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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rod Staffwand" data-source="post: 6829497" data-attributes="member: 6776279">That's one of the upsides of internet gaming...My fairly consistent house rules:1. No xp. Leveling up is by DM fiat based on narrative concerns and/or character achievement along with open communication and player buy-in. I have better things to do then count up xp. I don't like giving out xp for combat and most quest reward systems break down in play so it's gut feeling all the way.2. No clerics/divine power source. I abhor clerics with every fiber of my being and I suspect I couldn't be fair to players of clerics in my games so I just ditch them entirely to avoid problems. If I include cleric-type stuff it's usually styled more as a white wizard type of thing. Also standard druids. Hate 'em.3. No evil PCs. No evil players. Not worth the hassle.4. I use the OD&D-era concept of tiers. Mid-level is 5. High-level is 10+. Whoa!-level is 15+. I stat monsters to reinforce this paradigm. I cut the HD of most animals in half and use weaker versions of monsters such as young dragons as stand-ins for the big boys. 20 levels is too much of a spread. 30 or 36 is insane.5. I'm a toolbox DM. I see the rules as a toolbox. Spells are sample spells. Monsters are sample monsters. Magic items are sample magic items.6. Fighters and fighter-types get an AC bump as they level. Scaling varies from edition to edition. Haven't figured out 5e's sweet spot yet. I'm not a medieval warfare fetishist so I don't really care too much about forcing martials to wear armor.7. Polymorphing, wildshaping, et. al. never restores hit points.8. If using summoning or shapeshifting powers you have 1 minute to look up the stats of whatever it is you are summoning or becoming. It will behoove you to have copies of all relevant stats on hand. Am I salty about the 3.5 druid taking 20 minutes on their combat turns? Yes...yes I am.9. If magic items are being used in the setting I usually favor legacy gear that improves from story factors (a sword +1 becomes a frostbrand after freeing the Ice Queen) rather than rewarding new treasures. It cuts down on the total amount of magic items the party has access to and makes them more special.10. The PCs can escape from a combat at any time--at any point in the initiative order and no matter the placement or status of combatants. It may lead to a dicey chase sequence, but it's always possible. It's the most effective defense against the TPK other than DM fiat.11. Magic is always obvious, unless the specific point of the spell is to be unobtrusive. Spell effects are sparkles and lights. Charmed creatures have trippy eyes. Walls of force glow cyan (ALWAYS cyan). Even invisibility can't completely mask a person's shadow. Maybe it's too many Doctor Strange comics, but I like my magic flashy.12. Magic always has mundane countermeasures. Lead blocks/dims divinations. Silver goes through wards. Iron manacles will prevent all spellcasting. That sort of thing. Most powerful monsters (dragons, demons, devils, etc.) have similar weaknesses.</blockquote>

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