[3.5] My Houserules, please comment

[Segial]

I intend to introduce a few house rules for my current d&d group and I would like some feedback what you think of them, how you think they'll affect the game and what kind of problems could evolve from them.

a) Illitracy
The illiteracy class feature is added (the barbarian class already has it) to the Fighter, Ranger, Ninja, Swashbuckler, Rogue, Warrior, Scout and Commoner Class and all prestige classes without spellcaster progression. You can remove the class feature by either multi-classing into a class without the feature, spending a bonus language on it or buying a single rank in "speak language".

b) Damage Reduction
For every point Damage Reduction a character posses the appropriate incoming damage is instead reducted by 5% (round up) up to a maximum of 75%.

c) Class Skills
Certain Races treat specific skills always as class skills for calculating the costs for buying skillranks in that skill regardless if the skill is actually on their current classes skilllist, although the maximum rank they can reach in the skill is still calculated normally. For the Core-Races these skills are:

Dwarves: Appraise
Elves: Listen, Search, Spot
Gnomes: Listen
Half-Elves: Diplomacy, Gather Information
Halflings: Climb, Jump, Move Silently, Listen
Half-Orc: Intimidate
Human: Any one (pick at 1st lvl)

[AKA_Bait]

a) Illitracy
The illiteracy class feature is added (the barbarian class already has it) to the Fighter, Ranger, Ninja, Swashbuckler, Rogue, Warrior, Scout and Commoner Class and all prestige classes without spellcaster progression. You can remove the class feature by either multi-classing into a class without the feature, spending a bonus language on it or buying a single rank in "speak language".

I guess my first question here is... why? What will this bring to your game other than forcing people to multi-class, waste a language or waste a skill point?

b) Damage Reduction
For every point Damage Reduction a character posses the appropriate incoming damage is instead reducted by 5% (round up) up to a maximum of 75%.

Once more, why? DR is quite powerful as it is.

c) Class Skills
Certain Races treat specific skills always as class skills for calculating the costs for buying skillranks in that skill regardless if the skill is actually on their current classes skilllist, although the maximum rank they can reach in the skill is still calculated normally. For the Core-Races these skills are:

Dwarves: Appraise
Elves: Listen, Search, Spot
Gnomes: Listen
Half-Elves: Diplomacy, Gather Information
Halflings: Climb, Jump, Move Silently, Listen
Half-Orc: Intimidate
Human: Any one (pick at 1st lvl)

Dwarves just get appraise (mostly useless) and elves get listen, search and spot (all useful)? I smell some pointy eared prejudice.

[Curmudgeon]

This is a duplicate thread. Please ask the mods to merge multiple threads with the same topic.

[Dan_Hemmens]

Once more, why? DR is quite powerful as it is.

Not meaning to answer for the OP, but I think what it does is make DR more useful against large sources of damage, but less useful against small sources of damage. It means that you never get to the situation where you just *can't* get through something's DR (because it's above your max damage) but neither do you ever have a situation where something's DR is not a factor.

[Andras]

Once more, why? DR is quite powerful as it is.

As Dan said, this is actually a downgrade for DR. Now you can't just shrug off anything, you always take at least 25% damage.

As for the class skills, I'm partially agreeing with AKA_Bait. While the picks are pretty unbalanced as-is, this could actually be used to put more balance into some races that could use it (I'm looking at you, dwarves).

My recommendations:

-Dwarves stick with Appraise, they don't really need more.

-Elves get one of those, because they're all extremely good skills. Let's say Spot.

-Halflings, wow, that's more than a little much. 4 skills, 3 of which are pretty solid and often useful, 1 of which is situationally great to have, when dwarves get appraise? Ouch, halflings were a pretty good race to be originally, and now they're even better. If gnomes are getting listen and elves are getting spot, let's say climb, it's more halfling-y in my opinion.

-Gnomes, half-elves, half-orc, human are fine...maybe swap out listen for spellcraft or bluff in gnomes.

And now to your first point with illiteracy, hey, whatever floats your boat. That seems more setting-based than anything else.

[Killersquid]

I don't know about you, but I don't want a scout who can't read sign posts.

[darkzucchini]

In my games, everyone but Wizards start with illiteracy, and Barbarians have to pay 4 skill points to fix it, but, as somebody else said, its just a setting thing. I like my worlds to feel grim and archaic, where the vast majority of people are uneducated and have never traveled more than a days length away from home.

[Tempest Fennac]

I don't think Illiteracy makes much sense for most of the classes that it's applied to. It works for Commoners (and possibly Rangers due to them having similar wilderness fluff to Barbarians), but I'd assume that the other classes would be taught to read and write due to how it would make their training easier (especially as far as Rogues are concerned).

[Gorbash]

Kinda dumb for rogues to be illiterate since they have Decipher Script and Forgery as class skills...

[Kurald Galain]

It depends on your world setting. It makes perfect sense in certain medieval-ish worlds to assume that by default, people can't read - because in real life, most people couldn't read back then either. As late as thirty years ago, over a third of all people in the world were illiterate, which has now dropped to about one-sixth.

"Scouts can't read signs" is countered by the fact that, if most of the populace can't read, there aren't any signs.

In 2E, characters had to take the Read/Write skill to be, you know, able to read and write. Of course this was deemed too inconvenient for later editions - it's considered Not Fun to have your character handicapped in any fashion.

[Tempest Fennac]

How do you explain Fighters in regards to characters not being handicapped in 3rd Edition? Serously, that is a shockingly high statistic for illiteracy. In regards to the comment about most people being illiterate, how many people in a typical D&D setting are anything other then Commoners? I'd assume that Experts, Adepts and Aristocrats are likely to have been taught to read and right, and I'd assume the same thing for most PC classes (the fact that they are normally much stronger then people with NPC classes would suggest that a large amount of them would be privilaged enough to get a better education then what you'd expect Commoners to have).

[Kurald Galain]

In regards to the comment about most people being illiterate, how many people in a typical D&D setting are anything other then Commoners?

According to the SRD, commoners can read. Illiteracy is a class "feature" specific to barbarians (and one or two other classes, iirc).

Aside from that, I've never used NPC classes in any of my games, because I consider them a very dumb idea that was only invented as a kludge to fix an error in the skill system (the error being that only high-level characters can be good at skills; it then "follows" that, since NPCs are sometimes good at something, they must be high-level). Every other system I know of simply makes the NPCs "lower level fighters" rather than "warriors" etc.

[Mushroom Ninja]

I would probably give sorcerers Illiteracy too since according to the fluff, they don't get their power from reading musty old tombs all day.

[Tempest Fennac]

I know Commoners aren't illiterate (I was saying that they probably should be based on how they aren't likely to have had an education other then being taught to do what their parents did). I don't really have a problem with NPC classes (levels can be a problem, though: I remember someone suggesting ages ago that they would probably gain Exp. as they go through life, with a typical Human ending up at level 13 by the time they reach the Venerable age catagory). I guess 1 solution would be for Experts, Warriors, Commoners and Aristocrats to stop gaining NPC levels at level 5 (Adepts are more complicated due to their spells, so this probably wouldn;t work for them).

[Another_Poet]

Here is what I wrote in the other copy of this thread.

Illiteracy: I know it's more realistic for a medieval setting but adding illiteracy makes things worse for the reasons Curmudgeon offers [basically givign even more power to casters over other classes]. Here's an alternative:

Any character who does not currently have the illiteracy class feature can add the illiteracy class feature during character creation and, in exchange, gains 2 bonus skill points or 1 bonus language. Illiteracy can be removed from the character at any later time by spending 2 skill points.

This way it's a positive choice the players get to make instead of a penalty imposed on them.

Regarding DR, the DR rules as written are not perfect but they are fairly well enmeshed into the CR of many monsters, the power level of many spells, and the cost of many items. For instance, DR5/slashing is a great thing at low-mid levels (5th level cleric or rogue would love this) but useless at epic levels. With your system it's 25% DR/slashing at all levels. That really throws off the power curve, wealth by levels and EL of many encounters.

You've also effectively capped DR at DR15 (=75%). This is unfortunate.

Plus, what about partial immunity? For instance a 1 HD skeleton with DR5/bludg used to be immune to a dagger stab (unless the wielder has good strength) and that makes perfect sense; now the skeleton has 25% DR/bludg and can be completely destroyed by two dagger wounds (if rolling well and/or good strength). Does that make sense to you?

I'd leave DR as is unless you want to take a lot of time and patience to devise a completely new system. You'll have to do the same for energy resistance too, if you want any kind of consistency in your game.

For racial skills, I think it's fine. Not as big of a deal as Curmudgeon makes it out to be, although yeah, make it just one or two skills per race. Personally I think a much better houserule would be to make all skills class skills for all classes and let people build their skills as they like. Their total skill points are still limited by their class/race combo, but it's more customised and less pigeonholed. But if you want a world where the races are even stricter stereotypes then sure, I don't think it will hurt game balance to have a couple of racial skills for each PHB race. (It will be even harder to keep track of skill points, however.)

Anyway hope this helps and good luck!

ap

[Dan_Hemmens]

I don't know about you, but I don't want a scout who can't read sign posts.

Of course you could also argue that a scout who is relying entirely on signposts to know where he's going is a kind of lame scout...

[Saph]

The illiteracy rule is setting-specific - it's good if you want to encourage a setting where most people can't read, bad otherwise.

The DR rule is a bad idea. DR as is has minor problems, but your rule makes it worse by making low levels of DR almost useless and high levels of DR an almost unbreakable defence. Taking only 25% damage from attacks means that a high-level monster will be able to absorb astronomical amounts of damage before going down.

The racial skills rule I like, but you have to be careful not to overbalance it. Listen and Spot are much better skills than Appraise. That said, it does a good job of modelling racial knacks.

- Saph

[Eldariel]

Classic Elves are weak for whatever profession (+ Dex - Con), so for them, having Spot, Listen and Search wouldn't probably unbalance them. However, due to all the subraces, if that were expanded to them, it would get out of hand. Give them Spot and Listen, or if you feel that's too strong, just Search.

Dwarves could get Appraise and Search (they have free Trapfinding for rocky surfaces, but it's mostly useless for all classes except Ranger since you need Search as a class skill to reach relevant DCs), along with possibly a Knowledge. Actually, I feel every race should get a Knowledge for its natural habitation; Knowledge (Dungeoneering) for Dwarves and Gnomes, Knowledge (Nature) for Elves and Halflings (Gray Elves could get Knowledge (Arcana) instead), Knowledge (Local) for Humans, Half-Elves and Half-Orcs.

Gnomes should get few more; Craft (Alchemy) is natural and Spellcraft seems rational too. I feel Halfling needs Hide, even at the expense of all the non-Move Silently skills.

[TempusCCK]

Halfings already get a butt-ton of racial bonuses and size bonuses to Hide and Move Silent, they don't need it as a class skill. I'm alright with with Climb and Jump for Halflings...

Dwarves would be fitting with Appraise and Craft...

Elves are already getting bonuses to listen and spot... so give them Search and maybe Move Silent...

Half-Orcs are gimped, so Intimidate, Jump, and maybe soemthing else... Climb would work.

Humans should be able to pick just one.

Gnomes should get something based on their role in your setting, are they tinkerers, magic users, annoying little dwarf wannabes?

Half elves are also a little gimped, unless you count diplomancer, in which case you just made it easier for them to do it. I'd say pick any two, but bar diplomacy.

[darkzucchini]

Illiteracy: I know it's more realistic for a medieval setting but adding illiteracy makes things worse for the reasons Curmudgeon offers [basically givign even more power to casters over other classes]. Here's an alternative:

Any character who does not currently have the illiteracy class feature can add the illiteracy class feature during character creation and, in exchange, gains 2 bonus skill points or 1 bonus language. Illiteracy can be removed from the character at any later time by spending 2 skill points.

This way it's a positive choice the players get to make instead of a penalty imposed on them.

I don't like positive choices .

But in all seriousness, either method would work fine for increasing illiteracy in the setting. I feel that the only class that really needs to begin with the literacy (talking core here, don't remember all the class abilities from other books) are Wizards because it a) goes with their fluff, b) they start with Scribe Scroll, and c) they already need a decent Int score to be able to cast spells you can't make an argument for an idiot Wizard (though having a high Int score doesn't necessarily mean that you should know how to read).

Kinda dumb for rogues to be illiterate since they have Decipher Script and Forgery as class skills...

With Rogues, I would just make a necessity for the character to be able to read and write to use Forgery and Decipher Script. Most Rogues in the games that I have DMed or PCed haven't even touched those skills.

I don't think Illiteracy makes much sense for most of the classes that it's applied to. It works for Commoners (and possibly Rangers due to them having similar wilderness fluff to Barbarians), but I'd assume that the other classes would be taught to read and write due to how it would make their training easier (especially as far as Rogues are concerned).

I personal don't think easier training is a good argument for having literacy to begin with. First off, being literate pretty much makes everyones life easier, so by that logic everyone should begin with literacy. I would just like to point some different class based character concepts where doesn't make sense for characters to start litterate.

Bard: You are a traveling story teller, having learned your art from oral tradition that has been passed down through your people's history.

Barbarian: Rather classic; you grew up in the wilderness far away from any civilization. Not only did you have no real need to learn how to read, but there was no one in the village to teach you.

Cleric: You once heard a wandering preacher in your village, and his message changed your life. You have now taken up the mantel of traveling priest and wander from village to village spreading the same message.

Druid: See Barbarian

Monk: You follow a master martial artist's teachings, not through readying written works but by following by example.

Paladin: You love your church and have always been enamored by the priests, listening in rapture as they praise your god, even though you cannot read the words in the holy books.

Ranger: See Barbarian

Rogue: You grew up as a street urchin and eventually garnered the attention of the local thief's guild. They taught you the art of breaking and entering, but being able to read was never a necessary skill to learn and would bring little profit to the guild.

Sorcerer: See Barbarian

Wizard: This is the only class where only makes sense to be able to read right off the bat.

Adept: Your art has been passed down to you from the village elder, you learned through hands on experience and instruction.

Aristocrat: You are a simpleton, you have something that needs ready, you hand it to one of your advisers and he reads and explains it to you.

Commoner: You are to busy working to feed yourself and your family to learn how to read.

Expert: Your a blacksmith, not exactly a job that you need to be literate for.

Warrior: Stabbing the random bandit or subduing the random drunk doesn't require any fancy reading know-how.

[Eldariel]

The logical way isn't to make Illiteracy a class feature for everyone, but make it the status quo and give some classes 'Literacy' as a class feature (or alternatively a skill, in which those classes are automatically considered trained).

[Kurald Galain]

Adept: Your art has been passed down to you from the village elder, you learned through hands on experience and instruction.

Aristocrat: You are a simpleton, you have something that needs ready, you hand it to one of your advisers and he reads and explains it to you.

And I can even make a case for a wizard that knows the meaning of certain symbols and pictures, but not how to read actual language. The anagakok, for instance. 99% of wizards would probably take literacy skill anyway, but it's not like wizards have a shortage of skill points or anything.

[Segial]

It's nice to see that my ideas are not all outright rejected, so I would like to explain what why I thought them up:

a) Illitracy
Most of my reasons have already been posted. I do think Another_Poet's suggestion is very good and elegant and I'll most likely implement it.

b) Damage Reduction
I'm unhappy with the current damage reduction rules. I had numerous occasions as a GM and as a player when some characters or NPCs just couldn't be harmed by some of their opponents, and that is something I consider very bad for the game, because it ruins the encounter for them. Furthermore it forces non-spellcasters to actually carry around half a dozen different weapons to "test" them on the opponent to see which one works, and it totally screws them up once that weapon gets sundered, dispelled or disjuncted. It also favors classes with few but strong attacks (like barbarians) over classes with many but relatively weak attacks (like monks) even if they have the same damage output. While it might mess up ECL calculations, I think that is something I can handle to counteract those trends. I needed to make a cap somewhere, because otherwise at DR 20 it turns into an immunity, and that's not what DR should be and 75% worked well with a few basic calculations I did for BBEG. While it does increase the resilience of monsters against few very strong attacks, it also makes them vulnerable against "normal" attacks.

c) Racial skills
I always considered the racial bonus to be rather useless. At low levels they are nice, but quickly lose any meaning compared to class. My first idea was to turn those skills a race gets boni on into permanent class skills for that race regardless of the actual character class. I also considered the same feature for those feats that give small boni to certain skills, like skillfocus or alertness, for example. Generally those feats are considered quite useless, and that would make them more attractive. My reasoning was that it would be not so much of a balancing problem because the amount of skillpoints a character has is still the same, so it if he spends his skillpoints on his racial skills his class skills would suffer. What got me worried is that if allow a full class skill progression, people would be able to qualify for PrC much faster and that could become a real balancing problem, so I had the idea that the rank maximum would still be that of a cross-class skill, but I'm not sure if that a good idea. From what I've read so far, maybe it would be a good idea to compile a list of three or four skills for each race and the player picks one of them at first lvl to treat as class skills.

[erikun]

A.) Illiteracy
I would guess you're leaning towards a more "historical" setting by making more classes illiterate. That's perfectly fine, although I do find it odd seeing Ninja and Rogue on the illiterate list. There is a lot of literature involving thieves/ninja guilds operating through passed notes, or in stealing important documents from a rival wizard - and both would be difficult (impossible?) to do without being able to read.

Perhaps make the classes literate, but only in one language? Or keep things the way you have them, and just work around thieves guilds being unable to read.

B.) Damage Reduction
Just remember that when the BBEG is soaking 75% of all damage, that means that the attacks from your big hitters (Fighter, Barbarian, smiting Paladin) are suddenly worth a lot less. Rather than reducing the barbarian's attack from 60 to 40 (DR 20/-) you are reducing it from 60 to 15 (DR 75%/-). This makes it vitally important that everyone has the appropriate weapon for the job, and actually increases the weapon collections towards the endgame - your raging barbarian can't just overpower DR with his greataxe; he needs a greatclub and a second cold iron greataxe against different enemies.

Also, watch for creatures with alignment-based DR. A chaotic party fighting something with DR */lawful will be stopped cold.

C.) Racial Skills
I don't have too much of a problem with them, just a problem with the imbalance shown here. A halfling with 4 racial skills next to a dwarf with only 1 seems... odd. I'd also make Search a class skill for everyone, simply because everyone should be able to look for stuff. (Although finding traps would still be the rogue's job.) Perhaps:

All races: Search as a class skill
Dwarves: Appraise as a class skill, automatically gains a skill rank in a crafting skill of your choice (4 ranks at first level)
(basically the same as +1 skill point that needs to be spent on a Craft skill)
Elves: Listen and Spot as class skills
Gnome: Listen and Craft (Alchemy) as class skills
Half-Elf: Diplomacy and Gather Information as class skills
Half-Orc: Intimidate as a class skill. Half-orcs are better at physical challanges than skill ones.
Halflings: Climb and Jump as class skills. They already get a bonus to hide (small) and Listen would be far to similar to Elves/Gnomes.
Humans: Any one skill as a class skill.

[SoD]

One thing that I do, to help with the player backgrounds, is to allow every player 4 free skill ranks, to be placed into either: a perform skill, a profession skill, or a craft skill. This covers what the player did before they started adventuring. It also allows a fighter who can play the piano. This skill is also considered in class for every class.

On literacy: seems good, although, like previously stated, there are some classes that it doesn't make that much sense for: namely ninja, rogue and swashbuckler. Mind you, it depends entirely on the character idea, if their rogue is a streetwise urchin, on the streets all her life, then yeah. If she's the cunning guy who walks into a bank in the middle of the day, walks out with the money, convincing the mamanger to see her off with a smile (Lipwig, anyone?) then the literacy is a need be.

[darkzucchini]

The great thing about illiteracy is that you can buy it off for 2 skill points.

[Hawriel]

a) Illitracy
The illiteracy class feature is added (the barbarian class already has it) to the Fighter, Ranger, Ninja, Swashbuckler, Rogue, Warrior, Scout and Commoner Class and all prestige classes without spellcaster progression. You can remove the class feature by either multi-classing into a class without the feature, spending a bonus language on it or buying a single rank in "speak language".


Dwarves: Appraise
Elves: Listen, Search, Spot
Gnomes: Listen
Half-Elves: Diplomacy, Gather Information
Halflings: Climb, Jump, Move Silently, Listen
Half-Orc: Intimidate
Human: Any one (pick at 1st lvl)

I under stand whare you are going with the illitracy. I do think you went a little to heavy handed with it. There where alot more peaple who new how to read and write during the dark ages than most peaple think. There where alot of peaple from pessants to kings who could not read or write to save their lives. The majority of peaple of that time period where for the most part illitarate. However not enough that having almost every class illiterate. I suggest using deggries of literacy.

Try 5 levels of literacy, with modern school benchmarks for examples.

1) illiterate to barly literate. kindergardner. you can maybe recognize some letters or very simple words. You understand the meaning of common symbols. A skull means poison, death or danger A red cross means healing. A shevron means shelter. Two wavy lines means water up ahead.

2) barly literate to literate. 3rd grade. you can write your name. read and write individual words and short sentinces. You can comprehend the meaning of some words. you can understand simple written instructions

3) literat. You are literate. 6th to 8th grade. you can read and wright. You can puzzle out the peaning of new words by context in wich they are used. You can understand and fallow written instructions. You can write instructions. You know enough to help pealpe to learn how to read and right.

4) educated. 12th grade sophmore in college. you can read and write. You can understand and find hiden meaning in literature. You can right complex instructions, poetry, stories, or essays. You can research and analize different sorcess of information.

5) scholar. colledge grad. Lit major. You are a scholar. Not only can you analize literature and factual information you can write your own. You understand the meaning of a vast number of words and how they can relate to each other. You write the instruction manuals for educating others. You can teach a class in english, or literature. You can be a well known author of poretry or song.

level 2 should be your starting point for all classes. exept barbarian he is level 1. Wizards and Clerics should be level 4. Yes clerics. The clergy was highly educated in midiaeval Europe. Peaple didn't just deside to be a priest and start preaching. They had to join the church and leave their home. They didn't just learn the tenants of their religion but how to read and right and comprehend, discuss and argue. Theses on theoligy where common. The church would not have had the power it had if the clergy was not educated. It really depends on whare the character comes from. I suggest of the player wants to they can be illiterate (level 1) and take that point and apply it to another class skill. Within skill level limits of corse. Wizards and Clerics should not be able to do this.

Racial skills. I agree with some of the other posters. each race should have two skills that are class skills for that race. However I think they should have to choose out of 3 to 5 skills. This will let them have their racial nitch and give some individuality with in that nitch. Here are five skillsthat are assosiated with the given races.

Dwarf. Apprase, dungeonering, climb, consintration and engineering

Elf. Listen, spot, survival, know nature (or arcana), move silently

Gnome. Apprase, listen, know arcana, use magic devise, and slight of hand

Half elf. one choice must be from the elf list. The other can be any skill.

Halfing. climb, jump, move silently, listen, and balance (or tumble)

Half orc Intimidate, survival, climb, jump, handle animal

Human. Any two skills from the skill list.

Suggestions appon suggestions. If a player picks a skill that is already a class skill they should get a +1 racial bonus to that skill.
(edit) forgot to mention it. skills inside the parenthesess are really just hair splitting. I put an option becouse both skills would fit and I wanted to limit the list to five. I know halfings get bonusses to some of thoughs skills already but tossing them out for other skills that didnt fit doesnt seem right. Hell there small any way and its just another +1 to the thief.
Well thems my thoughts.

[Heliomance]

In our games, any class without decipher script as a class skill is illiterate. Have decipher script? Congratulations! You can read!

[Worira]

level 2 should be your starting point for all classes. exept barbarian he is level 1. Wizards and Clerics should be level 4. Yes clerics. The clergy was highly educated in midiaeval Europe. Peaple didn't just deside to be a priest and start preaching. They had to join the church and leave their home. They didn't just learn the tenants of their religion but how to read and right and comprehend, discuss and argue. Theses on theoligy where common. The church would not have had the power it had if the clergy was not educated. It really depends on whare the character comes from. I suggest of the player wants to they can be illiterate (level 1) and take that point and apply it to another class skill. Within skill level limits of corse. Wizards and Clerics should not be able to do this.

Yes, but in medieval Europe, clerics weren't chosen based on their magic powers.

Also, your list of levels of literacy seem a bit on the slow side. Level 2 really ought to be at grade 1 or 2.

Also also, get a spellchecker.

[Drider]

In our games, any class without decipher script as a class skill is illiterate. Have decipher script? Congratulations! You can read!

"I can't remember how to say the letter that looks like a little man in a hat."
"It's a T. It makes a "TUH" sound."
"Hello little man.MORBO WILL DESTROY YOU!"