House Rules

Attached to this thread is a rather extensive listing of house rules that I use for all 2E games that I GM. Some of these will make sense, while others will not. Should you have questions after reading the document, by all means - ASK. I'd rather you ask questions up front and be clear on something than to not and assume something wrong.

Although the document is rather in-depth, there are a few things that have come up that I need to clarify so that everyone is on the same page.

1. Where the document says Skills & Powers, I am talking about ALL of the Player's Option rules, with one exception: critical hits and fumbles. Other than the critical hits and fumbles, nothing from the Player's Option rules is being allowed in the campaign. No exceptions.

2. Things that are specific to worlds outside the Forgotten Realms - such as blood powers from Birthright - are NOT allowed. If you have a question on something that is from one of the other worlds and whether or not it is allowable or not, please ask. I'd rather you ask and I say yes than to assume it is and then have me say no. I'm pretty open to stuff, so just ask to make sure.

3. Changes to the rules are going to be on a democractic vote. I may be the GM, but this game is for everyone. I hate making sweeping changes without consulting my players first.

There are more rulings that need to be mentioned, but they are contained in the Character Creation thread.

House Rules.pdf

I've got another race that, as of now, is on the BANNED list: Pixie.

Why? Polymorph and Invisibility at will. This is one of those game-breakers that I have to account for. Really powerful for a 1st level character to shapechange and not be seen.

Any characters created prior to this ruling as a Pixie are acceptable and allowable; no characters from this point on will be allowed using Pixie as a race.

A new rule that has been brought up and needs to be mentioned here.

Psionicists may take the same power twice in an effort to reduce the potential penalty that is associated with that power. Taking a power twice reduces the penalty by 2. For example: If you take a power that has is CON -4, taking this power a second time reduces this to CON -2.

You may only take the same power twice - you cannot take the same power more than twice in an attempt to further reduce the penalty. Furthermore, if you take the power twice and the resultant penalty now becomes a bonus - say, for example, CON -1 become CON +1 - you DO get the bonus.

I realize that this will impact the total number of psionic abilities a character can have. Specifically, taking the same power multiple times will reduce the total number of powers you have. But there is no reason that you cannot have spent time honing your ability with Psionics to get good at a couple of powers instead of being a jack-of-all-trades with them.

PERFECT! That makes my life a lot easier... :P

Question: Does this rule work only for devotions? Or can we take a science twice as well? And could this rule even be spread across to entire disciplines as well? Like a -1 to all abilities within that discipline?

Just a few questions for later levels. It doesn't really effect us now, but it will effect my decisions at creation.

never thought about the discipline, that would give some interesting choices, giving up learning a whole discipline to make one easier. I would only allow to do this once though, it would be like specializing for wizards. I would say if you choose say at 2nd level to choose your prime again at that point you have to choose which discipline you never could learn.

For now, it only applies to individual psionic powers. I have to let the thought of applying to entire devotions marinate for a bit. Let me think on it a bit and then get back to you on that.

No problem. I just have a very specific goal for my character, and knowing the long-term rules makes my decision making more concrete. Character will be coming soon!

I have never really taken an interest in dual wielding, but I'm curious to know: what is involved in dual wielding WP wise?

unless you have high dex its no point. The dex can offsight to normal penalties but i dont think there is any way to reduce them like in 3.5. ambidexterity was a NW you could take i seem to remember that helped but you needed 16 or 17 dex.

isint there Two weapon fighting style (just to offset the penalties and nothing more) and ambidexterity NWP.

TWF = first point gives : 0 and -2, Second point gives ability to use same length weapons in both hands (Did i hear dualwielding Longswords?)
Allso, fighting with two weapons, you have option to use Parry or two attacks. If actions are not same, both get -1 modifier.

Ambidexterity makes both hands "main hands" so, with TWF spec (1point or more) and Ambidex takes off the penalties alltogether.

(In complete fighter)