Few gaming groups take the rules "as is" from the core source books and stick with them. Here and there "house rules" used and understood by that particular group crop up to cover areas that they feel need to be addressed. These rules can cover character generation to saving throw semantics, but each tends to hold a personal touch that may or may not be in agreement with other groups. Here I put down the house rules of our group and any pertinent explanations that go with them.

Through both Second and Third edition the definition of soul, spirit, essence and life force have been a bit vague. I have never been able to tell if they are separate parts or the same thing as the game material never really seems consistent on this topic. So I took it upon myself to lay this down in no uncertain terms so that we could have a bit of stability when it came to spells and effects dealing in this area. What I came up with is four parts that may or may not make up any one character depending on their nature.

Body: This is simply the physical aspect of a creature. Creatures native to the Prime Material Plane are typically composed of solid matter while elementals have bodies composed of their element. Damage from combat is usually directed at this body in an attempt to destroy it and cause death, but this is not the only way to cause harm just the easiest.

Mind: A part of the body that is responsible for decision making, memory and a plethora of other functions. I hold this part separate as there are many spells and psionics that deal only with the mind and so I treat it as a separate part. The mind controls movement, planning, learning, reflexes and just about anything else one can attribute to an animal's behaviour. Some spells are able to strip a body of its mind making it a puppet or influence normal thought. Charm and Domination effects are the most common forms of mind manipulation and are typically well known to players.

Spirit: From the best I could find in the source books the spirit is "the animating force of the body". So I take this to mean it is what allows the body to move, essentially it is the spirit that separates the living from non-living components of a world. It is then possible for a spirit to grant its animating force to whatever it inhabits which is a fine explanation for some spells that animate objects. Even undead need a spirit to become animated once again, and this part is also explained in such spells that say "returns a portion of the creatures spirit to its corpse allowing it to walk again". With the idea that undead and living beings are different enough by the fact that a priest can turn one and not the other, as well as the fact undead don't have need for living organs anymore there must be a change in the spirit. Drawing upon this I guessed that most living creatures, based on how they react to healing magics, have their spirit full of positive energies of some form while most undead have energies from the negative. This would make spirits "magical" in the sense they deal with these primal energies from which magic is wrought. Having a magical in incorporeal nature I would think spirits would reside in the ethereal plane overlapping their physical bodies which they animate. As most living beings use positive energies they may be attacked by negative and vice versa for most undead. Some beings classed as undead (such as the mummies in second edition) are strongly connected to the positive plane, much like a living creature. It would then to be to far a stretch to say that they were "over charged" with life energies, so much that they no longer needed a living body to remain "alive"; vital organs are just a crutch they no longer needed. By this point it seemed that a spirit is a receptacle that can hold some sort of power, and depending on which power and how much of it, there would be a trait given to the body. So living deal with positive while un-living deal with negative. Elementals would then be spirits that deal with the energies of their home plane. Those undead without bodies, such as ghosts, are spirits that have no physical body but have enough power within them to maintain themselves without one. At death the spirit most likely lacks the ability to keep the body functioning and begins to slowly bleed off its power reserve. The spirit may be rekindled by the proper magics or it may have enough to convert to an undead by inverting its energies. Most undead that show emotion do so very strongly, but do not seem to be able to change what emotion they feel. It would seem they keep the emotion they had before death or the one most important in life. I would guess that emotions may etch into the spirit and stay even after the body and mind have died. Unable to think for itself (it has no mind) a spirit has only what was etched into it during life, which would be the most important moments, memories and feelings it had as a living being. This can also explain the haunting of spirits that scream in lament of something they lost for centuries, never changing in mood, until it finally fades or is dealt with. Should a spirit lose its purpose for remaining active, such as an important deed it wished fulfilled is finally realized, the sprit would most likely become inert and begin to slowly ebb its power. Lastly, a body deprived of its spirit becomes inert flesh as its animating force has been removed, much as can be seen with the various death spells.

Soul: We have the body and mind in the prime material, the spirit in the ethereal, now where to put this thing? Most of the gods seem to deal with the Astral, and so I decided it would be here most souls end up. So I decided to start them there as well, overlapping their physical body that resides in the material world. The soul is not the mind and so does not have any direct control over the body, nor its it the spirit and so does not control its animating force. The soul seems only to exist to receive the reward earned by the actions of the mind, body and spirit while they all still live. So where does the soul play into this? I supposed it would be as the conscience of a living being, the voice that suggests what a being should and should not do. Its tools are guilt, remorse and pride, three rather pointless things from a physical standpoint. It would not be a stretch for one to think of a soulless man, a man who kills without guilt or remorse; what others would call a monster.

Call me old-fashioned, but I sort of felt better with the magical item creation methods in second edition. Paying experience to create a magical item with its own personality (as you put some of yourself into the item, your spirit), but for a scroll, potion? not likely. I see this balancing mechanism for what it is, a crutch. This may ge a good idea for DM's who are just starting out, as it will keep the amount of newly generated magical items down as every player loathes the loss of hard earned experience. For DM's who have experience of their own, this is more of a nuisance than a help, as one can see the "power component" idea spawns more creativity and reasons to venture. To pay for an enchanted item with experience is both irrational and dry. Once, a wizard GAINED experience for applying his science to creating a tool of his craft, now that is turned right on its head. Magic has always seemed like a science to me; it is written about in books, research is done so there must be laws to follow, experimentation with new formulas and "mishaps" when they fail. Why make your wizard lose ability when he tries to use it? Under the current rules, and 18th level wizard with but 11 extra exp could not make a magical item that needed 20 while a 5th level wizard with 25 extra exp could. This hurts my head, this is meant as a crutch but seems to have a hard time standing under a little examination. I feel any DM with some idea of how prevalent they want magical items in their world and a little imagination can come up with far better gaming using the old second edition method or just the "power component" option.

Defined as learning attained by the senses, experience means you have to be there be paying attention to get it (it is also something you don't get until just after you need it). The old second edition method of experience was a bit...wanting. I usually scaled up or down the exp. of a battle based on just how challenging it was, how well the players went about it and how much I felt the players learned. Now with the challenge rating system this is even better reflected, and so I am happy. I do tend to use the "free form" variant found in the DMG for exp. awards but will accommodate any situation as it arises. I will award players exp. based on the following:

I also tend to give exp. for the use of skills to solve problems and the like. Skills such as open-lock, diplomacy, spellcraft and knowledge can all count here. The higher the DC the better the exp.