House Rules

[kenada]

Training
Training is done by returning back to town. The required downtime won’t be anything specific unless everyone wants mandatory downtime to gain a level. It’s assumed that you have access to the appropriate trainers for ‘core’ classes unless you’re in the middle of nowhere. The only restriction on multiclassing is that you require a trainer to get you started, who will probably require a favor of some sort to initiate you.

Party Composition
My only requirement is thatit not be disfunctional.

Fumbles
When you roll a 1 while attacking, roll again. If you roll another 1, then you probably just critically failed. What happens then is up to the DM’s discretion.

Spell Buffs
Buff spells (i.e. Bull’s Strength, &c) use the 3e durations (1hr/level) rather than the 3.5e durations. The 3.5e durations contribute to the excessive dependence on gear that 3.5e has.

Toughness
Toughness provides a 3hp+1hp/level rather than just a flat 3hp. I expect this feat to be more popular now.

Crit Immunity
I’d like to change the way crit immunity works. Right now, rogues suck pretty badly against anything with crit immunity. What I’d like to try is making crit resistance be a modifier on your armor class where your armor class increases by the amount of fortification for the target to beat on a confirmation roll.

For example:
Let’s say a rogue is fighting a zombie with an AC of 12. He rolls a 20, which threatens a critical. In order to crit, he needs to roll better than a 24 on his confirmation roll because full immunity is treated as 100% fortification.

Sneak Attack
A rogue will successfully sneak attack if he rolls higher than the fortified AC on his attack roll (barring anything like uncanny dodge that prevents sneak attacks).

Another example:
Let’s say the previous rogue has a +8 attack bonus, and he rolls as 16 on his attack roll. This would generally not threaten a critical, so the rogue does not make a confirmation roll. However, the total (8+16=24) is equal to or greater than the zombie’s fortified AC. In this case, the rogue would get sneak attack damage.

Skill Rolls
I’m not going to generally tell players what their target DC is unless the effect is simple and obvious (like making a save to minimize taking damage). It works in the storyteller system, so I don’t see why it can’t for D&D.

Experience
Experience is mostly going to be session/story experience rather than a set amount per encounter. I might use the encounter XP as a guide, but I won‘t be giving it out after every combat.

Item Creation
I think it’s lame that item creation requires XP, but I’ve not decided on a good replacement mechanic right now.

Character Creation
We’ll be using the standard point-buy system (25 points, per p.169 in the DMG) for stats unless everyone really wants to roll for it.

Level Adjustments
Rather than deal with ECL, level adjustments will use an alternate XP table instead. The idea comes from here, except that I did not include the additional XP costs for reducing the adjustment.

Level LAdj 1  LAdj 2  LAdj 3
1          0       0       0
2       2000    3000    4000
3       5000    7000    9000
4       8000   12000   15000
5      12000   18000   22000
6      17000   25000   30000
7      23000   32000   39000
8      30000   40000   49000
9      38000   49000   60000
10     47000   58000   71000
11     57000   68000   83000
12     68000   79000   96000
13     80000   91000  110000
14     93000  104000  125000
15    107000  118000  141000
16    122000  133000  157000
17    138000  149000  174000
18    155000  166000  192000
19    173000  184000  210000
20    192000  203000  229000

Money Weight
Yes, money has weight. Carrying around thousands of gold coins will weight you down. It might not be a bad idea to put your money in a bank rather than haul it around with you.
Coin Type  Wt (troy oz)  ~#/lb.
Gold          0.292        50
Silver        0.0729      200
Copper        0.0972       150

Please post any comments/thoughts/&c.

Update: Added bit on the weight of money

[Eldmor]

For an alternate item creation guideline, may I suggest that for every creation feat someone has they get an extra 20% XP that goes in an item creation pool. (This would also be retroactive.) Then they draw from this pool to create items, maybe even at a discounted rate to encourage crafting.
Unless we're getting some mad downtime, the craft times need something done to them. I would suggest instead of 1 day per 1000gp, 1 hour per 500gp. This still cuts out some time, but nowhere near as much time as the core rules.

[kenada]

The hook (so to speak) I was thinking of using was that the group is working for an adventurer's guild where you got missions somewhat at your leisure. Your downtime, as such, would largely be in your control. (This goes back to what I was saying last week about being somewhat RP-lite. Of course, the fact that I'm doing so much to build up the world betrays that it might not stay simple for too long. ) However, I don't want magic items to be trivial to make. One of my reasons for reverting the buff durations was so that people would not have to be so dependent on magic items.

[Eldmor]

How are we handling character death?
Reroll a new character with some penalties (level/gear loss), etc.?

[kenada]

I'd generally say roll a new one unless you have the means/desire to raise/resurrect him.

Edit: I'll have to think about it, but it's possible the guild might implement death insurance.

[Eldmor]

Remember though; the point of insurance is they make money by people paying this. If someone dies even once, they're deductible is going to sky-rocket. For reference, the cost of the material component and services for a revivification:
Reincarnate: 1280gp. Level loss. Dead for at most 7 days. Requires small part of body. Roll or DM Fiat determines new form of approximate appearance. (Humanoid to other intelligent bipedals.)
Raise Dead: 5450gp. Level loss. Dead for at most 9 days. Requires whole body.
Resurrect: 10,910gp. Level loss. Dead for at most 130 years. Requires small part of body.
True Resurrection: 26,530gp. No level loss. Dead for at most 170 years. Requires no remains.
I will suggest a starting policy would be 1/5 the cost of being revived paid annually. Upon being killed, he cost increases by a fifth and the next payment is shortened by a factor of the previous cost of insurance.
ex: Brad the Half-Elf Monk took out a policy of Reincarnation (maybe in hopes of coming back as a better race). He pays 256gp and successfully adventures for a year. Confident over-his-ass, he decides to try taking on a legion of things from the Far Realms. Not a good idea. His good buddies bring back an arm and he gets reincarnated as a half-orc (so much about getting a better race). His next payment was in 5 months, so it is shortened to now 4 months. He spends the rest of his time helping under-represented races and pays 512gp on his next payment period.

[kenada]

Remember though; the point of insurance is they make money by people paying this. If someone dies even once, they're deductible is going to sky-rocket.

Of course. That's why it would not be available for low-level adventurers (i.e., anyone who cannot afford to pay they cover cost of a mission). What I had been considered was to make it an additional fee on top of the mission fee.

ex: Brad the Half-Elf Monk took out a policy of Reincarnation (maybe in hopes of coming back as a better race). He pays 256gp and successfully adventures for a year. Confident over-his-ass, he decides to try taking on a legion of things from the Far Realms. Not a good idea. His good buddies bring back an arm and he gets reincarnated as a half-orc (so much about getting a better race). His next payment was in 5 months, so it is shortened to now 4 months. He spends the rest of his time helping under-represented races and pays 512gp on his next payment period.

Is that legion part of a guild-sponsored mission? If not, then he's out of luck. Another part of running an insurance scam policy is denying people access to their benefits.

[Eldmor]

Then we'll say he took a mission to stop any other class of equal CR to his ECL. Maybe even a Commoner. XD

[kenada]

Would anyone object if I decided that keen and improved critical stack?

[Eldmor]

Would anyone object if I decided that keen and improved critical stack?

If the crit still has to hit, I don't see a problem with it. Otherwise, I'm calling the WAHMbulance.

[kenada]

Would anyone object if I decided that keen and improved critical stack?

If the crit still has to hit, I don't see a problem with it.

Obviously the total on the attack roll would still need to beat the target's armor class (and the crit be successfully confirmed).

I'm just thinking of what kind of crazy-broken stuff I can do with NPCs using keen weapons+improved crit+levels in weapon master.  Are there any other things that increase threat range?

Otherwise, I'm calling the WAHMbulance.

Edit: Articles are our friends

[Eldmor]

A WHAMbulance is what you call when something that is non-tangible is broken to the effect of the sound effect "WHAM!".
Then again, you might want to not do it just so it doesn't nudge everyone's builds. Plus "unfixing" something that was fixed by the creators means they knew the abuse was apparent. I change my vote to Nah. /thumbs_down

[kenada]

A WHAMbulance is what you call when something that is non-tangible is broken to the effect of the sound effect "WHAM!".

I'd always associated it with whining. That's why I put the confused smiley.

Then again, you might want to not do it just so it doesn't nudge everyone's builds. Plus "unfixing" something that was fixed by the creators means they knew the abuse was apparent. I change my vote to Nah. /thumbs_down

My intent was to abuse it though. I just wanted to see if other people would be on board with that.

I just don't buy into the whole "criticals are special" philosophy that seems to have infected WotC in 3.5e+. Mages can puke out huge amounts of damage (from long range even), so I don't see the harm in letting melee classes crit frequently.

Hopefully, some other people will chime in. Right now the nays have it.

[Measure Zero]

I don't like extra crits because that means I will die more.  Also, I think that I should be allowed to take the healing domain on my cleric.

[Eldmor]

Mages don't need to puke-out spells of ludicrous damage. They have save-or-die and save-or-suck.
Among optimizers, most people ban out evocation seeing how it can be replicated by the illusion school or even done better by conjuration. Orb of X is made of win.
And you want healing domain? All we need is a Wand of Vigor and a Wand of Cure Light Wounds. Then you can use your spell slots for things that don't default you to heal-bitch.