I also auto-ID magic items, because it just saves time and book keeping...
I follow a somewhat similar rule but with simplest of items, like cure potion or simple +1 arms and armor, just a simple low DC check and they know all they need.
Anything more then that and I ask for rolls. I love the facial expression of players when hey cannot identify a magic red apple for the 3rd day in a row, and no one has identify spell and they are too scared to try and bite it...| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I replaced the square grid with hexes. It makes movement easier and more organic and elimnates the screwy rules about reach weapons.
I am considering several systems to replace most magic items that grant static bonuses (i.e. the Big 6), but haven't settled on the system yet.
Hexes seem like a good idea, but it must be a pain drawing on a hex grid (that is, if you use a battle mat). Really, it's the only thing stopping me from using my mat's hex side (double-sided; squares on one side, hexes on the other).
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I have a double sided battle mat as well. During prep I pre-draw all of my maps on clear acetate (the clear plasticy stuff that teachers used on overhead projectors when I was in school) using which ever side works best for the guidelines (i.e. if I am drawing buildings or something else built intelligent creatures I use squares for guides, but if I am drawing natural caverns I find that using the hexes for guides gets me out of the "all walls meet at right angles" problem).
Then I just lay the acetate over the battle mat when it is needed. It also saves time during the game as I don't have to pause play for several minutes to draw each new map. It does present the problem partial hexes on the map, but I find the 50% rule (if half or more of the hex is available, then it can be occupied as if it were comletely valid, the same standard is applied to terrain features) solves that nicely.
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I have a double-sided mat too, and vastly prefer the hex side. No 1-2-1 movement or OoA oddities, and everything feels a bit more organic!
Drawing square shapes on a hex grid is disorienting at first, because the square-drawing technique we learned for traditional D&D maps doesn't really work with hexes: When drawing on a square grid, you draw walls atop the border between squares. But on a hex map, you want to avoid those borders. In this way, you can draw even square rooms and such on a hex map and completely avoid ambiguity: each hex is 90% on one side of a wall, or 90% on the other. If a character has access to 90% of a hex, it's usable; if not, it's not.
I guess I should practice drawing on the hex side; eliminating wacky diagonal movement is a huge improvement.
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I guess I should practice drawing on the hex side; eliminating wacky diagonal movement is a huge improvement.
My trick is; don't worry too much about the hexes (unless we're talking witches' hexes, but that's another story).
Free-hand draw your space. If necessary, use a regular tape-measure (or a seamstress line) to get the initial measurements, and work from there. The grid is there to regulate movement within your space; not the other way around (i.e. don't let the grid impose what you draw). Since you're there, let go of the otherwise omnipresent 90-degree angle and create round structures, passage at angles etc.
This means you'll have more half 5-foot spaces than on a regular published map; it's ok, you have the same issue when drawing round towers on a square grid. It also mean that you get the occasional "unwanted" bottleneck allowing a single 5-foot creature to defend a whole 10ft wide corridor and such, but you can roll with it and call it rubble, archways or other architectural/natural features that you wouldn't have included otherwise but spices-up your encounter (if you're mean, have the bad guys take advantage of the terrain they assumingly know better than the PCs, or traps etc).
For me, the hex-map was a liberating experience. Eliminating the wacky diagonal movement rate was just a bonus feature.
hexes are fun! (witches will agree)
For me, the hex-map was a liberating experience. Eliminating the wacky diagonal movement rate was just a bonus feature.
That's actually the main reason I'm thinking of going Hexes ... we always forget that 1-2-1 rule.
I often don't use a map at all. Imagination!
I'm too poor at spacial relationships and keeping track of where things are located to do so without having something to look at. I'm too visually-oriented for that I think.
Even before my group split across the country and we turned to using MapTool to keep games going, I'd still require coins or pegs or miniatures or something to keep track of where everyone was >_>
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As for house rules, I eliminate spell components other than the big, expensive ones. The idea that a spellcaster is able to sort through dozens of tiny components in a pouch to find the right ones in the middle of an intense combat doesn't make sense to me. It would be more like: "Where in the world did I put that bat guano again?"
That's actually the main reason I'm thinking of going Hexes ... we always forget that 1-2-1 rule.
For me, the hex-map was a liberating experience. Eliminating the wacky diagonal movement rate was just a bonus feature.
I adopted the 4th edition D&D rule on that: Every square costs 5 feet. So, you can move 6 squares diagonally (30 ft movement speed), instead of only 4. Makes it much easier.
I adopted the 4th edition D&D rule on that: Every square costs 5 feet. So, you can move 6 squares diagonally (30 ft movement speed), instead of only 4. Makes it much easier.That's actually the main reason I'm thinking of going Hexes ... we always forget that 1-2-1 rule.
For me, the hex-map was a liberating experience. Eliminating the wacky diagonal movement rate was just a bonus feature.
I've played a lot of 4e, and this is most definitely a viable option. Some people are bothered by the square fireballs, but every mapping/movement solution has its downsides.
I often don't use a map at all. Imagination!
I've heard of a lot of people doing this (playing without maps), but I've always had one. The idea is interesting, but I don't know how I'd play without one. How do you handle things like movement, spell area, creature size?
Ive been thinking of how to house rule in a dervish dance-like feat that allows you to do damage with dex. I think that it is too powerful to just be after weapon finesse but not powerful enough to dismiss it.
The solution that's in my house rules draft is to tax it with weapon focus and 5 ranks in acrobatics.
Any thoughts?
Ive been thinking of how to house rule in a dervish dance-like feat that allows you to do damage with dex. I think that it is too powerful to just be after weapon finesse but not powerful enough to dismiss it.
The solution that's in my house rules draft is to tax it with weapon focus and 5 ranks in acrobatics.
Any thoughts?
The catch comes down to two weapon fighting.
Dex to Damage + Two Weapon fighting is very strong, possibly too strong depending on how well you min max it. My solution was to make a feat that let you add half your dex bonus to damage. With half dex to damage, you will never get the same damage as a strength wielder, but you will not fall completely behind either.
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Because a 7-10 feat investment shouldn't be better than a 1-3?
It's fine with one Feat tax (weapon Finesse). You don't need to add something else arbitrarily.
5 ranks in Acrobatics kinda kills it because that means it's locked into being a 5th or 7th level Feat...LONG after someone wants to wait to be a proper Dex based character.
The catch comes down to two weapon fighting.Dex to Damage + Two Weapon fighting is very strong, possibly too strong depending on how well you min max it. My solution was to make a feat that let you add half your dex bonus to damage. With half dex to damage, you will never get the same damage as a strength wielder, but you will not fall completely behind either.
Even if that were the case (though you said it yourself, they won't match a Str wielder so why is it an issue that it makes them not fall behind?), he said a Dervish Dance-like Feat.
Which means no TWFing because you need a hand free.
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I often don't use a map at all. Imagination!I've heard of a lot of people doing this (playing without maps), but I've always had one. The idea is interesting, but I don't know how I'd play without one. How do you handle things like movement, spell area, creature size?
It does require a bit of trust between players and GMs, and it really works best to speed up high level play. I took a bunch of ideas from FATE RPG, in order to make it easier on myself.
I'll take a battle that my players had against a teleport trapped airship in the last game I ran.
The PCs teleported above the ship (with fly speeds, spells and riding pegasi, there was no real gravity issues). Then the ship was split into zones.
Zone 1: *Air above the airship.
Zone 2: Airship Deck
Zone 3: *Pilot's Cabin
Zone 4: *Airship Hold.
asterix zones are adjacent to the Airship Deck, players must move through the airship deck to get from one to the other.
Players can move from one Zone to the Next as a move action. There were 40 clockwork crewmen aboard the ship, so the players would throw a lot of AoE spells, alchemical bombs and whirlwind attacks to clear it.
For the bombs I ruled the splash would hit three other clockworks (and since he targeted a new clockwork with each bomb, I included a previously hit clockwork on each hit). Chain Lightning was pretty easy to adjudicate.
I also had 24 clockborg wyverns that were doing fire-breath strafing runs against the PCs (so I just multiplied average damage for 5d6 <17.5>), and they would just strike anyone within the same zone (though I did split them into two groups of 12... or actually 10 since two had died at PC hands earlier).
AoO's just get adjudicated as: "If a foe or PC does anything in the same zone that isn't an attack, it provokes."
I have a little PDF I'm putting together to give guidelines for more narrative style combat.
I'm presently attempting to create a combat system that can support both tactical maps and theatre of the mind styles of play (and map-less figurine play a la Warhammer 40K) for my own bastardized d20 system.
so far it's base on the definition of a "melee" as a group of opponents engaged in hand-to hand combat, and all its intricacies. It's... a work in progress.
Because a 7-10 feat investment shouldn't be better than a 1-3?
Well, if I make it non one-handed that would be weapon finesse, weapon focus with a finessable weapon, and new Dex to damage feat. Three feats on top of the three plus two feats. I think that makes it sufficiently weakened, although it would be more meaningful if there was a more undesirable feat tax. weapon focus may be too synergistic to be a tax.
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Your problem is thinking there needs to be a "tax". Feat taxes are terrible design, no need to add onto that terrible design by making more of them.
Prerequisites are not supposed to punich you for picking an option, they're supposed to be logical lead-ins to something else of a higher power level.
"I'm concerned the Feats I put as prerequisites work well together" is not a concern, it means you did prerequisites correctly.
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Because a 7-10 feat investment shouldn't be better than a 1-3?Well, if I make it non one-handed that would be weapon finesse, weapon focus with a finessable weapon, and new Dex to damage feat. Three feats on top of the three plus two feats. I think that makes it sufficiently weakened, although it would be more meaningful if there was a more undesirable feat tax. weapon focus may be too synergistic to be a tax.
2 weapon, imp 2 weap, grt 2 weapon, sup 2 weap, weapon focus, weapon finesse, dex feat. that's 7 and thats if you don't pick up double slice (which would kill your damage if you didn't), two weapon rend, and tow weapon defence. Those would make it 10 feats.
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Put that way twf is too feat intensive for a three feat chain to add Dex to damage so outside of Fighter I'll likely never see it used like that.
Your problem is thinking there needs to be a "tax". Feat taxes are terrible design, no need to add onto that terrible design by making more of them.
This so much. With feat chains that require feat after feat after feat instead of the more logical scaling progression getting second place in the bad design category.
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Funny, i ve been allow weapon finesse to grant dex to damage(but not 1.5 when two handing) well back into early 3.5 and i have never seen a dex character outclass a strength based character yet.
I use some rules I read here, but i want to mention one that I haven't already seen.
Falling damage: Creatures that fall take 1d6+3 points of damage per 10 feet fallen, to a maximum of 20d6+60. Other than that the falling damage behaves as usual.
I introduced this after seeing (not in my campaign) a player who jumped from a tall building to 'escape' from the attack of an NPC that would have been much more effective against him. It was such a terrible scene that now I use this rule :P
Poison. Something that causes ability damage that is delivered by wounds, "poisoning" food or drink, or rarely, poison gas. Using it against sentient beings is usually evil, but there are exceptions. Feathered serpent venom only affects evil creatures. With sleep poison, it depends on how you use it.
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I would like to replace all "you can't play no more" abilities and spells with ability damage effects.
So Paralysis or Hold Person would deal Str or Dex damage on a failed save, or a temporary penalty that wears off faster. Sleep might cause a Wisdom penalty, until eventually the character falls asleep.
That way players can keep playing and it tones down save or die abilities.
I would like to replace all "you can't play no more" abilities and spells with ability damage effects.
So Paralysis or Hold Person would deal Str or Dex damage on a failed save, or a temporary penalty that wears off faster. Sleep might cause a Wisdom penalty, until eventually the character falls asleep.
That way players can keep playing and it tones down save or die abilities.
I like it. A lot.
I replaced the square grid with hexes. It makes movement easier and more organic and elimnates the screwy rules about reach weapons.
I am considering several systems to replace most magic items that grant static bonuses (i.e. the Big 6), but haven't settled on the system yet.
Using hexes has been something ive been considering for a while. But there have been some questions i couldnt figure out. How do you handle larger creatures and the space they occupy as well as areas of effect?
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My house rules:
- No weapons at the table except the weapons on the weapons table.
- Any discussion of alcohol had better be discussing whiteboard markers, hand sanitizer, or Cayden Cailean. If the characters are drunk, it happens between sessions.
- No playing your wisdom as lower than it is, or lower than 12 (whichever is lower).
- No attacking other PCs.
- If this game were a movie, it should not be rated any higher than PG-13. Keep this in mind when describing attacks, choosing alignments, and speaking.
- No targeted slurs towards any group existing in real life. Insulting tieflings is acceptable. Insulting women is not.
My DM's house rules:
- Players keep the same initiative count throughout the session.
- Antagonists all act on the same initiative.
- Fine, Westcrown used to have an academy.
- If you are riding normally (no sharp turns, no galloping, no tricks) on roads in non-combat or chase conditions, you don't have to roll a Ride check.
- Seriously, everyone rolled 1s on their Knowledge: Planes checks for tieflings? You guys now have bad data. The Order of the Rack must be doing a good job with censorship.
- DMPCs are nowhere close to omniscient and generally should be told by PCs what to do.
Using hexes has been something ive been considering for a while. But there have been some questions i couldnt figure out. How do you handle larger creatures and the space they occupy as well as areas of effect?
Spreads are relatively easy as they fundamentally work the same; select an intersection and count spaces from it. Instead of having four juxtaposed spaces, a hex map has three hexes per intersection. This works even more intuitively than on a square grid.
Shapable x-number of 10ft squares are the most annoying since they don't stack nicely like jenga blocks anymore. Also, a 10ft-square (a "diamond" of four hexes) suddenly isn't the same as a 5ft-radius, which occasionally causes unforeseen mismatch where DM's ruling is in order (most common being a 5ft-radius spell/effect on a 10ft-space monster)
I would like to replace all "you can't play no more" abilities and spells with ability damage effects.
So Paralysis or Hold Person would deal Str or Dex damage on a failed save, or a temporary penalty that wears off faster. Sleep might cause a Wisdom penalty, until eventually the character falls asleep.
That way players can keep playing and it tones down save or die abilities.
I'm thinking of something similar. I might go through SoS and SoD spells and give them varying effects based on the targets CR compared to their level. We'll see.
Kirthfinder did that with its spells.
My house rules:
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- Any discussion of alcohol had better be discussing whiteboard markers, hand sanitizer, or Cayden Cailean. If the characters are drunk, it happens between sessions.
- If this game were a movie, it should not be rated any higher than PG-13. Keep this in mind when describing attacks, choosing alignments, and speaking.
Oh boy. The exact opposite of my old group.
My DM's house rules:
- If you are riding normally (no sharp turns, no galloping, no tricks) on roads in non-combat or chase conditions, you don't have to roll a Ride check.
That's not actually a house rule. That's how the ride skill works.
2 weapon, imp 2 weap, grt 2 weapon, sup 2 weap, weapon focus, weapon finesse, dex feat. that's 7 and thats if you don't pick up double slice (which would kill your damage if you didn't), two weapon rend, and tow weapon defence. Those would make it 10 feats.Because a 7-10 feat investment shouldn't be better than a 1-3?Well, if I make it non one-handed that would be weapon finesse, weapon focus with a finessable weapon, and new Dex to damage feat. Three feats on top of the three plus two feats. I think that makes it sufficiently weakened, although it would be more meaningful if there was a more undesirable feat tax. weapon focus may be too synergistic to be a tax.
First, I think your list is a lot bigger than what a min/maxer would use. Strictly speaking, TWF and Double Slice are the only feats required for a serious TWFer. Improved and greater TWF are nice to have, but most of your off hand damage comes from the first attack, so you don't HAVE to get those. Weapon Finesse, + dex to damage feat on top of that.
Second, Looking at damage is the wrong way to go. Look at the other benefits. We are talking about 4 feats. What do you get for those 4 feats? You get to put a 10 in strength, and dump all your boosts into dexterity. The net result is that a Dex based TWF will have +5 AC(and touch AC), +5 reflex saves, and +5 initiative or more over the strength based Two-hand fighter. There are no feat that the two hand fighter gets that can close that gap. So you end up with a strong damage dealer that also has a high AC, regularly goes first, and regularly makes their reflex saves.
On top of this, certain damage boosts, like bard performance, sneak attack, and paladin's smite evil, work a lot better for TWFers.
If that works for your game, go for it, I just wanted to make you aware that in the hands of a good min/maxer, dex to damage can be very strong.
PS: I play with weapon finesse as a free feat, so in my games, the difference is only 3 feats.
TLDR: The Dex to damage problem is that you are spending 4 feats for +5 AC, +5 initiative, and +5 reflex saves.
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I tend to play solo games. The wife GMs, I play. She doesn't have a lot of free time, so she uses prebuilt adventures - I have a LOT of them from the 3.0/3.5 days, in addition to Pathfinder ones. I only play 1 character - so we have a number of chargen houserules to help a single character play through a published module - without a lot of tweaking to the module.
1)- High stats (in the 14-18 range for everything). Helps on skill rolls and combat.
2) - allow 2 "LA" for templates/race. A boost early in career who's impact fades as time goes on.
3) - Gestalt or even 3 class gestalt - this allows a character to cover all required abilities - physical combat, spells, healing, trap removal etc.
5) - Three traits
4) - Feats every level - so the character can function in the multiple capacities (see #3)
5) - Since Mythic came out we have been using Mythic and pulling back on early "LA" - it helps.
6) - extra skill points (+4). This also helps a solo character fill in for 3 or 4 characters.
7) - as we like lots of options we use a lot of 3PP material, as well as some 3.x Stuff and 3.x 3PP (most of the Arcana Unearthed classes are allowed - they seem to balance pretty well with the Pathfinder ones).
We keep track of "effective level" and gear the modules to that. It works well for us.
A character built under these rules would be extremely powerful in a normal game, but for solo play those changes seem to put a character at a point where a solo character can run through published modules pretty well.
2 weapon, imp 2 weap, grt 2 weapon, sup 2 weap, weapon focus, weapon finesse, dex feat. that's 7 and thats if you don't pick up double slice (which would kill your damage if you didn't), two weapon rend, and tow weapon defence. Those would make it 10 feats.Because a 7-10 feat investment shouldn't be better than a 1-3?Well, if I make it non one-handed that would be weapon finesse, weapon focus with a finessable weapon, and new Dex to damage feat. Three feats on top of the three plus two feats. I think that makes it sufficiently weakened, although it would be more meaningful if there was a more undesirable feat tax. weapon focus may be too synergistic to be a tax.First, I think your list is a lot bigger than what a min/maxer would use. Strictly speaking, TWF and Double Slice are the only feats required for a serious TWFer. Improved and greater TWF are nice to have, but most of your off hand damage comes from the first attack, so you don't HAVE to get those. Weapon Finesse, + dex to damage feat on top of that.
Second, Looking at damage is the wrong way to go. Look at the other benefits. We are talking about 4 feats. What do you get for those 4 feats? You get to put a 10 in strength, and dump all your boosts into dexterity. The net result is that a Dex based TWF will have +5 AC(and touch AC), +5 reflex saves, and +5 initiative or more over the strength based Two-hand fighter. There are no feat that the two hand fighter gets that can close that gap. So you end up with a strong damage dealer that also has a high AC, regularly goes first, and regularly makes their reflex saves.
On top of this, certain damage boosts, like bard performance, sneak attack, and paladin's smite evil, work a lot better for TWFers.
That may just be worth three feats, but I guess the question is can a Two-handed Weapon user be as effective with the 7 extra feats.
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Using hexes has been something ive been considering for a while. But there have been some questions i couldnt figure out. How do you handle larger creatures and the space they occupy as well as areas of effect?I replaced the square grid with hexes. It makes movement easier and more organic and elimnates the screwy rules about reach weapons.
I am considering several systems to replace most magic items that grant static bonuses (i.e. the Big 6), but haven't settled on the system yet.
My approach as DM is "The first hex doesn't count." So a Large creature, for example, occupies seven hexes -- one central 'free' hex, and six adjacent hexes. Each size category adds an additional 'layer' of adjacent hexes.
And it works the same way with AoEs. A fireball, for example, has one central free hex and then four layers of concentrically adjacent hexes. (One layer per 5 ft. of radius.)
Cone AoEs are a bit quirky, but really shine on the hex map. A cone of cold, for example, is simply a triangle of hexes, with 12 hexes on each side. (One hex per 5 ft. of range.) Here's the quirk: Because of the geometry of hexagons and how combat positioning operates, I allow the caster to place the cone's origin corner in an adjacent hex or inside of his own hex. (Obviously, the caster is undamaged by a cone corner placed in his own hex.) This allows cones to retain the flexibility they have in the square-world, while benefitting from the simplicity of the hex-world.
HOUSE RULE
( 1 ) FUN: We are all here to have a good time. Make sure your fun is not at the expense of someone else's.
( 2 ) DICE ROLLING: All rolls must be on the table where DM can see them. DM decides if a die is cocked.
( 3 ) SPELLS: Spellcasters who memorize spells ahead of time must provide the DM with a 'default' spell list; the “these are the spells I generally have memorized on any given day.” If the spellcaster wants to choose different spells, just let me know. I had to implement this rule because I've had two players of wizards who never ever scribed a scroll and yet seemed to just happen to have whatever spell in their spellbook that the group needed at that particular time memorized that day.
( 4 ) CHALLENGES: The rules challenger (RC) has 60 seconds to locate the rule. The DM has already expressed his view of the rule in how it's been played (which is why the RC is challenging it). Other players vote. DM will take this into account, but is still the final authority.
( 5 ) EVIL: I play this game to be or to see heroic characters performing heroic deeds. If you, as a player, want to play evil well, then *sigh*, okay, you can do it. However, remember that while good is very likely to help out other good, evil is very unlikely to help out other evil. As the DM, if you're the one bad seed in the group and you don't want the others to know you're playing evil, I'm going to plant an NPC faithful to the group that's going to try to steer the others down the good path. And I'm going to have an evil organization try to corrupt you further than you might want (sell your soul type stuff).
( 6 ) ALCOHOL: Verboten. Very little good is accomplished . . . and I'm a nasty drunk.
HOME BREW
( 1 ) HIT POINTS: Max at first level. At all subsequent levels HD are rolled in front of the DM. Any roll that is less than or equal to the character's CON modifier is re-rolled.
Penalties to CON can actually lower overall HP. As a sickly person ages (advances in level), while they are becoming more experienced, are also declining more in their health. I've never actually had to use this as no player has ever played a character with a penalty to their CON.
( 2 ) CRITICALS: I have a critical hit chart with a different effect from 1 – 100 for B/S/P weapons. As one rolls higher, the damage dice get re-rolled (i.e. from 1 – 25: re-roll all 1's, 26 – 50: re-roll all 1's & 2's, etc.) Certain wounds require specific healing. For instance, if you get a lung punctured and are constantly fatigued, that is a critical wound. Spamming cure light wounds will restore you to full HP, but it won't remove the fatigue from the punctured lung; that would require cure critical wounds.
This has much less impact on enemies who are going down for the big dirt nap anyway. But it does make wounds persist for PC's a lot more. It creates more risk, but as one of the Rules of Acquisition say, “The riskier the road, the greater the profit.”
( 3 ) SPELLS:
* (Greater) Teleport, Dimension Door spells have not yet been discovered (and no PC wizard has yet to research it). Tree Stride, SA, SU, and class abilities that allow teleportation do exist.
* Difficulty Class: Include one-third of the caster's level (round down). Why? Because dodging the blast of a 20th level sorcerer's fireball should be a little harder than a low-level pud-knucker.
* Variable Effects: Variable effects are the MAXIMUM; the caster can choose to limit the AoE to as low as what the lowest caster able to cast the spell would produce. REASON: I see no reason why a 10th level wizard has to cast a 10d6 fireball; suppose s/he just wants to fire a warning shot (5d6) and not cause agonizing burning death?
( 4 ) DIPLOMACY: Is a dynamic skill that incorporates relationship and risk vs. reward. I totally lifted this from someone on the boards some time ago and, unfortunately, cannot give them credit.
( 5 ) WIZARDS: Wizards do not automatically gain 2 spells per level. New spells must be researched or found. REASON: The line in the rulebook that these 2 spells represent the studying the wizard does during downtime is bogus. Also, this one rule does help to equalize the wizard with other classes. And it makes wizards much, Much, MUCH more careful with their spellbooks. Players actually make multiple copies of their own.
( 6 ) MONK: A monk with Spring Attack may make a Flurry of Blows while moving, each attack distributed to different targets along that move, as desired (making acrobatics checks to avoid AoO). REASON: The monk's two great assets are mobility and many attacks except with RAW you can't do both. I've seen too many chop-socky movies to think that its a viable rule, so I changed it.
( 7 ) PALADINS: Any alignment. I see no reason why CG or LN or NE deities should not also have chosen (un)holy warriors.
( 8 ) SNEAK ATTACK: Sneak attack damage gets multiplied on critical hits done with surprise. Yeah, ouch, I know. I still miss the straight-up damage multiplier for 1E back-stabbing. Sneak attack damage is not multiplied on critical sneak attacks from non-surprise attacks (i.e. flanking).
( 9 ) MAGICAL ITEMS: There are no generic +1 items. Each and every item has a history (like all the items from the Baldur's Gate computer game series). YOMS has a list of specific items in stock (takes a lot of work on my part) but is fun. If a player holds any magical item until the end of the campaign their time with the item is added to the history and the player gets to add “future” history. What I mean by that is the player chooses what happens to the weapon up to the point where it can be rolled as random treasure again. For instance, “My vorpal katana, Le Lame Cuisinart, is handed down to my daughter, and to her son, and down through my family for five generations until the city is razed by a horde of hobgoblins and seized by Scorg, who, with the use of Le Lame Cuisinart, rises to the position of tribal chieftan. In order to fuse the warring tribes together, Scorg's shaman suggested he undergo a pilgrimage to gain the blessing of their dark god. Scorg never returned and the blade (which, in French, is the word “lame”, btw) has been lost since then.”
ONES I LIKE
Clerics do not spontaneously cast cure or harm spells. They spontaneously cast domain spells.
It instantly makes clerics of different gods unique. You want to heal? Take the healing domain or memorize healing spells.
Ooo, I like this one so much, I'm using this in my next game.
Full attacks are a standard action. When using an ability that is normally made with a single attack as a standard action (for example vital strike), you can make that attack as part of your full attack, replacing the full BAB attack at a cumulative -2 penalty (for example for greater vital strike etc.).
You however can't combine an attack that would normally require a single-attack standard action with an attack that would normally require a full attack.
Charges are also full attacks now, but the charge bonus only applies to the first attack, unless you have pounce.
This gives martials an obvious boost, as they are now able to utilize their full potential without having to stand still while doing so, making combats a lot more mobile, but also more deadly. The changes to feats was to not make them
I remember in 1E, so long as they were equal levels, fighters being able to hand out just as much punishment as wizards. This seems to restore some of that. I'll have to mull it over some, but I think I'll use it.
Initiative: If you roll a natural 20 on initiative you get a surprise round. If you roll a natural 20 and have surprise you get a full action in the surprise round.
Makes sense: totally using this.
1) Magic retards aging the more powerful the mage the slower they age from just having delayed penalties up to living 10 times as long as a normal person of their race.
Makes sense: totally using this.
While sleeping characters are taking 0 on Perception.
Makes sense: totally using this.
Classes with 2+INT skill points/level are actually 4+INT skill points/level
I like this, but I would bump all classes up by two because I think that INT heavy classes should maintain that proportionate skill superiority.
Athletics (Str): This skill replaces Climb (Str) and Swim (Str), combining each to form one skill.
Worked with Perception and Stealth, don't see why this wouldn't work, too.
I had a very bad experience where a monster got a nat 20, then a 1 to confirm.
In my game, one would roll to confirm the fumble after that 1.
If that second confirmation roll hits, then one just hit normally.If the second confirmation roll misses, then one hits normally, deals damage, and then fumbles (i.e. I chop the monster, but swing through and slash myself, too).
Similarly, if one first rolls a 1 and then a natural 20 to confirm the fumble, one rolls again.
If that misses, then one just misses; if it hits then one fumbles but causes a critical anyway
(think Jamie Lee Curtis in “True Lies”: she drops the MAC 10 (fumbles) but it still hits everyone except her husband (criticals).
2. Most magical armor and clothing resizes to the wearer.
Magical items resize a number of size categories dependent on how expensive the item. A +1 sword (2000 GP item) will resize one size category, +2 mace two size categories, and so on and so forth.
re-rolling initiative every round
We don't roll every round. However, there are sometimes events in combat that make re-rolling initiative reasonable. For example, when the wizard drops a fireball, all the enemies are diving out of the way (whether they get out of the blast range is unimportant to re-rolling) and allies are momentarily dazzled by the flash (or rocked back on their heels by the heat for those of you screaming, “I close my eyes as the wizard casts!” Okay, sure, so long as you ready an action to do that, then you could keep your initiative roll). My point is that there's a slight pause and I'd have new initiatives rolled to simulate how quickly everyone recovers.
Some combats never have this and we only use one initiative for the whole thing. We occasionally roll initiative twice and rarely roll more than that. It adds some dynamism without bogging combat down too much. Players have received it well . . . so far.
I often don't use a map at all. Imagination!
Same here. If it's a small brwal with no more than 8 participants, and it's all in close combat, why bother? Or if uit's a party agains 1 big baddie...
I often don't use a map at all. Imagination!Same here. If it's a small brwal with no more than 8 participants, and it's all in close combat, why bother? Or if uit's a party agains 1 big baddie...
Because Area of Effect spells, because flanking, because reach ...