Complete Set of House Rules with Character Sheet

[Dremmen]

OK, so after a couple of months what started as a few rule modifications has become a manifesto of custom rules. Here are my custom rules in their entirety, with a custom character sheet, for your review and crucification;

House Rules

Character Sheet

 

[evilbob]

That's an interesting set of rules. I've not seen any of the source material you're drawing from, but the damage to armor stuff, piercing armor table, and the healing->non lethal damage is pretty cool. The free-draw idea is pretty neat, but I'm not sure it really changes anything overall (other than make "quick draw" even more useless). The whole "attack/defence pools" ideas seem a bit too complicated to me, as does the "damage effect" idea and the "pieces of armor" with body hit locations - although this adds a lot of flavor and seems like it'd be worth it for what you're going for. It also seems like spells that do area damage are even stronger with this system, but maybe not - it's hard to tell.

I'm not sure how they all interact since everything is so drastically different, but the one thing I noticed is that your "simplified crits" rule will favor high crit-range weapons significantly. They would probably need something else to balance them, like lower overall damage or perhaps a much higher purchase price.

Pretty neat, overall!

 

[Dremmen]

That's an interesting set of rules. I've not seen any of the source material you're drawing from, but the damage to armor stuff, piercing armor table, and the healing->non lethal damage is pretty cool. The free-draw idea is pretty neat, but I'm not sure it really changes anything overall (other than make "quick draw" even more useless). The whole "attack/defence pools" ideas seem a bit too complicated to me, as does the "damage effect" idea and the "pieces of armor" with body hit locations - although this adds a lot of flavor and seems like it'd be worth it for what you're going for. It also seems like spells that do area damage are even stronger with this system, but maybe not - it's hard to tell.

I'm not sure how they all interact since everything is so drastically different, but the one thing I noticed is that your "simplified crits" rule will favor high crit-range weapons significantly. They would probably need something else to balance them, like lower overall damage or perhaps a much higher purchase price.

Pretty neat, overall!

Indeed the rules take away some of the abstraction of regular D&D rules, adding complication and tedium. The payoff is, I believe, much more intense combat, more realistic as well as more detailed. If you had a chance to look at the character sheet I tried to simplify things by adding some of the new mechanics into the sheet itself. The Pools are simplified into simple number columns that can be kept track of with a single token each. The hit location can be quickly recorded too.

The rules are untested as of yet, so you are right, the crit may indeed be broken. I appreciate all the comments and welcome more so I can be on the lookout during the game for things I need to change.

 

[Pbartender]

OK, so after a couple of months what started as a few rule modifications has become a manifesto of custom rules. Here are my custom rules in their entirety, with a custom character sheet, for your review and crucification;

House Rules

Character Sheet

No joy...

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Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

 

[Kisanji Arael]

hmmmm, first off on page four, do you disallow the standard prestige classes from the DMG? Because as written, that's how it sounds.

And tell me how armor durability works out for you, because for me it's always been a bit of a hassle.

 

[Dremmen]

No joy...

It seems the site is down. At least it seems that way since evilbob accessed it earlier and now I can't access it either. Maybe it will return??


I tried attaching it here directly, but even the character sheet by itself exceeds the 240 Kb size limit.

 

[Dremmen]

hmmmm, first off on page four, do you disallow the standard prestige classes from the DMG? Because as written, that's how it sounds.

And tell me how armor durability works out for you, because for me it's always been a bit of a hassle.

On Prestige Classes I'm not so much disallowing any of them, per se - I just make them all allowable only by DM approval, and make it a requirement that there will be some in game build up to reaching any one particular class. What I'm trying to do is return some prestige to the prestige class, versus their becoming just another class and no different than multiclassing.

I'll be sure to report back how the AR works out, with the damage reduction and armor hp system and all. I know at least one dwarven paladin who is already planning to take full advanatege of it by layering (armored coat over full plate?!?!). He'll be a good guinea pig for the system.

 

[evilbob]

I know at least one dwarven paladin who is already planning to take full advanatege of it by layering (armored coat over full plate?!?!).

I'd add additional movement and/or dex penalties for someone wearing more than the "normal" amount of armor - something should offset the gain.

 

[Dremmen]

I'd add additional movement and/or dex penalties for someone wearing more than the "normal" amount of armor - something should offset the gain.

I'm not sure how much penalty you think is enough, but right now I have it as adding to the Armor Penalty Points - this translates into ever increasing Armor Check Penalties for skills, higher arcane spell failure and decreasing max dex bonus. Also it counts for the Fatigue Threshold.

This leads me to a good question. Presently the Armor Penalty Points are subtracted from 8 to determine the Max Dex Bonus, with a minimum of 0. Should I take away that minimum? Should I instead penalize ridiculous amounts of armor with a negative Dex Modifier? In other words, if the APP points are 10, they would normally subtract from 8 and make the Max Dex bonus 0. Should I remove the safety feature there and instead make it a Max Dex bonus of -2; in other words, a negative adjustment to the Dex bonus of the character while in armor. A bit harsh, but I think it makes sense if they are covered in armor to actually loose Dex bonuses.

 

[Flynn]

On your character sheet, I notice that you have no place to note equipment or feats. How are you handling that in your game?

Thanks,
Flynn