House Rules for My Games
Play:
The DM reserves the right to fudge die rolls at his discretion.
The DM is forbidden from giving experience penalties or from any divine retribution type activities; lightning bolts, unforeseen tarasque attacks etc. (well unless you actually warant such attention from a higher power in the campaign world)
Non combat Experience awards (Story Awards) will typically be a rare instance, though not unheard of. Role-playing excellence can occasionally result in a small reward as well. Regular awards will be given for posting on the yahoo groups between meets
This campaign will be a medium magic campaign as outlined by the guidelines in the DMG.
My campaigns take a middle of the road approach between deep immersion story telling and hack & slash with ample opportunities for each.
I strongly recommend that the party should cover a wide range of characters including melee, ranged/magic, stealth, and healing but no formal restrictions are placed on character class. You will likely need a healer occasionally to survive in my campaigns. Characters must be of non-evil alignments.
Sourcebooks:
This campaign functions with a wide range of sourcebooks printed from Wizards of the Coast D&D D20 system 3.5 edition Player's Handbook (E) Dungeon Master's Guide - (E) Monster Manual - (E) Complete Warrior - Book of Exalted deeds * Draconomicon - Complete Arcane - (E) Planar Handbook * (E) Libris Mortis - (E) Complete Adventurer - Unearthed Arcana * Monster Manual III *(E) Complete Divine - (E) Heroes of Battle * Lords of Madness * Races of Stone - Races of Destiny - Races of the Wild - Ebberon Campaign Setting * (E) Older 3.0 materials can be used but the DM reserves the right to adapt material to better fit with the 3.5 revision. Sword and fist * Manual of the Planes * (U) Monster Manual II * (U) Tome and Blood * Book of Vile Darkness* Fiend Folio * (U) Defenders of the faith * Masters of the wild * Song and silence * Savage Species * Stronghold Builder's Guidebook - Arms and Equipment Guide * Savage Species * Forgotten realms Campaign setting *
Description of symbols:
* Book requires mandatory DM consent for PC to use any material.
- Not all material within these books is approved for player use, but most will be acceptable, I reserve the right to nerf this material more readily than the core books.
(E) An errata sheets has been published for this on the wizard's site and is in effect
(U) 3.5 updates are provided for this book on the wizard's site
Material from other sources is legitimate to use only if information is acquired in a legal manner, if you wish to use a PRC from another sourcebook not here presented then you'll need to use either the SRD or purchase the relevant book for your own use.
Races:
Paragon Classes may be used. Paragon classes are not available for any race with racial hit dice.
Classes:
The wildshape rules for druids in the PHB assume medium sized druids. All size categories are adjusted relatively smaller or larger creatures.
Members of the Swashbuckler class receive good reflex saving throws in place of the grace ability, additionally:
level 3 swashbucklers gain evasion as per the rogue ability.
level 6 swashbucklers gain uncanny dodge as per the rogue ability.
Level 12 Swashbucklers gain improved uncanny dodge as per the rogue ability.
Feats:
New Feats:
Spell Sunder
You are quite apt at overpowering other caster's spells.
Benefit: when casting Dispel magic, Greater dispel magic or Mordenkainen's disjunction you gain a +2 bonus to dispel checks and caster level checks involved in the spell.
Skill Aptitude
You have gone out of your way to aquire and maintain training in an unusual area of study.
Benefit:The skill Aptitude feat can be taken for a specific skill. You can take the given skill as if it were a class skill from that point onward.
Opertunist
You have a way of catching your opponents with their guard down
Prerequisites: Dex 13+, Base attack bonus +2, Combat reflexes
Benefits: On your turn you can make an extra attack (or attack action) against a single foe within reach who is denied their dexterity bonus for any reason. If more than one foe is denied their dexterity bonus you may only make this attack against one of them.
Note: This feat was originaly presented as "Expert Tactician" in Sword and Fist and Song and Silence
Amendments:
New Leadership feat progression:
Leadership
ScoreNumber of Followers By Level
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th
6 5 - - - - - -
7 6 - - - - - -
8 8 - - - - - -
9 10 1 - - - - -
10 15 1 - - - - -
11 20 2 1 - - - -
12 25 2 1 - - - -
13 30 3 1 1 - - -
14 35 3 1 1 - - -
15 40 4 2 1 1 - -
16 50 5 3 2 1 - -
17 60 6 3 2 1 1 -
18 75 7 4 2 2 1 -
19 90 9 5 3 2 1 1
20 110 11 6 3 2 1 1
21 135 13 7 4 2 2 1
22 160 16 8 5 3 2 1
23 190 19 10 6 3 2 1
24 220 22 12 7 3 2 1
25+ 255 25 14 8 3 2 1
Followers granted from the leadership feat are non-elite Warriors, Experts, and Commoners.
Alternately any follower may be of another PC or NPC class but these followers take up a slot one level higher than their actual level. Followers may never be elite characters nor have prestige class levels.
The leadership feat does not grant cohorts.
Cohorts are not a feat related but rather the province of the dungeon master. If the party collectively desires some regular NPC backup and should the opportunity present itself a cohort will be presented to the party as a whole, control will be hybridized between the players with the DM having a override on behavior at any time as needed.
The Persistent Spell feat is banned.
Doubling up on metamagic feats:
Each metamagic feat may be used once on any given spell, if the character elects to take the same feat more than once the effects can be applied that many times, keeping with the doubled doublings rules. Thus a twice empowered spell is twice as powerful as a normal spell of the same kind.
Description:
Characters do not gain bonus intelligence or charisma for aging, wisdom rises as normal. Elven characters suffer no penalties for advanced age and have no maximum age. Likewise creatures that do not die of natural causes (eg Liches) do not suffer physical aging effect as well.
Equipment:
Weapon equivalency rules on Page 27 of the DMG will be used.
Gyrspikes are used by some highly skilled fighters but the rules governing these weapons have been changes for purposes of balance in this campaign. Only the sword side of the gyrspike carries the improved (19-20/X2) critical and only the Flail arm of the Gyrspike carries the ability to trip and the improved disarm abilities.
Halfling skip rocks may be employed as simple weapons but may not ricochet if used in this manner.
Materials:
Special materials have standardized gp values per pound to circumvent the potential of an intelligent smith melting down a few minor items to make a larger one.
Mithral costs 400 gp per pound (eight times its weight in gold)
All purely mithral items are half their normal weight; this includes weapons and armor contrary to the rules in the DMG.
Adamantine costs 300 gp per pound (six times its weight in gold)
(Please note: In Scott's campaign these numbers are 400 per lb of adamantine and 500 per lb of mithral)
Mithral or adamantine items may be mastercrafted as normal. All items must be of mastercraft quality to be enchanted, The Armor check penalty reduction associate with mithral does not stack with the similar reduction for mastercrafting.
Rules otherwise obey those of Mithral in the DMG.
Metal bars:
Bars of metal typically weigh 1 pound each.
Adamantine Bars are worth 300 gp.
Platinum Bars are worth 500 gp .
Mithral Bars are worth 200 gp and weigh only 8 ounces (1/2 pound).
Gold Bars are worth 50 gp.
Silver bars are worth 5 gp.
Copper bars are worth 0.5 gp.
Iron Bars are worth 1 sp.
No special materials from secondary sources will be used without the express consent of the DM.
Combat:
Massive damage based on size rules on Page 27 of the DMG will be used, rather than automatic instant death a character who fails the requisite save instead suffers damage according to the following chart. Substantially larger opponents as well as distinctly alien ones would require separate charts or a DM judgement call,
Humanoid Opponents roll 1d6 and consult the following table:
Which ever portion is struck is effectively mutilated or outright removed, limbs are severed or rendered useless by such a blow. Every wound, including head wounds for multi headed creatures cause profuse bleeding dealing 1d6 damage per round. Bleeding can be stopped by means of a successful heal check DC 20 or a cure spell, if the spell cures less than six damage then that amount is deducted from the amount of bleeding rolled each round rather than curring the bleeding entierly. Thus if Norbit loses an arm and is healed 4 points of damage via cure light wounds he then suffers 1d6 - 4 damage per round (minimum damage 0)
A regenerate spell is required to replace lost limbs, it also stops bleeding instantly.
Critical hits increase the chance that a given creature will sustain massive damage but otherwise have no special effect under house rules.
Magic Items:
New Magic Weapon ability: Hallowed
Hallowed weapons deal +2d6 Holy damage against evil creatures. It bestows two negative levels on any evil creature attmpting to wield it. It deals an additional +2d10 holy damage on a critical Hit, Weapons with X3 crit modifiers deal +4d10 instead. Weapons with a X4 Critical Mod do receive +6d10
Caster level 15th Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Holy word, Market Price +3
New Magic Weapon ability: Entropic
Hallowed weapons deal +2d6 chaos damage against lawful creatures. It bestows two negative levels on any lawful creature attempting to wield it. It deals an additional +2d10 Chaos damage on a critical Hit, Weapons with X3 crit modifiers deal +4d10 instead. Weapons with a X4 Critical Mod do receive +6d10
Caster level 15th Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Word of Chaos, Market Price +3
New Magic Weapon ability: Ordered
Hallowed weapons deal +2d6 law damage against chaotic creatures. It bestows two negative levels on any chaotic creature attempting to wield it. It deals an additional +2d10 law damage on a critical Hit, Weapons with X3 crit modifiers deal +4d10 instead. Weapons with a X4 Critical Mod do receive +6d10
Caster level 15th Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Dictum, Market Price +3
New Magic Weapon ability: Defiled
Hallowed weapons deal +2d6 unholy damage against good creatures. It bestows two negative levels on any good creature attempting to wield it. It deals an additional +2d10 unholy damage on a critical Hit, Weapons with X3 crit modifiers deal +4d10 instead. Weapons with a X4 Critical Mod do receive +6d10
Caster level 15th Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Blasphemy, Market Price +3
Amendments:
Magic weapon ability change: Vorpal
Rather than automatically removing the head of the target creature on a critical hit this weapon, halves the damage threashold for massive damage and the related progression of save DCs. (thus a medium creature suffers massive damage at 25 damage rather than 50 and takes a +2 save dc increase every 5 additional points of damage.)
Caster level 18th Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, circle of death, keen edge, Market Price +3
Magic Weapon Ability change: Skillful
Weapons with the skillful quality impart lessened benefit to members of certain classes, any class levels for classes which have no base attack progression whatsoever (warhulk, survivor, epic levels) are not counted in the level calculation for such a weapon thus a character with 5 levels of any class and with 6 warhulk levels would only garner a +3 Bab from a skillful weapon. Epic base attack bonuses may be added to the normal base attack bonus as ussual, but epic levels don't garner any extra benefit through double dipping ussing the skillful trait.
Magic weapon ability amendment: Spell Storing
When cast through a spell storing weapons, spells cannot score critical hits even if the weapon itself does score a critical hit.
Spells:
The following spells have had their level changed:
Shades: 8th level illusion (shadow)
Shadow Evocation Greater: 7th level illusion (shadow)
Shadow conjuration greater: 6th level illusion (shadow)
Shadow Evocation: 4rd level illusion (shadow)
Shadow Conjuration: 3rd level illusion (shadow)
All saving throws for these spells are based on the normal spell level not the level of the spell they are being used to emulate.
The create water spell either fills a receptacle or creates a small localized downpour (5ft by 5 ft area) it cannot be used to spontaneously create an unbounded area of water in three dimensional space. Reflex saving throws to avoid said downpour are permissible.
Spells modified by metamagic effects to produce sonic effects deal full damage to objects but half damage to creatures. Normally sonic spells are uneffected.
Mordenkainen's Disjunction has been nerfed so as not to destroy magic items but rather suppress their effect. Any magic item that fails it's saving throw is rendered inert for 2d4 minutes. Alternately the caster may elect to focus the disjunction on a single item, rather than spreading in a burst a single item only is effected, if it passes it's save it is rendered innerrt for 2d4 minutes if it fails it's save it is disjoined and rendered non-magic permanently. This spell is now utterly unable to affect artifacts.
Polymorph/Shapechange spells:
Unless a monster has been encountered firsthand by the party the polymorphing character must have a familiarity with said creature. All such uses of polymorph or similar spells are restricted to monsters from the core monster manual. Additionally the caster must have a total bonus to the knowledge skill relevant to the creature equal to or exceeding that creature's hit dice. Thus a wizard with +12 to knowledge arcana (including ranks and int bonuses etc.) is knowledgeable enough to assume the form of a 12 hit dice dragon so long as he would normally be capable of doing so under the relevant spellcasting rules. He is esentially taking ten on his knowledge check to know about the monster.
Any form can be assumed if the character has seen the creature firsthand so long as is obeys normal spellcasting rules, this includes forms not covered in the core MM and forms for which the knowledge skill of the character is inadequate.
Writing spellbooks takes one day per spell (pp. 179 PHB 3.5)
Quickened spells are always cast as swift actions even by sorcerers, bards, or other cases of spontaneous casting.
Cone of Cold does not instantly freeze water in the area of effect this effect as this effect is reserved for Otiluke's freezing sphere a level 6 spell.
Purchasing new spells:
Wizards and other similar arcane casters may wish to purchase spells from similar casters. Each spells costs double the cost of getting the spell cast by and NPC + 100 gp per page (one page per level) for the actual inscription thus total costs for aquiring and inscribing spells are here summarized:
These rules are existent in the Core DMG/PHB, this chart just calculates various spell using existing methods.
Assuming the spell need only be aquired without payment for inscription (eg with a boccob's blessed book) then the prices are as follows: