The Endless Search for Beta Testers


Homebrew and House Rules


My Friends and I are searching beta testers for some wild House rules who add a lot to the game but everyone think we are dumb for such a rules so outside of ourselves we could´t test them *maby to harcore mode for someones

So I´m Search for beta testers and feedback for the PDF we are trying to make.

The Rules are as Follows

1.- Everyone can parry, Dodge or Block (including shield block) as immediate action one attack every round

2.- There is always 50% for your armor to receive the damage for you. In an area of effect like in a Fireball your armor could take half damage and it works until it's broken (Sunder stript it out wen is brokend negating 50% chanse, there is no CRIT on objects)

3.- There is no such thing as ¨Spells per day¨ and spellcasters can cast whitout runing out of spells but need to make a concentration check equal to 10 + double the spell level, if fail the caster gain the condition Fatigued and the Dc to cast incrises to 15 + doble the spell level, if fail again gain the condition Exhausted and the DC incrises to 20+ doble the spell level, if fail again you fail Unconscious.

4.- every character (including monsters and npcs) have hp equal to his minimum posible HP as if all his HD where nat 1s

5.- GP per lv is equal to heroic npc vercion

in our table it Surprisingly works! There have been fun and we managed to survive in the game up to lv 10 (we still tryng to make it pas lv 10 viable)even have killed monsters of cr 13 and adobe. So we would like you feedback and if you wanna be beta tester contact me, thanks :)


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1.- Everyone can parry, Dodge or Block (including shield block) as immediate action one attack every round

How exactly does this work? What checks are made, and what happens (or doesn't happen) if they are successful? Hard to give feedback if I'm not sure what the rule actually means.

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2.- There is always 50% for your armor to receive the damage for you. In an area of effect like in a Fireball your armor could take half damage and it works until it's broken (Sunder stript it out wen is brokend negating 50% chanse, there is no CRIT on objects)

This looks really annoying in general. Mending is available as a cantrip so repairing damage between fights is easy but time consuming. It does render armored characters more durable, which seem to be trying to counter-balance rule #4.

Second, this amounts to a 50% chance to negate critical hits if you're wearing armor. That's a pretty huge nerf to character and monsters who use critical hits extensively, and is equivalent to giving every single suit of armor the fortification enchantment.

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3.- There is no such thing as ¨Spells per day¨ and spellcasters can cast whitout runing out of spells but need to make a concentration check equal to 10 + double the spell level, if fail the caster gain the condition Fatigued and the Dc to cast incrises to 15 + doble the spell level, if fail again gain the condition Exhausted and the DC incrises to 20+ doble the spell level, if fail again you fail Unconscious.

This looks completely broken. Any class that gets Lesser Restoration (a 2nd level spell) can remove Fatigue and Exhaustion quite easily. So failing a check is a minor inconvenience for the caster outside of combat and they are free to constantly recast their best buffs every few minutes all day long.

However, it's even worse than that. A character who stacks every bonus possible can actually raise their concentration checks high enough that they cannot fail and effectively have unlimited no-downsides spellcasting. For instance, consider an 8th level Wizard with 24 intelligence (18 base + 2 racial + 2 level-up + 2 headband) and the Focused Mind trait. He has +17 concentration. His highest level spells are 4th level, which requires a DC 18 concentration check. He succeeds even if he rolls a 1. Raising the DC's won't help, either. This Wizard will just spend more on feats and possibly magic items to boost his concentration check higher, while other spellcasting classes will be unable to afford to meet the higher DC's.

This rule also renders spontaneous spellcasters like Sorcerers far less useful. While a few archetypes have very powerful abilities that might be worth pursuing, for the most part Clerics and Wizards just outclass every other primary spellcasting class completely under these rules.

Finally, any creature immune to fatigue (most notably undead or oracles with the lame curse) take no penalty from failing checks and just get free limitless spellcasting with no downsides, making them far more powerful under these rules.

All things considered, this rule looks to make 9-level spellcasters completely gamebreaking. Many players and GM's already take issue with just how powerful these classes are, and these rules would only make the problems worse.

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4.- every character (including monsters and npcs) have hp equal to his minimum posible HP as if all his HD where nat 1s

I had to reread that a few times to make sure I got it right. Minimum, okay. First of all, this effectively is taking away the class features of some classes. If everyone gets 1 hit point per hit die, there is no difference between the Barbarians d12 die and the Wizard's d6. All that matters is your constitution score, and this means you need a pretty hefty constitution score to even consider being a front-liner. This makes a high constitution score necessary for survival, and hurts character classes that relied on high hit dice to get away with below-average constitution.

For most characters, this won't be counter-balanced by the armor change in rule #2. For instance, a 10th level Paladin with 14 constitution and favored class bonus has 40 hit points under your rules, but under official rules would average 90 hit points. Even presuming indestructible armor granting no downsides 50% chance to avoid damage, he's still behind. Moreover, it creates a critical vulnerability if he is denied his armor for any reason (it was broken, he was ambushed and wasn't wearing it, the party was sneaking around and he couldn't afford ACP, etc) he is ridiculously fragile and monsters that should be very easily for him to solo 1 on 1 can potentially kill him with a single full attack. For melee characters that use light or no armor, such as Rogues or Monks, this is just a massive nerf and probably renders those classes unplayable as melee characters.

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5.- GP per lv is equal to heroic npc vercion

This is generally not advisable. Some classes handle low wealth very easily, others struggle with it. It depends on the needs of the class and whether they have class features that can compensate. In particular, spellcasters tend to dominate when other classes have weaker magic items. This is because wizards can often duplicate the effects of magic items they can't afford by dedicating a few extra spell slots (which is even easier under your rules) whereas classes like the Fighter really have no recourse but to depend on the party wizard to share the spells. My own experiences with low wealth have never been positive.

So, overall, I have a very negative reaction to these houserules. If they work for your group that's great, but I wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole personally.


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If the errata hadn't killed it, I'd play a Scarred Witch Doctor under those rules.
Instead I'll make do with a Industrious Human Cleric (Wis 20) with Focused Mind trait, Combat Casting, and Uncanny Concentration. That's a +12 on concentration checks at level 1, going up to +16 when casting defensively. That mean that I have no chance to fail when not fatigued. Even better, if for any reason I ever become fatigued, I can start casting defensively to lower my failure chance from 20% down to no risk. If I ever become exhausted, the same trick will lower my failure chance from 45% to 25%.
My infinite CLW/Doom/Magic Weapon/Shield of Faith/Summon Monster caster is ready.
This trick can be done with any 9-caster class, for the lovers of Color Spray, Ray of Enfeeblement and other magic missiles.
As a sidenote : considering that a 1st-level anything has 1+Con HP... Magic Missile is pretty much a death sentence.

Conclusion : Broken. Definitively, Utterly, Big-B Broken.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

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You'd have to give specifics.

Also, that sounds more like an alpha test than a beta test. If the content is experimental and running through the main design iteration loop, then that sounds like an alpha test. I'm a software engineer that moonlights as a game designer.


1. How does this work in detail

2.cancelling critical hits is very harsh for those who rely on it. Also when combined with the hp rule thismakes most attacks basically save or dies.

3. There are so many ways to ignore this penaltiy as the others have said.

4.this makes combat ultra lethal. You can easily build a level 4 warrior that's capable of dealing 2d6+11 damage and that's not counting any bonuses from a pc class. The most HP that you can have at that level in your game is 28 with toughness, favored class hp and 18 con. The sample level 4 fighter has 12, falling unconcious from minimum damage.

5.I guess this is to stop them from affording all the raise dead spells the need.


No, no, no, no and no. Dasrak gave a very good explanation why.


Cutting the likelihood of a crit by 50% sucks, but remember that with these rules you also have minimum HP and will probably loose you armor at some point too. These do sound pretty harsh though. I would have to see the rules in more specific detail. How often do the PCs die?

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