Favorite 3.x rules

shane · Post by **shane** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:12 am

What are everyone's favorite 3.x rules? I talking about individual rules that you like and might house rule into C&C. An example for me is smallish creatures getting a bonus to hide checks. What are yours?
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Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:00 am

The idea of "feats", but in my C&C I have turned many of the feats I liked into SIEGE checks. Use them often enough, successfully, and I will award them as new character abilities/powers.
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mordrene · Post by **mordrene** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:14 pm

1. my favorite rule is the readied, counterspell where if an enemy casts a fireball at me, i can cast a fireball back and counter the spell

2. Treebore, nice title.............whore.

CharlieRock · Post by **CharlieRock** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:35 pm

Ours was the humanoid monsters being able to hold class levels. Like, gnoll rangers or kobold wizards. It was very easy to implement in C&C. Add HD per level of class desired and tack on whatever ability you liked. In fact it is less work for the CK then the DM to do. Less work for her means less likely she will take it out on me when I waste their sorry butts.
(maybe they could add a sidebar to the CKG for doing this ).
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Aladar · Post by **Aladar** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 2:23 pm

CharlieRock,

Do you add the Player Class HD on top of the creature's HD, or give them the class HD instead of their normal HD? (i.e. a 5th level kobald MU would have 5d4 HD only in hit points.)
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CharlieRock · Post by **CharlieRock** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 3:09 pm

Alwyn wrote:
CharlieRock,

Do you add the Player Class HD on top of the creature's HD, or give them the class HD instead of their normal HD? (i.e. a 5th level kobald MU would have 5d4 HD only in hit points.)

A class HD is added to the HD already possessed by the monster. So ,for example, an Annis (7d8 HD) with two levels of illusionist (2d4 HD) would be 9HD (7 of d8 and 2 of d4.) Along with the spells that an illusionist gains at second level.

That's the way we like doing it. Makes a kobold with 5 levels tougher then a human with five levels, but we pretty much wanted that because this is the King Kobold (or something).
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Omote · Post by **Omote** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 3:21 pm

I agree with CharlieRock on this one, and do the same exact thing.

As for pure simplictiy in resolving skill tasks, I love the v3.5 skill system. I would change how some skills work, blend some together and pretty much change how skill points are divvied out, but the simply resolution system works best IMO.

-O
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adaen · Post by **adaen** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 3:54 pm

CharlieRock wrote:
A class HD is added to the HD already possessed by the monster. So ,for example, an Annis (7d8 HD) with two levels of illusionist (2d4 HD) would be 9HD (7 of d8 and 2 of d4.) Along with the spells that an illusionist gains at second level.

That's the way we like doing it. Makes a kobold with 5 levels tougher then a human with five levels, but we pretty much wanted that because this is the King Kobold (or something).

I've seen the houserule that everyone gets a racial hitdie in addition to their class hitdie. So your 1st level human wizard would get 1d8 + 1d4 hitpoints (modified for Con twice). Your L5 Dwarf Fighter would get 1d8 + 5d10 + con mod (6x). I find that this little tweak gives classed characters that little edge on survival.

~AoB
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Aladar · Post by **Aladar** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:13 pm

Thanks CharlieRock et al. That what I was figuring on doing as well.
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Aladar · Post by **Aladar** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:29 pm

Thanks CharlieRock et al. That what I was figuring on doing as well.
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CharlieRock · Post by **CharlieRock** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:31 pm

adaen wrote:
I've seen the houserule that everyone gets a racial hitdie in addition to their class hitdie. So your 1st level human wizard would get 1d8 + 1d4 hitpoints (modified for Con twice). Your L5 Dwarf Fighter would get 1d8 + 5d10 + con mod (6x). I find that this little tweak gives classed characters that little edge on survival.

~AoB

When I got DCC#35 (red boxed gazeteer) it had a module for 0 level characters, and rules for making one in the GM Guidebook. We still do this in C&C. So a lot of our characters do end up having that extra racial hit die as it was the carry-over hit points from their 0-level.

Ones that don't do a 0 level start don't get that 'extra' hit die as they are not special enough for it.
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serleran · Post by **serleran** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:40 pm

Nothing "core," but there are some non-ripped-from-previous-editions stuff in 3rd party books, and what WotC has made that is not "core," generally, sucks.

rabindranath72 · Post by **rabindranath72** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 4:45 pm

I did not like much, really. In principle the flexibility, but its implementation is quite lacking.

Perhaps the rules in the DMG for 1st level multiclass characters. I used them to create 0-level characters.

And the rules for creating monster PCs.

That's pretty much all.

DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 5:19 pm

I'm drawing a blank. I'll have to come back to this one.

shane · Post by **shane** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:00 pm

serleran wrote:
Nothing "core," but there are some non-ripped-from-previous-editions stuff in 3rd party books, and what WotC has made that is not "core," generally, sucks.

Uh... What? I no follow.
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JRR · Post by **JRR** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 6:44 pm

Rule zero. I had to rule zero the whole damned book, actually.
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Montague · Post by **Montague** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:55 pm

Spontaneous heal casting for Clerics.

Fizz · Post by **Fizz** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:43 pm

I like how Damage Reduction was designed, in particular how each type was vulnerable to a particular weapon type. IE, 5/silver.

Counterspelling i liked, but i'd been doing that before 3E.

Other than that... not really much. I really came to hate feats, as it was counter to the notion of rpgs to begin with, imo.

-Fizz

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:50 pm

Yeah, I liked spontaneous casting for clerics being made official, but I had already been doing that for years. Over 10 years. Maybe even over 15. Definitely since my days of 1E. I think I started doing that in my 1987 games. So I guess 13 years, actually.
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Dragonhelm · Post by **Dragonhelm** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 1:52 pm

I like how skills work, though I think I would make the DCs more fluid. Let the DM make the call on that one. I use a variant of the D&D/Star Wars Saga Edition skills in my games (using levels and primes), and it's worked fine thus far.

I love sorcerers and mystics (from Dragonlance). Definitely using those. I also like the basics of psionics.
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CharlieRock · Post by **CharlieRock** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 9:22 pm

JRR wrote:
Rule zero. I had to rule zero the whole damned book, actually.

I believe rule zero was around prior to D&D3. I could be wrong ...
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DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 9:26 pm

Hah! I finally thought of something.

The dropping of classes being restricted by race and the loss of demi-human level limits.

Treebore · Post by **Treebore** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 9:38 pm

DangerDwarf wrote:
Hah! I finally thought of something.

The dropping of classes being restricted by race and the loss of demi-human level limits.

I had done that almost as soon as I started DMing.

Another "idea" that I liked int 3E, but absolutely hated the "execution" is PrC's. I am much happier with the way I have adapted the two being used so far. Which is Church Inquisitor and Effigy Master.
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DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 9:43 pm

Treebore wrote:
I had done that almost as soon as I started DMing.

Same here. But now it's official.