Thursday, April 1, 2010

House Rules

Thanks to the wonder that is Google Docs, I've been able to quickly and painlessly put my rules up online. Huzzah.

They lack polish, and new much fine tuning and testing. Specifically, the races are not balanced. Some are rather weak, and some are rather strong. I do not like ECLs, so ideally I will be able to level out the races some.

I'm actually quite pleased with how some of the classes turned out (Samurai in particular). I'm fond of classes gaining unique abilities at levels 5, 10 and 15 respectively (as you'll see). I'm also fond of classes triggering abilities off of daily usage powers (like turning, smiting, stunning, etc). As such, healers, monks, hexblades, and a few other had some of their signature abilities changed to incorporate this. This allows for a player to use abilities more times per day, while still focussing on resource management, not unlike a spellcaster (for example, now a monk can dimension door more times per day, at the cost of stunning less).

I'm certainly happy to get some feedback on these rules. I haven't applied 95% of it yet, and won't until I'm certain I'm happy with them.

Monday, March 29, 2010

The Prodigal Blogger.

So, two days ago, I call Danny to see if we'll be playing D&D that night. He quickly interrupts me to tell me that he stumbled upon a blog where someone was recounting details of our campaign. He seemed bewildered, and almost scared, that some stranger knew who Haldir was, and asked me if it was my blog.

However, Danny being Danny, he paraphrased what he had read, then quoted it back to me. This confused me, making me think that he had read someone else's blog, so I immediately started denying that it was my blog. This caused Danny to go from almost scared to legit scared.

Good times.

Since my last update, I've gone from exclusively DMing to being a player character as well. I've also undertaken creating my own set of house rules, which hinge around "balancing" all base classes, and some prestige classes. I've also joined the Starcraft 2 beta, canceled my City of Heroes subscription, and created a Dungeons and Dragons Online account.

However, as an update to the campaign I'm DMing:

Danny was able to get his hands on a fate chip, allowing him to reroll his fortitude save. This time he made it, and he was able to prevent himself from crashing into the ground. However, in the ensuing battle, Merrick Praetor (NPC Cleric/Prestige Paladin) died, taking the dragon with him. The players returned to Basilicatta, where they were attacked by demonic retrievers searching for La'Travius (NPC Paladin). In the battle to drive them off, Haldir showed up with a young girl who allegedly broke him out of jail, and then proceeded to help them fight off the demons. Lucia attempted to sense the young girls aura, and was nearly overwhelmed with the power of her evil aura. This lead to Raphael Esposito (NPC Fighter/Ranger/Dread Commado) killing the young girl in cold blood, with a single gun shot at point blank. Later that same day, Lucia was approached by a man who offered to resurrect Merrick, if she would sign a magical contract forbidding her from ever setting foot in Merkail (ill-intentioned militaristic nation across the sea that has outlawed all arcane magic).

While this is occurring, Victor, who has been raised from the dead, has taken her leave of the party, only to have La'Travius follow her. She quickly finds that La'Travius managed to recover the Shield of Prator from the abyss, and now he is hounded by demons set on recovering it. So, they are now journeying north to Karvayne (secluded and walled off nation to the north, famous for being plagued with undead, and protected by necromatic knights) in search of a portal to the abyss, so they can take the fight directly to whichever demon prince is behind the attacks.

Unfortunately, that campaign is seemingly on hiatus, since the person who plays Lucia can't/won't decided whether or not she'll accept the offer to bring Merrick back (there may or may not have been a romance subplot there).

Well, at least now I have actual rules for massive damage!

Death and Dying (or just getting messed up in general):
  • Rather than dying when a subject reaches -10 HP, a character dies when they reach a negative number equal to their constitution score, or ¼ their maximum HP, whichever is higher. For example, Lucia Di’Mato is a paladin with 220 HP. She is dying between -1 and -54 HP, and dies at -55.
  • The feat Diehard still only allows someone to take actions until -10 HP.
  • The heal DC to stabilize a dying character is 14+Hit Dice. For example, Lucia Di’Mato is a 14th level paladin. She is dying after being mauled by a paragon dire bear (Don’t laugh, I’ll do it). The DC to stabilize her is 28.
  • Each character has a unique massive damage threshold. The massive damage threshold is (Con Score*3)+Hit Dice. Whenever they take enough damage from a single attack to meet or exceed this threshold, they must make a Fortitude save (DC15+1 for every 5 points of damage above the threshold), or be reduced to -1 HP instantly. For example, Lucia Di’Mato is a 14th level paladin with Con 20, so her massive damage threshold is 74. She takes 112 damage from an evil cavalier’s unstoppable charge. She now has to make a DC 22 Fortitude save or be dropped to -1.
  • A character receives a bonus or a penalty to their massive damage threshold based on size. For every size larger than medium, the character receives a +10. For ever size smaller than medium, it’s a -10. For example, Gia the 15th level halfling barbarian rides Wiggles, the 22 HD wyvern into battle. Her massive damage threshold is 69 ([18*3]+15), while his is 118 ([32*3]+22+30)
  • A character with the racial or class ability “Powerful Build” counts as one size larger than they actually are for calculating massive damage threshold.
  • If a character takes enough subdual damage to exceed their massive damage threshold, the are at risk of being knocked unconscious for 1d4 minutes. The save is handled the same as if it were lethal damage.

I'll start posting larger swaths of my house rules (all of which are based on 3.5 D&D), or better yet, find someplace to plop down all 17 or so pages of it. I'd love input from those who have it. As a side note, I'm applying as few of these changes as possible right now, to avoid confusing or stressing my players (the above listed rules have been applied, since those situations come up time and time again).

(Points to anyone who gets the M:TG reference.)