ry's house rules

[Ry]

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[Bayonet_Chris]

Conviction, Death, and Reserve

PCs have a death flag that they can raise in order to get 4 extra Conviction. This flag can be lowered by spending 4 Conviction. While a player-character's death flag is raised, they can suffer death as per the standard rules. While the flag is lowered, the player character can still be captured, imprisoned, fall off a cliff into a river and left for dead - but will not actually die. NPCs with names use the normal rules for death, but NPCs without names die at 0 hit points.

Reserve Points from Unearthed Arcana are used to extend the staying power of PCs without healing.

I like the Death Flag approach. I may have to try something like that out in my game.

 

[Ry]

Conviction has been a big win all around. It's like, suddenly the players have a way of saying "THIS action is really important to my character."

 

[StGabe]

The integration of feats into advancement seems borked (or I am reading it incorrectly). It appears that if a player holds off their level advancement for a while then they can gain 3 feats real quick for 6,000 xps of their first level. Then they can quickly level up on a share of higher level xps. At max level, 12, it costs them 24,000 xps to gain a feat or the same cost for one level.

Let's say your players gain 104,000 xps. That's enough to hit level 9. However if one of your characters sat around at level 2 gaining 9 feats they will have 9 extra feats and will only be one level lower than the rest of the party. At that point, if someone had just leveled up straight it would take them 162,000 xps to earn that many feats.

I see what you are getting at, xps are easier to gain later, however this still seems to heavily favor frontloading feats early on.

I suggest a system like the following:

Feat costs:
1st -- 5,000
2nd -- 10,000
3rd -- 15,000
4th -- 20,000
5+ -- 25,000

This allows you to get feats earlier on without spending as much but it keeps the cost per additional feat constant.

 

[Ry]

That's a really good point. Maybe I should just keep the feats thing for the 12th level PCs. The thing I was thinking was to give players an incentive if they want to hold off on levelling while other PCs catch up.

 

[GreatLemur]

Opening Kibbitz

At the beginning of each session, the GM and players will chat about how the characters are connected to the world and each other, and suggest ideas for the off-camera life of the PCs.

The GM will come prepared with ideas to help grease the wheels for all involved, and players can suggest things they'd like to see in the world (pulling out a rulebook, pointing at something, and saying "that!" is a totally valid suggestion). Most sessions will begin in media res. The goal is to have the characters start play hooked into the world, story, and party, so when the dice hit the table, the game takes off.

I kind of dig that. My only concern would be how well the players respond when it's introduced to them as an actual houserule. Mandatory game-related chat seems kind of odd, after all. How has it worked out for your group?

PCs have a death flag that they can raise in order to get 4 extra Conviction. This flag can be lowered by spending 4 Conviction. While a player-character's death flag is raised, they can suffer death as per the standard rules. While the flag is lowered, the player character can still be captured, imprisoned, fall off a cliff into a river and left for dead - but will not actually die.

Okay, now that is interesting. I don't think I've heard of a mechanic like that, before.

 

[Ry]

There's a great indie game called Primetime Adventures - in it - as with a lot of these indie games -there's a lot more consciousness of the fact that there's actual players at a table that are trying to have fun. I'm trying to introduce a little bit of that mentality (see my comments on Conviction as well). The game hasn't begun yet, but the players, having been exposed to PTA, are cool with it.

 

[Ry]

Addendum: to be honest, I'm hoping to add more detail to the idea of the kibbitz, and I have a few more techniques that I'm working on.

 

[Eloi]

I like that "buy a feat" cost. It lets characters branch out more at lower levels, which can be more interesting and fun. If you've had a death in the party, and you'd like to invest in your character while your "new ally" gets up to the potency you'd all like her to be, buying a feat or two would be pretty snazzy. (And if all the surviving PCs pick up Improved Toughness, that's a sign.)

A party that decided to intentionally gain a few feats together rather than seek the leveling curve immediately would be pretty interesting to be in. Cleric picking up a little Extra Turning, Mage getting another metamagic feat under his belt, Druid polishing her melee skills with Combat Reflexes - what's not to like?

 

[Ry]

Yeah, that's kind of what I thought too. Anyway, I changed the first post in this thread to point to my blog instead, because formatting these table isn't looking right on the forum.