quetzyl's page

I've played a paladin who worked well as part of the group:

Classic Knight in Shining Armor. Blew his trumpet before every battle, always allowed enemies to surrender, etc. He worked because he was neither bright nor perceptive, and out of character I was entirely happy for the rest of the party to trick him on numerous occasions, when it was necessary or sensible to do something that he would not approve of. Paladins, more than most classes, need a separation between in character morality and ooc attitude.

Cheers,

quetzyl

Houserule suggestion: As a swift action as part of a move action, you may kick an adjacent prone target, inflicting 1pnt of subdual damage and waking up sleeping targets.

I have this as a standard houserule, it means that allies don't have to waste a standard action waking up a sleeping friend.

Cheers,

quetzyl

In my opinion, it is his game and it is perfectly reasonable to rule either way on how that ability can be used. If he as GM wants to rule that the ability can only be used in combat situations then that is his call to make (I personally disagree, and would allow it to be used in non-combat scenarios). Even restricted it is a powerful and useful ability.

However, it is totally unreasonable to heavily penalise the character without any warning. He should remove (or at least allow to be removed as part of the story) the penalties, and you should both just start using the ability only the way he says it works. I would certainly be dubious about playing in a game run by someone who does things like that.

Hi,

I am considering making TWF and Vital Strike both single feats rather than chains; that is if you take TWF you get ITWF for free when your BAB hits +11, and GTWF free with BAB +16. As far as I can see, this slightly powers up two notably weak feat trees, and doesn't lead to any broken or overpowered characters. Specifically, even with this houserule 2Hander wielders still outdamage TWF. Can anyone see any major flaws or builds that can really take advantage of this?

Cheers,

quetzyl

Hi,

It is generally accepted that rogues are one of the weaker classes. I am considering the following house rule to strengthen them and make them more flexible:

Replace Trapfinding with one of the following:

Dungeon Delver: Add 1/2 level to all Disable Device and Perception checks.
Socialite: Add 1/2 level to Bluff and Diplomacy
Scout: Add 1/2 level to Stealth and Perception

etc

All rogues can use diable device on magic traps.

Basically rather than getting a bonus to one limited application of 2 skills, they get a general bonus to two skills of their choice.

What do people think? Too strong? I think it make rogues the clear winners in skill use in their area of focus, which gives them a stronger niche.

Cheers,

quetzyl

A houserule I have used, that combines restricting the power of (most) spell casters and making Cha more important:

All save DC's are based on Charisma, while spells known/bonus spells etc are still based on the normal stat.

So a wizard needs both a high Int, to get bonus spells and to be able to cast high level spells, and a high Cha for save DC's.

Obviously this powers up sorcerors and other charisma based casters compared with wizards and clerics.

I love the mythos, and I have two shout outs to it in my campaign. Firstly the ghouls, who are intelligent immortal feasters on human flesh, who can gain the knowledge of those they consume, and who seek to educate others in the joys of eating the flesh of the dead. While they are undead, they generally do not attack the living, just wait patiently for them to die.
Secondly the Outer Gods, incomprehensible things from outside the universe. Those who start to learn about them discover that the more you learn of them, the more they learn of you... I may be getting an Oracle who draws his power from them, and has a new and home brewed curse to reflect it. This will only happen if the player is OK playing a character who will progressively get madder and more inhuman.

Cheers,

quetzyl

Cosmological note:
My world has three kinds of spiritual powers:
1) Gods, they are interested in and care about humans. Even the most evil gods encourage their worshippers to do things that will benefit the worshipper, like kill people and take their stuff. Evil gods may have angels serving them that systemwise use the stats of D&D demons but they are cosmologically not the same.
2) Demons (Devils, Daemons etc etc, they are all basically similar), they are interested in human, but do not care about them. They want their worshippers to become inhuman monsters, who kill for fun and torture and mutilate themselves as well as others.
3) The outer gods, who neither care nor have any interest in humans. They don't want anything, but merely knowing of their existance slowly warps the mind and soul.

I use 15 pnt buy, but give extra stat points that cannot raise stats above 18 at 2cd, 6th etc.

My house rules:

Counterspelling can be done as an immediate action, which dazes the caster for 1 round. Dispel Magic and similar spells get a -5 to caster level checks when used to counterspell in this manner. When used to counterspell dispel magic and similar spells give the caster a +10 bonus to the check.

Basically using dispel magic is made more likely to succeed, and you can attempt it even if you haven't readied an action by sacrificing your next action.

Cheers,
quetzyl

My House Rule:

A character or monster can at the start of their turn ignore one flanker and concentrate entirely on the other attacker. This means the character they are concentrating on cannot sneak attack and gains no flanking bonus to hit, while the other character is effectively invisible to them, gets +4 to hit v's their flatfooted AC, and can choose to spend a standard action and automatically critical hit. In addition they provoke a AoA from the ignored opponent at the start of each turn when they choose to ignore him.

I have found the penalties are sufficiently severe that it is rarely valuable, but I do think it worth having when being attacked by something that can barely hurt you, and a dangerous rogue. I also tend to have golems which are only attacking one target use this by default.

Cheers,
quetzyl