Which rules are 'flavour' rules?

[aNenuphar]

If this has been written up elsewhere, I'd appreciate a link or something, but otherwise...

My group has begun what we hope will be a long-term (10+) year campaign (this coming off a seven year campaign in 2e - which is being ported to 3e). We'd like to fiddle with some rules, and comments on this message board (all hail Morrus and Eric Noah, may their dice never roll ones...) indicate that some of the rules are 'flavour' rules, the removal (or alteration) of which have no impact on the mechanics.

What are these rules?

So far, my group has come up with:

• Size of EP rewards (relates to speed of advancement)
• multi-classing for monks and paladins
• favoured class for the various humanoids (e.g. elf wizard)
• druid weapon restrictions
• armor and weapon feats for clerics

What else? We'd rather not break anything, but since none of us were involved in playtesting, we don't know what's crucial and what's not.

Thanks.

 

[Olive]

[*]armor and weapon feats for clerics

i think that getting rip of the weapons restrictions on clerics would make them considerably more powerful. and that's one class that doesn't need it.

 

[Mark]

Welcome to the Boards!

A lot of people mess around with the Spell System, and there are a number of sources for alternate ones that would save you time. Elements of Magic from Natural Twenty (En World's publishing arm) would likely be a good one to start with.

I tend to stick with the core rules, and not adjust them myself, but I'd bet you could find scads of material for options in the House Rules forum of these boards.

Hope that helps!

 

[Xarlen]

Aligment restrictions for classes.
Barbarian rage stopping use of certain skills.
Weapon restrictions for rogues.
Arcane Spell Failure for armor.

 

[Alcamtar]

• Size of EP rewards (relates to speed of advancement)

If you slow down advancement but leave the relative treasure per encounter the same, the PCs will accumulate a lot more wealth relative to their level. In 3E, wealth equals magic items (2x magic items if they have item creation feats). Likewise, increasing XP awards will give them too little wealth/magic unless you adjust treasures.

 

[jgbrowning]

Re: Re: Which rules are 'flavour' rules?

If you slow down advancement but leave the relative treasure per encounter the same, the PCs will accumulate a lot more wealth relative to their level. In 3E, wealth equals magic items (2x magic items if they have item creation feats). Likewise, increasing XP awards will give them too little wealth/magic unless you adjust treasures.

Sortof. If he's looking for a 10 year campaign thats about 6 times the expected 18 months to 20th level so he's only giving out 1/6 of the exp. That puts a big hamper on item creation feats.

Imagine if each item's exp cost was X6 of what's normal...


joe b.

 

[Snoweel]

[*]multi-classing for monks and paladins

I disagree vehemently with this, and I've done so before (of course, last time I was alone in my opinion, so there's no reason that will change ).

The Wis-bonus to monks' AC and Cha-bonus to paladins' saving throws have to be the reason that these two classes are discouraged form multiclassing.

Hmm... maybe not.

 

[aNenuphar]

Ok, thanks so far. Xarlen (sp?) is closest to what I'm looking for (in terms of simple lists). I'm not really interested in the rationalization of the rules, just whether the original playtesters and developers put the rule in for 'flavour' or because the game would break otherwise.

And I'm honestly not making up the flavour thing - I read the comments (I think by Piratecat) about the multi-classing of monks and paladins.

 

[Mark]

I believe he brought it up in one of the early DMing chat sessions. You can find the transcripts here-

http://www.creativemountaingames.com/dmingchat.asp

 

[hong]

Re: Re: Which rules are 'flavour' rules?

The Wis-bonus to monks' AC and Cha-bonus to paladins' saving throws have to be the reason that these two classes are discouraged form multiclassing.

The multiclassing restrictions in no way prevent you from gaining the Wis bonus to AC and Cha bonus to saves. Mnk1 -> Pal1 -> whatever gives you both, and involves no XP penalties, assuming you're human or half-elf.