...Assorted House Rules...

Rough Hearing Limits

• Under normal conditions, hearing range is a 120 foot spread (i.e., it can turn corners and so forth). This is the range at which a single bard can be heard sufficiently well to affect a target with one of their bardic music uses or effects unless other ranges are indicated.
• The spread can make its way through solid items (such as doors and walls) at a cost of 10 "feet" per point of Hardness possessed by the item.
• Areas of silence as though they were impenetrable walls of force for determining the reach of the spread.
• Each additional musician beyond the first, or playing or shouting loudly, increases the range of the spread by 40 feet (while not strictly correct physically, it is the "closest fit" for groups of fewer than 8 musicians).
• A musician, singer or speaker may always choose to play more softly and decrease the hearing range. Thus a whisper can only be heard in adjacent squares.
• It is possible to hear the music that a musician is playing outside of this range; it is simply too indistinct to allow the effects of the mystic music to be effective. Anyone attempting to perceive that the musician is playing who is outside of the "hearing range" must succeed at a Listen check (DC 15 + 1 for every 10 feet between the subject and the hearing range). For example, in normal conditions, a character 200 feet away from a musician who attempts to Listen to see if the musician is playing must succeed at a Listen check against DC 23 (he is 80 feet outside of the hearing range of 120 feet, so the DC is 15+8).
• Some effects are only effective within a certain range (usually this range is shorter than hearing range). If conditions would reduce hearing range to less than the designated range, use the hearing range value instead. This gives the range at which the effect can work and is not adjusted for conditions except as already noted (i.e., when hearing range is so drastically reduced by conditions that it is shorter than the listed value).

Planar Touchstones
You may not begin play with the higher-order ability of a planar touchstone. You must forge the link, in game. Treat it like a Test-based Prerequisite understanding there is no guarantee of your character's survival.

Otyugh Hole
You may not begin play with the benefits of an Otyugh Hole or any other legendary location. You must perform the act, in game, in an Oasys Otyugh hole. Treat it like a Test-based Prerequisite understanding there is no guarantee of your character's survival.

Irrevocably Banned Material

• Magic of Incarnum; Not Interested.
• Psionics. Exists in the world, but will never come into any mechanical significance.
• Tome of Battle. Not particularly interested nor enamored by it.
• Oriental Handbook
  • Oriental Adventures is irrevocably 3.0 material that does not at all play well with 3.5 material.
  • dastanas and chahar-aina in particular are banned-they're explicitly in a campaign-specific book, a campaign setting that does not make use of shields-and do not have any place in play unless I say otherwise.

• You must stipulate, on your turn, as a Free Action-if your character is switching from a two-handed stance to a one-handed. If you forget, too bad.

Using Reach Weapons up Close
Normally, when you wield a reach weapon, the area you threaten forms a hollow ring. You threaten a band of squares away from you, but not the band of squares right next to you. This is the game's way of representing the weapon's physical limits. If the business end of the weapon is at the end of a pole more than 5 feet from you, it's pretty hard to bring that end to bear against a foe right next to you.
Most reach weapons have fairly sturdy shafts, however, and there's no reason why you couldn't use the shaft to clobber someone. Likewise, there's no reason why you couldn't shorten your grip on the weapon so that the business end doesn't stick out so far. To represent these possibilities, on a character's turn, they can choose to take a -4 penalty to attack and damage rolls in exchange for the ability to use a reach weapon to attack foes within his natural reach, these penalties apply until, on the character's turn, they choose to return to superior reach. The penalties simulate all the difficulties the character has when employing the weapon in this fashion, such as striking with the shaft or messing up the weapon's usual leverage and balance.

I'm in the process of updating inconsistent rules...

First thing's first...

Undead are in no way whatsoever immune to illusions.

Rangers

• Rangers use d10s for Hit Dice
• Favored Enemy (Ex)
  • At 4th level and every 4 levels thereafter (8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th-level), the a character with this class feature may select an additional favored enemy from those given on the table. In addition, at each such interval, the bonus against any one favored enemy (including the one just selected, if so desired) increases by 2. If the character choose the same enemy, he simply adds another +2 bonus, and it still naturally increases. Choosing the same favored enemy results in a +20 bonus at 20th-level.
  • This bonus now applies to attack and damage rolls.
  • For Rangers, and Rangers only, they can apply half this bonus to their armor class, saves, and opposed checks against attacks, effects and checks made by their favored enemies as morale bonuses.
• Rangers get Two-Weapon Defense and Two-Weapon Parry at levels 6 and 11 instead. They still get Two-Weapon Fighting at level 2.
• When a ranger is equipped with a bane weapon of their favored enemy, they increase the damage dice, from 2d6 to 3d6.

I actually don't know what this is...
...why did I automatically give Ranger Two-weapon Fighting?

Unchanged. Awesome. =D


This is now a competence bonus.

Bonus type changed and the need for identification established.

• Turn Undead (Su): When a paladin reaches 4th level, she gains the supernatural ability to turn undead. She may use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + her Charisma modifier. She turns undead as a cleric of three levels lower would.

Barbarians

• Barbarians gain DR x/- equal to their Con modifier or their Barbarian class level, whichever is lower higher. This is in addition to the DR x/- gained at level 7, 10, 13, 16, and 19 and any DR x/- the Barbarian has from items.
• Barbarians of level 11 or higher also have Mettle, but only while raging.

This rule is going to be scrapped back in favor of RAW itself.
All player characters currently in play will remain unaffected.

All NPCs and subsequent characters will return to RAW.

Upon death, prepared spellcasters lose prepared spells as normal and as RAW and lose spell points, in the same method spontaneous casters do.