Fatespinner's page

Based on a house rule thread in here somewhere, I am considering a new feat that only allows results in the upper half of the die spectrum for cure and mass cure spells (i.e. a result of 1-4 would be re-rolled). Realistic prerequisites: cleric, able to spontaneously cast cure spells, healing domain.

Does that seem too powerful for a feat? If so, maybe require the cleric to spend a turn attempt to juice a cure spell, which would limit the number of times per day that it could be used?

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Since feats like Maximize Spell and Empower Spell can already be added to healing spells, you might want to consider just allowing clerics to sacrifice higher spell slots to use metamagic healing spells. Sacrificing a prepared 4th level spell for a maximized cure light wounds for example. Unless you're talking about a feat that would allow very low level clerics to do this, in which case my opinion is that such low level characters should not have the ability to amplify their healing abilities significantly yet.

3) In jail. The PCs have to cooperate to escape, and the circumstances of the escape (or the imprisonment) lead them to keep working together. Maybe they've all been connected to a crime they didn't commit, and they need to turn up evidence to clear their names. Maybe one of the PCs knows the whereabouts of a treasure trove, and promises to share equally if the other PCs help him escape.

One of my greatest campaigns ever started this way! I gathered up 8 players and told them they could play any character concept they wanted, but they had to draw their character's alignment from a hat. Inside the hat were all of the alignments except True Neutral! Every character had a different alignment and many radically different concepts. We had a chaotic evil half-black-dragon barbarian, a chaotic neutral elven arcane trickster, a lawful good human fighter, a lawful evil human cleric of Bane (Forgotten Realms deity), and many more! The characters started at level 16 (or ECL 16 in the case of the 3 LA races we had) and the entire concept of the campaign was this:

The characters had all done something in the recent past (I ran individual one-on-one sessions with each of them to explore what this 'something' was) to put them at odds with some powerful entity who had them imprisoned... IN THE PRISON PLANE OF CARCERI (see Manual of the Planes)!!! The characters were allowed to follow any deity from any D&D sourcebook I had. They had a wide variety of class and race options available to them (we had a lawful neutral githzerai monk, for example) and their characters could be from any plane of existance that they wanted (the LG human fighter was from Dragonlance). These characters ended up being imprisoned in the same wing of the gigantic prison together and some of them had been there longer than others (the half-dragon had been there almost 50 years while the arcane trickster had only been there a week). They concocted a plan to escape and it was going to take all of their mutual cooperation in order to pull it off. The game was AMAZING! Seeing the chaotic evil barbarian rushing forward to save the neutral good elven druid from a pack of slaadi was something I will always remember. Jailbreak concepts don't always have to be 'conventional' especially when you want to do something truly awe-inspiring. As you can imagine, the campaign ended once they made their way to one of the portals back to their homes, but escaping from a prison of such epic proportions with such morally diverse characters was quite the adventure!

Jonathan Drain wrote:

Pah! He's got nothing on my half black dragon, half brass golem lich troll cleric. He takes all damage except fire and acid as nonlethal, but as undead he's immune to nonlethal. As half-dragon he's immune to acid, and as half-golem he's actually healed by fire - that, and immune to magic. He's immune to all damage and magic!

Can anyone actually think of a way to kill such a beast? The only thing I can think of is some sort of instant death spell of the conjuration school (There has to be at least one). Or some sort of anti-construct spell/mace of smiting.

Wish spell. *nods sagely*

Critical weakness: He doesn't have evasion!

Maximized Fireballs are the answer here. Combine with Improved Invisibility and a single smart wizard/sorcerer (level 15+) could take him out relatively easily. Throw a Horrid Wilting on there to make it really tough for the big lout. Have a Teleport memorized just in case something goes wrong.

If you've got a whole party of level 20s? Mordenkainen's Disjunction to take the sting off his gear (including the fortification) and then let the rogues backstab the crap out of him while flanking. Cleric sits back and heals the rogues while the wizard blasts away with Energy Drain and Enervation (which don't allow saving throws, if I recall correctly).

I bought the Draconomicon a couple years ago and it is the only dragon resource I will ever have because it is the only dragon resource I will ever need. I have been playing D&D for 14 years and I've been DMing for 8 of those. In all that time, I have seen exactly 4 dragon fights (only 2 of which were in campaigns that I ran). If we expand that list to include more than just fights, then there have been 6 instances where dragons have been a major element or focus of a plotline. So, in 14 years of playing, 6 instances of dragon-related emphasis.

I bought the Draconomicon for the artwork. I <3 Lockwood.

Here's my answer:

New Feat (General): Invocative Spellcasting
Prerequisites: Caster level 5th, Spellcraft 8 ranks
The spellcaster may now empower his spells by spending an entire round invoking words of power before releasing the energy. If a spellcaster uses this feat, he must declare it at the beginning of a round before initiative is rolled. If the caster is using this feat, he automatically goes LAST in the initiative order. Any spell he casts with this feat (which cannot have a casting time longer than 1 full round) now takes the entire round and the spellcasting provokes attacks of opportunity (no casting on the defensive). When the spell is cast, the caster makes a Spellcraft check (DC 15). If it succeeds, the DC for his spell is increased by 1. For every 10 points over 15, it is increased by another 1. Therefore, a wizard using this feat who gets a 25 on the Spellcraft check gains a +2 to the save DC for his spell on top of any other applicable bonuses to save DCs. It should be noted that use of this feat is tremendously obvious as it surrounds the caster in shimmers of light and glowing sigils and requires verbal and somatic components, even if the spell itself would not normally require them. If the Spellcraft roll fails, the spell is lost as if it had been disrupted by damage.

I just remembered a house rule that is so ingrained in my gameplay that I don´t mention it anymore: If you roll a 1 on attacking, you lose your next attack (presumably to recover the weapon you just dropped).

As I said above, we do something similar, but I neglected to include something that we do differently. If you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll, skill check, or whatever, you immediately roll again and add all the appropriate modifiers but the roll has a -20 penalty applied to it. If the roll ends up as a positive number, treat the roll as normal (a hit is still a hit in this case, even after a natural 1). If the number is zero or negative, then it is a critical failure and results in dropping the weapon, striking an ally, etc.

The reason for this rule is that, using the standard 'natural 1 = botch' system, even level 20 fighters who have been perfecting their sword skills for years still have a 5% chance on every swing to fail miserably and fling their weapon on accident. I find this a bit ridiculous and unreasonable. A highly trained warrior will not miss 1 out of 20 swings against panicked goblins or untrained orcs.

Just my $0.02.

and crazy people.

There IS a rationale to this. I don't want the nice steel dice damaged by the chainmail, hence the leather. I don't want the chainmail eating up my new bookshelf, where I keep the bag, hence the soft Crown Royale bag.

...why don't you just use the leather bag by itself? I'm just sayin'...

On the topic of the post, none of the people in my group use CR dice bags, despite the fact that we are all over 21. In fact... none of us use dice bags at all. Since only myself and one other person actually OWN dice, we just bring our big ol' dice box with us when we game and share the wealth with the other players. I have seen quite a few CR dice bags in the past, however, and I would certainly say that they're a staple.

I suppose when we were too young to drink, Crown Royal bags could be seen as some sort of status symbol and subtle way to show how "rebellious" you were. Of course, nowadays a gamer might have to show up with a dice bag made from puppy skin in order to create any kind of a stir. I never saw the Bacardi bags, but black with silver embroidery probably looked cool.

Puppy skin dice bags? GENIUS!

What would you wish for if you were given one wish?

The rules are...

1. You can't wish for more wishes.
2. You can't bring back the dead.
3. You can't make someone love you.

What would you wish for? What is your greatest desire?

I would wish to possess the largest sum of American currency possible without creating any sort of significant ripple in the overall national economy. I think this would probably be somewhere around $1 or 2 billion. I'm just a greedy bastard who doesn't want to have to worry about whether I'm going to have enough money to make my monthly contribution to my daughter's education fund if I buy this double cheeseburger for lunch today anymore.

My favorite out-of-print RPG?

White Wolf's entire Trinity Universe.

Adventure, Aberrant, Trinity.

R.I.P.

I still run a Trinity game every Friday for my friends. I have all the stuff for it and we love it. Too bad the line never got finished. A few key sourcebooks never quite got to the printers before they canned the whole series. A damn shame, too. Awesome game.

this thread is

My favorite house rule is on a natural 1, you provoke an attack of opportunity from a threatening opponent. Also, your round is over even if you would normally still have one or more additional attacks/actions. Assume you slipped or otherwise lost your concentration.

My group uses this rule as well, but only for physical actions like attacks or Tumble checks. If you roll a natural 1 on a Spellcraft check to determine what spell a caster is casting, you simply incorrectly identify the spell but you don't provoke any attacks of opportunity in the process.

My group has a select few house rules. We go more for realism than high action/adventure. Our group is pretty hardcore and we make some really severe penalties for injury and death.

1) Resurrection can only be done by a select few NPC clerics of powerful healing gods in major cities. Even then, the prices they demand are usually along the lines of 1000gp x the character's level.

2) Armor can take 10 bludgeoning or slashing hits for every point of AC it offers before dropping by 1 AC until repaired by someone with Profession or Craft (Blacksmith or Armorsmith for metal armors, Leatherworker for leather armors) and the proper tools. Full plate can take 80 hits before dropping to +7 AC, 70 more before dropping to +6, etc. The repair DC is 15 + the number of AC missing. If no AC is missing, the DC is 15 to 'refresh' the number of hits it can take. Mithril armors take 15 hits per point of AC drop (but the DC to repair it is 5 higher) and adamantine armors take 20 hits (and has the repair DC increased by 10). If armor is reduced to 0 AC, it is destroyed and cannot be repaired. Obviously, arrows, rapiers, and daggers do little more than make small holes, so piercing weapons do not cause this damage. Therefore, +2 adamantine full plate needs 200 hits to bring it down to +9 AC, 180 hits to bring it down to +8, etc. etc. If you let it get so beat-up that it had dropped to +5, the DC to repair it would be 30 (DC 15 + 10 adamantine + 5 AC missing). Armors of this fine quality clearly need the hands of a dwarven master armorsmith to repair and this system reflects that.

3) Experience is not given out on a 'per monster killed' basis. At the end of a session, all surviving party members receive a set amount of xp. Additional rewards are available for completing quests and good roleplay.

4) Half-elves receive the extra skill points that humans get. Half-orcs receive the extra feat.

5) If your character dies and cannot be resurrected (which is usually the case), you leave the game. You may bring in a new character only when it would be dramatically plausible (after the end of the current adventure, for example). Your new character is 2 levels lower than your previous one. (We have only had this happen twice in 6 years of playing. Most of us are smart enough to avoid doing anything suicidal.)

6) All items (magical and otherwise) sell for half of book market value. A Diplomacy check (DC 20) can increase this to 60% of book value. If you manage to get over 30 on the check, it will sell for 70%. A natural '1' on this check will net you only 40% of value.

7) Three natural 20s in a row on an attack roll result in an instant kill on the target. They MUST be natural 20s, regardless of the weapon's crit range or multipliers. (This has only happened once.)

8) Poisons deal their initial damage immediately and then deal secondary damage one minute later and again every minute afterwards until cured or saved against. A DC 20 Heal check made within 3 rounds of exposure to a poison delivered by 'injury' can 'suck the poison out' and prevent the secondary damage but causes 1 hp of damage to the victim. The DC to save against the poison drops by 1 for every failed save. There are a few poisons (like drow sleep venom) that this does not apply to.

9) You may reroll low hit die rolls if you CON modifier is high enough. We do it as CON mod x 10% is the threshold for determining what is re-rollable. For example, a CON mod of +4 means you can reroll the lower 40% of your hit die. If a fighter or paladin with a +4 CON modifier rolls a 1, 2, 3, or 4 on the hit die, he may reroll. Similarly, if a wizard has a +4 CON mod (?!?) he may reroll 1s. If your CON mod is only +1, you could roll the bottom 10% of your die, meaning d10 and d12 classes reroll 1s. If the percentage of your hit die is less than 1, you cannot reroll hit dice. 20% of 4 is less than one, so wizards and sorcerers with a +2 CON mod still cannot reroll 1s. This is a very complicated rule, but it makes certain that the characters that SHOULD have high hit points HAVE high hit points. A fighter with +4 CON who rolls a 1 and gets 5 hp for his level up SHOULD feel cheated, because he is. Especially if the rogue with a +1 CON mod rolls a 6 and gets more hp for the level than he did. Some people would argue that this is giving CON a double-bonus since you already get bonus hp for your CON mod. To this, I say... well, YES, it DOES make CON more important! It SHOULD be important!

That's most of them that I can think of at this time. We're very strict but that's the way we prefer it.

I guess I'm getting old. I like roleplaying, and it doesn't bother me to make PCs stick with the old 4d6 in sequence, reroll one and swap two (or to play such characters, even if everyone else is playing a half-warforged psio-gestalt-ninja-warmage with six 18s). Usually no one gets stuck with anything below a 9 or 10 this way, and usually no one has more than one 17 or higher. As long as you start this way and stay this way--and maintain your rule zero DM prerogative, things usually don't get out of hand, and if they do it's because you threw something hard at them, and you've got to fudge rolls to keep from slaughtering people, rather than the other way round.

The 4d6 system never worked for our group. We want our characters to EXCEL at something and then let the other characters make up for their weaknesses. The games that I run focus on teamwork and party dynamics. I give the players anywhere from 72 to 78 points to spend on stats, but I don't use the DMG point-buy system. Each point is one-for-one used to buy a stat. With 72 points, you COULD have 6 12s, but nobody wants to play a character who is just slightly above average across the board. He will never really stand out and never do anything noteworthy. Mostly, we'll get someone with a stat set that looks like 18, 10, 14, 8, 14, 8. If this were a fighter, he'd be amazingly strong, fairly tough, not too bright, fairly wise, and a bit gruff and ugly. That's fine! Fighters don't NEED to be terribly smart or or pretty! If you WANTED your character to be smart, maybe average out the strength and dexterity and use extra points from wisdom to beef intelligence. Anyway, my point is, this system always leads to characters that are excellent in some ways and weak in others. You need to get your group together and have them make their characters all at once. If someone is dead-set on a fighter, your group knows that they have that aspect covered. If 3 people want to be wizards, figure out a way that they can still make the party functional while having the fun they want to have. Sometimes, in these situations, I will MAKE a player play something that he's never played before just because I like to bring people out of their shells. The greatest and most well-received game I ever ran was played with character concepts that *I* designed and handed out. DMs are in control of the game. Period. If your players whine endlessly about a rule call, tell them to shut up about it or they will receive experience penalties.

Another thing about treasure, encounters, and xp... I hate encounter xp. Calculating xp based on the creature's difficulty and then taking all sorts of crap into account... I hate it. I hate it all. In my games, each game session is worth a certain amount of xp. If you sneak past a group of monsters or convert them to your side, you get the same amount of xp that you would get if you had gone in and slaughtered them all. The players, at the end of each session, cast 'role-play votes' that are worth a certain amount of xp each to other players. These votes can be given to someone who pulled off an amazing combat manuever, who acted out a particular accent well, or who kept the party together with diplomacy and reasoning. Players cannot vote for themselves. This system MAKES players take the other players' actions into account and focus more on playing the game and having fun than killing monsters and looting treasure. I ran a game of 5 12th level characters in Forgotten Realms and there were only 3 magical items in the entire party, the most powerful of which was a +2 mithril bastard sword. Magical items and powerful twinkery are not the focus. Fun is. Characters should not advance from level 4 to 5 faster simply because they went on a goblin murdering spree. They should advance in level at a fairly consistent rate, growing and learning from their adventures as they go. Role-play votes are there to give a character recognition for their deeds. There is no need for mass homicide simply because your character is ALMOST to level 10. Experience awards happen at the end of each session, not at the end of each combat. If smashing monsters and looting treasure is all your group is interested in, invest in Hackmaster.

It depends on if we're going by what I would WANT to be or what I AM (or, at least, what I'm closest to).

I WANT to be an elven wizard. Commanding the primal forces of the world and wielding fantastic power is just the ultimate fantasy for me. Living an extremely long time is just a bonus (and, let's be honest, elf chicks are cute!)

I WOULD be a dwarven bard, however. I'm chunky, loud, and I love to tell stories and be the center of attention. I enjoy travelling to places I've never been and seeing all there is to see, then telling people about it and inviting them to go back with me. My musical talent is limited, though. I'm a decent singer, but I can't play an instrument to save my life.