OGL & GSL D&D variants?

[jmucchiello]

Oh yeah, totally. I'm not a big fan of save or die, but I do like save or be temporarily but horrendously screwed. I wouldn't even go -1 hit points. I'd go zero so that you're automatically stable but unconscious.

I didn't go with 0 hp because you can still act at that point. Reducing save or die to, you are down and can take one more attack if you want to risk death, while great from an RP point of view, bothers my gamist instincts.

 

[Kerrick]

Har har, nice one. Of course - just so the other person is in on it too - E8 (along with E10 and possibly E12) is simply a variant of E6, capping at a higher level, indicated by the number following the 'E'. E8 in particular was worth mentioning, because it seems to have been the most popular other than good ol' E6 (my preferred starting base) itself.

Ah, my bad.

I didn't go with 0 hp because you can still act at that point. Reducing save or die to, you are down and can take one more attack if you want to risk death, while great from an RP point of view, bothers my gamist instincts.

Same here - dropping someone to 0 hp isn't much of a penalty, IMO - they can simply heal themselves and be back in the fight. I do it where death spells drop you to a negative number depending on the spell level: -1d4, -1d6, -1d8, or -1d10 (your death threshold is your negative Con score, so a L7-8 death spell could kill you with a low Con).

 

[Darrin Drader]

I didn't go with 0 hp because you can still act at that point. Reducing save or die to, you are down and can take one more attack if you want to risk death, while great from an RP point of view, bothers my gamist instincts.

Ah, good point. It's been a while since I've had a character at exactly zero hit points, so I had forgotten that they were still up, sort of.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I've been thinking of going with the same basic plan as Darrins - 4E BAB, Skills, Defenses, and 3E feats. For magic, I'm going to consider everything from Pathfinder to Arcana Evolved (I haven't gotten very far in my plans yet, as I've got a 3.5 game with 5-6 more levels before it ends). I'm thinking that adding more feats and action points will balance out removing iterative attacks.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Mongoose Publishing:
Slaine
Judge Dread
Infernum
Jeremiah
Armageddon 2089
Lone Wolf
Babylon 5
Starship Troopers
Macho Women With Guns
Wars RPG

You left out Conan.

 

[Aus_Snow]

You left out Conan.

The OP didn't.

 

[dragonlordofpoondari]

3rd edition is my favorite edition of D&D so far but it gets bogged down by its rules after a while. High level play just isn't fun, with combat dragging to a near-halt, unless every player knows the rules like the back of their hand. At the same time, prep time for DMs gets to be a chore as the characters advance beyond 8th level or thereabouts.

Castles & Crusades is closest to my ideal version of D&D but (ironically) has too few options for my tastes.

You surprise me, Chris. I hold your houseruled Castles & Crusades document to be an inspired gift. It is, to my mind, the natural evolution of pre-3.x systems. Lovely, concise, and smooth as silk to run. I prefer your rules to the published Castles and Crusades rules for several reasons, but your expanded spell lists and classes really blew the doors off that system, in my opinion. Anyway, I am suprised you'd bother with 3.x after crafting this masterpiece. I had a few copies professionally bound for use at my table (before you changed the fighter's multiple attack progression ... I still like the old way better).

Sometimes when I read your posts, I get the feeling you don't realize how hard you rock, sir. Well, you do! This is all to say ... thank you. And please keep up the good work. I suspect I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Cheers, and thank you for keeping the spirit alive!

 

[ProfessorCirno]

...So what, am I the only person on these forums that liked DragonMech?

 

[scruffygrognard]

I just copied and emailed your post to a bunch of people who won't play my variant rules (or can't play due to my inability to get an interested group together). It's nice to know that my work is appreciated!

Thanks for the kind words and, hopefully, your group enjoys my houserules a lot.

 

[sjmiller]

I don't think I saw Northern Crown mentioned, that's a good one. There's also Sherwood: The Legend of Robin Hood by Battlefield Press. I would highly recommend it, but then I am a bit prejudiced on that one, what with being the editor.