Hi.
Thought i would try to get peoples opinion on a set of house rules, that i am considering implementing when starting up my next campaign (not that my current one is finished yet, but i like to start planning early). Some of the rules we are already using in our current sandbox campaign, though most are new house rules, based on my experiences running the current sandbox (55 sessions until now).
I am aiming for running a sandbox-themed campaign, with a low-moderate amount of magic items in the campaign. There will be no WBL expectations. I design encounters for world consistancy and to have challenging encounters/dungeons.It will be a very deadly sandbox, where there will be very weak, moderate, as well as very hard encounter areas present in the sandbox.
We will play using a Player's Map and a GM's map of the starting area (both are Hex-maps). There will be plenty of both homebrew and published (and maybe converted) locations in the form of dungeons, lost cities etc.
The general area is a borderlands/wilderness type area (i might be using the River Kingdoms).
Anyways here are my proposed house rules / campaign rules so far. Just would like whatever input people have.
• Attributes are generated using a 15 point buy. No attribute can be generated above 17, incl. racial bonus.
• We play using all options and rules from the following sources: Core Rulebook (CRB) and Advanced Player’s Guide (APG), unless anything is explicitly not used.
• We are not using the following optional rules from APG: Traits and Hero points.
• Item creation feats other than Scribe Scroll and Brew Potion are not in play.
• We are not using the Leadership Feat (but we are using a system for the use of hirelings and henchmen)
• The availability of all equipment (incl. spells and magic items) will be dependent on the actual in-game location, and will be determined ahead of time by the GM (using rules/random tables). The players can always get a list of the available equipment of the local town. Some items, spells, etc. might only become available if the players characters succeed in establishing good local contacts, gain the trust of a local ressource, join brotherhoods or guilds etc
• Rogues get Full BAB progression.
• Fighter get 4+Int skill ranks per level
• All classes get two good saves (two saves that progress to +12 at level 20). Classes with only one good save, may chose freely which other save is also a good save for them (chosen once at character creation).
• Whenever a character dies and is brought back to life, through whatever method, they lose one point of Constitution, permanently.
• Breath of Life spell is banned.
• Spell casters do not gain Bonus Spells per Day (from having a high caster stat)
• Fewer High-level spells can be cast: All casters can cast 2 fewer (-2) spells per day of 7th-9th level spells, being reduced to no fewer than 1/per day for each of these spell levels by this reduction.
• The Disable Device skill will also be used to detect/find traps and devices (as Find/Remove traps), instead of the Perception skill.
• We will play using the Slow XP progression, and only 50% XP will be awarded for overcoming monsters and traps. There will be awarded bonus XP for exploring new areas and adding them to the Campaign map (Player's map), as well a for drawing maps of dungeon levels. Bonus XP are also awarded to the group for good in-character rolelaying.
• New characters begin at half the former character´s XP (without much gold: average starting gold x level)
Seems anti caster while also being anti MAD classes, though I approve of the fighter skills bump. Overall it looks fine but I'd need to know more information.
By chance can you summarize what your world is, or what you hope to accomplish with these?
I read your rules as though I were a player deciding whether or not to join your table. Here are the parts that I take issue with:
* No attribute can be generated above 17, including racial bonus.
I feel that that it might be fine if you removed the last part. Forcing people to put their racial bonuses in things they don't care about isn't fun.
* Spell casters do not gain Bonus Spells per Day (from having a high caster stat)
This one feels like BS. I definitely wouldn't play a pure caster in this game, and it takes a lot of the fun out of getting +int items.
* Fewer High-level spells can be cast: All casters can cast 2 fewer (-2) spells per day of 7th-9th level spells, being reduced to no fewer than 1/per day for each of these spell levels by this reduction.
Now I'm really reconsidering joining the game at all. That is brutal. If you have problems with casters having too many spells it usually means you're letting them do too few encounters a day, or not interrupting their spell-prep.
* New characters begin at half the former character´s XP (without much gold: average starting gold x level)
That seems really punishing if your intention is having a really deadly sandbox and limited resurrection options.
The rest I have no problems with, except I think traits can be a lot of fun and I would miss them.
Thanks for your replies! Gave me good reasons to consider my choices/preferences. Thank you :)
I am in general aiming for rules that will sustain long-term sandbox-style play - though it will also involve emergent and player-driven plots. There will be a few megadungeons (a central one, and a far off harder one) and plenty of very small to medium size encounter areas/dungeons. There will be different starting town/home base options, and many small villages, towers, castles, incl. abandoned or evil ones.
I think i might base the campaign off of the Echo Wood material and include Thornkeep (and it's dungeons below), Fort Inevitable, The Emeral Spire and so on. I will also add homemade and published dungeons/areas, as well as convert some old favorites of mine (or use other people's good conversions, from this great forum!). Thus the sandbox will also include a converted Keep on the Borderlands + Caves of Chaos; a converted Village of Hommlet + the Moathouse. Castle of the Mad Archmage will probably be there somewhere, and several small crypts etc.
The campaign will have a certain old school flavor, random encounters will be used, it will reward skillful and intelligent play, and will most likely punish thoughtless play.
I said in my original post that it will be a very deadly sandbox, and while that can certainly be true, it will have lots of areas of different difficulty, and there will be logical ways to deduce the difficulty (such as tracks of monsters to be identified), and there are some general rules (such as lower dungeons levels = more danger; the further into the wilderness = more danger). So saying it's deadly means that the party should not expect to always meet encounters finely balanced to their capability - they should expect to meet a challenging and exciting, unknown fantasy world where their choices have meaning, and where they are both free to blunder into bigger challenges than they can conquer, to carefully take safer paths and tackle smaller challenges for a smaller but safer reward, but also to try to defeat extraordinarily difficult encounters through extremely skillful play and be handsomely rewarded.
There will be a lot of uses of both Knowledge and social skills, and skills such as Survival will be important. Disable Device can also be very handy, as some of the Ancients have left some very nasty traps to guard their complexes and tombs.
I don't think myself (or see) that my character creation rules are disadvantaging the so-called MAD classes. How is that? I myself would think almost the opposite. My reasoning being that with a starting attribute cap at 17,the gap between, say three medium-high attributes of a MAD class and the top maxed-out attribute of a SAD class is not that high. For example an elven wizard could max out Int at 15+2 (17) and Dex at the same (15+2). Where as a MAD class, let's say a figther could easily also put a 15 in Str (+2 for race = 17), while also affording two 14s in Dex and Con.
When there is NO attribute cap, is DO think on the other hand, that the SAD classes are advantaged quite highly, as it is very easy for the SAD class to max out their prime stat to a 20, while the MAD classes will maybe have three lower stats.
I DO agree though, that my house rules may seem (and be) "anti caster" - and this is quite intentional. NOT because i am of an anti-caster sentiment, i like the caster classes, in fact they are my favorite classes. I have "nerfed" the casters because i frankly think they are in general somewhat overpowered - and they will, IMO, still be very strong and enjoyable classes to play with my house rules.
I have removed the bonus spells per day, as i quite frankly think the casters already have enough spells per day, and that they already receive enough important benefit from their caster stat. This will increase, IMO, the resource management perspective of the caster classes (as they will have fewer spells), and it will also decrease the advantage of the SAD casters.
I will change the reduction of 7th-9ht level spells to -1 per day though. And this rule is not very important to me - partly because it will take several years of play to reach level 13+, and partly I am even considering putting a level 14 cap on the game [only a consideration]
I don't decide how many encounters per day the party does, THEY decide. Especially if they have high-level casters... they can always teleport away from more encounters.
As i cannot seem to edit my original post anymore (is there a time limit on the edit option?) i will repost my house rules with some changes and expansion:
• Attributes are generated using a 15 point buy. No attribute can be generated above 17 (incl. the racial bonus).
• We play using all options and rules from the following sources: Core Rulebook (CRB) and Advanced Player’s Guide (APG), as well as all classes, class archetypes, prestige classes, feats, spells, races and alternate racial rules from Inner Sea World Guide (ISWG), Paths of Prestige (PP), Ultimate Magic (UM), Ultimate Combat (UC), Advanced Race Guide (ARG) and Advanced Class Guide (ACG), unless anything is explicitly not used. Very exotic or unusual races might be disadvantaged in some social or political encounters.
• We are not using the following optional rules from APG: Traits and Hero points.
• Item creation feats other than Scribe Scroll and Brew Potion are not in play. Magic items are very rare in the setting and the methods of creating them have all but been lost to time. Most magical items are considered priceless relics and artifacts and are almost exclusively to be found in long lost cities, in haunted tombs and in ancient crypts of demon-guarded darkness. The magic items to be found are the creations of earlier more advanced civilizations, demi-gods, mad arch-mages and outer beings.
• Summoner and Gunslinger classes are not in play.
• Firearms are not existent in the setting (at least not to anyone’s knowledge).
• We are not using the Leadership Feat (but we are using another system for acquiring hirelings and henchmen)
• The availability of all equipment (incl. spells and magic items) will be dependent on the actual in-game location, and will be determined ahead of time by the GM (using rules/random tables). The players can always get a list of the available equipment of the local town. Some items, spells, etc. might only become available if the players characters succeed in establishing good local contacts, gain the trust of a local ressource, join brotherhoods or guilds etc.
• Rogues get Full BAB progression.
• Fighters get 4 + INT skill ranks per level.
• All classes get two good saves (two saves that progress to +12 at level 20). Classes with only one good save, may choose freely which other save is also a good save for them (chosen once at character creation).
• Whenever a character dies and is brought back to life, through whatever method, they lose one point of Constitution, permanently.
• Breath of Life spell is banned.
• 0-level spells are expended when cast, just as normal level 1+ spells.
• Spell casters do not gain Bonus Spells per Day (from having a high caster stat)
• All casters can cast 1 less (-1) spells per day of 7th-9th level spells, being reduced to no fewer than 1/per day for each of these spell levels by this reduction.
• The Disable Device skill will be used to detect/find traps and devices, instead of the Perception skill.
• We will play using the Slow XP progression, and only 25% XP will be awarded for overcoming monsters and traps. The main source of XP will be from finding lost treasures and artifacts (magic items) in the wilderness and in forgotten tombs and dungeons, and bringing these back to civilization (1 GP value = 1 XP). There will be awarded significant bonus XP for exploring new areas and adding them to the Campaign map (Player's map), as well as for drawing maps of dungeon levels. Bonus XP are also awarded to the group for good in-character roleplaying and for completing quests.
• New characters begin at half the former character´s XP (with only little wealth: average starting gold x level). The equipment and gold of dead characters will most often stay in the party (depending on what happens/the case of death; it might also rest in some musty tomb…). The party will normally expend resources towards equipping new characters in the party.
• Attributes are generated using a 15 point buy. No attribute can be generated above 17 (incl. the racial bonus).
• We play using all options and rules from the following sources: Core Rulebook (CRB) and Advanced Player’s Guide (APG), as well as all classes, class archetypes, prestige classes, feats, spells, races and alternate racial rules from Inner Sea World Guide (ISWG), Paths of Prestige (PP), Ultimate Magic (UM), Ultimate Combat (UC), Advanced Race Guide (ARG) and Advanced Class Guide (ACG), unless anything is explicitly not used. Very exotic or unusual races might be disadvantaged in some social or political encounters.
• We are not using the following optional rules from APG: Traits and Hero points.
You might want some RP balance if you allow exotic races, especially with racial ability score bonuses being nerfed.
• Item creation feats other than Scribe Scroll and Brew Potion are not in play. Magic items are very rare in the setting and the methods of creating them have all but been lost to time. Most magical items are considered priceless relics and artifacts and are almost exclusively to be found in long lost cities, in haunted tombs and in ancient crypts of demon-guarded darkness. The magic items to be found are the creations of earlier more advanced civilizations, demi-gods, mad arch-mages and outer beings.
• Summoner and Gunslinger classes are not in play.
• Firearms are not existent in the setting (at least not to anyone’s knowledge).
• We are not using the Leadership Feat (but we are using another system for acquiring hirelings and henchmen)
• The availability of all equipment (incl. spells and magic items) will be dependent on the actual in-game location, and will be determined ahead of time by the GM (using rules/random tables). The players can always get a list of the available equipment of the local town. Some items, spells, etc. might only become available if the players characters succeed in establishing good local contacts, gain the trust of a local ressource, join brotherhoods or guilds etc.
• Rogues get Full BAB progression.
• Fighters get 4 + INT skill ranks per level.
• All classes get two good saves (two saves that progress to +12 at level 20). Classes with only one good save, may choose freely which other save is also a good save for them (chosen once at character creation).
All fine - low magic isn't my thing, but it's definately a thing. Do monks lose a good save? Poor monky...
• Whenever a character dies and is brought back to life, through whatever method, they lose one point of Constitution, permanently.
Seems like punishing players for sticking with their character, and punishing death in a deadly game.
• Breath of Life spell is banned.
• 0-level spells are expended when cast, just as normal level 1+ spells.
• Spell casters do not gain Bonus Spells per Day (from having a high caster stat)
• All casters can cast 1 less (-1) spells per day of 7th-9th level spells, being reduced to no fewer than 1/per day for each of these spell levels by this reduction.
This just seems mean to casters. They are losing significant class features here. As does spell availability above.
-snip-
• New characters begin at half the former character´s XP (with only little wealth: average starting gold x level). The equipment and gold of dead characters will most often stay in the party (depending on what happens/the case of death; it might also rest in some musty tomb…). The party will normally expend resources towards equipping new characters in the party.
That one seems like punishing players for not sticking with their character, while awarding the (rest of the) party for leaving characters dead.
My biggest issue is the death tax, spend wealth on res and you're now weaker, or keep the wealth and you're now weaker, but can catch up. To me that doesn't encourage character driven stories.
It wouldn't be my type of game, but there is nothing absolutely bonkers about these houserules.
First fighter isn't a MAD class monk is, a fighter with a 17 str is a pretty good fighter. Low point buy makes fighter, barbarians, and even wizards more powerful because they are 100% functional with that 17. Note I'm not trying to change any of your rules just give you an outsider perspective.
As for the caster nerfs you seem as though they'll be able to sling around spells while having enough to teleport whenever as well as party support such as healing while having a lot less spells. Your rule hurts 3/4 & 1/2 casters the most. The nerfs you have will make non-optimized casters dead weight or 100% reaction buff heal bots while still having the optimized gods.
In fact if your game was proposed to me, I would see it as am optimization challenge and would focus on making the most survivable murder machine. What I'm saying is that for me if I don't feel there's room for fluff vs crunch then I'll leave the fluff. A great to rp dead character can't be rolled played if he can't live.
That said I usually just work with what's given so I would play in your game as a challenge to see what I could do.
Most looks fine here. I gotta ask though, why the Breath of Life ban?
I do think the dead character part is unnecessarily punishing and might need some reconsidering. I'd recommend the dead keep their wealth/send it to their families/etc and the new character has their own wealth. Limit it if you think the guidelines are too much or put some limits on how much they can spend on a single item.
• Attributes are generated using a 15 point buy. No attribute can be generated above 17 (incl. the racial bonus).
This seems kinda pointless. High ability scores are progressively more expensive and less efficient to purchase anyway. Going from 10 to 12 is only 2 points. Going from 12 to 14 is 3. Going from 14 to 16 is 5, 16 to 18 is 7. The game already discourages pumping everything into one ability score- if a wizard wants to buy an 18 and dump their defenses into the ground that's their own problem.
• Item creation feats other than Scribe Scroll and Brew Potion are not in play. Magic items are very rare in the setting and the methods of creating them have all but been lost to time. Most magical items are considered priceless relics and artifacts and are almost exclusively to be found in long lost cities, in haunted tombs and in ancient crypts of demon-guarded darkness. The magic items to be found are the creations of earlier more advanced civilizations, demi-gods, mad arch-mages and outer beings.
What statistical benefits are you giving to player characters to offset this? The game assumes that characters have a certain portion of extra strength provided by their gear, and if magical equipment the players want to use is unavailable, they're going to be significantly weaker than the baseline the game's math is built around. Also, what about wands?
• Rogues get Full BAB progression.
• Fighters get 4 + INT skill ranks per level.
Nice benefits, but not nearly enough to make the classes tempting to use. Unless you want to get in depth in developing a fix, you might be better off just encouraging people to pick other classes to fulfill their concept, like Ranger or Bard for people that want rouge-ish character.
• All classes get two good saves (two saves that progress to +12 at level 20). Classes with only one good save, may choose freely which other save is also a good save for them (chosen once at character creation).
Probably a good idea for a lot of classes, but you might not want to hand out free goodies to more powerful classes like Wizard.
• Whenever a character dies and is brought back to life, through whatever method, they lose one point of Constitution, permanently.
Why? All this accomplishes is that it encourage people to leave their characters dead, or makes it harder to keep using the same character for a long time.
• Breath of Life spell is banned.
See above. Breath of life is a spell that lets death and failure be less of a barrier to fun.
• 0-level spells are expended when cast, just as normal level 1+ spells.
Fine, I suppose, but you're going to need to make them slightly stronger. Many cantrips were nerfed or removed (see cure minor wounds) in the transition to unlimited use, so that they would still be balanced while providing constant access to minor magical tricks.
• Spell casters do not gain Bonus Spells per Day (from having a high caster stat)
This is just going to reduce the amount of encounters you can play each day and encourage 15 minute adventuring days even harder.
• All casters can cast 1 less (-1) spells per day of 7th-9th level spells, being reduced to no fewer than 1/per day for each of these spell levels by this reduction.
A decent way to cut back on high level spells being thrown around.
• The Disable Device skill will be used to detect/find traps and devices, instead of the Perception skill.
Why? Why is seeing a trap a different skill than seeing someone hiding? Why does your physical dexterity improve your senses? This is really bizarre.
• Bonus XP are also awarded to the group for good in-character roleplaying...
Make sure each player's bonus roleplaying experience is given to everyone in the group, not just them individually.
• New characters begin at half the former character´s XP (with only little wealth: average starting gold x level). The equipment and gold of dead characters will most often stay in the party (depending on what happens/the case of death; it might also rest in some musty tomb…). The party will normally expend resources towards equipping new characters in the party.
You're making death way too punishing, and creating large power gaps inbetween players in the same group. This is almost guaranteed to cause disputes and unhappiness at the table. And it makes no sense at all that a player character is arbitrarily far less well equipped than an NPC of the same level (and in particular, that wizards and other low starting wealth characters actually have far less gold than martial types).
Thanks for all your insightful comments, questions and suggestions!
I have adjusted my house rules based on your suggestions (after thinking them over). The rules for bringing in new characters i will have to think over some more. I can't really base it on WBL as we are not using that in our games at all - so the WBL of a new starting say, 13th level character, might mean the new character has way more magic items than anyone else...! And also, as im aiming at making magic items very unique and non-generic, and rare, it will also go against this, if you can just die, and make a new character stock full of generic magic items. Why would such a rich guy even risk his life adventuring?
Well i think my solution this far is: New (replacement) characters start at half XP or average party level -1, which ever is higher. Replacement characters have 200gp x level, and furthermore they have 1 magic item (family heirloom), that will be decided upon by agreement between the player and the GM. The magic item will be no more powerful than magic items held by the other characters in the group. [but i need to consider this aspect some more. In current sandbox campaign it is: replacement characters have 50% XP and 50% gold of the dead character, and that has worked very well, but that does not come around the issue regarding magic items]
• Attributes are generated using a 15 point buy. Max starting attribute is 16 (before any racial bonus). Starting wealth as per average for the class.
• We play using all options and rules from the following sources: Core Rulebook (CRB) and Advanced Player’s Guide (APG) (except we are not using the hero points optional rule).
• Additionally we use all/most classes, class archetypes, prestige classes, feats, spells, races and alternate racial rules from Inner Sea World Guide (ISWG), Paths of Prestige (PP), Ultimate Magic (UM), Ultimate Combat (UC), Advanced Race Guide (ARG) and Advanced Class Guide (ACG), unless anything is explicitly not used. Exotic or unusual races might be disadvantaged in some social or political encounters.
• Players may select one trait as per the APG Trait optional rules. Traits can be chosen from the above sources. A character is ONLY granted a trait if the character has a background description that matches the chosen trait. Characters with Rogue as favored class may pick two traits.
• Item creation feats other than Scribe Scroll and Brew Potion are not in play. Magic items are very rare in the setting and the methods of creating them have all but been lost to time. Most magical items are considered priceless relics and artifacts and are almost exclusively to be found in long lost cities, in haunted tombs and in ancient crypts of demon-guarded darkness. The magic items to be found are the creations of earlier more advanced civilizations, demi-gods, mad arch-mages or powerful outer beings. This also means that “magical marketplaces/shops” are not common in the setting.
• The Gunslinger class is not in play as firearms do not exist in the setting (at least not to anyone’s knowledge).
• The Synthesist Summoner is banned.
• We are not using the Leadership Feat (but we are using another system for acquiring hirelings and henchmen)
• The availability of all equipment (incl. spells and magic items) will be dependent on the actual in-game location, and will be determined ahead of time by the GM (using the appropriate rules and random tables). The players can always get a list of the available equipment of the local village or town. Some items, spells, etc. might only become available if the player characters succeed in establishing good local contacts, gain the trust of a local resource, join secret brotherhoods or guilds etc.
• Rogues get Full BAB progression.
• Fighters get 4 + INT skill ranks per level.
• Acrobatics is a class skill for Fighter and Ranger.
• Fighter and Rogue both get TWO good saves (two saves that progress to +12 at level 20). They may choose freely which other save is also a good save for them (chosen once at character creation).
• Max hit points at first level, and then 75% of HD rounded down after first level (d6 = 4, d8 = 6, d10 = 7 and d12 = 9)
• Spells that bring you back from the dead are (relatively) much more expensive to cast (have more expensive material components). For example: Breath of Life (requires a 2500 gp diamond material component); Reincarnation (5000 gp oils); Raise Dead (10.000 gp diamond); Resurrection (20.000 gp diamond) [any other means to bring dead characters back to life will likewise be relatively more expensive and/or rare]
• 0-level spells are expended when cast, just as normal level 1+ spells.
• All casters can cast 1 less (-1) spells per day of 7th-9th level spells, being reduced to no fewer than 1/per day for each of these spell levels by this reduction.
• We will play using the Slow XP progression, and only 25% XP will be awarded for overcoming monsters and traps. The main source of XP will likely be from finding lost treasures and artifacts (magic items) in the wilderness and in forgotten tombs and dungeons, and bringing these back to civilization (1 GP value = 1 XP). There will be awarded a significant bonus XP for exploring new areas and adding them to the Campaign map (Player's map), as well as for drawing maps of dungeon levels. Bonus XP are also awarded to the group for good in-character roleplaying and for completing quests. All XP is rewarded to the group and shared equally.
Also I will see if i can find the time to answer your many excellent questions - about my choices and their implications, and about what i want to achieve. I don't have the time just now, sadly.
In fact if your game was proposed to me, I would see it as am optimization challenge and would focus on making the most survivable murder machine. What I'm saying is that for me if I don't feel there's room for fluff vs crunch then I'll leave the fluff. A great to rp dead character can't be rolled played if he can't live.
I'm not sure about other GMs, but I tend to fudge rolls here and there for "great to RP characters", while the dice land where they land for super optimized.
Why? Why is seeing a trap a different skill than seeing someone hiding? Why does your physical dexterity improve your senses? This is really bizarre.
If he's trying to remove the super skill status from Perception, I'd suggest simply splitting it into Perception (Wis; Spot & Listen; passive) and Search (Int, active). I agree, however, that it is bizarre to use disable device.
I strongly encourage that you discuss these house rules with the players in your group. Let them vote on which ones to use, and don't get cranky if they are not as excited about the changes as you are.
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Hmm. LordofMuck.
Someone else made another post that warranted most ofthis text, so you might come across it elsewhere, but hopefully this is helpful to you.
I would seriously recommend against messing with or removing access to WBL and the ability to spend it on whatever item you want.
This isn't because I feel entitled to crazy awesome gear, or because I dislike settings with lower magic item availability or low magic settings. I really like Conan, for instance.
Unfortunately, Pathfinder doesn't handle it well when you mess with WBL and item accessibility. Mundane Classes get screwed even more, widening the gap between them and the classes that don't rely on much equipment. Yes, you're also hurting wizards, but all of the other spellcasters do pretty well without gear, and Druids and Summoners are even more awesome, since they largely rely on pets who usually don't have any gear anyways, and the pets' stats from gear are baked-into the pet itself.
If you ARE going to remove WBL as a major thing, I would strongly suggest replacing them with something so as to maintain the game balance that exists, such as some variant of Kelso's Alternative System to Replace Magic Items. I've tried it, it worked out alright.
If I were to go into a game not knowing WBL was being discarded and a DM sprung it on me I would be very upset with the DM, as I would feel he secretly house-ruled away the game balance of many classes, particularly the weaker classes, making them much worse. If I knew about it in advance, The only classes I would build would be Druids, Summoners, or perhaps another full spellcaster that is not wizard. WBL is a big deal in the game balance of this RPG, and throwing it or the magic mart by the wayside does bad things to the system.
In my last campaign, I didnt want to deal with so many magic items, so I used a variant of Kelso's system, as I mentioned: I expanded it to include basically any magic effect you could get via WBL that increased character power (but explicitly not utility items), and it worked out quite well. They had no more trouble keeping up with CRs, and it no longer mattered how much money I gave them. You'll want to give them the same WBL up to about level 3 or so though, since that money mostly gets spent on non-magical gear; after which you can drop it off to whatever you want, or give them enough money to buy a ship or a castle, and there's a good chance they'll actually get a ship or a castle.
Here's the variant I used with my players in my last campaign, which went well. I gave them WBL up to level 3, and 75% WBL in CAPs, after which point they always got 75%WBL in CAPs, but had no guarantees for money. The reason I went with 75% is I remember reading somewhere that that's about how much WBL focused on character power it takes a fighter to keep up with CRs. I awarded it every session (I dont give exp from encounters, either, I do it like shadowrun) but you could just give it on levelup, or give half the increase when they get half way to levelup or something like that.
I should note that I *DID* give out magic items, but they didn't stack with CAPs, it was an either or. If you have a flaming sword, you need have a sufficiently high magic bonus to make use of its flaming property (+2), in which case you can trade a +1 for flaming, since they're the same price, and similar type.
It could be fleshed out even further, but this worked well when I tried it.
Losing 1 CON every time you're revived to me sounds a lot like Beric Dondarion in the Song of Ice and Fire series.
Losing 1 CON every time you're revived to me sounds a lot like Beric Dondarion in the Song of Ice and Fire series.
It's an old school rule; it was present in AD&D 1st and 2nd edition, if I remember right. Or I could be confusing that with the old resurrection survival chance and system shock rules. It all kinda blends together after a while.=)
Yes it's and old D&D/AD&D rule.
I have come to the conclusion, though, to keep it out of my house rules. I want the fear of death to be real - me and my players like that, and don't find death to be a barrier to fun! :) I just want to turn down the ease of resurrection somewhat... but i think i can accomplish that be making any raise dead/resurrection equivalent spell more expensive (and also to always have components cost, incl. Breath of Life), and to make the required components hard to come by (it can be very hard to aquire a 5.000 gp diamond for example...).
• Attributes are generated using a 15 point buy. Max starting attribute is 16 (before any racial bonus).
I would do 18 after racial modifier, otherwise your pigeon holing races to certain classes and/or builds, unless thats what your going for.
• Item creation feats other than Scribe Scroll and Brew Potion are not in play. Magic items are very rare in the setting and the methods of creating them have all but been lost to time. Most magical items are considered priceless relics and artifacts and are almost exclusively to be found in long lost cities, in haunted tombs and in ancient crypts of demon-guarded darkness. The magic items to be found are the creations of earlier more advanced civilizations, demi-gods, mad arch-mages or powerful outer beings. This also means that “magical marketplaces/shops” are not common in the setting.
I somewhat disagree with the naysayers here. I ran a DS campaign and by the end the highest WBL at level 17 was 82k if I remember right, and largely because he had an artifact. Most people were probably closer to 50k. It does change encounter design (PC's are considered a level lower if at NPC WBL) though.
• The availability of all equipment (incl. spells and magic items) will be dependent on the actual in-game location, and will be determined ahead of time by the GM (using the appropriate rules and random tables). The players can always get a list of the available equipment of the local village or town. Some items, spells, etc. might only become available if the player characters succeed in establishing good local contacts, gain the trust of a local resource, join secret brotherhoods or guilds etc.
I highly recommend against this just because of the paperwork involved. I did this in a game, and it got super time consuming by the end. I was spending a good 3-4 hours between sessions just on shop inventory management.
• Rogues get Full BAB progression.
• Fighters get 4 + INT skill ranks per level.
• Acrobatics is a class skill for Fighter and Ranger.
• Fighter and Rogue both get TWO good saves (two saves that progress to +12 at level 20). They may choose freely which other save is also a good save for them (chosen once at character creation).
• Max hit points at first level, and then 75% of HD rounded down after first level (d6 = 4, d8 = 6, d10 = 7 and d12 = 9)
• Spells that bring you back from the dead are (relatively) much more expensive to cast (have more expensive material components). For example: Breath of Life (requires a 2500 gp diamond material component); Reincarnation (5000 gp oils); Raise Dead (10.000 gp diamond); Resurrection (20.000 gp diamond) [any other means to bring dead characters back to life will likewise be relatively more expensive and/or rare]
This seems fine to me.
• 0-level spells are expended when cast, just as normal level 1+ spells.
I'd suggest, rather than expend 0 level spells, move the spells you consider too powerful to level 1. I found there were 2 or 3 spells that shouldn't be cantrips and just changed them to 1st level.
• We will play using the Slow XP progression, and only 25% XP will be awarded for overcoming monsters and traps. The main source of XP will likely be from finding lost treasures and artifacts (magic items) in the wilderness and in forgotten tombs and dungeons, and bringing these back to civilization (1 GP value = 1 XP). There will be awarded a significant bonus XP for exploring new areas and adding them to the Campaign map (Player's map), as well as for drawing maps of dungeon levels. Bonus XP are also awarded to the group for good in-character roleplaying and for completing quests. All XP is rewarded to the group and shared equally.
Quest driven XP systems are all good as long as your players like them.
Thats pretty much all I have!