willpell
2012-12-25, 06:25 AM
I've repeatedly tried to compile the houserules I use for my Whiteleaf campaign in a single place, and feel too silly about doing it again on the site where I play, so I'm going to create a thread here to compile my latest rulings until I'm sure I've got them all accounted for and organized, and only then copy the resulting thread back over to my site in place of what's there now. So here's a synopsis of everything I've yet figured out, without my usual editorializing about why I did it.
For the latest revisions, see here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14481939&postcount=9).
-------Basic Rules-------
* If anything alters your Dexterity modifier during combat, your position in the inish roster rises or falls accordingly. If you raise an opponent's Dexterity so that his Initiative rises higher than the action you do this on, it just means he is the next to act; you can't make him miss his action for the turn this way.
-------Setting Info-------
* The names of several of the Outer Planes have changed; see below (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14476928&postcount=6).
* Extensive changes, beyond my ability to summarize, have been made to the pantheon of gods. The gods do not have residences on the Outer Planes where you can kick in the door and kill the god in question.
* The list of languages is expanded to include Arcadian, the language of Eladrins and other Chaotic Good outsiders.
-------Monsters-------
* Monster names are changed wherever I feel like it. No one on Whiteleaf speaks of "beholders", only of "eye tyrants"; "Eladrin" is a technical term and most speakers will simply term them "the Fair Folk". Krenshars are simply "Skullcats", Otyughs are Trash Eaters, aboleths are Slaver Fish, and the Ravid is the Pathetic Fallacy. The Bakemono are a different species from Ogres and thus are not called Ogre Mages save by the ignorant, the Umber Hulk has a proper name but I'm keeping it secret for now, and the Night Hag is not actually a hag, so she's called a Maleficent. Locathah are Murlocks (their own mumble-mouthed attempt at pronouncing the term for their brother-race the Merfolk, further misinterpreted by surface-dwellers), and Kuo-Toa are openly admitted to be Deep Ones (and do not worship a giant lobster with breasts). The sentient giant eagles are known as Gwaihir, and the owls as Gahoole. And while I plan on homebrewing a new Kobold race, the diminutive reptiles which mine and worship dragons are known as "chicklets", a corruption of their proper name Zh'klet; no one with an ounce of folkloric knowledge would call them "kobolds", as the mythic kobold is generally assumed to be a goblinoid of some sort.
* Rather than typing the word "monstrous" a thousand times, assume that any reference to a vermin is probably about the monstrous kind, depending on context. When people are routinely swallowed whole by a spider the size of a barn, it stands to reason that one that could fit on your thumbnail would become a "microspider" in common parlance.
* "Blues" are not blue, do not gain a power point, and do not have a level adjustment; they are simply a strain of goblinkind which favors intellect over nimbleness, much as the Sun Elves differ from typical High Elves.
* I've changed the listed alignments of a few of the classic Ten Dragons, as well as including a few extras to create a balanced set that fits with my gameworld's themes.
- Black dragons are Neutral Evil rather than Chaotic Evil.
- Green dragons are Neutral Evil rather than Lawful Evil.
- Bronze dragons are Neutral Good rather than Lawful Good.
* The as-written vampire template is not used. Vampires are Lawful Evil by default and their mechanics reflect their status as a race of immortal schemers, rather than a plague upon the land.
* Rakshasas are Chaotic Evil by default.
* The rules on Knowledge checks are loosely applied; per RAW no amount of Knowledge: Religion will help you identify an angel or demon, because these are only governed by Knowledge: the Planes, but I leave a fair bit of wiggle room in such cases. Knowledge: Local may apply to some monstrous humanoids and Knowledge: Nature to some non-monstrous ones, depending on how civilized their culture is; vermin and some types of animals (rats and bats and so forth) are equally likely to fall under Nature or Dungeoneering depending on where they live. In functional terms I'm not likely to call for these rolls at all, but my generosity in interpreting them is likely to be beneficial to anyone wanting to use the Knowledge Devotion feat or an Archivist's Dark Knowledge class feature.
* The Lost are instead known as the Overcome.
* The Phantom Fungus very definitely and emphatically does not exist.
* Wildren also do not exist. Remember, little dwarves: just say "no", even if a badger won't.
-------Races-------
* Half-elves and half-orcs gain bonus skill points as do humans. (They do not gain a feat.)
* A total of twelve elf subraces exist; the default High Elf is the most common, and reclusive mountain-dwelling Sun Elves also exist, but the term "moon elf' is not used except by Sun Elves, and them only when speaking Common.
* All halflings are Strongheart Halflings, but many of them spend their bonus feat on a Halfling-only feat called "Lightfoot", which grants a +1 to all saving throws.
* The Aasimar is replaced with a homebrew race called the Heivolk, which is much the same as the Aasimar except that it has a -2 Strength penalty and its favored class is Marshal rather than Paladin.
* Dusklings are renamed Bubasti.
* Elans are renamed Sadhu.
* Kobolds are renamed Zh'klet ("chicklets"), a Draconic word meaning "little buddies" or "puny minions" depending on dialect. (The root Draconic language, spoken by most non-dragon "speaks draconic" creatures, does not disambiguate between friends and chattel, identifying both as "people useful enough not to kill". The various dragon varieties speak distinct, though mutually comprehensible, strains of their common tongue; thusly, a chromatic dragon seldom says the word for "friend", as it is foreign to him, and a metallic equally disdains terms like "thrall".)
* Thri-Kreen are renamed Mantodea.
* Gnolls are renamed Yeenagh. No word yet on whether a new Gnoll race will be homebrewed to fit the original myth.
* Yuan-Ti are renamed Valuska, and the Purebloods do not have Alternate Form, but instead get a slew of racial skill bonuses to make them better infiltrators.
-------Classes-------
* The currently approved list of classes: All eleven Core classes, all eight classes in Expanded Psionics Handbook and Complete Psionic (counting the Erudite, though not the Spell to Power variant), the three Incarnum classes, the Warlock (currently tentatively evaluating PersonMan's Warlock Power Sources homebrew), the Warmage, the Marshal, the Swashbuckler, the Favored Soul, the Beguiler, the Dragon Shaman, the Knight, the Binder, the Truenamer (for masochists), the Archivist, the Scout, the Spellthief, the Factotum, and tentatively the Warblade and Crusader, plus the Noble from the Dragonlance campaign setting (the Mystic is still being evaluated).
* NPC classes are not used except for the Aristocrat, Adept, a modified Commoner, and the Gleaner once listed on this website (I'm still looking for a satisfactory substitute for Expert other than Factotum).
* I also allow some of the variant classes of Unearthed Arcana; those approved to date are the Wilderness Rogue, Cloistered Cleric, "feat rogue", Thug, Battle Sorcerer, variant paladins, and several of the specialist wizard variants, along with all Paragon classes. ACFs are mostly news to me, and I've only tried a couple of them.
* And of course there's my homebrew Celebrant cleric (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252544), the only outright made-up class I currently allow in my game. (It's not quite finished but you can play it as-written, you just might be short a few spells I'll eventualy add.)
* A cleric chooses an energy type at creation, and his spontaneous casting and undead-affecting abilities are determined by his choice. Alignment predetermines which options are allowed, but every cleric can choose from at least two options unless his god restricts the choice.
{*} Any non-Evil cleric may channel positive energy to heal living creatures, damage undead creatures, or turn/destroy undead. Positive energy always benefits the living and destroys anti-life; like evolution, it is unstoppable yet largely beneficial, and swarms its way around every impediment to accomplish its goals.
{*} Any non-Chaotic cleric may channel temporal energy to heal living creatures, heal undead creatures, or command/rebuke undead. Temporal energy rewinds time to restore things to their default state, so it can undo damage to either living or dead flesh, but it also "reminds" undead of the moment of their death and their place outside the great cycle of years, and thereby cowes them into submission.
{*} Any non-Good cleric may channel negative energy to damage living creatures, heal undead creatures, or command/rebuke undead. Negative energy is the Anti-Life Equation which raises corpses to enact malevolence against those with the gall to remain alive, a force for spite and persistence which defies reason and the natural order. Those who command it may work their will with impunity upon those who possess only a trickle of it, and any inherently free-willed, adaptive living creature can only violently reject its intruding influence.
{*} Any non-Lawful cleric may channel extemporal energy to damage living creatures, damage undead creatures, or turn/destroy undead. Extemporal energy is the impossible made manifest, the source of miracles, but also the energy of utter transience, making all things impermanent and easily dissipated. It is inherently contrary to logic and continuity, making matter immaterial and causality irrelevant; it can create ex nihilo, but few of its creations last long, for there is no consistent principle to hold them together, and with a bit of effort it be used to force the same instability to things that arose from nature and its laws.
* The Favored Soul does not have Knowledge: Arcana as a class skill, but rather Knowledge: Religion.
* The Monk gains his final bonus feat at level 5 rather than level 6.
* Dragon Shamans and the like who are tied to a traditional dragon may have different alignment options due to the changes to those dragons:
- Black dragon shamans must be Evil, but may be Lawful.
- Green dragon shamans must be Evil, but may be Chaotic.
- Bronze dragon shamans must be Good, but may be Chaotic.
* A Divine Mind need not match the alignment of his deity, as his powers are psionic and come from his own idea of the deity, not the real deity which he would get spells from if he were a cleric.
* The Divine Mind's Wild Talent is replaced with Hidden Talent, a feat that is not otherwise available, and thus the Divine Mind has one known power and two PP to manifest it with starting at 1st level.
* The Divine Mind's Psychic Aura at level 1 takes 1 minute, not 1 fricking hour, to switch.
* The Totemist gains his second chakra bind, and the class feature "Totem chakra bind: +1 meldshaper level", at level 5 rather than level 6.
-------Prestige Classes-------
* The Blackguard counts Paladin (fallen) levels as well as Cleric levels toward the strength of his Aura of Evil. Paladin levels which are traded in for blackguard levels are not counted this way (though the resulting blackguard levels are).
-------Skills-------
* Use Magic Device and Use Psionic Device are a single skill named Use Mystic Device, which is on the class lists of all classes that had either of its progenitors.
* A character with ranks in Truespeak may substitute a Truespeak check for the 20% failure chance when attempting to cast a spell while deafened. The DC for this check is 10 plus the spell level (and thus failure becomes impossible with a check total of +19); if this is too difficult the character may still roll the 20%.
-------Feats-------
* The Improved Shield Bash feat allows you to gain the +1 AC of a Buckler even while fighting with that arm, despite the fact that the Buckler doesn't actually bash.
* Tower Shield Proficiency also applies to any and all exotic shields (I have yet to determine whether such are actually available, but if they are I see no reason to require an additional feat only for them). Any class listed as proficient with "all shields" is assumed to lack Exotic Shield proficiency, which includes tower shields, unless the class is Fighter or it explicitly names Tower Shields among its proficiencies (I forget whether Fighter does so I'm C'ing my A). The Crusader, for instance, lists proficiency with "all shields" but this is considered an oversight and does not apply to Tower/Exotic proficiency.
* Craft Staff has Craft Wand (or Craft Virge, see below) as an additional prerequisite.
* The homebrew feat Selfish-Sufficient (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14549666&postcount=8) is available, if you want to be good at foraging for food in the wild or sewing up your own injuries.
-------Items-------
* Wands contain 63 charges rather than 50, and cost 125% of their normal listed prices when fully charged. Players may also purchase an 8-charge wand known as a virge, which costs 25% of the fully-charged price; virges are mostly sold as "trainers" for amateur wizards or fledgling clerics. The market price for any 64-charge wand (assuming no extraordinary components in the stored spells) is Spell Level x Caster Level x 960 GP. A virge costs 1/4 of this total. (Craft Virge is available as a feat at caster level 3, but becomes obsolete if Craft Wand is possessed, so it is very rarely taken.)
* A +1 Holy Unholy weapon is costed as having a total enhancement bonus of +4, rather than +5, and likewise for a +1 Axiomatic Anarchic weapon. Such weapons are not common, but can be made with relatively slim expense. The handful of creatures which count as both Good and Evil due to alignment subtypes are devastated by such weapons, whose diametrically opposed energies pulsate and rip their way through the being's flesh like a chainsaw, but in the majority of cases only one bonus of the sword will apply to any given creature, and so they are not especially difficult to create, though also not especially useful.
* Psionic power stones are replaced with miniature paintings known as Cameos, which have the same mechanics but often depict a scene which hints at the nature of the contained power. This is part of a general move of Psionics fluff away from "crystal power" and toward "quintessential truths", distinguishing it more clearly from exoteric magic.
* The price of cognizance crystals is halved - 500 for a level 1 crystal which can manifest a single unaugmented level 1 power, 2000 for one which holds 3 pp, 4500 for a 5-pp crystal, etc. This rule is probational and possibly a little broken but I've opted to risk it.
-------Spells-------
* You can't sleep in a Rope Trick because you have to actually keep holding onto the (seemingly infinitely-long and stretching through nothingness) rope after climbing up into the extradimensional space, which doesn't offer anything you can use as ground.
* The Virtue spell (Cleric 0, Paladin 1) grants +3 temporary hit points rather than +1.
* The Hold Portal spell adds +10 rather than +5 to the DC to break open the door.
-------Psionic Powers-------
* Body Adjustment is a Level 2, not Level 3, power on the Life Mantle list.
* Psionic Freedom of Movement is a Level 4, not Level 5, power on the Freedom Mantle list.
* Defensive Precognition's +6 pp augmentation option allows you to manifest as an immediate, not swift, action. Ditto for Thicken Skin.
* If you choose "electricity" when manifesting an Energy Retort, the retaliation bolts get a +3 bonus on their to-hit roll if the target is wearing metal armor, as is true of Energy Ray. (For the moment I'm assuming it was intentional that Energy Retort still gives saving throws despite requiring an attack roll, as it does break the action economy. I may eventually change my mind on this, and would also love to homebrew up a clause to include on a Sonic retort, which is currently never useful unless an object is attacking you, as this doesn't happen too often.)
* Because my game does not use psionics/magic transparency, I ruled that Psionic Major Creation can create Cold Iron, unlike the Major Creation spell.
-------Incarnum-------
* "Essentia" is not spoken of in-game, and for that matter neither is Incarnum as a general rule. Soulmelds are more often referred to as Thoughtforms by the handful of people who know they exist. E is simply the Emphasis that a user gives to their Thoughtforms, and attacks which interfere with it are functionally just disrupting the user's concentration so that they are no longer concentrating on empowering their soulmelds.
* Incarnum is NOT BLUE. Using an Incarnum feat does not make random parts of your body turn blue; if there is a visual display at all, it will generally look ghostly gray or crisply transparent. Likewise, the visual displays described for soulmelds, Incarnum Radiance auras and so forth are changed at the DM's whim in order to be more interesting and more personalized to the users.
* Incarnate Weapons do not necessarily have to be those listed in the book (in general any weapon of comparable potency is acceptible), and Incarnate Avatars may look different from the given examples. In particular, a Chaotic Avatar will either look like a Blue Slaad or give a bonus to ranged attacks, but will not do both (given that Blue Slaads are melee attackers).
* The Diadem of Purelight soulmeld creates a light so mystically benevolent that it does not trigger the light sensitivities of orcs, drow, and similar subterranean creatures.
-------Subsystems-------
* The names of Binder vestiges are changed more often than not, expurgating any reference to the real-world Goetia in favor of game-world information. For instance, Aym is instead named Parmenalya, though the story is otherwise identical.
* Item Familiars are available, but not to spellcasters of any variety, including psions and the like; I will decide on a case-by-case basis exactly who can have them, but in general the only caster-type who qualifies is the Truenamer, and high-tier non-casters like Warblade are probably also prohibited from using this absurdly powerful subsystem. (Also, I frown on putting all of your skill points into the Item Familiar simply to maximize the bonus it grants; some of your skill points gained in a level ought to be "personal interest" skills which don't revolve around your special magic item. I may eventually formalize this rule.)
For the latest revisions, see here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14481939&postcount=9).
-------Basic Rules-------
* If anything alters your Dexterity modifier during combat, your position in the inish roster rises or falls accordingly. If you raise an opponent's Dexterity so that his Initiative rises higher than the action you do this on, it just means he is the next to act; you can't make him miss his action for the turn this way.
-------Setting Info-------
* The names of several of the Outer Planes have changed; see below (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14476928&postcount=6).
* Extensive changes, beyond my ability to summarize, have been made to the pantheon of gods. The gods do not have residences on the Outer Planes where you can kick in the door and kill the god in question.
* The list of languages is expanded to include Arcadian, the language of Eladrins and other Chaotic Good outsiders.
-------Monsters-------
* Monster names are changed wherever I feel like it. No one on Whiteleaf speaks of "beholders", only of "eye tyrants"; "Eladrin" is a technical term and most speakers will simply term them "the Fair Folk". Krenshars are simply "Skullcats", Otyughs are Trash Eaters, aboleths are Slaver Fish, and the Ravid is the Pathetic Fallacy. The Bakemono are a different species from Ogres and thus are not called Ogre Mages save by the ignorant, the Umber Hulk has a proper name but I'm keeping it secret for now, and the Night Hag is not actually a hag, so she's called a Maleficent. Locathah are Murlocks (their own mumble-mouthed attempt at pronouncing the term for their brother-race the Merfolk, further misinterpreted by surface-dwellers), and Kuo-Toa are openly admitted to be Deep Ones (and do not worship a giant lobster with breasts). The sentient giant eagles are known as Gwaihir, and the owls as Gahoole. And while I plan on homebrewing a new Kobold race, the diminutive reptiles which mine and worship dragons are known as "chicklets", a corruption of their proper name Zh'klet; no one with an ounce of folkloric knowledge would call them "kobolds", as the mythic kobold is generally assumed to be a goblinoid of some sort.
* Rather than typing the word "monstrous" a thousand times, assume that any reference to a vermin is probably about the monstrous kind, depending on context. When people are routinely swallowed whole by a spider the size of a barn, it stands to reason that one that could fit on your thumbnail would become a "microspider" in common parlance.
* "Blues" are not blue, do not gain a power point, and do not have a level adjustment; they are simply a strain of goblinkind which favors intellect over nimbleness, much as the Sun Elves differ from typical High Elves.
* I've changed the listed alignments of a few of the classic Ten Dragons, as well as including a few extras to create a balanced set that fits with my gameworld's themes.
- Black dragons are Neutral Evil rather than Chaotic Evil.
- Green dragons are Neutral Evil rather than Lawful Evil.
- Bronze dragons are Neutral Good rather than Lawful Good.
* The as-written vampire template is not used. Vampires are Lawful Evil by default and their mechanics reflect their status as a race of immortal schemers, rather than a plague upon the land.
* Rakshasas are Chaotic Evil by default.
* The rules on Knowledge checks are loosely applied; per RAW no amount of Knowledge: Religion will help you identify an angel or demon, because these are only governed by Knowledge: the Planes, but I leave a fair bit of wiggle room in such cases. Knowledge: Local may apply to some monstrous humanoids and Knowledge: Nature to some non-monstrous ones, depending on how civilized their culture is; vermin and some types of animals (rats and bats and so forth) are equally likely to fall under Nature or Dungeoneering depending on where they live. In functional terms I'm not likely to call for these rolls at all, but my generosity in interpreting them is likely to be beneficial to anyone wanting to use the Knowledge Devotion feat or an Archivist's Dark Knowledge class feature.
* The Lost are instead known as the Overcome.
* The Phantom Fungus very definitely and emphatically does not exist.
* Wildren also do not exist. Remember, little dwarves: just say "no", even if a badger won't.
-------Races-------
* Half-elves and half-orcs gain bonus skill points as do humans. (They do not gain a feat.)
* A total of twelve elf subraces exist; the default High Elf is the most common, and reclusive mountain-dwelling Sun Elves also exist, but the term "moon elf' is not used except by Sun Elves, and them only when speaking Common.
* All halflings are Strongheart Halflings, but many of them spend their bonus feat on a Halfling-only feat called "Lightfoot", which grants a +1 to all saving throws.
* The Aasimar is replaced with a homebrew race called the Heivolk, which is much the same as the Aasimar except that it has a -2 Strength penalty and its favored class is Marshal rather than Paladin.
* Dusklings are renamed Bubasti.
* Elans are renamed Sadhu.
* Kobolds are renamed Zh'klet ("chicklets"), a Draconic word meaning "little buddies" or "puny minions" depending on dialect. (The root Draconic language, spoken by most non-dragon "speaks draconic" creatures, does not disambiguate between friends and chattel, identifying both as "people useful enough not to kill". The various dragon varieties speak distinct, though mutually comprehensible, strains of their common tongue; thusly, a chromatic dragon seldom says the word for "friend", as it is foreign to him, and a metallic equally disdains terms like "thrall".)
* Thri-Kreen are renamed Mantodea.
* Gnolls are renamed Yeenagh. No word yet on whether a new Gnoll race will be homebrewed to fit the original myth.
* Yuan-Ti are renamed Valuska, and the Purebloods do not have Alternate Form, but instead get a slew of racial skill bonuses to make them better infiltrators.
-------Classes-------
* The currently approved list of classes: All eleven Core classes, all eight classes in Expanded Psionics Handbook and Complete Psionic (counting the Erudite, though not the Spell to Power variant), the three Incarnum classes, the Warlock (currently tentatively evaluating PersonMan's Warlock Power Sources homebrew), the Warmage, the Marshal, the Swashbuckler, the Favored Soul, the Beguiler, the Dragon Shaman, the Knight, the Binder, the Truenamer (for masochists), the Archivist, the Scout, the Spellthief, the Factotum, and tentatively the Warblade and Crusader, plus the Noble from the Dragonlance campaign setting (the Mystic is still being evaluated).
* NPC classes are not used except for the Aristocrat, Adept, a modified Commoner, and the Gleaner once listed on this website (I'm still looking for a satisfactory substitute for Expert other than Factotum).
* I also allow some of the variant classes of Unearthed Arcana; those approved to date are the Wilderness Rogue, Cloistered Cleric, "feat rogue", Thug, Battle Sorcerer, variant paladins, and several of the specialist wizard variants, along with all Paragon classes. ACFs are mostly news to me, and I've only tried a couple of them.
* And of course there's my homebrew Celebrant cleric (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252544), the only outright made-up class I currently allow in my game. (It's not quite finished but you can play it as-written, you just might be short a few spells I'll eventualy add.)
* A cleric chooses an energy type at creation, and his spontaneous casting and undead-affecting abilities are determined by his choice. Alignment predetermines which options are allowed, but every cleric can choose from at least two options unless his god restricts the choice.
{*} Any non-Evil cleric may channel positive energy to heal living creatures, damage undead creatures, or turn/destroy undead. Positive energy always benefits the living and destroys anti-life; like evolution, it is unstoppable yet largely beneficial, and swarms its way around every impediment to accomplish its goals.
{*} Any non-Chaotic cleric may channel temporal energy to heal living creatures, heal undead creatures, or command/rebuke undead. Temporal energy rewinds time to restore things to their default state, so it can undo damage to either living or dead flesh, but it also "reminds" undead of the moment of their death and their place outside the great cycle of years, and thereby cowes them into submission.
{*} Any non-Good cleric may channel negative energy to damage living creatures, heal undead creatures, or command/rebuke undead. Negative energy is the Anti-Life Equation which raises corpses to enact malevolence against those with the gall to remain alive, a force for spite and persistence which defies reason and the natural order. Those who command it may work their will with impunity upon those who possess only a trickle of it, and any inherently free-willed, adaptive living creature can only violently reject its intruding influence.
{*} Any non-Lawful cleric may channel extemporal energy to damage living creatures, damage undead creatures, or turn/destroy undead. Extemporal energy is the impossible made manifest, the source of miracles, but also the energy of utter transience, making all things impermanent and easily dissipated. It is inherently contrary to logic and continuity, making matter immaterial and causality irrelevant; it can create ex nihilo, but few of its creations last long, for there is no consistent principle to hold them together, and with a bit of effort it be used to force the same instability to things that arose from nature and its laws.
* The Favored Soul does not have Knowledge: Arcana as a class skill, but rather Knowledge: Religion.
* The Monk gains his final bonus feat at level 5 rather than level 6.
* Dragon Shamans and the like who are tied to a traditional dragon may have different alignment options due to the changes to those dragons:
- Black dragon shamans must be Evil, but may be Lawful.
- Green dragon shamans must be Evil, but may be Chaotic.
- Bronze dragon shamans must be Good, but may be Chaotic.
* A Divine Mind need not match the alignment of his deity, as his powers are psionic and come from his own idea of the deity, not the real deity which he would get spells from if he were a cleric.
* The Divine Mind's Wild Talent is replaced with Hidden Talent, a feat that is not otherwise available, and thus the Divine Mind has one known power and two PP to manifest it with starting at 1st level.
* The Divine Mind's Psychic Aura at level 1 takes 1 minute, not 1 fricking hour, to switch.
* The Totemist gains his second chakra bind, and the class feature "Totem chakra bind: +1 meldshaper level", at level 5 rather than level 6.
-------Prestige Classes-------
* The Blackguard counts Paladin (fallen) levels as well as Cleric levels toward the strength of his Aura of Evil. Paladin levels which are traded in for blackguard levels are not counted this way (though the resulting blackguard levels are).
-------Skills-------
* Use Magic Device and Use Psionic Device are a single skill named Use Mystic Device, which is on the class lists of all classes that had either of its progenitors.
* A character with ranks in Truespeak may substitute a Truespeak check for the 20% failure chance when attempting to cast a spell while deafened. The DC for this check is 10 plus the spell level (and thus failure becomes impossible with a check total of +19); if this is too difficult the character may still roll the 20%.
-------Feats-------
* The Improved Shield Bash feat allows you to gain the +1 AC of a Buckler even while fighting with that arm, despite the fact that the Buckler doesn't actually bash.
* Tower Shield Proficiency also applies to any and all exotic shields (I have yet to determine whether such are actually available, but if they are I see no reason to require an additional feat only for them). Any class listed as proficient with "all shields" is assumed to lack Exotic Shield proficiency, which includes tower shields, unless the class is Fighter or it explicitly names Tower Shields among its proficiencies (I forget whether Fighter does so I'm C'ing my A). The Crusader, for instance, lists proficiency with "all shields" but this is considered an oversight and does not apply to Tower/Exotic proficiency.
* Craft Staff has Craft Wand (or Craft Virge, see below) as an additional prerequisite.
* The homebrew feat Selfish-Sufficient (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=14549666&postcount=8) is available, if you want to be good at foraging for food in the wild or sewing up your own injuries.
-------Items-------
* Wands contain 63 charges rather than 50, and cost 125% of their normal listed prices when fully charged. Players may also purchase an 8-charge wand known as a virge, which costs 25% of the fully-charged price; virges are mostly sold as "trainers" for amateur wizards or fledgling clerics. The market price for any 64-charge wand (assuming no extraordinary components in the stored spells) is Spell Level x Caster Level x 960 GP. A virge costs 1/4 of this total. (Craft Virge is available as a feat at caster level 3, but becomes obsolete if Craft Wand is possessed, so it is very rarely taken.)
* A +1 Holy Unholy weapon is costed as having a total enhancement bonus of +4, rather than +5, and likewise for a +1 Axiomatic Anarchic weapon. Such weapons are not common, but can be made with relatively slim expense. The handful of creatures which count as both Good and Evil due to alignment subtypes are devastated by such weapons, whose diametrically opposed energies pulsate and rip their way through the being's flesh like a chainsaw, but in the majority of cases only one bonus of the sword will apply to any given creature, and so they are not especially difficult to create, though also not especially useful.
* Psionic power stones are replaced with miniature paintings known as Cameos, which have the same mechanics but often depict a scene which hints at the nature of the contained power. This is part of a general move of Psionics fluff away from "crystal power" and toward "quintessential truths", distinguishing it more clearly from exoteric magic.
* The price of cognizance crystals is halved - 500 for a level 1 crystal which can manifest a single unaugmented level 1 power, 2000 for one which holds 3 pp, 4500 for a 5-pp crystal, etc. This rule is probational and possibly a little broken but I've opted to risk it.
-------Spells-------
* You can't sleep in a Rope Trick because you have to actually keep holding onto the (seemingly infinitely-long and stretching through nothingness) rope after climbing up into the extradimensional space, which doesn't offer anything you can use as ground.
* The Virtue spell (Cleric 0, Paladin 1) grants +3 temporary hit points rather than +1.
* The Hold Portal spell adds +10 rather than +5 to the DC to break open the door.
-------Psionic Powers-------
* Body Adjustment is a Level 2, not Level 3, power on the Life Mantle list.
* Psionic Freedom of Movement is a Level 4, not Level 5, power on the Freedom Mantle list.
* Defensive Precognition's +6 pp augmentation option allows you to manifest as an immediate, not swift, action. Ditto for Thicken Skin.
* If you choose "electricity" when manifesting an Energy Retort, the retaliation bolts get a +3 bonus on their to-hit roll if the target is wearing metal armor, as is true of Energy Ray. (For the moment I'm assuming it was intentional that Energy Retort still gives saving throws despite requiring an attack roll, as it does break the action economy. I may eventually change my mind on this, and would also love to homebrew up a clause to include on a Sonic retort, which is currently never useful unless an object is attacking you, as this doesn't happen too often.)
* Because my game does not use psionics/magic transparency, I ruled that Psionic Major Creation can create Cold Iron, unlike the Major Creation spell.
-------Incarnum-------
* "Essentia" is not spoken of in-game, and for that matter neither is Incarnum as a general rule. Soulmelds are more often referred to as Thoughtforms by the handful of people who know they exist. E is simply the Emphasis that a user gives to their Thoughtforms, and attacks which interfere with it are functionally just disrupting the user's concentration so that they are no longer concentrating on empowering their soulmelds.
* Incarnum is NOT BLUE. Using an Incarnum feat does not make random parts of your body turn blue; if there is a visual display at all, it will generally look ghostly gray or crisply transparent. Likewise, the visual displays described for soulmelds, Incarnum Radiance auras and so forth are changed at the DM's whim in order to be more interesting and more personalized to the users.
* Incarnate Weapons do not necessarily have to be those listed in the book (in general any weapon of comparable potency is acceptible), and Incarnate Avatars may look different from the given examples. In particular, a Chaotic Avatar will either look like a Blue Slaad or give a bonus to ranged attacks, but will not do both (given that Blue Slaads are melee attackers).
* The Diadem of Purelight soulmeld creates a light so mystically benevolent that it does not trigger the light sensitivities of orcs, drow, and similar subterranean creatures.
-------Subsystems-------
* The names of Binder vestiges are changed more often than not, expurgating any reference to the real-world Goetia in favor of game-world information. For instance, Aym is instead named Parmenalya, though the story is otherwise identical.
* Item Familiars are available, but not to spellcasters of any variety, including psions and the like; I will decide on a case-by-case basis exactly who can have them, but in general the only caster-type who qualifies is the Truenamer, and high-tier non-casters like Warblade are probably also prohibited from using this absurdly powerful subsystem. (Also, I frown on putting all of your skill points into the Item Familiar simply to maximize the bonus it grants; some of your skill points gained in a level ought to be "personal interest" skills which don't revolve around your special magic item. I may eventually formalize this rule.)