[3.5] How are my houserules?

[Myou]

I'm going to be DMing a solo campaign for a friend and I'd appreciate some feedback on the houserules I plan to use. (All sources are open but anything totally broken is out.)

Are any of them going to cause problems? Would you be unhappy playing with any of them?

Edited;

1. Your Hit Dice always give maximum HP.

2. Healing spells that restore HP have their dice doubled.

3. There is no massive damage rule.

4. You die at the half the additive inverse of your HP. If your HP is x you die at 0.5*-x.

5. Player characters get a bonus feat at level 1.

6. There are no vorpal effects or enhancements.

7. Players cannot be evil.

8. The Blasphemy spell uses your class level not your caster level.

9. Candles of Invocation and Sarrukhs do not exist.

10. Wish and Miracle have the same experience cost when cast as a spell-like ability as when cast as a spell.

11. You cannot force a creature to expend experience when you summon it via a Gate spell.

12. There are no class alignment restrictions.

13. Psionics do no exist.

14. There is no multiclassing penalty.

15. Level 20 is not the limit for character or class levels; there are custom epic level rules.

16. Character flaws and traits are not allowed.

17. Ability points that have been permanently drained or lost being raised from the dead can be restored by Wish or Miracle. In cases where the ability in question provides benefits at each level (such as bonus HP from Constitution) those benefits are recalculated with the new ability score.

18. Full spellcasters who can cast a limited number of 0th level spells per day now have an infinite number of 0th level slots and the ability to cast 0th level spells without preparation (and to freely apply metamagic enhancements they know at the time of casting as long as doing so does not raise the level of the spell slot required), even if they couldn't do so before. If they wish to enhance a 0th level spell with any metamagic that raises the slot level this houserule does not apply.

19. Fighters get their bonus feats at the following class levels; 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, and 20. This helps remove dead levels from the class, gives them two more feats than they would otherwise gain, and prevents them being used as a 'dip' class.

20. You cannot artificially increase your caser level beyond 1.5 times its natural level. (E.g. at level 10 a sorcerer cannot have a caster level beyond 15.)

21. When a character gains a permanent Intelligence increase he gains skill points retroactively. He gains appropriate skill points for all of his character levels rather than just for current and future levels. For example a wizard who begins play with 17 Intelligence and uses his 4th level ability boost to increase his score to 18 immediately gains seven skill points rather than just one. Remember that items which boost ability modifiers do not give extra skill points/hit points, etc.

[MisterSaturnine]

You die at the additive inverse of your HP. If your HP is x you die at -x.

This is the one I find iffy. Other stuff I wouldn't do (like banning psionics) just for flavor reasons, but I'd ban it, too, if it didn't fit the world. This is the only one that I could see causing mechanical difficulties. Namely, at high levels with a lot of HP, it could get very, very hard to kill anything.

Everything else looks pretty solid to me, though I do doubt that giving different feat spacing will raise the fighter beyond a dip class. You can still take it to 2nd and then drop it.

[Ravens_cry]

2. You die at the additive inverse of your HP. If your HP is x you die at -x.

Is this just the PC, or does it include NPC monsters and such?
If it's just the PC, it's not exactly 'fair',but it is a way to make the campaign more survivable. Surrounding the players character with a cadre of DMPC's would also 'work' but wouldn't be as fun, I would imagine, for the player.

[AgentPaper]

For fighter, I would give it 1.5 BAB per level and a bonus fighter feat every level. I also might double how effective the weapon focus/specialization line works. (at least the PHB ones) Whether this will break fighters depends on your group, though.

For the negative HP thing, I would use half your HP in negatives to die, instead of full, or even 1/4th. Not a bad idea, though. Be careful, though, because this makes Diehard more powerful, effectively giving you double HP with your system.

[Myou]

This is the one I find iffy. Other stuff I wouldn't do (like banning psionics) just for flavor reasons, but I'd ban it, too, if it didn't fit the world. This is the only one that I could see causing mechanical difficulties. Namely, at high levels with a lot of HP, it could get very, very hard to kill anything.

Everything else looks pretty solid to me, though I do doubt that giving different feat spacing will raise the fighter beyond a dip class. You can still take it to 2nd and then drop it.

Well the idea is to avoid the instant deaths that you get at higher levels, where your 9hp buffer is just useless and you go from alive and fine to dead in a single blow. But once you have a foe dow to negative HP you can coup-de-grace them easily. Is it still too much?

I'm not trying to stop fighter dips, just make them pay off a little less and make the class slightly more useable without major chnages. Plus it's more fun for a straight fighter if he at least gets a feat every level.

Is this just the PC, or does it include NPC monsters and such?
If it's just the PC, it's not exactly 'fair',but it is a way to make the campaign more survivable. Surrounding the players character with a cadre of DMPC's would also 'work' but wouldn't be as fun, I would imagine, for the player.

It's everyone, PC and NPC.

[Myou]

For fighter, I would give it 1.5 BAB per level and a bonus fighter feat every level. I also might double how effective the weapon focus/specialization line works. (at least the PHB ones) Whether this will break fighters depends on your group, though.

For the negative HP thing, I would use half your HP in negatives to die, instead of full, or even 1/4th. Not a bad idea, though. Be careful, though, because this makes Diehard more powerful, effectively giving you double HP with your system.

1.5 BAB would be more of a complication than I want, since it's nonstandard.

I don't mind fighters being a bit underpowered, your changes sound like they could unbalance things in the other way to me. Thanks for the suggestions though.

I was primarily worried about abilities that let you keep fighting into negative HP, yeah, perhaps a proportion of your HP is a better idea. I'll see what others say, but I think you're probably right.

[Tempest Fennac]

Apart from the negative HP rule I like them. What will your friend be playing as?

[Random NPC]

Every time someone bans Psionics from a campaign, a tentacle monster is deprived of a Japanese school girl. Please, think of the tentacle monsters

[aje8]

Full spellcasters who can cast a limited number of 0th level spells per day now have an infinite number of 0th level slots and the ability to cast 0th level spells without preparation (and to freely apply metamagic enhancements they know at the time of casting as long as doing so does not raise the level of the spell slot required), even if they couldn't do so before. If they wish to enhance a 0th level spell with any metamagic that raises the slot level this houserule does not apply.

Um this is really overpowered.

Create Water floods a Dungeon, no need to fight monsters!

Detect Magic is on basically contiually, magical hidden doors or locks will ALWAYS be found.

If the Wizard has nothing to do in any given round, he'll down some Caltorps.

Speaking of which, make an infinite number of caltrops if you fell like it!

The Wizard also has Mage Hand on contiually. In fact scrath that, he casts like 20 and has them all lift something really heavy. Telekensis at-will??!!!

Trust me, many others have tried this rule before you. It doesn't work.

[KIDS]

It looks great! It deals with several horrible things in D&D (alignment restrictions) and does an ok job to rebalance fighters and basic casting. The Retroactive skill points are a very much need addition too. All in all, 10/10 and I'd be glad if my DMs used that.

I like playing with psionics and don't like people banning them but there is plenty to play apart from them too...

p.s. 12 - Fighter level 1 should have some kind of bonus that is dependant on your fighter level so that while it's not dippable, a 1st level fighter has at least some kind of ability.
Maybe a 3/day bonus to a save or attack roll equal to 1/2 your Fighter level (min 1) which works in the same manner as action points (reactive).

[RandomLunatic]

The rule my group uses is that death occurs at -(10+1/2 HD+CON modifier) hit points.

The only thing besides that I see is determing how to spend the retroactive skill points from 14. Any multiclassed character is going to need some way to determine what skills are class skils and which are CC. I would recommend for expedience's sake that any skill granted as a class skill by any class the character has be treated as a class skill for the purposes of retroactive skill points.

[Myou]

Apart from the negative HP rule I like them. What will your friend be playing as?

Thanks. :3

He's a furry so he's looking at a variety of anthropomorphic races. I suggested Yuan-Ti and he's also considering Lizardfolk, Merfolk, Triton and a few others.

Every time someone bans Psionics from a campaign, a tentacle monster is deprived of a Japanese school girl. Please, think of the tentacle monsters

Ewww, as a gay man I'd rather not see tentacle monsters raping schoolgirls. xD

Seriously though, I hate the psionics fluff and the whole tone of psionics just clashes horribly with the rest of the game for me.

Also, you don't have to be psionic to rape people with tentacles. ;D

[Lamech]

Agreed infinite 0-th spells is a bad idea unless you balance for it. For starters cure minor spamming?

[NEO|Phyte]

Also, you don't have to be psionic to rape people with tentacles. ;D

But it helps!

[UserClone]

If you want to make it so a PC probably won't get killed instantly, here's what you do:

If the hit takes them into the negatives (any negative), have the player roll a d10 and subtract that number from 0. This becomes their current HP. Is there a 10% chance of death? Yes. Is it better than just dying anyway. Yes. Is it better than making people with diehard nigh-impossible to kill? Yes.

[The Glyphstone]

Thanks. :3

He's a furry so he's looking at a variety of anthropomorphic races. I suggested Yuan-Ti and he's also considering Lizardfolk, Merfolk, Triton and a few others.



Ewww, as a gay man I'd rather not see tentacle monsters raping schoolgirls. xD

Seriously though, I hate the psionics fluff and the whole tone of psionics just clashes horribly with the rest of the game for me.

Also, you don't have to be psionic to rape people with tentacles. ;D

At least it's not "PSIONICS R BR0KENZ!!1 AND TOTALLY OP!!". Dislike of the fluff/flavor is a perfectly valid reason, though there is always the option to refluff mechanics - I've done just that in my homebrew world, where 'psionics' is a person's innate link to the freeflowing magical energy of the world. YMMV though.

For the others, previous comments would sum my opinions up - #1,4,6,8,12,14 are all nice; 2 and 11 could have drastically unforseen consequences and should be looked at; #3,5,7,9 are personal world-building choices, others don't really have much to comment on.

[Myou]

Um this is really overpowered.

Create Water floods a Dungeon, no need to fight monsters!

Detect Magic is on basically contiually, magical hidden doors or locks will ALWAYS be found.

If the Wizard has nothing to do in any given round, he'll down some Caltorps.

Speaking of which, make an infinite number of caltrops if you fell like it!

The Wizard also has Mage Hand on contiually. In fact scrath that, he casts like 20 and has them all lift something really heavy. Telekensis at-will??!!!

Trust me, many others have tried this rule before you. It doesn't work.

Well flooding dungeons is just silly, I'd have to be a pretty incompetant DM to allow that.

I think that someone who spends their life learning to control magic should be able to detect it. It's not like you can't get an item for about 1000gp with the same effect.

Caltorps? Cantrips? I really have no problem with that, what's he going to do, deal 1d3 cold damage?

What's wrong with making lots of caltrops? It's not like he can sell them - no-one wants a ton of caltrops.

Mage Hand does not work that way. XD

It looks great! It deals with several horrible things in D&D (alignment restrictions) and does an ok job to rebalance fighters and basic casting. The Retroactive skill points are a very much need addition too. All in all, 10/10 and I'd be glad if my DMs used that.

I like playing with psionics and don't like people banning them but there is plenty to play apart from them too...

p.s. 12 - Fighter level 1 should have some kind of bonus that is dependant on your fighter level so that while it's not dippable, a 1st level fighter has at least some kind of ability.
Maybe a 3/day bonus to a save or attack roll equal to 1/2 your Fighter level (min 1) which works in the same manner as action points (reactive).

Why thank you, that's very kind of you to say! ^^

I'll give the fighter suggestion some thought, it's a little more complicated than I like house rules to be, but it's a good idea, thank you.

The rule my group uses is that death occurs at -(10+1/2 HD+CON modifier) hit points.

The only thing besides that I see is determing how to spend the retroactive skill points from 14. Any multiclassed character is going to need some way to determine what skills are class skils and which are CC. I would recommend for expedience's sake that any skill granted as a class skill by any class the character has be treated as a class skill for the purposes of retroactive skill points.

That rule's just a little too complex, I don't like complicated house rules.

I'm slightly confused, wouldn't they just be able to spend 1 rank in a skill for every level they have that has it as a C skill, and 1/2 a rank for every level they have that has it as a CC skill?

[ericgrau]

Anything not listed below is too minor to worry about. So sure, go for it if you want.

2. Makes smart cleric healing obsolete. He'll just wait until after battle to do any healing of incapacitated allies. Which means a CLW wand is all he needs, which means anyone with just 1 level in ranger/bard/paladin/cleric/druid can replace his healing.

6, 8. Won't really fix anything, but not that big of a deal anyway. The real purpose of the orginal rule 6 is to prevent abusive dipping, not to slap everyone with an xp penalty. If it makes you feel better you could ban this kind of multiclassing altogether, or just manually keep tabs on abusive multiclassing yourself (which will help you watch prestiging too). Rule 8 is a band-aid on a much larger problem that stems as much from players as from the system. For this an intimate understanding of the skill rules are the best answer. Otherwise you're better off just ditching skills than misusing them IMO.

11. Just make sure to disallow infinite cure minor wounds. Pathfinder changes the spell to "Stabilize", which should work.

12. Hot topic, too in depth; I don't feel like touching this one today.

[Myou]

But it helps!

Rofl! xD
Ok, I'm making that into an arcane spell.

If you want to make it so a PC probably won't get killed instantly, here's what you do:

If the hit takes them into the negatives (any negative), have the player roll a d10 and subtract that number from 0. This becomes their current HP. Is there a 10% chance of death? Yes. Is it better than just dying anyway. Yes. Is it better than making people with diehard nigh-impossible to kill? Yes.

That is a very clever way to do it, good idea.

I'm leaning more towards half your max HP though.

At least it's not "PSIONICS R BR0KENZ!!1 AND TOTALLY OP!!". Dislike of the fluff/flavor is a perfectly valid reason, though there is always the option to refluff mechanics - I've done just that in my homebrew world, where 'psionics' is a person's innate link to the freeflowing magical energy of the world. YMMV though.

For the others, previous comments would sum my opinions up - #1,4,6,8,12,14 are all nice; 2 and 11 could have drastically unforseen consequences and should be looked at; #3,5,7,9 are personal world-building choices, others don't really have much to comment on.

Yeah, psionics are more balanced than magic in 3.5, that's certainly not a problem for me.

Refluffing would help, but I also just don't like the ethos, psionic powers are too dark and horror-themed for me.

2 and 11 are certainly the ones people have raised, yes, I'm still considering them.

Thanks for the detailed response. :3

Agreed infinite 0-th spells is a bad idea unless you balance for it. For starters cure minor spamming?

Hmmm, possibly, I'm still not convinced that there's a problem with infinite 0th level spells. What would you consider to be the danger and how would you cure it?

[Starbuck_II]

There are few issues I have:
1) I'm not big on psionics being banned, but I can survive if they must be. I still have other classes I haven't played.

2) Bards at level 1 will love you (as they only have 0 level spells at level 1).
Only Cure Minor means infinite healing from Clerics out of battle.

3) Inverse hps mean it is realy heard to kill a Troll:
I mean, sure you can knock them unconscious and bleeding, but someone might walk by and heal the thing.

But I guess in general, the players will Coup De Grace the thing.

4) Monks will thank you.

Mostly good houserules.

[Tempest Fennac]

If he's a furry, he may like some of the races I made:
Vulpines.
Fenneckin.
Apefolk.

If you wanted to nerf any races down to LA 0 (not that there's a need in this game), I'd be willing to help. (I have an LA 0 Lizardfolk already.)

Infinite healing is probably the only real issue with infinite Cantrips. Which class does your friend want to use?

[woodenbandman]

Anything not listed below is too minor to worry about. So sure, go for it if you want.

2. Makes smart cleric healing obsolete. He'll just wait until after battle to do any healing of incapacitated allies. Which means a CLW wand is all he needs, which means anyone with just 1 level in ranger/bard/paladin/cleric/druid can replace his healing.

6, 8. Won't really fix anything, but not that big of a deal anyway. The real purpose of the orginal rule 6 is to prevent abusive dipping, not to slap everyone with an xp penalty. If it makes you feel better you could ban this kind of multiclassing altogether, or just manually keep tabs on abusive multiclassing yourself (which will help you watch prestiging too). Rule 8 is a band-aid on a much larger problem that stems as much from players as from the system. For this an intimate understanding of the skill rules are the best answer. Otherwise you're better off just ditching skills than misusing them IMO.

11. Just make sure to disallow infinite cure minor wounds. Pathfinder changes the spell to "Stabilize", which should work.

12. Hot topic, too in depth; I don't feel like touching this one today.

2 is true of normal DnD. A SMART cleric will not heal you. A smart cleric will tell you to go die. A bleeding heart cleric will go over and heal you. This house rule doesn't really change that aspect, though the death at -hp is a little iffy. It means you kind of need to kill things with a coup de grace from now on.

6 and 8 are great house rules. There is no such dip as an "abusive dip." Anything that relies on dipping a bunch of different abilities is, unfortunately, strictly inferior to a normal spellcaster. When you really dig deep into the spellcasters (and it's a common mistake not to, since their class feature list is exactly 1 line long), you get the most deliciously cheesy and abusive things in the game.

11. No, don't disallow endless cure minor wounds. Let them spend 100 rounds healing, that's fine. A smart cleric won't heal you.

12. Good, but not a perfect fix.

[Myou]

Anything not listed below is too minor to worry about. So sure, go for it if you want.

2. Makes smart cleric healing obsolete. He'll just wait until after battle to do any healing of incapacitated allies. Which means a CLW wand is all he needs, which means anyone with just 1 level in ranger/bard/paladin/cleric/druid can replace his healing.

6, 8. Won't really fix anything, but not that big of a deal anyway. The real purpose of the orginal rule 6 is to prevent abusive dipping, not to slap everyone with an xp penalty. If it makes you feel better you could ban this kind of multiclassing altogether, or just manually keep tabs on abusive multiclassing yourself (which will help you watch prestiging too). Rule 8 is a band-aid on a much larger problem that stems as much from players as from the system. For this an intimate understanding of the skill rules are the best answer. Otherwise you're better off just ditching skills than misusing them IMO.

11. Just make sure to disallow infinite cure minor wounds. Pathfinder changes the spell to "Stabilize", which should work.

12. Hot topic, too in depth; I don't feel like touching this one today.

2. That's only if the party can win without healing during battle though, surely if a battle is tough they're going to want to heal more than a few HP at a time?

6. I'm not really worried about abusive dipping, since I can always just refuse a build that gets too silly. The multiclassing rules are just another thing to remember.

8. It's just a way to simplify things a little, I don't really see how it's misuse. o.O

11. Is infinite CMW a problem? It's just 1HP/round, I don't see a problem with letting players recover HP more easily outside of battle, am I missing something?

12. Err, odd, I didn't think that anyone would object to that one, is there really any danger of a monk getting overpowered just with full BAB?

[Saintjebus]

You want to give the spellcasters more flexibility and use out of cantrips, right? This is what I would do. Make all cantrips cast spontaneously, and you can know all cantrips on your spell list. You have double the listed per day use of cantrips for your class, i.e., wizards have a max of 6, now they have a max of 12. That gives them flexibility without giving them the chance to spam the cantrips.

[Tempest Fennac]

Point 12 was a reference due to how heated Monk threads can get around here (it's a controversial topic).

[Myou]

There are few issues I have:
1) I'm not big on psionics being banned, but I can survive if they must be. I still have other classes I haven't played.

2) Bards at level 1 will love you (as they only have 0 level spells at level 1).
Only Cure Minor means infinite healing from Clerics out of battle.

3) Inverse hps mean it is realy heard to kill a Troll:
I mean, sure you can knock them unconscious and bleeding, but someone might walk by and heal the thing.

But I guess in general, the players will Coup De Grace the thing.

4) Monks will thank you.

Mostly good houserules.

1. I've already talked to my friend about that one and he's fine with it. ^^
If he really wanted to be a psion or something I'd let him, but since he doesn't....

2. Actually, they won't. They're not full spellasters. xD

3. I think I'm decided on half instead of full inverse. Unless anyone disagrees.

Thank you!

If he's a furry, he may like some of the races I made:
Vulpines.
Fenneckin.
Apefolk.

If you wanted to nerf any races down to LA 0 (not that there's a need in this game), I'd be willing to help. (I have an LA 0 Lizardfolk already.)

Infinite healing is probably the only real issue with infinite Cantrips. Which class does your friend want to use?

He's actually already played a few races like yours, although not as well-made mechanically. He's looking for something outside of mammals at the moment. Thanks though!

He's not yet sure on class.

2 is true of normal DnD. A SMART cleric will not heal you. A smart cleric will tell you to go die. A bleeding heart cleric will go over and heal you. This house rule doesn't really change that aspect, though the death at -hp is a little iffy. It means you kind of need to kill things with a coup de grace from now on.

6 and 8 are great house rules. There is no such dip as an "abusive dip." Anything that relies on dipping a bunch of different abilities is, unfortunately, strictly inferior to a normal spellcaster. When you really dig deep into the spellcasters (and it's a common mistake not to, since their class feature list is exactly 1 line long), you get the most deliciously cheesy and abusive things in the game.

11. No, don't disallow endless cure minor wounds. Let them spend 100 rounds healing, that's fine. A smart cleric won't heal you.

12. Good, but not a perfect fix.

That was my thinking on CMW too, if they want to spend all day healing they can, I can always interrupt them if I want them on low HP.
Thanks for your comments!

[RTGoodman]

For the HP/dying thing, here's a couple of suggestions. If you don't want to use negative HP as the death limit, how about either the negative value of 1/2 your HP (your "negative bloodied value" in 4E terms), or even the negative version of your Constitution score. People with average Con still die at -10, but Fighters/Barbarians/whatever can survive to -20 or more.

The only other I don't really like is the Fighter fix. Just giving 'em more feats probably won't help. I'd prefer to give them, you know, actual class features. You can find a bajillion Fighter "fixes" online here and on the WotC forums, among other places, that do just that if you want some ideas.

[Myou]

Point 12 was a reference due to how heated Monk threads can get around here (it's a controversial topic).

Ahhh, I see. I've yet to view a monk thread. xD

You want to give the spellcasters more flexibility and use out of cantrips, right? This is what I would do. Make all cantrips cast spontaneously, and you can know all cantrips on your spell list. You have double the listed per day use of cantrips for your class, i.e., wizards have a max of 6, now they have a max of 12. That gives them flexibility without giving them the chance to spam the cantrips.

Actually, I also want to avoid the eventualiy at low levels of casters running out of spells and having to fire crossbows and the like. I want casters to always be able to cast something even if it's just for a few points of damage.

[Myou]

For the HP/dying thing, here's a couple of suggestions. If you don't want to use negative HP as the death limit, how about either the negative value of 1/2 your HP (your "negative bloodied value" in 4E terms), or even the negative version of your Constitution score. People with average Con still die at -10, but Fighters/Barbarians/whatever can survive to -20 or more.

The only other I don't really like is the Fighter fix. Just giving 'em more feats probably won't help. I'd prefer to give them, you know, actual class features. You can find a bajillion Fighter "fixes" online here and on the WotC forums, among other places, that do just that if you want some ideas.

I am indeed going for half HP like you say.

The thing is that I'm not that worried anout them being underpowered, it's more about making them less of a 2-level dip and getting rid of all the dead levels for a dedicated fighter.

[Tempest Fennac]

Do you have links to the races he's used please? I'm pleased you liked mine.