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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shilsen" data-source="post: 4016815" data-attributes="member: 198">I’ve seen and sometimes participated in some interesting discussions on ENWorld over the years regarding the sort of gameplay 3e tends towards, the underlying assumptions in the game, and the system’s affinity (or not) for being tweaked. Personally, while I think 3e is far from as adaptive as systems such as Mutants and Masterminds, I think it is quite adaptable. In my games I’ve personally tossed out a lot of the standard assumptions of the system and had absolutely no problems with it, and I was curious to hear what other people have done and how it’s worked out for you. I’m interested in actual mechanical/rules changes and not flavor ones. To start things off, here are the big changes I’ve made:1. Taking death out of the equation:In my game, I allow players to use 3 action points (earlier) or 3 swashbuckling cards (currently) to have a PC survive a blow or effect which would take it to -10 hp and lower. The PC ends up at -9 and is stable, cannot be healed up until the current encounter ends, and can be slain if specifically targeted by an enemy in this state. The result of this rule is that PCs essentially don’t die (one death in 70 sessions) even though we average a PC needing to use the 3 card rule every alternate session. Results: There have been a number of results of this rule. I like to run heavily player/PC-driven games, with the plot directions emerging almost purely from PC background, action and choice. So losing PCs is a real pain for me. At the same time, I don’t like to have easily accessible resurrection in the game, and I also run brutal encounters, with NPCs (especially intelligent ones) punching much above their weight. This house rule allows me to have all of the above exist simultaneously. Also, since I make sure to have lots of repercussions for defeat even if death usually isn’t one of them, combat is never boring or meaningless but usually a tense and exciting affair. In fact, since I don’t get to use death as a real repercussion for defeat or in combat, it impels me to have many different repercussions, and has cemented my opinion that death is only one possible consequence and a fairly boring one at that.2. Divorcing XP from in-game events:I abhor the XP calculation charts and I don’t like the idea of roleplaying XP because I find that akin to grading players based on whether their playing style matches my own or not. So I don’t award XP based on any formula, and actually don’t award XP based on anything in-game. Instead, I just award a certain amount of XP per session to keep PCs advancing at a speed I’m comfortable with. All PCs get the same amount of XP and they get the XP even if the player isn’t present (in which case I run the PC). The way I figure it, the major enjoyment in the game is, well, actually taking part in the game, and if the player is already missing out on that, I’m not going to penalize him further by awarding less XP too. I would actually have dropped XP altogether, but have PCs who use item creation feats and spells that drain XP, so I prefer to retain an XP score for each PC but just not award it the standard way. I just started running a monthly game where neither of those will happen, and in that game I have dropped XP altogether. Results: The best result of this rule is that it frees players up to do what they think their characters should and what they’d have the most fun doing, and not have to worry about whether they’ll make more or less XP due to their choices. If they want to fight an army or want to spend a day schmoozing at a party, they know they’ll get the same amount of XP, so their choices are purely made on an in-game perspective and not with the metagame concern of XP. It also frees me up from having to calculate XP using some arbitrary formula or worrying if they’re leveling too fast or slow. I also avoid all the questions I see on the Rules forums here about what would be the appropriate XP award in some in-game situation.3. Lowering buff/magic item dependency and removing the Big Six: I don’t like the huge effect of buffing on PC (and NPC) effectiveness and especially the resultant paperwork, and while I have no problems with PCs carrying a boatload of magic items, I find it boring for them to have to always have the standard ones in order to maximize survivability. So in my main Eberron game I’ve provided a way for the PCs to have permanent enhancement bonuses to their abilities, deflection bonuses to AC, enhancement bonuses to natural armor, and resistance bonuses to saves. In my new monthly game, I’ve actually turned all those things into level-based abilities and included enhancement bonuses to AC and weapons in that too. Results: This rule provides a lot of advantages for me. It cuts down on paperwork as the PCs buff up or are hit by a dispel magic and lose their buffs, and lets me have a better idea of how powerful the PCs will be at all times. It means PCs aren’t filling their lower level spell slots with buff spells but are liable to pick more varied and interesting spells. And it means they have lots of slots open for more interesting magical items than the standard Big Six. Interestingly, it sounds (from what Mearls said recently, which is on the main page of ENWorld right now) like 4e is being designed so that I can do exactly the same thing with no trouble whatsoever.4. Ignoring the “multiple fight per day” paradigm: I don’t really enjoy playing in or running dungeon crawls, so I almost never do so. What that means is that the PCs in my game rarely have more than one or two combat encounters in a given day. In 70 sessions in my Eberron game (almost all of which have had some combat), I estimate PCs have had 1 combat in one day in about 60% of them, 2 combats in one day in about 30%, and more than 2 combats in about 10% of them. This means that PCs enter most fights with all of their resources and almost fully buffed (due to my preceding point about reworking how the Big Six work) and can afford to blow almost all of their resources in it. Results: Having less fights in a given game day suits my DMing style better and I haven’t noticed any trouble whatsoever in challenging the PCs (after all, if I had, I probably wouldn’t be using a rule to let PCs survive death). Also, knowing that there will only be one fight or two impels me to make sure that each of them is interesting, memorable and challenging in its own way. I also enjoy the mechanical challenge of giving the PCs a hard time even if they’re having just the one fight or two and are fighting enemies they should (according to CR and the general assumptions of the system) be able to roll over fairly easily. A not-so-direct consequence of that is when the PCs have a fight where they absolutely outclass their PCs and can just strut their stuff, the players really enjoy the change.5. Removing/reducing attrition-based challenges: This is actually part of the earlier point. Since I don’t do dungeon crawls and large numbers of encounters in a day, I usually don’t challenge PCs by reducing their resources. In fact, I’ve ruled that as long as they have a few minutes PCs automatically heal up between encounters, assuming that they use healing wands (which I don’t track or even charge for, since with tens of thousands of gps in the PCs’ hands, that’s not worth it for me) for the process. So when PCs are challenged by an encounter or situation, they’re usually challenged based on the intrinsic merits of the encounter/situation and not how many encounters they have had earlier.Results: Pretty much the same as the previous point’s.I can probably come up with a few more, but that’s more than long enough for now, so I’ll quit here. I’d like to hear from other DMs who’ve messed similarly with the standard mechanical assumptions of D&D, or players in games where the DM has. What were the changes? Did they work or didn’t they? What did you think of them?</blockquote>

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