Your Personal Favorite Unpopular Variant Rules?

[Melville's Book]

This is mainly for 3.5, because that's the only system I have experience with, but feel free to mention Pathfinder or other d20 games and the like if they apply.

For me, in 3.5, I like several of the very unpopular rules variants in Unearthed Arcana, mainly the Spell-point Vitality system for magic and the Armor as DR variant. They make a lot more sense to me, although it seems to me that almost nobody enjoys them (and I can see why, as they make already bad balance even worse).

What rules variants that are generally considered unpopular do any of you guys as individuals like in your games?

[Piedmon_Sama]

I'm with you in liking a lot of the stuff in Unearthed Arcana. Armor as DR combined with Defense bonus to AC. Other stuff I like that some people really, really vocally dislike are the wound system from UA, or a Wound Points system such as in D20 Modern or Star Wars, as well as called shots and hit locations (with appropriate penalties for certain injuries).

[Zweisteine]

I like Recharge Magic. I'm not sure it's unpopular, but I don't hear much about it (it's probably to over-powered for anyone to use...).

I'm not sure about it being unpopular, but my favorite variant is Prestige Classes. While not exactly a variant, it is one of those things that by RAW explicitly falls to the DM to decide on.
Prestige classes are purely optional and always under the purview of the DM.

[Nettlekid]

I'm going to get a lot of hate, but I love Bloodlines. I love the flavor, I love the mechanical abilities you get when you level up, and I love how clever builds with them can explode level-dependent features (which usually feel so sparse.) I don't like them for the skill rank cap breaking, but I just don't apply that part...unless I REALLY want an early entry.

[Melville's Book]

I'm going to get a lot of hate, but I love Bloodlines. I love the flavor, I love the mechanical abilities you get when you level up, and I love how clever builds with them can explode level-dependent features (which usually feel so sparse.) I don't like them for the skill rank cap breaking, but I just don't apply that part...unless I REALLY want an early entry.

This thread is specifically for posting about your own unpopular preferences. I don't think anybody with a sense of proper conduct is going to give you hate for displaying your unpopular preference here. :smallsmile:

That said, I quite like the bloodlines myself, though I don't often find myself in a position where I can use them. My DMs usually don't allow them, and I can't play when I'm DMing and do allow them :smallsigh:

[Ruethgar]

Bloodlines are great... mmm E6 power gaming. But my favored unpopular variant is including 3rd party sources, namely the Quintessentials and AEG's one word series(Gods, Good, Evil, Dragons, Magic etc.).

[MadGreenSon]

I gotta say I'm a fan of Recharge Magic too. I've never unleashed it in a game, but I've often wanted to.

It will obviously put casters far and away ahead of everything, but it just gibes with something in my head about how magic should work even more than spell points.

Besides, casters rule all anyway.


One day...

[T.G. Oskar]

Vitality & Wound Points.

One of my favorite console game series is SaGa, the brainchild of the director of Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. Aside from the direct progression, ALL of the games have Hit Points and Life Points, and you don't automatically die unless all your LP are gone. Some games have it good (SaGa Frontier), others have unique uses (SaGa Frontier II allows you to consume your LP to restore your hit points), and others abuse a bit (powerful techniques consume your LP). The closest system there is to a HP/LP system that resembles that from SaGa is the Vitality/Wound Point system, which makes battles less risky. I believe some stuff could be done (like, combine it with Action Points somewhat, and maybe apply 4e Second Wind by consuming LP instead of a separate resource), but it's nonetheless an interesting system.

Another Variant rule that I've never seen in play but that I'm particularly interested in are the Faith rules from Complete Divine; you get Faith feats, which give you a "faith pool", and that pool can be consumed in a variety of uses. Sadly, it remained as an orphan variant, instead of being supported somewhere else.

[JaronK]

E6 + Gestalt. It's wonderful. It feels like what the game was trying to do.

JaronK

[Taffimai]

The variant rogue that gives up sneak attack for bonus feats like a fighter. All my characters always suffer from "I want more feats than I can get" and it adds considerable versatility in and out of combat.

[Doc_Maynot]

Shapeshifter Druid, Damage Conversion, Variable Modifiers (In conjunction with Bell Curve Rolls), Players Roll all the Dice, Complete Divine's Turning Damage/Healing, Invocations, Metamagic Components and Magic Rating are the variants I really like playing with and tend to use while DMing.

[Keneth]

Fumble rules. My groups enjoy them.

[137beth]

I'm not sure how (un)popular this is, but the Open Ended Rolls variant from ELH is something I prefer to use in any game, epic or otherwise.

[Zanos]

I'm going to get a lot of hate, but I love Bloodlines. I love the flavor, I love the mechanical abilities you get when you level up, and I love how clever builds with them can explode level-dependent features (which usually feel so sparse.) I don't like them for the skill rank cap breaking, but I just don't apply that part...unless I REALLY want an early entry.
I just wish they were written more clearly. They're a great concept and scaling LA or whatever was a decent idea, but as written they're either useless(if they adjust your level for exp gains) or there's no reason not to take them(you can just spend 3xp exp for all the benefits of a greater bloodline).

I like metamagic components and the Spell Point variant, but I acknowledge that they're pretty OP.

Also item familiars. It's broken, but having a scaling intelligent item is neat. One of my characters imbued his wedding band with the spirit of his dead wife, which he communicated with frequently.

Everyone thought he was mad.

[Brookshw]

Fumble rules. My groups enjoy them.

Agreed, we still fondly remember our old custom crit/fumble charts which includes many ridiculous things such as getting hit by a bus or getting sucked into mystery space to fight a balor. Oh the memories of character faces covered in skid marks.

[HaikenEdge]

I like the infinite 0th-level spells rule out of Pathfinder, and generally apply that to my 3.5 games. As far as I'm concerned, infinite out-of-combat healing isn't unbalanced when it's primarily used to make the mundane characters, who end up getting hit the most anyways, more viable by extending their resources.

[NightDM]

I was alway fond of the Sanity variant rules from UA; mainly because I thought the skill Knowledge: Forbidden sounded cool :smalltongue: and I've always loved running Lovecraftian-styled adventures.

[Stegyre]

The Bell Curve -- 3d6 in place of 1d20 -- has got to be my favorite, but I also think that adopting that rule requires multiple other adjustments.

The injury mechanic, instead of hit points, is a great concept but poor execution. I have been working on my own improvement to the idea. (Second place goes to WP/VP.)

Generic classes are another "great concept; poor execution," imho.

Spell points, aka psionics for spellcasters! (I have never liked Vancian casting.) In my ideal, I would combine this with the concept of recharge magic: basically, massively reduce SP/PP, so no one can really nova in a single encounter, but have it recharge quickly enough to be able to have consistent utility from encounter to encounter.

In sum, I guess my opinion of UA is that it's a good idea book, waiting for someone else to take the good ideas and turn them into good implementations. I flatter myself with the thought, "That could be me." Don't anyone get your hopes up.

[Honest Tiefling]

Is this Recharge Magic? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/rechargeMagic.htm) Because I am digging this. Sorry to be off-topic, but if someone can point me in the direction of making this workable (or even a discussion as to why this current implementation doesn't work) I would greatly appreciate it.

[Vedhin]

Variable Modifiers (In conjunction with Bell Curve Rolls)

How does this work in practice? I've always wanted to try it, because it seems like it would make things less dependent on the d20 at low levels, but less of an automatic pass/fail based on modifiers at high levels.

[Doc_Maynot]

The most trouble that comes from it is getting everyone used to the variable modifier part of it, and to keep the first three d6 seperate. But once that is learned it really not so different.

You have the ability to take 10 as normal. But also 16 and 18 depending on how much time you want/have available to take on something. And when you do, you add flat modifiers.

[Bakkan]

Is this Recharge Magic? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/rechargeMagic.htm) Because I am digging this. Sorry to be off-topic, but if someone can point me in the direction of making this workable (or even a discussion as to why this current implementation doesn't work) I would greatly appreciate it.

Yep, that's the one. I ran a long campaign using recharge magic and it works pretty well out of the box if you don't try to break it. Everyone will start each fight at full health, but that just means that you can make your encounters a little tougher. There are some interesting changes though, such as not being able to buff both the melee beatsticks with bull's strength for the same encounter.

Some things you need to figure out before using the variant:

What are the recharge times for non-core spells? Use the core recharge times as a guide, since you'll have to make rulings for each non-core spell your players with to use.

What benefit does a high "spells-per-day" stat do for spontaneous casters? Prepared casters get to prepare another spell each day, but spontaneous casters don't have such a benefit. For split-stat spontaneous casters it's worse since a higher stat won't even increase their save DC's. What we did was give the spontaneous casters a number of "freebies" each day: they could cast a spell that was ready but without having to recharge it, so that it was ready again immediately.

[Jeff the Green]

I like incantations. By making plot magic (calling, divinations, shape changing etc.) available to everyone with the requisite skills you alleviate some of the worst parts of tier imbalance, let you strip some of the more problematic spells from the game without removing archetypal magic, and make unique effects available.

I use them in my Expedition to Castle Ravenloft game to help the drow swift hunter (who was already behind in combat utility) accept buffs by gaining greater control over SR, explain some of the more powerful magic the NPCs are able to do, and give some unique treasure to my tier-3 and below party. And in a dungeon crawl game I'm in we use them to make up for the lack of a crafter or magic mart or any way to get diamonds for resurrection spells.

[Alanto]

Very much a fan of VP/WP instead of HP, I had no idea it was in the rules for D and D for aaaages, came across it in the Star Wars game first, tried it out in Pathfinder and found it worked pretty nicely with some tweaking.

I do still prefer the Star Wars d20 version to the PF version as-written (DR from armour only applies to Wound point loss, not Vitality points, and there's a *lot* less options for bypassing it), it just, I don't know, feels right, though that's probably just because it's what I'm used to.