D&D 3rd Edition House RulesPost your house rules, custom classes, spells, feats and other stuff here. For D&D 3rd Edition and all older editions of D&D.
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Your experience with these house rules. . .
These are some house rules I've seen mentioned here and other places. I'm considering them for my own game, but I'd like to hear from people who have used/experienced them in actual play. And even if you haven't experienced them, what do you think of them?
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Negative levels (from undead and some other things) do not turn into lost levels. But the negative levels stays with the victim until the Fort save is made for it (roll every 24 hours). [This rule would be to save bookkeeping and paperwork for the Player and DM.]
Magical weapons and shields can be damaged and broken even by mundane weapons or magical weapons of a lesser enhancement bonus. For instance, a normal or +1 weapon can damage and/or break a +5 weapon. Each plus of the enhancement bonus still increases the hardness and hit points of the weapon just as in the core rules -- so, while a normal weapon can harm a magical weapon, the magical weapon's improved hardness and hit points protect it to a degree. [I don't mind (and actually would like) some attrition in magical items. Plus, it kind of trips up my verisimilitude when a fire giant can't use his improved sunder (with a mundane weapon) on a simple +1 weapon. It harkens back to the old (AD&D1 and 2) ways of damage reduction.]
Raise dead, resurrection, and any other bing-back-from-the-dead effect does not result in a lost level. But rather the character's experience point total is lowered to the mid point of the previous level. For instance, if a 6th-level character, with 17,000xp is raised, he stays 6th level, but has only 1,2500 xp (mid way from 5th to 6th). [This rule would be to save bookkeeping and paperwork for both Players and DM.]
Raise dead, resurrection, and any other bing-back-from-the-dead effect does not result in a lost level. But rather the character's experience point total is lowered to the mid point of the previous level. For instance, if a 6th-level character, with 17,000xp is raised, he stays 6th level, but has only 1,2500 xp (mid way from 5th to 6th). [This rule would be to save bookkeeping and paperwork for both Players and DM.]
Quasqueton
We adopted a similar rule (Lose 500xp times your current level when raised, but no level loss. The lost xp must be earned back before gaining any new levels) after finishing RttToEE. We found losing a level could quickly cripple a character - in essence, each time a character died and was raised, he/she was more likely to die in the next encounter, and the next, and the...One front-line fighter died four sessions in a row (the final time he was digested by a behir).
We found the house rule to work well. There was still a penalty for dying, so players would be careful with their characters, but creating a new character was no longer seen as a better option than being raised.
Magical weapons and shields can be damaged and broken even by mundane weapons or magical weapons of a lesser enhancement bonus. For instance, a normal or +1 weapon can damage and/or break a +5 weapon. Each plus of the enhancement bonus still increases the hardness and hit points of the weapon just as in the core rules -- so, while a normal weapon can harm a magical weapon, the magical weapon's improved hardness and hit points protect it to a degree. [I don't mind (and actually would like) some attrition in magical items. Plus, it kind of trips up my verisimilitude when a fire giant can't use his improved sunder (with a mundane weapon) on a simple +1 weapon. It harkens back to the old (AD&D1 and 2) ways of damage reduction.]
Quasqueton
Are you doing +1 hardness/+1 hp per +1 or +2 hardness/+10 hp per +1? if you are making it so that any weapon can break any other then I would suggest the latter and make it so all psuedo pluses do the same (+1 flaming grants the bonus as well) and at the same time whenever the weapon loses 10hp it loses a +1 of ability. That will give you your attrition, and might make it a good combat option to hurt the enemies weapon somewhat during combat.
Options are good, especially when it wont be a horrible horrible thing for the enemy to do it back.
I think anything that makes negative level less of a nuisance is a good thing - I hate the idea of permanent level loss. (because it screws the players, and because of the nightmare in bookkeeping it can lead to) Personally, I just got rid of Level Drain altogether - major ability damage is painful enough...
As far as magic weapons damaging one another, it really depends on how free you are with handing out magic items and how you treat buying magic gear. If you follow the DMG wealth guildelines closely, the occasional lost weapon isn't a big deal.
Finally, I think you're on the right track with making changes to raising dead characters - but the way I always did it is a)Award the character the experience he was due for the fight he died in b)Remove 500xp per character level. I hate the book rules with a passion, one character might die 100 xp after he leveled, and effectively only lose 1/2 a level, another might die 100 xp short of a new level, not get any xp for the fight he died in, and suddenly find himself 2 levels lower than he would have been if he hadn't died. It's absurd and unfair.
Magical weapons and shields can be damaged and broken even by mundane weapons or magical weapons of a lesser enhancement bonus. For instance, a normal or +1 weapon can damage and/or break a +5 weapon. Each plus of the enhancement bonus still increases the hardness and hit points of the weapon just as in the core rules -- so, while a normal weapon can harm a magical weapon, the magical weapon's improved hardness and hit points protect it to a degree. [I don't mind (and actually would like) some attrition in magical items. Plus, it kind of trips up my verisimilitude when a fire giant can't use his improved sunder (with a mundane weapon) on a simple +1 weapon. It harkens back to the old (AD&D1 and 2) ways of damage reduction.]
Hi. Where does it say that this doesn't happen already?
Here are my house rules for energy drain and character death in regard to losing a level. I took them from Andy Collin's website and modified them a little.
Level Loss Due to Being Raised from the Dead: If a character dies and is raised from the dead he no longer loses a real level of experience, but he receives one special negative level that cannot be removed by anything short of a Wish or Miracle. This special negative level remains until the character gains 1000 x his current level in experience points, whereupon this special negative level is lost. If the character dies twice, for example, he would have two special negative levels. Upon gaining enough experience points, he would lose one special negative level and still have one until he gained enough experience points to lose that negative level. True Resurrection brings a dead character back without a special negative level.
Level Loss Due to Energy Drain: If a character fails his saving throw 24 hours after receiving a negative level, he no longer loses a real level of experience, but the negative level remains as a special negative level. Restoration and Greater Restoration can remove these special negative levels just as if they were losses of levels of experience. These special negative levels are the same as those gained when being raised from the dead, except that these can be removed with Restoration.
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