House Rules

[Psion]

I'm still a bit confused at this point. What I want to do is replace 1 with 20.

Say I have a fortitude of 15. I have 120 hit points and take 60 points of damage. I roll a 20 which gives me a total of 35. 5 below the 40 I need for the save. I almost made it, but because i rolled a nat 20 i am only clobbered.

Now same situation. Say I roll a 1 which gives me 16, obviously i fail, but because i rolled a natural 1 i lose a limb. I failed it by 26 points.

My system doesn't recognize an "almost made it" state of being. And such a mindset works counter to the logic of staging the table the way I have staged it (See below.) If you failed the save, it is just a failed save.

Look at it like this: If you need an 21 or better to save, the d20 roll, for all practical purposes, wasn't a saving throw. It was just a random table roll. You could get the same effect by using the same "high is worse" table, rolling a saving throw normally, and then if you fail, rolling a second dice of a size equal to your "failure range". (For example, if you needed a 13 to save, roll d12 on the table, etc.) I just compress this into one step to make things quicker. That was one of the central criteria in my injury system. I discared systems like Rolemaster's crit tables because I felt they slowed down play too much.

I still can't see how I'm punishing people with high fortitude. I figure I'm punishing the roll of 1 and rewarding the roll of 20 (if you can consider being clobbered instead of losing a limb rewarding).

Okay, what I am getting here is that you don't want a 20 save to be the worse result, right? I understand that goes against conventional D&D thinking, but there's a reason for it.

It's imprecise to say that you are punishing them for their high fort saves. I would have been better off saying that you are insufficiently rewarding them for it. If 20 is the worst result, then if a save is possible at all, then the worst result is the first to go, which makes sense to me. If you make the 1 the worst result, then the worst result is always possible, even when you have eliminated considerable less hazardous outcomes. IT becomes impossible to give the character a bleeding wound while the chance of lopping off his head remains.

If a character with (say) a +10 fort save and takes a power attack from a dragon doing 42 points of damage, presuming it does half of the character's remaining HP, the save DC is 31. The character cannot make the save, and on a 20 roll, the character suffers the worst possible result.

If the same character only takes 40 points of damage, the save DC is thirty; a 20 on the dice will save, thus the 20 result becomes impossible.

Now, lets say the same character is down to 4 HP. He takes 2 HP from... a rat bite... forcing a save. The only roll that will fail is a natural 1, and by my take on the rules, the only result that is possible is the stagger result.

Now, lets invert the one and the 20. The first situation is essentially identical, the only difference being which end of the d20 the worst result is on. It's a 5% chance of the worst result.

A few less points of damage, and the worst results still remains a possibility, since a 1 will still fail. But the least harmful result leaves the table.

Now let's go to the rat bite again. If the character rolls a 1, and fails the save, there is only one possible result -- the limb maim/decapitation result. Meaning that a nibble from a rat can lop off our poor fighter's arm. But no chance, at all, that there is any less severe result on a failed save like a little bleeding or stunning.

Making the chart so that the worse results corresponds to the higher roll makes it such that the worst results correspond to the higher damage and/or lower fort saves. Which makes it so it's only the power attacks with great swords that lop off limbs of dragons with huge fort saves, not nicks with daggers and rat bites.

Does that make sense?

 

[Thanee]

@werk: You might want to think some more about this...

Wizards may cast spells that they 'know' from their spellbook. They cannot cast from others' spellbooks. Spells cast from a spellbook are consumed, and the spell is no longer considered 'known' by the wizard.

For example, what happens, if a wizard has the same spell written in TWO different books?

Bye
Thanee

 

[DonTadow]

My system doesn't recognize an "almost made it" state of being. And such a mindset works counter to the logic of staging the table the way I have staged it (See below.) If you failed the save, it is just a failed save.

Look at it like this: If you need an 21 or better to save, the d20 roll, for all practical purposes, wasn't a saving throw. It was just a random table roll. You could get the same effect by using the same "high is worse" table, rolling a saving throw normally, and then if you fail, rolling a second dice of a size equal to your "failure range". (For example, if you needed a 13 to save, roll d12 on the table, etc.) I just compress this into one step to make things quicker. That was one of the central criteria in my injury system. I discared systems like Rolemaster's crit tables because I felt they slowed down play too much.



Okay, what I am getting here is that you don't want a 20 save to be the worse result, right? I understand that goes against conventional D&D thinking, but there's a reason for it.

It's imprecise to say that you are punishing them for their high fort saves. I would have been better off saying that you are insufficiently rewarding them for it. If 20 is the worst result, then if a save is possible at all, then the worst result is the first to go, which makes sense to me. If you make the 1 the worst result, then the worst result is always possible, even when you have eliminated considerable less hazardous outcomes. IT becomes impossible to give the character a bleeding wound while the chance of lopping off his head remains.

If a character with (say) a +10 fort save and takes a power attack from a dragon doing 42 points of damage, presuming it does half of the character's remaining HP, the save DC is 31. The character cannot make the save, and on a 20 roll, the character suffers the worst possible result.

If the same character only takes 40 points of damage, the save DC is thirty; a 20 on the dice will save, thus the 20 result becomes impossible.

Now, lets say the same character is down to 4 HP. He takes 2 HP from... a rat bite... forcing a save. The only roll that will fail is a natural 1, and by my take on the rules, the only result that is possible is the stagger result.

Now, lets invert the one and the 20. The first situation is essentially identical, the only difference being which end of the d20 the worst result is on. It's a 5% chance of the worst result.

A few less points of damage, and the worst results still remains a possibility, since a 1 will still fail. But the least harmful result leaves the table.

Now let's go to the rat bite again. If the character rolls a 1, and fails the save, there is only one possible result -- the limb maim/decapitation result. Meaning that a nibble from a rat can lop off our poor fighter's arm. But no chance, at all, that there is any less severe result on a failed save like a little bleeding or stunning.

Making the chart so that the worse results corresponds to the higher roll makes it such that the worst results correspond to the higher damage and/or lower fort saves. Which makes it so it's only the power attacks with great swords that lop off limbs of dragons with huge fort saves, not nicks with daggers and rat bites.

Does that make sense?

Thanks for responding back. I got you it makes sense. IN other words the inversion is a safe guard to make sure that even bad fortitude throws do not result in maiming by small creatures. It also makes those huge encounters seem more dire and exciting. I still can't get past my players complaining about rolling a 20 and receiving the worst result possible. I'm going to test it during a few live encounters of a pick up game that I'm running this weekend. I'll run it both plays.

 

[der_kluge]

I use the Artificier's Handbook for magic item design,

Yea!*


* yes, I wrote most of it.

 

[Psion]

Thanks for responding back. I got you it makes sense. IN other words the inversion is a safe guard to make sure that even bad fortitude throws do not result in maiming by small creatures. It also makes those huge encounters seem more dire and exciting.

By jove, I think he's got it.

I still can't get past my players complaining about rolling a 20 and receiving the worst result possible. I'm going to test it during a few live encounters of a pick up game that I'm running this weekend. I'll run it both plays.

Let me know how it works out for you. I honestly can't remember the "20" situation ever pop up. More often than not, a 20 is a save for a PC unless I was really being a bastage.

I think if you try it my way, and they complain, and they lose a lot more limbs doing it your way for a while, they might learn not to hate it so much.

 

[Psion]

Yea!*


* yes, I wrote most of it.

I use the value rules (especially where bonus items are concerned -- it smooths over the differences between "+" costs and straight up costs and is is a compatability layer with pre-3.5 products that only used "+" costs for bonus items.)

I don't use your feat arrangement, though. I strongly prefer limiting certain magic or psionic items to those who possess the right feat or prestige class; it helps keep certain magic items more unique.

I think the right answer to the "wondrous item" conundrum is to give a cost break to the less flexible yet more demanding item types like rings and rods.

Edit: I really wish RoninArts would put it out as one of their MEG PDFs, though...

 

[DonTadow]

By jove, I think he's got it.



Let me know how it works out for you. I honestly can't remember the "20" situation ever pop up. More often than not, a 20 is a save for a PC unless I was really being a bastage.

I think if you try it my way, and they complain, and they lose a lot more limbs doing it your way for a while, they might learn not to hate it so much.

I really like the limb losing things. I have already littered my campaign with several beings that are in the "appendages for sale business" . Thanks

 

[Odysseus]

The few simple rules we've used are
Heavy crossbow does 1d12
Arcane spell failure checks are reduced by 10% if you take a full round instead of a standard action to cast the spell.
There are others but they vary on campaign and dm.

 

[Staffan]

Yea!*


* yes, I wrote most of it.

Well, see if you can prod MEG into releasing it on RPGNow or Drivethru, then!

 

[der_kluge]

Well, see if you can prod MEG into releasing it on RPGNow or Drivethru, then!

You and everyone else want this. I'll see what I can do. I have a pdf of it, but it's the final version that was sent to the printers, not a "made for rpgnow" kind of .pdf. Still, it's better than nothing. I'll see if I can contact Hal or Doug about this.