Post/Author/DateTime	Post
nightwing 02-02-07, 01:40 PM	My Proposed House Rules Deletions: * No barbarians, monks, or sorcerers. * No Half-Orcs, Half-Elves, or half-races of any kind. * No favored classes. * No natural spell feat. * No alignments. * No spiked chain or monk weapons. Character Creation/Advancement: * Characters begin with stats 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 arranged as desired, then modified for race. * Characters add one point to one ability score at every level, instead of one point every four levels. * When intelligence is raised from an odd number to an even number, get 4 bonus skill points in addition to the normal skill points. * All characters, including paladins, may multiclass among core classes freely. * No XP penalties for multiclassing. * Training to gain a new class takes one year and requires a mentor. * Gaining a new level takes one month with a mentor, or one year without a mentor. A mentor is required until level 9. * Characters with a prestige class must complete all levels of that class before another prestige class may be entered. Feat Changes: * Dodge gives +1AC vs. all opponents. * Toughness gives +1HP at every level instead of a one-time +3. Class Changes: * Barbarian dodge and trap sense abilities are Ranger abilities. o Fast movement, level 1 + Uncanny Dodge, level 2 # Improved Uncanny Dodge, level 5 o Trap Sense +1, level 3 + Trap Sense +2, level 6 # Trap Sense +3, level 9 * Trap Sense +4, level 12 o Trap Sense +5, level 15 + Trap Sense +6, level 18 * Monk mind/body/soul abilities are Paladin abilities. o Still Mind, level 3 + Purity of Body, level 5 # Wholeness of Body, level 7 * Diamond Body, level 11 o Diamond Soul, level 13 + Timeless Body, level 17 # Empty Body, level 19 * Perfect Self, level 20 * Barbarian rage abilities are Fighter abilities. o Rage 1/day, level 3 + Rage 2/day, level 6 # Rage 3/day, level 9 * Greater Rage, level 11 o Rage 4/day, level 12 + Rage 5/day, level 16 # Tireless Rage, level 17 * Rage 6/day, level 20 * Mighty Rage, level 20 * Monk falling abilities and speed bonuses are Rogue abilities. o +10 ft., level 3 + +20 ft., level 6 # +30 ft., level 9 * +40 ft., level 12 o +50 ft., level 15 + +60 ft., level 18 o slow fall 20', level 4 + 30 ft., level 6 # 40 ft., level 8 * 50 ft., level 10 o 60 ft., level 12 + 70 ft., level 14 # 80 ft., level 16 * 90 ft., level 18 o any distance, level 20 * Wizards use the spellpoints variant from Unearthed Arcana. * Sleeping erases all memorized spells from a wizard's memory, but replenishes all spellpoints. So a wizard must sleep to regain spellpoints, and then study to re-memorize his spells for the day. Spellpoints that have not been used when a wizard goes to sleep are "wasted." * Clerics and Druids use Spontaneous Caster mechanics from Unearthed Arcana. * Clerics get Eschew Materials as a bonus feat at 1st level.
Millennium 02-02-07, 01:55 PM	Interesting, but some questions: * No alignments. How do you intend to replace the many game mechanics that depend on alignment? * No spiked chain or monk weapons. If there's no monk to gain special advantage from them anyway, why ban the weapons? Is this campaign flavor? * Characters begin with stats 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 arranged as desired, then modified for race. Ouch. That's awfully low: the total of the ability modifiers is 0, and point-wise it's only a 15-point buy. That's going to make things much harder at low levels. Is this your intent? * Characters add one point to one ability score at every level, instead of one point every four levels. Ultimately, characters under this method start much weaker than RAW (due to the low stat array) and end up much stronger. Again, is this your intent? * When intelligence is raised from an odd number to an even number, get 4 bonus skill points in addition to the normal skill points. Is this a one-time bonus, or will it carry to future levels even if the player chooses not to increase his character's Intelligence further? * Training to gain a new class takes one year and requires a mentor. * Gaining a new level takes one month with a mentor, or one year without a mentor. A mentor is required until level 9. Ouch. That's one way to slow down leveling, I guess... * Wizards use the spellpoints variant from Unearthed Arcana. * Sleeping erases all memorized spells from a wizard's memory, but replenishes all spellpoints. So a wizard must sleep to regain spellpoints, and then study to re-memorize his spells for the day. Spellpoints that have not been used when a wizard goes to sleep are "wasted." Video-game magic, huh? * Clerics get Eschew Materials as a bonus feat at 1st level. What about holy symbols? And finally, The Big Question: what problems in your current campaign (or past campaigns) are you trying to solve with these?
Innervation 02-02-07, 03:42 PM	Agree with most of what millennium says. As a long-time DM I cringe when I see heavy restrictions placed on players, and campaign overhauls that simply tickle DM-fancies. You may be trying to acheive a specific theme or style of play that your players aren't as interested in and may not want to pursue. If it is for thematic reasons, make sure your players are also on-board; if it is for balance reasons, remember that the most important balancing concern is player-v-player and not player-v-DM. As a DM you have thousands of source pages for obstacles and "rule 0," so you are only limited by your imagination, so making challenges for any party shouldn't be difficult. I am curious about your group history that prompted these house-rules, as well. For example, if one or two of your players in the past made obscenely overpowered barbarians, monks and sorcerors and the rest of the group complained. Again, if it's for stylistic reasons, check that your party is interested: on average, a DM is only 1/5 the group. ------ And no change of Wraithstrike to "Duration: Instantaneous" text: "Until end of turn..." :confused: :P
Keenath 02-02-07, 04:09 PM	* No natural spell feat. I've found that Natural Spell balances nicely as a +1 metamagic. Just for the record. * No alignments.I've worked on this a few times. It's got some issues, but it's not impossible. For purpose of spell effects, etc, you just treat all mortals as "neutral". In my version, I did allow alignment to exist, but only for powerfully aligned creatures, like demons, angels, dragons, and so on. Basically, outsiders and any creatures that have an "always" alignment are treated as aligned, and everyone else is neutral. * Characters begin with stats 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 arranged as desired, then modified for race.HOLY OUCH! That's going to make some classes (paladin, I'm looking at you) nigh impossible to play, and it's going to greatly weaken low level characters. Why do you hate 1st level characters so much? * Characters add one point to one ability score at every level, instead of one point every four levels.Ah, now the previous point makes some sense. However, as I mentioned above: This is going to hurt your low level characters greatly, and it's going to greatly benefit high level casters. After all, a caster benefits HUGELY from putting every point into his primary casting stat, while a warrior type has at least three (and maybe four) stats that he's going to need to increase. You're going to see FRIGHTENINGLY high spell DCs in a very short period. (Consider! If your sorc puts every point into Charisma and another person puts every point into Wisdom, the second person's will save bonus JUST BARELY keeps up with the spell DC increases, and that doesn't allow for the second player to increase anything that benefits HIM -- and the spellcaster can always use a reflex or fort save spell anyway.) * Gaining a new level takes one month with a mentor, or one year without a mentor. A mentor is required until level 9.I ask again: Why do you hate low level characters? This just means it takes even longer to get out of that first few levels. * Clerics and Druids use Spontaneous Caster mechanics from Unearthed Arcana.Yeah, because divine casters just aren't good enough, right? Actually, I'm not very familiar with this set of rules. If they're more restrictive than Sorcerer spellcasting, fine. If it's spontaneous like a sorc is spontaneous, that's a problem. In general, your rules are going to make Clerics and Druids even more overwhelming than they are by normal rules. Given, the added abilities you're giving Pally, Fighter, and so on are going to help balance things, but I don't think it's going to help against the overwhelming DCs you'll be getting from the casters. I would strongly suggest you reconsider your ability score rules, at the least -- better to keep the progression slow and give them better starting scores.
nightwing 02-02-07, 04:52 PM	Thanks for the thoughtful replies. You've definitely given me food for thought, yay. Certainly, many of my proposed rules are for purely subjective reasons, and not to correct any particular problem. I never thought of barbarians as a profession so much as a culture, so I nixed it. Monks definately have their "cool factor", but I'm not sure it fits the "world" I'd like to create. I think way back when, when it was first introduced in the 1st ed., it was supposed to be a martial artist. But I'd rather allow a fighter to take the right feats to be a bare-fisted fighter. Sorcerers are not unique enough, especially since I'd like to try spellpoints for wizards. So there's really no reason to include them any more. Half races? Just always rubbed me wrong. Why not start crossing dwarves and elves? What's a cross between a halfling and a human? a half halfling? Favored classes and XP penalties... I really don't buy that less focus makes one fundamentally learn slower. It already sucks bad enough to multiclass, I don't think it makes sense to make it harder. No alignments... I HATE the alignment system. It's so poorly understood and mismanaged I'd rather do away with the concept altogether. People can role-play without it. Yes, I'll have to rework spells and abilities a little, but I don't see any huge issues. I would work with the characters that have such spells abilities on this one. for example, Prot. Evil would probably just be "Prot. Enemy" or something. No Natural spell...tones down druids. ...and I dislike the idea of "cheating" on the spell components by being in animal form. ablility scores... It's not that I hate first level characters at all. Power is all relative. I can design an appropriate challenge for the characters whatever the power level. My goal is to instill the sense that people start out young, and grow with time. This is really meant to be coupled with the idea that it takes a long time to gain levels and classes. I would intend that there be a lot of "down time" between adventurers while they are "living" their lives. So there will certainly not be any 20th level 25-year-olds walking around this world. The most powerful people will be the ones who have been around a while. When was the last time you saw a 20-year-old Gandalf or Elminster? You don't, really, because it just doesn't FEEL right. Accumulating power takes a lot of time and experience, that's all there is to it. Class changes... I wanted to beef up the fighter types. The classes I nixed (barb and monk) have lots of cool abilities that fit very well with the other classes (ranger, rogue, fighter, and paladin) so those don't need to be lost. We can just redistribute them. In my imagination, clerics channel power rather than "create" it out of bat guano and stuff, so I gave them eschew materials. Furthermore, I think it will tone their power level down a bit if they must choose what spells they know and can cast, rather than having access to any spell they want. Making them spontaneous casters (a la sorcerer) gives them toned-down versatility with the benefit of spontenaity. spell points for wizards... I've never been entirely satisfied with vancian magic. while it is "tried and true," I've just never felt that it makes enough sense. So I give them an "energy reserve" to draw from, a list of spells to choose from, and the freedom to use that energy how they want. To me, it's much closer to how magic is "supposed to be". As I said, many of my reasons are PURELY SUBJECTIVE, but I think they make a certain amount of sense. If a player really wants to abuse the 1 point per level concept, I might have to do something about that, but...
Mufflon 02-04-07, 03:01 PM	When was the last time you saw a 20-year-old Gandalf or Elminster? Well since I let my gaze wander across my bookcase just before I posted, I'd say it was about... 20 seconds ago. I am, of course, refering to my copy of Dragonlance Legends, which has a certain young archmage on the cover.
Mufflon 02-04-07, 03:03 PM	Oh and you might want to look into other spell point versions than the UA one, since it isn't what I (and many with me, or so I fancy) think is quite balanced.
Galstaf, Sorcerer of Lite 02-04-07, 04:56 PM	* Training to gain a new class takes one year and requires a mentor. * Gaining a new level takes one month with a mentor, or one year without a mentor. A mentor is required until level 9. Guh... the MMO "I've leveled up; I'd better go back to town and find my class trainer" approach. I've never bought that. Requiring training to level up is fine, but the character doesn't think in terms of XP and levels -- how does he know when he needs to go back to his mentor and get more training? Do they hear a cool little sound effect and glow for a few seconds so they and everyone around will know and the rest of the party can congratulate them? Better to just assume the characters are training and studying during downtime -- otherwise you end up with characters either spontaneously deciding to go level up with no in-character provocation, or people staying in the dungeon to hunt down every last killable thing because they want to make sure they level up before they go back to town and spend a month there while the rest of the party trains. And besides, they're called "experience" points for a reason... in the real world, you may hear it referred to as "on-the-job training." * Characters with a prestige class must complete all levels of that class before another prestige class may be entered. I've never understood this. Why do people insist on blaming level-dipping in prestige classes for so many problems? Why just PrCs? Why not apply the same rule to base classes? And what's the in-character justification for this limitation? Real people change majors in college all the time before completing their training in the first one. Real people change jobs, give up old hobbies in favor of new ones, etc. Why not let characters do it? No alignments... I HATE the alignment system. It's so poorly understood and mismanaged I'd rather do away with the concept altogether. People can role-play without it. Yes, I'll have to rework spells and abilities a little, but I don't see any huge issues. I would work with the characters that have such spells abilities on this one. for example, Prot. Evil would probably just be "Prot. Enemy" or something. On this one I agree with you. I don't see a big problem with dropping alignments as long as you're willing to refocus abilities that use them. You don't need four different "protection from..." spells -- Protection from enemies would achieve exactly the same effect in almost all situations. Detect evil and similar effects could likewise just be re-named to "detect hostility" or the like. These would be a slightly larger departure from the standard rules than changing protection from... abilities, but not by much. Holy weapons and such would be a little more of a judgement call on the DM's part, but most of the time it shouldn't be a major issue -- chances are the necromancer who's raising the army of undead and planning to storm the castle and murder the king so he can rule the kingdom with an iron fist and enslave its people is evil, while the paladin trying to stop him is good, even if they don't necessarily have those terms specifically written down on their character sheets. Not so much a "dropping" of alignments as a less structured, common-sense approach.