Hot answers tagged house-rules
11
Alignment is a description of how you have acted in the past, NOT a restriction on how you act in the future
There can be no penalties because alignment is not a straitjacket. This was one thing that 4e absolutely got 100% right (though I prefer the 9 alignments to the 5).
Playing out of alignment may anger others who share your alignment, may draw the ...
8
The simplest is to simply use the Sorcerer instead of Wizard - you get a small list of known spells, and a number of spells, and nothing else changes.
Slightly more effort, but more easily used for all classes...
Spell Points
Allow the usual numbers of known spells. Each spell costs spell points equal to twice it's level, with zero levels being treated ...
6
There is actually a Paragon Path that can help with this. Specifically, its utility power "Ride the Giant Down":
Ride the Giant Down
Daily ✦ Martial
Move Action
Melee 1
Target: One Large or larger creature
Effect: You move into the target’s space, provoking opportunity attacks as ...
4
Resources, and equipment's resource requirement, represent permanent attachments to a character. These are things that are simply part of the character's existence and not just items that happen to be lying around. You don't have to have resources to have access to a weapon for a scene where you need it, you need to have resources to have access to that ...
4
Alignment isn't meant to be a hard rule. Characters that are, for example, Lawful Good aren't restricted in any way from taking actions that have been determined by the group to be evil.
Alignments are guidelines. It is a representation of what the character would generally do. A character is allowed to make decisions that are against his alignment ...
4
Firstly, spellcasters such as Bard and Sorcerer do not prepare spells. They simply know only a select few spells that they can cast “spontaneously” without special preparation.
Other classes, namely the Beguiler (Player’s Handbook II), Dread Necromancer (Heroes of Horror), and Warmage (Complete Arcane) expand this idea: they cast ...
4
I don't believe there is a magic system in 3.5 with the guidelines you're specifically looking for. Spell selection limitation is at the heart of many factors of balance within 3.5. Take the sorceror/wizard contrast for instance. The sorceror has access to a handful of spells throughout their career but gets more per day than the wizard, who can ...
3
This problem needs to be looked at from a magical and non-magical standpoint. Let's look at the easier one first.
For non-magical investigations, the ability scores of both GUMSHOE and Ars Magica are comparable (although the latter tend to be higher). You could simply say that all abilities are Investigative. So that if a PC has a relevant skill, core clues ...
2
With the premise that a 3x3 grid alignment system is going to be introduced into the game, and enforced, here is how I would start looking at it:
First, establish with the players what is essential to each coordinate. You have to be specific about what the expectations (and especially) requirements will be.
Following that, encouraging any sort of behavior ...
2
AD&D 2nd edition's Dungeon Master Guide had guidelines for alignment change. Definitely worth reading the whole chapter on alignment if you're interested in using it more strongly, but here's a good excerpt:
Unconscious change happens when the character's actions are suited to a different alignment without the player realizing it. As in the case of a ...
2
I guess your trying to balance PC knowledge of the dungeon gained through each attempt with some kind of debilitating effect?
I honestly feel that this will not work as you've written because players will make too many mistakes and end up terribly crippled (and prone to failing) as they progress. Likewise, players constantly replaying the same sections of ...
2
BX doesn't put the same weight on the ability scores as you appear to, so beware that adding an ability score advancement mechanic will redirect some of your players motivations away from looking for harder-to-achieve bonuses to their effectiveness. On the other hand, you don't have to worry much about breaking the balance of the game with this, because ...
1
The Simple Answer:
From level 2-10: Every even level: +1 to ability of player's choice.
From level 11-30: Every 4th level (i.e. 16, 20, 24, 28)
Given that you're avoiding magical-items, it might be advisable to have some extra ability bumps. Although I'm not familiar with 'Basic Fantasy', it might be best to increase monster-stats slightly to maintain ...
1
It honestly sounds like a “lose-more” mechanic. I’m not familiar with Death Watch, so I don’t know how bad or not a −2 to a stat is, but in d20 System games that I’m more familiar with, that would be very damaging; after two or three “Groundhogs,’” you’d be very unlikely to be able to complete the ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
