House Rules?

[Zherbus]

I thought it'd be awesome to share some house rules just to cross-pollinate some good ideas to other DM's.

Here is what Minstrel and I layed out for rules that we mostly share between our group. He runs the core campaign, but I usually end up doing a side mini-campaign so he gets to play and I get to flex some more creativity.

Enjoy! Post your own, or discuss what's already been posted!


House Rules Addendum

Section 1 – Character Generation

The standard method of generation involves first selecting the race of the character you want to play. This will give you a base-line to which minimum statistics are founded. If a character rolls a stat that is lower than his/her racial minimum, then that stat is then raised to that racial minimum.

(Example: Steve chooses that he wants to play an Elf, his racial minimum for constitution is 7. Steve rolls a 4 for his constitution, so his score is automatically raised to a 7.)

After choosing a race, the player must choose (before rolling any stats) a stat which he may keep above 9. He may re-roll this stat until a score above 9 is achieved.

Additional to the ability score tables in the Players Handbook, both Constitution and Wisdom have an additional value.

Constitution now affects what hit point you are declared dead at. The base for all characters is -5. This is now modified by your constitution divided by two (rounded up).

Table A: CONSTITUTION DEATH SCORES

Score Death Score
1 -6
2 -6
3 -7
4 -7
5 -8
6 -8
7 -9
8 -9
9 -10
10 -10
11 -11
12 -11
13 -12
14 -12
15 -13
16 -13
17 -14
18 -14
19 -15
20 -15

Wisdom now counts as your characters sense of perception along with the appropriate modifiers.

(Example: Ilias has a 13 Wisdom and is walking through a dungeon corridor that is not well-lit. There is a crack in the mortar that may be very significant to his quest, however the DM needs to roll to see if he notices it. His base chance to notice this crack is rolling a 13 or under on a D20, however since it is not well-lit the DM determines that a -3 penalty is appropriate. This effectively lowers his chance to notice the crack to a roll of 10 or less.)

Retiring a character – Players may wish to retire their character. They may only do so after playing him/her in at least two sessions. When this is done, the character departs with his share of the party wealth. When his replacement is generated, he/she starts with 20% of the retired characters experience.

Replacing a dead character – When a character dies, his replacement starts with 50% of the experience. A dying character takes no party wealth.

Section 2 – Racial Abilities

Dwarves

In melee, standard dwarves add 1 to their dice rolls to hit orcs, half-orcs, goblins, and hobgoblins. When ogres, trolls, ogre magi, giants, or titans attack dwarves, these monsters must subtract 4 from their attack rolls because of the dwarves' small size and combat ability against these much bigger creatures.

Alternatively, dwarves growing up in or near the Underdark can chose to have the +1 to hit bonus versus Drow, Spiders, Kobolds, and Duergar.

Section 3 – Advancing

Whenever a character makes an even numbered level (I.E. 2, 4, 6, 8, and so forth), he/she gets one point to add to any stat they wish. This cannot raise a stat above an 18, except for when a racial bonus allows as such.

(Example: Johan, a Half-Elf, rolled a natural 14 for dexterity. At 8th level, he has put four more points into dexterity. Since he is a Half-Elf, he has reached his full potential of 18. However, if he was an Elf, he would be able to place an additional point into dexterity for a total of 19.)

When a fighter character reaches a strength of 18 through discretionary points, he rolls a d50 for exceptional strength. Additional exceptional strength can be purchased at 10 points per discretionary point through 18/89 and 5 points from 18/90 to 18/00.

When you advance a level, you also have the option to take a set amount of hit points instead of rolling (Constitution modifiers still apply). The amounts are:

1d4 = 2
1d6 = 3
1d8 = 4
1d10 = 5

Section 4 – Experience

When playing multiple characters, experience will be divided 50/50 to two active characters. If a player chooses to play just one character, while leaving his other behind, there will be 100% awarded to the active character and 20% awarded to the inactive player.

Also, in the event that multiple dice-rolling methods are used, experience will be staggered based off of the method used in the following manner:

• The most difficult rolling method will get a bonus on all experience awarded
• The standard method will get 100% of the experience awarded.
• The easiest method will get a penalty on all experience awarded.

Section 5 – Character abilities

All characters, regardless of race and class, start with thieving abilities according to the base thief ability charts. Notice there is a modification to Pick Pockets, Open Locks, and Find/ Remove Traps. These abilities are exclusively only to be reliable to a thief and can never go above 5% for any non-thief.

Table 26: THIEVING SKILL BASE SCORES

Skill Base Score

Pick Pockets 5%
Open Locks 5%
Find/Remove Traps 5%
Move Silently 10%
Hide in Shadows 5%
Detect Noise 15%
Climb Walls 50%
Read Languages 0%


Table 27: THIEVING SKILL RACIAL ADJUSTMENTS

Skill Dwarf Elf Gnome Half-Elf Halfling

Move Silently - +5% +5% - +10%
Hide in Shadows - +10% +5% +5% +15%
Detect Noise - +5% +10% - +5%
Climb Walls -10% - -15% - -15%
Read Languages -5% - - - -5%


Table 28: THIEVING SKILL
Move Hide
Silently In Shadows

9 -20% -10%
10 -15% -5%
11 -10% -
12 -5% -
13-15 - -
16 - -
17 +5% +5%
18 +10% +10%
19 +15% +15%


Table 29: THIEVING SKILL ARMOR ADJUSTMENTS

Padded or
Skill No Armor Elven Chain * Studded Leather

Move Silently +10% -10% -20%
Hide in Shadows +5% -10% -20%
Detect Noise - -5% -10%
Climb Walls +10% -20% -30%
Read Languages - - -

(Example: An unarmored Elven Fighter, with a 17 dexterity, has the natural ability to move silently at 30%, while an unarmored Dwarven fighter, with an 11 dexterity, has only a 10%.)

Section 6 – Combat

We have opted to use the Weapon Speed modifiers to Initiative.


Table 56: OPTIONAL MODIFIERS TO INITIATIVE

Specific Situation Modifier

Attacking with weapon Weapon speed
Casting a spell Casting time
Innate spell ability (such as a druid’s +3
Shape-change ability)
Magical Items**
Miscellaneous Magic +3
Potion +4
Ring +3
Rods +1
Scroll Casting time of spell
Stave +2
Wand +3

** Use the initiative modifier listed unless the item description says
otherwise.

Magical Weapon plus’s subtract from the weapon speed. So a Short Sword (weapon speed of 3) with a +1 bonus now has a speed of 2. Speed cannot go below 0.

Multiple attacks from creatures (Bite, Claw, Claw) or dual weapons (Rangers with two swords) happen at the same time. However, weapons that get multiple attacks (Bows, Specialized Fighters) happen at speed factor intervals.

(Example: Johan rolls a four for initiative this round. He has already selected to use his darts (speed factor 2). Meanwhile, Emark’as rolled a three and has opted to use his swords (Long Sword and Short Sword, weapon speeds 5 and 3 respectively). The band of Orcs they are attacking have rolled a group initiative of five, and are all armed with Short Swords (weapon speed 3).

The round segments would look like this (segments 1-5 are ignored since no action will take place):
Segment 6 7 8 9 10
Johan Dart - Dart - Dart
Emark’as Short Sword - Long Sword - -
Orcs - - Short Swords - - )

Section 8 – Equipment

Shields
Cost Weight
Shield - -
Body (or Tower) 10gp 15
Bucker 1gp 3
Medium 7gp 10
Small 3gp 5


Shields: All shields improve a character's Armor Class by 1 or more against a specified number of attacks. A shield is useful only to protect the front and flanks of the user. Attacks from the rear or rear flanks cannot be blocked by a shield (exception: a shield slung across the back does help defend against rear attacks). The reference to the size of the shield is relative to the size of the character. Thus a human's small shield would have all the effects of a medium shield when used by a gnome.

A buckler (or target) is a very small shield that fastens on the forearm. It can be worn by crossbowmen and archers with no hindrance. Its small size enables it to protect against only one attack per melee round (of the user's choice), improving the character's Armor Class by 1 against that attack.

A small shield is carried on the forearm and gripped with the hand. Its light weight permits the user to carry other items in that hand (although he cannot use weapons). It can be used to protect against two frontal attacks of the users choice.

The medium shield is carried in the same manner as the small shield. Its weight prevents the character from using his shield hand for other purposes. With a medium shield, a character can protect against any frontal or flank attacks. Though it size doesn't afford it any extra protection from missile weapons, it does afford extra melee protection against melee weapons.

The body (or Tower) shield is a massive shield reaching nearly from chin to toe. It must be firmly fastened to the forearm and the shield hand must grip it at all times. It provides a great deal of protection, improving the Armor Class of the character by 1 against melee attacks and by 2 against missile attacks, for attacks from the front or front flank sides. It is very heavy; the DM may wish to use the optional encumbrance system if he allows this shield.

Shield -
Body (or Tower) -1 (-2 versus missile)
Bucker -1 (one attack only)
Medium -1 (-2 versus melee, Front and Flank)
Small -1 (Two Frontal)

Section 7 – Magical Items

For ease of play, using a weapon or set of armor in five different combats will clue the player into the plus of the magical item. Further, if a magical item offers an alternate plus against a specific enemy, five additional combats against that enemy type will tell you of that specific plus.

Any additional properties, such as charges, special abilities, or command words, will either have to be learned or magically detected. The identify spell requires only a 500GP diamond (rather than a powdered luckstone as indicated in the PH) to enhance its potency.

[Minstrel]

We also had a simplified set of specialty priests, of which I was rather fond. Anyone playing a cleric had to be a specialty priest, and got a different selection of spheres, along with a few minor bonuses or penalties (cast light 2x/day, +2 effective levels when turning, etc).

We had a couple FR gods with bards as their specialty priests, but with cleric spells in place of mage ones. I always wanted to play one to see how well that'd work.

I went back and forth on the raising stats to racial minimums thing. It seemed like an easy way to min/max, but we didn't like to deny anyone their choice of race, and our group was fairly trustworthy. I don't think I'd bring that rule with me to a group I hadn't met though. I suppose another solution would have been to just ignore racial minimums.