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

Okay. I have entirely scrambled my House Rules since last time.

Ability Scores are 26 point-buy at 1st level. Every time you gain a level, you gain 1/3 your ECL, rounded up, in additional point buy points. (Racial ability modifiers and other ability modifiers are removed, point buy points are spent, and the modifiers are re-applied.)

I'm using the Gestalt variant from Unearthed Arcana. Instead of Favored Classes, characters have Favored Gestalts, as described in my Incorporating the Gestalt Rules thread.

I allow PCs to take Racial Paragon levels, provided they are combined with one element of the character's Favored Gestalt. In order to access a racial Prestige Class, a character must have all 3 levels of their Paragon. I have written Paragon Classes for the Planetouched and most of the Psionic races.

I'm using my More Distinct Core Races rules, except I've replaced the Dwarf's STR bonus with WIS, removed the Gnome's mental ability score modifiers, and changed the Half Elf's ability modifiers to +2 DEX/-2 CON. (Half Elves also no longer gain the Cosmopolitan feat.)

For Planetouched, Alternate Planetouched.

The release of the Expanded Psionics Handbook has made all of my previous psionics house rules obsolete-- and on several cursory readings, unnecessary. I'm using Psionics as-is.

I'm using Armor as DR with some minor tweaks-- enhancement bonus add to DR at 1/2 their value, and DR from class abilities or adamantine armors stack. X/- DR also applies to Energy damage, but the DR from archaic armors is halved against energy. (And ballistic weapons, but that's an element from my d20 Modern house rules.)

I'm using Fractional BAB, saving throws, Defense Rating, and Reputation bonuses-- all from Unearthed Arcana, but with several tweaks, detailed in Smoothing the Differences between 3.5 and d20 Modern.

The Quarterstaff is the only allowed double weapon.

Vorpal weapons do not exist. For a +1 bonus, you can add +1 to your critical multiplier, similar to Keen. (I'm thinking of calling this quality Vorpal-- with the Massive Damage Rules, a Keen Longsword with x3 criticals would do a respectable job of severing heads.) Coup de Grace weapons, similarly, do not exist.

Critical range increases stack, but after the first, only add one to your critical range.

Half-Dragons of any size always have wings. Feral and Reptilian creatures have smaller claw damage, but gain bite attacks. Half-Celestials and Half-Fiends may choose whether or not to have wings-- and going without wings reduces the LA of the template by 1.

I use the Dragonstar Galactic Races Lizardfolk. Their Favored Gestalt is Ranger/Druid.

The Hexblade from Complete Warrior is a playable class, as are the Favored Soul and Shugenja from Complete Divine.

The Aristocrat and Expert are updated to be roughly PC-playable as Gestalt elements. PC-level Aristocrats and Experts
 
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Thanee said:
However, don't you think you have gone a bit far with the half orc there?

+2 Str and a bonus feat?

And why do you remove the charisma penalty, if they are raised by orcs?
This particular part seems pretty weird to me.

Bye
Thanee


Well, the feat bit is something that I'm going to have to watch, but when I thought about giving them a +1 skill point per level, I realized that all I would be doing is cancelling out the intelligence penalty. I've always thought that playing to advantages was far better than balancing weaknesses in a character. Spend time balancing weakneses, and you end up with mediocrity across the board; play to strengths, and you get much more interesting hills and valleys of ability :)

When I started, I went about it trying to balance them to dwarves. Dwarves get +1 hit point per level, -1 on all charisma based skills and spellcasting, a +1 to hit a few creatures (including half orcs!), armor movement, poison and magic save bonuses, darkvision, weapon familiarity with two weapons, stability, AC bonus vs giants, stonecutting, +2 appraise bonuse, and +2 craft bonuse. Now, half orcs get a +1 to hit and damage against everything, -1 skill point per level and -1 on intelligence based cheks and spellcasting, darkvision, a +3 to intimidate... and nothing else. It STILL seems in the dwarfs favor to me.

As to the lack of charisma penalty, charisma is force of personality, not appearance or eloquence. Every description of half orcs among orcs I have ever read portrays them as leaders and champions from the advantages of thier human heritage. A half orc raised among humans is seen as a half human monster, stupid and ugly, and his self confidence and personality are going do be severly dampened by such an enviroment. A half orc raised among orcs is going to be viewed as something special, a cut above the norm, and encouraged to positions of leadership and influence. That kind of enviroment will only bolster his charisma.

That, and in my setting half orcs among orcish tribes have a tradition of sorcery!
 
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Storyteller01 said:
In all cases, the race was human. In all cases, the difference with who used what weapon was training, not what race you were.

I wasn't aware that other races were available that could fill these scenarios.
 

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