Mixing AE and D&D - anyone want to share their house rules?

[Elodan]

I'm mixing Arcana Evolved and D&D for a Forgotten Realms based campaign. I've just finished writing up my (living) character creation and house rules document.

I know others have done what I'm doing and was curious as to how people appoached the merging of the two.

Some examples:

I'm only using the AE spell system.

I'm not using the cleric class and since dieties are important in the Realms, I've modified the Priest feat so that those who take can choose one of their god's domains and get the granted benefit.

Only those with access to the Sun domain or certain prestige classes, like the Morninglord of Lathander, can turn undead.

I've been thinking of adding other options like adding a spell to turn undead and possibly building spell lists for the various.


If people are interested in discussing these things, I'll be happy to post more about what I've done.

 

[Staffan]

I'm running an Eberron campaign, and have imported the Unfettered class, in order to allow for some buckling of swashes. So far only one PC has taken it, and he didn't seem all that happy with it - probably partially due to me running him through the Shadows of the Last War adventure, which has a bunch of fights with skeletons, oozes, constructs, and elementals. A rapier and +1d6 sneak attack won't do you much good against those.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

I've allowed AE elements into a D&D 3.5 game. It's worked out well. If someone takes an AE class, they use the AE book. If someone takes a 3.5 class, they use the PH.

The one major change I made was that all casters get readied spells. I don't have a full-time wizard playing, so I haven't had to deal with that. (Though I have a fix for that. Yay!) But the cleric, ranger, bard, paladin and sorceror all seem happy.

I've started to use the AE pricing method over the DMG one because it makes so much more sense, and it's proportionate.

The setting is my own homebrew, so I have no setting-specific ideas though.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Funny you should mention it! I'm running a D&D/AE/Iron Heroes fusion game set in the Realms. The way I'm working it is as follows:

1) Classes allowed are the IH combat classes (basically replacing the D&D combat classes), the IH thief (replacing the D&D rogue), the magister, and the "cleric" (see below). Were I NOT using IH (as in round #1 of character creation; we had the benefit of everyone going away on vacation prior to starting play, just in time for IH to hit print), I'd use the AE warmain and unfettered and the D&D rogue. I find the other AE classes a bit too bound to the setting to comfortably fold into an FR game, though I can easily see using the AE mageblade and runethane (and would allow those classes without modification if a player wanted one).

2) I'm using the AE magic system with some MAJOR modifications:

a) The magister is called the mage (to avoid confusion with the FR individual of same title). He drops HD to d4 and gains some additional abilities as follows:

(i) a substantially expanded spell selection. All D&D spells are of course replaced with their AE equivalents, but many of those for which AE has no analogue (especially the spells in FR supplements) are present in the game as simple, complex, or exotic spells, depending on the level of power and expected rarity. (For instance, most "named" spells, such as Khelben's warding whip, are Exotic.) Other spells, from Relics & Rituals, BoED, and BoVD are also represented. I can send you or post my Master Spell List if you like.

(ii) The ability to choose his focus. A magister (er, mage) does not need to use a staff. He has the option of choosing a Staff Focus (works just like AE), an Object Focus (any single "signature object" (such as, say, Elminster's pipe), but said object does not get the staff's increased hardness and hp), a Familiar Focus (the mage's familiar must be within 30 feet, and see below), or a Spellbook Focus (mage must study his spellbook for 1 hour each day). Failure to observe any of these focus requirements causes the mage to suffer the normal penalties to caster level and casting time.

(iii) A free Reactive Counterspell feat at 1st level, but no other bonus feat.

(iv) Mages can summon familiars (as normal D&D sorcerers and wizards), but only if they take the Summon Familiar feat. Mages of sufficiently high level who take the Summon Familiar feat may summon an improved familiar instead as per that feat.

b) Counterspelling works just like in D&D, including the availability of the Improved Counterspelling and Reactive Counterspelling feats.

c) Spells that allow flight, teleportation, or shapechanging (AE takes care of the latter) are substantially increased in level.

d) Where possible, I have created diminished or heightened versions of D&D spells. However, one balancing factor between some of the D&D spells I use and the AE spells I use is that many of the D&D spells do NOT have this flexibility.

e) Any positive energy spell that heals damage or removes a negative condition (including Death) is classified as a Miracle spell.

f) Several spells on the spell list are tagged with Domain descriptors and Alignment descriptors (Chaos, Evil, Good, Law).

g) There are FOUR categories of spell: Simple, Complex, Exotic, and Miracle. Miracle includes some of the heavy-hitter healing spells (inc. Restoration and Raise the Dead [lesser and greater]) and the standard "cleric" spells such as Aid, Prayer, Hallow, Commune, Forbiddance, etc.

3) There is a new cleric class! (I can also post this if you like.) It is a generic divine spellcaster designed to model the cleric and druid (sans wild shape; that is available, but only via the Animal Lord or Master of Many Forms prestige classes). It bears a suspicious resemblance to the Greenbond, and basically works as follows:

-HD d6, saves and BAB as greenbond, spells per day and spells readied as greenbond.
-Skills as greenbond, except Handle Animal is dropped and the cleric gets specific additional skills according to his choice of deity.
-Greenbond healing ability changes to Channel Energy, which works as the greenbond ability for good clerics (or neutral clerics of good deities) and as the darkbond ability for evil clerics (or neutral clerics of evil deities).
-Clerics gain access to all Simple and Miracle spells and all spells with the domain descriptors for all their patron deity's domains (with a minor exception*).
-At 5th level and every 5th level thereafter (10th, 15th, etc), a cleric may choose a granted power from among the granted powers for his deity's domains**.
-A cleric gains the Divine Gift ability, which is identical to the greenbond's Nature's Gift ability.

*If the descriptor in question is Air, Earth, Fire, or Water, then the cleric gains access only to Complex spells with that descriptor. For all other domain descriptors, the cleric gains access to all spells with that descriptor.

**The War domain can be taken multiple times. Each time it is taken past the first, the cleric gains +1 BAB and the benefits of the Improved Toughness feat.

4) All races other than human start with a level of their racial class (a/k/a "paragon" according to Unearthed Arcana). Thus, they are ECL 2 with one class level.

5) Turning is now a Divine feat. All other Divine feats that have the Extra Turning feat as a prereq have that prereq removed. Extra Turning instead becomes "Extra Channeling" and covers all uses of "channeling positive/negative energy" covered by Divine feats as normal.

 

[maransreth]

I have using AE/3.5/own house rules. The banned classes are paladin and monk from d20, and oathsworn and akashic from AE. To bring it up to 20 classes I created the Outdoorsman (ranger with no spells) and Dilettante (bit of everything without bardic music/magic).
For 12 races I have all PHB except Half-Orc, all AE except for Verrik and Mojh, plus a homebrewed Half-Dwarf.

Current PCs are:
Faen Rogue
Elf Outdoorsman
Elf Wizard
Human Totem Warrior.

Other house rules include more feats and class exclusive feats to create variants. At this point in time they have not been heavily used, so still feeling out how it is going.

 

[Threedub]

In an AU/D&D3.0 mixed game with AU magic system, I found the biggest problem through 10 levels of play is no easy restoration from AU magics. Players got hit by poisons, monster ability drains, and D&D spells that drained their abilities and didn't have the ability to restore those points except through rest or purchase of potions.

In a closed environment, like trapped in a dungeon or another plane, they found it was really tough to compete.

So the fix for me was to stop using those types of attacks or when I did making them weaker, so that they restored their lost points in hours instead of days.

 

[Elodan]

Interesting info so far, I'll probably steal some of this for my campaign. I was looking for any of the rules or changes people have done when mixing the two, not just for conversions to the Realms.

Here's a more detailed list of what I've done.

I'm using the PHB, DMG, AE, FRCS and Player's Guide to Faerun (possibly Magic of Faerun) for sources.

Races
I'm using all the races from the FRCS, except half-orcs, plus
- Faen: Always been in the deep woods but have come out of hiding because of a prophecy about the Age of Worms that they want to prevent.
- Giants: A city of giants suddenly appeared in the north at the same time the City of Shade returned. Have joined the League of the Silver Marches.
- Litorians: Always been there.
- Mojh: An experiment by a renegade faction of the Cult of the Dragon hoping to make themselves into the gods they worship. Unfortunately, many villages were unwitting subjects.
- Runechildren: Have appeared here and there ever since the Time of Troubles.

Each race, except humans and faen can take racial levels.

Classes
Using the Bard from the Complete Book of Eldritch Might II; fighter and rogue from the PHB; all the AE classes except Akashic.
The magister class is called Mage (same reasons as ruleslawyer) and oathsworn are called monks (their oath is to their monastic order and patron deity).

Skills and Feats
Hide and Move Silently combined into Sneak. Knowledge (Arcana) is now Knowledge (Magic) and I'm using Knowledge ([region] local) and Knowledge ([region] history.

I've categorized all the feats into General, Ceremonial, Item Creation, Regional and Talents. AE classes get one more feat than the standard classes. Right now I'm using the AE item creation feats but may change it to the PHB ones. The PHB metamagic feats are essentially encompassed in the AE feat Modify Spell so I've made that the prerequisite for the additional metamagic (now ceremonial) feats from the PGtF I added to the campaign.

Priest feat has been changed to allow Domain access.
I've made Summon Familiar and Improved Familiar ceremonial feats.

I'm also using
- the AE (or 3.0) rules for weapon sizing
- Truenames
- Hero points

I've had to do a bit of modifications for feat prerequisites as well as PrCl requirements and benefits but I'm fairly happy with what I have so far.

(i) a substantially expanded spell selection. All D&D spells are of course replaced with their AE equivalents, but many of those for which AE has no analogue (especially the spells in FR supplements) are present in the game as simple, complex, or exotic spells, depending on the level of power and expected rarity. (For instance, most "named" spells, such as Khelben's warding whip, are Exotic.) Other spells, from Relics & Rituals, BoED, and BoVD are also represented. I can send you or post my Master Spell List if you like.

Would love to see this. If you'd rather not post, you can email me at twh0511 <at> gmail.com.

d) Where possible, I have created diminished or heightened versions of D&D spells. However, one balancing factor between some of the D&D spells I use and the AE spells I use is that many of the D&D spells do NOT have this flexibility.

For some reason, I've always found this to be the most daunting task of converting spells. Can you give me some example of spells you did this for? I was planning on making my players do the conversions if they wanted to take spells from the Realms books.

f) Several spells on the spell list are tagged with Domain descriptors and Alignment descriptors (Chaos, Evil, Good, Law).

I'd like to see this if you're willing to share.

3) There is a new cleric class! (I can also post this if you like.) It is a generic divine spellcaster designed to model the cleric and druid (sans wild shape; that is available, but only via the Animal Lord or Master of Many Forms prestige classes). It bears a suspicious resemblance to the Greenbond, and basically works as follows:

5) Turning is now a Divine feat. All other Divine feats that have the Extra Turning feat as a prereq have that prereq removed. Extra Turning instead becomes "Extra Channeling" and covers all uses of "channeling positive/negative energy" covered by Divine feats as normal.

Wouldn't mind seeing your cleric and I've been thinking about making turning a feat.

Thanks.


Also, if you're only using the AE magic system, what do you use instead of potions of healing for lower levels, transfer wounds, battle healing or maybe infuse life?

 

[Elodan]

In an AU/D&D3.0 mixed game with AU magic system, I found the biggest problem through 10 levels of play is no easy restoration from AU magics. Players got hit by poisons, monster ability drains, and D&D spells that drained their abilities and didn't have the ability to restore those points except through rest or purchase of potions.

To make up for this, I've made a lesser restore spell, that's either a second or third level complex.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Elodan,

Give me about a day to put the spell list and cleric into shape, and I'll e-mail them.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Also, if you're only using the AE magic system, what do you use instead of potions of healing for lower levels, transfer wounds, battle healing or maybe infuse life?

Well, since I use IH's reserve point and Heal skill rules, I don't really need lower-level healing. However, the channel energy ability is simply Infuse with Life by another name, so (good) clerics have some healing to spend.