My 6 Personal Homebrew Rules

[lunasmeow]

New to DMing here. I'm already hosting a RAW game, but that session is almost over. They want to play a new setting once it's over, and are cool with me homebrewing some rules so long as they make sense.

Please provide constructive criticism. If there is faulty reasoning somewhere, all I ask is that you point it out with a possible solution/alternative method/reason why I should leave it as RAW/RAI instead of just saying "that's dumb".

Some of this may even already be a rule that I have just never seen. If it is, and you know where to find it, please point it out.

1. You don’t use your strength modifier to add to your attack rolls. In reality, being stronger doesn’t help you aim, so long as you are strong enough to properly wield the weapon in the first place. If you are proficient in the weapon, it is assumed that you can properly wield it. (Unless it is a medium or heavy weapon and your strength is less than 10, in which case you aren't proficient with it until your strength goes up, or in the case of medium weapons, you get a mithril version of it to have a light one.) If you aren’t proficient with the weapon, you already take a negative modifier to your attack roll.

Dexterity helps you aim. You add your strength modifier to your damage rolls as normal. The “Weapon Finesse” feat then, allows you to also use the dexterity modifier to add to damage. Basically it is re-written to say that you can wield the weapon better than most. You know how to wield it not just normally, but like a true master. You can wield it in such as way as that you inflict more damage with the way you strike, not just where you strike.

2. If you match an enemy’s AC, you have only grazed them. They take one damage. The equivalent of punching someone and only managing to barely connect with your knuckles instead of your complete fist. If you beat an enemy’s AC by one (or vice verse) it isn’t a full hit.

In real fights, it isn’t always a full or hit or miss. Sometimes a person only gets a “glancing blow” on a target. Therefore, beating a character’s AC by only one, counts as a glancing blow and only does half damage, just like a reflex save. Only instead of because of good reflexes, the lessened damage is due to the character’s faulty aim.

In the case of something that already allows a reflex save for half damage, if the reflex save is successful, and it was a glancing blow, the target takes no damage. If the attack allows a reflex save, and they have improved evasion, and it was a glancing blow, they take no damage. Only defeating an opponent’s AC by two or more is considered a full hit. This is for both physical and magical attacks that use an attack roll.


3. Just as you add half your level when performing skill checks, half your level gets added to your attack rolls, as well as to your AC. Normally, this doesn’t matter much as you are fighting creatures of a level close to your own, however this simulates battle experience for, say, a master fighting a new student in a training match.

Even though they are wearing the same (training) equipment, the master is exceedingly difficult to hit, if not impossible to hit, unless he purposely takes the hit for training purposes. There is no way a first level fighter should be able to hit a 70th level epic fighter 20/sorcerer 20/eldritch knight 10/paladin 20 outside of rolling a natural 20, which simulates the random sheer luck attack that somehow gets through.


4. Normally, only spells/feats/races/etc from official sources are allowed. However, for fairness, I allow some homebrew feats/spells. This follows very strict rules. See the below example:

“Devoted Tracker” is a feat that allows a paladin to use his mount as an animal companion, granting it bonuses from both. It requires the “Smite Good” special ability. We commonly have paladins of evil. Some of them were once normal paladins that fell. There are also paladins of law. (Enforcers, who care about order, not good or evil.) They can also be devoted no? They are paladins after all. They could easily have taken some of their old skills and “converted” them to fit their new alignment and beliefs. So I homebrew that Devoted Tracker works for any paladin-type class so long as they have their relevant “Smite Good/Evil/etc” ability.

Basically, said feat/spell must be equal to a pre-existing feat/spell, and it has to be something that the other side doesn’t have a balancing ability for. It also must match the “fluff” of the original feat/spell, with only minor editing to fit the new alignment/class/race. If Good has this special ability for only good people, and Evil also has one special ability for only evil people, and they are in opposition to each other? That balances things out. There is no homebrew required for that. However if it was old and just never updated/balanced? I can deal with homebrewing that.


5. Epic levels do not work as described in the Epic Level Handbook. Instead, they continue to work just like normal levels do. Normal BAB increases, normal save increases, normal feat and stat increases.
You qualify for epic feats once you get one of your core classes up to level 20, or the relevant prestige class up to level 10 or 5 depending on how many levels it has. If you have a character level of 50, but leveled too many other classes to have a level 20 of any one class, you have an epic character, but they aren’t epically skilled in any one thing, and so cannot use any epic feats, other than "General" epic feats. You have chosen to trade versatility for specialization, which epicness requires.

I think of it as a “jack of all trades” who can do general plumbing, general carpentry, general electricity, VS the guy who designs the electrical power grid for the entire city. The first guy is versatile, the second is specialized. The power grid guy is epic, the jack of all trades is not. However the power grid guy doesn’t know a damn thing about plumbing, or carpentry. It’s a trade-off.

Also, once you do qualify for epic feats, you can only take either general epic feats, or those related to your epic class(es). If you are an epic fighter, but only a level 10 sorcerer, you can’t take epic metamagic feats. You aren’t epically skilled in magic, you are epically skilled in fighting. Some classes have synergy though, if you are a level 10 wizard and a level 10 sorcerer? You have 20 arcane magic levels. Good enough to use epic metamagic feats because you have in total enough relevant experience. Simple enough?


6. Critical hits. Everything gets multiplied. Everything. The multiplying for the crit damage comes last. We don't confirm criticals.

If the players agree we use a nat20/nat1 table. Instead of rolling again to see if you really crit, you roll again to see how good that crit is. A another 20 is instant death (unless it's a boss char, in which case it will just double your crit damage a second time) and a 1 will cancel the crit. For nat 1's, roling the d20 to see how bad the fail is, a 20 will cancel the one, and a second 1 is practically suicide. Again, this is only if the players agree to the crit table.

Also, undead and constructs (and other creatures that are normally immune to critical hits) can take critical hits, but only so long as they have a discernible anatomy. They may not feel the pain because of the hit, but they are still physical creatures.

Logically, if you can damage the body, and that body has parts that are more critical to it’s physical operation than others, then they can take extra damage if they get hit in those vital points. For an undead or a humanoid construct, this means you may have severely damaged their leg, causing them to move slower due to a faulty body part; or you may have severely damaged their arm, weakening their attacks for the same reason. This is fully played out in battle by lowering their movement points, or weakening and/or lowering their damage die. However, the only way to crit these enemies is with a natural 20.

This is because the living versions of these creatures can be hurt by hitting “vulnerable” or “weak” points on the body. Undead and constructs can’t feel pain, and aren’t powered by their hearts or brains. So, while a living human has more weak points (the lungs, the heart, the brain, any major veins or arteries) the undead or construct version can only be severely damaged by damaging a key portion of the body for movement, dealing damage, or in the case of constructs and outsiders, whatever it uses to “see” it’s general area. However, in the case of undead, they are (usually? White necromancer from pathfinder is an exception I think?) powered by negative energy. If you are using a holy weapon, then you have a normal crit range. The same applies however for the (rare?) positively powered undead. If they are hit with an unholy weapon, that weapon has a normal crit range.


Thoughts?

[jqavins]

New to DMing here. I'm already hosting a RAW game, but that session is almost over. They want to play a new setting once it's over, and are cool with me homebrewing some rules so long as they make sense.

Please provide constructive criticism. If there is faulty reasoning somewhere, all I ask is that you point it out with a possible solution/alternative method/reason why I should leave it as RAW/RAI instead of just saying "that's dumb".
Of course. Some of what follows is recomended, some is just personal preference. I'll identify the latter.


1. You don’t use your strength modifier to add to your attack rolls. In reality, being stronger doesn’t help you aim, so long as you are strong enough to properly wield the weapon in the first place. If you are proficient in the weapon, it is assumed that you can properly wield it. (Unless it is a medium or heavy weapon and your strength is less than 10, in which case you aren't proficient with it until your strength goes up, or in the case of medium weapons, you get a mithril version of it to have a light one.) If you aren’t proficient with the weapon, you already take a negative modifier to your attack roll.

Dexterity helps you aim. You add your strength modifier to your damage rolls as normal. The “Weapon Finesse” feat then, allows you to also use the dexterity modifier to add to damage. Basically it is re-written to say that you can wield the weapon better than most. You know how to wield it not just normally, but like a true master. You can wield it in such as way as that you inflict more damage with the way you strike, not just where you strike.
Are you an experienced sword or other melee weapon fighter? I'm not, nor are the vast majority of us, so if you speak with more authority than I then you should skip to the next section.

The basic physics says that strength should help one hit with a melee weapon. That's because one must make quick adjustments to the path of the weapon in response to the opponent's movements. That means high acceleration, which requires great force. The greater one's strength, the greater one's ability to do this, the greater one's chance to hit. Dexterity certainly can help also to an extent, but I should think that, unless the weapon is light, strength would be more important. That's why Weapon Finesse applies to light weapons.

The thing is, you don't "aim" a melee weapon. You aim a ranged weapon, which is why range weapons already use the Dex mod for attack rolls.

One thing I like is to have a feat similar to Weapon Finesse but for medium weapons. Where Weapon Finesse applies to all light weapons (plus a few others) this one applies to a single medium weapon of the player's choice. It can be taken multiple times for multiple weapons.


2. If you match an enemy’s AC, you have only grazed them. They take one damage. The equivalent of punching someone and only managing to barely connect with your knuckles instead of your complete fist. If you beat an enemy’s AC by one (or vice verse) it isn’t a full hit.

In real fights, it isn’t always a full or hit or miss. Sometimes a person only gets a “glancing blow” on a target. Therefore, beating a character’s AC by only one, counts as a glancing blow and only does half damage, just like a reflex save. Only instead of because of good reflexes, the lessened damage is due to the character’s faulty aim.

In the case of something that already allows a reflex save for half damage, if the reflex save is successful, and it was a glancing blow, the target takes no damage. If the attack allows a reflex save, and they have improved evasion, and it was a glancing blow, they take no damage. Only defeating an opponent’s AC by two or more is considered a full hit. This is for both physical and magical attacks that use an attack roll.
I like it, but... Everyone who really thinks about hit points, armor class, and attack resolution quickly comes to the conclusion that they are highly unrealistic. And lots of people try to improve on the system. And they all fail. Alright, they almost all fail. Any system is a compromise between playability (which favors simplicity) and realism (which favors complexity.) Attempts to make this more realistic usually come out one of three ways: 1) it is a little more complex and a little more realistic, but not enough more realistic to be worth it; 2) it is so much more complex that each round of combat takes 15 - 60 minutes to go around the table; or 3) it's just as unrealistic as before but in new ways.

To me, after an extensive one minute analysis, this looks like the second. I'm not saying don't try, but lower your expectations.


3. Just as you add half your level when performing skill checks, half your level gets added to your attack rolls, as well as to your AC. Normally, this doesn’t matter much as you are fighting creatures of a level close to your own, however this simulates battle experience for, say, a master fighting a new student in a training match.

Even though they are wearing the same (training) equipment, the master is exceedingly difficult to hit, if not impossible to hit, unless he purposely takes the hit for training purposes. There is no way a first level fighter should be able to hit a 70th level epic fighter 20/sorcerer 20/eldritch knight 10/paladin 20 outside of rolling a natural 20, which simulates the random sheer luck attack that somehow gets through.
What system are you using? I'm not familiar with adding half your level to skill checks. In any case, I would think that in any system one's chance to hit a target of given AC goes up with level, e.g. via the BAB in 3.x/PF. So adding half level to attack rolls as well would be doubling up. Adding something level dependant - half level, BAB, half BAB, or something else altogether - to AC does make sense to me. On the other hand, adding something new to AC and not adding a similar amount to attack throws combat out of balance; adding it to attack as you outlined would solve that but (and this is where I switch to personal opinion) I don't like the doubling up. You could do something arithmetically equivalent by increasing BABs, or whatever the system you're using has instead. Also, in the training case, the instructor would be using some sort of defensive feat to add his BAB (or part of it) to his AC at the expense of using it for attack (which he doesn't need, being so high level.)


4. Normally, only spells/feats/races/etc from official sources are allowed. However, for fairness, I allow some homebrew feats/spells. This follows very strict rules.
I don't know anything about your particular example, but in general it's a fine thing to allow homebrew spells/feats/skills etc. at your discression. You don't even need such strict rules; spell out the guidelines for what is usually acceptable or not, but the only strict rule is "It's OK if and only if the GM says so." Trust yourself to judge case by case.


5. Epic levels do not work as described in the Epic Level Handbook. Instead, they continue to work just like normal levels do. Normal BAB increases, normal save increases, normal feat and stat increases...
Makes sense to me, but I'm not qualified to comment further.


6. Critical hits. Everything gets multiplied. Everything. The multiplying for the crit damage comes last. We don't confirm criticals.

If the players agree we use a nat20/nat1 table. Instead of rolling again to see if you really crit, you roll again to see how good that crit is. A another 20 is instant death (unless it's a boss char, in which case it will just double your crit damage a second time) and a 1 will cancel the crit. For nat 1's, roling the d20 to see how bad the fail is, a 20 will cancel the one, and a second 1 is practically suicide. Again, this is only if the players agree to the crit table.

Also, undead and constructs (and other creatures that are normally immune to critical hits) can take critical hits, but only so long as they have a discernible anatomy. They may not feel the pain because of the hit, but they are still physical creatures.

Logically, if you can damage the body, and that body has parts that are more critical to it’s physical operation than others, then they can take extra damage if they get hit in those vital points. For an undead or a humanoid construct, this means you may have severely damaged their leg, causing them to move slower due to a faulty body part; or you may have severely damaged their arm, weakening their attacks for the same reason. This is fully played out in battle by lowering their movement points, or weakening and/or lowering their damage die. However, the only way to crit these enemies is with a natural 20.

This is because the living versions of these creatures can be hurt by hitting “vulnerable” or “weak” points on the body. Undead and constructs can’t feel pain, and aren’t powered by their hearts or brains. So, while a living human has more weak points (the lungs, the heart, the brain, any major veins or arteries) the undead or construct version can only be severely damaged by damaging a key portion of the body for movement, dealing damage, or in the case of constructs and outsiders, whatever it uses to “see” it’s general area. However, in the case of undead, they are (usually? White necromancer from pathfinder is an exception I think?) powered by negative energy. If you are using a holy weapon, then you have a normal crit range. The same applies however for the (rare?) positively powered undead. If they are hit with an unholy weapon, that weapon has a normal crit range.
More damage on crits, more crits and fumbles, insta-kills, etc. make the game more - well - some say dynamic and action packed, some say random and erratic. Personally, I don't like things crit heavy. But this is completely a matter of what you and your group want.

[Seppo87]

Strength helps hitting because the blows are faster and harder to block.

[nonsi]

1. Make Weapon Finesse automatic instead of a feat. This would mean that light & finesseable weapons are light & swift enough for attackers to use their Dex, while 1H & 2H weapons (which require greater strength to wield effectively) use Str.
2. Needless complication. HP are an abstraction. taking 1d4 + 4 from a dagger at 3rd level doesn't mean that you took the dagger all the way to the hilt.
3. Again, you don't need it to model the advantage of high-level characters. As levels go up, you have more BAB, mor skill points, better buff spells, elevated ability scores, skill-synergy etc.
4. The most broken stuff is in core already. The only truly broken things out-of-core are certain PrCs (Dweomerkeeper, Ur-Priest, Iot7FV, Incantatrix etc).
5. First, most epic-level feats are far from being worthy of the title, so if your players have reached char-level 20 - let them have their day in the sun. Second, epic-level rules were invented to delay breaking the RNG. Maybe you'd find my suggested epic-level rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=18777401&postcount=10) useful.
6. Not much to say here..... everyone has their view of how crit should work. It all depends on how gritty you wish your campaign to be. There's no right or wrong here really, but an insta-kill every 400 attack rolls on average is not reasonable in my view. As far as undead and crit go..... again, since HP are an abstraction, pain plays a significant part in one's survivability (remaining HP). And to a zombie (an undead), the liver is in no way more important that the biceps (probably much less).

[OttoVonBigby]

You qualify for epic feats once you get one of your core classes up to level 20, or the relevant prestige class up to level 10 or 5 depending on how many levels it has. If you have a character level of 50, but leveled too many other classes to have a level 20 of any one class, you have an epic character, but they aren’t epically skilled in any one thing, and so cannot use any epic feats, other than "General" epic feats. You have chosen to trade versatility for specialization, which epicness requires.

I think of it as a “jack of all trades” who can do general plumbing, general carpentry, general electricity, VS the guy who designs the electrical power grid for the entire city. The first guy is versatile, the second is specialized. The power grid guy is epic, the jack of all trades is not. However the power grid guy doesn’t know a damn thing about plumbing, or carpentry. It’s a trade-off.
My feeling about this is that to make a "power grid guy" in 3.5 (to loosely continue your metaphor) does not necessarily equate to completing an entire class's/PrC's levels. If I want to be an epically-focused Manipulator of the Minds of Men, I might have 5 levels of 5 different classes, depending on the circumstances of the campaign. I don't see that this makes me a jack-of-all-trades.

Now, if you had some kind of mechanic where, to take epic feats, you had to have all of the same general SORT of levels-- like say, full BAB -or- full Fort or Ref or Will -or- caster level equal to class level... or some weird thing like that as a prereq for taking epic feats, that might be more fair. But as someone else mentioned, as a player I'd probably be stymied even by THAT kind of restriction unless your homebrewed epic feats were way better than the SRD's.

[Zireael]

3. Just as you add half your level when performing skill checks, half your level gets added to your attack rolls, as well as to your AC.

Where did you get the add half your level to skill checks thing?

On topic: I like the "beat AC by one" thing, and making Weapon Finesse add dexterity mod to damage.

I agree that many "Epic" feats are very underwhelming.

[Ashtagon]

1 - This reduces the value of Strength. In D&D, a hit never meant "you made contact", but "you made contact solidly enough to do meaningful damage". Additionally, the Strength stat isn't just a measure of sheer muscle, but the ability to control that muscle. D&D Strength isn't purely what real life calls strength.

RAW, Weapon Finesse makes Dex replaces Str as the attack roll modifier ability. Dex is already a god stat; allowing Weapon Finesse to grant attack and damage bonuses makes it even more so. Overall, #1 is a bad idea.

2 -See my comment about what a hit actually represents. This will slow down combat and hurt melee. A D&D "miss" can represent a glancing blow that failed to hurt (that's the space between hitting touch AC and hitting the main AC score).

3 - This amounts to a +1/1 attack modifier per two HD difference. This scaling is already built into the base attack bonus, the WBL expected equipment of NPCs, and the amount of natural armour that level-appropriate monsters would have. Essentially, you're doubling up on a modifier that is already built in.

4 - Regarding Devoted Tracker, you may be interested in the "paladins of any alignment" in the SRD http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm

Can't comment on the other homebrew stuff you say you have under this heading.

5 -Fair warning - the epic rules suck, and the epic feats suck harder (some of them are strictly inferior to lower-level feats). The epic spellcasting rules make regular spellcasting look weak. Sensible gamers can often be heard commenting that it's a shame they never made an Epic Level Handbook, as playing at such heights of power would have been awesome.

6 -Don't do critical fumbles. And don't do instant kills on any kind of "confirmed" critical hit. Because these things could happen to the PCs too. And the PCs are in more fights in the game than any NPC ever will be.

[Pale Wolf]

Are you an experienced sword or other melee weapon fighter? I'm not, nor are the vast majority of us, so if you speak with more authority than I then you should skip to the next section.

I am.

Speaking from a realism perspective (not a game balance one), it's a fairly accurate portrayal.

Strength isn't really irrelevant to using a sword, but you only really need a fairly basic 'fit enough to use it for a while'. Fundamentally, swordsmanship isn't about 'hit harder', it's about 'move with the sword'.

To use a greatsword as an example, there is actually no human-achievable level of strength which will let you wield it. You can't control that mass with muscle - it's fundamentally not that heavy, but lifting a 4 kg two-hander is very much a different question from maneuvering it at high speed. You can only wield it by letting it flow and moving with it. Once that sword's started moving, it's not really going to stop, so you need to anticipate where it's going to go, nudge it gently to change its mind, and move with it, to take advantage of where it's going next. You'll just rip your muscles trying to force it.

It ain't your tool, it's your dance partner.

But as Ashtagon notes, the real question is precisely what the stat means. And there's only so much emulation you can fit into the game engine - it's an abstraction to begin with. From a game mechanics perspective I don't think it's necessarily busted to allow 'Dex everything' with a feat or two (since higher levels of a stat are more and more expensive, investing in more Dex rather than Str isn't going to be a doubling, but it is an increase), but it's something you're gonna want to run some math on to compare just how much advantage that one or two feats win you and whether that's the sort of power level you're willing to allow feats to offer out.

Similarly, seconding on recommendation against the glancing blow rule. The game's an abstraction and the real question is whether the detail of this rule is worth slowing the game down for whenever it happens.


Makes sense to me, but I'm not qualified to comment further.

I'm extremely leery of this, myself. To elaborate on what nonsi pointed out about the RNG breaking...

Well, he used an example of a level 70 character, so I'll dial back to two level 60s - a rogue and a fighter.

Check what their BABs are if you continue the scaling divergence. Fighter has BAB 60; Rogue has BAB 45. Wizard has BAB 30.

Remember that the dice is only 20 numbers. Assuming all else is equal, a target the Fighter is hitting on every single roll is a target the Rogue is only hitting 1/4 of the time. Wizard is only hitting on a natural 20 (not that he cares, he's wizard... though this much divergence probably means even touch attacks are suffering). If the fighter's at all challenged, the rogue isn't going to ever hit anything, etcetera.

This much divergence makes it very difficult to run people who have even the slightest difference in how their stats scale. Things get tricky towards the end of 1-20 as it is, carrying it past that is terrifying.

[Realms of Chaos]

...Since when has Strength to Attack rolls ever been about aim? :smallconfused:

While a bonus to Attack rolls DOES help you overcome dodge bonuses and Dex bonuses to AC, it will more commonly help you pound through deflection bonuses, armor bonuses, shield bonuses, and natural armor bonuses.

If you want to say that someone with a dagger overcomes all of the above bonus by slipping the blade around defenses (finding chinks in armor and such), I might believe that. Someone wading into combat with a bludgeoning weapon like a warhammer, however, is likely trying to pound THROUGH the layers of defense without so much attention being given to 'aiming'.

If this fix included the prevision translating all armor into Damage Reduction so that a bonus to damage overcomes these things, that would make sense. If you wanted to say that you have to exceed the target's touch AC before ability modifiers are applied to attack rolls (so that Str can help harm tough things but not hit fast things), that seems unnecessarily complicated but I guess that makes sense.

At the end of the day, however, you are taking a single game abstraction that has always stood for accuracy AND cutting through tough hide and armor. You could add a bunch of piecemeal rules specifically for bludgeoning weapons and all of that but... you already have a perfectly serviceable mechanic with Str to attack rolls.

[nonsi]

While a bonus to Attack rolls DOES help you overcome dodge bonuses and Dex bonuses to AC, it will more commonly help you pound through deflection bonuses, armor bonuses, shield bonuses, and natural armor bonuses.

If you want to say that someone with a dagger overcomes all of the above bonus by slipping the blade around defenses (finding chinks in armor and such), I might believe that. Someone wading into combat with a bludgeoning weapon like a warhammer, however, is likely trying to pound THROUGH the layers of defense without so much attention being given to 'aiming'.


Hence my suggestion (above) regarding #1.

[Coidzor]

1. You don’t use your strength modifier to add to your attack rolls. In reality, being stronger doesn’t help you aim, so long as you are strong enough to properly wield the weapon in the first place. If you are proficient in the weapon, it is assumed that you can properly wield it. (Unless it is a medium or heavy weapon and your strength is less than 10, in which case you aren't proficient with it until your strength goes up, or in the case of medium weapons, you get a mithril version of it to have a light one.) If you aren’t proficient with the weapon, you already take a negative modifier to your attack roll.

Dexterity helps you aim. You add your strength modifier to your damage rolls as normal. The “Weapon Finesse” feat then, allows you to also use the dexterity modifier to add to damage. Basically it is re-written to say that you can wield the weapon better than most. You know how to wield it not just normally, but like a true master. You can wield it in such as way as that you inflict more damage with the way you strike, not just where you strike.

Well, it discourages strength-based builds a bit, since now people can pump their AC and their to-hit and use power attack to make up for the damage even if they don't wanna shell out for Weapon Finesse.


2. If you match an enemy’s AC, you have only grazed them. They take one damage. The equivalent of punching someone and only managing to barely connect with your knuckles instead of your complete fist. If you beat an enemy’s AC by one (or vice verse) it isn’t a full hit.

In real fights, it isn’t always a full or hit or miss. Sometimes a person only gets a “glancing blow” on a target. Therefore, beating a character’s AC by only one, counts as a glancing blow and only does half damage, just like a reflex save. Only instead of because of good reflexes, the lessened damage is due to the character’s faulty aim.

In the case of something that already allows a reflex save for half damage, if the reflex save is successful, and it was a glancing blow, the target takes no damage. If the attack allows a reflex save, and they have improved evasion, and it was a glancing blow, they take no damage. Only defeating an opponent’s AC by two or more is considered a full hit. This is for both physical and magical attacks that use an attack roll.

Interesting idea bringing in grazing and degrees of success, since degrees of success and degrees of failure can be nice if you can smoothly pull them off without creating a bunch of extra work that bogs things down or that creates confusion and disrupts the flow of the game by having to continually doublecheck what's what, though it can get a bit fiddly at times even with the best of executions. You may want to have a range of something like say, the AC-1 to AC to AC+1 for grazing and then perhaps AC+2 to AC+4 for partial hits and then anything about AC+5 for full-hits, though, if you're really into it.

Though it's not really all that necessary.

Generally there aren't attacks that both have a roll to hit and then a reflex save for half damage, and those that do are already weak enough that they don't need further nerfing.

Also, how on earth are you going to deal with grazing and touch attacks that don't deal damage? :smallconfused:


3. Just as you add half your level when performing skill checks, half your level gets added to your attack rolls, as well as to your AC. Normally, this doesn’t matter much as you are fighting creatures of a level close to your own, however this simulates battle experience for, say, a master fighting a new student in a training match.

Even though they are wearing the same (training) equipment, the master is exceedingly difficult to hit, if not impossible to hit, unless he purposely takes the hit for training purposes. There is no way a first level fighter should be able to hit a 70th level epic fighter 20/sorcerer 20/eldritch knight 10/paladin 20 outside of rolling a natural 20, which simulates the random sheer luck attack that somehow gets through.

What system or houserules are you using that you add half your level when performing skill checks? :smallconfused:

If you want a defense bonus, Unearthed Arcana gave one (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm). Just have 'em increase by 1 every 3 levels once a character is level 21+. Probably.

Anyway, doing something with that should serve you well. It's still not going to outstrip the pace at which BAB accrues, though.


4. Normally, only spells/feats/races/etc from official sources are allowed. However, for fairness, I allow some homebrew feats/spells. This follows very strict rules. See the below example:

“Devoted Tracker” is a feat that allows a paladin to use his mount as an animal companion, granting it bonuses from both. It requires the “Smite Good” special ability. We commonly have paladins of evil. Some of them were once normal paladins that fell. There are also paladins of law. (Enforcers, who care about order, not good or evil.) They can also be devoted no? They are paladins after all. They could easily have taken some of their old skills and “converted” them to fit their new alignment and beliefs. So I homebrew that Devoted Tracker works for any paladin-type class so long as they have their relevant “Smite Good/Evil/etc” ability.

Basically, said feat/spell must be equal to a pre-existing feat/spell, and it has to be something that the other side doesn’t have a balancing ability for. It also must match the “fluff” of the original feat/spell, with only minor editing to fit the new alignment/class/race. If Good has this special ability for only good people, and Evil also has one special ability for only evil people, and they are in opposition to each other? That balances things out. There is no homebrew required for that. However if it was old and just never updated/balanced? I can deal with homebrewing that.

Too vague to really comment on very much, I think. Adjusting things as necessary and as fits is generally good, though.


5. Epic levels do not work as described in the Epic Level Handbook. Instead, they continue to work just like normal levels do. Normal BAB increases, normal save increases, normal feat and stat increases.
You qualify for epic feats once you get one of your core classes up to level 20, or the relevant prestige class up to level 10 or 5 depending on how many levels it has. If you have a character level of 50, but leveled too many other classes to have a level 20 of any one class, you have an epic character, but they aren’t epically skilled in any one thing, and so cannot use any epic feats, other than "General" epic feats. You have chosen to trade versatility for specialization, which epicness requires.

I think of it as a “jack of all trades” who can do general plumbing, general carpentry, general electricity, VS the guy who designs the electrical power grid for the entire city. The first guy is versatile, the second is specialized. The power grid guy is epic, the jack of all trades is not. However the power grid guy doesn’t know a damn thing about plumbing, or carpentry. It’s a trade-off.

Also, once you do qualify for epic feats, you can only take either general epic feats, or those related to your epic class(es). If you are an epic fighter, but only a level 10 sorcerer, you can’t take epic metamagic feats. You aren’t epically skilled in magic, you are epically skilled in fighting. Some classes have synergy though, if you are a level 10 wizard and a level 10 sorcerer? You have 20 arcane magic levels. Good enough to use epic metamagic feats because you have in total enough relevant experience. Simple enough?

Seems unnecessarily anti-multiclassing and not that effective anyway. Other parts are meh, since someone that's a level 20 Paladin and a level 10 Sorcerer isn't really going to benefit from epic spellcasting feats that much until they've gotten several more levels, at which point things have gotten ridonkulous anyway.


6. Critical hits. Everything gets multiplied. Everything. The multiplying for the crit damage comes last. We don't confirm criticals.

If the players agree we use a nat20/nat1 table. Instead of rolling again to see if you really crit, you roll again to see how good that crit is. A another 20 is instant death (unless it's a boss char, in which case it will just double your crit damage a second time) and a 1 will cancel the crit. For nat 1's, roling the d20 to see how bad the fail is, a 20 will cancel the one, and a second 1 is practically suicide. Again, this is only if the players agree to the crit table.

Well, rogues will like that, since they have plenty of dice to multiply.

What happens with a weapon with an x3 critical multiplier that then gets doubled? Increased to x4? Truly doubled so effectively an x6?

Having a critical fumble table is bad enough, but one that instagibs a PC is just terrible. No ifs, ands, or buts, the only redeeming quality is that you're not requiring them to use it all the time. :/


Also, undead and constructs (and other creatures that are normally immune to critical hits) can take critical hits, but only so long as they have a discernible anatomy. They may not feel the pain because of the hit, but they are still physical creatures.

Always good.


Logically, if you can damage the body, and that body has parts that are more critical to it’s physical operation than others, then they can take extra damage if they get hit in those vital points. For an undead or a humanoid construct, this means you may have severely damaged their leg, causing them to move slower due to a faulty body part; or you may have severely damaged their arm, weakening their attacks for the same reason. This is fully played out in battle by lowering their movement points, or weakening and/or lowering their damage die. However, the only way to crit these enemies is with a natural 20.

Movement points? :smallconfused:

[1pwny]

Welp, get ready to be torn into.

1: I've always found the "Armor gives AC but not DR" thing to be strange and unrealistic. However, like a few people above me have said, AC encompasses not only dodging, but also deflection, just flat-out tanking, and blocking. Notice how AC stands for "Armor class", not "Dodging class." Due to this, I think that Strength is a valid way to determine breaking through AC.

Plus, imagine one of those top bodybuilders swinging around a morningstar as hard as they can. That thing will be, like, invisible. So yeah, Strength does actually let you outspeed other people in melee.

2: Again, I fully support some "Armor => DR not AC" houserule, and if you want to implement something like that then good for you. :smallsmile:

3: Or... you can add a Dodge bonus/level to martial classes which just happen to severely underpowered. Like, legit. Because ets be honest, the Sorc. sniper is going to have less battle reflexes than the up-in-front duelist. It seems less complicated for me.

4: So... you don't allow pure new homebrew because D&D is already complicated enough. In return, you're fine with expanding the scope of older official material? Sure, that's fine. To each their own. I get where you're coming from.

5: In short, whether or not you can take certain Epic feats is subject to DM discretion. I'm fine. Some people limit which normal feats you can get to DM discretion, so trying to reign in Epic shenanigans to a realistic level is fine by me. Check out what nonsi did with them, he's pretty cool.

6: Yeah, insta-death? Nawh. With all the different dice rerolling, luck feats, etc. that exist in D&D, critical hits are already complicated and abusable enough.

I agree with you on the undead/construct one, but then if you're going there you might also want to take into consideration dismemberment rules, various of those kinds of penalties, etc. And then D&D gets overly complicated. Because, lets face it, D&D was originally supposed to play a game.

Conclusion: I definitely get where you're coming from. I think you have a lot of great ideas. But D&D is not, in fact, a real-life simulator. If you want that, play the Sims. D&D is supposed to be a fantasy world filled with adventures and mobs. So, if you find anything is distracting you and/or your players from that, feel free to take away a few rules.