D&D 3E/3.5 Summary of best house rules? 3.5 --> 3.6

[benjamin]

Hi All,

I've been reading all your various posts over the last while with mostly much interest (esp re 4thEd and all that). I think I've decided what I want to do for the moment... I'm going to play 3.6. We've been playing 3.5 ever since we restarted playing a few years ago (and having a ball, by the way). We even use the disarm and grapples rules now...

Just finished the "Red Hand of Doom" modules (with many modifications). Great Module!!!! I love this game. And since we know the rules, I want to stick with this version. BUT!!! I see alot of people talking about 3.5 being the best, with a FEW MODIFICATIONS.

So what modifications are these then...? What are the most common changes made to DnD3.5, Because if there are some changes I can make to make the rules better (without having to buy a whole lot of new books) I'd be keen to have them.

I know everyone is liable to have different solutions for every problem... (tastes vary) but what are the things that people commonly agree need to be fixed.

I shall now run for cover...!

Thanks in advance!

Ben
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[Clay_More]

Hiya Benjamin!

It seems that finding someone who plays 3.5 RAW is exceedingly rare these days. Anyways, I'll list a few of the better house-rules I've seen around.

- Skills. I've seen quite a number of good variants on the skill-system that combines several obvious skills together to make them more logical, like combining Listen and Spot into "Perception", Balance and Tumble into "Acrobatics" and similar things. Makes it a little bit easier handling skills, and you avoid those situations where you might be in doubt of which of two similar skills to use.

- Classes. Some of the standard classes are a bit underwhelming and rarely used for much besides qualifying for Prestige Classes. Seems like this mostly concerns Monk, Fighter and Sorcerer. There's quite a bit of variants of those classes in this board, I can recommend Kerrick's variant Monk class, for example. Some classes that have power-issues also have some fixes you can find around the forum, mostly Clerics and Druids.

- Hit Points. There's a number of alternatives to standard Hit Points floating around. A good variant if you want to have a system that is deadlier is the Grim'n'Gritty rules which has a fixed set of Hit Points for all characters and penalties when you're wounded. Another variant is more for high-fantasy if you want good survivability for your players at the early levels, by granting all starting characters either an additional Hit Dice of health, or giving them a fixed HP bonus based on race (+4 for elf/hafling/gnome, +6 for human, +8 for half-orc/dwarf, as far as I remember).

- Stacking Criticals. In 3.5, many critical-enhancing effects no longer stack. Some have reduced this limitation to make critical effects stack again to allow for characters to make critical-focused builds. Sean K. Reynolds has a good and logical argument on the point:

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/rants/keenimprovedcritstacking.html

- Class Limitations. Virtually all house-rule sets I've seen have some classes that are barred for thematic reasons. It might be a good idea to consider which classes fits in your campaign and its theme. Quite many don't have Psionics, some don't have Monks or Druids (especially in very western-themed campaigns) or other restrictions to the class-choice of players.

- Absolutes. While mostly an issue in high-level play, there are some "absolutes" in 3.5 that can create problems when you get up in level. There are some logical problems with energy immunity versus energy resistance that might be worthwhile to consider if your players are expected to get to level 10 or above. Upper_Krust from these boards made a quite excellent argument on the matter on his website.

http://www.immortalshandbook.com/sermon1.1.htm

Some of the suggestions might be harder to implement, such as removing critical immunity, but energy immunity is easier to implement.

- Spells. Consider carefully what spells you want to allow in your campaign. Some of the spells have the power to disrupt game-play quite considerably. Knock can make the Rogue in the group feel overlooked, Charm Person can be an annoyingly easy way for players to handle NPC interaction, Levitate and Fly can make your obstacles too easy to overcome. In my campaign I've removed Charm Person, Knock and Detect Alignment and bumped up the level of all movement-spells, such as Levitate, Fly, Blink and Teleport by two spell levels. (Detect Alignment can be really annoying in detective-style games, where the players run around town casting it on anyone they come across in the search for a serial-killer, or similar opponent).

- Half-feats. There's quite a bit of feats in RAW rules that are quite underpowered. I've seen someone suggest a simple fix by making some feats into so-called "half-feats", which means you can pick two of them at the cost of a regular feat. Endurance, Run, Brew Potion, Toughness (unless you use the Complete Warrior variant), Diehard, Skill Focus and other feats are typically made "half-feats" in some house-rules I've seen.

Anyways, thats what I could come up with on the spur, I bet there's other people around here who have good suggestions.

 

[rushtong]

So what modifications are these then...? What are the most common changes made to DnD3.5, Because if there are some changes I can make to make the rules better (without having to buy a whole lot of new books) I'd be keen to have them.

Hi Ben,

My two groups have been using the Pathfinder RPG Alpha ruleset as of late. They have done a great job of doing exactly this kind of thing while trying to maintain backwards compatibility with all of your existing 3.x source books. I recommend a read through the free pdf available: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG

 

[Kerrick]

<shameless plug>I'm working on a revision of the system, called Project Phoenix (see the link in my sig). It incorporates a lot of popular house rules, as well as many other things that I've fixed myself over the past few years.</shameless plug>

 

[benjamin]

Thanks so far... you guys are totallly awesum!

You guys are grand!

Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my request!

I love the idea of half feats... some of those feats will NEVER EVER get chosen otherwise, but can really help certain classes. Will use.

Spells are a big issue and soon to become a bigger issue! The Sor IMC is just hitting level 10... so I indeed need to start to think about what spells to ban/modify... Good advice... Will do.

I have downloaded Pathfinder... and will definately mine that! That'll take a bit of work!

And now I'm going to go and look at Project Phoenix. I'll try and give some feedback and whatever!

Once again THANKS HEAPS everyone for your responses so far...

You rule, ok!!! (lol)

Anyone else?

Ben

*************************************************
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See a program demo, and listen to mp3s
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