3.5E house rules?

[Lorddenorstrus]

People keep talking about maximizing HP. Has anyone ever considered minimizing HP, to make muggles (and Evocation) great again?



Has anyone tried doubling up, and actually taking VoP?

Yeah that makes the variance worse. The changes I've made actually force HP to be the Win Con so it had to be upped. When your martials can smack like freight trains properly designed. the average CR'd creature is gonna get 1-2 hit at the cost of nothing. It doesn't actually 'drain' any resources. Bigger HP pools extend combat by 1-2 rounds and make people actually debate the cost of their resource usage. Suddenly the monsters don't die instantly. What's worth expending more. Heals after the fight, possibly spells to remove debuffs. Or should they use resources like Evocation spells to nuke it and reduce cost after the fight.

[martixy]

"5: Overextend - Opponent gains immediate free disarm/sunder attempt, no AoO allowed."

That means monks (and similar types of characters who fight unarmed and unarmored) are basically never affected by this. Is this by design?

Not by design in the sense of specifically singling out (un)armed fighters, but by design conditional. Notice there are many situations in which the others also don't apply. E.g. provoking an attack of opportunity does nothing if you aren't threatened or everyone around you has already used their AoOs.

People keep talking about maximizing HP. Has anyone ever considered minimizing HP, to make muggles (and Evocation) great again?

Trouble with that is, max of different hit dice varies, min doesn't. You effectively eliminate a class feature.

Which is not necessarily bad - 5e did away with BAB in their pursuit of "bounded accuracy". If you're revising how damage works, doing away with hit dice is worth looking into I suppose.

[Quertus]

I don't really care what you do, just do something that isn't random. The variance in hit die size is generally much smaller than the variance in CON modifier anyway.

As a rule, I roll HP for all my characters, monsters, NPCs, etc. That variance and individuality is, to me, a feature, not a bug.

Yeah that makes the variance worse. The changes I've made actually force HP to be the Win Con so it had to be upped. When your martials can smack like freight trains properly designed. the average CR'd creature is gonna get 1-2 hit at the cost of nothing. It doesn't actually 'drain' any resources. Bigger HP pools extend combat by 1-2 rounds and make people actually debate the cost of their resource usage. Suddenly the monsters don't die instantly. What's worth expending more. Heals after the fight, possibly spells to remove debuffs. Or should they use resources like Evocation spells to nuke it and reduce cost after the fight.

And… Evocation spells aren't even more of a waste of action against max HP monsters?

Trouble with that is, max of different hit dice varies, min doesn't. You effectively eliminate a class feature.

Which is not necessarily bad - 5e did away with BAB in their pursuit of "bounded accuracy". If you're revising how damage works, doing away with hit dice is worth looking into I suppose.

Ouch. I suppose it's not as bad as comparing my idea to 4e, or to various government policies, but still.

Hmmm… if you want to keep the class feature… "beings with PC class levels get max HP at 1st level; all other HD are treated as a roll of '1'."

Or even (since I was thinking monsters) "all racial HD are treated as a roll of '1'."

[JNAProductions]

As a rule, I roll HP for all my characters, monsters, NPCs, etc. That variance and individuality is, to me, a feature, not a bug.



And… Evocation spells aren't even more of a waste of action against max HP monsters?



Ouch. I suppose it's not as bad as comparing my idea to 4e, or to various government policies, but still.

Hmmm… if you want to keep the class feature… "beings with PC class levels get max HP at 1st level; all other HD are treated as a roll of '1'."

Or even (since I was thinking monsters) "all racial HD are treated as a roll of '1'."

Is Toughness X3 worth… anything, really?

Because that’d be slightly better than the difference between a Wizard and a Barbarian-the Barbarian has +8 HP over the Wizard, assuming equal stats.

[Mordante]

IME, "quality of life" house rules like those mentioned by the OP are more common than balance house rules. Plenty of tables don't even realize their quality of life bugfixes are house rules at all! Usually it's the removal disliked things such as massive damage, multiclass xp penalties, fireball being a wealth destroyer/related item rules, misguided applications of the primary source rule*, and so on. If we're talking about more proactive changes, I often (but do not always) see things like:
- Giving away certain feats for free to everyone, e.g. Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Weapon Finesse.
- Bumping the skill points for mundane 2+int classes to at least 4+int (and/or having more ways to get more skill points).
- Making detect magic/identify work like Pathfinder (or just handwaving identification altogether).

*

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Basically, if the GM's game includes book X, and within X is a rules update Y which contradicts the PHB, and the GM does not explicitly change Y, then of course we're using Y. Don't be silly.

Why the free feats and skill points?

[pabelfly]

Why the free feats and skill points?

Free feats are often geared towards "feat taxes" - feats that most characters (martial especially) need to take to function, or feats that are weak but are taken to get more exciting things.

First type of feat might include, say, Power Attack. An article called "Elephant in the Room" explains this well.

Second type of feat might include Dodge or Combat Expertise.

As for skills... a third of a typical game is out-of-cpmbat. It gets boring really quickly being a martial character with no way to meaningfully contribute outside of combat. Hence, extra skill points.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Re: Feats, 3e has a big problem where to do [X obvious thing] you need a feat, but everyone should just be able to do X regardless. Use dex for a rapier (weapon finesse), do a called shot (PF deadly aim), shift to a more aggressive or defensive stance (power attack and combat expertise respectively), and so on. Feats - especially the way 3e (and 5e) do it where they're a bit rarer - should be big awesome things, not restoring your character to a baseline level of capability. Not to mention it's mostly mundane feat taxes and not caster feat taxes*.

Re: Skills, it's just my humble opinion that most PCs do not have enough skills in 3e, especially mundane 2+int skill classes but frankly even Rogues. PF half-solved this by consolidating skills and allowing that first point to provide +3 for class skills, making each point go further. But I have a fondness for 3e's relative granularity for skills, and PF's solution trades off with that. So I prefer just adding skill points/other ways to get more skill points.

For instance, if we're getting into less common house rules, I like the following ones: First, any feat that adds a bonus to a skill makes that skill a class skill. Second, the +2/+2 feats are half-feats and can be taken with any other +2/+2 feat. Third, Skill Focus provides full ranks in that skill (re-allocate any already-invested points). All of these allow for more breadth without messing with depth - skill monkeys certainly don't need more help breaking the RNG.

*

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I do add Eschew Materials to the pile though, with the caveat that some rare components/focuses are valuable even if they lack a listed price

[Mordante]

Free feats are often geared towards "feat taxes" - feats that most characters (martial especially) need to take to function, or feats that are weak but are taken to get more exciting things.

First type of feat might include, say, Power Attack. An article called "Elephant in the Room" explains this well.

Second type of feat might include Dodge or Combat Expertise.

As for skills... a third of a typical game is out-of-cpmbat. It gets boring really quickly being a martial character with no way to meaningfully contribute outside of combat. Hence, extra skill points.

I think a few extra skillpoints are okay. But I would not give people feats for free. Especially not casters, I agree some feats are near useless (Dodge, Skill focus, power attack, cleave, ect) But if a PrC needs then you get them. If you don't like that get another PrC class.

[pabelfly]

I think a few extra skillpoints are okay. But I would not give people feats for free. Especially not casters, I agree some feats are near useless (Dodge, Skill focus, power attack, cleave, ect) But if a PrC needs then you get them. If you don't like that get another PrC class.

Feat taxes are usually spoken about in regards to martial types. I think we can agree that casters don't really need a buff.

Having free feats aren't just about being able to access PrCs more quickly, they also gatekeep other, more interesting and fun feats. They can be mandatory for many builds and stop a player from getting interesting feats due to the resources required. Consider Point-Blank shot. Every archery build needs it, it's not very interesting or powerful, and having to get it not because you want it, but because you need to to get every other archery-based feat isn't a great feeling. There's something to be said for the simplicity of playing 3.5 DnD without any homebrew changes, but I think it's worth considering if the game might be improved by, say, removing Point-Blank Shot as a required feat for any feat and just making it an option if you want to get it for an archery build.

[RandomPeasant]

The problem with feats is that 3e can't decide how good a feat is supposed to be. On the one end, you have character-defining feats like Leadership, Divine Metamagic, or Natural Spell. On the other end, you have feats that are minor fluff abilities like Educated, Combat Expertise, or Track. "Free" is probably too little even for the latter, at least in general, but expecting them to trade off with the former is also unreasonable.

[Batcathat]

The problem with feats is that 3e can't decide how good a feat is supposed to be. On the one end, you have character-defining feats like Leadership, Divine Metamagic, or Natural Spell. On the other end, you have feats that are minor fluff abilities like Educated, Combat Expertise, or Track. "Free" is probably too little even for the latter, at least in general, but expecting them to trade off with the former is also unreasonable.

I have no idea of how well this would work in practice, but it feels like a fairly easy (though probably rather work intensive) way of fixing that problem might be to assign each feat a point value and have characters get "feat points" every time they would've gotten a feat. That way it's up to the individual player whether to pick a single great feat or a bunch of lesser ones.

[RandomPeasant]

I have no idea of how well this would work in practice, but it feels like a fairly easy (though probably rather work intensive) way of fixing that problem might be to assign each feat a point value and have characters get "feat points" every time they would've gotten a feat. That way it's up to the individual player whether to pick a single great feat or a bunch of lesser ones.

I think if you're going to go out and assign a point value to everything, you might as well just go out and smooth out the power curve overall. If you want a quick and dirty fix for the issue, my suggestion would be "characters gain a bonus feat every level, but the DM can veto these bonus feat selections". So if you want to pick up Mounted Combat, Lesser Dragonmark, or Tomb-Tainted Soul, that's fine, but try to grab Arcane Thesis and you get told to wait until you get an actual feat. The big issue I see with that is that there are relatively few martial-focused feats that are at the appropriate power level for a full feat, so you'd need to do something about that.

[pabelfly]

I have no idea of how well this would work in practice, but it feels like a fairly easy (though probably rather work intensive) way of fixing that problem might be to assign each feat a point value and have characters get "feat points" every time they would've gotten a feat. That way it's up to the individual player whether to pick a single great feat or a bunch of lesser ones.

I've seen that tentatively started elsewhere. Wish I had the link for it. It wasn't a bad idea, and it went something like: you got ten feat points when you were due to get a feat, and bonus fighter feat were tallied separately. They scored Power Attack at 11 points, and Skill Focus for 3 points.

You spotted the first flaw, that it's a ton of work. Even if you only scored the feats your players are interested in, you might score hundreds of different feats, and moreover, you need to balance your scores against vastly different types of feats, both combat and out-of-combat. The other flaw is that the worth of a feat is greatly dependent on the player and the other feats they take, which the system doesn't take into account.

I don't entirely think it would be worth it, but your mileage may vary.

[smasher0404]

I guess some of my own house rules to add to the list:

If I'm running for an entirely new group, or a group with a lot of newbies, I tend to give out a "Fenix Down". Basically, once per campaign if a character would be dead, the player can choose to use their down to be only "mostly dead". If they're in combat, they can't be healed back to consciousness until out of combat, but they cannot be killed until they are brought back to consciousness. I find that the rule A) makes me a little less worried about combat balance with the first few encounters (since players can always just use their Down instead) and B) helps promote more risk-seeking behavior, since players are less likely to lose characters their attached to.

In the same vein, characters heal half their maximum hit points (round up) rather than 1 hp per character level after a full rest. It gets characters back into the fray faster (rather than spending multiple days resting), and means less bookkeeping once healing magic is readily available. It technically devalues healing magic a bit, but I find that for the groups I run, players still tend to want to invest a fair amount of their resources into obtaining healing magic.

In games where I don't allow Leadership (most of them, unless the group is very small), I allow players to take the homebrew feat Leaderboat, which has the effect of being treated as Leadership for all pre-reqs. Similar feats also exist in the vein for Undead Leadership (a.k.a Undead Leaderboat), and other Leadership-like feats.

Instead of a d% roll for stabilization, roll a d20, 19 or 20 you're stable. (It works out to the same probability, and you're more likely to have your d20 close-by).

[Batcathat]

In games where I don't allow Leadership (most of them, unless the group is very small), I allow players to take the homebrew feat Leaderboat, which has the effect of being treated as Leadership for all pre-reqs. Similar feats also exist in the vein for Undead Leadership (a.k.a Undead Leaderboat), and other Leadership-like feats.

I'm not sure how I feel about the house rule, but I absolutely love the name.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Oddly enough, Sean K Reynolds of all people cooked up a feat point system a long time ago (the original post was on his website, which is no longer hosted, apparently). He did betray his own lack of system mastery by, e.g., making Great Fortitude more expensive than Natural Spell (to much mockery), but the concept was a good one.

Re: Bad feats v. good feats, non-core bad feats can just be ignored. Bad core feats fall into two categories: Basic Abilities, and Merger Opportunities. BAs are what I mentioned before - things like Combat Expertise which should just be baseline capabilities of characters instead of feats. MOs are feats that aren't good enough to be taken for one feat slot, so just tack them onto something that's related. For instance, it certainly won't break the game to merge Improved Overrun and Improved Bull Rush.

[RandomPeasant]

I actually disagree with the concept being a good one. For the amount of work it takes to get feat points to work, you could just write a bunch of new feats, or even prune the existing lists. If 10% of the several thousand feats that exist in 3.PF hit the power target you want, that's still enough to give a party of five a feat every level without any two people taking the same feats. Feat points is a kind of interesting idea, but even done well I don't think it's worth the extra effort to track.

I also sort of disagree about non-core bad feats. There are a lot of non-core feats out there that are fine, just not worth a feat slot. If someone wants to take Communicator or Draconic Skin instead of Endurance or Alertness, I don't know that they should be particularly penalized. Checking over all the crappy non-core feats individually is probably too much work, but I think that's more an argument against solutions that involve fixes at the level of individual feats than an argument for ignoring them (ref: The Gnome Problem).

[AceDragonKing]

Okay so i actually have a great many house rules that i do so feel to tell me what you guys think.

1) Don’t roll HP everyone gets max HP at every single lvl. But so do enemy’s. I won’t coddle you if you get hit by a CL 20 disintegration well i hope you make that save cause that’s 40d6 to you mister wizard man.

2) screw the rule for massive damage, if i have 300+ hp (see rule 1) and you do over 50+ damage in one hit no you don’t have to save or die/whatever

3) since i do exp not mile stone, i give out exp for showing up/ role play/most nat 1’s/most nat 20’s. makes the game for interesting not just getting them from combat

4) if you die you need character comes back with at the same lvl and with the same exp as the person with the least amount of exp in the party (prevents people from trying to hoard it all cause if the die it was all for naught)

5) weapon finesse applies to damage rolls not just attack rolls

6) you can earn feats outside of lvling up if they are train able (like power attack , two weapon fighting ect ) or if you want to do something really stupid like take a red hot cattle prod and brand yourself with the insignia of a demon lord (evil brand feat) i will give it to you

7) you can do anything you want in my world i’ll never rail road you or tell you that you can’t stab the king or pickpocket someone or what ever. But you have to deal with the consequences of your actions good or bad. (like in addition to receiving your new evil brand feat you also got the abyss bound soul feat and now when you die you go wayyyyy down and i don’t care if your willing you need the demon lords approval to get resurrected)

[NerdHut]

I've got a whole sheet of house rules. I limit my general rules to one piece of paper, printed on both sides, in a reasonably sized font. Anything that's less general (like an entire homebrew class, or a list of changes made to Level Adjustments) gets to be as long as it needs to be, and can be accessed on the site listed on that single sheet of paper. This allows me to customize the system to be more enjoyable for myself and the players, without making an overwhelming amount of new rules.

A Randomish selection of my house rules:

-Point-Buy, with lower point totals for LA +1 and +2, similar to E6's system
-Everyone gets Able Learner as a bonus feat, and Rogues get extra skill points. The first part of this is because I was tired of explaining the skill system to some of my players at every single level up (they're not great with math, so they lose track very easily. I promise they're fun to play with during RP). I gave rogues more skills because it bumps them back up to remain significantly more skilled than the others. Since I didn't change Max Ranks, it hasn't messed with skill modifiers that much, it just means my players have broader skills.
-Pick a Craft, Knowledge, Perform, or Profession skill to reflect your character's background. Gain +2 to the skill, and you're considered trained. Or, choose one language.
-Orcs and Half-Orcs only take +2 to Int OR Cha. They also get +4 to Intimidate, and 1/2 character level added to Crit damage. (I also have a variant to fit my homebrew world in which certain Orcs lose darkvision and light sensitivity and gain low-light vision)
-Revamped Fighter Class, as is a common one for any DM who loves to homebrew. Mine has more skills, broader feat selection, and a couple extra features that free the fighter up to not rely on things like Weapon Focus
-Simpler XP. The party gains XP at the same rate. You need 10 XP to level up, and gain 1-4 per session (skewing toward the 1-2 range). I have a custom template to partially recreate the level loss from resurrection temporarily
-Inventory Slot system. This gets its own info sheet, but the hope is that it'll simplify inventory book keeping (I haven't run a game since finalizing the system yet)
-Use Dex or Wis for initiative. One for reacting quickly to danger, the other for noticing danger sooner
-Toughness grants +1 HP per HD (min 3)
-Weapon Focus and its reliant feats use weapon groups (basically the ones from PF) instead of specific weapons
-Limit of 3 base classes and 1 prestige class. EVERY build I've seen that exceeds this limit has been over-the-top, and that doesn't work well when playing with people who struggle with the system
-Plausible weapons of innapropriate size can be wielded as a different weapon without penalty. For instance, a centaur could use a medium greatsword as a large longsword
-No multiclass XP penalty. It doesn't fit the simple XP anyway
-I have a specific list of books I allow in my campaign, but it's 32 books long, and other content can get case-by-case approval
-Some feats are combined, such as Cleave & Great Cleave, and Farshot & Precise Shot. The Two-Weapon Fighting feat tree is consolidated as well, granting the effects of the next feat when its prerequisites are met

I also have a rule for myself, where I tell the players we'll start playing about a half-hour before I actually intend for us to play. You either know why, or you're the type of person who is the reason way.

[Pherick]

All of our +1 feats give +2

[RexDart]

Okay so i actually have a great many house rules that i do so feel to tell me what you guys think.

6) you can earn feats outside of lvling up if they are train able (like power attack , two weapon fighting ect ) or if you want to do something really stupid like take a red hot cattle prod and brand yourself with the insignia of a demon lord (evil brand feat) i will give it to you

I like this one for, among other reasons, giving martial types or spontaneous casters something to do during downtime while the wizards are futzing around with spell books, crafting, and other nerd stuff.

[AceDragonKing]

I like this one for, among other reasons, giving martial types or spontaneous casters something to do during downtime while the wizards are futzing around with spell books, crafting, and other nerd stuff.

All my players tent to take advantage of it to some degree or another. from minor things like power attack so they can help reduce the feat tax for things to medium armor proficiency cause while i have down time might as well train

[RexDart]

All my players tent to take advantage of it to some degree or another. from minor things like power attack so they can help reduce the feat tax for things to medium armor proficiency cause while i have down time might as well train

Do the characters generally have to find/hire a trainer?

[fallensavior]

Seeing that PF still worked well with essentially double the skill points from consolidating the list, I went so far as to double the base skill points of each class in 3.5e. Doubling maintains the comparative advantage of each class. It does diminish the advantage of high Int, but Wiz, Arti, and Archivist can stand to come down a peg.

And building a human Rogue with a decent Int, it was still like "Hmm, I wish I had enough points to take Forgery..."

My house rule document:

Spoiler: House Rules

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Stats are the normal point buy, except you get 32 points.

HPs are maxed for 1st level, subsequent levels are average rounded up + Con.
d4=3, d6=4, d8=5, d10=6, d12=7

You may take one trait and/or one flaw at character creation, as per Unearthed Arcana pages 86-92.

You cannot create an evil character. If you become evil later, you will either have to atone and become non-evil or forfeit your character (they become a NPC).

Each PC (and some NPCs) will have action points as per the Eberron Campaign Setting page 45 With the exception that you can choose to add the action point roll to your d20 roll after hearing the results of your original roll.

Content (classes, races, spells, etc) from 3rd party publishers (such as Pathfinder, Dragon Magazine, Dragonlance, Mongoose, etc) requires DM approval. You can ask about homebrew, but it’s probably going to be a no.

The Dodge feat bonus to AC will apply to all opponents except when you
are flatfooted. (No need to declare it and only benefitting against one enemy)

Casting Defensively uses Concentration DCs of 15 + (2*spell level) instead of 15 + spell level.

The base amount of skill points that each class receives (before adding the Int modifier) is doubled.

Disable Device is a class skill for Scouts.

I will call for luck rolls. Mainly for things that would normally be determined randomly. A luck roll is a Charisma check.
Related new feat:
Improved Luck (Prerequisite) = Cha 12 Doubles your Cha modifier for Luck rolls.
New Flaw:
Horrible Luck (Prerequisite) = Cha 9 or lower Triples your Cha penalty for Luck rolls.

Group/side Initiative: One PC and one villain will roll initiative for the groups. If there is a surprise round, surprised creatures cannot be the one to roll for the group. If the PCs wins initiative, all the PCs go first, then all the villains go (and vice versa if the villains win initiative), and so on alternating sides back and forth.
You may not use the Delay action because of group initiative, just let the others go first. Likewise, if you know what action you want to take go ahead and jump in. If the group can’t work out who should go in what order or takes too long doing so, the DM will start calling on players and invoke the 5 second rule (see below).

The Ready action will not affect your initiative because of group initiative.

White Raven Tactics would normally change your initiative count; instead, because of group initiative, any given initiator can only use this maneuver once on each ally per encounter.

Five Second Rule: If the DM feels that you are taking too long in combat, they will begin
counting down from 5. If they get to zero, your character stands there thinking for that round.

There is no "out of game" If you say it your character says it. If you say you do something, your character just did it. Questions to the DM about the scene or rules, should be addressed by name to avoid confusion. (e.g., If you are talking to someone in game, and you look to the other player and say, "We should kill this *******." Then you shouldn’t be surprised when he or she looks
alarmed, runs away, or pulls a weapon.)

This campaign will not use XP. Instead, PCs will typically gain one level every few sessions. If PCs are uneven in level, the person at the lowest level will gain a level every session to catch up, or possibly two levels if the rest of the group is also leveling. If more than one PC is at the lowest level, they may roll off, or agree amongst themselves to defer to one or another PC. (If the group has reached the upper limit of the current content level-wise, or is not advancing the plot/making progress, then they generally won’t level, but characters that are behind may still get catch-up levels.)

If you use abilities/effects that consume XP, you will get a set number of craft points per level (as per Unearthed Arcana page 99). If you need more than that, you will have to sacrifice (forgo taking) a class level to gain points equal to the craft points amount for that level. (Note that by these rules you also get a one-time craft point bonus each time you take a crafting feat.)

A natural 20 on any roll will produce the best possible result, (AKA autosuccess) including on skills. There are no confirmation rolls for attacks on natural 20s, weapons with extended critical range still roll to confirm on other critical threat numbers.

Any d20 roll that comes up a natural 1 will be a fumble/critical failure. Outside of combat, this will produce the worst possible result related to that roll. For an attack roll in combat, I use the following:
The Fumble D8
1 = 1d8 damage (ignores hardness) to one of your items (DM’s choice)
2 = Half damage on an ally character
3 = Half damage on your character
4 = Drop weapon or item held if no weapon
5 = Fall prone
6 = Lose one piece of useful gear (player’s choice)
7 = Flatfooted for one round
8 = Nothing
If the rolled entry would not apply or have an effect, (e.g., "5" comes up when you are already prone) then nothing happens.

Instead of Heal and Disguise kits giving a bonus to your checks, they are required to make a check normally. Without them you take a -2 penalty for improvised materials. Masterwork kits grant a +2 bonus, they cost 100GP and weigh 4 times as much. A masterwork disguise kit is a large trunk.

Taking 20 on a disguise or heal check uses an entire kit.

Each PC is limited to 2 contingency effects at a time. You may have one via the Contingency spell and one via the Craft Contingent Spell feat.

Freedom of Movement does not let you auto-succeed on resisting a grapple, but rather lets you auto-succeed on breaking free if you are grappled.

Freedom of Movement protects against the movement impediment effect of the Burning Blood spell.

Mordenkainen's Disjunction/Mage’s Disjunction does not break magic items.

Frenzied Berserkers always usually kill their friends.

A melee attack into a grapple has a 50% chance of hitting the correct
target unless you have the relevant Weapon Focus feat (like ranged attacks and Improved Precise Shot). This can be ignored if the target is larger size than the other grappler(s) and you are attacking a square that only the target is occupying.

If you have the Precise Shot feat, you can use a bow with any Strength rating as if it were made for your current Strength score. (Instead of taking a penalty to hit or forgoing your full Str mod to damage)

If more than two creatures are involved in a grapple, the grapple cannot be moved by grapple checks.

Standard action charge: Charge is a standard action that lets you move your speed in a straight, unobstructed line and attack at a +2 bonus and you take a -2 penalty to AC until your next turn. You can’t standard action charge if you’ve already moved. Note that you can still choose to use a full-round action to charge and move double your speed.

Pounce, Dire Charge, Spirited Charge, or any other “full attack on a charge” or “multiply damage on a charge” ability only functions if you full action charge.

The Dire Charge feat works just like Pounce.

Five-foot steps may not be made diagonally as a free action.

The Divine Metamagic feat, Metamagic Rods, and any other metamagic cost reducers cannot be used to cast a spell that would normally use a slot higher than a 9th level unless you have the Epic Spellcasting feat.

Also note that Metamagic Rods, Nightsticks, and similar must be wielded in hand to benefit from them and you can only use one at a time.

You cannot enter any prestige class without before 6th level without express written DM permission.

Spontaneous casters can use the Quicken Spell feat. Other metamagics increase casting time as normal.

Weapons made of nonstandard materials (EG wooden swords) count as improvised weapons. (-4 to hit, lower damage, x2 crit)

Critical immunity and sneak attack (and other precision damage) immunity is removed from all creature types except for elementals and oozes and any other similar blobs of stuff.

Heavy fortification and moderate fortification enchantments, and other effects that grant over 25% fortification are banned.

Animated (floaty) shields are banned.

Rings of Evasion are banned.

If you have fortification, only roll it once per turn per opponent, you are vulnerable/not vulnerable to crits and/or sneak attack from that opponent for the rest of that turn.

If you have concealment and/or incorporeality, only roll it once per turn per opponent, you are vulnerable/not vulnerable to being hit from that opponent for the rest of that turn.

Replace 3.5 polymorph subschool spells (Alter Self, Polymorph, Shapechange, etc) with the PF versions: (Beast Shape, Elemental Body, Plant Shape, etc.)

Average damage: you can always choose to deal average damage instead of rolling.

Minionmancy: One player, one character. Animal companions, summon spells, cohorts, even familiars, etc. will be subject to DM control. You can give them instructions, but they may not reliably comply. The only way to completely control another creature is with domination magic.

Fractional hit points: Do not round damage. If you deal 10.5 damage, state it as such. If you take 5.25 damage, keep track of it.

The Splitting enchantment for ranged weapons does not allow precision damage (sneak attack, skirmish, etc) on the extra missiles, nor do the extra missiles multiply damage on a critical.

You retroactively gain skill points from previous levels and bonus languages when your base Int increases from leveling up or an inherent bonus from a tome/wish.

Weapon group feats - If you take a feat that would apply to a specific weapon, you can instead take it for a weapon group. The groups are piercing, bludgeoning, slashing, thrown, and projectile. If a weapon has more than one mode, e.g. a melee weapon with a piercing attack and a slashing attack or a melee weapon that can also be thrown, then you only apply the feat when you use it in that mode. For this reason, it might be advantageous to still take the feat for just a specific weapon so you can apply it to all its attack styles. This does not apply to weapon proficiency, if you are buying martial/exotic proficiency with a feat it still must be for a specific weapon.

Any racial weapon can be treated as a martial weapon for members of that race, not just the ones with a "weapon familiarity" listing in the PHB.

The Greenbound Summoning feat is a +2 metamagic instead of automatic.

Corpses and helpless creatures count as difficult terrain (and therefore prevent charging unless you jump over them.)

The Shivering Touch spell imposes a dexterity penalty instead of dexterity damage.

The chance to stabilize when dying will be rolling equal to or lower than your Constitution score on a d% instead of a flat 10% chance.

Teleportation spells/effects are limited to the caster plus one target

Replace Raise Dead with Reincarnation and Resurrection with Improved Reincarnation on Divine spell lists. (Improved Reincarnation = more options) (Note that you can use Wish/Miracle/Reality Revision to come back from the dead with your original or current form or to restore your original or former form after reincarnating.)

No multiclassing XP penalties.

This is a long list. Accrued from 18 years of rulings and bugfixes. I'm also currently playtesting 2 new rules:

Spoiler: Playest rules

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Instead of dying at -10 hp, you die if you reach negative hp equal to your normal max hp. Note that the Diehard feat will remain unchanged, allowing you to remain conscious at -1 thru -9 hp.

Because spellcasters don't critically fail enough every creature will automatically have a minimum of 1 (non-stacking) spell resistance and natural 1s on spell penetration rolls will count as fumbles.

[AceDragonKing]

Do the characters generally have to find/hire a trainer?

No but that does speed up the process

[pabelfly]

I really like the double skill points before INT bonus rule.

[VladtheLad]

snip*

This is a long list. Accrued from 18 years of rulings and bugfixes.

I like you houserules a lot and I have been already implementing many of them or similar to them in my own games. I have been even doing the double class skill points rule, though I have also experimented with having two different lists of skill points combined with double skill points. I think a very similar approach is kaeliks in the gaming den, if you search for kaeliks skill groups you will find it.
Another houserule I like is the 5 foot step one. I always though 5 foot step being a tad bit too good.
Its seems your aim is clearly to keep the game recognizable and patch the rough spots and that's what I have been trying to do in my games.

Some questions on your rules:

Certain stuff for example spells like Mindblank, Forcecage, Rope trick, Glibness and items like beads of karma, dust of sneezing and coughing. Or to go outside of core: Words of creation, Belts of battle, Celerity, Wraithstrike, Double prestige classing ur priests and similar prestige classes, Incantrix, Mighty Wallop, Greater, Wings of flurry, Power word pain, Mindsight, Fell drain etc are ok for use in your games? I generally ban them, but I am curious how you treat them in your games.

Is true resurrection still a thing?

How will spell fumbles function?

[fallensavior]

I like you houserules a lot

Thanks.

Certain stuff for example spells like Mindblank, Forcecage, Rope trick, Glibness and items like beads of karma, dust of sneezing and coughing. Or to go outside of core: Words of creation, Belts of battle, Celerity, Wraithstrike, Double prestige classing ur priests and similar prestige classes, Incantrix, Mighty Wallop, Greater, Wings of flurry, Power word pain, Mindsight, Fell drain etc are ok for use in your games? I generally ban them, but I am curious how you treat them in your games.

To be honest, most of these have never come up. But Rope Trick and Mind Blank have been pretty common.

Rope Trick is just a convenience spell. It does for resting what a bag of holding does for encumbrance or a ring of sustenance does for ration tracking. In the same vein, I also have an alternate version of the quiver of Ehlonna that gives you unlimited mundane arrows. So I'm fine with it. But if the party is so bold as to rope trick right in front of hostile creatures, then there is definitely going to be an ambush waiting for them when they get done resting. Natural consequences.

Mind Blank is really nice for casters. But casters are pretty good at will saves anyway, and it is self-only. And the opponent that is throwing those kinds of effects at you probably can dispel you as well. Also make sure to enforce the drawback: no morale bonuses from heroism or bard buffs.

Is true resurrection still a thing?

For consistency's sake, no. But if they have level 9 spells, they can do the same thing with a Miracle.

How will spell fumbles function?

I am treating spell fumbles just like any other. The caster will roll a d8.

[RandomPeasant]

Mind Blank is really nice for casters. But casters are pretty good at will saves anyway, and it is self-only.

It's not, unless I missed something from your houserules that changes it.

[fallensavior]

It's not, unless I missed something from your houserules that changes it.

Hmm. My bad. I guess I had the self-only psionic version in mind.

But in actual play, it might as well have been self-only. I have never seen a caster cast it on anyone else. Maybe they are selfish, but giving up 4-6 of your precious 8th level spell slots is not appealing (more if the party has animal companions, hirelings, cohorts, etc. The anti-scrying part is kind of worthless unless you hit the entire entourage with it.)

And generally if you give them a choice, the non-caster types will choose Greater Heroism over Mind Blank.

With Greater Heroism giving immunity to fear effects and Protection from Evil granting from possession and most harm and compulsion effects, there's not much left for Mind Blank to exclusively protect against. (I think just Insanity/Confusion? Is there anything else?)

Protection from Evil as a 1st level spell, that is the OP one.

...

To answer a couple more.

Celerity (and immediate action spells in general) seem more powerful than they actually are if you don't enforce that they can't be use while flatfooted. Yes, there is Foresight, but adding the cost of a 9th level spell onto that makes it seem not so OP to me in actual play.

Belt of Battle is very good but far from game breaking. 1 extra spell/attack per day, or 3 moves to set up a full attack when you would have normally been limited to a single attack.
I did find a silly corner case where you could intentionally nauseate yourself but still be able to charge (and thus full attack with pounce) so then with BoB you could pounce as a move action, gain an extra move action with BoB as a swift action, then pounce again...when you would normally be unable to attack at all. But I dealt with this by houseruling on charge/pounce: "Pounce, Dire Charge, Spirited Charge, or any other “full attack on a charge” or “multiply damage on a charge” ability only functions if you full action charge."