Houserules, yet again

[Ellington]

I've been working on some houserules for my games, mostly to make certain options more attractive to my players. I'm not especially keen on balance or the "big picture" and am mostly forming this from my own experiences, although I've gotten some neat ideas from the forums as well Anyways, here are some things I'd like to run over with you guys and see if there's anything wrong with them or anything you'd like to add:

RACES

Gnomes - Instead of +2 Con, -2 Str, I give them +2 Int, -2 Wis. Their original ability modifiers aren't really attractive to any class but I think the new ones make them into great wizards and rogues, and even interesting fighters.

Half-Elves - I just give them the human bonus feat, seems to be working fine.

CLASSES

Barbarians - I give them Damage reduction 1/- at level 1 which scales up to 6/- at level 20. Nothing huge, but just gives them a visible advantage early on.

Bards - I give them Bardic Knack from PHB II for free which allows parties to open locks without having to have a rogue each time as well as further cementing him as the Jack of all Trades. As with the other arcane casters, they get to cast cantrips at will (shamelessly stolen from

Druids and Clerics - Nothing. They really don't need anything.

Fighters - I give them an extra two skill points per level, as well as the Knight's "Armor Mastery" feat. Also, every five levels, beginning at level one, they ignore one point of AC penalty. Notice is a class skill.

Monks - Quivering Palm is 1x/day and Ki Strike gives them +1 damage/hit every time it upgrades, not just to overcome damage reduction.

Paladins and Rogues - Nothing as is, any suggestions?

Rangers - Their Animal Companion is treated as Ranger Level -2, instead of half the ranger level.

Sorcerers - They get eschew materials and metamagic specialist. Cantrips at will. It can be really annoying to play at lower levels and run out of spells, this allows them to do something beyond whacking people with sticks.

Wizards - Cantrips at will, just like the sorcerers.

SKILLS

I merged Hide and Move silently into Stealth and Spot and Listen into Notice. When there are specific cases where this doesn't work (blind/deaf characters) we just work it out on the spot.

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That's all I've got for now, are there any other "essential" houserules I'm missing out on or is anything there imbalanced?

[kamikasei]

I would suggest giving Monks full BAB and allowing them to make their flurry of blows attacks as a standard action.

[tyckspoon]

Paladins get bonus Divine feats and/or can convert Turn Undead uses into Smite Evil uses (or just make the Smite count /encounter instead of /day. Either way, the Paladin's unique combat ability has a criminally low number of uses, and it's pretty easy to fix.)

[Eldariel]

Few things:

Gnomes - Instead of +2 Con, -2 Str, I give them +2 Int, -2 Wis. Their original ability modifiers aren't really attractive to any class but I think the new ones make them into great wizards and rogues, and even interesting fighters.

Their original modifiers are incredible for Wizards, Sorcerers, etc. Constitution is their second most important stat, while Str is completely trivial (less important than Wis since Wis still determines Will-saves). The +1 to Illusion-saves further compounds this; Gnomes are among the best Wizards/Sorcerers in Core.

This doesn't really change that (though less Sorcs, more Wizards), but the Color Spray save DC may become pretty frighteningly high on low levels with this for Wizards. I'd personally suggest against this change though YMMV (removing the Illusion Save DC bonus may be a good alternative)

Half-Elves - I just give them the human bonus feat, seems to be working fine.

This is good. You should do the same to Half-Orcs (or give the skill bonuses instead). Both of the Half-races really lack the Human-side.

Barbarians - I give them Damage reduction 1/- at level 1 which scales up to 6/- at level 20. Nothing huge, but just gives them a visible advantage early on.

This is nice. I'd probably give them Pounce (ability to make full attack after charge) at some point to make them more mobile.

Bards - I give them Bardic Knack from PHB II for free which allows parties to open locks without having to have a rogue each time as well as further cementing him as the Jack of all Trades. As with the other arcane casters, they get to cast cantrips at will

This is handy, though remember that they already know Knock so locks are no problem.

Druids and Clerics - Nothing. They really don't need anything.

I'd give Clerics some class features. They get nothing after level 1. Extra uses of Turnings, extra domains, bonus divine feats or something (they don't need buff powerwise, but they could use something interesting just to get something).

Fighters - I give them an extra two skill points per level, as well as the Knight's "Armor Mastery" feat. Also, every five levels, beginning at level one, they ignore one point of AC penalty. Notice is a class skill.

I assume "Notice" means Spot/Listen. Sounds good, though I'd give them some offensive bonuses too, and the ability to make full attack after moving at some point.

Monks - Quivering Palm is 1x/day and Ki Strike gives them +1 damage/hit every time it upgrades, not just to overcome damage reduction.

I suggest giving Quivering Palm Wis-mod times per day, same with the rest of the once/day class features. And the ability to use Flurry of Blows whenever making an attack (so with Spring Attack, after movement, at the end of a charge, etc.) - this way their great movement speed isn't wasted. Also, change the type of the movement bonus to anything but Enhancement (Untyped á la Barbarian sounds good) so they can benefit of Haste & al.

Also, I'd allow them to use their Monk-levels instead of their BAB for combat maneuvers like Grapple, Disarming, etc. 'cause they seem to be designed to be good at those things but end up sucking because their medium BAB makes them lag behind. These are in addition to the changes you made.

Finally, I suggest making bonus feats that give you Dex/Wis to attack and damage to allow Monks to focus on non-Str stats should they so desire. Maybe give them Dex/Wis to combat maneuvers too so they can focus on either of those stats.

Paladins and Rogues - Nothing as is, any suggestions?

Give Rogue the "Penetrating Strike" alternative class feature as default. This allows them to deal ½ their normal Sneak Attack damage to normally immune targets while flanking them. This stops them from being useless. Even better, give them ½ Sneak Attack ALWAYS when they SA a normally immune opponent. As SA is their primary offense, this should help.

Paladin: Derive their spellcasting off Charisma! Give them 4+Int skills per level. And few bonus divine feats or such could be good. And make them count as a Cleric of their level for Turning Undead ('cause else their Turn Undead is just useless).

Rangers - Their Animal Companion is treated as Ranger Level -2, instead of half the ranger level.

This is good (I'd frankly just go with the Druid companion here; gimped casting is penalty enough already). In addition, I suggest stating that Improved & Greater Two-Weapon Fighting don't exist and you get all the benefits with just the normal Two-Weapon Fighting feat. This frees up the two other Two-Weapon Fighting-tree feats.

Give them Two-Weapon Defense (likewise combined into one feat so you end up with +3 Shield-bonus to AC and +6 when fighting defensively) at level 6 and Two-Weapon Rend [PHBII] at level 11. Much more interesting and fair that way. It's sort of boring how Two-Weapon Fighting is so much worse than Two-Handing (all you need is Power Attack and you don't take -2 to hit while two-handing).

Sorcerers - They get eschew materials and metamagic specialist. Cantrips at will. It can be really annoying to play at lower levels and run out of spells, this allows them to do something beyond whacking people with sticks.

This sounds good. In addition, give them some bonus metamagic feats at higher levels, and some metamagic-related abilities like the ability to reduce the metamagic-cost of a feat by 1 (to the minimum of 1) X times per day.

That should work pretty well for them since they are pretty obviously more in touch with magic than Wizards so them being better at altering magic sounds natural too.

Wizards - Cantrips at will, just like the sorcerers.

Sounds good.


That's all I've got to suggest for you. Though if you worry about balance, I'd check out some spells on the spell list. There's a whole thread on that in this forum, might be of interest to you. You can find the thread here.

[Ellington]

I would suggest giving Monks full BAB and allowing them to make their flurry of blows attacks as a standard action.

This sounds very good, actually, I really don't see them becoming too powerful by adding this.

Paladins get bonus Divine feats and/or can convert Turn Undead uses into Smite Evil uses (or just make the Smite count /encounter instead of /day. Either way, the Paladin's unique combat ability has a criminally low number of uses, and it's pretty easy to fix.)

Bonus Divine Feats sounds really solid, but at what intervals should they get them? Every five levels? Also, would combining the turn undead/smite evil uses into one pool be bad? That way they get increased uses of both as they gain levels and can gain further uses by choosing extra smiting/turn undead.

The whole thing

Really useful, I especially like the idea of Pounce on barbarians and the suggestions you had on Two Weapon Fighting. I'll have to look up penetrating strike, as well.

[quick_comment]

I like giving sorcerers eschew materials and spell thematics at level 1, and a heritage feat every 3rd level. The free eschew materials and spell thematics apply only to spells from your sorcerer slots. Also, I have them get new spell levels at the same rate as the wizard (they shouldnt be a level behind)

Paladins get all good saves. Any class that advances spellcasting advances paladin mounts as well.

Rangers can change their favored enemies each morning by spending 15 minutes studying something related to what they are changing it too. (A corpse of that creature type, some of its weapons, tracks left by it, etc). Rangers get an animal companion as druids.

Fighters and Monks get +1 to a physical ability of their choice every odd level. Fighters get d12 HD, monks get d10. Monks get Full BAB, fighters get better than full BAB (they end up with +25 at level 20)

Barbarians get a fighter bonus feat every 5 levels.

All full arcane spellcasters must choose a forbidden school. Specialization results in 2 more forbidden schools.

Metamagic feats permanently reduce your hp by 2 per level of adjustment. (So quicken is -8 hp)

Druids use shapeshift variant. Natural spell requires a concentration check of 20+spell level to use. Failure means the spell is lost.

DMM does not exist.

Clerics cannot spontaneously cast sanctified spells.

Clerics dont get heavy armor proficiency.

[Eldariel]

Really useful, I especially like the idea of Pounce on barbarians and the suggestions you had on Two Weapon Fighting. I'll have to look up penetrating strike, as well.

Dear me, I forgot to mention the source. It's from Dungeonscape and replaces Trap Sense.

[Xaklin_Magewrit]

I got a question why do a house rules require wizards to specialize? Is a generalist that dangerous or something?

[Riffington]

This sounds very good, actually, I really don't see them becoming too powerful by adding this.

If you do it, decide whether you want to let them be a common dip for lots of melee types. 3 feats, +3 to all saves, and evasion at the cost of 2 levels isn't shabby.

[Ellington]

If you do it, decide whether you want to let them be a common dip for lots of melee types. 3 feats, +3 to all saves, and evasion at the cost of 2 levels isn't shabby.

True, how about granting them the ability to add half their wisdom bonus or something to their attack rolls instead, when they're unarmored? Could become all of their wisdom bonus at level 10 or something. That way we can keep them at the same base attack bonus so the melee types won't take them for just the two levels and they'll still be improved with better attack bonus.

[Kobold-Bard]

My Clerics lose Heavy Armour Proficiency and gain Proficiency with their Deity's favoured Weapon. Heavy Armour then replaces Proficiency in the War(?) Domain. Seems more appropriate, I can't see Boccob telling his priests to wear Full-Plate.

Seconding Full BAB for Monks.

I give Fighters the Weapon Focus Tree for free at the Level they would normally obtain them (culminating in Weapon Supremacy), with the ability to change the weapon they apply to with a period of practise (5 mins maybe), but others have disagreed with this.

[quick_comment]

I give Fighters the Weapon Focus Tree for free at the Level they would normally obtain them (culminating in Weapon Supremacy), with the ability to change the weapon they apply to with a period of practise (5 mins maybe), but others have disagreed with this.

Ooh, I like that idea

[Kobold-Bard]

I like giving sorcerers eschew materials and spell thematics at level 1, and a heritage feat every 3rd level. The free eschew materials and spell thematics apply only to spells from your sorcerer slots. Also, I have them get new spell levels at the same rate as the wizard (they shouldnt be a level behind)

I agree with the feats, but they're a level behind because they're learning their magic from scratch, rather than reading from someone else's experience.

Paladins get all good saves. Any class that advances spellcasting advances paladin mounts as well.

Rangers can change their favored enemies each morning by spending 15 minutes studying something related to what they are changing it too. (A corpse of that creature type, some of its weapons, tracks left by it, etc). Rangers get an animal companion as druids.

Me like.

Fighters and Monks get +1 to a physical ability of their choice every odd level. Fighters get d12 HD, monks get d10. Monks get Full BAB, fighters get better than full BAB (they end up with +25 at level 20)

Increased Hit Dice is fine, but better than Full BAB is a whole new mechanic, rather than a houserule.

Barbarians get a fighter bonus feat every 5 levels.

All full arcane spellcasters must choose a forbidden school. Specialization results in 2 more forbidden schools.

I see these as unnecessary.

Metamagic feats permanently reduce your hp by 2 per level of adjustment. (So quicken is -8 hp)

So a Wizard taking a Metamagic feat is essentially giving themselves a Death Sentance?

Druids use shapeshift variant. Natural spell requires a concentration check of 20+spell level to use. Failure means the spell is lost.

Good stuff.

DMM does not exist.

DMM isn't the problem, it's certain combinations that are. Instead, just get rid of Persistent spell.

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Ooh, I like that idea

Thanks, it frees up some Fighter feats, and seems thematic for someone who's a master of martial combat.

[Riffington]

True, how about granting them the ability to add half their wisdom bonus or something to their attack rolls instead, when they're unarmored? Could become all of their wisdom bonus at level 10 or something. That way we can keep them at the same base attack bonus so the melee types won't take them for just the two levels and they'll still be improved with better attack bonus.

If you do decide to do that, add it to combat maneuvers as well. Monks ought to be the best at grappling and tripping.

If you want the simplicity of full BAB but don't want half the fighters dipping into monk, you could make the extra monk feats usable only when unarmored or something.

Either way, I would definitely houserule that monks get weapon proficiency: unarmed for free.

DMM isn't the problem, it's certain combinations that are. Instead, just get rid of Persistent spell.

This. There are plenty of reasonable uses for DMM. I've yet to see a nonbroken noncrappy use for Persistent Spell.

[Captain Six]

I created an odd series of houserules recently. I'm not sure what it does for balance but it sure shakes things up a bit. It significantly boosts the power of sword and shield fighters which is a rather iconic image I want to see more of. I basically took shield fighting and compared it to the superior two-handed weapon fighting and came up with the following rules:

-When fighting with a shield add half of your dexterity modifier, keeping in mind maximum dexterity from armor, to your shield bonus. (basically mirrors two-handed fighting's bonus to damage)

-Combat expertise has been changed (to further mirror two-handed fighting's greatest asset, Power Attack)
-Combat expertise attack bonus to AC exchange is only capped by base attack bonus, not 5. (That was just a stupid rule)
-While wielding a shield the AC gained by sacrificing attack bonus is doubled. (Not only matches Power Attacks bonus but the sudden spike in AC due to this strategy makes it harder to sacrifice as much attack bonus for both feats.)

-While the Two Weapon Defense feat adds a shield bonus it does not count as a shield. To make an offhand weapon count as a shield for the rules above it must not be used for an attack that round while still maintaining any attack penalties for wielding it. (Gives a little boon to two-weapon fighters, while not making them ridiculous, and allows the concept of a Main-Gauche)


I mostly came up with these for a very low magic setting so I really have no idea how much havoc these houserules could create with defending items and animated shields and whatnot.

[Kobold-Bard]

If you do decide to do that, add it to combat maneuvers as well. Monks ought to be the best at grappling and tripping.

If you want the simplicity of full BAB but don't want half the fighters dipping into monk, you could make the extra monk feats usable only when unarmored or something.

Either way, I would definitely houserule that monks get weapon proficiency: unarmed for free.



This. There are plenty of reasonable uses for DMM. I've yet to see a nonbroken noncrappy use for Persistent Spell.

How about giving Monks Soulknife style enhancements to their unarmed attacks?

[Eldariel]

This. There are plenty of reasonable uses for DMM. I've yet to see a nonbroken noncrappy use for Persistent Spell.

Persistent Spell is a great feat, it's just designed for higher level play ('cause you need 7th level slots before it's any good normally, and probably 9th level so you can afford to spend 7th level slots for lesser buffs). I mean, high-level Wizard should be able to keep his level 1 buffs online all day (and so should a high level Cleric). But really, the problem with DMM is that it allows you to exceed the maximum level of spells you can cast.

DMM: Quicken is sick and so is DMM: Chain. It's like a free extra Rod of Metamagic that can be combined with other Rods of Metamagic. Just cap DMM to the spell level you could normally cast and it's fair. This is how Metamagic Song is written and it's neither overpowered nor too weak.

[Riffington]

Persistent Spell is a great feat, it's just designed for higher level play ('cause you need 7th level slots before it's any good normally, and probably 9th level so you can afford to spend 7th level slots for lesser buffs). I mean, high-level Wizard should be able to keep his level 1 buffs online all day (and so should a high level Cleric).

What level 1/2 buffs do you think are worth a level 7/8 slot and a feat?

[quick_comment]

So a Wizard taking a Metamagic feat is essentially giving themselves a Death Sentance?

I worded it poorly. For each point of metamagic adjustment, the feat subtracts 2 hp, not 2 hp per point of adjustment per level of the wizard. So a wizard with 60 takes empower spell, he has 56 hp now.

So yeah, low level wizards arent going to be using metamagic.

[Kobold-Bard]

I worded it poorly. For each point of metamagic adjustment, the feat subtracts 2 hp, not 2 hp per point of adjustment per level of the wizard. So a wizard with 60 takes empower spell, he has 56 hp now.

So yeah, low level wizards arent going to be using metamagic.

I thought you meant they lost HP every time they used it, hence my response. I'm still curious to why you think this is necessary though?

[Doc Roc]

Whu.... why? No really, why?

[Eldariel]

What level 1/2 buffs do you think are worth a level 7/8 slot and a feat?

It varies. Sometimes, that Shield is really handy (if only 'cause protecting yourself from Magic Missiles can be a chore). Protection from Alignment isn't absolutely horrible either. Divine Favor is actually fairly good. Higher on, Mirror Image can actually be v. good to Persist and Blur-line is handy too.

Persisting Barkskin can also save you a lot of trouble and yeah, there are some uses. Of course, you'll like Metamagic School Focus or so to cut a level or two off it. Persisting Divine Power as a level 9 spell is strong, but not overtly so anymore.


The options are of course much wider outside Core (Persistent Mass Lesser Vigor is really nice to get rid of the headache of having to heal people; Persistent Delay Death is just fun, though it requires Metamagic School Focus or similar. And Persistent Scintillating Scales can be the life and death of some creatures (*cough*DRAGONS*cough*)); I maintain that some buffer builds really like Persistent Spell. It's not a must, but it's handy. Of course, it really gets on its own in Epic when Improved Metamagic and Improved Spell Capacity become available solely to fuel your Persistent Spells.

[Kobold-Bard]

It varies. Sometimes, that Shield is really handy (if only 'cause protecting yourself from Magic Missiles can be a chore). Protection from Alignment isn't absolutely horrible either. Divine Favor is actually fairly good. Higher on, Mirror Image can actually be v. good to Persist and Blur-line is handy too.

Persisting Barkskin can also save you a lot of trouble and yeah, there are some uses. Of course, you'll like Metamagic School Focus or so to cut a level or two off it. Persisting Divine Power as a level 9 spell is strong, but not overtly so anymore.


The options are of course much wider outside Core (Persistent Mass Lesser Vigor is really nice to get rid of the headache of having to heal people; Persistent Delay Death is just fun, though it requires Metamagic School Focus or similar. And Persistent Scintillating Scales can be the life and death of some creatures (*cough*DRAGONS*cough*)); I maintain that some buffer builds really like Persistent Spell. It's not a must, but it's handy. Of course, it really gets on its own in Epic when Improved Metamagic and Improved Spell Capacity become available solely to fuel your Persistent Spells.

Does Mirror Image grant more copies as the old ones die? Because if not then that's a terrible spell to persist (at least in my opinion).

[Eldariel]

Does Mirror Image grant more copies as the old ones die? Because if not then that's a terrible spell to persist (at least in my opinion).

No, and eh, your plan isn't to be taking hits on high levels anyways. The role it serves is to protect you from surprises and such in case you aren't paranoid enough to protect yourself through other means.

[Kobold-Bard]

No, and eh, your plan isn't to be taking hits on high levels anyways. The role it serves is to protect you from surprises and such in case you aren't paranoid enough to protect yourself through other means.

You make an excellent point. Query retracted.

[quick_comment]

I thought you meant they lost HP every time they used it, hence my response. I'm still curious to why you think this is necessary though?

Its to stop wizards from piling on the metamagic feats. Take too many, and a failed save even against fireball can kill them.

[Eldariel]

Its to stop wizards from piling on the metamagic feats. Take too many, and a failed save even against fireball can kill them.

The more elegant solution to this is simply to say "Arcane Thesis only applies to one MM per spell". That and get rid of Improved Metamagic pre-epic (in other words, do something to Incantatrix; it's a good idea anyways). This keeps non-epic Wizards from reducing the metamagic costs sufficiently to spam them on a single spell.

As written, metamagic isn't broken; it's the multi-cost-reducers that truly make it nuts (and well, cost reducers in general [go to hell, Easy & Practical Metamagic], but even fair cost reducers can exist as proven by Metamagic School Focus).

[Kobold-Bard]

Its to stop wizards from piling on the metamagic feats. Take too many, and a failed save even against fireball can kill them.

Similar to DMM, I don't see the problem with Metamagic feats themselves, it's Metamagic reducers that are the gamebreakers. But of course I've never been on the receiving end of a well built Wizard, so all my kowledge comes from the interwebz.

Ninja'd again. Stupid slow connection.