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Ok. I'm preparing to run a new campaign in the nearish future and would like some comments on the houserules and home-brewed feats I'm proposing. For info it will be Core Pathfinder, probably Council of Thieves, with some spells and feats from other 3.5 products (mostly the Spell Compendium) let in on an individual basis.
That said, here's the rules:
Critical Hits:
Dying:
Charge:
Keen and Improved Critical:
Combat Reflexes:
Fighters:
Weapon Training: A Fighter may apply a weapon specific feat to any weapon within the same group, providing he has Weapon Training with that group.
Paladins:
Smite Evil: A weapon used to Smite Evil is treated as having its magic bonus (if any) increased by the Paladin’s Charisma modifier for the purposes of overcoming Damage Reduction, rather than automatically overcoming Damage Reduction.
A Paladin gains double damage against Outsiders with the Evil subtype and two other creature types, as per the Feat Expanded Smite.
Lay on Hands: A Paladin is treated as 3 levels lower (minimum 1d6) when using his Lay on Hands as a swift action.
Channel Energy: A Paladin is treated as a Cleric 3 levels lower when Channelling Energy.
Monks:
Manoeuvre Training: A Monk adds his Wisdom bonus to his CMB and CMD.
Monk Weapons: Monks may substitute their unarmed damage for the damage of any special Monk Weapon. Other properties remain from the weapon.
Alignment: Monks may be Neutral as well as Lawful but may not be Chaoticly aligned.
Initiative:
Initiative is rolled each round.
Actions impose a penalty to initiative equal to the CMB modifier according to size. If attacking with a weapon (not a natural weapon or unarmed strike), instead the penalty is equal to the average weapon damage (rounded up). Light weapons reduce the penalty by 1 and two-handed weapons increase it by 1. Weapons with the finessible property are counted as one size smaller. Magic weapons reduce the penalty by one per +, to a minimum of 0. Weapons that can be used as either one or two-handed use whichever is appropriate. When using two-weapons, the slowest determines the penalty.
For example, a dagger has a speed of 2, a short sword or rapier has 3, a longsword had 5, and a greatsword 8. A bastard sword has a speed of either 6 (one handed) or 7 (two-handed).
Spells have a penalty equal to their level+1.
Actions are declared before initiative is rolled. If a character's actions change from what was originally stated, they suffer a -2 penalty to the roll.
The Delay action imposes a penalty of -5 to initiative on the following round. Refocus still allows the character to leap to the top of the initiative order.
Moment of Awesome:
A player may only have one Moment of Awesome token at a time.
Additional Feats:
Improved Armour Training (Combat):
Benefit: A fighter may apply one magical effect with an equivalent bonus of +1, chosen at the time this feat is taken, to his armour. This is a supernatural effect. While using this ability, his Armour Training is reduced by the bonus of the effect.
This ability requires a move action to activate, and lasts for a number of rounds equal to their level in a class that grants Armour Training.
Special: This ability does not stack with abilities provided by the armour itself. All abilities must be approved by the GM before being taken.
Greater Armour Training (Combat):
Benefit: A fighter may apply one magical effect with an equivalent bonus of up to +2, chosen at the time this feat is taken, to his armour. This is a supernatural effect. While using this ability, his Armour Training is reduced by the bonus of the effect.
This ability requires a move action to activate, and lasts for a number of rounds equal to their level in a class that grants Armour Training.
You may activate the properties granted by Greater Armour Training and Improved Armour Training with one move action.
Special: This ability does not stack with abilities provided by the armour itself. All abilities must be approved by the GM before being taken. This ability stacks with the bonus provided by Improved Armour Training.
Superior Armour Training (Combat):
Benefit: A fighter may apply one magical effect with an equivalent bonus of up to +3, chosen at the time this feat is taken, to his armour. This is a supernatural effect. While using this ability, his Armour Training is reduced by the bonus of the effect.
This ability requires a move action to activate, and lasts for a number of rounds equal to their level in a class that grants Armour Training.
You may activate the properties granted by Superior Armour Training, Greater Armour Training and Improved Armour Training with one move action.
Special: This ability does not stack with abilities provided by the armour itself. All abilities must be approved by the GM before being taken. This ability stacks with the bonus provided by Improved Armour Training and Greater Armour Training.
Improved Weapon Training (Combat):
Benefit: A fighter may apply one magical effect with an equivalent bonus of +1, chosen at the time this feat is taken, to his Weapon. This is a supernatural effect. While using this ability, his Weapon Training is reduced by the bonus of the effect.
This ability requires a standard action to activate, and lasts for a number of rounds equal to their level in a class that grants Weapon Training.
Special: This ability does not stack with abilities provided by the Weapon itself. All abilities must be approved by the GM before being taken.
Greater Weapon Training (Combat):
Benefit: A fighter may apply one magical effect with an equivalent bonus of up to +2, chosen at the time this feat is taken, to his Weapon. This is a supernatural effect. While using this ability, his Weapon Training is reduced by the bonus of the effect.
This ability requires a standard action to activate, and lasts for a number of rounds equal to their level in a class that grants Weapon Training.
You may activate the properties granted by Greater Weapon Training and Improved Weapon Training with one standard action.
Special: This ability does not stack with abilities provided by the Weapon itself. All abilities must be approved by the GM before being taken. This ability stacks with the bonus provided by Improved Weapon Training.
Superior Weapon Training (Combat):
Benefit: A fighter may apply one magical effect with an equivalent bonus of up to +3, chosen at the time this feat is taken, to his Weapon. This is a supernatural effect. While using this ability, his Weapon Training is reduced by the bonus of the effect.
This ability requires a standard action to activate, and lasts for a number of rounds equal to their level in a class that grants Weapon Training.
You may activate the properties granted by Superior Weapon Training, Greater Weapon Training and Improved Weapon Training with one standard action.
Special: This ability does not stack with abilities provided by the Weapon itself. All abilities must be approved by the GM before being taken. This ability stacks with the bonus provided by Improved Weapon Training and Greater Weapon Training.
Bane Weapon:
Benefit: Weapons you use against the Favoured Enemy gain the Bane ability. This is a supernatural effect. It is treated as +2 bonuses higher than it is normally for purposes of overcoming damage reduction, but does not gain any additional bonuses to hit or damage. It does gain the +2d6 damage from the Bane property.
This ability requires a standard action to activate, and lasts for a number of rounds equal to the level in a class that grants Favoured Enemy.
Special: This ability does not stack with abilities provided by the Weapon itself. This feat can be taken multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time it must be taken against a new favoured enemy who meets the requirement bonus. This ability can be selected as one of a Ranger's bonus feats.
Minor Magic:
Benefit: You may cast one cantrip or orison, chosen when you select this feat, once per day as a spell-like ability. Caster level is half your character level. The DC is Charisma based.
Improved Magic:
Benefit: You may cast one 1st level spell, chosen when you select this feat, once per day as a spell-like ability. Caster level is half your character level. The DC is Charisma based. Alternatively, you may select a cantrip/orison to be cast twice per day.
Greater Magic:
Benefit: You may cast one 2nd level spell, chosen when you select this feat, once per day as a spell-like ability. Caster level is half your character level. The DC is Charisma based. Alternatively, you may select a cantrip/orison to be cast three times per day or a 1st level spell to be cast twice per day.
Monk Weapon Training:
Benefit: One weapon you are proficient in is treated as a Monk Weapon.
Note: This feat mat be taken multiple times. It applies to a different weapon each time.
Rapid Attack (Combat):
Benefit: With the weapon you have weapon focus, you reduce the penalty to initiative by 2.
Note: You may take this feat multiple times. It's effects do not stack. Each time it applies to a different weapon.
Rapid Casting:
Benefit: When casting spells of your focused school, you reduce the penalty to initiative by 2.
Note: You may take this feat multiple times. It's effects do not stack. Each time it applies to a different school of magic.
Combat Step (Combat):
Benefit: You may move up to half your speed and still make a full-round action. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity. All attacks are at -2.
Normal: You may make a five foot step and still make a full round action.
Improved Combat Step (Combat):
Benefit: You may move up to your speed and still make a full-round action. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity. All attacks are at -2.
Normal: You may make a five foot step and still make a full round action.
Greater Combat Step (Combat):
Benefit: You may move up to your speed and still make a full-round action. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity.
Normal: You may make a five foot step and still make a full round action.
Teamwork:
Alternatively, you may allow them to use one feat you possess as if they had the feat.
A person may only benefit from one Teamwork effect at a time.
You may affect a number of individuals equal to 1+your charisma modifier.
This ability lasts for one hour.
Extra Teamwork:
Benefit: Your teamwork ability can affect 2 more allies.
Note: This feat can be taken multiple times. It's effects stack.
Expanded Smite:
Benefit: You may select a group of opponents against whom your smite does double damage. You may select : Outsiders, Elementals, Undead, Aberrations, Dragons, Fey or Followers of any one Evil deity. The target must still be Evil to be the subject of your smite.
Note: You may take this feat multiple times. The effects do not stack. Each time, it applies to a new foe.
Just a couple of thoughts:
The improved critical feat and keen weapon ability have always stacked in my campaigns. One is skill driven; the other is magic. There's no good sense behind them not stacking.
We used to roll initiative every round...chaos of war and all that...but as much as we liked the verisimiltude of that option, it really did bog down gameplay. Combats are long enough as is, unfortunately.
The "moment of awesom" thingy seems rather subjective and easily abused. Maybe I'd just need to see it in action.
Everything else seems reasonable, but perhaps the "methods to the madness" (as it were) would be helpful for understand why these houserules were made...?
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Thank you for the comments.
Most of them are from looking at the rules and listening to opinions on these boards. Complaints like the Fighter's being the master of a weapon rather than master of weapons, or Monk's being useless. Some of the feats are designed to address issues that keep getting raised about meleers being at a disadvantage.
The Dying rule is because I'm a soft-hearted DM who doesn't like to kill his PCs too often. It's only come into play a couple of times, and in one of those the healing was ineffective.
The Paladin limitations are mostly out of play experience. The combination of automatically over come all DR and do double damage to a lot of high level opponents was too powerful, and that's according to the player. This is what we came up with.
The initiative rules are there because I liked them in the older versions and they make more sense to me. The declare actions is a variant on what happens in Earthdawn (our current game). But if they cause too much trouble, ditching them won't be that much of a problem.
The Moment of Awesome is there as encouragement to the players to describe something other than "I hit him". I'm not sure how it's going to work. Just an idea I picked up from another thread to get the players interacting more. This is the one, along with the feats, that I'm most concerned is a problem. I don't think the decision to award it is as that's down to me, but I'm not sure if the abilities it grants (especially the spellcasting) is too much. I might just make it like an Action Point in Eberron which is much more restricted.
I like the changes. The Moment of Awesome mechanic is something I often use (though we call it Heroic Points), similar to the Dramatic Dice mechanic from 7° Sea. It is a good way to reward players for roleplaying things in the proper epic fashion (and it has to be subjective, since you can really rule such a thing deeply without ruining its purpose).
The one thing that I am not sure about is the Initiative system. I understand perfectly what you are aiming at (different weapons having different combat speeds like in AD&D, smaller creatures being nimbler than bigger ones, etc), but I think it might become a bit cumbersome in larger battles. And there will be a lot of bookeeping, specially with characters that use multiple types of weapons in a fight. Though, of course, this will be up to the way your group plays. If you have no issues dealing with a lot of different factors that change every round, then it should work very nicely. My group prefers quicker initiative methods, however, in order to be ablet to jump from turn to turn as fast as possible (we also play with lightning rounds, giving everyone very short timeframes to decide, unless we are in a particularly complicated encounter where actions need a lot of explanation and thinking).
Otherwise, good changes.
I really like some of your feats, specifically the ones that deal with movement and full round actions.
I may use these, and if I don't, I will improve upon and then use them. If I end up not using them after either of those two options then.. -Sad-
As for your teamwork feats, they seem REALLY awesome to me. Though I would go with a name change for Extreme Teamwork -> Coordinated Teamwork.
I think that your feats are good, but would work best with a feat point system. Luckily for you, I'll be commencing work on one of those. Just as soon as I get my Nature Bond (Shifter) option finished. I'm gonna need people to comment on it however, in order to get it done of course.
I like your charge mechanic, I'll talk it over with a few friends of mine.
I may just start using it myself.
By The Way
If you want, just drop by one of my threads and say hi. If you do, I'll give you a list of my own homebrew and house rules if you desire. Just ask me, and they are yours. I have quite a few good ones if you ask me. Though I don't believe to the quantity that you acquired. Though, not necessarily.
[Edit]
I am thinking about a dying variant of my own. It basically involves one of three options.
Option 1:
Your negative hitpoint limit is equal to your constitution score. Therefore a con of 8 would equal a negative limit of -8. A con of 11 would equal a limit of -11. 15 Con would mean -15.
Option 2: Your negative hitpoint limit is equal to your con score plus 10. There a con of 8 would have a negative hitpoint limit of -18. A con of 15 would have a limit of -25.
Option 3: (More so a variant of the second option.
Upon reaching -10 hitpoints all damage you take subtracts your con score. There a con of 15, while at -10 hitpoints would drop to 10 con if 5 damage is taken.
Once you are brought back to 1 hitpoint, your con returns at a rate of 1 con every 1-2 hours.
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Personally, I think that I may start using option 1 or 2.