Showing posts with label Houserule. Show all posts

Every one of you GMs has experienced this in the past - when you designed a super awesome big-bad, set up the story perfectly, and the final confrontation awaits. Booming his opening monologue, he sets upon the party...only to get facerolled without so much as a sweat from the party.

When I first started getting into computer programming (I very briefly almost learned basic C++), I decided my very first project would be RPG-related. After all, I'd used a variety of very excellent tools in the past (shout out to DMGenie for helping me make it through early high school as DM) and couldn't think of a better practical application for barely functional programming skills. What came to mind first, you ask? Why, an initiative tracker, that's what! Needless to say it never really materialized. I have a habit of getting excited about things and never finishing them.

I bring it up because I've been experimenting with a new initiative system these last few months, and I'd like to share my results with you, dear readers. As someone who often runs games for large parties, I have dealt with the crippling slowdown that can occur as initiative drags painstakingly from player to player. People who complete their turns can sometimes have as much as 20 minutes in worst case scenarios to wait for their next turn. People occasionally have a hard time staying focused, especially if there are forms of entertainment about, or something else preoccupying them (March madness, anyone?). (continued after the jump)

I've been playing 3.x edition Dungeons and Dragons for a long time now - pretty much ever since third edition came out, in one form or another. After you play for so long, you begin to just remember the vast vast majority of the rules, and I've very recently discovered (if you couldn't infer from the title of the post) that this is precisely where mistakes get committed to memory and risk never being corrected.

The other day I was contemplating teleportation in D&D 3.X/Pathfinder, and began considering alternatives to the traditional form in which D&D teleportation came in. My favorite idea was one in which teleportation requires a caster at both ends opening two portals for safe travel. This also brings up interesting problems of whether or not to open a portal in the first place so as to potentially allow enemies to access your location instantly, or to necessitate interesting adventures in which the PC must negotiate with a distance mage to open a portal, or for the PCs to sneak into a location and open a portal for a large force to access (and I'm sure many other scenarios).

Of course, to make this relevant for more than a few levels, you may consider making other forms of teleportation should probably be removed from the game, or made harder or more dangerous to use than normal.

School conjuration (teleportation); Level sorcerer/wizard 3
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V
Range personal
Target you and touched objects or other willing creatures
Duration concentration, up to 10 min./level (D)
Saving Throw none and Will negates (object); Spell Resistance no and yes (object)

This spell opens a portal and makes you aware of the direction and distance from your location of other open portals within 100 miles per caster level, as well as the alignment of the caster, if any, who opened the portal.

At any point during the spell's duration, you can attempt to instantly travel to any of the other open portals that you are aware of as a move action. Interplanar travel is not possible. You can bring along objects as long as their weight doesn't exceed your maximum load. You may also bring additional willing Medium or smaller creatures (carrying gear or objects up to its maximum load) within 30 feet. A Large creature counts as two Medium creatures, a Huge creature counts as four Medium creatures, and so forth. All transported creatures appear within the 30 feet of the caster of the target portal; if this is not possible, the action is wasted and no one is transported. As with all spells where the range is personal and the target is you, you need not make a saving throw, nor is spell resistance applicable to you. Only objects held or in use (attended) by another person receive saving throws and spell resistance. Traveling in this way instantly ends the duration of this spell.

When another creature attempts to use your portal, you become aware of its alignment and caster level (if any) and may attempt to bar it entry. This is resolved as an opposed caster level check.

As Michael mentioned a few days ago, over spring break we had a bit of fun with the board game Trouble. For those of you not familiar with the game, it's very much like a simpler version of Sorry! Basically, you roll a die, move your pegs (each player has four), and if you land on an opponent, they go back to start (full rules can be downloaded here).

The game is vastly simpler than anything you've probably read about (or would be interested in reading about) on this or any other role-play gaming blog. Reasonably so, since its target seems to be young children (presumably very young children, since even 5-year olds are roleplaying these days). However, while this might satisfy a band of sugar-crazed rapscallions, we could only play through one game before getting our houserule on.

First, before we get into any variants, it is the opinion of both Michael and myself that you should be able to get a peg out of the start area on more than just a 6. The existing rule often leaves players with nothing to do for many turns, which is boring for everyone. I recommend each payer begin with one peg on the board, and allow a new peg to leave the start area on a roll of 1 or 6.

Trouble Brawl

When one player's peg passes another player's peg on the board without landing on it, the second player rolls the die. If the second player rolls less than the result that the first player rolled for his or her peg's movement, the second player's peg goes back to his or her start area.

For example, if I roll a 4 and move my peg past Michael's peg, he rolls the die. On a 4 or higher, his peg remains. On a 3 or lower, his peg goes back to his start area.

This represents one peg skirmishing with another. When one peg lands directly on another, this is a sneak attack, and thus no roll is necessary to push the other back to start. The rule is a simple variant that adds a small but easily manageable amount of strategic and tactical play to Trouble.

Adventure Trouble

This is a much more elaborate variant. The default rules are different in Dungeon Trouble. It uses the Trouble Brawl rules from above. However, go through the same process even when a peg lands directly on an opponent's peg, and, in such situations, when the defenders wins, the attacker goes back to start.

Mark the pegs with the letters C, M, R, and W, so that each color set has one of each letter. Each letter represents a class, each with its own class abilities.

Cleric (C): The cleric can cure wounds and resurrect. When the cleric is adjacent to an allied peg, the cleric can cure all the allied peg's wounds, effectively making that peg immune to being sent back to start. In addition, whenever the cleric's player would be able to move a peg out of the start area, he or she may have the cleric resurrect that peg, and may place the peg adjacent to the cleric peg rather than in the normal slot.

Mage (M): The mage can fire a magic missile. After the die is rolled, the mage's player can forfeit moving his or her pegs to have the mage fire this magic missile, targeting one peg on the board. That peg's player must roll equal to or greater than the mage's player's roll or have his or her peg sent back to start.

Rogue (R): The rogue is stealthy and can sneak attack. Stealthy allows the rogue to pass an opponent's pegs without skirmishing. When it lands directly on an opponent's peg, this is a sneak attack, and the defender goes back to start without getting a chance to defend itself.

Warrior (W): The warrior can power attack and opportunity attack. Power attack allows the warrior is the attacker, it wins ties (the defender must roll higher than the warrior to win the skirmish). An opportunity attack occurs when another player's peg attacks the warrior while passing; if the warrior's roll is greater than the attacker's movement roll, the attack is sent back to start.

I was reading an article over at Dungeon Mastering, where the question of whether your character's actual alignment is how she acts or what she thinks she is. The author, Krystal, answers that it's how your character acts, and within the context of a normal game, I tend to agree. However, it got me thinking about D&D alignments in a new way.

Three Tier Alignment

The idea behind three tier alignment is that a character doesn't have a single solid alignment that the player can confidently point to. Alignment is a murky matter that a player has to think about when he or she acts in-game. The three tiers are as follows:

1. Perceived by Self: The player decides this based on the character. This is only a representation of how the player thinks his or her character is acting, and is not the character's alignment for the purposes of spells and abilities.
2. Perceived by Others: This is how NPCs think of the PC, as decided by the DM. This can be influenced by other NPCs or the PC's own actions, and the player should only be made aware of this alignment with a successful Gather Information (Diplomacy in Pathfinder) check to discover what people are thinking. This alignment informs how new NPCs see the PCs. Like first tier, this is not the PC's true alignment for spells and abilities.
3. Actual: This alignment is decided by the DM based on the PC's actions, and is only magically discernible. For the purposes of spells and abilities, this is the alignment you use.

While much more complicated, this system is much more dynamic and forces the PCs to think about their actions and how they may impact both their second and third tier alignments.

Has anyone used an alternate alignment system? How did it work out?

It's always bothered me that D&D combatants inexplicably get more attacks as they become more experienced. What is it about a 16th-level fighter that allows him to fit two more attacks than a lowly 1st-level fighter into a round? Some may argue that it's because the 1st-level fighter can only make one accurate attack a round... but then shouldn't he still have the chance to make those extra attacks at their normal penalty? I don't know about you, but I'd like to take them on the off chance I roll a 20. If someone has a better explanation, please inform me, but nothing I've seen in real life or can imagine gives the rules credence.

Thus, I'm considering rolling out the following houserule for my games:

Base Attack Bonus

Each class's base attack bonus advances at the same rate, but they do not gain additional attacks for having a high base attack bonus.

Full Attack

To make a full attack, the character takes a full-round action and makes two attacks, each at a –2 penalty on the attack roll. This penalty applies to all other attacks made on the character's turn as well (but not, for example, to attacks of opportunity made during the same round but not during the character's turn).

So, you won't get your full BAB when full attacking, but your second attack is more likely to hit as well. And if you were hitting anything worth hitting with a –10 (or, gods help you, –15) off your full BAB, your DM wasn't trying to kill you hard enough; in other words, it speeds up the game by trimming off unnecessary rolls. In addition, you don't have to wait until 6th level to get your full attack.

Thoughts?

I have a very serious question for everybody - when was the last time you heard of anyone using a repeating crossbow?

I've never seen anyone - not an NPC, not a Player - ever use one because they're pretty much just not worth it. It does not stand up to scrutiny, however, when we consider how powerful the crossbow was in warfare during the time that it was introduced. In China, the Chu-Ko-Nu repeating crossbow could typically fire 40 bolts in a minute. In D&D time, that's a gut wrenching 4 bolts every round - something dedicated rangers can accomplish around the same time that wizards start being able to cast Circle of Death.

The most badass handheld crossbow wielded by europeans was called an "Arbalest". These massive crossbows were made of steel and could be shot once about every thirty seconds. The catch here, of course, is that it took about a month to train a arbalestier effectively. According to Wikipedia, Arbalests could be accurate out to 900 meters (2952 feet, or more than half a mile) and delivered 5000 pounds of force. They were so powerful that the Magna Carta attempted to ban all foreign crossbows from England, and were largely considered inhumane and unfair much in the same way modern warfare considers biochemical warfare, because a man with a month's training could take out a Knight in full plate and a lifetime of training.

Fancy talk aside, the problems remain

1. Bow Damage Potential is Massive vs Crossbow - The amount of force produced by a crossbow was much larger than a longbow. Having said this, however, we can look at the stats and notice that a longbow deals on average a single point less than a heavy crossbow, assuming that the longbow wielder has a 10 or 11 strength. This seems low.
2. Repeating Crossbows are Worthless - A Repeating Light Crossbow can be reloaded five times as a free action, before it must be reloaded as a full round action. A Longbow, which deals the same damage, can be reloaded as a free action an infinite amount of times and doesn't cost an exotic weapon feat.
3. The Only People Who Use Crossbows Are Weak - The only reason to use crossbows in D&D is either you aren't proficient with bows, or your strength would otherwise prevent you from dealing damage with a bow. The reality is, however, that a crossbow fires bolts as if an ogre was firing it from a longbow - with a TON of force.

Possible Solutions? Of course I have them!

1. Increase Heavy Crossbow Damage - A simple increase of the heavy crossbow to 2d6 damage would bring a niche role to the crossbow. A casual user could fire it once every other round, and a dedicated one could still only fire it once per round with Rapid Reload. With this, the Heavy Crossbow becomes more than just a Simple Weapon. It may be prudent to make the Heavy Crossbow a martial weapon and leave the Light Crossbow as is to provide for game balance in this situation.
2. Make "Repeating" a Quality - Adding the "Repeating" quality to a crossbow costs 200 gold and makes a crossbow one catagory harder to use. Combined with the previous suggestion, Repeating Light Crossbows would be martial weapons on par with bows, and a Repeating Heavy Crossbow would be an exotic weapon worth taking.

These are just some suggestions to increase the usefulness of crossbows. Thoughts and comments are appreciated!

About a month ago, I wrote a post about a variant system for raising the dead in your D&D 3.5 games. Today's post is in the same vein, but tackles something entirely different: What happens after the spell is cast, the dead are raised, and everyone's gone home?

In many myths and stories that involve characters return to life, the character maintaining some supernatural connection with death after rising is a major trope. In D&D, this is (sort of) emulated by penalties being applied to newly raised characters, but this is a bland emulation in my opinion, having more to do with math and often getting ignored in the roleplay. Why should D&D characters be able to so easily forget about the mark of death when literary heroes have so much fun tragedy and madness to deal with? To address this issue, I've made the "Risen" subtype, detailed below (as well as a new feat to accompany it).

Risen Subtype: All living creatures who have been magically raised from the dead gain the risen subtype. Risen creatures gain the following traits:

• Vulnerability to Negative Energy.
• –2 penalty on saving throws to remove negative levels.
• Deathsight (Su) All risen creatures gain the ability to discern the strength of nearby life forces, as per the deathwatch spell. this ability is always active.

Ghost Tongue
You have crossed the veil of death, and brought back with you the ability to speak the tongue of the departed.
Prerequisite: Risen subtype.
Benefit: You gain a limited ability to communicate with the disembodied spirits of the dead. To do so, make a Diplomacy skill check (DC 15).
    If this check is successful, you gain information as though from a casting of augury, with an effective caster level equal to the amount by which you beat the skill check DC.
    Alternatively, if a dead body is available, you may question it as though with the speak with dead spell, though the dead body gets no saving throw, need not be able to speak, and only you can hear its response. Just as with the first use of this feat, your effective caster level is equal to the amount by which you beat the skill check DC.
    This is a supernatural ability that can be used 3/day.

In the average D&D world death can be a complicated matter. At low levels, death may very well be the end of the road, but for mid- to high-level adventurers, the dead are only a spell away from life, making the obstacle of death not much different than a locked door or a pit trap. After this, however, the revived PC must deal with the resulting level loss and gap in power between him and the rest of the party. Eventually he may ‘catch up,’ but he will have to deal with a fairly significant handicap that makes him that much more likely to die again. Here is a variant to deal with these issues based on the "Ceremony" feats introduced in the Player's Handbook 2.

In this variant, not every cleric knows the secrets of death, and it may take longer to find a cleric that knows the proper rituals. Even if the party cleric knows these secrets, he must find other divine casters to lend a spell to the ritual in order to successfully guide the wayward soul back to the material plane. For those reasons, raising an ally from the dead may not always be a sure bet in a world with this variant, but adds a much more eldritch feel to meddling with the dead. However, if an ally should be brought back from the other side, he will be able to recover fully. Death is harrowing, and while at first a raised ally might seem unnaturally weak, positive energy will soon enough return to his once-dead form.

In this variant, the spells raise dead, resurrect, and true resurrection are not available. Instead, those wishing to bring the dead back to life must take the Rituals of Raising feat, described below.

Rituals of Raising [Ceremony]
You have delved into the lore of raising the dead back to life.
    Prerequisites: Knowledge (religion) 12 ranks, ability to cast prepared 5th-level divine spells.
    Benefit: You gain access to rituals based on your total ranks in Knowledge (religion):
    Raise (Knowledge [religion] 12 ranks): By burning incense and sprinkling a mixture of holy water or unholy water (as appropriate to your alignment) and crushed diamonds on a deceased creature, you restore that creature’s body to life. This ritual functions identically to the raise dead spell, except as noted. The revived creature does not suffer any level loss or Constitution loss; instead, the creature gains a number of negative levels equal to half its HD (minimum 1; thus, 1 HD creatures cannot benefit from this ritual). Every 24 hours after the character is restored to life, he may remove one negative level. These negative levels cannot be removed by any other means.
    Performing this ritual requires 5 minutes of incantation per HD of the deceased creature, a vial of holy water or unholy water, diamonds worth a total of at least 5,000 gp, and incense worth at least 500 gp. This ritual also consumes one of your prepared 5th-level divine spells, as well as one prepared 2nd-level divine spell from each of at least three other participants who must be present for the entire ritual. The effect is instantaneous.
    Resurrect (Knowledge [religion] 16 ranks): After burning incense and sprinkling a mixture of holy water or unholy water (as appropriate to your alignment) and crushed diamonds on the remains of a deceased creature, restoring that creature to life. This ritual functions identically to resurrection spell, except as noted. The deceased creature does not suffer any level loss or Constitution loss; instead, the creature gains a number of negative levels as described under the raise ritual.
    Performing this ritual requires 10 minutes of incantation per HD of the deceased creature, a vial of holy water or unholy water, diamonds worth a total of at least 10,000 gp, and incense worth at least 1,000 gp. This ritual also consumes one of your prepared 7th-level divine spells, as well as one prepared 3rd-level divine spell from each of at least five other participants who must be present for the entire ritual. The effect is instantaneous.
    True Resurrect (Knowledge [religion] 20 ranks): You have learned the most guarded secrets of resurrection. By burning incense and sprinkling a mixture of holy water or unholy water (as appropriate to your alignment) and crushed diamonds on an altar in a hallowed or unhallowed (as appropriate for your alignment) temple. This ritual produces an effect that functions identically to the true resurrection spell.
    Performing this ritual requires 20 minutes of incantation per HD of the deceased creature, a vial of holy water or unholy water, diamonds worth a total of at least 15,000 gp, and incense worth at least 1,500 gp, and can only be performed in a hallowed or unhallowed area. This ritual also consumes one of your prepared 9th-level divine spells, as well as one prepared 4th-level divine spell from each of at least seven other participants who must be present for the entire ritual. The effect is instantaneous.
    Special: Your caster level to determine the effects of this feat is equal to your divine caster level (or your highest divine caster level, if you have more than one).
    Note: For use in Pathfinder RPG games, reduce the skill rank requirements by 3 ranks.

Yesterday's post about how to deal with Nova Casters reminded me of a houserule I haven't whipped out in a while. Houseruling is, and will always be, my favorite form of conflict resolution, for better or worse. I made this rule when I noticed a pesky kineticist was out-damaging the rest of the party combined (and there was a druid in that party, so I knew something was up). I designed this rule so that it wouldn't stop a psionic character from being effective (especially at low levels' note that the average 1st-level psion needs to blow all her power points in one minute to risk psychic shock), but to put some mechanism in place to stop psionics from being such a nova party. Without further ado, psychic shock.

Psychic Shock

Manifester	Shock
Level	Threshold
1	2
2	4
3	6
4	8
5	10
6	12
7	14
8	16
9	18
10	20
11	22
12	24
13	26
14	28
15	30
16	32
17	34
18	36
19	38
20	40

If a psionic character spends a number of power points greater than her shock threshold for her mansifester level within the span of one minute, she risks suffering from psychic shock from the massive release of psychic energies in such a short period of time. Immediately after the action that caused her threshold to be surpassed is resolved, she must succeed on a manifester level check against a DC equal to 10 + half the power points expended in the last minute (rounded down) or lose a number of power points equal to her manifester level. If her power point reserve has already been consumed, she sustains 1 point of Intelligence damage for every 6 power points she would have lost (rounded up). If this check is successful, no power points are lost, but the manifester must continue to make this check as long as she continues to spend power points above her threshold (which consequentially raises the DC of this check). After the manifester fails one of these checks, if she spends more power points above her threshold, she loses power points equal to 1 + 1 per five manifester levels. This additional power point loss never results in Intelligence damage.

New Feats

Psychic Stability [Psionic]
Your mind is unusually resistant to psychic shock.
Benefit: You gain a +4 bonus on manifester level checks to resist psychic shock.

Stable Power [Metapsionic]
You can manifest powers that do not disrupt your psychic equilibrium.
Benefit: To use this feat, you must expend your psionic focus (see the Concentration skill description, Expanded Psionics Handbook, page 37). You can manifest a power as a stable power. Power points expended on a stable power do not count when you determine whether you have surpassed your shock threshold.
Using this feat increases the power point cost of the power by 2. The power’s total cost cannot exceed your manifester level.

First off, I'm proud to announce that we're now a member of the RPG Bloggers Network. If you're visiting this site for the first time, please check out some of our older posts; two of my favorites were about kobold spartans and pan-fried frost worm.

Now, onto the meat of the article.

I've never been satisfied with hit points. Maybe it's because I started off playing the old Star Wars RPG, which used the vitality/wounds system, but I don't think it's just that. Whenever I play D&D, even when I'm the DM, successful attacks are nearly always described as having some immediate, devastating effect. PCs are constantly having flesh shredded, limbs frozen, and arteries torn for the sake of dramatic flair. This is fun sometimes, in climactic battles, but once you get used to this mode of description, it's hard to break out of it, so that any random run-in with a pack of dire rats quickly dissolves into an inexplicable bloodbath.

Thus, I'm considering implementing the following houserule into my next (3.5 or Pathfinder) game. It's essentially a vitality/wounds system with a few modifications. I simply feel that, with a stronger separation of the "close-calls" and "how are you still standing" zones on the ol' hp-o-meter, you can still have bloody fights without having every fight be that way. What used to be "wound points" I call "health points," because that just makes more sense to me, and I've mixed in some 4e with the death saving throws, but it's pretty much the same idea. The only thing I'm really not sure about is have PCs effectively regen their Con modifier in vitality every 5 minutes; I want a way to reflect catching your breath after a fight, but I'm not sure whether that's the best way to do it. (Also, I'm on the fence about having critical hits go straight to health rather than deal extra damage, any thoughts on that?)

Vitality Points/Health Points

Each character has a number of health points equal to 10 plus her Constitution modifier and a number of vitality points equal to the number of hit points that character would normally have. Damage is subtracted from vitality points first, and then, when a character’s vitality points are depleted, from health points. When a character’s health points are depleted, she falls unconscious and must begin making death saving throws if she has not begun doing so already.

When a character takes health point damage, she becomes staggered until she takes a short rest and may suffer an additional effect, determined by a d20 roll. On a roll of 1–10, the character falls unconscious and begins making death saving throws immediately. On 11–19, the character remains conscious but bleeds, taking 1d4 additional points of damage (this does not incur another d20 roll). On a roll of 20, the character remains conscious and suffers no additional effect.

To make a death saving throw, roll a d20. On a roll of 1–10, the character slips closer to death, suffering 1d4 points of damage or accruing 1 death point if she is already at 0 health points. On 11–19, the character remains unconscious but suffers no additional effect. On a roll of 20, the character regains consciousness and vitality points equal to one-quarter her maximum vitality point total (and 1 health point if she had been reduced to 0 health points).

Death points remain until the character has had an extended rest or is healed to maximum health points, whichever occurs first. If, at any time, a character has three death points, she dies.

Effects that would heal hit points heal vitality points instead, except as follows (these effects are in addition to each spell's normal effects).

• The caster of breath of life can choose to remove death points before applying the spell’s healing to the target’s vitality points. Removing 1 death point consumes 10 points of "normal" healing. If the target has died within 1 round and the spell reduces its death point total to 0, it is restored to life as described in the spell’s description.
• Greater restoration restores all health points and removes all death points.
• Heal and mass heal both remove all death points and the target regains 1 health point per caster level.
• Lesser restoration can be used to restore 1d4 health points or removes 1 death point.
• Restoration restores 1d4 health points per caster level and removes 1 death point.

Additionally, any spell that restores any amount of vitality points to a target who has been reduced to 0 health points also restores that creature to 1 health point.

Nonlethal damage reduces vitality points in same manner as lethal damage. However, once a character’s vitality points have been depleted, each time the character would take damage from a nonlethal source, she must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 10 + the amount of nonlethal damage that would have been dealt) or fall unconscious for 1d4 minutes.

Resting

There are two types of rests: A short rest and an extended rest.

A short rest is a 5-minute break in which no seriously stressful or strenuous activity takes place. By taking a short rest, a character can regain vitality points equal to her Constitution bonus.

An extended rest is the 6- to 8-hour period a character must sleep each night to function effectively during her waking hours. An extended rest renews all of the character’s vitality points, heals 1 health point, and removes 1 point of temporary ability damage to each damaged ability score.