Midnight House Rules

[Paka]

I'm running a Midnight game and posted the House Rules on my Story Hour, not even realizing that EnWorld had a House Rules forum.

So here they are and if anyone has any insights about how these rules worked in their games, please let me know. Also if you care to take a look at the Story Hour where these rules are put into effect, please do:

House Rules

Double 20 Instant Kill Rule - I want combat to always have that danger. Even a dagger should be feared. Every arrow is a possible death. See the 3.0 DMG, page 64, Variant: Instant Kill

In the world of Midnight, I think that kind of un-romantic arrow to the throat in the midst of combat works. The players are aware that they can die fast and furious and I've asked them to just keep a secondary character concept in their minds just in case.

DM Keeps Hit Points Rule - In the Unknown Armies game I played in I was always interested in the way the game pretty much used a hit point system for a modern horror game.

The DM kept track of hit points and didn't tell you how many points you were hit for, he just described the hit and the effect it had on your body.

In a fantasy game it would keep the players afraid of the edge of the knife, not the piddly 1d4 of a knife's damage.

I'm not sure how well it is working since in the intro one of the players threw a knife at the other play but it works well in theory, in my mind.

Levels - I don't plan on using CR's and all that but will probably just give the players a set number of XP per game. I want levels to advance at a fairly brisk pace, Midnight is a world that demands the heroes grow strong or die .

I seem to remember their being a set XP per game rule in Star Wars. I will probably look that over before making any definite house rulings. Maybe Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed will have something interesting to swipe regarding experience points.

No Alignment - Detect Evil will be Detect Shadow more like the L5R Detect Taint, detecting a direct link to Shadow. If the players did a Detect Shadow on a cultist who worshipped a Demon not related to Izrador, then I would describe a different darkness than the one they are used to.

 

[ThomasBJJ]

DM Keeps Hit Points Rule - In the Unknown Armies game I played in I was always interested in the way the game pretty much used a hit point system for a modern horror game.

I am thinking about doing this myself.

The games we've been having, a few players can't seem to get out of the "how many hit points are you at Bill? Here's a cure lite for 6 points, watch out, this things got at least a 22 AC, George you're unconcious? How many negative Hp are you at right now? Should I come heal you now or can I wait till we beat this bad guy?" stage.

I will likely not do it every battle, in fact, I have a short table I plan on using. Sometimes they will re-roll initiative every other round, sometimes they will not get to roll damage (just tell me that their character does 1d8+3 damage, and I roll in secret, letting them know if they grazed the bad guy or hit solid). etc.

As for Hit Points, they will NEVER be alowed to tell another player how many hit points they are at. Even if they know they are at 22 out of 29 hp, they cannot say that. They can say they are "slightly wounded". The cleric can make a Healing proficiancy check.
DC 12 they know wether a character is dying, stable, half hp or lower, or half hp or higher.

DC 15 know if a character is at about 1/3 hp, 2/3, or almost full hp.

DC 20 they can know the actual number of Hit points.

During combat I might let a player know if he's higher or lower than half. If they spend an action checking thier wounds, they can know lower than 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%.

After combat, they can know the number of HP, but keep it to themselves.

 

[Paka]

Thomas,

The rules on using the Healing skill is a really nice touch.

Thanks.

 

[Grishnak]

It's a good ruling in some cases and our group are the same but in some cases you do need to know exact numbers. For example I was a Frenzied berzerker with a nice 209 hp's but being 1 of only 2 front line fighters had to rely on lots of healing all the time so figures were used when I was nearly dead. Possibly if everyone agreed only the warriors in the group are allowed to say their hp's without the round checking as they are used to being in that situation more often than not and are able to look over themselves quicker.