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View Full Version : Pathfinder Homebrew Rules for a Patfinder Steampunk Campaign [Reviews Appreciated]



Jarred Stone
2014-06-26, 01:00 AM
Opening this thread in order to evaluate my house rules made for a Victorian settings I am creating and, right now, playing (and testing) with some friends of mine.

The issue has born because of a conflictive player who is always critiquizing the system. Critiques I am getting fed off. However, they are still critiques and, since someone ego can't neglet, in his ego, such kind of things without thinking about if you are actually doing things right or not. This is why I am addressing to you guys, in order to see how could I improve these houserules for this setting. Really, any suggestion is highly appreciated.




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ARCANUM


BASE RULES
-Using Pathfinder rules for familiarity with the players.
-The setting is a victorian one, not exactly steampunk, but more about mad scientists, revolvers and telsa guns around there, like in the The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
-Common place guns rules from Pathfinder. Everyone with martial proficiency can have a gun and use it effitiently.
-Cover and distance becomes important. As DM, I always drop a possible cover. Maybe a table you can turn, or a piano you can move.

HOUSERULES



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:::SPECIALLY FOR MEELE MARTIALS:::
-Tower-Shield users can offer cover to the player right behind him as a standar action.
-Light/Medium/Heavy armor provides 1/2/3 DR against ranged attacks. This is applicable to every armor regardless class.
-Figthers can sacrificate his 2nd level class feature for the Bullet Deflection class feature from Gun Tank arquetype. Basically, it is almost like making the gun tank arquetype, but compatible with fighter's weapons.
-Working on a balanced concept of power armor only accesible at higher levels.





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:::SPECIALLY FOR RANGED PCs (GUNNERS, MAINLY):::
-You must roll a skill check when using the skill of gunsmithing. You can take 10 and your tools gives you a +2.
-Special ammo can be purchased and/or crafted (after reverse engineering is done). Special ammo includes: ammo which applies elemental damage instead of normal damage, ammo which ignore undeads' RD, ammo which deal splash damage, etc.
-Shooting a double-barreled weapon is a full-round action.



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:::SPECIALLY FOR CASTERS:::
-At the beginning of the game, you can select to be a "tech-caster" (magitech, inventions, grenades, etc) or a "magic caster" (common spells). Same rules except mere fluff.
-Some spells are more effective against techy casters than against magical casters (rusting touch is better against a mechanical familiar than a living one, you know). This is trivial, just an aclaration for some people.
-Dispel Magic can target technology, magic or both at the same time.
-Anti-Magic Fields target always both of them.
-Detect Magic becomes "Detect Magic and Technology"
-Read Magic renamed to "Study Device" (can be targeted to tech stuff and magic stuff)
-UMD renamed to Use Artifact. It can be used with technological stuff and magic stuff.
-Special ammo buffs can be learnt by spell casters. Usually, the extra buffs they can learn are thematical.
-As possible loot, you can find old summoning rituals (ala Call of Chtulu) which could summon special beings. Price in components is the same as making a proper level caster go there and cast the proper spell which emulates. Casting time can be or a day of more. Components aren't entitled to be easily accesible. The entity summoned is not entittled to be friendly or colaborative.
-Some potions can give to your spells a better CD by taking a drawback (usually some heavy stat damage or loosing extra daily spells).
-Expendable Metamagic Rods can be purchased. Price varies depending on how many "uses" can have the rod before being useless. In the long term, it is better to purchase a proper rod.
-Eidolons can take an "Improve Touch AC" Evolution instead of "Improve Natural AC" evolution. It costs the same as the normal evolution.



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:::GENERAL FOR EVERYONE:::
-Adapted dragon marks from Eberron and added some themed custom marks, using the Aberrant Mark as a base to keep it balanced.
-Potions with penalization are cheaper than normal potions.
-Some potions can give you the capacity of using a spell-like ability once after drinking it, Bioshock-like.
-Players can select tech enhancements or magic enhancements for their gear. At difference of casters, there aren't any difference apart of fluff.




About the reason of the needs of a review, drama ahead...
The "problematic" player has a summoner in this campaign and he always saying I am pandering to the martials and gunslingers too much. And that gunslingers and guns are overpowered as ****. I told him about all the caster house rules I made to give some flavour to them. His answer was that those new options costs money or feats so, they are ****. A caster shouldn't spend money on potions, scrolls or wands. The martial players, since they want to feel "unique" in front of the casters PCs, they are centering their fluff on techy enhancements like "It isn't an enchanted +1 rifle, it is a rifle with a hair trigger and a recalibred cylinder". Same rules as if they are using a "+1 magic rifle", just change the descryption because those martials like it. The other caster of the group, in the other hand, are happy feeling magic like more obscure and mystical because not everyone has a "rifle blessed by an ancient begin I have just contacted to and who I talk to while using such rifle" (a typical +1 rifle, maybe with inteligence but, you know...). Anyways, maybe the descryption the players ask me about their gear makes him think techy pandering but, I don't know, his mouth is always full about "my house rules are pandering an OP class like gunslinger" and nerfing the casters.

This is why I am actually adressing to you, guys, in order to see if I should be legitimately worried about the rules I got for the setting or not. Really, I am pretty worried about if it is my ego who is making me think that player is a whinning kid or... ****, better to get sure.

Anyways, thank you for your opinions. They are highly appreciated

gr8artist
2014-06-26, 01:20 AM
Off the bat, if you're concerned about tier/class/party balance, you've kinda' shafted the melee's and buffed the casters. Barbarian gets NOTHING, and monk gets slapped in the face pretty hard.
Casters, meanwhile, get more tricks added to their list of infinite tricks.
Magic and tech should be separated, if for no other reason than to make the wizard waste the extra spell preps and such. Don't combine them into one pool so he gets double benefits with staple spells.
And T1 summoners get a big boost to eidolon defense.

Now, if you're not concerned about balance, then proceed as intended. But I'd really give martials, particularly melee's, a big buff.
Condense feat trees, especially combat maneuvers. Remove stupid feat prereq's, and give the minor bonus feats (dodge, weapon focus, etc.) the option to spend a swift action to double bonus. Make such bonuses scale with level SOMEHOW, even if it's just doubling at level 10 like skill focus.
These Houserules are for a post-apocalyptic campaign I'm running. The first part is all thematics/character creation rules, but the feats and mechanics changes are lower.