Here's a good Toughness House Rule!

[Valicor]

I have to agree with Crothian on it. The benifits even at the cost of five feats extremely wel worth it. Other people's oppinion may differ from mine, but the benfits are far greater then any current chain of feats could grant.

 

[reapersaurus]

hell, these look great.
If someone wants to use their feats on making their character more likely to survive, i don't see why anyone should think that's particularly a BAD thing.

It's not like these five feats allow them to dodge a simple Hold Person or something.

It's not like it lets them attack someone indefinately while invisble.
It makes for better Heroes, so I saw Bring it On!

 

[Crothian]

hell, these look great.
If someone wants to use their feats on making their character more likely to survive, i don't see why anyone should think that's particularly a BAD thing.

It's not like these five feats allow them to dodge a simple Hold Person or something.

It's not like it lets them attack someone indefinately while invisble.
It makes for better Heroes, so I saw Bring it On!

It's not a bad thing that it increases chances of survival. It just does it to well. We'll ignore the advice in Dragon that says feats should not have any effect based on level. At soem point there has to bea line that X amount of HP from a feat is too good. I think this crossed the line. A single feat should not increase the HPs of a character by 30%. That's huge. And that's one of these feats as I showed above.

 

[Anubis]

Actually, I don't see anythign unbalancing about a feat that grants wizards and sorcerers 23 hp at Level 20 . . .

Also, for the higher feats, look and see that there are also Constitution requirements . . .

By Level 20, 23 hp is a bit of chump change . . .

The ones I thought might be overpowered in this House Rule are Dragon's Toughness and Epic Toughness, not Toughness . . .

Also, the average CR 20 creature can easily deal 50+ damage to anything it hits, so that extra 23 hp might be good for prolonging the lives of weaker characters . . .

I dunno . . . I can see both sides of this, but I have yet to hear anything solid either way . . .

Maybe these are too powerful . . . The fact remains, however, that under the rules now, the Toughness feats are all but useless . . . So what is the best fix that is in line with the rules?

 

[Crothian]

Maybe these are too powerful . . . The fact remains, however, that under the rules now, the Toughness feats are all but useless . . . So what is the best fix that is in line with the rules?

Personally, I haven't found or heard of a way that they become useful. My own version allows for the same number to be added to total HP and how negative a person can go. So, a character with toughness gains 3 HP and dies at -13.

Without really using them in a game it is hard to say if it's balanced or not. I'll admit my opnion here is a gut reaction, and maybe wrong. So, try it out in a game and see.

 

[Anubis]

I have the answer! The answer lies not within the hp, but the effects!

Okay, below are my revised suggestions for the Toughness line of feats. To utilize these feats, however, another House Rule must be applied.

With regards to "Dying", having only a 10 hp window throughout your career is not only unrealistic, it's useless at higher levels. I realize that the Epic Level Handbook touches on this, but their suggestion does not deal with the problem well enough, so I have come up with another House Rule:

Characters don't actually "die" until they reach a negative amount of hp equal to their Con + Character Level.

With that in mind, let's revisit Toughness; the following feats stack with each other, but each may only be taken once:

Toughness: gain 5 hp, "death's door" extended 10 hp

Dwarf's Toughness [Base Fort save +5 or higher, Toughness feat]: gain 10 hp, "death's door" extended 10 hp

Giant's Toughness [Base Fort save +8 or higher, Toughness feat, Dwarf's Toughness feat]: gain 20 hp, "death's door" extended 10 hp

Dragon's Toughness [Base Fort save +11 or higher, Toughness feat, Dwarf's Toughness feat, Giant's Toughness feat]: gain 40 hp, "death's door" extended 10 hp

Epic Toughness [Epic Feat; Toughness feat, Dwarf's Toughness feat, Giant's Toughness feat, Dragon's Toughness feat]: gain 80 hp, "death's door" extended 10 hp

And now for a new feat to be the climax of the chain:

Improved Epic Toughness [Epic Feat; Toughness feat, Dwarf's Toughness feat, Giant's Toughness feat, Dragon's Toughness feat, Epic Toughness feat]: gain 100 hp, "death's door" doubled

On top of that, while I'm on the subject of life-extending feats, here a new one to ponder:

Immortality [Epic Feat; Con 20+, Base Fort save +40 or higher, Heal 30 ranks, Toughness feat, Dwarf's Toughness feat, Giant's Toughness feat, Dragon's Toughness feat, Epic Toughness feat, Improved Epic Toughness feat, Great Fortitude feat, Epic Fortitude feat, Iron Will feat, Epic Will feat, Endurance feat, Epic Endurance feat, Remain Conscious feat, Extended Life Span feat, Great Constitution feat, Fast Healing feat, Perfect Health feat, Skill Focus (heal), Greater Skill Focus (heal), Epic Skill Focus (heal)]: live forever, "death's door" extended 100 hp, you no longer suffer ability penalties for aging and cannot be magically aged, although any penalties you have already suffered remain in place and bonuses still accrue

So, how about that? Is that better for Toughness? How about the two new feats?

 

[Cloudgatherer]

Like many others, I use the simple house rule that toughness grants +1 HP per level. We played it in a game and there weren't any problems with it. Naturally you could only take it once (like most feats), and we weren't playing with all the other toughness variants...

Later!

 

[Crothian]

With regards to "Dying", having only a 10 hp window throughout your career is not only unrealistic, it's useless at higher levels. I realize that the Epic Level Handbook touches on this, but their suggestion does not deal with the problem well enough, so I have come up with another House Rule:

Characters don't actually "die" until they reach a negative amount of hp equal to their Con + Character Level.

That's a pretty good idea. Is that con score or con modifier? It sounds like Con score, which is how I'd do it. I've used death door equal to your con score, but never facored in level. How will this work for monsters? Do they go to HD + Con? Or is this a special PC rule, one of the many reason why these characters are heros and not shopkeepers.

With that in mind, let's revisit Toughness; the following feats stack with each other, but each may only be taken once:

Toughness: gain 5 hp, "death's door" extended 10 hp

Dwarf's Toughness [Base Fort save +5 or higher, Toughness feat]: gain 10 hp, "death's door" extended 10 hp

Giant's Toughness [Base Fort save +8 or higher, Toughness feat, Dwarf's Toughness feat]: gain 20 hp, "death's door" extended 10 hp

Dragon's Toughness [Base Fort save +11 or higher, Toughness feat, Dwarf's Toughness feat, Giant's Toughness feat]: gain 40 hp, "death's door" extended 10 hp

Okay, so by the time you are 20th level you with all four of these feats you have +75 hp, and death door extended by 40. Personally, I think the HPs given area little high. Otherwise I like it.

Epic Toughness [Epic Feat; Toughness feat, Dwarf's Toughness feat, Giant's Toughness feat, Dragon's Toughness feat]: gain 80 hp, "death's door" extended 10 hp

And now for a new feat to be the climax of the chain:

Improved Epic Toughness [Epic Feat; Toughness feat, Dwarf's Toughness feat, Giant's Toughness feat, Dragon's Toughness feat, Epic Toughness feat]: gain 100 hp, "death's door" doubled

Now, we are in the area of Epic. Here things can get a lot higher as it's the way the rules are written. With Epic Toughness we are now add +155 hp, and death door extended by 50.

The Improved version gets us to +255 HP, and death door doubled. So now it's (con+level) x 2 + 100 ? The 100 being double the 50 gained on the past 5 feats.

Damn!! Give this guy fast healing, he ain't ever going down!!

On top of that, while I'm on the subject of life-extending feats, here a new one to ponder:

Immortality [Epic Feat; Con 20+, Base Fort save +40 or higher, Heal 30 ranks, Toughness feat, Dwarf's Toughness feat, Giant's Toughness feat, Dragon's Toughness feat, Epic Toughness feat, Improved Epic Toughness feat, Great Fortitude feat, Epic Fortitude feat, Iron Will feat, Epic Will feat, Endurance feat, Epic Endurance feat, Remain Conscious feat, Extended Life Span feat, Great Constitution feat, Fast Healing feat, Perfect Health feat, Skill Focus (heal), Greater Skill Focus (heal), Epic Skill Focus (heal)]: live forever, "death's door" extended 100 hp, you no longer suffer ability penalties for aging and cannot be magically aged, although any penalties you have already suffered remain in place and bonuses still accrue

So, how about that? Is that better for Toughness? How about the two new feats?

Have enough prerequites on that feat?

Is that extra 100 also doubled because of Epic toughness? Personally, I like that feat just because it's so darn hard to get to.

Overall good job. The HPs are a little high on the lesseer feats, by my games are a little toned down powerwise. So, I may be looking at this a little differently then you.

 

[Anubis]

To answer the question of how the "death's door" extensions are added up, here's a formula of sorts:

Con + Level is the base . . . So let's use a Wizard with 12 Con as the example . . . At Level 1, this Wizard would live until -13 hp . . .

With Toughness, you extend it by ten making it -23 . . .

Upon reaching Level 15, the minimum to be able to get Dwarf's Toughness, the Wizard would live until -47 (12 Con and Level 15 make it -27, take off another 20 for the two feats) . . .

By the way, all of these examples will assume a 12 Con . . .

The Wizard then takes Giant's Toughness at Level 24 (remember Epic Save Bonuses count as base Save Bonuses with regard to feat prerequisites), and can now live until eeaching -66 . . .

After getting Dragon's Toughness at Level 30, the Wizard now is alive until -82 . . .

Here's where it gets tricky . . . Having all those feats fulfills teh requirements for Epic Toughness, which the Wizard takes at Level 33 when he gets his next feat . . . The Wizard now is alive until -95 . . .

Next, the Wizard gets Improved Epic Toughness at Level 36. This doubles whatever the range is at the time. That means at Level 36, he lives until -196, and then at Level 37, he lives until -198 . . . Seem like a bit much? Calculate how fast any Epic Monster can make those 198 disappear and consider . . . Then there's always Coup de Grace, of course . . .

Here's the hardest part though . . . Actually not, but it might confuse some . . . Upon getting the Immortality feat, "death's door" is increased by 100 . . . That, however, is NOT doubled . . . So lets' say our Wizard gets Immortality at, say, Level 99 . . . He now lives until -422 (that is, until a Hecatoncheires splats him with fifteen attacks or a Prismatic Dragon steps on him) . . . Don't tell me that's too much, this is a Level 99 character we're talking about, remember?! This guy could step on most GODS and without breaking a sweat . . .

Anyway, that's how it works the way I've written it. More in a moment . . .

 

[Crothian]

I like what you did with Deaths Door. I don't think its too much at those high levels. THanks for explaining that. You might want to make a note in the Immortality feat that says the eextra 100 is not doubled (or make it 50 and have it be doubled).