Ouch! That last one reduces the average charges of a wand by more than half at best! I can see the appeal in less reliable wands that you don't need to track, but those are worth less than half as much money.
If it was roll a 1 or 2 on a d100, that would be ok, but it'd till be really disappointing whenever they ran out. Very unlikely negative results are no fun without a good possibility to balance them out. Since the wand is less dependable and manageable, I think it would be fine to have some beneficial effect on a roll of 00. Maybe add a meta-magic effect?
Simpler would just be to rule that such cranky wands are cheap to producer, so halve the cost of the wands (both in how much they cost, and how much they cost to make) and be done with it. Same flavor, benefit for the player as well.
Is it weird that a lot of these actually sound playable if not fun to me?Nope. The problem in most of these posts is that the house rules were put in place by an ass-hole or by somebody who didn't understand the consequences.
Those 12 archers all full attacking while moving? They are the horror story, not the house rule that makes it possible. I could make lots of CR appropriate encounters that would kill all my players. You don't need zany house rules to be a jerk or a fool.
I can see a game with an obscenely weird critical fumbles table being good fun. Fumble on a 1 on your first attack in a round, a 1 on a skill check, or if the first enemy you affect gets a 20 on its save. A fumble might do damn near anything. You roll on a big, big table. Some results are reasonable, some are absolutely ridiculous.
Full attacks as a standard action sound ok to me. Might have to limit that somehow, like reducing your speed so melee guys can catch up with archers, but on the other hand, spellcasters are perfectly capable of running back and casting every round already, so it could be fine.
We all know archery is a pretty powerful form of combat anyway, so how about saying melee full attacks are standard actions, archers still need to a full round action to full attack. If it needs explanation, it's because a bow is just not as quickly fired as a melee weapon is swung, which as far as i know is entirely realistic (melee: swing, bring around, swing; archery: draw arrow, align on bow, draw, aim, release, draw arrow).
I just need to figure out how this should relate to charges and pounce.
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@Threeshades: This will probably shock you.
I would just make it a single attack on a Charge and make Pounce add the +2 to Damage as well.
okay fine a high level archer gets access to full attack archery as a standard action through a feat. But normal archers don't. They do compare him to four others who aren't nearly as fast.
Halving the cost of wands would probably be too good if we're talking about a 1/50 chance and not good enough if we're talking about a 1/20 chance. Also it would make really good wands accessible early and generally be a pretty big change.
What might be better is to give it a 1/50 chance of dying, but give you an enhanced effect when it dies. Maybe it shatters and goes off twice in a row?
Threeshades, I'm not sure I like the idea of an exception for ranged attacks when spells can already do pretty much the same thing.
The one on wands that I saw, was a variant of the roll and the wand dies on a 1, but you start with a 1d12. When you roll a 1, drop to the next lower die size. 1d12->1d10->1d8->1d6->1d4->dead. On average you would get about 40 uses out of a wand, with a minimum of 5 uses.
Threeshades, I'm not sure I like the idea of an exception for ranged attacks when spells can already do pretty much the same thing.
I think melee types should have some sort of edge anyway, otherwise they will only be outmaneuvered or outgunned (archers and casters can just move away and wail away at melee types at full power, the melees can only catch up in one round by charging or they will not attack at all). So in that case i would allow full attacks on charges and give creatures with pounce an extra bonus on the charge.
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The one on wands that I saw, was a variant of the roll and the wand dies on a 1, but you start with a 1d12. When you roll a 1, drop to the next lower die size. 1d12->1d10->1d8->1d6->1d4->dead. On average you would get about 40 uses out of a wand, with a minimum of 5 uses.
That's way better. At least you see the end of the wand coming.
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Worst houserules experience EVAR:
Houstonderek and I had the misfortune to collaborate on creating "Kirthfinder." It's not better; it's just different in exactly the ways we wanted it to be.
As a result, now neither of us has any fun playing straight Pathfinder.
Be careful what you wish for!
So this new group I joined.. I'm the new guy, so I don't wanna seem like the crazy rules lawyer, I'm trying to keep it cool. But they just hadn't realized exactly how AoOs work.
Anytime you step INTO a threatened area you get attacked. Let's just say the fighters were having a rather painful day, since they also didn't wait for enemies to charge THEM.
Later in the session I did gently inform them how it really works, and all was well again in Golarion :)
This is straight from the PRD
Provoking an Attack of Opportunity: Two kinds of actions can provoke attacks of opportunity: moving out of a threatened square and performing certain actions within a threatened square.
Does this mean a hunter can charge past a hypnotized minion to get to the vampire without provoking?
okay fine a high level archer gets access to full attack archery as a standard action through a feat. But normal archers don't. They do compare him to four others who aren't nearly as fast.
True but in a Medieval or Fantasy World they all would be trained in the methods Lars is using.
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The one on wands that I saw, was a variant of the roll and the wand dies on a 1, but you start with a 1d12. When you roll a 1, drop to the next lower die size. 1d12->1d10->1d8->1d6->1d4->dead. On average you would get about 40 uses out of a wand, with a minimum of 5 uses.
Combining that with the "free metamagic on a highest die result" is actually... really interesting! You'd have to change wan pricing quite a bit (or use two dice instead of one), but the idea that as a wand's power gets used up it becomes more unpredictable is kind of neat...
The one on wands that I saw, was a variant of the roll and the wand dies on a 1, but you start with a 1d12. When you roll a 1, drop to the next lower die size. 1d12->1d10->1d8->1d6->1d4->dead. On average you would get about 40 uses out of a wand, with a minimum of 5 uses.
I rather like this. Trouble is, what would such a wand cost? ~_~
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The one on wands that I saw, was a variant of the roll and the wand dies on a 1, but you start with a 1d12. When you roll a 1, drop to the next lower die size. 1d12->1d10->1d8->1d6->1d4->dead. On average you would get about 40 uses out of a wand, with a minimum of 5 uses.I rather like this. Trouble is, what would such a wand cost? ~_~
Price by the expected value of the number of remaining uses. If the wand still uses a 1d12, it's priced as if it had 40 charges; if it's down to 1d10, it's priced as if it had 28 charges; 1d8, 18 charges; 1d6, 10 charges; and 1d4, just 4 charges.
I know, right? XD
Mind explaining the math, Roberta (for those of us that aren't very good at it, haha)? Seriously, I have no idea!
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Mind explaining the math, Roberta (for those of us that aren't very good at it, haha)? Seriously, I have no idea!
Let's start with the d4 alone first, since that actually generalizes to the stronger wands.
The expected value of the number of uses you'll get out of the d4 wand is some number. Call it x. Now, let's divide the scenario into two cases: the case where you roll a 1 on your first roll, and the case where you don't.
If you roll a 1 on your first roll, the wand only worked once. If you didn't roll a 1 on your first roll, how many more uses can you expect to get out of the wand? Well, there should still be an average of x uses remaining; since the wand doesn't "remember" that any previous rolls occurred, rolling numbers other than 1 does nothing to the expected value of the number of remaining charges, so you would expect the wand to work a total of x+1 times.
There's a 1/4 probability of rolling a 1 on your first roll and a 3/4 probability of rolling something else. Dividing up by cases, the expected value of the number of uses you'll get out of the wand should be the probability of rolling a 1 immediately times the number of uses you expect to get given that you rolled a 1 immediately, plus the probability of not rolling a 1 times the expected number of uses given that your first roll was not a 1. In other words:
x = (1/4)*1 + (3/4)*(x+1)
Solve for x and you get that x=4. A wand that rolls a d4 and stops working after rolling a 1 has an expected value of 4 uses in it.
This is part of a more general result in probability: if an event has a probability of p of occurring on each trial, and you perform trials until that event occurs, the expected value of the number of trials you need to perform is 1/p. You can see this by the exact same derviation we performed above; just replace 1/4 with whatever p is appropriate. For example, if you want to know how many times you can roll a d20 on average before rolling a 1, 2, or 3, you would get x=(3/20)*1+(17/20)*(x+1) and find that 20/3=6.67 is the expected number of rolls you'd need to make before rolling 3 or under.
Now, here's the nice thing about expected value: it distributes. The expected value of the sum of two random variables x+y is just the expected value of x plus the expected value of y. So how many total uses to you expect to get out of the d12 wand? Well, first, how many uses to you expect out of it before it degrades to d10? 12. How many do you expect to get after it degrades to d10 but before it degrades to d8? 10. And so on. Your d12 wand has an expected number of charges equal to 12+10+8+6+4, which is 40.
Thank you. Can't say I fully comprehend it all, but it's greatly appreciated.
That looks pretty damn good. If there's an improved effect, I think I'd prefer it to be on the same result as the die size downgrade. That way, bad luck loses its sting a little.
Each wand could have an overload metamagic feat and be priced as though it had extra charges equal to its level increase multiplied by the remaining die size steps.
eg a wand of fireball with maximised overload would be priced as though it had 55 charges if it were still on a d12 or 7 charges if it was all the way down to a d4.
Anybody see any problems with that?
The one on wands that I saw, was a variant of the roll and the wand dies on a 1, but you start with a 1d12. When you roll a 1, drop to the next lower die size. 1d12->1d10->1d8->1d6->1d4->dead. On average you would get about 40 uses out of a wand, with a minimum of 5 uses.I rather like this. Trouble is, what would such a wand cost? ~_~
Yeah, not my idea. Someone posted that on the suggestion forums years ago.
nice probability explanation.... did have a minor story...
had a houserule of nat 20 auto hit, threat... not too uncommon a houserule :D
confirm at nat20: autocrit, double threat... a little more interesting
confirm: slay (ie: vorpal-esque)
had a friend rolled 4 20's in a row... my poor poor pc...his dice are bipolar... if he's DM'n he is insane... as a player...well.. balance in all things and all that.
have also seen, every nat 20=x2 dice. or every confirm crit = +1d and keep confirming until ya missed.
... the first nat 20 was jokingly called a houserule.
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The one on wands that I saw, was a variant of the roll and the wand dies on a 1, but you start with a 1d12. When you roll a 1, drop to the next lower die size. 1d12->1d10->1d8->1d6->1d4->dead. On average you would get about 40 uses out of a wand, with a minimum of 5 uses.Combining that with the "free metamagic on a highest die result" is actually... really interesting! You'd have to change wan pricing quite a bit (or use two dice instead of one), but the idea that as a wand's power gets used up it becomes more unpredictable is kind of neat...
I do have a d30 I've been hoping to find an actual use for-- having wands expire on a 1 out of 30 would be an interesting idea. But as far as "free metamagic on a highest die roll" goes, would the metamagic effect also be random, or would each wand have a single metamagic feat baked in? What if a PC takes Craft Wand, but doesn't know any metamagic feats? What if the wand's normal charges are metamagic?
Speaking of highest die results and house rules, it seems every table has their own house rules on what happens when you roll a natural 20 (or 1). I've never met a gamer who was content to just let a natural 20 just mean "20 + whatever I add to this roll". Critical decks and fumble decks are one of many examples, and of course the rule applies differently to attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks. At this point, I can't even tell what the actual rules are. Does a natural 20...
-mean auto-succeed on a saving throw? on a skill check?
-add +10 to the result? add +10 only if it's an "opposed check"?
-guarantee you win initative?
-threaten an instant kill on a critical hit confirmation?
Does a natural 1...
-threaten to break or drop your weapon on an attack roll (and force you to "confirm the fumble")?
-cause your attack to hit a random adjacent square (and any creature, ally or enemy, in it)?
-grant the NPC a +10 on his "opposed check"?
-cause you to take double damage from whatever you were rolling a saving throw to avoid?
-auto-fail any skill check, even if your bonuses were still enough to beat the DC?
I've seen all of the above, and more, as house rules, and it's enough to make me not even want to roll a 20.
Confirm a crit. Another nat 20 confirms almost regardless.
A 1 always misses. If anyone tries to look at it to call for a fumble, I grab the D20 and put it away. I am emotionally scarred. Deal with it.
I play with a friend who takes the rules... loosely. To him, a natural 20 is not only an automatic success, but a spectacular one. Even on skill checks. Or ad-hoc whatevers. For example, he brags about how one time, when the party was facing a dragon, someone said "I want a chihuahua to bite the head off of the dragon". The player was not only allowed a roll, but succeeded on a nat 20. He wasn't DMing this encounter, but the unfortunate debacle stained his concept of how rolling for stuff works.
In combat, two nat 20's in a row is an automatic kill on any target.
Now, commoners have a 5% chance to jump into outer space if that's what they're trying to do. One in twenty toddlers can con the castle out from under a king. I keep trying to explain to him how this is not only congruent with reality, but not fun either. Hopefully I'll be able to get through to him.
I play with a friend who takes the rules... loosely. To him, a natural 20 is not only an automatic success, but a spectacular one. Even on skill checks. Or ad-hoc whatevers. For example, he brags about how one time, when the party was facing a dragon, someone said "I want a chihuahua to bite the head off of the dragon". The player was not only allowed a roll, but succeeded on a nat 20. He wasn't DMing this encounter, but the unfortunate debacle stained his concept of how rolling for stuff works.
In combat, two nat 20's in a row is an automatic kill on any target.
Now, commoners have a 5% chance to jump into outer space if that's what they're trying to do. One in twenty toddlers can con the castle out from under a king. I keep trying to explain to him how this is not only congruent with reality, but not fun either. Hopefully I'll be able to get through to him.
Easy.
Actually have your character go to the bathroom during the game. Tell your friend your character is going to ##*@ a gold brick. Roll for it. Do this every day in game. A gold brick weighs 50lbs. If you really want to go all out, tell him your character is going to @*#$ an adamantine brick. :)
I play with a friend who takes the rules... loosely. To him, a natural 20 is not only an automatic success, but a spectacular one. Even on skill checks. Or ad-hoc whatevers. For example, he brags about how one time, when the party was facing a dragon, someone said "I want a chihuahua to bite the head off of the dragon". The player was not only allowed a roll, but succeeded on a nat 20. He wasn't DMing this encounter, but the unfortunate debacle stained his concept of how rolling for stuff works.
In combat, two nat 20's in a row is an automatic kill on any target.
Now, commoners have a 5% chance to jump into outer space if that's what they're trying to do. One in twenty toddlers can con the castle out from under a king. I keep trying to explain to him how this is not only congruent with reality, but not fun either. Hopefully I'll be able to get through to him.
This makes the, frankly, titanic assumption that the rules will apply to everyone, rather than just heroic PCs. In some sorts of instances, where the success might just be within the realm of fantasy reality even if highly improbable, this could make for a fun game. Gives you an idea how a guy like Heracles could accomplish some of his fantastic feats...
Isn't that one of the basic things in the gamemaster guide, the rules should apply equally to NPC's and PC's
I don't see any NPCs using Diplomacy on the PCs to make them helpful. So while that may be a useful guideline for some rules, it's clearly not universal.
I used to play with a group that interpreted the rules for taking damage while casting a spell as meaning you had to succeed on a concentration check if you had taken any damage since your last turn, with a DC equal to the cumulative damage you'd taken.
@Bill Dunn: Don't forget Hero Points being PC only without a feat investment.
@martinaj: I have played and ran a campaign with a similar rule. Though it was only the Maximum Damage you took not a Cumulative Total.
That's another rule that doesn't sound too terrible. It makes life harder for casters, sure, but once you can survive successful focus fire you're pretty powerful anyway. Max damage does sound like the better rule.
Honestly, these dumb rules seem to have so much potential if a little thought is applied. I mean, the auto success on a skill check is a TERRIBLE rule, but what if you combined it with the +10 rule? Would that work? Looks to me like it could.
How would it work? So you might Roll a Natural 20 on your Survival +15 Check you would end up with a 45 Survival. Yet Auto-Succeed. Kinda Redundant to bother unless that was to find food for everyone.
the idea is you get a +10 bonus instead of an actual auto-success. That way you cannot succeed a check to jump to the moon, but you can still do anything people can do if you're lucky.
Except pinpoint invisible foes. No natural force can help you there.
I'm not sure how easy this would make it to dogpile people with opposed checks, but I'm not seeing any other significant problems.
Ok now it makes sense.
my worst house rule: spell points like psionic points... every caster has a mess on the table with that rule... a lot of numbers.
we put it back and burried deep in the ground!!
now theyre back, 1 point per spell level cost, but all we have some kind of fear to use it because the last exp... maybe we dump it again
What is the Point Progression? And how do you handle Diminished Spellcasting?
3.5 had a spell point system in the Players Guide II ( or was it the DMGII?). It wasn't bad, it was fairly popular in my games. I personally liked it because it made more sense to me that you had X amount of power you could channel per day, and you got to decide if it was channeled into 15 1st level spells, or 3 3rd level spells.
It was in Unearthed Arcana, actually. They might have rehashed it in the PH2 or DMG2, but I don't recall it there.
Yeah, though the trouble with it is it made the wizard more flexible than the standard sorcerer with no downside other than damage spells costing extra points to scale.
It's in the 3.5 SRD, so it's available here for free.
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The way I would get around that is to make the wizard allocate all his spell points each morning. He could do it as 15 1st level spells, or 3 3rd levels, or whatever he wanted, but he had to allocate them ahead of time. Or he had to leave points unallocated, but require the same time required to fill unallocated slots under existing rules.
Back in 1st/2nd ed, I had a wand house rule I tried out. Since it was really hard to learn exactly now many charges a wand had, instead of me secretly keeping track of every wand's charges, I instead had the owner roll 1d20 and add the number of charges he'd previously used. If he ever rolled over 50, then that was the last charge. I moved record keeping out of my list of things to keep track of, but still kept the number of charges a mystery.
That's a pretty good rule right there TwoWolves.
mdt, I always thought it should work that way, but I assumed there was some reason it didn't. Most likely the time it would take to prepare spells.
I think a better rule might be:
A Wizard can only cast two unique spells per day at first level, plus one at third level and every two levels thereafter. In addition, you can cast a number of different cantrips per day equal to your Intelligence bonus.
As a variant on the variant on the variant, the wizard might be able to use metamagic without increasing casting time, but each different feat he uses counts against his unique spells that day (or his cantrips, if it's a +0 spell levels feat).
@mortuum
That adds too much red tape to it.
Prepared spells cost points, take them out of the pool. If you leave pool unspent in the morning, you can use the unspent points to
A) Boost the dice of damage spells (as per the UA rules for boosting spells) by spending the unallocated points, with a maximum of the maximum t spell does (IE: A 5th level caster could boost his fireball from 3d6 to 5d6 by spending most of his magic for the day on the fly if he only prepared the fireball in the morning).
B) Apply Metamagic feats on the fly by spending unallocated magic points (minimum 1, for +0 metamagic effects).
C) Spend 15 minutes preparing new spells using those points at some later time during the day.
5. Instead of charges on wands, roll a die (usually d20, but sometimes smaller dice). On a 1, the wand was on its last charge, and did not function after that use. After twice (in a row!) buying wands of cure light wounds for 750 gp, and having them work only once, I told him how much I disliked that rule.
Sounds like he was really into ADOM or Nethack or something.
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Oh god those games. They'd be a goldmine of horrible house rules.
"Hey guys, I was playing this awesome game and I've decided that from now on, when a character polymorphed into an egg-laying creature sits down, they'll lay an egg and anyone who eats it might get sick and die! Oh, and shopkeepers are level 20 and random level 1 gnome experts have wands of Finger of Death! This is gonna be the best session EVER!"