Yet another "My House Rules" thread

[MadBlue]

I'm going to be starting up a new D&D campaign in the next month or so, and am considering the following house rules for my game. Has anybody used any rules like these before?

Charisma
· Characters with a score of 12 or higher in Charisma gain a bonus feat at 1st level and depending on the character’s Charisma, they may be eligible for bonus feats as they advance in level (see table, below):

Score Bonus Feats
12-13 Level 1
14-15 Level 1, 4
16-17 Level 1, 4, 8
18-19 Level 1, 4, 8, 12
20-21 Level 1, 4, 8, 12, 16
etc…

Reasons:
1) Charisma represents more than social aspects of the character. It represents such things as self-awareness, self-confidence, sense of purpose and is the ability that characters (and creatures) use to base special abilities that are "inborn" or "talents" on. Surely that could benefit characters who don't have special abilities based on Charisma.

2) Unlike other abilities, Charisma grants no mechanical benefit outside of skill bonuses.

3) Unlike other game effects (to hit and AC adjustments, HP, skill points, Saving Throws etc.), number of Feats is not affected by any ability.

4) Classes relying on Charisma (particularly the Sorcerer) are often criticized as being less powerful than other classes.

RACES

Half-Orc Traits (Ex): These traits are in addition to the half-orc traits in the PHB
· Rage (Ex): A half-orc has the ability to fly into a screaming blood frenzy once per day (or one additional time per day, if he already has a rage ability). The effect of this ability is identical with the effects of a barbarian’s rage. If a half-orc has improved rage abilities (such as the barbarian class features greater rage, indomitable will, tireless rage, or mighty rage), those improvements apply to the rage ability granted by being a half-orc as well.
· Monstrous Mien (Ex): Half-orcs can channel their innate ferocity, resulting in a +4 racial bonus on Intimidate checks.

Reasons:
1) In the same way that Half-Elves get bonuses to Diplomacy and Gather Information because they feel comfortable among other races, Half-Orcs often are treated as outsiders by Humand and Orcs and resort to intimidation to get their point across

2) A history of being between races and not accepted by either gives one a lot of steam to vent.

3) The Half-Orc Paragon class (in UA) gets these as special abilities, while the other racial Paragon classes tend to get abilities that build upon Racial Traits.

CLASSES

Ranger
· Rangers who meet the prerequisites for their combat style feats may use them when wearing medium and heavy armor

Reason: If a Ranger is going to put the extra ability points into Dex, and/or take the additional Feats, it makes sense for the Ranger's combat style Feats to work normally.


Sorcerer
· Sorcerers get Use Magic Device as a class skill.
· Sorcerers may choose Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate as a class skill.

Reasons:
1) Sorcerers use Charisma as a prime ability, so they should have more choices in Charisma-based skills

2) Sorcerers are the quintessential magic "users", so it makes sense for them to be able to have a chance to use a magic device, whatever its source.

3) Andy Collins suggested it.

DEFENSE BONUS

Characters receive a Defense Bonus to AC equal to 1/3 character level, rounded down. This bonus applies to a character’s Touch AC, but it is lost whenever a character loses their Dexterity bonus to AC (for example, when flatfooted).

Reasons:

1) Characters automatically get better at attacking over time, why don't they get better at defending?

2) Touch attacks are too difficult to avoid without magic.

3) Since no class got a DB before, granting all characters the same DB doesn't muck around with class balance.

3) IMC, I hand out fewer "rings of protection" and such as DM. Basically. I'd rather have a character's defenses be based more on their own ability to defend themselves, rather than magic items.

 

[JimAde]

I think these are fine, except for the extra feats for Charisma. It's a matter of campaign style, I guess, but having a good Charisma is its own reward in my games. Aside from the bonuses to skills like Diplomacy and class abilities, I base initial NPC reactions in part on Charisma. If you have a good Charisma, and aren't being a complete jerk, people will start out friendlier than they would otherwise, before you even roll dice.

 

[Ahnehnois]

About charisma-based feats:

Charisma represents more than social aspects of the character. It represents such things as self-awareness, self-confidence, sense of purpose and is the ability that characters (and creatures) use to base special abilities that are "inborn" or "talents" on. Surely that could benefit characters who don't have special abilities based on Charisma.

Charisma is all of these things except self-awareness. That's more wisdom. I would suggest using action points and having charisma affect those. For bonus feats, wisdom makes more sense.

I would also suggest changing the level at which they are granted either way. The 4's are already ability increases. Make it so feats come on levels when otherwise nothing good would be gained, to even things out.

 

[Zoatebix]

I could see a paradigm where Charisma included self-awareness and Wisdom included awareness of the relationship between self and other.

Regardless of which ability score you pick for bonus feats, if you really want to equate skill points from intelligence to bonus feats from another mental ability score, each ability score modifier of +1 could probably be worth 2 feats over 20 levels - at least according to a few of the attempts to break down d20 into a number-based paradigm that I've read. Though keeping it to one bonus feat per +1 of ability bonus makes it easier to keep track of how the change is affecting your game.

I agree with Ahnehnois that you should keep the bonus feats off of the "4s". Personally, I'd probably but them on the "5s", but I could see putting them on the "2s" as well. It'd give a charismatic swashbuckling-type fighter a very big bag of tricks indeed at low levels to compensate for his lack of armor.

 

[GreatLemur]

I could see a paradigm where Charisma included self-awareness and Wisdom included awareness of the relationship between self and other.

Charisma and Wisdom are kind of weirdly-defined, these days. Charisma is "strength of personality," which sounds a hell of a lot like willpower, to me. But then it's Wisdom that influences the Will save . . . and, for some reason, sensory abilities as well. So I like the idea of formally defining Charisma as willpower and Wisdom as perception, and giving the Will save to Charisma.

 

[MadBlue]

About charisma-based feats:
Charisma is all of these things except self-awareness. That's more wisdom. I would suggest using action points and having charisma affect those. For bonus feats, wisdom makes more sense.

"Charisma reflects the creature's sense of self and ability to influence other creatures for good or for ill" (MM p298) Wisdom reflects, among other things, sense of one's surroundings.

If I were going to use Action Points, I'd give bonus points for Charisma, and it was something I was thinking about, but I decided that I didn't want to introduce that mechanic to my game.

I would also suggest changing the level at which they are granted either way. The 4's are already ability increases. Make it so feats come on levels when otherwise nothing good would be gained, to even things out.

I thought about that, but the reason why I decided on the 4's was because if a character raised his Charisma to 12 at 4th level, when would he get the bonus Feat? Would it apply retroactively, since a 12 Charisma character would get a bonus Feat at 1st level? Would the character have to wait until he reached 5th (or whatever) level before getting a bonus Feat? Basing it on the level where a character could raise Charisma enough to be eligible for a bonus Feat seemed like the easiest option to deal with.

By the way, just in case it comes up in this thread, spells and magic items that boost Charisma wouldn't grant bonus Feats (in the same way Intelligence boosting spells and magic items don't boost skill points or languages known).

 

[Creat]

Well the Intimidate as a CS for the Sorcerer just makes no sense besindes it being based on charisma. They aren't particularly intimidating compared to other classes, probably amogst the least fearsome in that respect.

The bonus feats I think are a good idea because they also encourage to put more points into charisma, which is often the worst skill for non-sorcerers (with good reason I believe, I wouldn't put too many points in it my self).

Defense Bonus should also apply to Monsters then, so they should also get +1/3 HD to AC or your PCs might become quite hard to hit compared to the monsters they're up against (rings and other magical AC enhancers can also be bought), but it's also nothing too extreme, so it can work depending on your campaign.

The rest seems fine

 

[MadBlue]

Well the Intimidate as a CS for the Sorcerer just makes no sense besindes it being based on charisma. They aren't particularly intimidating compared to other classes, probably amogst the least fearsome in that respect.

The way I see it (and actually, it's not really my house rule, it's Andy Collins', so I can't take the credit/blame), Sorcerers should be able to choose the way they apply their Charisma rather than be potentially better at bluffing than anything else. According to the Sorcerer's flavor text, they can serve as the party's "face" and make excellent diplomats. It's hard to do that without Diplomacy as a class skill. And given that people tend to fear and misunderstand them as their powers are developing, I can easily see a Sorcerer with an evil bent choosing intimidation (rather than bluff or diplomacy) as their social interaction style. UMD is there because they have an innate talent for magic.

The bonus feats I think are a good idea because they also encourage to put more points into charisma, which is often the worst skill for non-sorcerers (with good reason I believe, I wouldn't put too many points in it my self).

Thanks. Yeah, I find it odd that the flavor text in the books use words like "self esteem", "self confidence" etc., when talking about Charisma, but the game mechanics don't follow up on that. In fact, most of the sample NPCs have a lower than average Charisma. A typical adventuring party generated from the NPC lists in the DMG would consist of a Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard each with an 8 Charisma. Adventurers with low self-confidence? If the rules as written treat Charisma like a dump stat, it's no wonder that many players tend to, too.

Defense Bonus should also apply to Monsters then, so they should also get +1/3 HD to AC or your PCs might become quite hard to hit compared to the monsters they're up against (rings and other magical AC enhancers can also be bought), but it's also nothing too extreme, so it can work depending on your campaign.

My goal is primarily to cut down on rings and whatnot, so it'll work OK for me. I figure that the rules pretty much assume that characters will have AC boosting items and creature Natural ACs are built with that in mind. Creatures with class levels would get the 1/3 Lvl bonus to AC, though.

In the last campaign I played in, it seemed like every other NPC villain had a Ring of Protection or Cloak of Resistance (most of the enemies we faced were classed humanoids). Of course when most of the enemies are creatures, it's not so much of an issue. I always thought it odd that a 20th level Fighter, stripped of weapons and armor, could conceivably be as easy to hit as he was at 1st level. Of course there are Feats like Dodge, and whatnot, but you know what I mean.

Oh, another house rule I'm going to use is Andy's "High Cost of Dying" rule:

Rather than losing a level, characters that die and are raised from the dead have a negative level imposed on them. The negative level is removed when the character gains enough experience points to go from his current level to the next one (Restoration has no effect). For example, a 5th level character with 14,999 xp is killed and raised from the dead. He's still 5th level, and still has 14,999 xp, and the next XP he gains will still make him a 6th level character, but he has a negative level imposed on him until he earns 5,000 xp (the amount it would take a character to go from 5th level to 6th level). It's still a harsh penalty, but it makes it a lot easier to deal with in game, rather than having to take the time to recalculate the character (sometimes on the spot) as a lower level character.

My friend uses the regular death rule, but has a "3 deaths and you're in trouble with death" rule. As he put it "After the 3rd death, Death notices you and is not happy he has been cheated so he will, at some time, send a piece of himself as a mini-death that will be tailor made for each person. I wanna make PCs try hard not to die and not to rely on being raised too much and for them to really think there is a consequence for dying." I think I'm going to use that too. IMC, the "mini-death" will be an Aleax.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

The way I see it (and actually, it's not really my house rule, it's Andy Collins', so I can't take the credit/blame), Sorcerers should be able to choose the way they apply their Charisma rather than be potentially better at bluffing than anything else.

I give the Sorceror all of the interaction skills-- they don't typically have the skill points to take ranks in all of them.

I'm a little wary of giving them UMD, though, since it's one of the better points of Rogues, Bards, and Warlocks.

Charisma and Wisdom are kind of weirdly-defined, these days. Charisma is "strength of personality," which sounds a hell of a lot like willpower, to me. But then it's Wisdom that influences the Will save . . . and, for some reason, sensory abilities as well. So I like the idea of formally defining Charisma as willpower and Wisdom as perception, and giving the Will save to Charisma.

I tend to agree that Will saves should be based on Charisma, but I haven't gotten around to changing it yet. I guess it's just one of those old sacred cows that I don't feel comfortable gutting yet.

That, and there are too many ways to suddenly make Charisma a very powerful stat-- Wisdom seems more limited to me.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

As for Class Defense, I give every class a separate Class Defense Bonus, based on their combat ability, dependency on armor, and their evasive skill. These break down into three categories, corresponding roughly with the Poor, Medium, and Good saving throws.

I use Armor as DR, but I remove the AC bonus after calculating DR (which is now minimum 1, for Padded Armor). For humanoids and humanoid-shaped creatures, Natural Armor follows the standard variant as provided in Unearthed Arcana, gaining 1 DR for every 5 Natural Armor, but they have a minimum DR of 1 and lose the AC portion of their Natural Armor. For non-humanoids, they get half their Natural Armor as DR and lose the other half.

I haven't yet classified the Monster HD types into groups for Class Defense Bonus. I'm thinking I may just put all of them into Poor.