I'm not sure if I'd call it a house rule or not, but I'll probably put in some limits on extended rests. "No more than one every day" seems reasonable, especially if I don't regularly pile on the encounters.
I'll also be thinking about some way of simulating wounds that don't heal within a day. This could be due to an external effect, like the Mournland in Eberron, or just a setting trope. I didn't play D&D 3.5 very much in-person, but when I did, I tended to play in low-magic settings where something like a wand of cure light wounds would be amazing. I'm used to having less magical healing available than I think most 3.5 players are, so this new, mostly non-magical healing seems like a lot to me.
Yeah, I have a player who is an engineer in real life and even in MMORPG's he has more fun with the crafting skills than the combats so I'll have to figure something out for that. I was thinking of maybe changing "History" to something more generic like "Education" and have it represent anything knowledge based that isn't covered by another skill.
Another option would be to use feats to expand existing skills. Like maybe "Blacksmith" which would give a +3 (?) to Endurance checks to create something.
Or maybe I'll just use the keyword idea and say pick two words that define your life pre-campaign life and you can do things related to those keywords.
The one thing I haven't been able to suss out (haven't read in depth yet) is whether or not there are magic item creation rules. I skimmed through but didn't see anything. That'll be really annoying if there aren't.
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Playing: D&D 4e, Warmachine
Running: Nothing at the moment
Most problems with missing skills could've been easily solved if Wizards had bothered to provide a generic Trade skill.
Not really.
3e's craft skills were garbage, because A) they only made mundane items, which PCs stop caring about after level 5 or so, B) once you had a +10 in the skill, you were done, and C) the crafting times were obscene. Realistic, possibly, but obscene. It takes a masterwork (DC= 20) crafter 41 weeks to make a suit of masterwork full plate. It takes an EPIC (DC = 40) crafter 10 weeks and a couple of days. Profession skills were even worse ("I hit DC 40! I earn a whole 20 gold this week! Another year of this and I can buy that +2 sword."). Perform was slightly better: you can earn upwards of 75 gp a week on Broadway.
The problem with skills like Craft, Profession, Perform, etc. is that they represent things that you want to do, but that, after a certain point, you stop giving a damn what the actual check is. They aren't skills, they're on/off "flags". They're roleplaying taxes. The only time you care what the actual bonus towards the skill is is in those few occasions -- naval battles, a bard-off, Iron Chef -- where they're an opposed roll. The best thing to do is either fold them into something else (Diplomacy would be a good place to stick Perform, for instance), make it an ability check, or just say "Cool, you can do that".
EDIT: although the "keyword thing" somebody mentioned above would be cool too.
The one thing I haven't been able to suss out (haven't read in depth yet) is whether or not there are magic item creation rules. I skimmed through but didn't see anything. That'll be really annoying if there aren't.
It's a ritual.
If you have the gold (and, hence, "materials") or the Residuum and know the ritual, you can craft anything of your level or lower.
Wait, I lie. I think you have to be of the class that can cast a certain spell in order to craft a Wand of that spell. But that's the only restriction I've seen.
If you have the gold (and, hence, "materials") or the Residuum and know the ritual, you can craft anything of your level or lower.
Wait, I lie. I think you have to be of the class that can cast a certain spell in order to craft a Wand of that spell. But that's the only restriction I've seen.
Cool, I found it. It's very vague though and just says you can create an item of your level or lower. Nice and simple with minimal math, just how I like it.
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Playing: D&D 4e, Warmachine
Running: Nothing at the moment
I'm not sure if I'd call it a house rule or not, but I'll probably put in some limits on extended rests. "No more than one every day" seems reasonable, especially if I don't regularly pile on the encounters.
Coincidently, that's exactly the restriction Wizards puts on it in the core rules.
...right. I guess I had forgotten that. I probably will increase the default time to seven or eight hours, but that's a fairly minor change.
Oh, but reading through those rules reminds me of my other house rule. I'll allow multiple action points to be spent during a single encounter. I don't like how getting an action point after every two milestones interacts with only being able to spend one action point per encounter. It ends up that you get an action point every other encounter, and I'd like there to be a capability to build them up over the course of a day for use in a single big encounter.
My first and biggest one will be a change to magic items. Instead of having to replace it to get more plusses, all magic items will just provide a (level / 5) bonus to something, plus whatever other thing they do. This lets me ignore the wealth assumptions, the treasure system (which I loathe), and the magic item economy (which makes no sense to me).
I'm planning to drop the gold cost on rituals, since again, I dislike systems where money controls your access to superpowers.
I'm working on a few more to diversify the classes a little, but I don't have anything I like yet. I also expect I'll have to do something to make multiclassing more attractive, but I haven't done enough testing with those rules yet to be sure.
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My RPG blog: Kill the Wizard First - Reviews, game reports, theory, and rambling. Not necessarily in that order.
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I'm not sure if I'd call it a house rule or not, but I'll probably put in some limits on extended rests. "No more than one every day" seems reasonable, especially if I don't regularly pile on the encounters.
That's not actually a house rule; you can only get one extended rest a day anyway, IIRC.
Why not make a profession feat that gives bonuses to exsisting skills and implies a knowledge in a craft or trade.
Example:
Mason , Background feat:
You know the masonry trade. you gain a +2 to either endurance or +2 to dungeoneering.
Sailor, Background feat:
Your are proven sailor. You gain +2 to either Atheltics or +2 to perception.
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It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Originally Posted by Vecna
'Maybe the hobby would "survive and advance" if more 3rd party publishers weren't riding on the industry' leader's coattails but rather coming up with their own games, own game systems, and so on.'-Ineti
Dwarf guy, the token black dude of fantasy.-Juriel
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