have gotten some specific houserules, and in my case I've been allowed to play a nerfed ghost (down to 3 LA in exchange for only having telekinesis and permanent manifestation) so that I could play a character concept (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15817925&postcount=141) I'd had for a while. The other big houserule I've been allowed is to qualify for Fiend of Possession, because me and another player decided we wanted to Shaman King the character's gauntlets.

On the topic of the game itself, my favorite thing we've done so far is that in some cases, encounters just end if we want them to. For instance, we were infiltrating a temple of Erythnul full of grimlocks. Due to a combination of having a ghost (invisible to blindsight) and a darkstalker with good modifiers, we managed to get the jump on two patrols in a row, eliminating them extremely quickly. There were more patrols, but since we had taken them down without expending anything, he offered to let us just skip them with the assumption that we managed to take them down the same way. So we agreed and stealthed our way through the temple towards the actually interesting boss fight.

[skyth]

Okay, I have a lot of house rules...Here are some examples :)

Each player is allowed one re-roll per session.

Death occurs at negative Con. Each level above 10 increases this by 1. So a 12th level character with a 14 Con dies at -16.

If someone you are threatening with your natural reach is hit by an area of affect spell but you are not, you take 1/4 damage (1/8 on a successful save). Spells that do not do damage make you roll a normal save with a +4 bonus.

Hit points are max at first level, then average +.5 (In other words, a 2nd level Fighter would have 16 HP...10 for First level and 6 for each additional level).

Tumbling to avoid AOO's is an opposed roll of your tumbling skill against the opponent's reflex save (And yes, a 20 on a save is automatically successful).

Keen and the improved crit feat stack.

Katanas are 1d8/18-20 weapons. Wakazashis are 1d6/18-20. They are not automatically masterwork.

[zilonox]

My DM's houserule: When used in combat, healing potions work as described in RAW. But when used outside combat, they provide maximum healing. The reasoning being that when in combat, you're prone to being in a hurry and not focusing solely on the task of consuming the potion and are therefore liable to spilling some of it. When not in combat, you can take the time to carefully extract every last drop from the vial. This applies to potions only, not any other form of variable healing.

Obviously, one could argue for extending this benefit to other forms of variable healing, or extend the "maximum" effect to other potions when used in non-stressful situations, but we don't and instead happily accept this small bit of extra healing that helps, but doesn't really change the game. :smallsmile:

[Ashtagon]

My DM's houserule: When used in combat, healing potions work as described in RAW. But when used outside combat, they provide maximum healing. The reasoning being that when in combat, you're prone to being in a hurry and not focusing solely on the task of consuming the potion and are therefore liable to spilling some of it. When not in combat, you can take the time to carefully extract every last drop from the vial. This applies to potions only, not any other form of variable healing.

Obviously, one could argue for extending this benefit to other forms of variable healing, or extend the "maximum" effect to other potions when used in non-stressful situations, but we don't and instead happily accept this small bit of extra healing that helps, but doesn't really change the game. :smallsmile:

I'm now imagining healing potions with the consistency of ketchup :smallbiggrin:

[Alex12]

I'm now imagining healing potions with the consistency of ketchup :smallbiggrin:
"It's not coming out!"
*holds bottle up, looking into hole*
*potion comes out all at once, all over drinker's eye*

[T.G. Oskar]

Odd. I thought I had mentioned all houserules, but now that you mention potions...

Potions: when drank by people with (effective) Fighter levels, the effect of the potion applies as if their caster level was equal to their effective Fighter level. Thus, a level 5 Fighter would gain 1d8+5 with Cure Light Wounds, 2d8+5 with Cure Moderate Wounds, and 5 minutes worth of spells such as Bull's Strength and Cat's Grace.

Wands/UMD: Use Magic Device can be used to increase the caster level of a spell used through a wand, as if it were a caster level check. Failing on that check causes a mishap, tho.

In essence, I made it so that potions were the resources favored by warriors, wands favored by skillmonkeys, and scrolls/staffs favored by spellcasters. The potions bit has been used without problem (and to good effort, though I don't provide that many potions actually), and the wand bit...is yet to be used, because the only wand user hasn't read that bit IIRC.

[Maginomicon]

Honestly? Make the shields provide a DR/- based on their size and material (and balanced thus against their cost) rather than just "negate a hit" and it would probably not be broken even to allow the quick-drawing fighter to have a haversack of shields. He still can only draw on his turn, so he can't even use it against every hit. (Which is a point in favor of 'negating hits' anyway, I guess: it's still just one hit per round.)
Look up the Armor as Damage Reduction variant in the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm).

Did the DM also houserule that potions of healing can be made with Alchemy?
There's a "healing salve" that can be crafted by RAW.



Healing Salve:

Rubbing this stinky green paste into wounds promotes rapid healing. Applying the salve is a full-round action. One dose cures 1d8 points of damage to a living creature. Only one dose may be applied per round, and there is no limit on how many salves can be applied over time.

The Alchemy DC to make one application of healing salve is 25. If you have 5 or more ranks in Profession (herbalist), you get a +2 synergy bonus on checks to craft it.

Cost: 50 gp
Psionic Minor Creation anyone? Sure a healing salve isn't as powerful as a potion of cure light wounds, but since it fairly-clearly is made of vegetable matter, PROMOTES rapid healing (meaning it enhances the body's own healing capabilities instead of doing the healing itself), and cures damage instead of giving temporary HP, it's a very viable way for a psionic character to be the party healer (although it takes 1 minute to manifest, the resulting salves would only exist for 1 hour/level, and applying a salve is a full-round action instead of the standard action for quaffing a potion). Find a bathtub (or a portable hole), fill it with healing salve using psionic minor creation, everyone bathes in it until they're up to full health, and when the power's duration is up, the leftovers and residue vanish. Convenient!


No one wants to play a healer. So for Clerics if they give up one spell slot per level. They no longer have to memorize their spells.Look up the Spontaneous Divine Casters variant in the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm).