House Rules

[Rules in blue are proposed rules that have not been officially approved. Rules in green are approved by at least two GM's, which will have to be enough, as the game has started. Items in red fall into neither category, but are new or newly edited, and thusly highlighted for your convenience.]

Characters:

The campaign starts with all PC's at character level 2. Ability scores are rolled on 5d6-drop-2d6. Increase starting money by 50 gp.

CLevel 2 allows characters to multiclass without the need to spend game time learning a whole new set of skills. Roll 5d6 and exclude any two dice you wish to. (These will presumably be the lowest dice, but you can drop the highest two to get a very low ability score.) Do this six times, and assign the scores to the six abilities as you wish. If the other players agree that your rolls suck, you may call a mulligan and reroll all six abilities. If you wish to play an unconventional character type, we will try to work it in (assuming it can be done fairly). (Starting money is listed on table 7-1, page 111 of the PHB.)

A paladin, monk, or psion who advances a level in another class is only temporarily barred from advancing in their paladin, monk, or psion class. A period of study with their trainer, master, religious institution or whatever is necessary to regain the ability to advance in that class.

Another perspective is that the studying character is earning experience points that they then spend on regaining the ability to advance. The amount of XP this involves is left unstated, and should probably remain irrelevant, barring extraordinary circumstances. If you need to pay the XP without undergoing the training, speak to the GM's about winging- um, deciding on a rule for this.

Clerics and other religious folk may choose a deity from nearly any pantheon. Forces and philosophies are also available, as per the 2nd edition Complete Priest's Handbook.

One option is to take the druid or a priest of any of the faiths listed in the PHB exactly as described. Second, you may pick from Joe's pantheon of gods and forces, though they must be adapted to 3rd edition. (Essentially, the description, alignment restrictions, certain limited benefits, and religious requirements remain. You get to pick two appropriate domains.) Third, you may take a cleric as described in the PHB, pick any two domains you want, and invent an ethos to justify them. Fourth, with some work, you may take a priest kit from a supplement, which we can adapt from 2nd edition if necessary. Jay's pantheon is to be developed and is open to suggestion. Brian may also have a pantheon available.

Rangers may select favored environments rather than favored enemies.

Variant rule from Unearthed Arcana, page 65. Favored environments are selected at first level, and once every five levels starting at fifth. Space is an additional available environment, which will not be useful early on, but will earn you the title "Space Ranger" and could help later, depending upon how much of the campaign involves being in space. I would recommend against banking on it.

Hit points beyond first level may be rolled, or you may take the average.

Your first hit die is always maximized. After that, you have two options. Subsequent hit point rolls can be made normally, with ones rerolled. Or you may take the exact average number of hit points you would get from your hit die. Use increments of one-half to accomplish this. At any level when you have a non-integral number of total hit points (typically the even levels), round the total up to find your effective hit points that level. Note that rolling is riskier, but gives a slightly higher average (because ones are rerolled). (To really min/max your choices, you could take the average for only your second hit die. It'll be rounded up, precisely matching the average of a roll with ones rerolled. And it'll be safer than rolling. Then roll all subsequent hit dice, for the extra 0.5 hit points per level on average. On the other hand, there's something to be said for safety over the next couple of levels. Staying centered can be advantageous because the difference between 14 HP and 17 HP is perhaps more significant than the difference between 17 HP and 20.5 HP.)

Level adjustment can be bought off with XP.

Variant rule from Unearthed Arcana page 18, for characters who are monsters or otherwise have a property that earns them a level adjustment. Upon attaining certain levels, a character with a level adjustment may give up their previous level's worth of XP to reduce their level adjustment (and hence character level) by one. We will use the rate of reduction listed in Unearthed Arcana: A monster qualifies for level adjustment reduction after earning character levels equal to three times its current level adjustment. The premise of this rule is that a monstrous character's racial abilities are comparitively not as great an advantage at high levels as they are at low levels. As the game progresses to high levels, they will be able to start catching up to other characters' class levels by being behind by only a certain amount of experience, rather than by a certain number of class levels.

The level adjustment of a monstrous race may be slightly reduced if the monster gains its racial abilities slowly.

Our only specific example is that a pixie who waits until about character level seven to come into its full abilities may take a level adjustment of +3 instead of +4. Note that one premise of this rule is the discarding of the idea (from Savage Species) that a character must gain all of its monster levels before taking a class level.

Fractional base save and attack bonuses

House rule from Unearthed Arcana page 73. Multiclass characters who are between base bonus increments in at least two classes may have multiple fractional bonuses that add up to an additional point in their base attack or save bonuses. Fractional bonuses are interpolated arithmetically.

Weapon group feats

Variant rule from Unearthed Arcana page 94. Weapon proficiencies may be gained by group, both in initial character creation, and when spending feats on weapon proficiency. The book gives no rule about the initial proficiencies gained for the second (or subsequent) character class of a multiclass character, so I propose the house rule: If a new class grants more initial weapon groups than the previous class(es) did, one may take enough new weapon groups to make up the difference. (Do not count feats spent on weapon groups.) If the new class grants a choice of specific groups, one may be chosen only if none of the other choices (other than Basic Weapons) is already known. Weapon-specific feats may be applied to weapon groups. Note that these rules tend to make characters more versatile but not more powerful.

Magic:

Any god can grant divine spells no matter what crystal sphere (solar system) their divine spellcaster is in. Forces and philosophies grant divine spells in any crystal sphere in which they are strongly represented.

The gods look from their planes down upon upon all crystal spheres in the prime material plane, like unto a person looking down at coins scattered across a table. The spheres' unconnectedness in the prime material plane is irrelevant from an extraplanar perspective. Divine power is still limited to powering 2nd-level or weaker spells in the phlogiston (the ether between spheres), because the phlogiston has no direct connection to any other plane. Forces and philosophies derive their power from sources in the prime material plane itself. The shell of a crystal sphere is a barrier to this power, so each sphere needs its own source. It can be assumed that any sphere containing a populated planet has a sufficient representation of every philosophy and force to grant full divine power within its confines. With no representation in a sphere, a source of divine power is limited as in the phlogiston. With little representation, it provides moderate power, at GM discretion.

Spellcasters do not have to select their prepared spells in advance. They have their entire repertoire of spells available to cast.

This addresses issues in both game balance and enjoyment. Under the original rule, without having prepared the appropriate spell(s) for the current situation, a wizard (in particular) is practically worthless. This will increase flexibility and PC's' willingness to use non-combat spells for adventure or role-playing purposes, and make the spellcasting classes far less frustrating to play. The abilities of the priest and wizard are thus brought back up to par with the other classes. Characters who studied or prayed for their spells must still perform an equivalent daily ritual in order to refresh their spellcasting ability.

Spellcasting classes use a system of spell points, in which one spell level equals one hundred spell points, for purposes of determining both the spell point cost of casting a spell, and a character's total daily spell point pool.

Thus, a character who could cast one third-level spell could choose to cast three first-level spells instead, or one first- and one second-level spell. This increases flexibility without changing overall power. Our experiences with role-playing systems that use a spell point system have been highly positive. Zero-level spells are worth twenty-five spell points each. Clerics' domain spells are handled outside of the spell point pool. Details can be found in the appendix below.

Wizards and other spellcasters, including sorcerers, may not cast more than twice the number of spells of each of their two highest spell levels as their casting table indicates for that spell level. (Zero-level spells are excluded here.)

This is to prevent characters from abusing the spell point system by using most or all of their spell points on high-level spells. A seventeenth-level wizard of high intelligence, normally allotted one ninth-level spell per day, could cast fifteen ninth-level spells per day (but then very little else) without this rule. Now, they could cast two ninth-level and four eighth-level spells per day (instead of one and two respectively), if they choose to so spend their spell points. This rule has no effect on spell costs or daily spell point pools. Add bonus spells for intelligence to the spells allotted by the table before applying this rule.

The sorcerer's limit on total known spells of each level is multiplied by five.

This is an attempt to re-balance the sorcerer. The sorcerer class was initially balanced against the wizard (and thus below the other classes). The balancing advantage given to the wizard, that of not having to preselect spells, the sorcerer already had. Given that the sorcerer's known spell limit was so tiny as to make the class inflexible and very little fun to play, it was a natural candidate for modification and re-balancing.

Spellcasters know as many first-level spells from the PHB as their class allows.

Assume there's a cheap, mass-produced spellbook containing all those spells. All higher level spells must be gained normally through adventure, barter, theft, leveling, or whatever, but most will be readily available.

Magic Ratings

Variant rule from Unearthed Arcana, page 135. This has complex game balance issues (set forth below), but it is cool, and we're going to try it. Magic ratings are used in place of "caster level" for purposes of spell effects and spell save DC's, but not for spells (spell points) per day or maximum spell level. Magic ratings depend on class levels (with magical class levels contributing much more than non-magical class levels), and monster levels (with magical monster levels contributing much more than non-magical monster levels). One magic rating point is earned by every level in bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, wizard, and highly magical monster (fey, outsider); every two levels in monk, paladin, ranger, and magical monster (dragon, elemental, undead); and every four levels in barbarian, fighter, rogue, and non-magical monster. House rule: Arcane magical levels (class or monster) count as fighter levels (i.e., minimally) for purposes of divine spellcasting, and likewise, divine magical levels (class or monster) count as fighter levels for purposes of arcane spellcasting.
Game balance issues: This has no effect on a caster's number and level of spells; it affects spells' power. This does not help all spellcasters; rather, it makes multiclassing (or taking monster levels) hurt less. A single-class, tenth-level cleric (magic rating 10) is still tremendously more powerful (magically) than a sixth-level cleric / fourth-level ranger (magic rating 8). The latter casts cleric spells slightly better under this rule than a single-class sixth-level cleric (magic rating 6), however. A sixth-level cleric / fourth-level druid (magic rating 10), lacking the high-level spells of the tenth-level cleric, nevertheless casts the spells they have in common just as powerfully as the tenth-level cleric, due to having ten levels in two highly magical divine spellcasting classes.
Level adjustment reduction for monsters must subtract from their "monster level" with regard to this rule. (Otherwise, magical races can wind up with a caster level higher than their effective character level.)
The biggest change will be to magical monsters with class levels in a spellcasting class. It makes a lot of sense that a highly magical creature who is also a third-level wizard would cast the same spells as a human third-level wizard, but cast them better.
Note again that this does not help the most powerful spellcasters; it helps multi-class spellcasters to fall less far behind. Given that multiclassing gives up some power in exchange for versatility, I don't find this rule to be necessarily unbalancing.
Overall benefit to currently considered characters:
Jay, Brian, Joe: Small but nice benefit.
Neil: Large benefit at middle levels, small benefit at low and high levels.
Liz, Dave, Joel: No benefit. (All single-class characters.)
Most monsters: No benefit.
High-level monster spellcasters: Large benefit, but likely exceeded by their other powers.

Other:

Weapons with different damage types vary in their effectiveness against different armors.

Having tossed around several suggestions, this is now accomplished (in a small way) in the critical hit table.

Dice must finish rolling on the same surface upon which they were rolled.

It sounds anal retentive, but it should spare us both disappointment and wasted time (in "Can I keep that?" discussions) in the long run. I at least intend to use this rule while I am GM'ing.

Critical hits may have effects other than multiplying damage.

Instead of multiplying damage, a x2 critical hit can do normal damage, and a roll may be made on a critical hit table to determine an extra effect, such as a specific injury, damage multiplication, damage to gear, or other misfortune. Critical multipliers greater than two result in greater effect or damage multiplication, at the attacker's option. The tables may include GM-adjudicated (and undoubtedly player-heckling-influenced) damage that is specific to the weapon and armor involved, to satisfy the above rule suggestion. The critical hit table can be found here.

Called shots may be used to hit a specific part of a target in combat.

Called shots will not be used for any "trick shot" for which there already exists a rule, such as Sunder, Disarm, Trip, cover, concealment, size bonuses to AC (which can be used regarding small parts of inanimate objects), or Hamstring. A called shot cannot do extra damage, nor blind or cripple someone, no matter where it hits. (This sacrifices realism in the interest of preventing abuse.) You may take a full-round action to perform a called shot, with an appropriate penalty to hit. Example penalties are:
-4   arm or leg
-8   head, hand, foot, liver or lung
-12 eye, ear, finger, toe, heart or spleen

If the called shot misses, but the attack roll is good enough to hit the target without the called shot penalty, then there is a fixed chance that a normal hit occurred instead: 50% if the shot was directed toward an extremity, and 75% if the shot was directed toward a central part of the target.

A character who can perform sneak attacks, in an eligible position to do so, may make a called shot to a vital organ as a sneak attack, with only half of the standard penalty for the called shot. (There is still some penalty, because a normal sneak attack allows for a choice of vital organs to target; the attack is harder with limited options.)

A called shot may also be used to hit a target in a particular way. For example, to set off a trap (assuming this is possible). The to-hit penalty will be assigned by the GM.

We may allow a feat, Fast Called Shot, which allows a character to make called shots without having to spend a full-round action: Any attack (even a special attack) can be a called shot, though the penalty to hit still applies.

The casting cost of a spell is 100 spell points per spell level. 0-level spells have a casting cost of 25 spell points. Your character has a pool of spell points equal to the combined cost of all the spells she/he/it could cast in a day.

According to the official rules, spells gained through separate classes of a multiclass character are handled entirely separately; neither their knowledge nor their spell casting slots are interchangeable. This now applies to spell point pools as well. (However, magic ratings (see above) are an exception to this complete separation.)

Example: Nitpicker the wizard is third level, and has an intelligence of 13 (for one bonus first-level spell). Nitpicker has a daily casting total of four 0-level spells, three first-level spells, and 1 second-level spell. In our game, that translates to 25x4 + 100x3 + 200 = 600 spell points. He could use these spell points to cast two second-level spells and two first-level spells, four first-level spells and eight 0-level spells, or whatever other combination of spells he wants that doesn't exceed a cost of 600 spell points. (Exception: He cannot cast three second-level spells, due to the cap, from our more recent rule, of twice the number of normally allowed castings of his highest two spell levels. He cannot exceed two second-level spells or six first-level spells. He need not worry about the latter, as he hasn't the spell points to cast more than six first-level spells anyway.) The combination of spell levels doesn't have to be decided beforehand; he merely has to keep track of how many spell points he has remaining. In no case can he cast third-level spells, no matter how many spell points he has, because he's still a wuss who hasn't reached fifth level (the earliest level at which a wizard can cast third-level spells). Also, no matter how high his level gets, he will not be able to cast fourth-level spells unless his intelligence increases, due to the intelligence requirement of "10+spell level" to be able to cast wizard spells. (Luckily, he can add a point to his intelligence at his fourth character level.)

Here's where it gets hairy. Certain metamagic feats allow a wizard to augment a spell's effect, at the cost of considering the spell to be a level or two higher. Most metamagic effects come at the listed price, converted to spell points. For example, "Silent Spell" causes a spell to take up a slot one spell level higher than normal. Therefore, you pay an extra 100 spell points to cast a spell silently. You must also be able to cast spells of that higher level. The casting will count toward your daily cap of spells of that higher level, if applicable.

However, some metamagic feats provide for a proportional increase in some aspect of a spell's effect. These feats are: Empower Spell, Enlarge Spell, Extend Spell, and Widen Spell. With these feats, the increase in cost of a spell is proportional to the increase in effect. You may choose the percentage increase in effect (and cost) when you cast the spell, assuming you have the appropriate feat. However, the increase cannot safely exceed a threshold of 10% per caster level, and cannot exceed (at all) a cap of 15% per caster level. Every percent increase (per caster level) beyond the safe amount yields a cumulative 10% chance of a wild surge. (For purposes of daily spell caps, assume that a spell is cast as though its level were its new total cost divided by 100, rounded down.)

Example: Nitpicker has the "Enlarge Spell" metamagic feat, which allows him to cast spells at a greater range. He wants to cast Melf's Acid Arrow, which would normally have a range (for a third-level wizard) of 520 feet, at a target 650 feet away. That's a 25% increase in range, within his "safe" margin of 30%. The spell, which normally costs 200 spell points, now costs 250 spell points (and is still considered a 2^nd level spell).

If the target had been 740 feet away, Nitpicker would whip out his calculator, find that this represented a 42% increase in range, and divide that by his level to determine that it's a 14%/level increase. This is just barely within his capabilities, and in addition to the cost of 284 spell points (1.42 x 200), he has to deal with a 40% chance that the attempt goes haywire and causes a wild surge.

Using multiple metamagic augmenting feats stacks their cost in a multiplicative manner, and their chance of a surge (if any) in an additive manner. That is, the cost multiplier and chance of surge are calculated separately for each metamagic augmentation, and respectively multiplied and added.

For example, Nitpicker also has the "Extend Spell" metamagic feat, which extends the duration of a spell. He wants to use his "Enlarge Spell" feat to cast Enlarge Person (sorry, unintentional coincidence) on his barbarian friend Lice Eater, who is thirty-five feet away, for a 14% increase in cost. That would cost 114 spell points. But Nitpicker only has 125 spell points left, and can't do anything else with the remaining 11 spell points, so he decides to spend them using his "Extend Spell" feat to extend the duration of the spell. Spending 125 spell points instead of 114 spell points is a 10% increase (by the magic of rounding), so the spell, which would have lasted three minutes (thirty rounds), will now last three minutes and eighteen seconds (thirty-three rounds). The new 10% increase is applied to the cost of 114, not to the original cost of 100. Since neither effect exceeded his "safe" threshold of 30%, the spell is in no danger of misfiring.

Had he used two metamagic feats at once, for increases of 42% and 47%, the spell would cost (1.42 x 1.47) 2.09 times as much as usual, and have a ((12/3 + 17/3 = 10 ) x 10%) 100% chance of misfiring. Oops. Good luck with that wild surge result roll.

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