Does anyone play w/ no house rules?

[rushlight]

IMC, We use many house rules. First is of course Harm/Heal, but I think that will be officially fixed soon. Also, I use Sean's revised poison rules, as it's silly to assume that all poisons that exist in the world have exactly two seperate effects, and all last exactly one minute. Third, we've applied the Skill Focus as +2 RANKS, not just a +2 bonus. For a feat to basically duplicate the synergy bonuses is just a waste. To actually apply to your ranks makes it much more useful, like for PrC's and whatnot. Of course, that might have been the original intention, but it is unclear.

 

[fimp]

In the Harm spell entry, it says that it takes away all but 1d4 hit points.

Should that be understood so that the max result would be +1 hit point or -9 hit points?




My solution to this problem would be to make it a 9th-level spell with some XP-cost. Perhaps 1000 XP.

 

[Corinth]

In general, I play without house rules. For my Middle-Earth game, I'm testing a few others now due to world-building needs. As I distrust them in general, I advocate (and practice) a very conservative approach towards them. FWIW, I also scan the FAQ to make certain that Skip's brain farts don't get past me.

 

[Shin Okada]

The only house rule we are using is, "Even True Resurrection needs some part of dead body." Without this rule, not only PCs rarely die, but enemies with more than average resources never die! Now my PCs are confronting religious knightly order. If we go by the rule, I cannot believe that arc bishops of the order do not resurrect all their Black Guards as soon as they died!

Other than that, we are currently using no other house rules.

 

[kreynolds]

In the Harm spell entry, it says that it takes away all but 1d4 hit points.

Should that be understood so that the max result would be +1 hit point or -9 hit points?

At best, you will leave your target with 1 hit point. You can't kill anything with Harm alone.

My solution to this problem would be to make it a 9th-level spell with some XP-cost. Perhaps 1000 XP.

Personally, I wouldn't change a thing about Harm. What does surprise me, however, is that those of you that think Harm is broken and have banned/house ruled Harm, haven't banned/house ruled the Heal spell. Harm is basically Heal in reverse. They are perfectly equal in regards to power vs. spell level, yet noone has a problem with Heal.

Let me tell you, as a DM, nothing will piss me off more than running a really good battle, in that either side is dangerously close to losing, the good and the bad racing neck in neck towards victory, and then some frickin' cleric casts Heal on the fighter, who then mops up my guys.

Besides, if you wanna pick bones, let's take a look at both of the spells:

1) HARM - removes all but 1d4 hit points of the target. It doesn't do anything else.
2) HEAL - It completely cures all diseases, blindness, deafness, hit point damage, and all temporary ability damage. It neutralizes poisons in the subject’s system. so that no additional damage or effects are suffered. It offsets a feeblemind spell. It cures those mental disorders caused by spells or injury to the brain. Only a single application of the spell is needed to simultaneously achieve all these effects.

Seeing as how they are both 6th level spells (7th for a druid), Heal is much more powerful than Harm. Harm charges a creature with negative energy. Heal charges a creature with possitive energy, more energy than Harm as Heal completely heals all hit points, whereas Harm is limited to 1d4, and Heal does oh so much more. Obviously, Heal is much more powerful than Harm, but noone has a problem with Heal. Why is that?

 

[CRGreathouse]

Obviously, Heal is much more powerful than Harm, but noone has a problem with Heal. Why is that?

The standard group has 4 members, and more are common. Thus, heal will increase the hit points of the group by ~20% if used on a single wounded member. If harm is used on a lone "boss" monster/NPC, the enemy hit points drop by ~95%. Thus, in terms of strict hit point parity, harm is better in typical situations. A lone PC is usually better off with heal, but that's atypical.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

1st campaign in 3rd edition I ran it no house rules, though I did interpret rules incorrectly.

Since then I've compiled a list of things I want changed, so yep there are house rules. There are a list of spells I've banned until a player rewrites the spell to my liking, this should be done in game as part of spell research, some spells like harm I've bumped up a couple levels, harm is basically equiv to whoevers silly dance spell, both basically are touch spells with no save that make it very unlikely that the target will survive the round, but in themselves don't kill the target. Some other spells the ones that are banned are either too powerful even for a 9th level spell or too open to manipulation that there power is off the charts. Skill focus now to +3, fighters get 4 skill points so they can actually do something out of combat, this is especially important since I don't run a combat heavy game. Sorcerers don't use material components, no vlaued once are free, once with a gp cost have an exp cost equal to 1/20th their gp cost. And much, much more. Ok not much, much more, at least not compared to 2nd edition.

Of course I hate running games, so if given the choice I'll play and then I don't care if there are house rules cause I get to play.

 

[kreynolds]

The standard group has 4 members, and more are common. Thus, heal will increase the hit points of the group by ~20% if used on a single wounded member. If harm is used on a lone "boss" monster/NPC, the enemy hit points drop by ~95%. Thus, in terms of strict hit point parity, harm is better in typical situations. A lone PC is usually better off with heal, but that's atypical.

Granted, against a lone "boss" monster/NPC, Harm is pretty powerful, but I have to say that situations like that, where my BBEG is facing the party, the BBEG never goes it alone. So, when the party is presented with multiple enemies, Harm is no more powerful than any other spell. However, in situations where the party faces a lone enemy, Harm is no worse than disintigrate or finger of death.