well, if a player wanted to move out of his or her base class after only one level, they better have a damn good role playing reason to do it (and, to qualify for a Prestige Class isn't it), and they should also have to endure the consequences of their choices, be they good or bad. And, that would include a Cleric 1/Druid 1/Wizard 1/Sorcerer 1/Rogue 1/Psion 1 having a BAB of 0 with six levels of character. Just my opinion, though.
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'Standard' House Rules?
- Thread starter Phototoxin
- Start date
well, if a player wanted to move out of his or her base class after only one level, they better have a damn good role playing reason to do it (and, to qualify for a Prestige Class isn't it), and they should also have to endure the consequences of their choices, be they good or bad. And, that would include a Cleric 1/Druid 1/Wizard 1/Sorcerer 1/Rogue 1/Psion 1 having a BAB of 0 with six levels of character. Just my opinion, though.
Ahnehnois
First Post
Seeing as how I liked my thief/mage types in 2e, I can see good reasons for alternating levels in those classes. Doesn't mean you've given up on the first one, this is just how 3e multiclassing works. The underlying issue also comes up a lot with monsters that have racial hit dice and gain character levels. The last thing my giants with fighter levels need is to benefit from multiple +2 bumps to fort. I know I have good reasons as a DM for those multiclasses.
As to living with consequences, even with pooled fractional bonuses, I'd say those tend to be more bad than good. In general, I've seen most PCs stay on one track, and I try to encourage it.
This variant comes from Unearthed Arcana (page 73). Basically, for good saves it's +2.5 (at first level) + 0.5 at each following level. For poor saves, it's +1/3 each level. Total everything up and round down. (BAB has already been covered, so I thought I'd be a bit completist here.)
I don't think you're understanding quite how it works. You add all the fractions up before you do any rounding. So, if you had a Wizard 1/Sorcerer 1 (or even just a plain Wizard 2), you get 1/2 + 1/2 = +1 at 2nd level. Any other class is even higher. Rogue 2? 3/4 + 3/4 = 1.5 = +1. Rogue 1/Wizard 1? 3/4 + 1/2 = 1.25 = +1.
Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you? If so, I apologize.
the Jester
Legend
No, I don't think there are any house rules that are that universal.
Ahnehnois
First Post
That's not how it works in the RAW. In the RAW, a Wizard 1/Sorc 1 has a BAB of +0. You can add in a level each in bard, monk, rogue, cleric, and druid, and your BAB is still +0. Clearly, this is a ridiculous example for illustrative purposes, but that's how it works. I'm pretty confident in that, but feel free to provide a citation if you still disagree.
Your post is how it works in the houserule I'm explaining.
Then again, if it's so obvious you don't even think it's a houserule, it kind of reinforces my point that this is as close as it gets to a universal houserule.
TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
House rule #1: The DM never has to pay for pizza.
Even tho I don't thing universal house-rules exist for 3.5, cause every group has there own idea on how to modify the rules to their liking.
My DMs house rules:
- confirming a crit-fail: so re-roll on a natural 1 and if its under 10 then you confirmed the crit-fail, other wise its just a 1 + what ever bonuses. (I have no strong feelings about this rule one way or the other.)
- grapple rules: step one make a touch attack [success], make a grapple check [success]....congratulation your in grapple in the first round. Now if you want to do anything in grapple, make a grapple check or and escape artist check. (normal penalties apply)
- skills: The player rolls, the DM sets a DC as he feels like it, cause the bastard doesn't bother to use the skill rules most of the time...even after ~9 years of playing D&D 3.x. Good rule if you want to speed up things.
Now what I like to house rules is:
- The characters pick an alignment, for concerning rules, spell effects and such that alignment applies, other wise play your character as you see fit.
- Combat maneuvers used from pathfinder. (you can read up on those on a PF SRD site or something). Their very handy, it makes it easier to do more then just attack most of the time, without making additional rolls.
- No multi-classing XP penalty.
- In UA there is a descriprot of weapon groups that replace the standard, simple, martial and exotic weapon proficiencies.
- And some other minor adjustments.
My 2 cents.
My DMs house rules:
- confirming a crit-fail: so re-roll on a natural 1 and if its under 10 then you confirmed the crit-fail, other wise its just a 1 + what ever bonuses. (I have no strong feelings about this rule one way or the other.)
- grapple rules: step one make a touch attack [success], make a grapple check [success]....congratulation your in grapple in the first round. Now if you want to do anything in grapple, make a grapple check or and escape artist check. (normal penalties apply)
- skills: The player rolls, the DM sets a DC as he feels like it, cause the bastard doesn't bother to use the skill rules most of the time...even after ~9 years of playing D&D 3.x. Good rule if you want to speed up things.
Now what I like to house rules is:
- The characters pick an alignment, for concerning rules, spell effects and such that alignment applies, other wise play your character as you see fit.
- Combat maneuvers used from pathfinder. (you can read up on those on a PF SRD site or something). Their very handy, it makes it easier to do more then just attack most of the time, without making additional rolls.
- No multi-classing XP penalty.
- In UA there is a descriprot of weapon groups that replace the standard, simple, martial and exotic weapon proficiencies.
- And some other minor adjustments.
My 2 cents.
delericho
Legend
I don't think so. I think the closest you'll get to being 'universally' adopted is probably dropping XP penalties for multiclassing, or maybe ignoring the Monk/Paladin restriction on multiclassing. But even then, I'd bet only a minority of groups use those.
The rules I use in my campaigns:
- At the start of the campaign, I put forward a list of books that are considered "player resources". Players may choose races, classes, spells, and items from those books largely without restriction, but they may not use anything that is not in those books. The list varies between campaigns; for my most recent campaign it was the PHB, DMG, Spell Compendium, Magic Item Compendium, Expanded Psionics Handbook (but not the races from this), and any and all 3.5e Eberron books.
- Ability scores can be generated in any one of three ways: roll 4d6-drop-lowest (standard reroll rules apply, and only if the rest of the group are there), 28-point buy (DMG costs), or a standard array of 16/15/13/12/10/8.
- Fixed hit points per level: 7 for Barbarians/Fighters/Paladins/Rangers (and any other class with a good BAB), 5 for Bards/Clerics/Druids/Monks/Rogues (and any other class with medium BAB), and 3 for Sorcerers/Wizards (and any other class with poor BAB). This includes at 1st level, but all characters get a one-off bonus of 5 hit points at 1st level.
- Ignore Favoured Classes and the Monk/Paladin multiclass restrictions. (Also, most of my campaigns do not use Prestige Classes.)
- Wizards get 4 spells per level added to their spellbooks, rather than 2. (My most recent campaign gave full access to Spell Compendium spells, for all casters. That won't be happening again. Also, I'm going to be rethinking specialist Wizards for future campaigns.)
- Pathfinder-style skills: Character don't get 4x skill points at 1st level, and can only put a max of 1 rank per level in each skill. However, if they have 1 or more ranks in a class skill, they get a one-off +3 bonus to all rolls with that skill. The old cross-class thing where spending a skill point only gave half a rank is eliminated. Synergy bonuses are also eliminated.
- Equipment can be sold at 1/5th of the stated purchase price. I then compensate by placing more (and more expensive) magical treasure - I've found that this makes it more likely the PCs will keep "cool but sub-optimal" magic items, where before they'd just be traded in for the Big Six.
- If a player isn't at the game, his character generally fades into the background, taking little part in the session. However, the character is generally still at some risk. Characters gain full XP for sessions where the player can't make it - I work under the assumption that people will attend as often as they can; missing a session is therefore punishment enough without also falling behind in XP!
This seams unfair, the Barbarian loses ~41.7% of his HP per level compared to the maximum 12, the fighter and paladin loses 30% of maximum of 10, and the ranger loses 12.5% of maximum of 8.
I don't want to tell you what to do, this is just my personal opinion, I find the differences to be too big for it to be fair to the players playing certain classes.
For the medium BAB, d8 classes its a 47.5% loss.
For the medium BAB, d6 classes its a ~12% loss.
Those are huge gaps IMO.
The idea of a fixed HP gain per level is fair compared to rolls, IMO. But the best idea is to make the gain either 50% or 100%, then you get nice round numbers.
(Yea I know I'm being a smart-ass).
