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| BlueFlames04-09-07, 10:44 PM | I'm still several months out from starting my next campaign, but I like to have my house rules finalized well in advance to make building NPCs and scenarios a little easier. While I've discussed many of these with players in my group in previous campaigns, I'm always hungry for more input, so I'm posting this before I go printing this and calling in 'final'. Note that parts of the actual document are in bold, while my reasoning follows each entry. Feel free to tell me where you feel my reasoning more closely resembles a poo-flinging chimp's than a well-intentioned DM. The Big, Evil Document of House Rules (Opening) Material allowed: Anything from the core rulebooks, unless otherwise noted, expanded skill descriptions in any of the listed supplements below, and custom races supplied with this document are automatically allowed. Additionally, if approval is sought in advance, material from the following supplements may be used: Monster Manual III, Fiend Folio, Fiendish Codex II, Draconomicon, Complete Adventurer, Complete Arcane, Races of Stone, Races of the Wild, Manual of the Planes, Planar Handbook, Player’s Handbook II, Magic of Incarnum, Eberron Campaign Setting, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, and the Modron article from Dragon #354. The listed texts are essentially my complete Third Edition D&D library. In my last campaign, I allowed, with approval, material from books I didn't own. Natrually, I ran into problems building encounters for characters whose mechanics I didn't fully understand, so I've narrowed the field. It's not the full WotC catalogue, but at the same time, it doesn't seem too restrictive. (Opening, GoTE) Base stat generation method: Point Buy (32 points) (Opening, GoTE) All races with level adjustment no greater than +1 and no racial hit dice may be used. Just setting the power level. The campaign is actually going to start at third level, but given the location the characters will be starting, I don't want them starting with fewer than two class levels. (Abilities) Base stats may be reduced below zero. I've never been too good at making myself believe two minus three equal zero. On the rare occasion this comes into play, mechanically, it really only results in longer recovery times. Depending on which party member is resting off the ability damage, it gives other characters more time for crafting and other activites that consume a lot of in-game time. (Abilities) Characters may have less than one hitpoint per hit die, but gain at least one hitpoint when gaining a new level. (Example: A seventh-level elven wizard with 6 CON and 18 hitpoints rolls a 2 on his hit die, when gaining his eighth level. His maximum hitpoint total still rises to 19. If his constitution is reduced to 2, however, his hitpoint total will drop to 3, even though this is less than one hitpoint per level.) (Abilities) Nonpositive CON does not result in instant death, unless the hitpoint penalty kills the character. A character with 0 CON or less is rendered helpless by the assault of natural toxins that his body can normally repel. When I first conceived of these house rules, I was looking to reduce the lethality of constitution damage/drain. For melee classes, I've succeeded, but I'm thinking that I've hurt casters and other small-hit die classes. These two may see some fine tuning, either before I print the document for this campaign or when I adapt the document for another campiagn. (Races) Each race has two or three classes (see spreadsheet below) that may be selected as its favored class. One of these classes must be selected during character creation to be that character’s favored class. If the race has ‘any’ or ‘first class taken’ listed as its favored class, disregard this. There's been rumblings about the favored class system being too narrow, and the band-aid solution tends to be to do away with favored classes altogether. Such a solution neglects the effect on the power level of humans (nerfed), half-elves (nerfed), and exiled modrons (boosted), so that was right out. The compromise is to give each race with a favored class another option. This had the side-benefit of allowing me to give various races favored classes from supplements that came out after the race itself was published. I'll see about getting an updated version of the spreadsheet uploaded some time soon. (Races) Creatures that have Powerful Build lose this ability and have their size increased by one category. Just fixing WotC's mistake. I feel that size catagories were balanced well enough, but Wizards apparently thought that they needed something for races in-between size catagories. The effort may have been well-intentioned enough, but there's too much ambiguity in the ability's wording and too many problems with the power level, so I've pulled it from my games. (Classes) Variant weapon proficiency system. (Not included.) I'm not a big fan of the supposedly-noncombatant classes being proficient with a dozen weapons the minute they step off of the farmstead. Likewise, even trained fighters are rarely able to pick up each of three dozen different weapons and use them all with equal effectiveness. Given that most characters focus their characters to about one to three weapons anyway, returning weapon proficiencies to a system similar to Second Edition doesn't have a terribly huge effect on gameplay. Early on, if the scenario dictates the party is using salvaged gear, they might have to actually read the nonproficiency rule (-4 to attack rolls), but it's very quickly forgotten when martial classes get their third proficiency around their third or sixth level. (Classes) Paladins lose their supernatural abilities if they become non-good, but retain them if they become nonlawful and remain good-aligned. Where the Blood War is all about how the fiends feel people should go about doing evil, the upper planes seem a little more able to forgive the type of good, as long as it's good. Certainly, the paladin's original diety isn't likely to go providing said paladin's powers anymore, but another good-aligned diety is probably willing. Advancement would still be restricted, as the infrastructure likely wouldn't exist in churches that don't train paladins, but turning chaotic ex-paladins into d10 warriors is just a little too heavy-handed. (Classes, GoTE) Rangers, when selecting an outsider by alignment as a favored enemy, must select both components of the outsider’s alignment. (Example: A ranger trained to fight Yugoloths would select Favored Enemy [Neutral Evil Outsiders].) Note that this houserule is specifically for this upcoming campaign and is likely to be removed before another one. Since the campaign is taking place across the lower planes, it would be too easy for rangers to take 'evil outsiders' as their favored enemy and by the end of the game, get about a +8 to all of their attack and damage rolls in over 80% of their combat encounters. (Classes) Wizards add Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, and Greater Spell Penetration to their list of feats available for bonus feats. Half the time, I have a hard time remembering that these feats aren't in the wizard bonus feat selection. One perk of being the DM is that I don't need to remember that kind of thing. (PrCs) A character who takes a prestige class may no longer advance in that prestige class, if he takes levels in another prestige class or a core class to which he did not belong when he took the first level of the prestige class. (Example: A Fighter 5/Rogue 2/Blackguard 1 would no longer be able to take Blackguard levels if he took levels in any class other than Fighter, Rogue, or Blackguard.) I've gotten a bit of grief about this one on the boards before, so you'll have to excuse me, while I copy-paste from a previous post.... Metagame Reasoning: This reduces the level of min-maxing, not so much by removing someone's ability to min-max, but by carrying an implicit reminder that you really don't need to min-max in my campaign, and such behavior will not be appreciated by the DM. Furthermore, it encourages players to choose a single role, dictated by the one or two prestige classes they might be interested in, and stick to it. For example, the player of a Monk 1/Sorcerer 6/Enlightened Fist 3 is more likely to think to himself, upon picking up his eleventh level, "I'm playing an Enlightened Fist, so I should probably do the Enlightened Fist thing and pick up another level of Monk, Sorcerer, or Enlightened Fist," instead of thinking, "What can I do to gain more power at what might otherwise be a dead level in my current prestige class?" In-game Reasoning: Typically, a prestige class represents a specific, highly-covetted type of training. If you blithely deviate from that training, in favor of another path, the group training you, be it its own organization, a subsect of a larger group, or even an individual mentor, will be none too appreciative of you abandoning their way. Testamonial Reasoning: As I said, a much earlier version of this rule had been even more restrictive. Discussing the rule with my players prior to my last campaign, they expressed concerns that the old version didn't make roleplaying allowances for characters that had valid, in-game reason to abandon a path of training. I agreed that, in that regard, the old rule had been much too restrictive, so I presented them with this version (it's hardly changed at all since that initial revision) and 'huzzah's were had all around. Since then, the group actually picked up a new member, and as he read through the house rules the first time, he pointed that one out, specifically, and said, "Looks like you've put the 'prestige' back into prestige classes." I'll note that I'm not budging on this houserule, unless one of my players raises a compelling complaint or someone here brings up a new and very compelling argument. (Skills) When using the bluff, diplomacy, and intimidate skills, you must speak in-character. What you say will apply an additional modifier to your roll. With social skills, I firmly believe that roleplaying should play as much a part as the dice. (Skills) An intimidate roll is opposed by a special level check. The opposed check is 1d20 + 1/2 HD + 1/2 Intimidate ranks + WIS modifier. Familiarity with intimidation tactics breeds resistance to their use. That isn't reflected in the RAW. Moreover, the RAW prevents intimidation from becoming any easier for a character who has heavily invested ranks in the skill. Rather, you have to invest in the skill to prevent the odds of success from plummetting as the opposition gains more hit dice. I sought to strike a balance, where a character's power (represented by hit dice) and intimidation skill (represented by ranks) would play into their ability to resist intimidation. (Feats) Improved Critical and Keen stack. (Similar abilities may or may not stack at the DM’s discretion. Ask before assuming.) Thematically, it makes sense (magic and physical ability stack). From a power perspective, I think that the cost of a feat and a fair chunk of gold balance appropriately. (Feats) Combat Reflexes grants the user the ability to make at least one extra attack of opportunity per round, even if the character’s DEX modifier is lower than +1. Oddly enough, there isn't a single prerequisite to Combat Reflexes, so there are situations that could arise where a character could end up stuck with Combat Reflexes and be completely unable to gain any benefit from it. To rectify that, the feat would have either needed a DEX 13 prerequisite or the stipulation I added in this houserule. Typically, I'm more a fan of giving than denying, so I improved the feat instead of making it more restrictive. (Feats) When using the Manyshot feat, a character may make a ranged sunder attempt (see below). Compared to Rapid Shot, Manyshot isn't quite so effective. Rather than try to find some way to boost Manyshot's damage-dealing capability (and facing the risk of overcompensating), I tied the feat to a new capability. See below. (Feats) Natural Spell is a metamagic feat that raises the spell’s level by one. I haven't actually DM'ed campaigns with too many druids, but I've heard this is a fix that works well for a potentially overpowered feat. This may change or face tweaking as the campaign progresses, since I haven't a great deal of experience to guide me with regards to druids. (Feats) The following feats from Player’s Handbook II may be taken as fighter bonus feats: Bounding Assault, Crushing Strike, Driving Attack, Rapid Blitz, Slashing Flurry, and Weapon Supremacy. These are in addition to feats already labeled as fighter bonus feats. Fixing an oversight. (Description) Alignments are not apparent for average creatures, even through magical means, but creatures with alignment subtypes or those with an inherently magical nature will be detected normally by spells. I've had bad experiences with paladins and very looking to smite everything from fiends that deserve to die all the way to commoners that are just a little too greedy. Inserting some ambiguity into the detection ability lets me adjucate things so that paladins in the party don't get themselves in too much trouble for picking fights they shouldn't. (Description, GoTE) A character must have a written back story before entering the campaign. Exception: Characters present at the first session of the Greater of Two Evils campaign should not have a back story. Normally, I very much prefer players to come to the table with characters, rather than twenty-level builds. The circumstances surrounding the beginning of this campaign will dictate that the initial party members won't know their own background. (Description) Starting age must be between the adulthood lower-limit and a year beneath the middle age lower-limit. The reasoning here is two-fold. From a gameplay perspective, I don't want players trying to weasel in characters that are ridiculously ancient simply for the sake of boosting their casting stat. From a flavor perspective, the older a character gets, the less likely it is I see them running out and starting a career of adventuring. (Equipment) A maul is a two-handed hammer with statistics identical to the greataxe, except that it deals bludgeoning damage. Mmmm.... Bludgeoning object.... (Equipment) Composite longbows may not be wielded while mounted. I don't make many houserules for the sake of realism, but I just cannot see someone using a full-draw weapon on horseback. Crossbows? Sure. Shortbows? Very ancient Mongolian of you, so hell yeah. Longbows? On foot only. (Equipment) Masterwork armor has its maximum DEX bonus increased by one. I wanted masterwork armor to be valuable for something besides just enchanting. (Equipment) Talenta Sharrash’s entry in the ‘critical’ column on the exotic weapons table (ECS 120) should read, “4x” instead of, “19-20/4x”. Fixing a typo that would have interacted really badly with the Improved Critical-Keen rule. (It's still a pretty beefy weapon.... A 1d10 scythe with reach? It didn't exactly need an expanded threat range on top of that.) (Equipment) The Heavy Fortification armor/shield enhancement grants 75% immunity to critical hits and sneak attacks (rather than total immunity). I really disliked the way that combat rogues could be rendered so utterly worthless at high level by relatively cheap armor enhancement. This still has a substantial effect for armor-wearing characters, but it doesn't neuter rogues quite so completely in late-campaign combat. (Combat) No death due to massive damage, unless the target is helpless or surprised. There's two sets of logic at work, here. I reduced the effect of massive damage because it's far too easy for any character/monster to deal 50+ damage in a single hit as levels begin to reach double-digits. I wanted to reduce the lethality of combat, but at the same time, I wanted to give characters some incentive to sneak around to gain tactical advantage over their targets, and had I completely done away with massive damage, only rogues would have retained that advantage. (Combat) A feint is opposed by a special sense motive check. The opposed check is 1d20 + 1/2 BAB + 1/2 Sense Motive ranks + WIS modifier. Having this check made as full BAB plus full Sense Motive made feinting seem like less and less of a worthwhile endeavor in the late-game. It should have been an average like this from the beginning. (Combat) As a standard action, a character may attempt to sunder an opponent's weapon or shield with a ranged attack. This is otherwise the same as a normal sunder attempt with the following exceptions: This sunder attempt provokes an attack of opportunity from the target for attempting a sunder, if the target threatens the attacker, and one from any creature threatening the attacker for using a ranged weapon while in a threatened square. A ranged weapon grants no bonus or penalty for being two-handed or light. A character may not attempt to sunder anything other than a weapon, shield, or carried object of similar size. Just a cool idea I had. Imagine an adamantine-tipped arrow knocking half the blade off of that arrogant blackguard's sword. Yeah. It's not like ranged combatants (and the Manyshot feat, as mentioned above) couldn't use a boost anyway. (Magic) Variant Knock. (Not included.) My variant, rather than letting a caster obsolete the Open Lock skill, encourages a caster and a proficient locksmith to collaborate to open more difficult locks. (Magic) Greater Teleport requires a roll, as with Teleport. The caster may subtract a value from the roll up to four. Greater Teleport seemed to be stepping on the toes of higher-level teleportation spells, so I reintroduced the consequences of the regular teleport spell, but mitigated them to a great degree. Short of being directed to a false destination, it is neigh impossible to suffer a mishap, but there is still a small chance of winding up off target. (Magic) If a creature succeeds its first save against the Word of Changing invocation, that creature cannot be affected by Word of Changing again for twenty-four hours. Pseudo-instant kill magic at will, as often as every round? No. Once per target per day seems adequate. (Magic/PrCs/Feats) Elemental Substitution and similar abilities may not change a spell's damage type to sonic. Spells that normally deal sonic damage may not have their energy type changed by Elemental Substitution or similar abilities. Sonic resistance is hard to come by, and deafening one's self doesn't seem like the greatest of all defenses to keep prepared in case of emergency. Thematically, I also don't see sonic as fitting with the rest of the energy types, so I set it aside, in the same way that force is set aside as an energy type. (Magic) After successfully identifying a spell being cast with a spellcraft check, a character may cast a counterspell without using a ready action. This counts as taking an attack of opportunity and the character casting the counterspell may only take a move action during his next turn. Attempting counterspells can potentially result in a lot of wasted actions, readying to counter a spell that never gets cast in the first place. To mitigate this, I let characters cast the counterspell by spending an action in the following round, as opposed to making them attempt to predict whether or not something will be cast a round before the action is supposed to happen. Questions and especially comments are welcome. As I said, I'm looking for input before I go calling this draft final for my upcoming campaign. And here's the big spreadsheet with the new favored classes... http://home.comcast.net/~blueflames/RaceSheet75.png |
| RobbyPants04-10-07, 03:01 PM | (Abilities) Base stats may be reduced below zero. I've never been too good at making myself believe two minus three equal zero. On the rare occasion this comes into play, mechanically, it really only results in longer recovery times. Depending on which party member is resting off the ability damage, it gives other characters more time for crafting and other activites that consume a lot of in-game time. (Abilities) Characters may have less than one hitpoint per hit die, but gain at least one hitpoint when gaining a new level. (Example: A seventh-level elven wizard with 6 CON and 18 hitpoints rolls a 2 on his hit die, when gaining his eighth level. His maximum hitpoint total still rises to 19. If his constitution is reduced to 2, however, his hitpoint total will drop to 3, even though this is less than one hitpoint per level.) (Abilities) Nonpositive CON does not result in instant death, unless the hitpoint penalty kills the character. A character with 0 CON or less is rendered helpless by the assault of natural toxins that his body can normally repel. When I first conceived of these house rules, I was looking to reduce the lethality of constitution damage/drain. For melee classes, I've succeeded, but I'm thinking that I've hurt casters and other small-hit die classes. These two may see some fine tuning, either before I print the document for this campaign or when I adapt the document for another campiagn. This makes more sense, once I read the whole thing, and your reason for doing it :). One thing to beware of: classes with small hit dice will be hurt by this, making Con damage/drain worse. Consider a typical level 5 wizard with a 12 Con and 19 HP. Normally, they can suffer 11 Con damage before dying. With this system, 8 Con damage will take away 20 HP. Granted, this will only put them into dying, and not dead, but if they were already injured... (Races) Each race has two or three classes (see spreadsheet below) that may be selected as its favored class. One of these classes must be selected during character creation to be that character’s favored class. If the race has ‘any’ or ‘first class taken’ listed as its favored class, disregard this. Not a bad idea. (Races) Creatures that have Powerful Build lose this ability and have their size increased by one category. Just fixing WotC's mistake. I feel that size catagories were balanced well enough, but Wizards apparently thought that they needed something for races in-between size catagories. The effort may have been well-intentioned enough, but there's too much ambiguity in the ability's wording and too many problems with the power level, so I've pulled it from my games. My only caution against this is that the race now gets reach (which is generally, the most valuable part of large size). (Classes) Paladins lose their supernatural abilities if they become non-good, but retain them if they become nonlawful and remain good-aligned. Not a bad idea... (Classes) Wizards add Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus, Spell Penetration, and Greater Spell Penetration to their list of feats available for bonus feats. Cool. (PrCs) A character who takes a prestige class may no longer advance in that prestige class, if he takes levels in another prestige class or a core class to which he did not belong when he took the first level of the prestige class. (Example: A Fighter 5/Rogue 2/Blackguard 1 would no longer be able to take Blackguard levels if he took levels in any class other than Fighter, Rogue, or Blackguard.) I've gotten a bit of grief about this one on the boards before, so you'll have to excuse me, while I copy-paste from a previous post.... Quote: Metagame Reasoning: This reduces the level of min-maxing, not so much by removing someone's ability to min-max, but by carrying an implicit reminder that you really don't need to min-max in my campaign, and such behavior will not be appreciated by the DM. Furthermore, it encourages players to choose a single role, dictated by the one or two prestige classes they might be interested in, and stick to it. For example, the player of a Monk 1/Sorcerer 6/Enlightened Fist 3 is more likely to think to himself, upon picking up his eleventh level, "I'm playing an Enlightened Fist, so I should probably do the Enlightened Fist thing and pick up another level of Monk, Sorcerer, or Enlightened Fist," instead of thinking, "What can I do to gain more power at what might otherwise be a dead level in my current prestige class?" In-game Reasoning: Typically, a prestige class represents a specific, highly-covetted type of training. If you blithely deviate from that training, in favor of another path, the group training you, be it its own organization, a subsect of a larger group, or even an individual mentor, will be none too appreciative of you abandoning their way. Testamonial Reasoning: As I said, a much earlier version of this rule had been even more restrictive. Discussing the rule with my players prior to my last campaign, they expressed concerns that the old version didn't make roleplaying allowances for characters that had valid, in-game reason to abandon a path of training. I agreed that, in that regard, the old rule had been much too restrictive, so I presented them with this version (it's hardly changed at all since that initial revision) and 'huzzah's were had all around. Since then, the group actually picked up a new member, and as he read through the house rules the first time, he pointed that one out, specifically, and said, "Looks like you've put the 'prestige' back into prestige classes." I'll note that I'm not budging on this houserule, unless one of my players raises a compelling complaint or someone here brings up a new and very compelling argument. I can see your point here. I personally wouldn't impose this limitation, but it's really not that bad of a limit you're imposing. You're not stopping them from multi-classing, but rather, preventing them from dipping back and forth as they see fit. (Skills) When using the bluff, diplomacy, and intimidate skills, you must speak in-character. What you say will apply an additional modifier to your roll. With social skills, I firmly believe that roleplaying should play as much a part as the dice. This is a good idea all in all, but don't penalize a player too much if they have a character with a very high skill check (as the character will probably do a better job than the player ever could). (Skills) An intimidate roll is opposed by a special level check. The opposed check is 1d20 + 1/2 HD + 1/2 Intimidate ranks + WIS modifier. Familiarity with intimidation tactics breeds resistance to their use. That isn't reflected in the RAW. Moreover, the RAW prevents intimidation from becoming any easier for a character who has heavily invested ranks in the skill. Rather, you have to invest in the skill to prevent the odds of success from plummetting as the opposition gains more hit dice. I sought to strike a balance, where a character's power (represented by hit dice) and intimidation skill (represented by ranks) would play into their ability to resist intimidation. Interesting idea... (Feats) Improved Critical and Keen stack. (Similar abilities may or may not stack at the DM’s discretion. Ask before assuming.) Thematically, it makes sense (magic and physical ability stack). From a power perspective, I think that the cost of a feat and a fair chunk of gold balance appropriately. You're not really breaking the game here. Part of the 3.5 switch also removed similar effects from many PrCs and other sources. The real problem with 3.0 is that it could be stacked three or four times, giving insane threat ranges. (Feats) Combat Reflexes grants the user the ability to make at least one extra attack of opportunity per round, even if the character’s DEX modifier is lower than +1. For some reason, I thought it already did... (could be wrong) (Feats) When using the Manyshot feat, a character may make a ranged sunder attempt (see below). I'm assuming you're adding the ability for piecing weapons to sunder (at least in this case)? I guess I wouldn't add this varient, becasue I don't see light-weight arrows as being particularly useful at breaking weapons and shields. (Feats) Natural Spell is a metamagic feat that raises the spell’s level by one. I've heard horror stories about that feat, and this seems to be a pretty common fix... (Feats) The following feats from Player’s Handbook II may be taken as fighter bonus feats: Bounding Assault, Crushing Strike, Driving Attack, Rapid Blitz, Slashing Flurry, and Weapon Supremacy. These are in addition to feats already labeled as fighter bonus feats. Fixing an oversight. Fair enough... (Description) Alignments are not apparent for average creatures, even through magical means, but creatures with alignment subtypes or those with an inherently magical nature will be detected normally by spells. I've had bad experiences with paladins and very looking to smite everything from fiends that deserve to die all the way to commoners that are just a little too greedy. Inserting some ambiguity into the detection ability lets me adjucate things so that paladins in the party don't get themselves in too much trouble for picking fights they shouldn't. I'm assuming this applies to the PCs and most standard NPCs? So the idea is to make alignment detection only possible in "extreme" circumstances? You're right in that this will certainly make various DMing aspects of your game a little easier. Feel free to start running murder mysteries again that won't be twarted by detect evil! (Description, GoTE) A character must have a written back story before entering the campaign. Exception: Characters present at the first session of the Greater of Two Evils campaign should not have a back story. Normally, I very much prefer players to come to the table with characters, rather than twenty-level builds. The circumstances surrounding the beginning of this campaign will dictate that the initial party members won't know their own background. Good idea! Having this spelled out before hand is nice. So often I have players showing up with unnamed PCs! It is, after all, a roleplaying game. (Description) Starting age must be between the adulthood lower-limit and a year beneath the middle age lower-limit. The reasoning here is two-fold. From a gameplay perspective, I don't want players trying to weasel in characters that are ridiculously ancient simply for the sake of boosting their casting stat. From a flavor perspective, the older a character gets, the less likely it is I see them running out and starting a career of adventuring. No more venerable, dragonwroght kobolds? :P This is a good idea. I've never imposed the rule, because, frankly, I don't think any of my players have had the idea... (Equipment) A maul is a two-handed hammer with statistics identical to the greataxe, except that it deals bludgeoning damage. Mmmm.... Bludgeoning object.... Yeah, that's how I statted it before the Complete Warrior came out. I suppose you could also keep the maul as is, and create a great maul... (Equipment) Composite longbows may not be wielded while mounted. I don't make many houserules for the sake of realism, but I just cannot see someone using a full-draw weapon on horseback. Crossbows? Sure. Shortbows? Very ancient Mongolian of you, so hell yeah. Longbows? On foot only. I think (and I reitterate think) that this is because there existed special archery bows, that were held closer to the bottom 1/3 of the bow, rather than the middle, to facilitate mounted use. This is my understanding, and I am in no way a historian or archer. [/SPECULATION] (Equipment) Masterwork armor has its maximum DEX bonus increased by one. I wanted masterwork armor to be valuable for something besides just enchanting. Not a bad idea. Consider upping the cost to +300gp instead of +150gp. (Equipment) Talenta Sharrash’s entry in the ‘critical’ column on the exotic weapons table (ECS 120) should read, “4x” instead of, “19-20/4x”. Fixing a typo that would have interacted really badly with the Improved Critical-Keen rule. (It's still a pretty beefy weapon.... A 1d10 scythe with reach? It didn't exactly need an expanded threat range on top of that.) Yeah, I'm not a big fan of weapons with a threat range greater than 1 having a crit multiplier greater than 2. It's probably just a type-o. This is espescially important if you allow keen and Improved Crit to stack. (Equipment) The Heavy Fortification armor/shield enhancement grants 75% immunity to critical hits and sneak attacks (rather than total immunity). I really disliked the way that combat rogues could be rendered so utterly worthless at high level by relatively cheap armor enhancement. This still has a substantial effect for armor-wearing characters, but it doesn't neuter rogues quite so completely in late-campaign combat. I've always liked the total immunity, but that's just me. (Combat) No death due to massive damage, unless the target is helpless or surprised. There's two sets of logic at work, here. I reduced the effect of massive damage because it's far too easy for any character/monster to deal 50+ damage in a single hit as levels begin to reach double-digits. I wanted to reduce the lethality of combat, but at the same time, I wanted to give characters some incentive to sneak around to gain tactical advantage over their targets, and had I completely done away with massive damage, only rogues would have retained that advantage. I tend to ignore the death by massive damage rule anyway, so this wouldn't change much in my current game anyway... (Combat) A feint is opposed by a special sense motive check. The opposed check is 1d20 + 1/2 BAB + 1/2 Sense Motive ranks + WIS modifier. Having this check made as full BAB plus full Sense Motive made feinting seem like less and less of a worthwhile endeavor in the late-game. It should have been an average like this from the beginning. makes sense to me! (Combat) As a standard action, a character may attempt to sunder an opponent's weapon or shield with a ranged attack. This is otherwise the same as a normal sunder attempt with the following exceptions: This sunder attempt provokes an attack of opportunity from the target for attempting a sunder, if the target threatens the attacker, and one from any creature threatening the attacker for using a ranged weapon while in a threatened square. A ranged weapon grants no bonus or penalty for being two-handed or light. A character may not attempt to sunder anything other than a weapon, shield, or carried object of similar size. Just a cool idea I had. Imagine an adamantine-tipped arrow knocking half the blade off of that arrogant blackguard's sword. Yeah. It's not like ranged combatants (and the Manyshot feat, as mentioned above) couldn't use a boost anyway. Again, I would stick to only having slashing and bludgeonling weapons work for sundering. I have a hard time picturing most piercing weapons doing the job. (Magic) Greater Teleport requires a roll, as with Teleport. The caster may subtract a value from the roll up to four. Greater Teleport seemed to be stepping on the toes of higher-level teleportation spells, so I reintroduced the consequences of the regular teleport spell, but mitigated them to a great degree. Short of being directed to a false destination, it is neigh impossible to suffer a mishap, but there is still a small chance of winding up off target. Nothing too crazy here... (Magic) If a creature succeeds its first save against the Word of Changing invocation, that creature cannot be affected by Word of Changing again for twenty-four hours. Pseudo-instant kill magic at will, as often as every round? No. Once per target per day seems adequate. Yeah, unlimited use of a power can get a little nuts some times. This works a lot like many monsters with continuous auras and at will abilities. Good call. (Magic/PrCs/Feats) Elemental Substitution and similar abilities may not change a spell's damage type to sonic. Spells that normally deal sonic damage may not have their energy type changed by Elemental Substitution or similar abilities. Sonic resistance is hard to come by, and deafening one's self doesn't seem like the greatest of all defenses to keep prepared in case of emergency. Thematically, I also don't see sonic as fitting with the rest of the energy types, so I set it aside, in the same way that force is set aside as an energy type. I'm pretty sure that they removed sonic from the list in 3.5 for that very reason... (Magic) After successfully identifying a spell being cast with a spellcraft check, a character may cast a counterspell without using a ready action. This counts as taking an attack of opportunity and the character casting the counterspell may only take a move action during his next turn. Attempting counterspells can potentially result in a lot of wasted actions, readying to counter a spell that never gets cast in the first place. To mitigate this, I let characters cast the counterspell by spending an action in the following round, as opposed to making them attempt to predict whether or not something will be cast a round before the action is supposed to happen. I admit that it is a very underused action (at least in my games). I've been running 3.x games for about 5 years and have yet to see someone ready to counterspell. Well, I hope my input helped! It's always a pain coming up with this many house-rules. Hope the game goes well! :D |