Author Topic: House Rules  (Read 3041 times)

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Sobolev

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House Rules
« on: July 04, 2010, 03:49:02 AM »
I apologize if this is grossly misplaced, I looked through the other boards (which I rarely visit) and didn't see anything applicable.  Besides, I'm asking this question in the hopes that Min/Maxers will answer.  What house rules do you have and what do you ban in your games?

My friends seem to ban weird things, and one of my friends seems to at least look harshly if not ban anything that looks even kind of good that isn't a sorcerer (Fist of the Forest for example, I mean...really?)

So I'm looking to compose a list of things that will be on my list of banned things.  In addition I'm looking for people's feelings about Dragon Magazine stuff.  I'm a little against it, seems that dragon magazine has a feat to do literally anything, and not necessarily in a good way.


So far:
Players may not begin at an advanced age category.
Nightsticks do not stack.
Alter Self is banned.
Shivering Touch is banned.
Planar Shepard is banned.

Shivering Touch is the item most likely to be unbanned.  Persistent Spell is the item most likely right now to join the list, though I'm considering also just having every enemy have Arcane Turmoil prepared as their only spell if Persistent Spell sees too much abuse.

Please post whatever you normally ban in your 3.5 games, to let your players min/max without the game being compete nonsense.
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Quote from: Negative Zero on November 04, 2009, 02:16:14 AM
In my humble opinion, CO is haberdashery. Some say we're mad, but we can all agree we're hatters. Yes, we have potential to make very sophisticated hats, very fancy hats, be they dark or light. But the truth is that the color of the hat does not come from the group of us - our community doesn't directly produce hats. We simply give average head circumferences, list current fashion trends, and point out some shiny, obscure baubles to add to the latest hat line.

Mister_Sinister

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #1 on: July 04, 2010, 03:52:03 AM »
Check out my current PbP houserules. This is the closest I can get to 'actual list of houserules that I use', although the 'all clerics' thing isn't strictly necessary. I would recommend not allowing Monks and Clerics in the same party, though - pick a tier and stick with it, and generally, stuff should be OK.

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Nyarlathop1

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #2 on: July 04, 2010, 04:14:34 AM »
Illithid Savant, Beholder Mage, and Tainted Scholar are about as bad if not worse than Planar Shepard. Although PCs would need to jump through hoops to get into the former two it really shouldn't be necessary; but it's always a good idea to let people know they're off the table.

Additionally you should probably either have fighter, paladin, monk or warblade, crusader, swordsage. Having the ToB classes and their counterparts in the same campaign will lead to the PHB martial classes feeling underpowered.

Littha

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #3 on: July 04, 2010, 07:32:39 AM »
I like to hit around tier 3, so long as everyone plays tier 3 or 4 everything is fine.

Sobolev

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #4 on: July 04, 2010, 01:02:21 PM »
Illithid Savant, Beholder Mage, and Tainted Scholar are about as bad if not worse than Planar Shepard. Although PCs would need to jump through hoops to get into the former two it really shouldn't be necessary; but it's always a good idea to let people know they're off the table.


Where would I find these classes?  Planar Shepard is mostly banned because of the whole Super Time Stop thing.

Also, I'm aware of Tier disparity, I think I'm just going to encourage other players to choose a similar tier rather than ban any tiers.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2010, 01:07:16 PM by Sobolev »
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Quote from: Negative Zero on November 04, 2009, 02:16:14 AM
In my humble opinion, CO is haberdashery. Some say we're mad, but we can all agree we're hatters. Yes, we have potential to make very sophisticated hats, very fancy hats, be they dark or light. But the truth is that the color of the hat does not come from the group of us - our community doesn't directly produce hats. We simply give average head circumferences, list current fashion trends, and point out some shiny, obscure baubles to add to the latest hat line.

Nyarlathop1

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #5 on: July 04, 2010, 03:22:06 PM »
Illithid Savant, Beholder Mage, and Tainted Scholar are about as bad if not worse than Planar Shepard. Although PCs would need to jump through hoops to get into the former two it really shouldn't be necessary; but it's always a good idea to let people know they're off the table.


Where would I find these classes?  Planar Shepard is mostly banned because of the whole Super Time Stop thing.

Also, I'm aware of Tier disparity, I think I'm just going to encourage other players to choose a similar tier rather than ban any tiers.

Tainted Scholar is in Heroes of Horror, a book that is actually rather balanced if you ignore that particular prestige class and the taint rules. The dread necromancer in particular is the best way I've found to play a generic necromancer type.

Illithid Savant is in Savage Species, a book that is otherwise actually rather underpowered, save for a few feats.

Beholder Mage is in Monsters of Fearun and Lords of Madness, both of which are good books but are mostly for the DM rather than the players.

JaronK

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #6 on: July 04, 2010, 05:32:47 PM »
Eh, Archivist is also in Heroes of Horror, and that's one of very few classes that hits T1.  But the Dread Necromancer is a great class, well balanced and thematic, and other than a few rules glitches (what's the duration of Fear Aura?  Why is one spell listed on two spell levels?) it's quite good overall.

As for me, when I do a game I usually pick a tier and ask them not to go over it (usually T3, sometimes T4).  My players know what it means and it works fine.

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Ivory Knight

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #7 on: July 04, 2010, 05:46:56 PM »
I looted a rule from Conan D20: Bonus Skillpoints from Race(e.g. Human), Feats(I know of 2: Open Minded & Nymph's Kiss) or High INT always buy 1 rank, even crossclass
Also I changed from the usual table to 1 Feat every other Level(1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19).

So far my players have reasonably used this to enter PrC, or to take otherwise neglected feats.
My Monsters also get additional feats, so the Power Balance is pretty much the same as without houserules.

The Banhammer hits only depending on Campaign/ mutual agreement with all my players.

PhaedrusXY

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #8 on: July 04, 2010, 05:51:46 PM »
Mine can be found here and especially in the big "HERE" link at the top of that page. They're kind of extensive...
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snakeman830

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #9 on: July 04, 2010, 06:05:35 PM »
Persist Spell isn't broken on its own, only in combination with metamagic reducers.
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Sobolev

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #10 on: July 04, 2010, 07:06:36 PM »
Persist Spell isn't broken on its own, only in combination with metamagic reducers.

I recognize this, however I would rather leave the reducers as they enable other feats to function.  I haven't really decided, and it's not on my banlist as yet.
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Quote from: Negative Zero on November 04, 2009, 02:16:14 AM
In my humble opinion, CO is haberdashery. Some say we're mad, but we can all agree we're hatters. Yes, we have potential to make very sophisticated hats, very fancy hats, be they dark or light. But the truth is that the color of the hat does not come from the group of us - our community doesn't directly produce hats. We simply give average head circumferences, list current fashion trends, and point out some shiny, obscure baubles to add to the latest hat line.

Mister_Sinister

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #11 on: July 04, 2010, 07:12:42 PM »
You can always just alter Persistent Spell to, for example, the one listed here.

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Endarire

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #12 on: July 04, 2010, 07:22:38 PM »
Persistent Spell as-is isn't the problem.  Metamagic in general is mispriced, and I believe that if people could get 1 free daily use of each metamagic feat they knew, they'd be less likely to seek Divine Metamagic et al.
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The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #13 on: July 04, 2010, 08:14:01 PM »
LA are replaced with your choice in racial hit dice.

Celerity, time stop, shapechange, arcane spellsurge, and the variant contingencies are banned.

Streamers is banned
sp and su abilities still require xp components - gp components are given at a 10-1 xp rate.

Heighten spell only heightens up to the slot you used, applies automatically.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2010, 09:33:48 PM by The_Mad_Linguist »
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Sobolev

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #14 on: July 04, 2010, 08:33:00 PM »
You can always just alter Persistent Spell to, for example, the one listed here.

I'm considering using that exact one.
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Quote from: Negative Zero on November 04, 2009, 02:16:14 AM
In my humble opinion, CO is haberdashery. Some say we're mad, but we can all agree we're hatters. Yes, we have potential to make very sophisticated hats, very fancy hats, be they dark or light. But the truth is that the color of the hat does not come from the group of us - our community doesn't directly produce hats. We simply give average head circumferences, list current fashion trends, and point out some shiny, obscure baubles to add to the latest hat line.

ksbsnowowl

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #15 on: July 05, 2010, 02:29:05 AM »
I use 3.0 Polymorph Other/Polymorph Self rather than Polymorph.  Poly Self allows multiple changes per casting, but each additional change eats an hour of the hour/level duration.

I use 3.0 Wildshape (from Masters of the Wild), though they still get plant shapes at 12th, and Dire animals aren't segregated.

You can power attack with light weapons, as per 3.0 power attack.

I use 3.5 Damage Reduction, but segregate DR/Magic into DR/+1, DR/+2, etc, as 3.0 did.

Keen and Improved Critical stack.

Not much other than that.  If something became a problem, I'd deal with it.
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Korwin

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #16 on: July 05, 2010, 04:52:03 AM »
I use,
If its in the Tomes (see Link) use that Class or Feat or whatever.
Also use the Wish Nerf from the Tomes.


Dictum Mortuum

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #17 on: July 05, 2010, 06:49:57 AM »
I give them monkey grip for free :P
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Re: House Rules
« Reply #18 on: July 05, 2010, 06:51:45 PM »
Tell Players they have to find a viable Monk replacement if they want to play one.
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