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Giving it some more thought, I figure the 3-second-round effect would be unavoidable with the previous house rules. It seems more fitting to change how I run a combat encounter. Here's the gist of it. Divide the combat round into three phases: Plan, Action, and Resolution. Plan phase...

House Rules for Half Actions in Combat I've been thinking about ways to improve on the encounter rules to make it seem more like everyone in the party and the enemy are all acting simultaneously in a given combat round instead of in some sequential order as what actually happens according to...

I'd like to know whether it would be possible, practical, or even useful to use XML to define a standard format for electronic character sheet documents (such as for a character generator application). Each game system would need its own version...Pathfinder, D&D 4E, d20 Modern, etc could each...

I had the idea for a series of spells which allows "simulated combat" to take place, in which a combat encounter could be played out without risk of permanent harm to the participants. However, I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of writing spells so I'm not sure what spell levels, durations...

The DM also has to gauge the player's motivations independent from what he claims his PC wants... sometimes what the player wants to roll is a Diplomacy check when it really should be a Bluff check. The player/PC wants to manipulate an NPC into lending him a hundred gold or a valuable weapon...

As in real life, not every NPC should respond the same way to whatever a PC thinks is "the diplomatic approach." As any girl who's ever tried to "pick up" a girl can tell you, trying to "sweet talk" or manipulate someone into doing what you want can backfire on you and backfire HARD. I concur...

For your party I would invest in monsters with added class levels & templates..... as far as I know there's no provision for guessing an NPC's class features & skill bonuses.

True, although you as the DM could house-rule that advanced HD (and class levels) don't apply to the Knowledge check DC; you might take only the base CR of the monster's race no matter what modifications you make to the monster. High-CR monsters are by their nature going to be more infamous...

This approach looks good in theory but there is something that makes me uncomfortable with having that 1st-level wizard be turned into a walking encyclopedia vs. all CR <=7 monsters. 'Course, that is what the rarity factor is for, I guess.

When it comes to Knowledge checks, I never describe monsters using out-of-game talk if it can be helped. I won't read an ability verbatim from the text using the technical terms but try to describe the game effect as though I were an NPC describing it in layman's speech. I might let the players...

Getting back into DMing after a year or two and am anticipating running a PF game for the first time... I have been thinking about ways to improve my style and to make running the game smoother and more interesting both for myself and my players. Players (as well as DMs) can develop habits and...

lionrampant99: Yeah that makes sense. :) I should have anticipated that. I haven't had a chance to playtest the system either (the campaign I'm using them in has gotten off to a rather slow start) but I'm going to 'gift' all my NPCs with this system and see how the standard-rules PCs fare...

For my D&D games I made my own monster sheets and NPC sheets to use for customizing creatures & characters. Feel free to use them for PCs if you want. Monster sheet Non-player character sheet

I was hoping to get some feedback on this but no one has posted on it ... is it really that bad? In any case I was thinking of making this an optional house rule system to use with all my NPCs, and give my players the option to switch to this system or use the standard 3.5 rules for skill ranks...

Additions for this third draft - Speak Language - skill synergy bonuses - fleshed out the feats section - added bonus primary skill slots for humans & the other bonus-SP races - added expert & cleric - added prestige class changes - cleaned up the technical language - other minor adjustments

We won't be keeping track of alignments on paper, obviously. But there must be a way to run the game such that the players think they are running generally altruistic and well-meaning characters when in fact their characters are becoming a scourge of actual civilization.

I would like some tips for running an 'evil' campaign (where the PCs are evil) as a 'blind' campaign (where the players don't know their characters are evil or believe them to be acting at least non-evilly) My system of choice is D&D 3.5 but I would imagine the advice given can be...

Found some more... Baleful Polymorph (duh) Create Undead Planar Ally, Lesser/normal/Greater Spell Immunity, lesser/Greater Summon Monster I through IX Summon Nature's Ally I through IX Reason why I bring this up is to balance the usefulness of some of these magics by having the caster choose...

What are all the PHB spells (and any non-PHB ones, if you can think of them) that allow you to choose your own effect? I'm not talking about spells that have a limited list of options you can choose from (such as Wall of Iron or Contagion) but spells whose effects are totally open-ended, where...

I don't see either 4E or 3E as 'superior' than the other. They are different games attempting to model high fantasy adventuring with dice, minis, and paper & pencil. With that said, I dislike 4E as feeling incomplete mainly because 4E so far lacks official versions of several staple 3E classes...