Post/Author/DateTime	Post
FriendoftheDork 09-17-05, 12:26 AM	Ok here follows my extensive house rules. Most of these I have played with for a long time, but I have never written them down before now. Please comment on some of these, especially if you think they're unbalanced. Some comes from UA and other official variants, but most are home-made. If some are hard to read and find I can edit it a bit, please let me now. Thanks in advance! House Rules D&D Races: Half elves get +1 skill points per level as humans (multiplied by 4 at first level). Classes: Barbarians and Bards do not have to be nonlawful. Clerics must worship a deity and not an ideal. Druids also must worship a god and not nature (but Mother Nature may be a godess). Sorcerers get Eschew materials for free at first level, 4 skill points per level, and Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate in addition to normal class skills. Skills: Appraise is needed to evaluate any item, including magic ones. Bluff can convince people, not force them to do anything they don’t want to. You can bluff a noble to believe your fake jewelry is real, but he won’t buy it if he doesn’t want that jewelry. Even if someone believes you’re not lying they may doubt that you’re telling the truth. You may convince the royal guards that you believe the king wanted you to have your way with your daughter, but they will still arrest you for trying it. Craft can produce income, but different crafts make different amounts of money. A basket weaver will generally make less money than an equally skilled goldsmith. Also, you need a job to make these checks, thus you need access to settlements. Diplomacy does not replace roleplay, and attitude tables are not used or are guidelines at best. This check improves or worsens what is actually said IC. This skill is also used for haggling. The winner of an opposed check may increase or decrease the price of an item/batch of items by 1% for every 1 you beat your opponent’s check. The maximum price adjustment is 50% up or down for barter checks. Don’t use this for mundane items or your DM gets angry, only when very short on money or it is vital for the adventure. Every appliance of Heal skill requires a healer’s kit or appropriate items (bandages, herbs, salves etc). Exception is long-term care. Targets of Intimidate add wisdom OR charisma modifier on level checks to resist, whichever is higher. Social intimidation cows target, making them back off or treat you better. Circumstances does apply, an unarmed and shackled barbarian will not intimidate an emperor on his throne well. Victims may become less friendly afterwards, depending on situation and target. To intimidate in combat you need to threaten the target(s) somehow (missile weapon, spells etc.) but need not be adjacent. The target(s) must be able to see you clearly and recognize you as a threat. For every creature beyond the first you try to intimidate you receive a -2 modifier to you check. If you beat your opponent(s) by 10 or more they are frightened instead of shaken. If you beat it by 20 or more they are panicked. Frightened creatures flees as best as it can, by any means possible. If unable to do so it fights but still suffers from -2 morale penalty to attack rolls, saves, skill checks and ability checks. Panicked creatures flees heedless of danger and drops whatever it is holding (usually by a run action, causing an Attack of Opportunity). If cornered it cowers instead, taking no action. Creatures attacking cowering creatures are at +2 to attack roll. Intelligent creatures at likely to obey orders if cowering. Perform is considered a single skill, not one for each instrument/category. For every 2 ranks in the skill you can learn a new instrument/category. Thus a 1st level bard could enter play with Sing and Harp. A player may divide this skill into different ones to learn more perform types. Thus a 1st level bard spending 16 skill points on perform skill could get 8 different types with 4 ranks in each. Profession… see craft. Survival: Even with the Track feat you can’t track someone in high traffic areas, such as roads, cities etc. Following tracks leading away from such is fair play though. Swim: for every 5 pounds load you get -1 penalty on swim checks, including clothing worn. Armor check penalty does not apply. Even leather armor will hinder you underwater! Tumble: Tumbling speed while prone is 5’. You can tumble twice as fast with a -10 penalty. You may stand up from prone as a free action DC 35. This does provoke AoO as normal. Feats: Great fortitude: +3 bonus on fortitude saves. Iron will: +3 bonus on will saves. Lightening reflexes: +3 bonus on…. guess what! Skill focus: Gain skill as class skill AND +3 bonus. Acrobatic, Alertness, Persuasive etc: Gain both skills as class skills OR get +2 bonus on each skill. Spell focus: +2 DC on spells of single scool. Greater spell focus: +2 DC on spells of single school. Stacks with Spell focus. Metamagic feats: Spontaneous metamagic. 3/day you may apply one or more metamagic feats to a spell you have memorized or can spontaneously cast. The max level you can apply a metamagic feat is equal to the highest level spell you can cast minus the spell level adjustment of the metamagic feat. If more than one feat is used, both count as daily uses of each feat, and spell level adjustment stacks. Thus a 10th level wizard with empower spell and maximize spell may only use both feats on a single 0th level spell, empower on 3rd level spell or lower, or maximize on a 2nd level spell or lower. Each feat may be taken multiple times. Every time it is taken the number of times you can apply the feat to a spell rises by 3/day. Equipment Weapons: Quarterstaff: May be used with Weapon Finesse. Any weapon may be used to deal subdual damage at a -4 penalty to attack roll, but some are better at this than others. Club, quarterstaff and other blunt weapons deal full damage and only at a -2 penalty to attack rolls. Mace, Morningstar and flail only deal half damage die (1d8 becomes 1d4) unless spikes are removed and weapon blunt. Weapons with blunt shafts or massive blunt areas (spear, glaive, warhammer, axes etc.) deal one size category lower subdual damage. Swords and similar deal half damage die subdual damage (flat sided strike or pommel strike). Armor: All medium and heavy armors except Hide and Full plate have +1 better AC. A breastplate may be worn without greaves, reducing AC by one and Armor check penalty by two. This also increases max dex bonus by 1- (thus +5 AC, -2 ACP and +4 max dex.) Light shields allow shield hand to be used to hold divine focus and other small items, but you can’t use weapons with it. Movement Hustling: A character with the endurance feat can hustle (double move) for 2 hours (instead of one) before taking 1 nonlethal damage and becoming fatigued. Each additional hour of hustling only causes 1.5 times damage taken during the previous hour of hustling for characters without this feat. (This better represents the Endurance feat as the +4 bonus on con checks doesn’t matter if you only hustle). Magic Buff Spells: Buff spells such as Bull’s Strength, Cat’s grace etc. have duration changed from 1min/level to 10min/level. This is still shorter than 3.0 versions which were 1h/level, but still lengthy enough to be used for non-combat purposes. Same change for mass versions Invisibility increase duration to 10min/level. Levitate increase duration to 10min/level Darkness works as 3.0, in that it creates total darkness as opposed to shadowy illumination. That means 50% miss chance to attack those within the darkness, as opposed to mere 20%. Spider Climb increase duration to 1h/level. Fly increase duration to 10min/level. Animate Dead increase casting time to 10 minutes. Material component is a black onyx worth 50 gp for any number of medium sized humanoid skeletons (max 2*HD per casting), or 100gp worth onyxes for zombies. Nonstandard skeletons or zombies requires onyxes worth 25gp/HD as normal. Polymorph: Increase duration to permanent. Target need not be willing, but fortitude save negates and SR applies. Subject gains some natural ability of the creature polymorphed into, such as vision (low light, darkvision, blindsight) but not regeneration, fast healing or any spell like or supernatural ability. If the new form would prove fatal the subject gets a +4 bonus on the save. If the subject stays in the same form for long periods of time it may take one characteristics of the creature type. Eventually the mindset will change the subjects so that it becomes its new form completely.
Elgonn 09-17-05, 01:01 AM	Races: Nothing wrong with Half Elves getting a boost. The rest simply aren't rules. Classes: All reasonable changes. But the sorc metamagic change is questionable. Have you changed ALL metamagics to their sudden variants? If so this change is meaningless. If you still have normal metamagic this is meaningless again because your metamagic changes are simply superior. Caster buff #1 Skills: Bluff already works that way. Craft isn't really a rule change. Diplomacy is broken because you can easily get things for free. Just backwards to say "does not replace roleplay" and then give the mechanics for a 100% discount. Really you need to pick one. Heal change isn't much of anything. Intimidate is just mechanically broken. Hey I can intimidate you from farther away than you can see or hear! I'm damn fearsome. You are aware of the "threatenable" distance of a well built Archer or say a plain old Fireball? Perform change isn't much really. Profession is another who cares. Search = wtf.. Clues? Clues? What mechanical gameplay element is a Clue? The skill already works this way during roleplay. But there isn't a mechanical method. You haven't changed Sense Motive at all. Your Survival change already exists as a ridiculous circumstance penalty. With a high enough check I can track a hawk flying through the air. I can find the footprints in grand central station if I need to. Your swim change isn't a change at all. You don't have a "tumble" speed. You might change things so that a prone person has a base movement of 5' though. Feats: Nothing special until Spell focus (and greater). This change from 3.0 was a good one. In fact you barely needs saves now to play effectively at all. #2 You've increased the power of all metamagic feats considerably for everyone. They don't even match the Sudden Metamagic feats that already exist and are sometimes better and sometimes worse. This certainly isn't needed. #3 Equipment Mostly nothing. But some are odd. Light Shields already work that way for example. Combat Yep. Not a change. Movement I don't think anyone could complain that you buffed the Endurance feat. Magic Everything is fine except Polymorph. Its like sometimes your playing 3.5 and sometimes your not. Reread Polymorph & Baleful Polymorph. They individually work kinda like you have written already. Which are you changing? The only "rule" change of any significance was the more 2nd edition fluff of 'becoming' the target over time. Redo the poly section. Overall you don't need those caster buffs. They have plenty of a head start without them.
FriendoftheDork 09-17-05, 01:58 AM	About races, yes most of that is fluff for my players and not hard rules. About sorcs, well as I use the spontaneous metamagic variant from UA, it's pretty much redundant to say that they cast spontaneously without prolonging casting time. Skills. Well alot of this is clarification and personal interpretation as well as house rules. You'd be amazed at how many thinks bluff can force NPCs to act in some way or believe anything on words alone. Craft has been altered so that different crafts produce different incomes. This is NOT by the rules and thus a change. I suppose the diplomacy barter check needs a maximum and minimum to prevent some extremes... although I can't see how a character can reduce price by 100% as it would require a diplomacy check DC 100 higher than opponent... even epic ones have a hard time with that. barter checks DO replace roleplay though - long IC negotation over price is not fun in my book, much better handled by a check. There is nothing in the RAW that says you need proper equipment to use the heal skill. This is a house rule. Intimidate... ok too vague definition. I will add "target must see the character using intimidate clearly". If you feel better limit it to 30' like sneak attack. It's the extended and improved effects that is the major rules change. Perform change is minor, but important for bards mostly. 1 skill per instruments makes them very limited. That's irrelevant in combat though. Search... clues. It's not a mechanical gameplay element any more than "water" is. By clues I mean small details of relevance, if any. Small notes, symbols, pieces of clothing etc. can all be "clues". IMO Search does this already though so not really a house rule. Sense motive... OK will delete that. Survival: Is there any point in letting rangers track someone on city streets? Even a DC 30 is not enough, that's too easy. And there are ways of getting around "ridiculous" DCs. Swim, eh this is a change from 3.5 to 3.0 rules, nothing more. Tumble: A prone person typically HAS a speed of 5' by existing rules. But ordinary tumble skill halves this again, which is too much IMO. Feats: Did you even look at the skill feats? There IS something special about allowing fighters access to class skills they ordinary do not have. Could even be unbalancing if you allow alot of PrCs. 3.5 spell focus and greater has been nerfed. I can't see why anyone would take them anymore. Also I don't mind if spellcasters become somewhat tougher. Metamagic feats: This is probably the most unbalancing change, but I like it. You can find the rules in UA, they're not mine. And yes Sudden metmagic feats are reduntant, but I don't use the complete series anyway. Equipment: Light shields have been debated. Some ppl meant that you couldn't use a divine focus in your shield arm and retain AC bonus at the same time. I agree with you here though. The rest... well armor part is meant to make some hardly used armors better. Magic: I play mostly 3.5 but alot of spells I liked alot better in 3.0. Polymorph is changed, not Baleful Polymorph (still needed to make someone a toad). Basically I want a spell that can make a commoner to become a monster, against his will. I also want it to be prmarily used as a utility spell, so duration is important. The 2nd ed stuff is to prevent players from cosntantly changing to (insert favorite munchkin creature). Otherwise the spell uses standard Polymorph rules, such as HD max and disallowed creature types. Caster buffs? Are you talking about the spells?
Solik 09-17-05, 12:11 PM	although I can't see how a character can reduce price by 100% as it would require a diplomacy check DC 100 higher than opponent Careful. I've seen a level 12-ish build that can take 10 on Diplomacy and hit a 55. And that's without expendable buffs. Add Wieldskill (+20) and Inspire Competance and some more levels and hitting DC 100 isn't that hard. It does require munchkining, but it's doable. Of course, said level 12 can get everything for > 50% off as-is, so it's still broken.
FriendoftheDork 09-17-05, 02:34 PM	It's not broken because some non-core feat or spell can make it so. There is no wieldskill in my game. And remember that it's an opposed check. A typical merchant will probably have about +10 on his own barter checks. So the 12th level PC example you come up with would get ... 30% off if both did take ten. I can't see how 30% off is broken at that level. In any case, here's a suggestion: A merchant will never let an item go for less than 50% market price, or by an item at more than market price. That way you can only benefit from getting 50 more on your check than the opposed check. How about that? I've updated the House rules now, deleted compeltely unecessary parts and adding a couple of lines to Diplomacy and Intimidate, that might have been broken. BTW thanks to you both for replying on this, I may disagree to some but I like the comments.
Solik 09-18-05, 12:23 AM	That should fix the problem. You might want to consider factoring in the merchant's attitude as well; a friendly merchant would be more willing to give a deal than an indifferent merchant (of course, you run into the problem here of double diplomacy checks). Also consider Charm Person, etc. Complete Adventurer's haggle rules also suggest that failed diplomacy checks result in the merchant not selling anything to you for a little while (basically you tried to haggle a bad price and offended him). That'd make a good addition, though since you use opposed rolls, I'd probably require that the player fail by more than 5 or 10.
Elgonn 09-18-05, 04:10 AM	Basically I want a spell that can make a commoner to become a monster, against his will. What do you call Polymorph Any Object? I looked at the skill feats and don't really care much. They now 'might' be taken by someone. No one has ever taken one before unless they're trying to abuse Diplomacy. Things like Craft aren't much of a change because you could already be hired to make something. I really wouldn't worry about most of your changes that don't amount to more than fluff. A 30' cap on Intimidate and a cap on the barter effect of Diplomacy and your fine. Things like prone movement are entirely a house rule. Even the insipid "Rules of the Game" article admits that. None of your house rules is particularily broken, abusive, poorly thought out, etc.. Post again when you think up something really bad.
FriendoftheDork 09-19-05, 03:55 AM	Sollik: The haggle rules is made for typical haggle checks where the merchant is considered to have a neutral attitude towards the PC. Changing the merchant's attitude will affect his behavior somehow. Some merchants charge less if he's friendly, some more if he's unfriendly. Hostile merchants won't trade at all, and rather call the city guards. I personally don't think rules are necessary about those circumstances, as it would vary too much. Charmed merchants will give the best price he can easily afford, unless the PC convice him otherwise. The effects of charm abuse is best left for case-by-case basis. Some charmed merchant's will lower their prices for any bleeding heartv story, while other (particulary evil or greedy ones) will charge what he wants anyway (of course without trying to rip off the customer). Elgonn: I call polymporph any object a high level spell. And that one has alot less restrictions as well, and can even make you into a pebble. I could be persuaded to change Polymorph into a 5th level spell though, and replace Baleful polymorph with it (and include it's effect) since it is very powerful, but remember that there are 4th level spells that are save or die. Skill feats might not matter to you. Of course, the reason why no one has considered them before is that their effect was very limited. Now, it can mean a world of difference for fighters, clerics etc. that has few class skills but alot of feats. If you want a stealthy or alert fighter you can now take these feats instead of multiclassing into Ranger. As for movement while prone... Crawling: You can crawl 5 feet as a move action. Crawling incurs attacks of opportunity from any attackers who threaten you at any point of your crawl. Now what is different between my house rule and this? Of course, I assume that crawling is the only move you can make while prone. But if it wasn't, why would they list crawling as an option considering it is the worst possible move you can make? Perhaps Skip or whomever writes the "rules of the game" article should look at the SRD first. In the end, thanks for okaying (most of) my house rules.