None.
I don't think that realistic is something that can or (most importantly) should be done with PF rules.
It's not that we don't like house rules per se, we use house rules that make sense to all of us (or at least to most of us), so that the game is more fun and more balanced for everyone.... most of the time.
If a character rolls a nat 20, then its automatically double damage and no need to cofirm a crit...some of the house rules we used turned into actual rules such as a character not dying until he reaches the amount of con points to negative hp
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I'm curious, what houserules people have come up with to make things "realistic".
More range on thrown weapons?
Facing for shields?
Shiney armor giving bonuses to being spotted?
Personally I wouldn't do it. It just opens the door for arguments with players over what is or is not realistic. The rules gloss over things with a number of abstractions, which may or may not be "realistic", but they keep things simple.
Keep in mind you can always award a circumstance bonus of plus or minus two on an ad hoc basis if you feel the need to adjust things too.
If realism were a goal for me, I would change to a different system very quickly.
I look upon Pathfinder as a fantasy superhero game, and that's just fine. That is what most of the Pathfinder adventure content calls for, and they work very well together.
The basic changes I would make to Pathfinder for realism's sake have a tendency to run deep into the system — armor as DR, the role of HP, combat as a skill, the role of levels... it all adds up very quickly to a completely different system.
If I'm throwing out half the rulebook and I can't even use the statblocks from published adventures, I might as well start with an entirely different and well supported system. Sometimes I do feel that way, and I go play another game. But there are a few things that Pathfinder is just great for, so I keep coming back.
im not advocating realism in d20, i just always hear the people who do want it say "that's not realistic" and wanted to hear from people who HAVE tried changing the rules to be "more real", why they felt it necessary, and how it improved or hurt their gameplay
Oh, more power to you! I am not opposed to the idea, I just find that the attempt usually makes a lot material un-usable.
This thread has been quite active recently, and I think it is a "realism" houserule, brought on my my cognitive dissonance with hit points.
I've also been known to suggest that Arcane Spell Failure be rolling into encumbrance penalties, such that a wizard can't be laden with gear weighing many times as much has armor and still cast.
The best rules need a light touch, I believe. And rule like E6 go a long way to eliminating the source of most unrealistic things — mainly, the long list of superpowers accompanying every class. The fewer characters who defy reality with their class abilities, the fewer unrealistic results must be houseruled.
I added a house rule in 3.5 that shields added to touch AC. I haven't done that with PF yet, but then, nobody in the PC group uses a shield.
We play with a rule that caster characters with crafting feats can also "disenchant" magic items to get half the item's value in components (we usually just call it "magic essence dust" or whatever) that they can then use to craft items. Since normally you sell magic items for half price and then also craft items at half price, it doesn't affect the game in any way, really. It just makes it so there is less "going to the market" to sell ridiculous amounts of items, and also takes care of the problem that I have never been able to wrap my head around what the gold piece cost in crafting relates to for most items, especially the real expensive ones.
We play with a rule that caster characters with crafting feats can also "disenchant" magic items to get half the item's value in components (we usually just call it "magic essence dust" or whatever) that they can then use to craft items. Since normally you sell magic items for half price and then also craft items at half price, it doesn't affect the game in any way, really. It just makes it so there is less "going to the market" to sell ridiculous amounts of items, and also takes care of the problem that I have never been able to wrap my head around what the gold piece cost in crafting relates to for most items, especially the real expensive ones.
Also, it lets Goody-goody (or evil-evil) characters "do" something with those items that carry an opposing alignment. I mean really it kinda blows to kill the big antipaladin, and get some potions as useable gear What are you supposed to do with the unholy sword sell it? That seems like rearming your enemies.
Edit: Let me be clear this was one of my favorite ideas I culled directly from 4ed D&D with great joy at how much sense it made and why hadn't it been introduced to the game earlier.
We play with a rule that caster characters with crafting feats can also "disenchant" magic items to get half the item's value in components (we usually just call it "magic essence dust" or whatever) that they can then use to craft items. Since normally you sell magic items for half price and then also craft items at half price, it doesn't affect the game in any way, really. It just makes it so there is less "going to the market" to sell ridiculous amounts of items, and also takes care of the problem that I have never been able to wrap my head around what the gold piece cost in crafting relates to for most items, especially the real expensive ones.Also, it lets Goody-goody (or evil-evil) characters "do" something with those items that carry an opposing alignment. I mean really it kinda blows to kill the big antipaladin, and get some potions as useable gear What are you supposed to do with the unholy sword sell it? That seems like rearming your enemies.
That too. And magic items from giants and other non-normal sized creatures. It's lame to kill a whole tribe of giants and then have to sell the items you got from them back to other giants (if you can find some!) or for hugely reduced priced to normal merchants who can't figure out who in the city of humans is going to want a magical large-sized ogre hook.
The most unrealistic rules in the game pertain to the economy. If I were going to attempt to make the game "more realistic", that's where I'd start. All of the superhuman abilities that normal characters exhibit are not only supposed to be unrealistic, they make more sense than the economy does.
The most unrealistic rules in the game pertain to the economy. If I were going to attempt to make the game "more realistic", that's where I'd start. All of the superhuman abilities that normal characters exhibit are not only supposed to be unrealistic, they make more sense than the economy does.
I run into trouble when I go down that path.
The real-life economy is not very realistic either.
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Hit points do not exist. When a character takes damage, he must make a Fort save. The DC is equal to the damage dealt. On a failed save, he falls unconscious if the damage is nonlethal, and dies if the damage is lethal.
Holy crappola, TOZ, do you really play like that? I would think that would result in HeroLab being necessary in order to provide new characters very quickly...
I would be very surprised if any insanity system ever made a game more realistic. It's just another thing that is very, very hard to make accurate, much of which is irrelevant to the game. Insanity can be cool, but, it should probably be in there for a game-play or tone reason, or it won't achieve much except filling page upon page with rules.
On that note, I am often puzzled by the way people seem to confuse "detailed rules" and "gritty tone" with "realistic content". Look at Dwarf Fortress. Watch as the rules tell you that somebody bruised a dwarf's left upper-arm fat. Watch as your dwarf shatters their spine by swinging a baby at them, or decapitates them with snow.
The problem with detail is there's more to get wrong and detail in itself is not realist. The problem with gritty is it tends to be gritty even when that's unrealistic.
I think you've really got to ask yourself what you want out of realism. Do you want grit? Do you want to get rid of silly rules interactions? Do you want to make some particular aspect of the system more believable? Anybody who thinks they're after realism is probably hoping to achieve something like that by adding it.
If you ask me, the best thing to do is skip realism completely. Introduce your end goal to the game directly and without regard for how realistic your solution is and the right kind of realism for your game will probably follow.
If you want the game less over the top, I'd recommend looking at E6 and its variants. Characters don't get too far beyond the believable that way.
If you want things messy and gritty, or add more of a sense of risk and long-term consequence to combat, I think you could do worse that adopting a variation on the critical damage system from the 40k rpgs. You get all the good parts of a critical hit table without the random character slaughter or sudden, anticlimactic ends to fights.
If you just want people to die more and not come back, kill them more and remove the spells that raise them.
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I'm curious, what houserules people have come up with to make things "realistic".
More range on thrown weapons?
Facing for shields?
Shiney armor giving bonuses to being spotted?
Not so much realism as simulationist gaming (there is a difference).
I'm sure i'll get flammed/pegged for some of these rules but, what the hell.
Some of what I use are holdovers from earlier editions or material from other games that made more "sense" - again a term which applies to my games and my groups prefered style of play.
So here are a few:
Weapon/action speed and resolution - faster actions are faster and there is no set cycle of actions. Everything checked round to round.
I do use shield facing, I also count shields (and any magic bonus on the shield) and magic bonuses on the armor to touch AC.
Specific injuries (as determined by circumstance) may give long term or permanent negs unless healed by restoration, etc. So a fighter takes plenty of hits over the course of play -not an issue, that same fighter holds onto an object that is damaging him (for a few rounds) because he has to then he may get a neg in his hand till it fully heals (beyond full hp/ standard cure spells).
Wizards and clerics get tired and weaker as they cast spells, spells are draining on the character - the higher the spell, the greater the impact. No in-game neg to the caster per se, but a cap on their action, status, and minimum rest time requirements.
All med/hvy armor have some form of DR. They also have crit confirm bonuses vs. different types of attacks. A full suit of normal chain also gets DR 1 vs slashing weapons.
Another smaller rule which is used infrequently (but the fighters like it) is a crit resist bonus check. Ex -Chainmail is better vs slashing, so the second check to confirm a crit vs. a sword (slashing) is a little harder (+2). Again, some of these are holdovers/mutant rules from older editions - and those were not grounded in realism, but more logic/simulationist based within the confines of an RPG.
Those are just a few of the big ones, there are some small ones I can't think of off the top of my head.
Edit to add: Raise Dead (of any kind) much harder, need something akin to the old SS roll from 1st/2nd ed but not tied to CON.
Holy crappola, TOZ, do you really play like that?Who the hell do you think I am?
I am going to borrow this idea to prank players I have wanting to play a "realistic" d20 modern game with zombies using themselves as characters. Heh-heh...