HOUSE RULES

[OGRE MAGE]

There are a few house rules that Id like to play with and I will post them as I think of them. Feel free to ask questions if you don't get something.
Thanks!

[OGRE MAGE]

The biggest house rule will be the d6 ability checks. I am trying this in another game on here and so far it's working great.

Instead of rolling a d20 for atribute checks, I will put a difficulty level on the action you choose to attempt and success will be determined by rolling your attribute (STR,DEX) or lower on that number of d6's as follows:

Easy 2d6
Normal 3d6
Hard 4d6
Very Hard 5d6
Nearly Impossible 6d6

(example....your fighter wants to climb up a giant crabs leg and crawl across his back in order to chop at his eyestalks in order to blind it. I would decide how difficult the action is, in this case I would say it is Very Hard. So, the fighter would need to roll a DEX check at 4d6 and get his DEX or lower to succeed in climbing the leg. In order to hang on to the live crab he may have to make a STR check in the same fashion and so on.)

Questions?

[OGRE MAGE]

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=461#p7656

This is where I got the idea from and it's been working great so far. I find it much easier than trying to teach the newer players that "most of the time you want to roll high on the d20 but for ability checks you want to roll LOW on the d20". That never made sense to me.

[OGRE MAGE]

Clerics and Druids

In my games, healers automatically get a skill that's called Channel Energy. They can call forth the power of healing that cures 1d4 damage to anything in a 30' radius around the Cleric. They can do this skill 3 times per day +1 for each point of Wisdom above 16.

[OGRE MAGE]

Also....

This isn't really a rule but, I wanted to let you know that I'm not one of those "bean counter" DM's. I will assume that you have enough rations and water, spell components, ammunition, etc. to get you all through the adventure. You don't need to keep track of the little things like that on your sheets.

However, if you have picked a magic item that you constantly abuse by using it every single round, I might have to put a limited number of charges on it or something to that effect to minimize over usage of certain items.

I do require you to keep track of the spells you cast each day or any other functions that have a certain number of uses.

I plan on taking the time to comb through each of your sheets a bit before we start, just in case there was something on there that I missed or if I see something that doesn't make sense. I have already started this process with some of you and it's working out great so far.

[MonkeyWrench]

Clerics and Druids

In my games, healers automatically get a skill that's called Channel Energy. They can call forth the power of healing that cures 1d4 damage to anything in a 30' radius around the Cleric. They can do this skill 3 times per day +1 for each point of Wisdom above 16.

By anything do you mean teammates and allies or anything

[OGRE MAGE]

Anything or anyone that is injured would feel the effect. Enemies included.

[OGRE MAGE]

Damage vs. Large size creatures

I don't like using multiple weapon damages. In fact, I've never really understood them. It just doesn't make sense to me that the same weapon will do more damage to a Giant than to a Halfling.

I probably should have mentioned this earlier but.....you don't need to use the "vs. large size" damage in your macros. Please just use the normal damage that your weapons can do. (not that you won't be fighting large creatures........trust me.....you will!)

[OGRE MAGE]

Also...... You may have already noticed but, I will be deleting some of the irrelevant posts from this thread as we go along. Don't take it personal if you see a post deleted. I'm just trying to keep things neat in case a new player wants to jump in so they won't have to read through all the posts that they probably wouldn't understand anyway.

[Scott308]

Damage vs. Large size creatures

I probably should have mentioned this earlier but.....you don't need to use the "vs. large size" damage in your macros. Please just use the normal damage that your weapons can do. (not that you won't be fighting large creatures........trust me.....you will!)

Nooooo! My weapon does substantially more damage vs. large creatures. That is a good part of why I chose it. Now I have to reconfigure my character.

I never had a problem with it, myself. Look at it this way, if you take a long sword, you can run a halfling all the way through and still have plenty of sword left over, but there is no more halfling to injure at that point. If you are fighting a dragon, you can bury that same sword to the hilt and still have plenty of dragon to wound. You hit more blood vessels and cut through more muscle and tendon.

[OGRE MAGE]

Scott...

DONT RECONFIGURE YOUR CHARACTER!!!

If you picked something SPECIFICALLY with that purpose in mind, I will allow it.

Your explanation makes sense, but only to a certain degree. I will look over your weapons after you post your sheet and if I see anything out of whack, we can discuss it further at that point.

[Scott308]

Good, I really liked the idea of using that weapon. And there are more reasons why I think different damages make sense. If you are attacking something smaller, you won't swing full out because you will have worse aim, whereas if you are swinging at an ogre you can swing with all your might, allowing you to hit harder and maximizing the leverage involved when using a pole arm or two-handed sword. Also, the larger the target, the more likely you are to hit the body, potentially doing damage to organs or larger arteries. Conversely, smaller weapons like daggers will do less damage to larger targets because they just don't have the penetrating depth to hit vital structures. But I digress. You should be able to look at my sheet- didn't I send it to you?

[OGRE MAGE]

Wow! It's like a film has been lifted from over my eyes.

Ya I should have it in a PM. I'll check him out.

[OGRE MAGE]

Advance Saving Throws

I have seen first hand many times in these games how badly something as simple as waiting for a player to make a saving throw can disrupt the flow of the game. I don't like that!

I'm not exactly sure if this would work or not but I will make a suggestion and if you see a flaw in this logic, please point it out to me.

I would like everyone to keep a bank of a few Saving throw rolls. (maybe like 3 or 4?) I'm thinking I could set up a separate dedicated thread for this and when your characters rolls are used up, I will have you roll another set.

I wouldn't use the banked ones for everything. They would be more for a situation in which your character wouldn't know that he needed to save or if I needed one real quick in order to continue an encounter.

Any thoughts on this?

[OGRE MAGE]

Nat 20's and Nat 1's

When you roll a Natural 20, I will allow one of two possible outcomes. You can choose to do max damage with the weapon used, or I will use the damage rolled with the 20, and roll for a "special" outcome. This could be anything from a fumble that disrupts the next attack to something much worse. (think decapitation)


When a Natural 1 is rolled, there will be no choice involved. I will roll for a possible negative effect. The result could be something fairly innocuous, or could be something much worse. For example, damaging your weapon or injuring yourself or your comrades.

[OGRE MAGE]

Switching weapons during combat

I will still allow an attack after the switching of ranged weapons to melee (or vice versa) with these conditions. If there is a second attack allowed in that round it will be forfeited. One attack, bow shot, etc. per round if switching weapons. Secondly, you will not have time to properly store or sheath the first weapon. It must simply be dropped in place or thrown to the side.

[OGRE MAGE]

I have been thinking about how things have been going in this adventure and the one thing I really don't like so far is how we do initiative. I originally thought that it would run more smoothly if I just rolled a d6 for each side and wrote up the action from there. I have since found that method to be a bit clunky.

Would anyone object if we switched to individual initiative rolls for each round?

I think that would give the rounds a more realistic feel and it wouldn't really be that much more work when writing up the actions. I realize that we are already part way through but, I would like to give a new and improved system a try.

I'm thinking about having you post a d10 initiative roll with each attack. (I could roll these for you like we are doing now if you don't want to roll your own)