House Rules

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Vardaen
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Re: House Rules

Post by Vardaen » Sat Oct 29, 2005 6:40 pm

Drinking Rules

I think I will do a simple drinking rule, unless there are other drunk rules elsewhere that you people know of. I know there was a recent Dragon with various ales and beers in it, but I don't have that with me.

A character can drink 1 drink per Con Modifier per hour without worry of being drunk. ie Benmarrow's Con Mod is +3 so he can drink 3 drinks in an hour without worry. This can happen for a number of hours equal to the Con Mod. So in 3 hours, Benmarrow could have 9 drinks and be fine. Drinking more than the given number of drinks per hour, or drinking for more than the given number of hours you begin to have to make Fort Saves to avoid drunkeness. The first drink over the limit requires a Fort Save DC 14, and +2 DC per drink after that. I may impose various modifiers based on the drinks themselves, Fire Water might be stronger than an ale, and so would make the Drunk DC higher, etc. The first failed save causes the character to be Sickened (-2 att, dmg, skills, saves, etc) and if the drinking continues and another save is failed, the character becomes nauseated (unable to attack, cast spells, concentrate or otherwise act as you puke alot). A character that fails any save by 5 or more passes out from the drinking. These effects wear off after 8 hours of rest, or a cure disease spell. I may allow some other healing effects to shorten the duration of the drunkeness, etc on a case by case basis.)
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
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Bitom
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Re: House Rules

Post by Bitom » Wed Nov 16, 2005 2:34 am

Here's something that cuts back to a core brokenness of d20:

Init: Use Dex + Wis modifiers

Why: Stats don't matter.

Explanation and math:

I mean really. you have an 18 dex. You are the FASTEST COOLEST HUMAN EVER! But your modifier on inits is a +4. That's LESS than 1/4 of the dice variability. This means that with an 18 dex, you go faster than an average schmuck 66% of the time, 30% of the time, the schmuck still goes first. That seems kindof high. I think the max person should beat the average more than 2/3 of the time.

But the brokenness becomes more obvious with a max vs min situation. 18 dex vs a 3 dex: The guy who trips over his own shoelaces STILL goes first 16.5% of the time. That's one in every 6 rounds!

By adding in wisdom, the "Best init" person not only has to rely on more than one attribute (Making Dex less uber) but also has a SIGNIFICANT advantage over the average person.

There... I don't play a lot of D20, but I think that would un-break it in a big way with very minimal changing.

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Re: House Rules

Post by Wargie » Tue Nov 22, 2005 9:07 pm

Uh, Bitom. Have you ever considered posting that on the WotC BB's as a tip for them? Would be nice to see their reaction. :D

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Re: House Rules

Post by Bitom » Tue Nov 22, 2005 9:13 pm

No... as a matter of fact, I haven't. If one of you who actually reads those forums wants to do so, go ahead... Otherwise... I'll probalby do it...

...someday.

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Re: House Rules

Post by WorldEater » Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:20 pm

Bitom wrote:Here's something that cuts back to a core brokenness of d20:

Init: Use Dex + Wis modifiers

Why: Stats don't matter.

[SNIP]
The brokenness isn't just for initiative, it's really anything where the randomness of 1d20 far exceeds the plusses or minuses involved.

One could get around this by rolling 3d6 instead of 1d20. Since there's a strong tendency to land in the 9 - 11 range with 3d6, the difference between +4 and -4 becomes very important.

But if I fixed everything I found goofy about DnD/D20, the end product would barely be recognizable as the same game. As such, I generally just play with it as is, with an understanding of what the game can and cannot do.

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Re: House Rules

Post by WorldEater » Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:25 pm

Bitom wrote:"They die," grumps the GM. "Don't bother me."
Been playing with me too long, have you?

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Re: House Rules

Post by Bitom » Fri Dec 02, 2005 9:27 pm

WorldEater wrote: The brokenness isn't just for initiative, it's really anything where the randomness of 1d20 far exceeds the plusses or minuses involved.
This is true, but I don't really see it as a major problem for anything but initiative. Pretty much everytrhing in D20 has a lot of modifiers with a lot of variability. Ranks for skills, Base attack values and dozens of feats for attack, Armor for defense. But Initiative only has one and it's always a +4 (OK, there's a flaw that gives you a -4, too) And you're only allowed to take it once.

That's why I feel that init is problematic, when I don't have a problem with the rest of the system.

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Re: House Rules

Post by TetNak » Fri Dec 02, 2005 9:34 pm

Init has more than 1.

You can be flat-footed, etc, I know that doesn't actually constitue a difference in your Init score, but it does skip your turn.

Otherwise feats/flaws and DEX make up Init.
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Re: House Rules

Post by WorldEater » Fri Dec 02, 2005 10:37 pm

Bitom wrote:But the brokenness becomes more obvious with a max vs min situation. 18 dex vs a 3 dex: The guy who trips over his own shoelaces STILL goes first 16.5% of the time. That's one in every 6 rounds!
My inner geek forced me to do a quick spreadsheet to verify this. I also got 16.5%.

To maximize my shame, I have attached the Excel file.

8)

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Re: House Rules

Post by Bitom » Fri Dec 02, 2005 11:55 pm

TetNak wrote:Init has more than 1.

You can be flat-footed, etc, I know that doesn't actually constitue a difference in your Init score, but it does skip your turn.

Otherwise feats/flaws and DEX make up Init.
Yeah, Tet... I'm talking about stright init, not surprise. And correct me if I'm wrong (You certainly know more about 3.5 than I do) but isn't there only one Feat and one flaw that touch init?

And I should have said only one OTHER than attribute. Everything gets some sort of attribute modifier.

Of course, an easier fix might be for the GM to add in situational modifiers (You get -3 to init because your foot is stapled to a chicken)

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