Hot answers tagged homebrew
37
Okay, so...
You want to measure values from ~0 - ~90. You want even distribution, and high granularity (i.e. as many distinct values as possible).
Well, that's easy.
(Ceiling(1d6 / 2) - 1) * 36 + (1d6 - 1) * 6 + (1d6 - 1) AnyDice
Provides values of 0 to 107, with even probability, and each value represented exactly once.
Notes:
Ceiling(1d6 / 2) is ...
25
Betrayal is achieved through imperfect information, possibly conflicting goals, and the ability for orders to be miscommunicated.
(Caution, game theory ahead)
Literature Review
I'm going to assume that you're familiar with the Prisoner's Dilemma, the iterated prisoner's dilemma, the stag hunt, (Kuhn 2009) and the problems with resource availability on ...
17
There is no base price in a barter system.
When bartering, every single transaction is treated on its own merits. Each side looks at what it has to offer and what it wants and builds a deal based on that. Value isn't measured in anything like the same way we do it today.
In many barter societies, food is the limiting factor. Valuable goods and services are ...
17
If you want your players' experience to actually "feel like" barter, coming up with an absolute value for everything is self-defeating. You end up with a de-facto currency system that just abstracts away all of the bartering. It's kinda like writing "500 gp worth of gems" on your character sheet in D&D — it's something players do when they don't ...
13
Just Roleplay It
I've had the same situation come up in my game, a player wanted to play a blind warrior inspired by an anime where blindness is "cool" rather than "crippling."
The problem in, in D&D 4th edition, blindness is CRIPPLING. As you see yourself from the blind condition, it heavily penalizes a player, and afflicting someone with that all the ...
12
There’s a lot of material out there about class design, both specific to Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 and to games in general. Even stuff about non-role-playing game design can provide good insights. So reading is my #2 suggestion.
My #1 suggestion, though, is to put your work out there. There are a lot of forums dedicated to roleplaying games, and a lot of ...
12
This is not the way to do this
Wanting balance between caster and non-caster classes is as noble goal; however, adding mechanics that punish players for choosing to be spellcasters is not how to bring them in line. Random mechanics like Wild Magic just make the game unfun for spellcasters or those with spell-like abilities; sanity rules are difficult to ...
11
Give him the Blind keyword and Tremorsense 0
The Blind keyword states that the creature uses special senses to 'see' within a specified range. The quotes are intentional because see is used as a game term here.
The Blinded condition and the many vision-obscuring powers define not seeing something as it having total concealment against you.
You can give ...
10
For simplicity's sake, you could always do 1d6 * 3d6 - four dice rolls, minimum age of 3, maximum age of 108. The probabilities are wacky, though:
EDIT: Secondarily, 6*1d6-1d6 (two dice rolls) can get you absolutely flat probability from 0-35. You can then leverage this to either roll and multiply:
2*(6*1d6-1d6) for multiples of 2 (even numbers), result ...
10
In 4E the four defenses are calculated via 10 + bonuses, whereas the attack is d20 + bonuses. This means that in average the attack roll is 10,5 + bonuses.
If you change this to attack score = 11 + bonuses and defense check = d20 + bonuses, you raise both the attack value and the defense value by 0,5 in average. So this is the preferred way, if you don't ...
10
By no means should a GM attempt to implement many all of the following suggestions simultaneously without carefully considering the implications; some of these ideas are brutal enough all on their own.
Inflate DCs
One of the 'problems' with the disease mechanic is that "an ally can use a Heal check in place of your Endurance check to help you recover from ...
9
For the most Call of Cthulhu-like Sanity rules, try and get a copy of Call of Cthulhu d20, and adopt its rules as you see fit. The book also has excellent - in terms of d20 adaptation - mechanics for darker, unpredictable spells, spell costs and spellcasting. In case you truly want to run a Lovecraftian d20 fantasy, it also has great DM advice and a section ...
9
First off, that pair of wealth rules looks good. They'll work, and you're not going to break your game by using them. Go for it.
Wealth in tremulus is a straight port of the wealth rules in Apocalypse World. In AW's system and context, jingle, it's lack, and its ease of losing are part and parcel of the scarcity theme that pervades the game and the ...
8
Separate from my response to your ideas:
My own suggestion
OK, so Soulknives are lightly-armored, highly-mobile strikers with a Wisdom focus and something of a “secret order” and “highly disciplined” flavor. Trained in special arts and lore, etc. etc. It’s pretty much the Psionic version of the Monk.
Actually, let’s ...
8
It is impossible to convert between epic levels and divine ranks in a way that is both systematic and fair.
The reason for this is that neither "an epic class level" nor "a divine rank" is a constant measurement of character power. There is a massive variation to the power contribution of each depending on the specific options selected. An Epic Wizard level ...
8
I think what you're attempting isn't possible without setting up a de facto currency and might not be all that productive. Typically barter systems hold very little long term consistency in terms of the relative value of items. Valuation of a given item against another will vary from individual to individual and by even greater margins from place to place ...
7
Here are some house-rules that might be useful as a guideline in your search.
Use only Martial and Psionic classes. At 3rd, 8th, 13th, 18th, 23rd, 28th levels characters get a +1 to attack, damage, AC, Defenses and +1d6 to critical hits. This should keep them in line with monsters. Using Divine classes would be a judgement call, are they 'magic' or more a ...
7
You can find specific values for all possible magic items here, as the SRD offers rules for pricing any spell or bonus into any magic item.
Be advised that this system can be abused pretty horribly (not that I'd ever have done that... nope) and that some of the magic items have silly prices when estimated by their concomitant spells
7
Quoth the SRD:
"Vitality points are a measure of a character’s ability to turn a direct hit into a graze or a glancing blow with no serious consequences. Like hit points in the standard d20 rules, vitality points go up with level, giving high-level characters more ability to shrug off attacks. Most types of damage reduce vitality points.
Characters ...
7
I think the RAW approach here would be to take a look at the essentials mage.
Each time the mage chooses daily, utility or encounter powers they choose two of the same level. Each day they prepare a set of spells determined by level (at level 1 its 1 daily, 1 encounter, at L2 its 1 daily, 1 utility and 1 encounter etc.). This gives you more of the ...
6
My group ran a fairly successful corruption system in the D6 Star Wars RPG. It was cobbled together from the core rules, and the rules laid out in The Jedi Handbook v1.3.
To help give a sense of scale, here's the core mechanics of the system we were using:
Players have skills and attributes rated as a number of dice (i.e. 3D). To use one, roll a number ...
6
If you are willing to start replacing rule subsystems to improve the drama, then you could take a leaf from the FATE Fractal (see more) and model suffering from the disease with a skill challenge.
Model as Skill Challenge
Since the default rules for skill challenges aren't as good as they could be, try these alternative rules. Diseases should be a ...
6
Weapon Focus is absolutely a bad feat. In fact, it’s even possible that this was intentional on the part of the system’s designers. It is frequently used as a “tax” for stronger feats or prestige classes.
This is pretty atrocious design, and I can state unequivocally that 99% of those taxed options do not deserve such a tax.
Also, ...
6
My initial reaction is to give them "very many" spell points. The Vancian base class gets a very, very large number of their frequently used lower level spells per day, leading me to believe the class was intended to have durability enough to keep pace with mundane characters in most situations. Also, the class relies largely on augment-scaling blasting ...
6
First off, just throwing it out there- there is no rules as written way to get divine ranks. (In core, anyway.) Which means we don't have any other method we need to balance with or to use as a guideline.
So, how powerful is a divine ranked character? I would contest the claim that epic spellcasting is strictly superior to salient abilities, and gods get ...
6
First, I agree with Lord Gareth in that you probably don't actually want to do this. And if you go through with it, you need to consider its impact on your teams power levels and lower the power levels of the threats you are sending them against accordingly. If you really want a low magic world, consider another system entirely.
However, its an ...
5
There is a 3rd party app, cbloader, that can be used to extend and create new content for the offline version of the character builder (which you would need to find a copy of).
You should be able to implement a custom class in that, though you will need to know how to edit XML files.
5
Brian's answer was exactly what I was looking for, but I wanted to add something I found for sake of completeness.
I found contained within an artificer guide a section
giving pointers in pricing custom items. Especially found insightful was the summation near the end of the custom item section
And that’s how you know you’ve got a good price for any ...
5
The best resource available for 3.5 poisons is the Arsenic and Old Lace handbook, but like so many other things, it’s hosted on MinMax which is currently down. For right now, you can use the Google cached version, but it’s ugly.
Anyway, Master of Poisons from Drow of the Underdark is a must. For one feat, get Poison Use and the ability to apply ...
5
To add some homebrew poison support, here are a few:
A nasty Poisoner PrC.
3.5 implementation of real-world poisons.
Rules for creating custom poisons.
And to toot my own horn: I have performed an overhaul of the 3.5 poison system myself. It's not so much an addition to as it is a replacement of the old mechanics, but it does make them significantly more ...
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