Homebrew Rules: The Diehards Handbook

[MEAT]

This is my first post here, but not my first time here. While using my googlefu, I often stumble upon this place for helpful advice so I know you have some deep thinking players here. As such, it is my great honor to release my groups house rules here at En World for your viewing pleasure, but first let me start off with a proper introduction:

Hello and welcome. If your here reading this, then you must be asking yourself, "so, what is this Diehards Handbook thing?" To answer your question, the Diehards Handbook is supplemental manual filled with some of the most influential custom rules my gaming group and I came up with after the switch between AD&D to 3rd Edition.

So what is The Diehards Handbook? In summary and at its core, it is an alteration to how the Hit Point system works. Using this new HP model, a few other concepts were included, such as Armor Hit Points and Skill Armor Class, but almost all of these alterations can be applied to any D20-game, not just D&D. We also streamlined how combat works for 3.5, but there are many more things to explore in the Diehards Handbook than just a revised Hit Point system and a streamlined combat system.

My gaming group and I have been playing with these rules for a little bit over 5-years now and found it greatly increases the amount of fun we have in each session by "upping the ante", however it's hard line rules are definitely not for everyone. Feel free to give these rules a try for yourself, or just check out the custom adventurers on my webpage.

Leave comments as you wish, but understand that this book as been extensively played by my group for a very long time now and while constructive criticism is always welcome, I cannot guarantee that your ideas will be implemented into any future editions. For our group, this book is a perfectly balanced blend of rules for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition system.

Thank you, and I hope you enjoy your reading of The Diehards Handbook. May you find some refreshing ideas for your own campaign worlds!

MEATS Webpage

 

[bellman]

MEAT, it will be more likely for people to view your work if you place it here, rather than having people go to your page to view a download.
also, over 100 views and i'm the first to comment?

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

MEAT, it will be more likely for people to view your work if you place it here, rather than having people go to your page to view a download.
also, over 100 views and i'm the first to comment?

What's to comment on?

He says he's got "Armor Hit Points", "Skill Armor Class" and a "streamlined combat system" and then he says:

Leave comments as you wish, but understand that this book as been extensively played by my group for a very long time now and while constructive criticism is always welcome, I cannot guarantee that your ideas will be implemented into any future editions. For our group, this book is a perfectly balanced blend of rules for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition system.

So basically, "Give feedback, but we already like what this does and probably won't change anything." combined with a non-specific list of what's actually been modified. A lot of folks in the Homebrew Rules section are doing their own thing and don't necessarily see the point in commenting on something that's going to take work on their part (go to website, download document, read document, analyze flaws, post feedback explaining flaws and suggesting corrections) only to have it tossed in the "thanks, but we like the way we do things."

Doing that seems to me to be one of a few things: 1) A person that has nothing better to do with their time 2) Someone that enjoys tilting at windmills 3) Someone that likes to argue 4)Someone that just feels the need to harsh on someone.

Additionally, the two things that are specifically listed (Armor Hit points, Skill Armor Class) just on the surface don't sound particularly interesting to everyone. The hit points thing for example seems to harken back to old rpg design, like you find in the Palladium system for example, as well as other systems from the 80's. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying it's the sort of thing that not everyone is really interested in.

Try taking a deep breath and relaxing bellman. For better or worse, with the release of 4E this forum has slowed down. Additionally, there's an awful lot of stuff out there these days and sometimes folks just want to take some time to figure out the best solution to something and use what they've already got, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel again for the 51st time.

In this case, the thread you're responding to is a couple of weeks old so chances are folks just didn't have anything to say that they felt would be useful.

 

[MEAT]

I just released a new version with clickable links that the first version was lacking.

I apologize for not writing up a more in depth review of the many pros and cons this set of homebrew rules contains. I felt that almost 95 pages of pure content would be difficult to explain in a single post and thought letting people who were interested in a different way to play the game would be best accomplished by allowing them to see what we created on their own. Was that a bit narrow-sighted? Perhaps, but because I'm new at this kind of thing, I really wasn't aware of a "right" or "wrong" etiquette. Currently, I'm trying to make a wiki for this book that others can view and then perhaps that will give them more refined insight into what these rules have in them.

As for not wanting to make any more changes, you completely misunderstand my point in releasing this to the public: we enjoy our system so much, we were excited to share our thoughts and idea on the net, but currently none of us has much time to continually check forums for comments and make alterations to our book. All of us have children and meet up, if we're lucky, once every two weeks, so between a heavy 6-day work week, kids, bills, and wives, this is not high on our priority list.

A lot of folks in the Homebrew Rules section are doing their own thing and don't necessarily see the point in commenting on something that's going to take work on their part (go to website, download document, read document, analyze flaws, post feedback explaining flaws and suggesting corrections) only to have it tossed in the "thanks, but we like the way we do things." Doing that seems to me to be one of a few things: 1) A person that has nothing better to do with their time 2) Someone that enjoys tilting at windmills 3) Someone that likes to argue 4)Someone that just feels the need to harsh on someone.

Criticism, rather good or bad, can be a great tool for understanding the desires of others. If you as a creator are unwilling to listen to the input of others, then you have already set yourself up to fail. I don’t feel this is the case with our book; it’s more of a hobby. If somehow it took on a life of it’s own with a multitude of individuals playing it, suggesting new content, and so on, then we’d most likely have to give the content to someone else to tend because of our lack of time. While that would be my grandest wish that our homebrew rules did become that popular, I have high doubts that would ever happen, especially if I can’t even come back to this site to check this post since June.

 

[MEAT]

What's to comment on?
Try taking a deep breath and relaxing bellman. For better or worse, with the release of 4E this forum has slowed down.

Personally, I didn't really care too much for 4E. I've head the argument that it's the DM that makes the game fun, not the mechanism from which you play; if this is the case, then 4E is just not for me as a DM.

Are you sure 3E will loose steam since Pathfinder came out a few weeks ago? I just got my Pathfinder RPG in the mail a few days ago and am starting to read through it now. There is a lot of fantastic new content throughout that really enhances the way 3E is played. I will most likely make a Diehards Handbook v4.53-PF that is 100% compatible with Pathfinder - doing this additionally will allow me to delete quite of bit of content already "fixed" in Pathfinder.