D&D Next: Houserules

Though I stick to the official rules for playtest sessions, here are some houserules that I am using in my D&D Next campaigns to make the game better for my group.

More Maneuvers 

Maneuvers are linked to weapon categories and secondary ability scores, providing a minimum Expertise die value. For example, when you use Deadly Strike with a hammer or axe, your Constitution score provides the minimum roll you can make, while Parry does the same with daggers, swords, and Dexterity. I am thinking of lumping this in as part of a “Weapon Mastery” option for fighters that want to avoid nabbing too many maneuvers.

Also, some warlord maneuvers:

• Direct the Strike: As a reaction, one ally that hits an enemy with an attack and can hear you can spend your expertise dice for bonus damage.
• Inspiring Word: On your turn, you can spend an expertise die to allow an ally that can hear you spend one Hit Die as a reaction. Roll the expertise die and add it to the target’s Hit Die result, though the total cannot exceed the maximum value of the Hit Die.
• Look Out: As a reaction, one ally that was hit by an attack and can hear you can spend your expertise dice to reduce the damage.
• Partnered Assault: When you attack, you can spend two expertise dice to allow an ally that can hear you make an attack against the same target.
• Scramble: On your turn, when you move you can spend an expertise die to allow an ally that can hear you to move half their speed.

Resistances/Vulnerabilities 

These are no longer half/double damage, but have set values like they did in 3rd and 4th Edition. This means that dwarves cannot just drink poison without any ill effects, while giving them room to grow (like a tiefling’s fire resistance did in 4th Edition).

Silver Standard 

I price a lot of things in silver pieces, so that it is feasible for someone besides a player character to actually afford a simple weapon and some armor (and reduce overall treasure to non-economic shattering results to compensate). This gives things like gold, platinum and gems a bigger wow factor, as well as making things like scale armor something that does not require a small dragon hoard to acquire.

Simple Spell Points for Wizards 

Wizards start with 3 spell points per day, and it costs 1 spell point per level to cast a spell. (as with a sorcerer). When the wizard runs out, she is stunned until the end of her next turn.

Weapon Accuracy 

Everyone’s Weapon Attack bonus is reduced by 2. Heavy, high-damage weapons like maces and axes give you a +1 to hit, while more graceful, elegant ones like daggers and swords give you a +2 to hit (similar to how it worked in 4th Edition, just with reduced bonuses). Basic weapons in general tend to have a +1 bonus.

Legend & Lore: First Round Overview

By now you have already downloaded the D&D Next playtest files, browsed through them, and probably even ran the adventure. For those curious as to how the playtest arrived in its initial state, this Legend & Lore article provides a behind-the-scenes glance, including some ideas on making the game more “old-school” or to try out things that they might implement later (like giving the fighter a second theme). There is also some clarification on things that at an initial glance might seem like an error, like why the damage die on for the dwarves’ weapons are higher than normal.

I have not had a chance to run Caves of Chaos–which I plan on doing “by the book”, such as it is–but my group is already working on a few houserules and some homebrew content for when I start running a converted Age of Worms campaign:

• Advantage/Disadvantage: Given that the math behind advantage and disadvantage is something like +4 and -3, I am going to change each instance to a +/-1. I might boost it to +/-2. I would also allow players to swap it out for a damage bonus instead, just to see what they do. The reason for this is that I think that multiple advantages and disadvantages should have a greater effect instead of a binary on/off.
• Equipment Costs: Overall I am changing costs largely to silver pieces and fiddling with them from there on out. I have no issue with adventurers coming back from dungeon crawls with “only” a crap-ton of silver instead of gold.
• Minor Actions: Spells and abilities that read “you can do this and still attack etc”, like healing word, are just going to be categorized as Minor or Free actions. Less repetitive verbiage.
• Delay: You can delay your turn, which basically just reduces your Initiative count.
• Resistance/Vulnerabilities: Subtracts or adds a set value instead of halving or doubling it. Basically how 4th Edition handled it.
• Masterwork Weapons/Armor: There are scaling categories for masterwork items, making crafting skills and non-magical things more useful at later levels. Basically you can tack on attack and damage bonuses, as well as qualities like High Crit and Brutal from 4th Edition. Armor would get damage resistance, AC bonuses, etc. Some of these things might require special materials.
• Weapon/Armor Materials: Adamantine and mithril are not individual armors, but materials that armor can be made of. Currently adamantine grants damage resistance while mithril alleviates speed and skill penalties. Also adding in darkwood, dragon hide (for energy resistances), Baatorian green steel, etc.
• High Elf: Bonus against Charm effects instead of complete immunity. I think elves should have an edge, but not be able to ignore powerful fey that compel them (was not geas a charm-effect?).
• Hill Dwarf: Poison resistance instead of immunity. As assassin should still be able to poison a dwarf.
• Cleric Spells: This is almost exactly as I want it, save that clerics will have spell lists based on god or domain instead of having to set them. I might even make it more like a wizard, where they can learn new prayers.
• Herbalism: You cannot make healing potions. Instead you can spend an amount of sp to make a healing balm, which causes Hit Dice used during a short rest to restore an additional 3 hit points. Healing potions are magic items and I do not like the idea of someone with no magical aptitude being able to craft them. Plus it makes the feat more useful in low- no-magic campaigns like Dark Sun.
• Wizards: Still working on a spellcasting model that I like, but preparing spells is likely going away entirely. Just not sure if I want to do a recharging model, energy-gathering model, or a combination of both. Basically I want to not resort to a spell-point model unless I have to.
• Potion of Strength: Grants a bonus to Strength checks, melee attacks, and damage rolls. This makes it useful to everyone.
• Ray of Frost: Deals some cold damage and slows (half speed) instead of just dropping speed to 0. As is, it is too good against flying critters and it makes no sense that it can completely immobilize you, but you can still attack, and there is no physical trauma involved.
• Non-Ability Scores: Skeletons and zombies will still have an Intelligence score, albeit 1. 
• Save-or-Dies: Going to go with scaling severity, here. As in, characters with x hit points suffer less severe penalties from attacks. So a medusa’s gaze might slow then petrify a target who fails to Constitution saves, while a creature with 10 or less hit points, or who is bloodied, might be petrified instantly. 

We have also cobbled together a bladesinger class (since I decided that a theme would not deliver enough, quickly enough to make it playable from the start), tieflings, changlings, and Wild Talent theme using existing things as a basis.

Rebuilding Thunderspire Labyrinth, Part 1

My Friday group has almost wrapped up H1: Keep on the Shadowfell, so I have been spending time making H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth a better place to adventure. Like H1, this adventure is pretty bad; the plot, locations, and monster composition does not make any sense. There are a lot of missed opportunities, (like the whole minotaur culture), false alarms, and a lame payoff at the end.

I really, really do not want to treat the labyrinth as a normal location. I want the characters to feel like they are strangers in a strange place. In the module the labyrinth is woefully underplayed, and players literally walk down a straight shot to get to the Seven-Pillared Hall, which is a wide, open chamber with some buildings strewn about. The Hall is essentially a quest hub, where the players pick up locations of dungeons and then go straight there. With the exception of an ogre and a drow, the rest of the citizens are races taken out of Player’s Handbook, offering all of the commodities that one would expect from a typical city (and not, say, a glorified trading post teetering on the edge of the Underdark).

None of this remotely evokes the feel and theme of mazes or minotaurs, especially given that it was allegedly part of a minotaur city.

GETTING THERE
Originally there are four adventure hooks: investigating the Bloodreavers, rescuing slaves, dropping off an item, or “just because”. Investigating the Bloodreavers and slaves goes hand in hand, and in my notes for Keep on the Shadowfell I made it a bigger point to illustrate their activities and consequences, so hopefully it makes these hooks all the more compelling. Since I am trying to make the labyrinth more of a dangerous and mysterious place, the delivery quest does not really fit and I am just going to axe it.

Finally, instead of Valthrun just telling the players that it is a super awesome place and they should totally go, I am going to have him play the role of an aging explorer eager to have one last, great adventure. He has heard rumors and read aging documents about an ancient minotaur city, and wanting to see it for himself, offers to either come with them (if they have other business there) or hire them as an escort.


Given that the labyrinth is inhabited by monsters and the Mages of Saruun are not too keen on making the place a tourist trap, there is no straight shot from the entrance to the Seven-Pillared Hall. Lanterns would just be destroyed, or more cunning denizens like drow would create their own lanterns to intentionally misdirect travelers. With no guiding star and a vast maze of passages to navigate, safely getting in and out requires a map, a guide, and lots of muscle.

Going this route gives me the chance to have the players go through a skill challenge to find their way, as well as throw them random encounters from stuff like oozes, hungry ghouls (travelers that died from hunger), lost ghosts (helping them find their way might be a minor quest), spiders, or most importantly, hobgoblins.

In the adventure right before the characters get to the Hall they overhear the Bloodreavers mugging a halfling named Rendil, and have the option to help a guy out. I changed this so that as the Bloodreavers were returning to the Hall they ran into the halfling, and decided to just take all his shit–including him–and bring it back to the Bloodreaver enclave. As they are going through his stuff, they hear the characters arriving and try to set another ambush, and crazy antics ensue.

Once the players defeat them, they not only save Rendil–who is a goblin, not a halfling–but also end up saving a bunch of would-be slaves who were taken from the region between Winterhaven and Fallcrest. In this way they end up making a friend and saving some people, and potentially learning more about the Bloodreavers if they leave any alive to interrogate (though Rendil could offer up some information as well).

THE SEVEN-PILLARED HALL

I changed the overall layout of the Hall to be more geometric. There are seven pillars, but that is because an earthquake collapsed part of the Hall, destroying one of them and creating a big-ass chasm from which aberrant horrors sometimes slither forth. There are also a lot more buildings, using up most of the space. Most are built like ziggurats, and there are plenty of stairs and bridges spanning structures, giving the city a kind of maze-like appearance (think mini-Sharn from Eberron). Geometric symbols and demonic busts and bas-reliefs cover them, clearly indicating the past culture’s history of demonic worship.

Brugg got changed to a minotaur, as they really do not get any representation. He is still in charge of keeping the peace, and hires a variety of races in addition to having the support of the bronze warders (which are situated throughout the city). I also put in a minotaur guide that the players could use as a hireling, partially because I wanna use the hireling rules, but also because my group hates the complexity of companion characters.

The Deepgem Company got changed to a pair of dwarves that operate as much as a pawn shop as anything else, allowing travelers to exchange gems for as little coin as possible, then turn around and sell them to ritualists or other traders at a hefty markup. Whenever they get a sizable stock on hand they risk shipping it out to Fallcrest. I entertained the idea of making them members of a disgraced clan (or just disgraced themselves), but none of my players were dwarves. Even so it might make for an interesting quest hook.

The temple of Erathis I just kind of chucked in favor of Torog, whose temple is a broken ruin located near the chasm. Travelers often chuck an offering into the pit in order to gain his favor. It is maintained by a collection of crippled and/or insane humanoids, giving the players a chance to learn some stuff about Torog that will come in handy when they go to the Chamber of Eyes (including recognizing the symbol on the door).

Bersk gets swapped out for a scarred human that just goes by Scuttle. Scuttle’s Den serves as a stable of sorts, selling riding spiders and lizards, as well as wagons. He does not rent, because it is way too easy for someone to just run off with his goods (and all those demihumans look alike). He is assisted by a bugbear, and they also sell poisons, spidersilk rope, and antitoxins under the table.

I got rid of all general stores and replaced it with a bazaar, though the Grimmerzhul outpost and Gendar’s are still there. Here players can interact with more unusual creatures like drow, gargoyles, troglodytes, alongside humans, dwarves, goliaths, and minotaurs. Though most of them are a bit more personable than usual, the main reason they are kept in check are the bronze warders (the Mages can control way more than one).

That is it for part 1. I think I covered all the major stuff in the Hall. I changed the plot concerning the Mages and what they are up to, and will get into that in a later update. The next post will be about the Chamber of Eyes.

The Awakened Psion

To my recollection, this is the second Unearthed Arcana article that’s been posted, which is a way for Dragon writers to pitch various houserules. Despite being in the magazine, they aren’t “official”, and as such cannot be used in RPGA events, nor will they be included in Character Builder. If you want to use them, you’re instructed to take it up with your DM.

This time we get psychic support, giving psionic characters the option to “delve” into a target’s mind as they make an attack. Delving can only be used with disciplines that target Will, and you must declare that you are doing so before the roll. If you hit, the discipline has all the normal effects, but also gives you an additional benefit that you can change each time. They range from being able to see what the target can, to the most likely actions that the target is going to take, to getting bits of information for the targets mind. You can also opt to perform “dangerous delving”, which nets you better benefits–gaining bonus damage, imposing an attack penalty, or preventing shifting–but at greater risk.

Since delving doesn’t cost a feat or power selection, it comes at a cost. When you delve and roll a natural 1 or 20, or get an odd number on a dangerous delve, you suffer from mental contamination and have to roll on a table of consequences. You might just be slightly dizzy and suffer no other ill effects, or be dazed and allow the target to see through your eyes, or (in the worst case scenario) have some of your own memories overwritten by the target’s in addition to briefly sharing the target’s goals, forfeiting control of your character to the DM for a turn (but the overwritten memories are permanent).

These acquired memories and personality traits lead to what is called dissonance, which causes you to take an assload of psychic damage whenever you act in accordance to a memory that you lost or against a personality trait that you’ve gained. To make matters worse they are cumulative, so if you end up acting against two or more memories and/or traits you’d take twice as much damage. This leads to the likely outcome that delve-abusers explode at some point when pause to consider menu items.

It’s good for players that like psionic characters and gambling their character’s sanity, but not so mkuch for players that get attached to characters or groups that constantly have long-term campaigns.

Archlich Is (Not) Fail?

Apparently the archlich is broken. Or its too powerful? I know a lot of people are clamoring from both sides of the fence, but I think I’ll just stick to the fence and actually, you know, try it before picking a side.

I actually didnt notice when I read the excerpt, but I guess that purely as written the archlich immediately crumbles to dust at 0 hit points. Immediately. You dont get any death saves, you dont get any chance to get a healing surge in, nothing. Add to the mix that Mastery over Death only triggers when you actually die, which occurs at negative hit points equal to half your total. Basically, unless a monster deals a retarded amount of damage, there is just no way this is ever going to happen.

I mean, Orcus cant even do this with his attack that deals half your total hit point damage to you, even if you were at 1 hit point.

I guess when I read the article that my brain just interpreted everything in the way it was intended: if you die-die, you crumble to dust, but at level 24 you can instead just empower yourself once per day. Obviously it was not the intent of the designer to create an epic destiny that could not in fact use one or more of its features. This is a pretty simple and obvious “fix” that I’m more than happy to use, since thats the way I was going to use it.

Small Characters and Two-Handed Weapons

3rd Edition handled small characters and weapons in a very strange way by giving each weapon its own size category. You could use a weapon your size or smaller in one hand, and a weapon one category larger in two hands. I think that a weapon smaller than your size extra benefits from Two-Weapon Fighting (counting as a “light” weapon, if I recall correctly).

What this meant for small characters was that you couldnt use a greatsword, but you could use a longsword in two hands. Since damage dice scaled with size, it basically amounted to the same thing: a longsword dealt the same damage as a “small greatsword”. Where this didnt make a lot of sense is that it implied that small races just didnt make two-handed weapons at all, but instead made their weapons to a Medium standard. You could argue that a human might very well use a gnome’s greatsword as a longsword, but the weapon proportions would be off and you still didnt have some things like a Small spiked chain.
This lead to a problem where they would pitch in weapon’s like a halfling’s kama and a korobokuru’s lajatang, to account for how a smaller race might go about using an iconic weapon. They were basically just standard weapons reduced by size, but with a longer name.
Revised Edition fixed this to a point by just making one weapon and allowing you to size it however you wanted to. Weapons were categorized by light, one-handed, and two-handed, so if you found a Small greatsword you knew that a gnome would use it in two hands, since it was pegged at two-handed. I liked this change because it made a lot more sense, though it did add in a complication of what size the weapon was in a treasure find. I suppose it made more sense in that you could sort treasure by where the party found it: in a dwarf fortress, most of its probably Medium.

Anyway.

4th Edition handles things a bit differently. There are no more weapon sizes anymore. They come in one-handed or two-handed, and some have the Off Hand or Versatile property. Versatile is important because for Medium characters, you get a +1 damage bonus when using it in two hands. If you are Small, you have to use the weapon in two-hands, but get no damage bonus. Kind of like the whole 3rd Edition weapon-scaling-by-size thing. This isnt a big deal, except when it comes to powers that require you to use a two-handed weapon.
Versatile weapons are lumped into the one-handed category, since you can use them in one hand. By definition, Small characters can take but not actually use those powers since they cannot qualify for using a two-handed weapon, except for the shortbow.
This has lead some to believe that you cannot play an effective barbarian, since most of the at-wills demand a two-handed weapon. An oversight on the part of Wizards? Well, I recall that people were complaining that the barbarian at-wills were too good since they all offer constant bonus damage dice. A rogue with barbarian training could really mess things up with those. Wizards said that they would find a fix, and so they did: rogues cannot use two-handed weapons and benefit from Sneak Attack. The downside? Well, they evidently overlooked the little guys in the process.

The solution to this is simple: just suck it up and let Small characters use those powers in your game. A houserule? Certainly, but I’ve houseruled a lot more and a lot more extensively in other games (I had a houserule document that I would email players before starting new campaigns). This is really a no-brainer, and if you’re going to wait for Wizards to make it all shiny and official, then I feel for you and your group. You can get all up in arms about it, or you can stop making such a big deal out of it and actually go play.