3.5E house rules?

[Lorddenorstrus]

Reduced to -2 at my table. Initial step for this campaign, I may take it out completely.


I tried this. It was too good. Didn't start that way, but once movement speeds started creeping up, it became a problem.
Now they get "Rapid Advance". Take up to HALF your move in a straight line prior to a full attack. Take charge penalties for it (but no benefits). You get a bit of maneuverability, without everyone running around the spearholders to whack the wizard in the back, or becoming ultimate kiting archers.

I have a bunch of other stuff from various posts in the thread (elephant feat tax reduction, skill combines, etc)

Few others not mentioned.

Charge to any valid square, not "the closest".

Flanking. You can ignore a flanker. You become flatfooted and flanked to him, but he provides no flanking bonuses to others.

Full str mod with all hands for dual wield. (light weapons are still half of course). Evens up damage bonus with the people using a two-hander. (actually more from Str, but less from PA still)

"Cast Defensively" removed. Either eat the AoO (and Concentration check if it hits), move back first, or use Still Spell a lot. (Related - one of my standard "custom spell creation" houserules is "remove somatic components for +1 SL" - so you could spend gold/time on getting Still versions of key spells instead of taking the feat)

Adamantine weapons reduce DR/Hardness by 20(+2 per point of Enhancement), instead of bypassing completely.
Other DR penetrating effects work similarly (Mountain Hammer reduces hardness by IL). They generally combine, so an IL8 Mountain Hammer with a +1 Adamantine weapon would penetrate Hardness:30
Other DR changes. DR:X/Magic is reduced 5pts per +1 of Enhancement, instead of a yes/no check. DR Silver, Iron, etc are reduced by Enhancement at 1:1, so you get some minor effect from your magic sword.

Same I modified Two Weapon Fighting to just be the same as Agile Shield Fighter kinda. Just a -2. Also rolled every TWF feat into just 1. Because dumb feat tax on the build worse than just Power attacking with a 2h wep of any kind. Yeaah not happening. Most of what I modified in 3.5 pre moving to PF and starting to learn the minor differences.. Were feat modifications really.. I did attempt giving martials full attack on movement irregardless. Didn't 5e do that anyway? But yeah it felt a little to powerful and also nobody used a charge action anymore. Tactical battlefield placement with Spells and teleports had to still seem.. important?

Otherwise I think the biggest thing was changing all stat drains to only ever go to 1. Never lower. Because "haha I Dex drain the dragon" was uh dumb. Rather than ban shivering touch and watch as they dumpster dive for some other spell. Just flat neutering the style seemed efficient. Because in the end it's bad game design. Bob charges in and does 25% of the Big Bads HP. The Cleric and Druid are in melee with spells to the boss is getting low in Hp. But Amazo the Wizard just stat drained him to 0. GG your turns were pointless. Wizard soloes 3.5 again. Yeah that's not happening. Everyone needs to be 'targetting' the same thing. ie HP. Stat drains are supposed to be debuff methods not Win Cons. Oh yeah on that note all save or dies can't find my list of modifications but basically anything that felt to "low level" i deleted because while the players will eventually walk around in immunity to death effect. Most non 'mid + range' enemies will not. Again not allowing Wizard to solo the game. This included low level creature effects I recall having to change a few to simply be high damage.. god where is my ****. (I'm packed atm moved into a temp place to live until next apt and everything is well i have no idea which box)

Uh I tried maximizing everything (PC and enemies) HP after of course as mentioned above forcing HP to be the win con of every fight. It actually made things interesting. D12 just = 12 and such. People felt beefy no complaining on rolling bad hp. It worked fine in my mid ish+ Optimization group. it did not function well in the weaker Optimization group. So I simply enforced an HP minimum of half the roll. ie Rolling 3 out of 10 = 5. No matter what.

Back on feats.. uh dodge/toughness doesn't exist if you see it as a Req, it's not really there... because that and toughness are so bad I can't expect anyone to take them as prereqs. And dodge is a pre req to some good stuff. God I need to find my written list somewhere for the rest. But anything that felt like pointless feat tax and wasn't "good" to take but you had to I either deleted or merged with something like the twf tree.