Castles & Crusades Houserules

[Pheonix0114]

I was able to get my hands on the C&C Rule Book, 2nd Printing and have ran one small adventure using rules as written and I've had the following ideas for house rules to the system off the bat, and I was wondering if anyone else has done something similar and whether it worked or not.

1) Eliminate BtH from Classes, use +level to attack rolls instead. Various class features and primes already give differences in combat ability along with the fact some classes simply have better armor and weapons choices.

2) Flatten XP Requirements to level into one distribution making CK book keeping easier.

3) Give Rangers the option of Str Prime or Dex Prime to represent the Archer Ranger archetype.

4) Change the 12/18 system to a 12/16 system, making it still hard but not as impossible to do something that is outside of your primes. Also makes the half-elf ability part a true "half-prime".

 

[kitsune9]

1. If you don't mind your wizard to be able to hit as effectively with his quarter staff that a fighter can with a longsword, this is okay. Some people would object to the approach. I wouldn't toss out BtH myself.

2. No issue there.

3. No issue there too.

4. That just makes the tough stuff easier to accomplish at the lower levels if that's what you're going for.

Go for it!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The classes aren't balanced by level, but by XP level. I'd worry that this would hurt the rogue and other low-XP classes. But I haven't tried it, myself, so I could be wrong.

 

[Pheonix0114]

I just came to the part that made me realize you were right about #1. It would give a cleric whose god had a nice favored weapon way too much power. I still feel that some of the BtH progressions are a bit low, but I can adjust those as needed.

 

[Pheonix0114]

@ Whizbang

I was kinda worried about that myself, but was also worried about the kind of bonuses a rogue could get on their class skills while the rest of the party was several levels down. My solution was the elimination of BtH, figuring that by buffing a Rogue's combat capabilities I would make it a viable class even at the same levels. My group hasn't liked exp tracking in the past, rather I've paced the game where level change happened at the culmination of big events and this satisfied my players. That being said, I cut my DM teeth on 4th edition where everything was too balanced and am moving backwards along the timeline, so I've never played a game that was balanced around XP levels.

 

[kitsune9]

Pheonix,

A question I have is what's your goal with the house rules? For #1, I'm unclear of whether it's a bookkeeping issue or just a matter to add some "spice" in the sauce. #2 I understand, but Dusty's right about that. The power disparity is addressed by having differing XP progression. And to be honest, at high levels it won't matter much. #3 seems a flavor preference, so nothing there to comment about. #4 is good if your campaign pretty much stays at low levels and you want the tough challenges a little easier to be accomplished. However, at high levels, even a gap of 6 between the base challenges won't be too much of a challenge.

 

[Pheonix0114]

I originally envisioned #1 because a player looked at the rogue BtH and didn't want to play a class that wasn't really useful in combat, even with a ranged weapon. It wasn't a bookkeeping thing so much as an attempt to allow everyone to keep the same feel of "Hey I'm pretty good in combat, maybe not as good as THAT guy, but I'm not scrubbing it up."

#2 Was just for simplicity, though I have tracked the XP they have earned so far.

#3 Was from a player that felt he couldn't be good at his imagined idea of a ranger unless he was human because he wanted to be a hunter that primarily used a bow and was good at wood lore. And he hates being a human in fantasy games.

And finally #4 came about because, and I might be wrong about this, I thought you only added level to your rolls when it was specifically a class ability. Our Ranger, who is a half-elf, has a 14 Cha and the racial +2 to Cha checks and he failed 3 of the 4 cha checks he tried to make that night to influence NPCs. I quickly realized that unless I artificially deflated the challenge level every time he needed to roll at least a 15 to succeed which felt wrong when he had a +3 bonus to the roll, equivalent to an attribute of 18-19 in C&C.

 

[Lord Crimson]

And finally #4 came about because, and I might be wrong about this, I thought you only added level to your rolls when it was specifically a class ability. Our Ranger, who is a half-elf, has a 14 Cha and the racial +2 to Cha checks and he failed 3 of the 4 cha checks he tried to make that night to influence NPCs. I quickly realized that unless I artificially deflated the challenge level every time he needed to roll at least a 15 to succeed which felt wrong when he had a +3 bonus to the roll, equivalent to an attribute of 18-19 in C&C.

I'm pretty sure that level is added to anything the GM feels is appropriate. It's recommended, though, that PCs not be allowed to add level to things that specifically fall under the listed abilities of another class (to provide some small level of niche protection).

It sounds like this Ranger should probably have gotten his level added unless what he was trying to do here fell under some other class' ability list.

 

[Pheonix0114]

Ok, I understand my misunderstanding now. I'll see how it goes next session with that understanding. Thanks everyone.