D&D 3E/3.5 My 3.5 House Rules Codex – Final

[Kerrick]

Avoiding this whole argument thing (because I don't care): I could easily see someone near or over 20th level building/creating a floating island/castle/whatever; it's a stronghold - that's what epic PCs do. All you'd have to do is alter the raise island spell, add reverse gravity and telekinesis (I don't know how anyone missed that) and voila - a moving, flying island. Build a castle on it, and you've got a moving, flying stronghold. Whether or not it's assailable is irrelevant; it's just plain cool. It's something that a reclusive wizard would create, just like a demiplane/pocket dimension.

As for the rest:

Flying, sailing, driving, diving and burrowing are different means of transportaion.

So find or make a different spell for each movement mode. You've already got fly, animate objects, and phase door; telekinesis will work for sailing (above or below the water).

- How much space/volume/mass could you affect with a single spell?

Does it matter? Your thinking is too limited. You're creating a permanent magic item, not casting a spell on something. Figure out a base size, determine a cost, and you're good to go. I seriously recommend checking out my legendary spells and grand rituals. I have a couple things like skycastle (creates a floating castle) that should give you some ideas.

- How much carrying capacity should it provide?

As much as a vehicle of its size would.

- How fast should each type of vehicle be able to move?

As fast as you think is reasonable. Land-based transport shouldn't be faster than a PC can run; flying machines could reasonably fly faster (use the carpet as a guide), and use the movement rules for ships (I'd say a self-propelled ship would be treated as one that's being rowed).

- How do you bind the effects to each other for a massive singular effect?
- How do you bind them all to a single, semi-mechanical semi-magical, command unit? How do you guard one?

See above. How do you bind all those spells into a magical item?

- How hard should it really be to dispel/destroy such an endeavor?

Look at the apparatus of kwalish or mighty servant of Leuk-O artifacts in the 1E DMG. Those will give you some idea. I'd say nothing short of a targeted disjunction should affect such things, though greater dispel might work on limited parts, or for a short duration (they're permanent items, after all).

- What about Plsne Shift/Etherealness/Teleportation?

Add the spells. Duh. I think having a phasing or teleporting "phone booth" (for lack of a better term) would be cool - everyone piles in, you utter the command word, and *poof* you appear somewhere else. For things like this, though, you really need rules like these.

 

[Piratecat]

Admin here. Guys, when you start addressing criticisms at another member instead of constructively discussing their ideas, it's time to step back from the keyboard for a while. It's okay for them to disagree with you. This is not a competition where someone has to win.

So please - back off, relax, and have fun. If that means putting other members on "Ignore" then do so - that's what it's there for. But no more attacks.

PM me if this is at all unclear.

 

[ValhallaGH]

I could easily see someone near or over 20th level building/creating a floating island/castle/whatever; it's a stronghold - that's what epic Villains do.

Fixed that for you.

You're welcome.

 

[nonsi256]

>> don't call it like I see it, I call it like it is.
If you wish people to take what you have to say seriously, don’t use such statements on a regular basis.


>> If you want me to explain the SBG to
>> you, then send me a money order for $25
>> (typical tutoring session fee)
Interesting.
You’re wasting quite a lot of calories on calling me an idiot in so many words (double meaning), rather than using an examplementary quote to show that what I’m looking for is already there.
An example would:
1. Not remotely amount to a session
2. Strengthen your claim.
3. Be more useful to the receiver of your reply.


>> you are more concerned with criticizing the
>> book rather attempting to understand it and
>> use its information.
If that’s how you figure people out, then I’d suggest you don’t go for a career that requires figuring people out. You’re not good at it


>> Your issue seems to be that you're not satisfied
>> with them without even understanding what
>> you're unsatisfied with
Let’s play a game of “what if” for a moment and assume you’re correct.
What relevancy does this have to this forum?
Here in the realm of house rules, everything’s legit. Nobody needs legitimacy from anyone else.
The only two things matter:
1. Do you have any suggestion of improvement(s) while going with the flow?
2. Will my suggested rule be counterproductive to the purpose of enjoying the game?
Zealously defending the core rules makes no sense and has no place in the realm of house rules.
And if you feel the need to shout at somebody – please, not here.


>> You admit ... that you don't understand the book.
Now way, now how.
My claim was that I was looking for something and never found it.


>> What you're doing is like saying Shakespeare sucks
- Shakespeare sucks
- Hendrix sucks
- Picasso sucks
Those are my opinions. I don’t need to have their expertise or your permission to have an opinion.


>> All of those questions can be answered in the
>> DMG on the table for creating items and their prices.
Ditto on the “idiot” issue.


>> I pointed this out to you in your other thread
And never backed up that claim.


>> If you don't understand something, disagreeing
>> with it or calling it wrong is an emotional response,
>> subjective, and thus neither objective nor logical.
We’ll get back to the “logical” issue in a moment.


>> Don't know what your "WBL" thing is
Wealth By Level.


>> And yes, a shrewd merchant may get a kazillion
>> gold, but if he's doing that, he's merchanting and
>> not adventuring and would be an NPC, not a PC.
>> PCs don't have the luxury of making money, they
>> go out and get it and spend it on the next best
>> thing that will let them kill the next toughest
>> thing to get more money....
Reading this makes me wonder why you even play RPGs.
As far as my experience goes, there are a lot of challenges in D&D and a lot of fun things around the gaming table – killing monsters is just one of them. The RPG you're portraying is a mad arms race. What's the fun in that?
And a DM that tells a player what to do with his character's downtime or jam a wedge in his cart wheel (the WBL hoolahoops I was talking about) is an ass and one who's group I'd never join.


>> Hmm...dragons might like a flying island and
>> would likely see the people on it as nothing
>> more than snacks. Fiends would like it. Cloud
>> or Storm Giants might take an interest in it.
>> Titans, possibly. I'm sure there are hundreds
>> of other monsters that can fly, teleport or gate
>> to that flying island and lay a dang good siege
>> on it!
An appropriate answer to this issue would be too long for me to manage in a few minutes (or even an hour), so I’ll just say this:
Look for articles regarding dungeon ecology (hundreds of results with google search) and read several of them. I hope that after 4 or 5 of them you’ll see the problem with your analysis (tip: you’d probably have to deduce the insight rather than be spoon fed, but I’m counting on your intellectual facilities to be sufficient).


>>You accuse the authors of not providing
>> enough information,
Not only did I not phrase things as an accusation – I also gave a probable reason why (time to the market).


>> but your opinion is in the very tiny minority
>> in that regard
Back to the “logical” issue.
“The majority” is one of the more known and common logical fallacies.
Furthermore, I never cared for the opinions of the majority (be thankful that neither did Kepler and Galileo).

 

[nonsi256]

Ok, here’s a real challenge. Let’s see who can rise to it.

There are several things that I need, but my inspiration well is totally dry:
1. A better name for the Witch’s 2nd level feature (the feature is most appropriate – it’s just the name that I can’t stand).
2. Some solid rules for breaching force effects without magical means, based upon spell-level, caster level and other parameters, Which will determine AC, HP, DR and so on and so forth.
3. Given #2, I need a substitute 16th level Warrior (my Warrior) feature in the spirit of the other Combat-Focus related features (and that will be level-16 appropriate in usefulness).




Btw, Kerrick, nice job regarding the legendary spells.
Just several notes:
- I'm surprised you've neglected Verdigris - it's the ultimate archdruid vengeance [FONT=&quot][/FONT]spell.
- I'm also missing the classic curse of 100-years of sleep.
- Some of the damage spells are plain simple uninspiringly uber.
- Instead of different [death+animation] spells, you could make just one and tie the undead type (which makes little difference at those levels) to caster level.
- Some of the spells just don't belong in the post-9th category (e.g. Animus Blast).
- Some are (no offense) a bit stupid. Summoning an elemental makes sense, given elementals are nothing more that manifestations of the forces of nature. Summoning a dragon... somewhat lame. This suggests that some spells are intelligent and target themselves. Also, Peripety is Disney-level animation (I wouldn't even call it anime, but maybe that's just me).
- Eternal Freedom also irks the eye, given it's a 1-use spell which you can then dump. It could be a nice storyline spell if it required several casters and cannot be applied to self - making it a nice gift an epic hero is bestowed with before going on a mission to save the foundations of the earth or free a deity from an eternal prison (or something like that).

But in general, nice work, which I'm sure I'll find useful when I have the time.

 

[Kerrick]

Fixed that for you.

You're welcome.

Hehehe. Villains aren't the only ones who could have floating strongholds. I mean, what's the point of playing D&D if not to have fun and do cool stuff?

Ok, here’s a real challenge. Let’s see who can rise to it.

There are several things that I need, but my inspiration well is totally dry:
1. A better name for the Witch’s 2nd level feature (the feature is most appropriate – it’s just the name that I can’t stand).
2. Some solid rules for breaching force effects without magical means, based upon spell-level, caster level and other parameters, Which will determine AC, HP, DR and so on and so forth.
3. Given #2, I need a substitute 16th level Warrior (my Warrior) feature in the spirit of the other Combat-Focus related features (and that will be level-16 appropriate in usefulness).

I'll have to look at #1 and #3, but #2 is easy: apply hit points to the force field. 10/level is fairly common, based on what I've seen (other people have done it, as well as PF).

BTW, there are rules for vehicles in the Arms and Equipment guide.

Btw, Kerrick, nice job regarding the legendary spells.

Thanks. I know they need some work - they haven't seen a lot of playtesting.
I'm going to go over the legendary stuff as soon as I finish compiling all the basic rules into the HTML docs (another day or two).

Aside: Check out the legendary spells discussion - it explains how I got the levels I did, and discusses some issues I ran into.

- I'm surprised you've neglected Verdigris - it's the ultimate archdruid vengeance spell.

I combined it with verdigris tsunami and turned it into a non-epic spell - overgrowth (which I gave to a high-level maybe-a-minor-deity druid).

- I'm also missing the classic curse of 100-years of sleep.

Ooh, never thought of that one.

- Some of the damage spells are plain simple uninspiringly uber.

Like what?

- Instead of different [death+animation] spells, you could make just one and tie the undead type (which makes little difference at those levels) to caster level.

Oh. Duh. Why didn't I think of that? Just like create undead.

- Some of the spells just don't belong in the post-9th category (e.g. Animus Blast).

Yeah... some of them really don't. Animus blast is borderline - there are no effects at pre-10th-level that do anything similar.

- Some are (no offense) a bit stupid. Summoning an elemental makes sense, given elementals are nothing more that manifestations of the forces of nature. Summoning a dragon... somewhat lame. This suggests that some spells are intelligent and target themselves. Also, Peripety is Disney-level animation (I wouldn't even call it anime, but maybe that's just me).

Eh. A lot of those spells (including dragon fire and peripety) were converted from the ELH, so don't blame me.

- Eternal Freedom also irks the eye, given it's a 1-use spell which you can then dump. It could be a nice storyline spell if it required several casters and cannot be applied to self - making it a nice gift an epic hero is bestowed with before going on a mission to save the foundations of the earth or free a deity from an eternal prison (or something like that).

That was supposed to be a grand ritual; I'm not sure why I made it a normal spell. My rule of thumb is that permanent effects are almost always rituals.

 

[nonsi256]

Several changes were made in the document.
For more info, go up to the OP.

 

[nonsi256]

A new version of the document is available – attached in the OP.

 

[nonsi256]

Several issues (detailed in the OP) have motivated a new version.

As usual, any and all comments regarding the corrections in specific and the HRs in general would be most welcome.

 

[nonsi256]

.
A new version is available on the OP, packed with a lot of goodies.
Anyone who found any of the stuff in my HR interesting so far would definitely find this version more so.