My "House Rules"

[Painfully]

Are these official D&D rules? No. That's why this belongs in the house rules forum.

 

[JoeGKushner]

The PHB has rules for baselining hit points instead of rolling them. They are 50%. I'm not sure why you're going with 75%, at that margin I don't think that anyone will ever roll and they'll be far above average. Might prove unbalancing.

I don't want them rolling. I hate randomness in the game not because it rewards players but because it often punishes them. More importantly, most peopel in the group want this too. I felt 50% would be good if I was offering them the chance to roll, but since there's no roll...

 

[JoeGKushner]

Re: Re: My "House Rules"

That would make the normal training times rather unfair.

Fighter: 1 feat, 2 skills: 4 weeks
Cleric, Sorcerer: 0 feats, 2 skills: 2 weeks
Rogue: 0 feats, 8 skills: 8 weeks
Wizard: 0 feats, 4-6 skills: 4-6 weeks

The rogue will take the longest time for training, followed by the Wizard. The sorcerer or cleric will take the least training time.

I really don't think this works right.

Edit: fix formatting.

That's why I posted her. Some ideas are needed. It's important to note that for some of the spellcasters, I'm probably going to add some time necessary to learn things. In addition, the training times only apply to those things that the character needs training in, not skills that they already have. Does that make sense the way I said it? For example, if a Mage has Spellcraft, he doesn't need training, but if he wants to pick up some ranks in Craft: Blacksmithing or something, he's got to do some training.

 

[JoeGKushner]

My players wouldn't like hero points because it implies that their characters have some sort of inherent advantage over most people in the world. They would think a characters actions, courage, and tenacity should be all that makes them different from Joe Soldier and Apprentice Bob.

But if your players like it, use it.

I hate to say it, but I'm still trying to get down the hang of everything. Some feats look great on paper, but WHAM Takes out someone who it was only supposed to challenge. Some monsters look good on paper but the CR is way off.

I can agree with some of what your saying, but the higher level the players get, the more often they'll probably need those advantages in my campaign.

 

[JoeGKushner]

hey Joe!

i'm curious about your rules about training and exposure to feats and skills before taking them (because we've tryed this in a game i was playing in once)

if a player told you, before the game started, when the PCs were created, that they wanted to take a particular feat later, would you let them (with no downtime for training)? for example, someone creates a halfling rogue, takes improved initiative as their 1st level feat, and tells you, 'i'd like to take quick draw as my 3rd level feat', would you let them? (on the basis they'd already trained for it)

also, if a PC wanted to multi-class later in their career (after second level), but they told you this during character creation, would they have to take time for the training before multi-classing, or would it be ruled that they already had the training and they could automatically multi-class?

(and - how does racial favored class work into all of that?)

just curious [/B]

Good questions. In the case you provide, no. If it was someone with Ambidexterity, and they wanted to take Two-Weapon Fighting, and then Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, yes, because it follows the 'tree' of filling out feats based on prerequisite. Now if the rogue wanted to train prior to gaining a level, that too would be possibe.

Multi-classing is really a problem for me. It offers too many benefits and doesn't really slow down the characters enough for my taste. I mean if you're using variant age rules for different classes, a mage usually starts off older due to more intense training. How does a fighter all the sudden just pick up those skills in one level? However, I can rationalize that if they're interested in it, during their adventuring time, they've come across the experiences necessary to brace them for it. However, they'd still have to do all the training, and this could be quite costly in time/gold as they may have many new skills and feats to absorb.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Are these official D&D rules? No. That's why this belongs in the house rules forum.

Actually, the training times are official rules. And I was unaware that D20 rules from other publishers feel under House Rules.

 

[Drawmack]

for training rules you might want to look here http://mortality.net/board/read.php?TID=3504

 

[Petrosian]

One of the basic tenets of DND 3e is that the PCs and NPCs work mostly by the same rules.

So given...

"A character can’t learn a new skill or feat that he hasn’t been exposed to. "

How were skills and feats ever developed?

If there is NO CAPACITY for self-education or self-development, if a warrior cannot teach himself the technique of cleaving or dodging or even expanding his own cleave to great cleave, just getting better at what he does all the time, then where did these skills and techniques come from?

Just a mental disconnect, being to some significant degree self-taught in a number of areas myself. For instance, no one showed me how to find bbs and post messages.

 

[Ravellion]

I once had a system which gave, in effect, 75%HD of hitpoints. It was Ba-roken. No cleric in the party but still I could hardly challenge them with intelligent encounters... my new campaign however, this is easy, and even brute force can still scare the living daylights out of them, while the previous campaign had the "jump off the cliff and ignore the damage" aspect (hill giant hits, but still, crits seemed like glancing blows)

(living daylights used to be a word for feces... I keep forgetting that some americans take offense at this word, since it is perfectly acceptable to use in the Dutch language )

Note that with extra hitpoints,classes with fixed damage amounts have a distinct disadvantage over those who use Save or X spells. This, in effect, INCREASES the randomness. My players noticed that it took way too many sneak attacks and greatsword hits to bring stuff down, so they just went with immoblization spells. The campaign I'm running now does not have this problem. I suggest you do not go above RPGA: Half of HD rounded up: 3,4,5,6,7 for d4,d6,d8,d10 and d12 respectively.

Alternitvely, you can use the system I have on my website in my sig... It takes out a lot of the randomness, without removing the fun of rolling and without adjusting the averages too much. (Mages are still at 2.5 a HD, while fighter are at 6.1)

Rav

 

[Petrosian]

One of the basic tenets of DND 3e is that the PCs and NPCs work mostly by the same rules.

So given...

"A character can’t learn a new skill or feat that he hasn’t been exposed to. "

How were skills and feats ever developed?

If there is NO CAPACITY for self-education or self-development, if a warrior cannot teach himself the technique of cleaving or dodging or even expanding his own cleave to great cleave, just getting better at what he does all the time, then where did these skills and techniques come from?

Just a mental disconnect, being to some significant degree self-taught in a number of areas myself. For instance, no one showed me how to find bbs and post messages.