House Rules For D&D Light

[Koga]

Ever just wanted to play D&D without all the hassle of game mechanics and tons of supplemental classes slowing things down as you got to consult the manual? No more! With The Koga's new (albeit still testing) theory, the classes are simple and balanced!

No more Use Magic Device:
Simply, all characters can use magic items without problem. Things that would be effected by caster level now will be related to the charisma stat. So in essence, charisma does have a use. To wield magic items more potently. But succeeding with them either way.

The Fighter:
Obviously a staple. The Fighter works as the 3.5 except as follows...

All skills are class skills.
Gains max HP each level.
Can choose any [General] feat as a bonus feat.

This will insure the fighter sticks to it's role as the tank while simutanously giving it leg-room for customization via skills and feats.


The Rogue:
Nothing can replace a good rogue. So here's these simple guidelines...

All skills as class skills.
Gains max HP each level.

Yes, it seems wierd to have the rogue gain max HP. It's not so much for them, as it is to balance with spellcasters.

The Cleric:
The divine caster, in alot of ways the cleric has been nerfed and in some ways made better.

All skills as class skills.
Can cast spontanously.
Automaticaly profficient with diety's favored weapon.
Suffers spell-failure for wearing armor and shields just like arcane caster.
Gains 1d4+wisdom modifier spellpoints per level. (Spellpoint varaint from unearthed arcana)
Has to roll HP each level. (Including first level)

The Wizard:
The last class and probably the most edited to accomodate for a smooth but balanced system.

All skills as class skills.
Can cast spontanously.
Does not have to consult a spellbook, ever. When would learn a new spellbook or scroll (spellbooks will now work kindof like scrolls magic item wise..) they make a spellcraft check DC 14+the spell's level, if they succeed learn the spell. If they fail, have to wait 24 hours before they can try again.
Gain 1d12+intelligence modifier spellpoints per level.
Has to roll HP each level (Including first).

New Feats:
Spell-failure is caused by the trouble doing somatics within armor and shields. So these feats help waver that problem, think of it as training.

Spell Succession:
Special: You no longer suffer arcane spell-failure with light armor.
Prequisite: Wisdom 11 or higher.

Improved Spell Succession:
Special: You no longer suffer spell-failure with light and medium armor, or shields. (Except for tower shields).
Prequisite: Spell Succession.

Greater Spell Succesion:
Special: You no longer suffer spell failure from light, medium, and heavy armor, or shields.
Prequisites: Spell Succession, Improved Spell Succession.




So what do you think? The Koga feels whatever you're looking for can probably be done with the right feats, skills, and multiclassing if need be between the core four. And this way the game is simple and can get right to it!

[jjpickar]

I like anything that speeds up character generation but I'm not sure if I would want to use this at a level any higher than 7.

[Umarth]

You must hate clerics.

Take away armor so they can't fight well.
give them 1d4 (wizard gets 1d12) spell points per level.

What exactly would be the point of playing a cleric?

Also I'll admit I'm not familiar with the spell point system but it looks to me like you made wizards even more powerfull than they already where. They seem to now be sorcerers who can know ever spell in the game. I know what I'd play.

[Catch]

So, clerics become a walking box of bandaids while the other classes gain increased versatility and options. Why does 'your' cleric have to roll for HP while the other classes don't?

Spite, maybe?

[Telonius]

I'd switch it a little bit. Get rid of spell failure chance altogether. Either you can cast in the situation, or you can't. An extra roll each time you cast a spell is just annoying and time-consuming. So, for Wizards, you can cast without failure in Light or No armor, you can't cast in medium or heavy armor at all unless you take a feat. For Clerics, you can cast without failure in Medium, Light, or No armor. You can't cast at all in heavy armor, unless you take a feat. Medium Armor Casting is a prerequisite for Heavy Armor Casting; both are classified as Metamagic feats.

EDIT: Shield Casting would also be a metamagic feat. You can normally cast using a Buckler with no failure. Shield Casting would let you cast using a heavy or light shield. Greater Shield Casting would let you use a Tower Shield.

[levi]

I think that giving some classes, but not others max hit points per hit die is a bad idea. If your aim is to remove the randomness that may lead to characters that ought to have a large number of hit points having fewer, I recommend the fixed HP per die variant.

In this variant, rather than roll hit points, a character recives the average roll of it's hit die (rounded down) per level. So a d4 = 2, a d6 = 3, a d8 = 4, a d10 = 5, and a d12 = 6. If you feel that the figher and rouge should have more hit points than that, you could increase the hit points they get per level. However, I feel that 10 and 8 respectively (equivilant to a d20 and d16) are too high.

Once you've ditched rolling hit points, you might as well do away with rolling spell points too. Speaking of spell points, I think you've spread the Cleric and the Wizard too far apart. If you used the same fixed system as the as the HP variant, then a 20th level cleric would have 40 (plus Wis Mod x 20) spell points, but a 20th level Wizard would have 120 (plus Int Mod x 20. That is a pretty huge gap. With a third of the spells, you've basically reduced the Cleric to (what's somewhat erroneously know as) a half-caster.

This might be acceptable, if they could still tank (although, at that point they'd basically be a Paladin), but you've hosed them there too. Compared to the Wizard, the only real advantage they've got left is a medium BAB. Furthermore, due to pressure from other party members to act as the band-aid, they'll basically be forced to use all thier spells for healing and not for anything else, which isn't very fun to play. Especially when thier other abilities have been lessened.

I suspect your Wizard is completly broken in half. At high levels, the Wizard is considered by many to be one of the most powerful classes. You've basically removed all obstacles to learning every spell in the game.

For some strange reason, you dropped the DC to decipher a spell by one point. Not much of a change, but it seems unjustified and 14 plus anything is a stange DC, if you ask me. Secondly, it no longer costs anything to learn spells. And finally, you removed the one thing preventing a Wizard from just learning a spell through brute force methods, the requirement to gain a rank in spell craft to retry learning a spell. At this point, you might as well just let them know thier whole spell list, it'd be simpler and hardly any more unbalanced.

If you want to really simplify things (and not hose the Cleric), I have a suggestion. Give Clerics and Wizards the same, fixed (Num + Mod per level) number of spell points, and have them know all thier spells. Once you've done that, give the cleric sufficent bonuses to compensate for the weaker spell list (HP per level, BAB, Skills, Bonus Feats, Profiencies, Etc.). Oh, and drop the Wizard bonus feats, with the boost they've gotten, it's just over the top.

As for casting in armor, I think this is a good idea. In Complete Arcane, there is a feat called Improved Battle Casting that allows you to increase the level of armor you can wear and still cast without a spell failer chance. Unfortunatly, you have to already have the Battle Caster class feature to take the feat. (I was quite saddened by this, because at first I thought it would be usefull for a Sorcerer based gish.)

Rather than have the progression go Light Armor -> Shields -> Medium Armor, I think you should make it more closely mirror the armor profiency feats. That way, a caster who only wants to use a shield dosn't have to invest in being able to use armor, and a caster who isn't interested in sheilds dosn't have to take armor feats. They should have prerequsits of proficiency with the type of armor and the lower feat in the chain, similar to armor proficiency.

Finally, I recommend that casting classes gain casting in the types of armor they're automatically proficient with. As you seem to desire to reduce the cleric's ability to tank, perhaps you should adjust thier armor profiency (and as a result, what armor they can cast in by default), rather than nerf thier casting. As your system currently is, they're encouraged to tank because thier spell casting is so weak.

A perhaps even simpler method would be a single feat that negates a given percentage of (total) spell failer chance, which is allowed to be taken multiple times and stacks.

I'm assuming that you've only listed these four classes because part of your aim of simplification is to go back to the four core classes of old school DnD (Fighter, Thief, Priest, and Wizard). If this is indeed the goal, there are some things you should consider doing to go along with this.

Firstly, you should consider dropping all multiclassing penalties. That way, a player who wants to make a Paladin or Ranger-esque class can simply take levels of Fighter and Cleric without worrying about keeping the levels even or choosing a race to get the right favored class.The same goes for making a Bard sort of character. (Wiz/Rog or Wiz/Ftr/Rog ought to do it.)

The other change to consider would be to place the spells that aren't availble to Clerics and Wizards on one or both classes spell lists. That way a player who wants to play a Cleric with a more Druid like feel, or a Wizard with a Bard like style can get the spells they need to do so.

[Neek]

I have a few suggestions in this respect, while we're working on a D&D Light version. I might not open skills to be class skills, but rather, work with the Level-Based Skills Alternative System. This makes everyone lives a lot easier.

levi's suggestion about the flattening of the HD and the Spell Points is also a good idea. Get those leveled, and character creation's a jiffy.

[mikeejimbo]

For Improved Spell Succession, I think you should also have a Wisdom of 13 prerequisite, and for Greater Spell Succession I think you should have a Wisdom of 15 prerequisite.

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

I have issues with all skills being class skills for some things. Nobody can be good/adept at everything.

[Icewalker]

When I play simple I just ignore class skills/cross-class skills. I think it is a bit of a bad idea, just because you focused upon a certain method of fighting doesn't mean your other skills should have to follow the same path.

[Caelestion]

Or take the "choose X number of skills" route that the generic classes do. All skills all the time is not good.