Ideas for houserules

[Huey Nomure]

Most of the following ideas are intended to cut martial classes some slack, giving them an edge to excel where they should. If they end up doing exactly the opposite please let me know. I'll add variations and observations as they are suggested.

BAB power, armor rethinking, ability to damage
Initiative tweaks:
-Armor penalty is applied to Initiative;
-0.5 to BAB applied to Initiative;
New mechanics for damage and AC:
-BAB is added to damage and AC (renamed Defense);
-The ability modifiers added to the attack roll are also applied to damage;
-Armor and natural armor grant DR/energy equal to their value instead of increasing Defense.
Observations:
-AC has at least a couple of flaws in both mechanics and fluff, two of them being a bad scaling against attack and natural armor and armor making you harder to hit instead of reducing damage as they should actually do IMHO.
-I find it fitting that a Fighter training allows you to parry attacks more effectively than training as a Rogue.
-Touch attacks get a huge nerf; if it's too harsh, maybe touch attacks can be granted a static (+2) or scaling (halving BAB to Defense) bonus. Halving BAB to Defense against Touch attacks and when flat-footed could be a good point to start?
-Needs testing, since certain creatures may stray violently from their original CR with this change; this houserule could affect only the characters with playable races.

DR effective against magic
DR also reduces damage from spells unless stated otherwise (as DR/magic).

Limited but variable magical slots
Magical Items can be crafted to occupy any slot without additional cost; a single creature can benefit from up to 12 worn magical items at a single time.

Runes
Magical weapons, shields and armors are crafted with the basic +1 and a number of empty slots equal to its enhancement value -1 (a +6 dagger has 5 slots). These slots can be filled with runes, small symbols carrying magical power.
A rune is a magical item with a Rank ranging from 1 to 5; it costs Rank x 1000gp and fills a number of slots equal to its Rank. A rune of an armor property has usually no effect if placed on a weapon, but neutral (good old +1) enhancements can be transferred without problems.
A piece of equipment can have all its runes removed, placed in or substituted in 1h by a creature with 5 ranks in the appropriated Craft skill. Crafting a rune requires the Craft Magical Arms and Armor feat in addition the the requirement of the single enhancements.
Observations:
-Obviously +1 runes stack.
-Best used together with Weapon economics (see below).
-Bane enhancements become actually useful.
-Rune substitution could require the expense of resources (something minor as 10 gp per slot) and/or a specific set of tools.
-Idea: multipurpose runes that change effect according to the piece of equipment they're placed in.
-+1 runes can become a trade good at high levels.

Armors, shields and weapons (called items from now on) have a maximum enhancement bonus of +10; the minimum level to craft a magical item is two times its enhancement bonus.
Runes are symbols that give special properties to the item are mounted in; only an item with enhancement bonus can sustain a rune.
If the special property has a bonus equivalent, its cost is equal to the bonus x1000gp, otherwise is equal to the cost of the original property.
An item can sustain a total equivalent bonus equal to its enhancement bonus. An item can have all its runes removed, placed in or substituted in 1h by a creature with 5 ranks in the appropriated Craft skill.
For example, a +5 axe could sustain the keen, flaming, abomination bane and wounding runes at the same time; (with halved price) the axe has a cost of 25156 gp, the runes have a total cost of 5000 gp for a grand total of 30156 gp.
Observations:
-It's just me or elemental resistances are horribly overpriced?
-DR/+X should be rescaled:


Old bonus
New bonus


+1
+2


+2
+3


+3
+5


+4
+6


+5
+8




Weapon enhancements and economics
The cost for masterwork and enhancement is halved, but enhancement bonus is only added to the attack roll.
Observations: This allows two-wielding to be feasible without a heavy sacrifice on the weapon quality, while two-handed warriors can wield particularly powerful weapons or have money to spare for other trinkets.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Most of the following ideas are intended to cut martial classes some slack, giving them an edge to excel where they should. If they end up doing exactly the opposite please let me know. I'll add variations and observations as they are suggested.

[QUOTE]BAB power and armor rethinking
A lot of danger here comes in through weird monster scaling-- things with tons of HD usually have BAB way beyond what's reasonable for the level, which now will get added to AC and damage. But it sounds like you realize that. Perhaps limit it to BAB from classes, rather than from raw HD?

New mechanics for damage and AC:

-BAB is added to damage; a weapon attack damage can't be reduced under the attacker's BAB by the new Armor Rank (see below).
TWF and volley archery just became exceedingly dangerous, right out of the box. And putting a minimum cap on damage is just odd. Not only could it be annoying to calculate, it means my 5th level fighter can throw a punch and deal guaranteed damage to a guy in three feet of adamantium plate.


-Armor and natural armor are added to form a new combat value called Armor Rank (could use a better name). Armor Rank works as a DR/energy and is applied separately, before any other DR.
Why bother with a separate "AR" mechanic? Just let armor and natural armor give you DR/--.


DR effective against magic
Seems fair. It further weakens the weakest type of magic (blasting), but not hugely. You might need a way for mages to bypass alignment and-- especially-- material based DR, though.



Limited but variable magical slots
This is problematic. For a number of reasons. Firstly, the weaker the class, the more it relies on magic items. That's why VoP monks are mechanically poor choices, while VoP druids work just fine. A limited number of magic items will bother a fighter a lot more than it'll affect a wizard. Secondly, it can be bypassed pretty easily by the rules in the MiC for adding new properties to existing items. Thirdly... D&D in general relies on characters being decked out in magic gear. The game is balanced (such as it is) around the theory that PCs will start toting around magic weapons, rings of protection, cloaks of resistance, amulets of health, and all that crap-- never mind the need to pick up things like flight that you can't otherwise get from your class. If you insist on something like this, I'd grant the basic boosts-- attack, damage, AC, saves, and abilities-- automatically in some capacity. Then at least you can devote your limited slots to interesting items, rather than half of everyone's slots going to the exact same items. But I have to ask... what are you trying to accomplish with this rule?


Runes
So the basic idea is to make it easy to change out special enhancement properties? Alright, I can dig it, although I think there are a few more rules that need to be addressed. (What does "rank" mean? What about enhancements that cost a flat amount?) You might want to look at Weapon and Armor crystals in the MiC, too.


Weapon economics
That's... not going to help TWF so much-- regardless of the exact amount, they're still paying twice as much as their THF friends. If that concerns you (and let's be honest, that's one of the smallest problems TWF face), introduce "Mirrored Weapons" that share enhancement bonuses when wielded at the same time.

[Huey Nomure]

A lot of danger here comes in through weird monster scaling-- things with tons of HD usually have BAB way beyond what's reasonable for the level, which now will get added to AC and damage. But it sounds like you realize that. Perhaps limit it to BAB from classes, rather than from raw HD?
Yep, I edited that now.


TWF and volley archery just became exceedingly dangerous, right out of the box. And putting a minimum cap on damage is just odd. Not only could it be annoying to calculate, it means my 5th level fighter can throw a punch and deal guaranteed damage to a guy in three feet of adamantium plate.

Why bother with a separate "AR" mechanic? Just let armor and natural armor give you DR/--.
The first problem is the reason of the existence of AR: minimum damage is only guaranteed after AR is applied; if the armor itself is adamantium, for instance, that DR 3/- is applied after AR, where there is no guaranteed damage anymore. The idea behind this is to prevent a lv2 fighter in full plate to be almost invulnerable by mundane weapons, and to pierce through the humongous natural armor of certain monsters.
Maybe the BAB to damage can be multiplied by x1.5 tor THF, if balance is still an issue.


This is problematic. [Reasonable objections] But I have to ask... what are you trying to accomplish with this rule?
I was trying to balance the fact that magical items are not locked into specific slots anymore; I find the notion that you can't equip two items for the single reason that are always crafted as amulets, for instance. Especially in the high-power adventures where magical items can be crafted on demand, I think it's reasonable that a PC can buy a Necklace of disguise, having the head slot already filled, for example.
As I said, the item cap can easily come from a table that considers ECL and class (in the spoiler I put an example of that).


What does "rank" mean?
Rank is simply the enhancement bonus, as 2 for Bane, 5 for vorpal and so on. I thought it would be obvious, but obviously it wasn't xD


What about enhancements that cost a flat amount?
Maybe they can be considered special runes that occupy no slot? It would seem inconsistent to make those enhancements irreplaceable, IMO.


You might want to look at Weapon and Armor crystals in the MiC, too.
Will do.


That's... not going to help TWF so much-- regardless of the exact amount, they're still paying twice as much as their THF friends. If that concerns you (and let's be honest, that's one of the smallest problems TWF face), introduce "Mirrored Weapons" that share enhancement bonuses when wielded at the same time.
What about when one of those weapons is wielded alone? There is a "main" holding the enhancements and a "parasite" sharing them? I like the idea, though.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The first problem is the reason of the existence of AR: minimum damage is only guaranteed after AR is applied; if the armor itself is adamantium, for instance, that DR 3/- is applied after AR, where there is no guaranteed damage anymore. The idea behind this is to prevent a lv2 fighter in full plate to be almost invulnerable by mundane weapons, and to pierce through the humongous natural armor of certain monsters.
Maybe the BAB to damage can be multiplied by x1.5 tor THF, if balance is still an issue.
No, it still doesn't make sense. Why do you want a minimum DR? If it's to let lucky shots through, that's what crits are for. I really don't think you want to introduce a second-but-almost-identical mechanic here-- that's just poor game design.


I was trying to balance the fact that magical items are not locked into specific slots anymore; I find the notion that you can't equip two items for the single reason that are always crafted as amulets, for instance. Especially in the high-power adventures where magical items can be crafted on demand, I think it's reasonable that a PC can buy a Necklace of disguise, having the head slot already filled, for example.
As I said, the item cap can easily come from a table that considers ECL and class (in the spoiler I put an example of that).
90% of your houserule has nothing to do with that? :smallconfused: The MiC has rules for adding bonuses to an existing magic item (essentially, pay the cost of the new item); you could also tweak the adjustment from inproper body slot affinities (by default it's a 50% boost; you could easily turn that down to, oh, 10%)


Rank is simply the enhancement bonus, as 2 for Bane, 5 for vorpal and so on. I thought it would be obvious, but obviously it wasn't xD
I was pretty sure, but I wanted to be sure-- it's not a standard term.


What about when one of those weapons is wielded alone? There is a "main" holding the enhancements and a "parasite" sharing them? I like the idea, though.
That was the idea, yeah.

[Huey Nomure]

Why do you want a minimum DR?
If it's to let lucky shots through, that's what crits are for.
The minimum damage rule is there to prevent (natural and crafted) armor to make (almost) invulnerable characters, especially at low level.
For example, a full plate would make a character immune to any Medium ranged weapon with equal enhancement bonus; add a few points of natural armor and even composite bows become useless.
(elemental properties would become mandatory for a certain number of builds just to make some damage against armored targets)
There is some simple solution to this?


I really don't think you want to introduce a second-but-almost-identical mechanic here-- that's just poor game design.
You're right; the farfetched "Armor Rank" was invented along the minimum damage to avoid the invulnerability issue I just mentioned, though.


you could also tweak the adjustment from inproper body slot affinities (by default it's a 50% boost; you could easily turn that down to, oh, 10%)
Totally forgot about that *facepalm* the original houserule was simply to completely eliminate the price boost for different body slots and having a hard cap of worn magical items instead of a fixed series of slots: the DMG lists 12 slots -> the houserule would simply allow you to fill them with 10 rings (one per finger) and two earrings, and here you have the blingmaster xD
Nevertheless, the cap could be lowered for character with spells or spell-like abilities, the fluff reason being the interference between the character magic and her items.
Example:
-1 (11 slots) for characters with levels on classes with minor casting (as paladin 4) and/or spell-likes with daily uses;
-2 (10 slots) for characters with levels on classes with medium casting (as bard);
-3 (9 slots) for characters with levels on classes with full casting (as wizard) and/or at-will spell-likes.
(if a character belongs to more of these categories, she has the lowest cap among them)

About mirroring weapons: instead of being a fixed set, there could be weapons with a +1 special property called "mirroring" (or something similar) that gains the same properties of the weapon is wielded with.
(If a creature is wielding 2 or more other weapons, the wielder chooses (and changes) the mirrored weapon with a mental command as a swift action.)

I also added (in a spoiler) a variant of the runes that increases magical armors, shields and weapons.
I like the idea of adding and removing crystals even during combat, but I'd like runes to be more stable bonuses, with a substitution mechanic that rewards preparation and allows a character to test various combinations without spending ungodly amounts of money. Maybe the substitution time could be 1 or 10 minutes, enough to make in-combat substitution unfeasible but avoiding being an incredible time-consuming routine.

Edit: I'm perusing your Giants and Graveyard thread, there are quite a few cool things.

[jqavins]

Nevertheless, the cap could be lowered for character with spells or spell-like abilities, the fluff reason being the interference between the character magic and her items.
Example:
-1 (11 slots) for characters with levels on classes with minor casting (as paladin 4) and/or spell-likes with daily uses;
-2 (10 slots) for characters with levels on classes with medium casting (as bard);
-3 (9 slots) for characters with levels on classes with full casting (as wizard) and/or at-will spell-likes.
(if a character belongs to more of these categories, she has the lowest cap among them)
That's the part I have a problem with. You're trying to equalize martials and casters, which is good. I thought the idea was to do so by enhancing martials, which is also good, but this is nerfing casters instead. And it doesn't nerf them much. If you want to nerf casters, there are more effective ways with (imho) less cheesey fluff. (Homer: "Mmmm, cheesey fluff.")

[Huey Nomure]

(Homer: "Mmmm, cheesey fluff.")
Touchè xD

You have a point, though: it's a complication that has no deep impact in the balance, I'll edit it off.

Edit: done. Any thoughts about the BAB and the Runes homerules would be greatly appreciated.

[Deepbluediver]

If you are worried about your melee combatant's being to squishy one of the simplest things IMO is to rework how armor is upgraded- that's the route I took in this thread:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?290667-Simplified-Improved-Armor
It gets a little more in-depth than a simple houserule though, so you're free to take as much or as little as you like, such as capping upgrades as Masterwork.


Also, another point I discussed a while back is that melee classes have larger hit-dice, which theoretically give them more HP but can easily screw them over since the variability is also larger. Of several potential fixes that we discussed, the one I liked best was halving the hit-dice and giving them back that value as a flat increase each level.
So a d4 becomes a d2+2. A d12 becomes a d6+6, etc.

[Huey Nomure]

If you are worried about your melee combatant's being to squishy one of the simplest thins IMO is to rework how armor is upgraded- that's the route I took in this thread:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?290667-Simplified-Improved-Armor
It gets a little more in-depth than a simple houserule though, so you're free to take as much or as little as you like, such as capping upgrades as Masterwork.
There are some cool ideas:
-I'll shamelessly steal the encumbered speed table, I love it;
-Some types of armor are actually useless except for the very first levels, so eliminating a couple of them is a neat clean-up; I could consider rewriting the armor list if there is no simple rule to solve some issues;
-Adding the skill penalty to initiative is an interesting option.


Also, another point I discussed a while back is that melee classes have larger hit-dice, which theoretically give them more HP but can easily screw them over since the variability is also larger. Of several potential fixes that we discusses, the one I liked best was halving the hit-dice and giving them back that value as a flat increase each level.
So a d4 becomes a d2+2. A d12 becomes a d6+6, etc.
Usually I allow as a DM (and often request as a player) to automatically average HD rolls, rounding alternatively down and up: a d10 would give 10, 5, 6, 5, 6 hp on the first five levels and so on. Your idea is another fine option that covers the little random differences that could come up between two otherwise identical characters.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The minimum damage rule is there to prevent (natural and crafted) armor to make (almost) invulnerable characters, especially at low level.
For example, a full plate would make a character immune to any Medium ranged weapon with equal enhancement bonus; add a few points of natural armor and even composite bows become useless.
(elemental properties would become mandatory for a certain number of builds just to make some damage against armored targets)
There is some simple solution to this?
You're also adding BAB to damage. I assumed the armor-as-DR was meant to roughly balance that bonus to prevent things from getting turned into chunky salsa in a single round.

But sure, I've got a solution: Make the DR from armor DR/Adamantium. That was the armored hero is more-or-less immune to lesser enemies, as he should be, but can still be wounded by peers (BAB-to-damage letting them punch through) or anyone with cash to burn (adamantium weapons). You can also add in feats to reduce or eliminate the armor-as-DR, introduce weapons that mess with it (say, a special dagger that bypasses the DR but provokes AoO), and so on.

(And also give ranged characters Dex to damage and their own version of Power Attack-- they really want that, and it helps them cope with all the DR issues that melee can normally power through)

[Huey Nomure]

And also give ranged characters Dex to damage and their own version of Power Attack-- they really want that, and it helps them cope with all the DR issues that melee can normally power through
Dex to Damage is a rule I forgot to put in there, so yeah, will do that.

About the damage problem, I figured out I was looking at the problem without a clear vision about how the various stats scale.

Attack vs Defense
-BAB vs BAB: the difference in training gives martial classes an edge (Good);
-Attack Ability mod vs Dex mod: attack has an edge unless Dex is a primary stat for the defender, making it even-ish;
-Weapon enhancement vs shield enhancement: characters without a shield suffer dearly for this, but martial characters are likely to buy an animated shield.

Damage vs DR from Armor
-base weapon damage+Attack Ability vs base armor: heavy armor can bring damage to 0 at low levels for low rolls, but when ability boosts come into play attack has a clear edge, especially if two-handed.
-weapon enhancement vs armor enhancement: should be even-ish.

If weapon cost is halved martial characters are likely to invest in weapon enhancement rather than shields or armor ones, since it's a bonus twofold.
Idea: weapon enhancement is only added to the attack roll, while BAB is added to damage. BAB is multiplied along with the Attack ability mod.
Observations:
-high-level characters can tear through low-level mooks without a sweat;
-crit-fisher builds deal significantly heavier damage.

Question: is 2x a more sensible multiplier than 1.5x for two-handed fighting?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Question: is 2x a more sensible multiplier than 1.5x for two-handed fighting?
I'd be leery of anything that boosts THF, since that's already the strongest style in the game. I mean, I went up to 2x Strength in G&G, but I also removed the two-handed bonus to Power Attack (probably the single biggest reason to use a two-hander). It's not a big power boost, though. And given how much damage in general goes up... it's probably OK.

[Huey Nomure]

I'd be leery of anything that boosts THF, since that's already the strongest style in the game. I mean, I went up to 2x Strength in G&G, but I also removed the two-handed bonus to Power Attack (probably the single biggest reason to use a two-hander). It's not a big power boost, though. And given how much damage in general goes up... it's probably OK.
I think I'll remove the THF Power Attack bonus too, but that belongs to a more detailed feat rewriting that I won't do in this thread.

Can anyone suggest a method to make sword-and-board useful?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I think I'll remove the THF Power Attack bonus too, but that belongs to a more detailed feat rewriting that I won't do in this thread.

Can anyone suggest a method to make sword-and-board useful?
What I did in G&G was twofold:

Power Attack working the same for everyone means that one- and two-handed weapons have the same base bonus damage.
Shields grant a miss chance (based on your BAB), not just an armor bonus.


A shield becomes a lot more valuable when you can trade a small damage boost and a cheaper investment (THF) for a 5-30% miss chance. Add in the potential for a bit of TWF via Agile Shield Fighter...

[Huey Nomure]

What I did in G&G was twofold:
Shields grant a miss chance (based on your BAB), not just an armor bonus.
Interesting and effective, maybe I'll end up using it, but I can't think of a reason why animated shield users wouldn't be able to gain at least the starting miss chance (so THF and TWF would just buy a +2 animated tower shield for 6180 gp and gain +6 AC and 15% miss chance). I thought about something about adding Str to AC, since Str is involved in eye-hand coordination.

Also, with mirroring weapons S&B would become the most expensive style; maybe the mirroring rune allows shields to mirror the enhancement to Defense and work as a secondary weapon for some TWFing.
If there was such a rune, actually wielding a shield would be the cheapest method (little more than 2kgp for a +1 mirroring shield) to have a good defense, while other styles must pay for the enhancements to keep up. Would this make SoB too strong? Should this be banned for bucklers? I'm not very familiar with the SoB TWFs.