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House Rules

Page history last edited by Axcalibar 6 years, 2 months ago

Awarding Experience/Level Advancement

I may switch between the following methods at my own discretion.

Method 1: Don't bother keeping track of xp. I'll tell you when to level.

Method 2: XP awards and leveling are standard.

Method 3: ?????

Method 4: Profit!

 

Death Threshold

A character is disabled from 0 to their negative CON bonus. He is is dying when their hit points are below their their negative CON bonus. They are dead when they reach their negative CON score. (Tordek, with a CON of 16 is disabled between 0 and neg 3, dying from neg 4 to neg 15, and dead at neg 16)

 

Non-Lethal Combat

Attacking an enemy with intent to subdue does not carry any penalty. Non-lethal damage is not tracked seperately.  If the blow that reduces an opponent's hp below their negative Con bonus is declared non-lethal, the opponent becomes unconcious and stable. Attacks that are described as doing non-lethal damage do normal damage and are simply incapable of killing a target.

 

Rolling Conventions

Establish a flat, unobstructed rolling area. If the die lands outside of that area, it doesn't count.

 

Reasonable Assumptions

You will not have to say every action your character does when obvious. You do not have to say that your character is breathing, eats meals, or such. I consider it reasonable to assume that when you go into a potentially dangerous situation, you have your armor on, a weapon prepared, and are being alert and careful (stealthy where appropriate). In short, I will not try to screw you on your phrasing or lack thereof. If you want me to consider a reasonable assumption, just ask.

 

Attribute Determination

The method used in the Heroshi campaign is 4d6 drop the lowest. Roll three columns of 6, pick the one that suits you.  If none of them are satisfactory, you may take the default array (15,14,13,12,10,8). In Modern I'm a little more restrictive: one column or the default array.

 

Success/Failure

The following applies to skill checks, attack rolls, and saves. It does not apply to initiative or spell resistance checks.

A 1 is not an automatic failure. If you roll a 1, treat the result as -10. This prevents the "fighter gets a hernia lifting a gate" problem and other catastrophic failures for someone who is incredibly good at a something (natural talent mitigates the penalty). This only really benefits higher level characters without hurting lower level ones.

A 20 is not an automatic success. If you roll a 20, treat the result as 30. So a nat-20 is often, but not always a hit.

 

Critical Hits

When a roll for confirmation of a crit is also a critical threat, roll another confirmation roll. If this check is backed up, add one to the critical multiplier. For example, if you are using a greatsword and roll a crit threat, then roll a 19 on your confirmation check, you add one to the multiplier for the already confirmed crit, so the GS x2 crit becomes x3. As long as one continues backing up their crits with further crit threats, continue to add one to the critical multiplier and making confirmation rolls. If you think this makes combat too swingy, well... eat it. If an orc makes four consecutive confirmed threats (chance of 1 in 320000 for a 20 crit, 1 in 160000 for 19-20), the truth is... Minmaxar wants that character dead! You should always respect Minmaxar's will. That said, building a character who crits 25% of the time is... absolute genius. You clearly had to spend feats and/or money to get there, so have at it.

 

Alignment

Alignment in Heroshi comes down to Good, Neutral, and Evil. If you are lawful without being evil, you are Good, because order is beneficial. If you are chaotic without being good, you are Evil, because chaos is destructive. If you are chaotic good or lawful evil, one waters down the other so you are essentially Neutral. Neutral does not mean doing both good and evil in equal measure... that's flip-flopping chaotic (and therefore evil). Neutral means you don't take sides (duh), so it boils down to not getting involved (sounds adventurous doesn't it?). Furthermore, I don't allow people to play evil characters, so if you're going to play, you're playing a good aligned character, period, so get out there and hero up!

 

Supported Materials

Pathfinder RPG

PF Bestiary (series), Gamemastery Guide, Adv. Players Guide, Adv. Race Guide, Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Equipment

3.Xe Books subject GM discretion.

 

PC Classes

Pathfinder Core Classes 

Advanced Players Guide Classes

Magus

Gunslinger/Samurai/Ninja for characters originating from Anherosh  

3.Xe Classes subject the GM discretion.

Pathfinder classes published in books I don't own: Generally Not.

 

Prestige Classes

Arcane Archer, Arcane Trickster, Assasin, Duelist, Dragon Disciple, Dwarven Defender, Eldrich Knight, Horizon Walker, Loremaster, [Pathfinder] Chronicler, Mystic Theurge, Shadowdancer, Geomancer (CDiv), Entropomancer (CDiv)

 

Class Archetypes

Many are acceptable. Subject to GM discretion on an individual basis. Just ask. 

 

Monster Edits

Wererats - Alignment: usually Chaotic Neutral. Lawful rats? Exactly what kind of lawful behavior do they display? They live in frickin' sewers and ass factories. What kind of stable society is built around poop? They're chaotic as hell, betch!

 

Driders - Not neccisarily drow, but connected with them by common relationship with Malhavoc, the spider god. The line about "when a drow participates in a special test, failures beecomes a drider" does not apply. Instead any humanoid race can choose to become a drider by succeeding in a test of some sort. It's like the spider equivalent of lich. It'd be interesting to develop this as a template. Also, aligmnent: usually Chaotic Evil (rather than always). One more thing... ever notice anything "funny" about the picture of the drider in the MM? And here it is again for PF, though PF driders actually have web as a special attack. 

 

Aligned Creatures - Angels, Archons, Agathions, Azatas, and Inevitables are Good aligned. Demons, Devils, Daemons and Proteans are Evil aligned. These are so because they are literally made of good or evil. Everything else is naturally unaligned, although individual alignments may vary. For example, a black dragon or unethical shopkeeper doesn't take extra damage from a holy weapon, but a demon does.

 

Rule Edits 

Falling Damage - No cap. I'm not having any jag-off fighters falling 40000 feet and living to tell about it, regardless of level. That's 4000d6 damage, betch.

 

Natural Healing - With a full nights rest (8 hours) you recover HP = HD + Con Mod. So Lidda (15th level) recovers 16 (15+1) while Tordek (also 15th) recovers 20 (15+5). It just makes more sense that the folks with more total hp would recover more. Interruptions to rest result in a cutoff of the benefits you've received. So if you are awakened after four hours of rest, you get 50% of what you'd heal with a full night. After the battle (or whatever, but it's usually a battle) you can just go back to sleep to gain the remaining portion of your rest benefits.

 

Rule Variants

Spontaneous Metamagic - Daily Uses The castor must be capable of casting spells a number of levels higher than the spell it is applied to. This does not actually increase the level of the spell (exception: Heighten Spell, where that's kind of the point). For instance, empower spell can be placed on a spell up to two levels lower than the casters highest spell slot. This can be done 3/day and the spells applied to do not have to be specified beforehand. This makes metamagic reasonably useful to Sorcerers and Bards. In all ways, a metamagic spell operates at its original spell level, even though it is prepared and cast as a higher-level spell. Saving throw modifications are not changed unless stated otherwise in the feat description. Clearly this rule makes the Sudden Metamagic feats from the Miniatures Handbook/Complete Arcane unnecessary. Metamagic feats may be taken multiple times for more cumulative uses.

 

For sorcerers of the arcane bloodline, replace Metamagic Adept with:

Metamagic Mastery (Su): At 3rd level, you can apply any one metamagic feat that you know to a spell you are about to cast. This does not alter the level of the spell or the casting time. You can use this ability once per day at 3rd level and one additional time per day for every three sorcerer levels you possess beyond 3rd. Any time you use this ability to apply a metamagic feat that increases the spell level by more than 1, you must use an additional daily usage for each level above 1 that the feat adds to the spell. Even though this ability does not modify the spell's actual level, you cannot use this ability to cast a spell whose modified spell level would be above the level of the highest-level spell that you are capable of casting.

 

Spell Edits

Polymorph Any Object - Just go ahead and delete this sentence in the spell description: "This spell cannot create material of great intrinsic value, such as copper, silver, gems, silk, gold, platinum, mithral, or adamantine. It also cannot reproduce the special properties of cold iron in order to overcome the damage reduction of certain creatures." For a freakin' 8th level spell, it had better be able to do all that stuff!

 

Sun Spells - The APG has a Light subdomain... hmm. Okay, I'll just call Solarion the sun and be done with it. Why quibble.

 

Good and Evil Domains - These have abilities that amount to good touch/bad touch and have alot of the alignment spells just below. Hence, these are not viable options to choose as domains.

 

Alignment Spells - It's like this... Detect Evil ruins all mystery. In Heroshi, creatures do not emanate auras unless they are a cleric or paladin, an aligned outsider (angel, archon, demon, devil, daemon, etc. but not genies, elementals, etc.), or intelligent undead.

  • Detect (Alignment) - renamed to Detect Aura. Can detect and identify either flavor of alignment aura.
  • Protection from (Alignment) - renamed Protection Wards. Good against any creature trying to do you harm. Since this will most likely be good vs. evil in most cases, there's really little difference.
  • Magic Circle against (Alignment) - renamed Magic Circle. Same as Protection Wards above.
  • Dispel (Alignment) - renamed Dispel Outsider.  Affects any outsider or enchantment cast by an outsider. 

 

Animate Dead - Changed my mind again. Casting this spell is inherently evil. because negative energy comes from Kal'Nuega, the collected well of evil in the heart of Nuegalon "The Bad Place". Saying that undead created from the souls of the damned are neutral seems disingenuous. It doesn't matter if you command the ghoul to carry your laundry, it is still an evil creature that will devour the mailman's flesh if you take an eye off it for five minutes.

 

Summoning - Just reiterating that calling forth demons is an evil act, as it points out in the books. Same reasoning here as Animate Dead, above.

"When you use a summoning spell to summon a creature with an alignment or elemental subtype, it is a spell of that type."

 

Feat Edits

Non-fighters may feel free to have the following:

Greater Weapon Focus Weapon Focus, +8 Attack Bonus
Weapon Specialization Weapon Focus, +4 Attack Bonus
Greater Weapon Specialization Weapon Specialization, +12 Attack Bonus

 

Domains

Core Pathfinder Domains - Associated deities

 

Magic Item Scarcity

In an effort to keep magic items from being too common, most magic shops, including those on other planes and metropolises, only carry potions, material components, low level wands and scrolls, and perhaps a few minor wondrous items. The most powerful items are owned and well guarded by possessors who are unlikely to part with them for any price. For this reason, magic items with a value over 15,000 gp may not be purchased (or sold). Sure, the shopkeeper may have a few things "in the back", but most are his personal property, which he will only part with over his dead body. I suggest we take him up on that suggestion... now! (lights go out, sounds of a scuffle, then a bang)

 

Comments (4)

Butcher Jackson said

at 3:24 pm on Aug 9, 2007

On Rats:
"There's a wererat infestation at the ass factory! The price of Rumps, Butts, and Rears is skyrocketing! You can't even get a peice for less than forty gold!"

Butcher Jackson said

at 6:12 pm on Apr 8, 2008

very interesting houserules on ressurection and leveling up. Kinda wish I'd known that before I'd let ZT bite it.

Not that I knew he was gonna, mind you. It just sorta snuck up on me (at 20th level the difference between -9 and -13 is pretty slim. I'd like ot log a request for an alternate death threshhold rule if my dying is gonna setback the whole party.)

Axcalibar said

at 8:48 am on Apr 9, 2008

Acknowledged! Engaging Monte Cook protocol: Death Threshold = your negative CON score while the Disabled condition is between 0 and your negative CON mod. I don't have the party's character sheets in front of me to determine how much this'd help (I imagine Talak might be in trouble from the way you were talking). In any case, I won't invoke the Res delay for ZT's regrowth, since the waiting period is enough of a cost already.

Butcher Jackson said

at 1:38 pm on Apr 9, 2008

Sweet. Talak's actually pulling down a 20 (+5) due to inherent drider toughness (a sight better than his previous body), and ZT's got a 16, so he'll be a little harder to kill once he get's back from the dead.

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