House Rules

In the interests of tracking our house rules, I thought I'd start up a thread where we can have them up permanently. Up to this moment, I think we only had the following ones:

* PCs gain an action point after every encounter. Naturally, the DM may deem a particular encounter too little of a challenge to justify the gain of an action point.

* PCs may spend an action point to not gain an extra standard action but to achieve something extra with a power (or something else, subject to DM adjudication). For example, a PC may want to spend an action point to use their daily attack power and also try to immobilize the struck target(s) for a round.

John C and I were just discussing a little more customization when it comes to the PCs' skills, so we decided to add another house rule:

* A PC may pick one trained skill which does not appear on their class list. The number of trained skills, however, remains the same. So, for example, a Fighter, which has three trained skills, will still have three but one of them might be a non-Fighter skill.

The above is only an option, so if you don't want to avail of it, you don't need to. And if you do, pick your skill and make the change to your character sheet.

Here's a small house rule on illumination which we discussed in passing earlier:

Forms of illumination usually provide equal amounts of bright and dim lighting. So, for example, items from the PHB provide the following:

Candle - radius of 1 square bright and then 1 square dim
Torch - radius of 3 squares bright and then 3 squares dim
Lantern/Campfire - radius of 5 squares bright and then 5 squares dim
Sunrod - radius of 10 squares bright and then 10 squares dim

Here are a couple more house rules which we'll be adding:

* All PCs get a +1 bonus to hit at 5th level (which means this applies to your current PCs), which stacks with everything else. It increases to +2 at 15th and +3 at 25th. This bonus is the same as the Weapon Expertise and Implement Expertise feats from PHB2, which we will not be allowing (instead, we're just applying them to everyone).

* Magic Items in the Port: This is more of a combo of flavor & mechanics, and takes a little explanation, so I apologize in advance for the length. That said, here goes - Since magic infuses everything in the Port and the World After, any item used regularly by a character is gradually imbued with their power and displays magical powers which match their personality. So when Yatagan picks up a battleaxe and uses it over and over, it eventually becomes a +1 battleaxe and then a Battlecrazed +1 battleaxe, and so on. If he hands it to Heyoka, it will remain a Battlecrazed +1 battleaxe for some time, and then through use will change to fit Heyoka's nature. And if Yatagan leaves the battleaxe in a room and never touches it, the magic will fade away.

The mechanics version of that is that most magic items beyond the very low-level and the single-use variety are items which belong to PCs and other powerful individuals. As the PCs advance, they can just improve their items in level (as we've been doing a lot of the time). And if the items are lost, they can just pick up another and use it for a certain amount of time and have it turn magical. Also, as a result, you can't sell or trade the vast majority of the magic you own, since it's only temporary. An added mechanical (and part flavor) element is that when PCs are being hired or being paid, the fact that they're being paid less than what a single item of theirs technically costs is irrelevant, since the cash is needed for simple things like paying rent, buying food or putting on a play, while the magic items can't provide such benefits.

In short, the magic items you own will gradually become more potent with time, which is handled OOC by the DM (whoever it is) letting you shift your equipment around every once in a while to fit your level. That also means you don't have to worry about making money to buy powerful enough items. Of course, there will sometimes be unique items, as well as magic components and special circumstances which change your equipment in unusual ways.

How should we address the psychological need for D&D players to take cool, new toys from the still-warm corpses of their adversaries (and then use then on new adversaries)?

I think there are ways to impart the same, well, cheap visceral thrill using mechanics like these.

BTW, don't artifacts sort-of level as the PC's do? (and where are the 4e artifact rules?).

Mallus wrote:

How should we address the psychological need for D&D players to take cool, new toys from the still-warm corpses of their adversaries (and then use then on new adversaries)?

I think there are ways to impart the same, well, cheap visceral thrill using mechanics like these.

BTW, don't artifacts sort-of level as the PC's do? (and where are the 4e artifact rules?).

Obviously, we need to take their souls along with their toys.

In practical (ha!) terms, this might be some sort of ritual that transfers a portion of the subjects mana to the new owner, enough so that the item in question will recognize him or her as the same person.

Game-mechanically, it would mean a time-limit, and some sort of expense in terms of material components. And perhaps the addition of ALL-NEW dysfunctional personality quirks, as some portion of the Dead Guy lives on in the new owner....

Mallus wrote:

How should we address the psychological need for D&D players to take cool, new toys from the still-warm corpses of their adversaries (and then use then on new adversaries)?

I think there are ways to impart the same, well, cheap visceral thrill using mechanics like these.

I think one way to do that is to have some items which aren't going to count among those that PCs gain as they level up, and also by having unique (sometimes plot-device) items.

Quote :

BTW, don't artifacts sort-of level as the PC's do? (and where are the 4e artifact rules?).

Pg.164 of the DMG. And kinda. They don't level up so much as display more of their abilities depending on how happy they are with their owners.

Which, by the way, has absolutely nothing to do with the way the crotch-god works. Nothing at all.

Rolzup wrote:

Obviously, we need to take their souls along with their toys.

In practical (ha!) terms, this might be some sort of ritual that transfers a portion of the subjects mana to the new owner, enough so that the item in question will recognize him or her as the same person.

Game-mechanically, it would mean a time-limit, and some sort of expense in terms of material components. And perhaps the addition of ALL-NEW dysfunctional personality quirks, as some portion of the Dead Guy lives on in the new owner....

Me likey!