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Hacking 4e - Do you hack? Why did you hack?
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<blockquote data-quote="Saagael" data-source="post: 5787347" data-attributes="member: 84839"><p>I love these threads. I'll add my own to the list, and I apologize in advance if it ends up being quite long.</p><p></p><p><strong>Tweaks</strong></p><p>* Players can't take any expertise feats. They don't exist, and I adjust monsters appropriately.</p><p></p><p>* I use inherent bonuses, so magic items don't effect damage or attack</p><p></p><p><strong>Extended Rests</strong></p><p>[sblock]</p><p>Once characters leave the safety of a city or village, extended rests may only be taken once every 2 milestones. This is because outside of cities or villages, it is generally unsafe to rest for more than 8 hours at a time before moving on, and they are not weary enough to make back to back days of rest and relaxation worth it.</p><p></p><p>When they do take an extended rest, they do not automatically get all of their healing surges back; how many they get back depends on how safe and comfortable the area they are resting in is:</p><p></p><p>*When taking an extended rest in an environment where the natives are hostile (such as a dungeon, enemy city, or prison), characters gain surges up to a quarter their maximum surges per day.</p><p></p><p>* When taking an extended rest in an environment that is neither hostile nor friendly (such as in the wilderness), characters gain surges up to half their maximum surges per day.</p><p></p><p>* When taking an extended rest in a friendly environment (such as a friendly inn), characters gain all of their healing surges back.</p><p>[/sblock]</p><p><strong>Lasting Wounds</strong></p><p>[sblock]</p><p>Adventuring is a hard and dangerous line of work. Sometimes the combat goes your way, other times, it doesn't. When combat doesn't go your way, living to fight another day is not always guaranteed, and sometimes means a long-lasting wound or scar.</p><p></p><p>At the end of the combat, the player of a character who dropped to 0 hit points or fewer during the combat must roll a saving throw. For each time the character dropped to 0 hit points or fewer after the first, the player has a -1 penalty on this saving throw. If the player fails this saving throw, the character gains a long-lasting wound. This wound is determined randomly, and is influenced by the type of attack that knocked him or her to 0 hit points.</p><p></p><p>These wounds act like diseases, having an initial effect, and can improve or worsen with each extended rest taken based on a Heal or Endurance check. For example, being knocked unconscious by a thug's hammer might mean the character had an arm fractured and can't use it until his condition improves. Or if knocked down by a fire spell, that character might be vulnerable to fire for a while.</p><p>[/sblock]</p><p><strong>Presitge Points</strong></p><p>[sblock]</p><p>I keep all of my campaign info on an ObsidianPortal wiki, and give out these prestige points for help outside of the game. This can include posting helpful comments on discussion threads, helping me update wiki pages, sending me new characters sheets when the players level up, writing up a detailed background for a character, etc.</p><p></p><p>These points can be spent out of game on character augments. For example, 8 points might get you a free feat, while 5 points can let you bump an ability score of 11, to 12. Mostly, this is my attempt at getting the players to shoulder some of the DM burden of maintaining a wiki so I don't burnout.</p><p>[/sblock]</p><p><strong>Knacks</strong></p><p>[sblock]</p><p>I love the ritual system, but players, in my experience, rarely utilize it beyond Enchanting magic items. So I gutted it. No more ritual system. In its place, I added a "knacks" feature.</p><p></p><p>All characters start out with 1 or 2 knacks. These are things the character is good at, but is more specialized than a skill. For example, a Wizard might be particularly good with portals, and brewing potions, so he'd have a "Use Portal" and "Brew Potion" knack. These allow him to do things involving the subject of his expertise. Use Portal might, depending on situation, allow the wizard to create, destroy, alter, analyze, or detect portals. Cost, duration and casting time of the ritual are determined by the situation and specific use (usually by me, the DM, telling the player what it'll cost). </p><p></p><p>There's no list of knacks, its just whatever the players think their character would be good at. First aid, forgery, metalsmithing, animal tracking, commanding troops, summoning demons, crafting golems, whatever. The players can attempt to utilize knacks any way they want, and can gain more as they level by spending some time and gold getting training.</p><p>[/sblock]</p><p><strong>Crafting</strong></p><p>[sblock]</p><p>Since there's no Enchant magic items ritual, weapon and armor crafting is left to this system. Crafting mastercraft and magic items requires specific components depending on the item being made. Components can be bought, found or gathered from monsters, along with some gold. For example, in order to craft Dragonscale armor, one would need to collect the hide of a dragon. A Safewing amulet might require the wing of a pixie or feather of a harpie. A horned helmet might require the horn of a minotaur.</p><p></p><p>What components are required to craft items is not set in stone, but rather is something to be discovered with creativity and ingenuity. When asked "what do I need to make item X?" I answer with "I don't know, what do you think you'd need." If they're clever, I let it work. The more clever they are, the lower the additional gold they have to spend.</p><p>[/sblock]</p><p><strong>Adjusted skills</strong></p><p>[sblock]</p><p>Skills no longer use specific ability scores. Instead, what a character is doing determines what skill is used, and how the character is doing it determines what ability score is added.</p><p></p><p>For example, lets say a Joe the Wizard is trying to convince a king that if he doesn't act, bad stuff will happen. Lets say that this character is being very logical and offering up sound options with good reasoning. This would be a diplomacy check, but instead of using Charisma, Joe the Wizard would use Intelligence, since he's being logical about it.</p><p></p><p>Or maybe Sam the Barbarian is trying to pick a lock. Well, his version of picking a lock equates to "hit it until it opens", so he'd use Thievery, but replace Dexterity with Strength.</p><p></p><p>The idea behind this is to make players think about what their character is good at, and how to use their strengths, rather than shoehorn inappropriate skills into every situation. </p><p>[/sblock]</p><p></p><p>That's pretty much it. Now to go back and read the rests of the posts and steal what ideas I can. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Saagael, post: 5787347, member: 84839"] I love these threads. I'll add my own to the list, and I apologize in advance if it ends up being quite long. [B]Tweaks[/B] * Players can't take any expertise feats. They don't exist, and I adjust monsters appropriately. * I use inherent bonuses, so magic items don't effect damage or attack [B]Extended Rests[/B] [sblock] Once characters leave the safety of a city or village, extended rests may only be taken once every 2 milestones. This is because outside of cities or villages, it is generally unsafe to rest for more than 8 hours at a time before moving on, and they are not weary enough to make back to back days of rest and relaxation worth it. When they do take an extended rest, they do not automatically get all of their healing surges back; how many they get back depends on how safe and comfortable the area they are resting in is: *When taking an extended rest in an environment where the natives are hostile (such as a dungeon, enemy city, or prison), characters gain surges up to a quarter their maximum surges per day. * When taking an extended rest in an environment that is neither hostile nor friendly (such as in the wilderness), characters gain surges up to half their maximum surges per day. * When taking an extended rest in a friendly environment (such as a friendly inn), characters gain all of their healing surges back. [/sblock] [B]Lasting Wounds[/B] [sblock] Adventuring is a hard and dangerous line of work. Sometimes the combat goes your way, other times, it doesn't. When combat doesn't go your way, living to fight another day is not always guaranteed, and sometimes means a long-lasting wound or scar. At the end of the combat, the player of a character who dropped to 0 hit points or fewer during the combat must roll a saving throw. For each time the character dropped to 0 hit points or fewer after the first, the player has a -1 penalty on this saving throw. If the player fails this saving throw, the character gains a long-lasting wound. This wound is determined randomly, and is influenced by the type of attack that knocked him or her to 0 hit points. These wounds act like diseases, having an initial effect, and can improve or worsen with each extended rest taken based on a Heal or Endurance check. For example, being knocked unconscious by a thug's hammer might mean the character had an arm fractured and can't use it until his condition improves. Or if knocked down by a fire spell, that character might be vulnerable to fire for a while. [/sblock] [B]Presitge Points[/B] [sblock] I keep all of my campaign info on an ObsidianPortal wiki, and give out these prestige points for help outside of the game. This can include posting helpful comments on discussion threads, helping me update wiki pages, sending me new characters sheets when the players level up, writing up a detailed background for a character, etc. These points can be spent out of game on character augments. For example, 8 points might get you a free feat, while 5 points can let you bump an ability score of 11, to 12. Mostly, this is my attempt at getting the players to shoulder some of the DM burden of maintaining a wiki so I don't burnout. [/sblock] [B]Knacks[/B] [sblock] I love the ritual system, but players, in my experience, rarely utilize it beyond Enchanting magic items. So I gutted it. No more ritual system. In its place, I added a "knacks" feature. All characters start out with 1 or 2 knacks. These are things the character is good at, but is more specialized than a skill. For example, a Wizard might be particularly good with portals, and brewing potions, so he'd have a "Use Portal" and "Brew Potion" knack. These allow him to do things involving the subject of his expertise. Use Portal might, depending on situation, allow the wizard to create, destroy, alter, analyze, or detect portals. Cost, duration and casting time of the ritual are determined by the situation and specific use (usually by me, the DM, telling the player what it'll cost). There's no list of knacks, its just whatever the players think their character would be good at. First aid, forgery, metalsmithing, animal tracking, commanding troops, summoning demons, crafting golems, whatever. The players can attempt to utilize knacks any way they want, and can gain more as they level by spending some time and gold getting training. [/sblock] [B]Crafting[/B] [sblock] Since there's no Enchant magic items ritual, weapon and armor crafting is left to this system. Crafting mastercraft and magic items requires specific components depending on the item being made. Components can be bought, found or gathered from monsters, along with some gold. For example, in order to craft Dragonscale armor, one would need to collect the hide of a dragon. A Safewing amulet might require the wing of a pixie or feather of a harpie. A horned helmet might require the horn of a minotaur. What components are required to craft items is not set in stone, but rather is something to be discovered with creativity and ingenuity. When asked "what do I need to make item X?" I answer with "I don't know, what do you think you'd need." If they're clever, I let it work. The more clever they are, the lower the additional gold they have to spend. [/sblock] [B]Adjusted skills[/B] [sblock] Skills no longer use specific ability scores. Instead, what a character is doing determines what skill is used, and how the character is doing it determines what ability score is added. For example, lets say a Joe the Wizard is trying to convince a king that if he doesn't act, bad stuff will happen. Lets say that this character is being very logical and offering up sound options with good reasoning. This would be a diplomacy check, but instead of using Charisma, Joe the Wizard would use Intelligence, since he's being logical about it. Or maybe Sam the Barbarian is trying to pick a lock. Well, his version of picking a lock equates to "hit it until it opens", so he'd use Thievery, but replace Dexterity with Strength. The idea behind this is to make players think about what their character is good at, and how to use their strengths, rather than shoehorn inappropriate skills into every situation. [/sblock] That's pretty much it. Now to go back and read the rests of the posts and steal what ideas I can. :D [/QUOTE]
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