'Advanced' D&D play test

[DungeonMaester]

Im running a online campaign based off my 'advanced' D&D thread in the house rules section in the en world.

House rules for the game is as follows
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Character Creation rules


-Characters start of as a NPC (from DMG) and have to earn a class

-Cross classing is limited only to a races's favorite class. Races with 'any' can pick one.

- Prc Are reached not only by meeting the Pre-reqs, but role playing it out the entire length of the campaign.

-The game starts off Core only. Players can role play to 'unlock' books. Role play wise they are unlock secrets of the universe, things undiscovered and occult. '

-No Cross class penalties. Also, a player uses ECL instead of class level for class abilities and feats it applies to. The reason being is because the favor class is something that is innate to a player and takes little skill to harness not effecting the class which you train. The exception is Prc.

-characters are rolled by 3d6 and re roll 1. All player start of with one 18 and one 8. The rest are straight 3d6 rolls with a Min of 10 and a max of 16

-If I can get Savage Species source book, then im going to allow players to play some races from there, so they can play there favorite races.

Dm’s Notes
As the dm, im not trying to make player’s characters week, only shift the focus of character away from making a character. The idea of playing a npc to a pc is to role play the back round of the character, rather then have a back round that is will seem arbitrary since back round rarely comes into play. In this style of play, a player just starts to develop their abilities, Also, I would like the pcs have more of a bond pre adventure, so I don’t have to see random people hooking up for adventures, which is way to random, even for a game. In part of playing a character’s background, is deciding the roots of the player’s character, Which is a important part of the npc. Each npc is tired to a certain social class. Player are encouraged to create their own family and history, but work closely with the Dm to make it fit in to the setting.

Rather than use the savage species source, Players can apply racial flavor to feats. For example: One of roommates/players wanted to play a kitsume: A human with fox ears in and a fox tail. So, he took two feats: Agility and alertness. Alertness gives him a bonus to hearing on the account has he has sensitive fox ears. The other feat was agility, which gives +2 balance checks on the account of his tail. Simply put, players can add racial flavor to pre-existing feats.

 

[DungeonMaester]

Battle rules
-Called shot idea: As a normal attack you can attack a certain part of a person's body. This does not make the person harder to hit, but it doesn't do much damage. On a hit, you only do half of the weapons damage dice (no mods from str dex or int and the such) you pick a part to add a -2 to a skill. See Dmg for what you can hit.

-Advanced called shots: This called shot is more powerful. You can hit a body part not mentioned in the DMG. You can hit such things as the tounge (Stopping spell casters perhaps?) and do other effects like slowing a person by hitting them in the knee or legs.
ACS are harder to hit with. You add 3 to your Crit range and have to roll with in the crit range with no mods. Ex: If you have a crit range of 18-20 then you have to roll 15-20 un-moded.

-Magic: I don’t agree with any of the spell charge variety. Instead, players who take ranks in craft alchemy and have the brew potion can make a variant that gives you back 1d4 spells a day up to the highest spell cast. This potion requires only 1 min to brew, doing nothing special other then grinding them together. It also must use 1gp as a material component along with generic herbs and spices.

Wizards: They way I see it, Wizards spell book is magic, Magic like a scroll spell. Instead of having components to cast spell, they only need it once to scribe the spell in the book. They still need to use the other two component if need be.

Sorcery: Having the innate ability to cast spell, they automatically have the feat Enscew material, and only need material components if it is something rather special*.

Divine casters: Druids use the same set of rules as Sorcery. Other divine casters use normal spell casting rules.

-AoO: My thought is, that you cant use ranged attacks or spells for AoO because you are thought not to have a spell prepared or a cross bow loaded in till your turn when you load and fire. So, if you take a ready action with a loaded weapon, or ready a spell, you can use them for AoO.

Skills are Role play first. This is to say that the role play actions can ether give a bonus or a penalty to the role based on how you choose to play the action.

DM Notes.
I don’t have much in the way battle rules. Really I don’t think there is much to fix, other then some personal beefs that im leaving out of my designs. Called shots should be flexible, and useful, not slowing the game down with tons of rules that will make the game frustrating for both the DM and the player. Remember, As a DM, I am rather liberal on what you can or can not do. One thing I stress to players is that not all the times, these rules work to the players advantage. For example, on the role playing first rule, If a player elegantly role played, in some situations if there not looking in the right place they will get a penalty rather than a bonus.
*Special- Normal components such as Bat Guano for fireball is ball is not a Special component. Special only applies to extremely expensive items such as diamonds or anything that is a focus. Wizards, druids and Sorcerers still need special component out side of their normal cast abilities.

 

[DungeonMaester]

*Campaign setting coming soon!*