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I always get a kick out of reading other people's houserules, so I figured I'd contribute to the voyeurism.
I'm perfectly aware that many will consider a lot of these changes pretty over-the-top, especially my two favorites: adding Con score to hit points and my homebrew monk rebuild.
(It's probably worth noting that enemies get to enjoy a lot of these benefits, too.)
Interesting read.
I've been working on a monk replacement as well. Very much a work in progress.
Martial artist
You can hit Home to go to the main page and view my house rules if you are so inclined :)
Good to have some free home-brewed house-ruled stuff. ;)
Thanks, and you as well :)
Mostly they're a matter of which various optional subsystems are in play, I was realizing the other day, but I have a few "originals" in there.
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Thanks for posting I too love looking at home brew rules.
just my 2 cents I like Mettle (I'm considering making it a fighter only feat) but it seems that fighters should have a good will save to go along with it perhaps instead of a reflex save.
I like your drinking rules a lot I will probably use something similar next time my PCs get drunk, you might want to let the Dwarven racial bonus vs poison apply on the hangover fort save since you know, dwarves and drinking.
EDIT: Nvm I see you had a poison resistance clause already.
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Oh my, that's quite a long list, but sure, I'll bite. The first and most important thing to know is that most of these changes are a result of the desires and trends of our gaming group. In some groups, these sorts of alterations would be potentially damaging, because they certainly increase the overall power level of characters.
In our group, however, these changes almost paradoxically have a very different effect: they encourage us to branch out and make less potent decisions (because the stuff we need in order to be effective is baked in.)
That said, let me jump into the details of why we've made some of the decisions that we have.
Class Changes
The change to Fighter should be of little surprise to anyone. Fighters getting extra skill points is almost always one of the first things that people point to when discussing ways of "fixing" the fighter. And it's actually a really simple change that really doesn't break them in any way. Our fixes aren't intended to try to address the "martial/caster disparity", but rather the martial/martial disparity. Paladin and barbarian both really overshadow and outclass the fighter in most respects.
The way that we see it, the fighter class is intended to represent a skilled, highly-trained, elite soldier, guard, or warrior. So why is it that the class that's supposed to be a guard doesn't have Perception as a class ability? Why is it that the swordsman class doesn't know how to use bluff to feint in combat? Shouldn't a trained soldier be able to tumble past enemy defenses? What about basic first aid on the battlefied?
Sure, you could take to traits to fix some of these issues, but the problem with traits is that traits are really, really good, and it's unfortunately difficult to justify taking a trait just to turn something into a class skill that arguably should already be one in the first place.
By the same token, we feel that a trained warrior should be just as adept at seeking cover and dodging attacks as he is at absorbing blows - hence the bump to Reflex saves.
Mettle is one of our favorite abilities from 3.5, and it seems to have a real home in Fighter. The other martials are all equipped with various methods of boosting their saves and defenses. Paladins have Divine Grace, Barbarian rage increases Will saves, and that's before you add in Superstition and its improved rage powers - the list goes on. Fighters don't have any of that - nor should they. But they are supposed to be hardy, durable, loyal, and stubborn. It seems fitting for this feature to find a home in a class that could really use the bump, and it's placed at a level where you have to be playing a very dedicated fighter before you gain access to it.
Rogue
Little to say about using the Unchained Rogue; it's just a more powerful version of the class, and Rogue needs the love. We also incorporate skill unlocks into our gameplay, which helps the class out a little more. That said, we still haven't even had someone step up to the bat to play it.
Summoner
Pretty much enough said, right?
Monk
Oh man. My monk. The monk rebuild was a labor of love that took a long time to put together. Here's basically what's going on with this change. We loved the idea of the unchained monk, and like many, believed that monk was in desperate need of a fix. Unfortunately, the unchained monk broke more than it fixed - namely, all the monk's archetype support. They just don't work with UMonk :( I set out to make a version of the UMonk that kept archetype support intact, while also attacking a few of the class' sacred cows that I felt were holding it back.
The biggest of these, I felt, was the monk's unarmed strike.
All the martial classes have the ability to increase their attack accuracy in some way: fighters have weapon training, rangers have favored enemy, slayers have studied target, barbarians have rage, paladins have smite, gunslingers target touch AC - the list goes on and on. Monks got their much-needed bump to full BAB, but it still wasn't really enough. They needed their own version of weapon mastery - but they couldn't get it as long as that dreaded 2d10 unarmed strike damage kept looming in their future. So, I eliminated the increasing monk damage die. Then, I looked at ki strike, an already-existing, flavorful ability that the monk had that allowed their unarmed strikes to bypass various forms of DR. I simply moved the ki strike improvements to 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 (the levels where a monk previously got an unarmed attack die bump), and added in a basic +1 to hit and damage. At levels 4 and 8, this d6+1 and d6+2 actually yields the same average damage as the old die bump, but in a tighter damage range. This actually helps serve to make the monk's damage feel less random, more controlled, which we felt was more in-line with the concept of the monk. At the 12, 16, and 20 increases, the damage decreases become more significant, but by then, the accuracy increases have more than paid for the loss of damage, while helping to keep the monk in line with the other martials.
I loved the new UMonk's ki powers system, but in order to get archetypes back online, I needed to put most of them back into the baseline version of the monk. I used the updated wording from the UMonk (which in many cases was a nerf), but also added the ability to still make a few custom choices (though not nearly as many as the UMonk.) You actually end up with 1 more ki power than the UMonk with my build, but since most of the decisions have been made for you (many of which are not especially powerful), it seems a fair trade.
Ki strikes were another new UMonk ability that I loved, but I realized that I *was* increasing - in some areas - the strength of the UMonk, so to try and balance that out, the UMonk did have to take a hit in a couple places. Ki powers were one, and ki strikes seemed an easy place to make a couple other cuts compared to the UMonk. Gaining ki strike improvements at 5, 10, 15, and 20 also felt like you were getting them at good places, and they're still better than the base monk, where you get none at all.
I believe that overall, my rebuild brings the monk to a similar power level as the paladin and the barbarian, though I suspect that those classes might still end up with the upper hand. I'm perfectly okay with that.
Character Advancement
Archetypes, New Archetypes, and Familiar Archetypes
The change to the Chosen One paladin was a minor change, and similar to the overall change we made to the Sage familiar archetype. These familiars are supposed to help advise their master. Speech is pretty much required for that, and it's a bummer to be limited to just a couple of birds if you want to explore that flavor.
We loved the 3.5 artificer - alchemist proved to be a very easy "conversion", so we just made it an archetype. If I wanted to be bothered, I could do a ninja/samurai-style rewrite, but I don't want to be.
Apostle is a neat concept we're trying out to have a Charisma-based cleric. There's a lot of give-and-take compared to the regular cleric, and considering that Charisma is a worse stat than Wisdom, it seems likely to be very balanced, if not actually weaker.
The Wuxia Monk includes a lot of stuff that I actually tried to make baseline in my monk rebuild - one of the other issues I had with the UMonk is that the class rebuild suffers from choice overload. Seriously, you have to make so many choices as a UMonk, it's absurd. I love classes where you make one big, impactful choice at the start of your career and you just get a bunch of stuff from that, like Sorcerer Bloodlines, for instance. Martial Styles are already so monk-appropriate, it seemed cool to trade out the abundant number of mediocre bonus feats that you get and exchange them for a bunch of really cool, flavorful, thematically-tied feats. Turning it into an archetype took a shockingly long time for me to arrive to.
The sage familiar change is related to the Chosen One change, above.
Feats, New Feats, and Traits
Ranged combat is obviously really powerful in Pathfinder, so some degree of feat tax there is unfortunately necessary. But requiring two feats just to have baseline proficiency virtually ensures most characters that aren't specializing in it are going to avoid it entirely. We also loved the allies not counting as cover change from 4E, so we incorporated it here as well (and again, baddies get this buff, too.)
The forums have shown me that apparently a lot of people like Toughness, which is interesting because our group has always HATED IT. Likewise, Endurance is absolutely terrible - worthwhile only because of Diehard. Combining Toughness and Endurance into a single feat is certainly strong, but tacking the Endurance benefits onto Toughness and making the feat that increases your hit points also lead into the feat that increases your death threshhold actually fit really well together thematically. Ironically, Toughness arguably makes Diehard worse, as you're less likely to get benefit out of it.
We've never understood what Whirlwind Attack has to do with Spring Attack. WWA is clearly the ultimate form of Cleaving. Simple change there.
Much like Toughness, our group HATES Skill Focus with a passion. Turning it into a trait makes taking it more palatable, and it turns out that a trait version is actually pretty balanced against other traits.
Additional Traits is a really cool feat that we needed to reword as a consequence of turning some feats into traits.
Run is not feat worthy. I'm not even sure this should be a trait, but hey, here we are.
Quick Draw has been restored to its 3.5 text. If you want to spend a feat on drawing stuff, go ahead and draw stuff. I'm not worried about a splash rogue showing up - there's alchemist for that.
The Blade and Tankard change is just super situational, but we might have one, and I thought it was weird that a swashbuckler was intended to take it, but it didn't work with the swashbuckler. This is just me being a nice GM. Same deal with the Deific Obedience change.
Pre-errata Crane Wing is another one of those things that seems unlikely to even come up, but if it does, the original version is much-loved by fans, and seems fine for a home game.
Eclectic and Esoteric Training are originally free features that you get from being in a Spellcasting Guild, so my turning them into feats is actually a NERF, especially since I make Esoteric Training only available to Mystic Theurges. These feats are entirely intended to just make MT a pretty reasonable PrC. Eclectic Training provides an interesting option for casters that want to take a 1-level dip into something. The price of a feat is surprisingly significant, and as it doesn't improve class features, it turns out that this is actually about the right power level for a feat, though I realize it looks strong.
Skills
Fly is just kind of an odd duck. I love the idea of incorporating the fly rules into a skill, but as its own skill, it's just a little weird. Incorporating aerial agility into the same skill that covers ground-based agility feels good, though, and it's not at all difficult to imagine a trained acrobat being really good at flying if they acquire the ability.
I'm in love with the background skill system for pretty much every reason listed in the Paizo write-up. It's amazing, and in no way game-breaking. Much like incorporating the World is Square feat tax changes, background skills give players the freedom to just take neat, flavorful things.
Hit Points
Movement
ABP
Alternate Drinking Rules