What options are you really happy you allowed into your game?

[Aus_Snow]

Hm, this could take a while. . . and some feat of memory, for that matter. Regardless, I was pleased with the results of my decisions (even if I thereafter promptly nicked off to a different system! ).

So, these are the last d20 Fantasy house rules and inclusions that I can recall using:

[sblock]"Fewer absolutes" (thank you, Sean K. Reynolds)
Fate points (working quite a bit like Conviction from True20)
Armour as pure DR
Base Defence Bonus equal to BAB/2
Fractional BAB, BDB and saves
Facing
Training required, for many skills, feats, classes, etc.
Non-linear (also slower) XP progression
Scary amounts of class variants and replacements, many with new names, etc.
New and altered races, mostly homegrown
Feat per odd character level, rather than at the usual levels
Numerous new and altered feats, many homegrown
Background feats, only available at character level 1 - you also get a bonus one at that time
More skill points
Altered list of skills, along with the details for many of them
Complex skill checks
Skill challenges/stunts/maneouvres, primarily from the 'Book of Iron Might' and 'Iron Heroes'
Talent trees. . . essentially
Immortals Handbook appendix, for working out (IMO) more accurate CR, EL, LA, etc.
Buying off LA
Often nastier, but also more subtle and/or lingering poisons
Herbalism, drugs, medicine and so on are *far* more detailed, using various sources
Called shots, based on 'Torn Asunder: Critical Hits'
Accordingly, piecemeal armour (as well as more, and different, types)
Critical effects, mainly based on 'Torn Asunder: Critical Hits' and 'Advanced Player's Guide'
Many new and altered weapons (largely thanks to 'From Stone to Steel')
Weapon groups, custom-designed
AP values for some weapons (helps vs. armour)
More hit points ('vitality') to begin with, for all beings, gratis
Hit points divided into health levels (four of them), with increasing penalties down the spiral
More types of magic than arcane and divine, sectioned off and named differently
"Translucency" (partial transparency) across the magical divides.
Alternative massive damage threshold values
[Scaled] Fort save to recover from dying, not the usual percentage chance
Turning variant from 'Complete Divine'
Weapons, armour and other items break, rust, deteriorate, etc.[/sblock]*phew*

If there were more, that I can definitely remember using then, I'll add them to the sblocked list above.

 

[Baby Samurai]

-Turning variant from CD

-Psionics

-Incarnum

-ToB

-Saving throws as Defences from UA

-Weapon group feats from UA

-Action Points

-Fewer Absolutes

-No save or die spells







We have also ported over many Saga changes and we all love it:

-Withdraw is a move action
-Charge is a standard action
-No 5 ft. step
-Half character level as bonus to damage
-Skill system
-2 x Str when wielding a weapon two-handed
-1 x Str bonus for off-hand attacks
-Darkvision and low-light vision
-Iterative attacks replaced with Double/Triple/Quadruple Attack
-Area effect rules

 

[Tiberius]

It's not that, really. It's more of my having issues with the realism of mages, in the heat of combat, setting things up perfectly. You don't see soldiers throwing grenades so that the enemies are *exactly* in the blast radius, while their allies are fine.

To be fair, you can't direct a grenade with nearly the same precision as you can a fireball. Given that a mage can create the effect at any arbitrary point in space, I don't find it terribly unreasonable. If my survival and that of my friends depended on my ability to engulf my foes in a great holocaust while sparing my front line, you'd better believe I'd be on the practice field with piles of sulphur and guano until I could bulls-eye a gnat at 150 yards. It's what wizzies do. You don't see warrior types randomly hitting their adjacent allies. Why punish the casters for being artillery when that's part of their job description?

To the original question, I've been very pleased with the UA variants spontaneous divine casters, weapon groups, and class defense modifiers. I'm about to add incarnum to my game, and I hope it turns out to be as cool as it looks.