D&D 3E/3.5 What are your current 3.5 House Rules?

[ciaran00]

We have compiled a 300+ page rules sourcebook for our Dark Sun based campaign. I won't bore you with all the details, but here are a few highlights.

* Players start with 72 points to distribute amongst stats.
* No humans, no dwarves, no elves, no halflings, and essentially no race that rips J.R.R. off. He has his writing, we have our game.
* All the classes are rewritten so they are equal. Turning item enchantment into feats is a terrible ploy to take power away from wizards between 2e and 3e. They are restored as class abilities, and a host of metamagic feats are available to tempt wizards to buy them.
* Being a big fan of Skills and Powers, every class has a long list of interchangeable abilities (unlike S&P, specialisation is only for gladiators and fighters... not for everyone that comes by with character points).
* Feats really are feats. Every feat is tempting to buy because they're all good. Balance comes from the fact that I can use them just as much as the player can. Examples:
1. Mindtrap: When the character with this feat is the victim of a telepathic power through established contact, he can initiate a telepathic power against his attacker as if he were contacting him.
2. Contracteur (for bards): The bard can write unbreakable contracts (this is very useful in Hell). Details of such contracts and the severity of their binding follows.
3. Augmented Summoning: Various enhancements for wizards that concentrate on Conjuration/Summoning like the ability to reach into bordering planes, increase in HD summoned, and the cooperativeness of such creatures/entities.
4. Artificing: Creation of magical weapons on the fly, and on the cheap. Enchantment of artefacts, etc.

* Psionics is implemented as per 2nd edition, with Sciences/Devotions. This was a point of creativity that WOTC has been unable to beat. Current iteration of 3.0/3.5 psionics is just wizard magic in new form. We have almost doubled the psionics available with our own offerings and co-opting them from 3e.
* Spells are 2nd edition spells for Wizards and Priests. Having compendiums for all these guys makes it hard to justify switching over. However, every likable rule and redefinition of 2e spells that is in 3e have been adopted.
* ECLs inherent to certain classes because no matter how you cut it, certain classes are just more powerful than others. On Dark Sun where defiler dragons can roast a 30th level bard with ease, these class ECLs are necessary. Also, class ECL is a fundamental difference between defiler and preserver in classic Dark Sun. Though on the road to equal amounts of power, the defiler rose very very quickly in levels.
* No partial actions (and 3.5e now agrees with us to rule out complicated combat).
* AoA are curbed. Every person with a weapon is threatening, so a person entering your threat radius armed to the teeth is capable of smacking you when you trying an AoA on him. So we have knocked out many of these AoA rules and feats. Consequently, spell disruption is completely unavoidable if a wizard or priest is hit. This raises the tactical bar on combat.
* Memorised spells are replaced with spell power (spell point system), similar to Skills & Magic. This, obviously, kills the sorceror class, which we had agreed to be useless anyway.

Um, there is plenty more... I think these rules come from our inability to play in any game world but our own. The first rule is fairness, and its guided to towards making these rules possible. Actual combat and 3.5e combat are two different animals, and part of our goal is to bring as much actual combat to the table as we can (in terms of rules, not in terms of hitting each other).

Anyway. Cool thread.

ciaran

 

[Darklone]

And I thought I had a long list... actually it was several pages long till 3.5, they made 80% of my houserules official.

• Spell Focus +1, GSF adds +2
• Toughness like NWN
• Bards get Magic Weapon and similar spells
• Feats every odd and attribute raises every even level.One extra feat at level 1. No starting feats may have feat prerequisites.
• Char creation with 7 times 3d6, the last three results may exchange single dice in the first 6 ones.
• Deflect arrows uses the Reflex save as 3.0 but may parry more than one attack with an iterative +5 to the save. Every attempt wastes an AoO.
• Keen and Imp Crit stacks.
• Cure Minor wounds heals 1d4.
• Uncanny Dodge retains your Dex bonus to AC while running and climbing too.
• Max dex bonus of armours applies for everything.
• Endure Elements as 3.0
• Players usually start with one NPC class level.

 

[pogre]

No mirror image spell - I hate adjudicating it - nothing really unbalanced about it.

DC 15 Fortitude save whenever you take your Constitution or more in damage. Failure moves you to hp 0.

Grim Tales magic drain rules - shuts down outrageous amounts of magic at higher levels. Nothing wrong with outrageous amounts of magic - just not my style.

Currently fiddling with the cover rules - not sure I like the new ones yet.

 

[Tywyll]

Here are my house rules:

http://www.3rdedition.org/dungeonmagic/game/game.htm

DM Magic,

I really dig the look and feel of your website, and the feel of the game you are running. I like your ideas for bonus points for character creation so much I might have to steal... er, borrow some.

I notice you are running AU style magic and Divine magic in the same game. What are your plans on how to incorporate such things?

How did the second capturing end?

 

[pogre]

I thought of another one - I am not using the new weapon damage resistances (cold iron, etc).

 

[frankthedm]

15. As per player request, any given campaign can feature a primary villain that is either a dragon or a mind flayer, but not both.

I would have to be at gunpoint to agree to that!

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."

 

[Ketjak]

Well, if you're having fun... but two items among this very odd list stand out:

(snip)
* All the classes are rewritten so they are equal. Turning item enchantment into feats is a terrible ploy to take power away from wizards between 2e and 3e. They are restored as class abilities, and a host of metamagic feats are available to tempt wizards to buy them.

Then:

* ECLs inherent to certain classes because no matter how you cut it, certain classes are just more powerful than others. On Dark Sun where defiler dragons can roast a 30th level bard with ease, these class ECLs are necessary. Also, class ECL is a fundamental difference between defiler and preserver in classic Dark Sun. Though on the road to equal amounts of power, the defiler rose very very quickly in levels.

Which is it? Did you balance classes so they're equal or not? If you added class abilities to wizards, what did you add to fighters to make them even? Wizards were quite powerful in 3E...

OK, there was one more that stood out:

* Memorised spells are replaced with spell power (spell point system), similar to Skills & Magic. This, obviously, kills the sorceror class, which we had agreed to be useless anyway.

Heh heh heh. I can only imagine no one played a sorcerer before making that decision, or the sorcerer took and cast a lot of expeditious retreat and charm person spells.

- Ket

 

[S'mon]

I give clerics spontaneous casting and a limited 'spells known' list. I always hated how clerics could cast any spell in the multiverse. Seems to work ok.

 

[ciaran00]

Which is it? Did you balance classes so they're equal or not? If you added class abilities to wizards, what did you add to fighters to make them even? Wizards were quite powerful in 3E...

Well, take the first bit to be "as equal as they can be acceptably made"... ie: a wizard in Dark Sun gets to eventually cast psionic enchantments (to this day, these beat the pants off any epic spells in both style and content). This is very difficult to resolve with the other classes to any satisfactory extent.

What I have added to 3E fighters:

• Ability to disrupt mages is a bonus. In addition, feats like "death blow" really do mean that... making higher level fighters difficult to deal with up close. Since I use phase-based initiative (out of spells and magic)-- I don't believe that 1 round/not 1 round is an adequate qualifier of the speed of casting... this prevents the caster from worrying about defense if they invest heavily in Dex-- fighters can act faster (because most weapons and fists are faster than high level spells).
• Fighters can command armies. Though original Dark Sun weakly implemented this, we have added definitions of leadership, command ability, ability to use siege engines. Several feats exist that would allow fighters to employ supernatural armies.
• Fighters can further specialise in their weapons. Bonuses like extreme range, improved criticals (we use the S&M crit chart), etc come with Mastery. (Mastery can only be taken in a single weapon; in contrast, the Gladiator can never Master, but he can Specialise in as many weapons as he wants).
• Fighters can enchant weapons and armour at higher levels (enchant abilities are class abilities for us, not feats).
• Only fighters can cause a scene in a "Banner" to be reenacted during a battle. Banners are a class of items of our own invention (in addition to Friezes, Idols, etc. etc.): they picture some scene from an ancient or historical battle (a great rift with giant tentacles pouring out, a walking colossus stomping on enemies, etc) and often they are used to boost morale and flag orders to troops more effectively. Fighters, alone, can unlock this extra ability.
• FYI, each class has a special knack with a class of items. This leads to other highly interesting situations, of course.

If you are curious, check out how many items we've documented so far (external link). We have more, but we're catching up with our own games...

In some ways, it's hard to describe our feats. They truly are great acts, in comparison to what feats are in standard 3e. We see enchantment (which comes with XP penalties + cost) as a character-building ability, not this great bonus to a character, which made us take it out of feats and just give it to the classes.

Heh heh heh. I can only imagine no one played a sorcerer before making that decision, or the sorcerer took and cast a lot of expeditious retreat and charm person spells.

Actually, Ketjak, this is purely a time issue. We love to play, and memorisation systems take so frickin long with casters switching out and planning their spells (we have six spell compendiums + countless 2e books with modified spells) that spell points allow us to say: "look, cast spells when they're necessary, but you WILL run out" and keep playing.

Also, from the player's perspective, limited # of spells known is lame (even with the switching out from 3.5e). It's an artificial limit placed to balance the instantaneous casting.

We cover the tactics of magic issue with other constraints... like smart opponents.

Hope that makes sense.

ciaran

 

[Hashmalum]

I haven't finished my new (3.5E) house rules, partly because I've been spending my time in other ways and partly because I haven't absorbed all the changes in the base rules (much less decided whether I approve of each of them). The ones I have finished are too long to post here, so I'll just give a summary of all them (finished or not):

Classes
(Major) Paladin is a PrC.
(Minor) Sorcerer gets a few more Charisma-based class skills.
(Minor) The limited spells known/spontaneous casters have a different way of swapping spells known (the "forgetting" method I posted to House Rules a while back) and can also buy more spells known with XP (also posted to House Rules a while back).
(Minor) Wizards get 8 cantrips (read magic, detect magic, and 6 of their choice) rather than all of the PHB cantrips.
(Trivial) You can no longer multiclass into sorcerer without DM approval unless you chose a bloodline feat or Spellcasting Prodigy at 1st level; this is really only a flavor change (I just don't like the idea that suddenly, anyone can "discover" that they have innate magical abilities without regard for past background, etc.).
(Trivial) Multiclassing restriction on monk was dropped. It was only ever a flavor thing anyway.
(Trivial) Rogue special abilities are feats (of the "special" type, not the "general" type; "special" feats as far as I am concerned are feats that explicitly require levels in a single, specific class and thus are basically class features that cost feats to acquire, much like how the bardic music abilities are effectively class features that cost skill points to acquire).
(Trivial) The nature of the familiar bond is explicated a bit further. As a result, soulless creatures can't be familiars anymore, and it is not possible to have a nonconsenting creature as a familiar. Maltreatment of one's familiar can result in familiar alienation, which cuts earned XP in half.

Feats
(Significant) You can buy feats with XP; I still haven't set XP costs for most feats yet, though.
(Minor) I've come up with a few dozen new feats.
(Significant) Spell Focus, etc. give the 3.0 bonuses. The designers as much as admitted that Spell Focus was never the real problem to begin with, but was only abusive with certain magic items and PrC abilities--and I'm picky about the PrCs and magic items I allow.
(Major) Many feats now require training to learn. Metamagic and item creation feats can be learned from an appropriate tome or set of notes. Researching a feat indepently (allowing it to be learned without being trained by someone else) is possible but time-consuming.
(Major) Item creation feats require the user to have a magical formula for each specific item. Some formulae are gained when you take the feat. More can be acquired by means of purchase or trade with other spellcasters (costs money), independent research (costs time and money), or by gaining levels.
(Minor) You can take shortcuts in item creation, making it cheaper (and thus proportionally quicker), but there is a chance that the resulting item will be flawed in some way (this is where many of the cursed items in the DMG come from). If you're cheap and sloppy enough, there's even a chance the creation process will fail altogether.

Skills
(Significant) There are some new skills. I'm considering giving all classes 1 or 2 more skill points per level because of this, which would bump the change level up to (major).
(Significant) Skill ranks can be purchased with XP. Costs still aren't set yet.
(Major) As with feats, you need training for most skills. Knowledge skills can be learned from appropriate books and other writings, however.

Spells
(Minor) Spells have a rating identifying how common they are that affects how easily you can identify them with Spellcraft (all PHB spells have the most common rating). Rare spells are of course more difficult and expensive to acquire. Spells that are less than common are typically either the exclusive property of a particular individual or group, or unusually specialized in their application (the planar spells from Manual of the Planes. for example).
(Minor) Spells can be learned with metamagic feats permanently applied. Learning such a spell does not require you to know the metamagic feat, but there is no way to grant the benefit of that feat to other spells, nor can you cast the unmodified version of the spell without learning it seperately.
(Minor) Spells with material components can use a focus instead (costing 50 times the price of the component). The focus is different for each spell but is the same as the focus used for Innate Spell.
(Minor) The list of subschools and spell descriptors has dramatically increased in size. The rules for assigning spells to schools have been clarified and altered. As a result, some spells have changed schools. Conjuration is the main beneficiary of this, picking up the symbols, power words, wish (and related spells), and bestow curse (and related spells) as Conjuration (Invocation) spells. OTOH it lost mage armor to Evocation. Universal spells no longer exist.
(Significant) Summoning spells can summon a much greater variety of creatures, but both summonings and callings require the "magical name" of the type of creature to be summoned--if you want to summon some sort of creature that's been templated up the wazoo, you can do it, but getting that name will be very, very, very tough. It's up to the player to track just what sort of creatures they can summon along with their stats.
(Minor) Some spells have been rewritten. Two (foresight and Otiluke's telekinetic sphere) were severely underpowered as originally written; one (silence) was overpowered as originally written; and the others were changed to conform to metaphysical laws specific to my campaign world.

Equipment/Magic Items
(Major) Various types of instructional (needed for learning skills/feats) and reference manuals (give circumstance bonuses to certain skills) have been added to the mundane equipment list.
(Major) The various minor artifact tomes, manuals, etc. that give levels to the reader can be created by PCs (and therefore, aren't considered minor artifacts anymore). However, no such manual can benefit a character of equal or higher ECL or class level (whichever is lower) than the creator. Thus, PCs won't be making them to boost their own prowess (or that of other PCs), but for the purpose of boosting cohorts or followers instead. No one can benefit more than once from such a manual in any single class.

Monsters
(Minor) Vampires and retrievers got a modified form of regeneration to replace fast healing.
(Minor) Varguoilles deal vile damage with their attacks rather than having poison.