Take a Downside to Solve the Accomplishing Nothing Problem

The Accomplishing Nothing Problem:

• If you are in combat and get hit by an effect that temporarily takes you out of the fight and you fail your save, you are about to spend an amount of real-world time potentially measured in hours doing nothing. That's a recipe for player disengagement at best.
• If you cast a high-level spell and your target makes their save, not only have you wasted your Action, you have blown one of your main limited daily resource, and accomplished nothing to show for it.

The Swedish TTRPG Dragonbane has a solution where, if you fail a roll, you can take a bane to one of your abilities to reroll.

I've been rolling around in the back of my mind, and trying to remember, the possibility of offering a choice of minor consequence to turn an almost-success into a success.

Then, recently, I had a burst of inspiration in the shower, and hacked together some actual numbers and stuff. The main downside is it may be too complicated, though I laid it out in a way that flows fairly well, at least for my mind.

To wit:

Age Categories in 5.5e

So, 5e and 5.5e doesn't have Age Categories. I'm on the record as enjoying aging effects, but admittedly, it does get a bit fiddly, doesn't it. Figuring out what age category an elf is as compared to a human of the same age, or whatever? Fiddly.

The Modifiers

I do rather like 3.5e's numbers:

• At middle age, a character gains -1 to Str, Dex, and Con; +1 to Int, Wis, and Cha
• At old age, a character gains an additional -2 to Str, Dex, and Con; +1 to Int, Wis, and Cha
• At venerable age, a character gains an additional -3 to Str, Dex, and Con; +1 to Int, Wis, and Cha

So being Middle-Aged is strictly a sidegrade; Old is a downgrade (with a silver lining); Venerable is an even worse downgrade (with a silver lining). Extreme min/maxers might choose to be Old or Venerable; Middle Age is an eminently reasonable choice for a moderate min/maxer.

What Age Category Am I?

We can probably mostly basically just use 3.5e's numbers for what age category a character of a given species is is at any given age.

(I believe 5.x canon is that elves age like humans until adulthood, and then just stay there; the relevant 3.5e charts indicate that they used to definitively hit Adulthood at 110 years; we could split the difference and let them Young Adult at a more human-like age)

Aging Effects

I used to use specific year amounts for aging magic and effects, but I'm leaning towards, instead: you don't advance specific year numbers; if you fail a save, you straight-up advance an age category; elves just have advantage on the save.

Maybe mix it up with a touch of what 3.5e used to have you do for Negative Levels: at the end of the day, make a save vs it becoming permanent. ...no, I low-key hate that, because I hated that about NLs in 3.5e.

Ooooh, here's an idea: You know how if you have 6 levels of Exhaustion, you just straight-up die? What if, instead of death, if you have 6 levels of Exhaustion (perhaps: "and at least one of them is from a magical or supernatural effect"), you straight-up advance an age category? Or maybe you go unconscious at Exhaustion 6 either way, and if you fail a save you also advance an age category?

Origin Ability Points in 5.5e

So, a thing that 5.5e does: it decouples ability score bonuses from species (previously known as 'race', in PF2 known as 'ancestry'; I think 'species' is a fine choice). I don't necessarily disagree with this decision, and I recognize it was done for good reasons, but there is much nuance to be dug through, so let's explore.

This is a hugely contentious issue, so hopefully I don't make too many dumb assumptions or dumb material conditionals. (I almost certainly will!)

Nomenclature

Ok, so the main reason ability scores are decoupled from race is that we Definitely Do Not want to leave ourselves open to real-world biological race conspiracy theories, like "Black people have lower Int but higher Str than white people". Which is fair!

...but, we already renamed it? Nobody can any longer fairly accuse D&D species of being the same thing as Earth race?

D&D species is of course not the same thing as biology science species, but the name change does make the decoupling of ability scores from species slightly goofier -- who could possibly argue that your average standard-issue hippopotamus is not able to lift more weight (ie, is not stronger) than your average standard-issue groundhog?

Introducing Sex, for the Purpose of Clarifying but Probably in fact Muddying the Issue

In OD&D 1e, women had a cap on how strong they could be. That's goofy in at least two ways (probably three: I think female characters didn't get any advantages to compensate for this disadvantage), so let's cut it down to only one way: Pretend (biological, ie, ovary-having?) women had, say, a -2 to Strength score and a +2 to, I dunno, Dexterity. Or, let's make women the Default and pretend they had no modifiers to abilities, and men had a +2 to Str and a -2 to Dex.

It is a source of perpetual mass dumbness that, on average, men, however you define it, are probably statistically basically stronger than women, however you define it. This is the (ostensible) objection to having transwomen compete in women's sports.

Setting aside the very many dumbnesses associated with this argument, the core thing that's maybe true (depending, again, on how you define "woman" and "man", among other things) is that the bell curve of women's strength scores is shifted a bit lower than the bell curve of men's strength scores. The strongest man is stronger than the strongest woman; the weakest man is stronger than the weakest woman; the average man is stronger than the average woman; BUT it's only shifted a little, so of course the strongest woman is stronger than the weakest man.

If ability scores are generated by rolling, this shifted bell curve is of course represented very well by a flat +2 or -2. (This is why 1e's actual thing, a straight-up cap on Strength, is doubly dumb and bad.)

If we wanted to maximize Realism at the cost of everything else, a -2 penalty compensated by a +2 bonus elsewhere (or, like, giving men a +2 Str and women a +2 Dex, nobody getting penalties and everybody getting equal bonuses to different things) would be a fair model of offset bell curves.

Sex is a super-goofy thing to demand be "realistic"ally modeled, of course, but this is how we'd do it. (Why it's super-goofy: among other reasons, consider species with different sexual dimorphisms. Species where the girl is bigger and stronger than the boy, for example.)

Race, Tho?

Let's consider now if ancestry were still called Race.

Let's pretend there's an ability called Melanin, which reflects how much melanin is in a character's skin.

A character of the Black Race should have a bonus to their Melanin score, yes? And maybe a character of the Nordic Race should have a penalty? The average Black person is darker-skinned than the average Nordic person, yes? Still permitting the existence of the darkest-skinned Nordic person being darker-skinned than the lightest-skinned Black person, etc.

Sure, there are Backgrounds which could conceivably have an effect on the Melanin score -- the Beach Bum background, for example -- but most of them probably won't have as much effect as Race.

On the other extreme, we definitely would not want to say any Race has a bonus or penalty to, say, Intelligence, Charisma, or Wisdom. That would be some caliper-wielding chauvinism, away from which we want to vigorously shy.

But... are there maybe actually some Races that average stronger or faster or more hardy than others?

Ok, let's set Race aside again, let's set it from our minds, we're now again talking about Species only.

Curvature of the Struck Idiophone Variety

Ok, so the bell-curve thing doesn't necessarily so much completely apply, for like three reasons: first, we usually don't roll for ability scores anymore, as array and point by are objectively better; second, PCs are Special, so they shouldn't necessarily reflect the broader bell curve of the species population; third, bell curves in terms of populations have, like, a bad reputation, mostly because of a book of that name.

Still... does it actually make sense that the strongest Orc it is possible to produce is exactly as strong as the strongest Gnome it is possible to produce? The most dexterous Dwarf as dexterous as the most dexterous Elf?

Proposed House Rule

My inclination, to make Species at least have the ability to matter, though it doesn't necessarily have to for every character, is a house rule along these lines:

Assign each Species two (or so) ability scores, which will typically be whichever ones they got bonuses to in 5.0e. When you assign your Origin-related ability scores (your choice of { +2 +1 } or { +1 +1 +1 }, as usual), you may pick from the options given in your Background and the options given in your Species. You have the option for only your Background to matter to your ability scores, the option for only Species to matter, or the option for both to matter.

You still have a situation where any Orc and a Gnome Soldier have the same maximum possible Strength, which remains slightly peculiar -- but better than unaltered 5.5e, where a Gnome Soldier had a higher maximum Strength than an Orc Criminal.

Sub-Houserule: Synergy

If there is overlap between your Species and your Background, my first instinct is nothing special happens, but it does happen to provide, like, a soft limit: you have fewer options to choose from, so you are pushed towards choosing what is overlapped, though it is not in any special way required.

My second instinct is to give overlap between Species and Background some sort of synergy bonus. Which is kind of like 3.5e's Racial Favored Class, except it's more of a Species Favored Background, and also not something that every table just ignores because it's too much hassle to bother with.

My first thought here was to give ability scores with Background+Species synergy a starting max in that Ability of 22 instead of 20 -- then I remembered no character will ever start with higher than 15+2=17 in any ability, and I don't want Origin to add a thing you can first plausibly take advantage of at level 8.

Perhaps, if you have Background+Species synergy, then the option is made available to you to, instead of { +1 +1 +1 } or { +2 +1 }, choose { +3 } provided it is used on a synergized ability, thereby allowing a character plausibly to begin with a score of 18 in that ability?

Or, like, if you have synergy, then you have the option to forgo your Origin Feat and 1 point of your ability bonus (leaving you with a choice between only { +2 } or { +1 +1 }), and instead take a regular feat, provided it is a feat that gives you a bonus to the synergized ability (and, of your remaining ability points, the +2 or the +1s can go to any abilities, even the synergized one)?

Edited to Add:

It occurs to me: what if an additional option.

Original option as amended from 5.5e: Add { +1 +1 +1 } or { +2 +1 } to any scores benefited by your Background and/or Species.

New option as laid out in last section above: Instead add { +3 } to any score synergized by both your Background and Species.

New option being laid out now: In addition to any of the above, also add { -1 } (ie, subtract 1) to any ability not benefited by either Background or Species, and add an additional { +1 } to any ability benefited by Background or Species or both (which can be an ability you've already added points to).

So options are sixfold:

• { +3, +1, -1 }
• { +3 }
• { +2, +1, +1, -1 }
• { +2, +1}
• { +1, +1, +1, +1, -1 }
• { +1, +1, +1 }

Where +1 or +2 can be to any score boosted by either Background or Species, -1 can only be to a score boosted by neither Background nor Species, and +3 can only be to a score boosted by both Background and Species.

ALTERNATELY: You only get the choice between { +2, +1 } or { +1, +1, +1 }; but if your Species and Background synergize: you have the additional option to put { -1 } into any ability found on neither list and { +1 } into any ability found on both lists. Still brings the possibility of starting at 18, but you have to pay a little cost for it.

Dual Types

I have heard tell that, early in the development of 5e, the notion of creatures/races with two Types was thrown around, and eventually ruled against. I don't know how it was meant to work at the time, but it does fill a much-needed gap.

Early on in published 5e, PCs could only be Humanoid. The Eberron book made Warforged simply Humanoid, rather than the old 3.5e jerry-rig of Construct(living construct) that made them technically Constructs but also work for PC purposes (mostly resurrection).

Then, later on, they abandoned that principle and started publishing races that are other Types, such as the Fairy in Wild Beyond the Witchlight. They had realized it's not super important for PCs to be Humanoid -- although there are still no properly Undead options (the three Lineages in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft are Humanoid, but with various Undead-esque properties). I hear tell there is or will be an actual Construct option (the Autognome?).

My solution to there being no Undead PC options, Warforged being nonsensically Humanoid, and so on: bring back dual Types!

• Some races -- including warforged (humanoid/construct), tiefling (humanoid/fiend), aasimar (humanoid/celestial), dragonborn (humanoid/dragon), kobold (humanoid/dragon), and alithi elves (humanoid/plant) -- have dual creature type.
• If any favorable effect would affect either or both of your types, it affects you.
• If any unfavorable effect would affect one of your types but not the other, you can be affected by it but you have advantage on saves against it.
• If any effect would affect neither of your types, you are immune to it.
• If any effect would affect both of your types, you do not gain immunity or resistance to it from your types.

The one peculiarity here is: what happens if you have an effect that has a positive effect on one of your Types and a negative effect on your other Type? I'm not sure if there are any actual effects that heal a living thing but do radiant damage to Undead, but a character with both the Humanoid and Undead Types would have to deal with it if it does. My instinct is that you are affected by both -- you are, in that example, healed and take radiant damage (albeit with advantage on any saves against it). But this is a rare enough circumstance that I'd leave it up to individual DM adjudication.

My Final 3.5e Houserules

I'm fully shifting over (up?) from 3.5e/PF to 5e, so most of my houserules are now obsolete! Here, for your perusal, is my final houserule setup, complete and moved on from after ten years of tinkering.

 ==Characters and Character Creation==
*Ability scores: point buy 30, starting at 8, as on page 169 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
*All characters begin with 1,000 gold and an adventurer's kit containing a backpack, 5 torches, flint & steel, 50' hempen rope, a waterskin, and clothing of your choice (excluding courtier's outfit, noble's outfit, and royal outfit). (21 lb., not counting gold and clothing.)
**Characters beginning at higher than 1st level start with standard WBL for their ECL or 1,000 gold, whichever is higher.
*Characters begin at minimum XP for the ECL of the lowest-level member of the party they join.
**If your character dies and is not resurrected (or retires, or becomes an NPC, or is otherwise unplayable), you may begin a new character at 75% of the previous character's experience total.
**In either case, new characters are limited to 5 class levels by default, with the remainder of their ECL taken up by racial hit dice and level adjustment.
**However, new characters may, under some circumstances, begin with more than 5 class levels provided they have a backstory that explains their exceptional skill and power relative to the rest of the setting (very few NPCs ever exceed level 6-8), and why history hasn't heard of them before now, in a satisfying way.
*Hit dice are maximized at first level. At each level after first, you gain half your hit die, plus 1 (plus your Constitution modifier), as follows: d12 = 7; d10 = 6; d8 = 5; d6 = 4; d4 = 3
*A character may have up to 2 flaws and up to 1 trait. In addition to the base flaws in Unearthed Arcana, consider the flaws published in Dragon Magazine issues #324-329 and #333.
*Characters take no experience penalties for multiclassing. Instead, they gain a minor bonus based on their racial favored class.
*For the purpose of the epic-level prerequisite for [epic] feats, prestige classes, and other options, a character is considered epic at 10th level instead of 20th level. After 10th level, regular feat slots may be used to acquire [epic] feats. All other prerequisites still apply.
**All [epic] options (feats, prestige classes, and so on) with skill prerequisites have those skill prerequisites reduced by 10, to a minimum of 13 and a maximum of 21. Similarly, [epic] options with base attack bonus prerequisites have those prerequisites reduced by 10, to a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 18.
**There are no epic spells. If you take the Epic Spellcasting feat, you may use your epic spell slots only to prepare or use non-epic spells, with or without metamagic applied.
*You may ignore regional requirements for feats, prestige classes, and other options, except that you may not select two options that have conflicting regional requirements.
*Fractional BAB and fractional saves may be used if you so desire.
*Animal companions, special mounts, familiars, and psicrystals all gain feats and ability score increases by their (effective or actual) HD.
*Caster level equal to half class level (e.g. ranger, paladin, etc.) is no longer a thing. Such classes have a caster level equal to their class level.
*Any class, race, or template that grants a Smite special attack (e.g. Paladin, Soulborn, Fiendish Creature, etc.) with uses per day instead grants the same number of uses per encounter.
*A few classes have been tweaked.
*Any prestige class that advances spellcasting from another class ("+1 level of existing spellcasting class" and the like) advances the full suite of: spells per day, spells known, and caster level; even if the text for the prestige class omits one or more of those aspects.
*If you have the ability to learn a spell from any spell list (e.g. by taking the Extra Spell feat), and the spell you wish to select appears on multiple lists, use the spell level of the first list it appears on of the following: sorcerer/wizard, cleric base list, druid, bard, paladin, ranger, any other base class, any cleric domain, any prestige class.
*Characters gain retroactive skill points when their Intelligence modifier increases.

===Level Adjustment===
*All listed level adjustments are divided by 2 (rounded down, but with a minimum of 1 for LAs that aren't already zero). Sum your character's total LA before dividing.
*Monster class progressions (e.g., from Savage Species) may be used. Most will need to be adjusted to fit the race's new level adjustment (see previous rule). A character is not required to finish their monster class progression before entering another class; however, a character may not have more class levels than monster levels unless their monster class progression is complete. Once you have completed your progression in a monster class, the “empty levels” that do not add hit dice may be reduced like level adjustment, as below.
*A character may have one bloodline (from Unearthed Arcana). A bloodline level counts as a level adjustment and nothing more; it does not count as a class level for any purpose. However, once you have taken all the bloodline levels you are required to take (1 for Minor, 2 for Intermediate, 3 for Major), they may be reduced like level adjustment, as below.
*Level adjustments may be reduced or "paid off" as per the Unearthed Arcana/SRD rules.

==Situational==
*If a PC or a major (e.g., named) NPC confirms a critical hit, they draw from Paizo's critical hit deck. All others simply multiply the damage as usual.
*If any character rolls a total of 0 or lower on an attack roll, it is an automatic critical fumble, and they draw from Paizo's critical fumble deck.
*The experience of dying and returning to life leaves a person drained of vitality even beyond the loss of a level. Upon resurrection, a character is aged a number of years equal to 1d20 minus their Constitution modifier (minimum 0. A negative Constitution modifier can increase the number of years aged). The true resurrection and true reincarnate spells negate this effect. These years are added to the base adult age in the case of the reincarnate spell.
*A character is considered dead if he reaches negative his Constitution score or negative 10 hit points, whichever is further from zero.
*Characters have a mental age and a physical age. If they are subjected to an artificial aging, youthening, or aging-prevention effect, it normally affects only their physical age. Physical age penalties apply (or are removed) when the character's physical age advances (or reverses) an age category; mental age bonuses apply (or are removed) when the character's mental age advances (or reverses) an age category. Death from old age only occurs when physical age reaches a maximum; one cannot die of old mental age.
*The Giant's diplomacy fix is in effect.
*You may split actual movement around a non-moving move action. Example: move 15' to a door, open it, and then go through the doorway that same round using the rest of your movement.
*All Trained Only skills can be used untrained at a -10 penalty.
*Spellcraft may be used in place of Psicraft, and vice versa, at a -10 penalty. Use Magic Device may be used in place of Use Psionic Device, and vice versa, at a -10 penalty.
*If a temporary source with a duration grants a Constitution bonus (e.g. Barbarian Rage, Bear's Endurance, etc., but not Amulet of Health), the extra hit points granted are temporary hit points which expire when the Constitution bonus goes away. They are lost first, and no real hit points are lost when the duration expires.
*When a spell almost can but can't quite achieve a desired effect, or achieves the desired effect with the most generous reading but not a narrower reading (for example, using heal to cure natural insanity, or using protection from evil to ward off a [compulsion] that only grants control over the target in the broadest sense), a caster of spells or SLAs can alter a spell's effect slightly on the fly. This requires a caster level check or spellcraft check at a difficulty of 15 plus twice the level of the spell to modify.
**Manifesters of powers and PLAs can do the same with a manifester level check or psicraft check against DC of 15 plus twice the power level. Initiators of maneuvers can do the same with an initiator level check or a martial lore check against a DC of 15 plus the maneuver level. Users of natural, extraordinary, and supernatural abilities that aren't included in the above can do the same with a HD check against DC20.
*The soft cover and shooting-into-melee rules are amended/clarified in the following way:
**Using a ranged weapon, if you shoot into somebody in melee combat with somebody else, or there's somebody between you and your target, you get -4 to your attack. These penalties do not stack. Precise Shot negates both penalties.
**Using a reach weapon, you get a -4 to your attack if there's somebody between you and your target, but not if your target is merely in melee with other folks who aren't in the way. The new Polearm Precision feat negates this penalty.
**You can use a reach weapon to attack a Large or larger creature even if it is adjacent to you, by targeting a non-adjacent square occupied by the creature. However, this attack takes the -4 penalty for attacking through a creature.
*You may level up immediately when you gain enough experience to do so, no matter where you are. You immediately gain your full new hit points (i.e., your current hit points go up, but your damage remains the same), but you don't immediately gain anything that you would need a rest for (such as new spell slots, new spells prepared, additional power points, etc). You may elect to delay leveling up as long as you wish, but for the purpose of XP awards you are treated as being whatever level you've earned (so if, e.g., an artificer delays leveling up from 2 to 3 to use up their craft reserve, they're still treated as an ECL3 character for the purpose of future XP awards), you must still apply your levels in the correct order, and you must apply each level in its entirety at the same time.

==Complete List of Permitted Sources==
===Explicitly Permitted Sources===
*The d20 System Reference Document
*The High Seas Reference Document
*Arms and Equipment Guide
*Book of Exalted Deeds
*Book of Vile Darkness
*Cityscape
*Complete Adventurer
*Complete Arcane
*Complete Champion
*Complete Divine
*Complete Mage
*Complete Psionic
*Complete Scoundrel
*Complete Warrior
*Deities & Demigods
*Draconomicon
*Dragon Compendium (except Dvati)
*Dragon Magic
*Drow of the Underdark
*Dungeon Master's Guide I
*Dungeon Master's Guide II
*Dungeonscape
*Eberron Campaign Setting
*Epic Level Handbook
*Expanded Psionics Handbook
*Fiend Folio
*Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss
*Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells
*Frostburn
*The Giant's Articles (excluding the Polymorph rules)
*Heroes of Battle
*Heroes of Horror
*Libris Mortis
*Lords of Madness
*Magic Item Compendium
*Magic of Incarnum
*Manual of the Planes
*Miniatures Handbook
*Monster Manual I
*Monster Manual II
*Monster Manual III
*Monster Manual IV
*Monster Manual V
*Oriental Adventures
*Planar Handbook
*Player's Handbook I
*Player's Handbook II
*Races of Destiny
*Races of Eberron
*Races of Faerun
*Races of Stone
*Races of the Dragon
*Races of the Wild
*Sandstorm
*Savage Species
*Spell Compendium
*Stormwrack
*Tome of Battle - Book of Nine Swords
*Tome of Horrors, Revised Edition
*Tome of Magic

===Sources Sometimes Permitted With DM Review===
*Dragon Magazine
*Ghostwalk
*Unearthed Arcana (some elements used, some elements not used)
*Weapons of Legacy
*3.5e content on http://www.wizards.com
*most other 3.5e Wizards of the Coast-published sources
*most 3.0e Wizards of the Coast-published sources (content that hasn't been updated to 3.5 only)
*some third-party sources
*some Pathfinder material
*some reputable GitP-vetted homebrew

===Explicitly Banned Sources===
*http://www.dandwiki.com (use the hypertext d20 SRD instead to be sure of avoiding homebrew)
*most other homebrew

BY CROM

So the Iron Heart Surge maneuver (Tome of Battle) has many known problems. Among them:

• It doesn't limit what Conditions it can end, leading to preposterousness like ending the Dead condition, or only-slightly-less-preposterous ending Ability Damage or Drain.
• When it ends a spell or effect, it ends it entirely, not just on the initiator. Drow uses IHS to BY CROM away the blinding effect of the sun? No more sun.
• It takes a standard action to initiate, meaning that most of the most devastating Conditions in the game (Stunned, Paralyzed, Nauseated, etc) are not susceptible to being IHSed away.

Any IHS fix needs to address at least the first two problems. The third is a misfortune (and perhaps unintended) but not outright dysfunctional, so an IHS fix doesn't need to address it, but it's nice if it does.

So here's my proposed fix:

---

Iron Heart Surge

Iron Heart

Level: Warblade 3

Prerequisite: One Iron Heart maneuver

Initiation Action: 1 standard action

Range: Personal

Target: You

Duration: See text

By drawing on your mental strength and physical fortitude, you break free of a debilitating state that might otherwise defeat you.

Your fighting spirit, dedication, and training allow you to overcome almost anything to defeat your enemies. When you use this maneuver, select one of the following effects currently affecting you. That effect ends immediately.

• Blinded
• Confused
• Dazzled
• Deafened
• Entangled
• Shaken
• Sickened
• Ability or HP Bleed (does not restore lost ability score or hit points, but does stop further loss)
• Poisoned (does not remove the effects of poison you've already taken, but does prevent the poison's secondary effect)
• Any spell, power, spell-like ability, maneuver, or other effect with a listed duration other than Instantaneous

When you use this maneuver, the effect ends on you. It does not end at its source; other characters may still be affected.

While this maneuver can end most charms and compulsions, your character (depending on the exact nature of the effect) may not realize they are affected by such an effect, or may not be able to act against the will of the caster of the compulsion by initiating this maneuver.

When you initiate this maneuver, you also surge with confidence and vengeance against your enemies, gaining a +2 morale bonus on attack rolls until the end of your next turn.

If your initiator level is at least 10, you may initiate this maneuver on your turn even if a condition or effect currently renders you otherwise unable to take Standard actions. The effects you can end at this level include the above, and:

• Frightened, Cowering, or Panicked
• Dazed
• Fascinated
• Nauseated
• Paralyzed (unless paralyzed because of Ability Damage or Drain)
• Petrified
• Stunned
• Turned or Rebuked

On Stacking Metabreath Feats

Ok, so, it is generally accepted (and possibly even RAW-correct) that you can stack metabreath feats (Draconomicon) with themselves on a single breath attack. For example, you can use Enlarge Breath twice to turn a 50-foot cone into a 100-foot cone in exchange for increasing the recharge time by +2 instead of +1.

Do you see the problem yet?

Consider that there is nothing preventing you from stacking Enlarge Breath on your breath weapon a billion times, and therefore blowing up most of the world (or all of it, depending on the world shape involved and your location on it -- if all else fails, you can throw on a couple uses of Split Breath and breathe in four directions simultaneously), at the low cost of never being able to use your breath weapon again.

That is, to say the least, a little silly.

The obvious solution is to say no, you can't stack metabreath feats with themselves after all. (This is probably the real intended solution, considering metamagic feats stopped being stackable with themselves in the 3.0-3.5 changeover, so metabreath feats should have, too.)

Or you can say you can, but you can only do it up to 3 times or 5 times or your Constitution modifier times or whatever.

But today I had a better idea: You can take metabreath feats more than once, and you can stack them with themselves as many times as you've taken them.

This is better because soft caps are always better than hard caps.

Some Math on Removed Iterative Attacks

Recently, a Pathfinder DM I play with instituted the Removing Iterative Attacks rule from Pathfinder Unchained. A player immediately objected on the basis of a perceived negative effect on critical hits. (I don't have a dog in this fight because I'm playing a sorcerer who won't get iteratives until level 12 and won't use them even then.) Let us now analyze its actual objective effect on critical hits (and fumbles), using the power of math!

(I'm not super-great at probability these days, as high school algebra was a long time ago, so feel free to correct my math.)

I don't know if we're using the "half minimum damage if you miss by 5 or less" rule, it didn't come up, and seems an unnecessary complication, but it shouldn't really affect critical hits or fumbles. We definitely don't seem to be using the part of the rules regarding natural attacks.

We're using a fumble rule where a natural 1 is a critical fumble threat, which you need to confirm like any critical threat: if the confirmation roll would hit, it's only a miss; if the confirmation roll would miss, it's a critical fumble.

In this setting, where critical hits and critical fumbles are precisely mirrors of one another, our first and most obvious conclusion will be that any effect the Removed Iterative Attacks rule has on critical hits, it will have pretty much the same effect on critical fumbles. (Human psychology is such that we will tend to want to avoid risk, so anything that reduces both critical hits and critical fumbles should ultimately be considered more desirable than something that increases both. But that's not math, that's psychology.)

Now, let us consider the variant's actual critical hit rule:

When you threaten a critical hit, roll to confirm at your full bonus and apply the effects of the critical hit to any one of your hits. If your original attack roll scored multiple hits and the critical confirmation roll also falls within your weapon’s critical threat range, you score two critical hits and can apply them to any two hits.

 Jeez, that actually makes the math way complicated. This will be harder than I thought.

Okay, so: under normal rules, you can potentially score up to n critical hits, where n is the number of attacks you make. Under the variant rule, you can potentially score up to 2 critical hits, if you are making at least two attacks. It's starting to not look good for the variant rule, at least in situations where you have more than 2 attacks.

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Okay, to make it as simple as possible, let's imagine a situation where you're getting two iterative attacks (so you're a 6th-level fighter or the equivalent) and your opponent's AC stacks up against your total tohit such that you hit (or confirm) on an 11-20 on the die, and your weapon is a 20/x2 crit range. (Increased critical multiplier, such as  a scythe's 20/x4, won't have much effect on the numbers, though it makes critical hits more desirable; increased critical threat range, such as a rapier's 18-20/x2, may have significant effect on the numbers and will be scrutinized second.)

Under the regular rules, you have a 5% chance -- 1/20 -- per die roll to threaten a critical hit. On two dice, therefore, you have a 9.75% chance -- 39/400 -- to threaten at least one critical hit, and 1/400 -- 0.25% -- of threatening two. But since you only confirm 50% (10/20) of the threats, that's a 4.87% chance of confirming one critical hit and 0.12% chance of confirming two.

Under the removed iterative rules, you have a 5% chance -- 1/20 -- to threaten one critical hit. Of those 5% of rolls that will be critical threats, you will confirm 50% and confirm an additional critical hit on 5%. So that's a 2.5% chance of confirming one critical hit and a 0.25% chance of confirming two (the case where you roll a 20 and then roll a 20 to confirm -- 1/400).

So, in this situation, you're a bit better than half as likely to confirm one critical hit but twice as likely to confirm two.

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Consider two attacks (as a 6th-level fighter or equivalent) with a rapier, with its 18-20/x2 crit range.

Under the regular rules, you now have an impressive 27.75% -- 111/400 -- chance of threatening at least one critical hit (getting at least an 18 on at least one die), and a 2.25% -- 9/400 -- chance of threatening two (getting at least an 18 on two dice). Again, halved for the 50% chance of confirming the critical hit, that's 13.87% chance of one confirmed critical hit and 1.12% chance of two.

Under the removed iterative rules, you have a 15% chance -- 3/20 -- of threatening one critical hit. This has a 50% chance of confirming (7.5% chance of one confirmed critical hit), and a 15% chance of confirming a second critical hit (2.25% chance of two confirmed critical hits).

Again, you've got a bit better than half the chance of one confirmed critical, and twice the chance of two confirmed criticals.

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Now a harder one: a 16th-level fighter (or equivalent) getting 4 iteratives with a 20/x2 weapon.

I don't know that I understand probability enough to do this, but... there are 130321/160000 ways to not get any 20s on a die roll of 4d20. That's an 81.45% chance of no critical threats, meaning an 18.55% chance of at least one. If one of your dice is a 20, there's 6859/8000 -- 85.73% -- ways for the other three to turn up no 20s, so of the 18.55% of the time you get one critical threat, 14.26% of the time you'll get a second -- so 2.64% of total rolls, you'll get at least 2 critical threats. Of those times, there are 361/400 -- 90.25% -- ways to not have any 20s, so 9.75% of the times you get two 20s, you'll get a third -- 0.26% of the time you'll get 3 20s. And there are of course 19/20 -- 95% -- ways for the remaining die to not be 20, 5% chance of 20, for a total of 0.0129% chance for 4 20s. And then halve all the numbers for the 50% chance of not confirming.

The math is the same as the first example for the variant rule, because you can only get at most two critical hits. 2.5% chance of confirming one critical hit, 0.25% chance of confirming two, 0% chance of more than two.

• Chance of one confirmed critical hit: 9.27% vs 2.5%
• Chance of two confirmed critical hits: 1.32% vs 0.25%
• Chance of three confirmed critical hits: 0.13% vs 0%
• Chance of four confirmed critical hits: negligible vs 0%

Now the player who objected is right, it's looking much more in favor of the old way.

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However, as mentioned above, everything that applies to critical hits also applies to critical fumbles.

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An additional concern: consider how you do damage for a critical hit. Some DMs want you to roll once and multiply, other DMs want you to roll multiple times. Rolling once sucks because you could get a 1 (woo, my critical hit did 2 damage!) or you could get max (woo, pretty much instant kill!) -- it's way too swingy. Rolling multiple dice gives you a nice bell curve, and bell curves are always more pleasant than straight lines.

The same applies here: if you roll a 20 under the removed iteratives rule, you've hit four times; if you roll a 1, you've missed four times. If you're using the base rules, you're much more likely to hit some of the time and miss some of the time, which is much better.

---

So for that last reason, not the critical hit/fumble reason, I ultimately side with using the base rule instead of the variant rule.

On Critical Fumbles

The internet hates critical fumbles. Home games tends to love them.

There are various rules of thumb for telling you that your critical fumble rule sucks, such as: if ten trained warriors spar with inanimate dummies, if any of them are dead at the end of an hour, your critical fumble rule sucks.

The "correct" way to play is without critical fumbles at all. A natural 1 is an automatic miss, that's all. The problem with this is that it is of course boring. Spice up your life a little! That's what critical fumbles are for.

The worst way to play is that a natural 1 is an automatic critical fumble. Nobody is going to hit an ally or whatever 1/20th of attacks they make, especially if they're highly trained. And if you're a high-level fighter, you're making 3 or 4 or more attacks a round, so you're going to fumble every few rounds.

A better way to play is that a natural 1 is a threat for a critical fumble. It works just like critical hit threats: you roll again at the same bonus, and if the confirmation would miss your target's AC, then you fumble. This is better because it makes it difficult to fumble against softer targets and easier to fumble against targets that are actively trying to foul you up, and it partially ameliorates the "high level warriors fumble more than low level ones" problem in that a high attack bonus makes you fumble less and a more skilled opponent makes you fumble more. Still, a level 16+ fighter is rolling at -15 on his fourth attack. So it's not perfect.

A much better way to play is that a total roll of 0 or less is an automatic critical fumble. This way, if you have any positive modifier to your attack -- or even no modifier at all -- you will never fumble. Skilled warriors never fumble, unless they're stacking massive penalties. You only fumble if you suck at life -- which some low-level PCs and monsters do (especially low-level monsters with secondary natural attacks).

Even then, you should have some variety in critical fumbles. A fumble is always just a provocation for attacks of opportunity is fine, but a little dull. I recommend the Paizo critical fumble deck.

While you're at it, you might as well throw in the critical hit deck, too -- but only for PCs and major (e.g., named) NPCs, because it makes critical hits a bit more lethal.

A Variety of Suggested Class Tweaks

Half caster level (Ranger, Paladin, etc) is no longer a thing. Such classes have a caster level equal to their class level. Their class level minus 3 is also acceptable, but such classes need nice things.

Barbarian
Does not gain a Constitution bonus when raging. Instead, gains +2 Fortitude, +2 to Constitution checks, and temporary hit points equal to 2 per hit die, which go away when the rage ends. These bonuses go up to 3 with Greater Rage and 4 with Mighty Rage. This eliminates "oops, my rage ended, now I'm dead" syndrome, and as a side-effect allows undead barbarians to be more effective.

Alternately, because Barbarian is a common dip for Con-focused builds that benefit in other ways from Con boosts, Barbarian keeps the Constitution bonus, all temporary Constitution bonuses that have durations (so Barbarian's Rage and Bear's Endurance but not Amulets of Health) grant temporary hit points (which expire when the Con bonus does) instead of real hit points.

Dragonfire Adept
Qualifies for metabreath feats without requiring Power Surge or other shenanigans to acquire a breath weapon with a timer.

Dragon Shaman
Add Knowledge(arcana) to class skills. It just makes sense for a class that worships dragons to have knowledge about dragons.

Druid
Add Knowledge(geography) to class skills. Makes sense for a druid to understand the lay of the land.

This, the most powerful class, also asks for a nerf. There are two decent (but probably mutually exclusive) nerfs you can try:

The less extreme nerf is to give Druid animal companion progression as a Ranger.

The more extreme nerf is to say "Spellcasting; Animal Companion; Wild Shape: Pick any two."

Favored Soul
Add Knowledge(religion) to class skills. On the one hand, you wouldn't necessarily expect a Favored Soul, granted power by a deity without asking for it, to actually know anything about deities. On the other hand, such Favored Souls can simply not put ranks in Knowledge(religion).

Fighter
Gains a fighter bonus feat every level, instead of 1st and every even level. This doesn't bump Fighter up a tier or anything, but at least now you don't have any dead levels on your way to Dungeoncrasher, and it's a "however many feats you want"-level dip instead of a 2-level dip.

Healer
Knows their entire spell list and casts spontaneously, like a Warmage or Beguiler. (I rejigger Healer a little more completely than this, but this is a solid start.)

Hexblade
Hexblade's Curse usable per encounter rather than per day.

Knight
Add Knowledge(history) to class skills.

Marshal
I personally nerf Leadership for everybody else, and then un-nerf it for Marshal. You could also consider giving Leadership to Marshal as a bonus feat.

Monk
Full BAB. Literally the least you can do for this sad, sad class.

Paladin
Smite Evil per encounter rather than per day. Consider giving this to everything with a Smite ability, such as Soulborn (see below) and Fiendish/Celestial creatures.

Remove Disease per day rather than per week.

When a character uses Smite Evil, the attack also counts as Good for the purpose of bypassing DR/Good. The same applies to all aligned Smites, e.g. Smite Good bypasses DR/Evil.

EDIT 7/26/2017: Player picks either Charisma or Wisdom. Spellcasting and all defaultly Charisma-based abilities all key off whichever they pick. Make the paladin slightly less MAD.

Ranger
Animal Companion progression at first level, progressing as druid, not as one-half druid.

Samurai
Gestalt the Samurai from Oriental Adventures with the one from Complete Warrior.

Sorcerer
Gain Eschew Materials as a bonus feat at level 1.

Wizards and Sorcerers may begin play with a familiar without having to pay the 100gp cost. Acquiring a familiar after play begins, replacing a familiar, or acquiring a familiar through the Obtain Familiar feat still costs 100gp. Many people don't realize this is a house rule, that Wizards and Sorcerers are supposed to either pony up 100gp when play begins or start without a familiar.

Any prestige class level that advances Wizard or Sorcerer spellcasting also advances familiar abilities as if it were a level of Wizard or Sorcerer. (This is as if all Wizards and Sorcerers took the Forlorn flaw and the Obtain Familiar feat.)

Soulborn
Smite Opposition per encounter rather than per day.

Swashbuckler
Proficient with bucklers. IT'S RIGHT THERE IN THE NAME, DAGNABIT.

Swordsage
Skill points: the usual x4 at 1st level, not x6. Obvious typo is obviously a typo.

Wizard
A Wizard specializing in Divination must choose two banned schools, as with every other school specialization, instead of one. Splatbooks give enough Divination options, and "Scry and Die" so favored a tactic, that it's no longer a trash school like it was thought to be in the early days of 3.5.

Also, see familiar stuff under Sorcerer.

Leveling Up Without A Rest

So most tables I've played at use the house/variant rule that you can't level up in the middle of a dungeon; you only level up if you get a proper 8-hour rest. This is so common at tables I've played with that I don't think people realize it isn't the standard rule. And it just sort of makes intuitive sense, at least to me (perhaps because it's how I first learned to play).

But I've come to the position that there's not really any reason to use this rule after all.

Realism? Is it really so much more realistic to be suddenly better at whatever it is you're doing after an 8-hour rest than in the middle of doing it?

It's a holdover from the way some video games work? One can probably name as many video games where you level up immediately when you have enough XP (e.g. Angband) as games where you need to return to town to do so (e.g. Mordor/Demise). (And some, like City of Heroes, where you immediately get some benefits of leveling up but have to visit a trainer to get the rest of them.)

Confusion over whether you have your new hit points and prepared spells? That's easy enough to answer: yes, you immediately gain your new hit points. Your new spell slots can be filled if you take the requisite 15-minute downtime for filling empty slots if you're a prepared caster wizard; you immediately get your new spells per day if you're a spontaneous caster. (Your existing depleted HP and used spells aren't restored.)

Don't want to spend half the gaming session leveling up characters? Especially in the middle of a fight? That's fine, just hold off on delivering XP until the end of the session, and certainly never deliver XP in the middle of a fight. (I've still got some players who, in their own words, "can't be assed" to level up in the week between sessions, and spend the first few minutes of some sessions leveling up, but that's fine, I like to give plenty of time at the beginning of a session for players to settle down and settle in anyway.)

Further discussion can be found here.

Extra Spell

Extra Spell. The feat that launched a thousand arguments, once upon a time. To wit: does it allow access to spells that aren't on your class list? Or does it allow access only to spells that you would normally be able to access anyway?

The arguments were (mostly) settled when the official WotC FAQ chimed in:

Can the warmage (Complete Arcane) benefit from the Extra Spell feat?

No. Extra Spell lets you add one spell to your list of spells known, but the spell must be taken from your class spell list. Since the warmage already knows all the spells on his class spell list, this feat has no effect.

But not everybody treats the FAQ as gospel, and rightly so (often, they provide insane and self-contradictory interpretations of the rules).

Prima facie, the line in the feat about "Extra Spell is generally used to learn a specific spell that the character lacks access to and would be unable to research" seems reasonably clear-cut: it allows you to mine other class lists, because if a spell is on another class's list and not yours, you lack access to it. If so, then the FAQ is flatly contradicting the text of the feat, so the FAQ is wrong.

However, I can see how it could have been intended to mean "lacks physical access to a written version to copy into his spellbook". It's ambiguous, but I can see the possibility.

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That said, though casters don't need nice things, I disagree with the "official" FAQ answer.

There are precedents in the Expanded Knowledge, Shape Soulmeld, and Martial Study/Stance feats, which allow you to access things you would otherwise be unable to access.

There are hardly any circumstances under which Extra Spell would be useful if you adhere to the FAQ's answer. If you're on a class with a desperately limited number of spells known, maybe. Or, as the text of the feat says, if you want a spell but can't find a scroll of it. Or if you're a Chameleon and use your free floating feat every day to temporarily learn a new spell long enough to copy it into your spellbook. So the official interpretation makes it a waste of a precious feat.

Worst of all, the official interpretation is boring.

---

So I'm inclined, in my games, to let Extra Spell take a spell off any list at all.

With the exception of known game-breaker spells (though most of those are level 9, and thus unlearnable with Extra Spell).

And with the caveat that you don't get to pick from the weird lists like Trapsmith or Adept to get a spell early; if it's available to a full caster player base class, you get it as a spell of that level, no lower.

Potential Alternative To Savage Progression?

So, I kind of like my solution to the problem of how annoying negative levels are to to be inflicted with:

But I also kind of like an idea that I came across where, instead of using savage progressions (or for characters where a savage progression is inappropriate), you can start out as a monster with all the relevant abilities and powers, but you have enough negative level adjustments (similar to, but not actually, negative levels) to bring you down to effective level 1. Every time you level up, instead of leveling, you lose a negative level adjustment, until you don't have any more negative level adjustments.

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First, let's analyze the idea of using negative level adjustments, or even just negative levels, instead of savage progressions to see to what extent it has merit.

A normal negative level gives:

• -1 on all skill checks, ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws
• -5 hit points
• -1 effective level
• -1 highest level available spell slot

The suggested negative LA drops the -5 hp, the lost spell slots, and the reduced effective level, but adds the following:

• -1 DC for all abilities which call for a saving throw
• -1 to any constant Armor Class bonus granted by race
• Level adjustment is reduced by 1

I kind of want to test each. And I kind of want to see if it could work at all for creatures that do have racial hit dice, which would normally be the domain of savage progressions. (You see, I'd be okay with doing away with savage progressions altogether, if there's a simpler replacement system available. (I actually very much doubt that this will work out so nicely, but let's give it a try.)) So we'll test traditional negative levels and fancy negative levels on, oh, let's say a drow and a drider.

A drow with 2 traditional levels, enough to bring it down to ECL1, gets:

• +2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma
• Land speed 30 feet.
• Darkvision 120 feet.
• Spell resistance 11.
• +2 racial bonus on Will saves against spells and spell-like abilities.
• Dancing Lights, Darkness, Faerie Fire 1/day, CL1.
• Weapon Proficiency: hand crossbow, rapier, short sword.
• Light blindness
• Miscellaneous elf traits
• -2 to all skill checks, ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws
• -10 hp
• -1 highest level available spell slot
• ECL 1

That's, um... A barbarian (or knight or warblade) will have 2+con HP. A fighter needs to have at least 16 constitution before racial modifier to have more than 1 HP. Any class with a d8, d6, or d4 hit die will always have 1 HP. Super-fragile.

Aside from that, not too awful, could be balanced.

The variant negative LA leaves the character with their full normal hp, but otherwise the same. Again, could be balanced.

Let's see a drider with 9 traditional negative levels:

• Large (Space/Reach 10'/5')
• 6 Aberration hit dice, but loses 45 HP, leaving him probably close to 1 HP
• +4 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +6 Constitution, +4 Intelligence, +6 Wisdom, +6 Charisma
• Land speed 30 feet, climb speed 15 feet
• Darkvision 60
• +6 natural armor
• Poison DC 10 + con
• Spell Resistance 17
• Casts as a 6th-level cleric, wizard, or sorcerer, but loses 9 spell slots.
• 1/day: dancing lights (DC 10+cha), clairaudience/clairvoyance, darkness, detect good, detect law, detect magic, dispel magic, faerie fire, levitate, suggestion (DC 13+cha)
• +4 Hide and Move Silently. +8 Climb, can always take 10 on Climb checks.
• -9 on all skill checks, ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws
• -9 effective levels

As a sorcerer, he could cast 6 cantrips and 5 1st-level spells/day, but he only knows 5 cantrips. As a cleric, he can cast 5 orisons and 2 1st-level spells/day. As a wizard, he can cast 3 cantrips/day.

Contrariwise, the negative LA system would let him keep all his spells and spell slots (and all his HP), but the DC of any spell that has a save (and the two such SLAs) is reduced by 9, and he loses his natural armor. He regains the 1/2 his racial HD to his poison's save DC, but then loses 9, for a total DC of 4 + con.

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In conclusion, this system was, for very good reason, not intended for use with creatures that have racial hit dice and high LAs, and cannot reasonably be adapted to their use.

But even when applied properly, to creatures with 1 class level and a level adjustment, both versions of the system are only so-so. I don't anticipate incorporating either into my game.

Continua of Power

The Dungeon Master's Guide/Monster Manual mentions basically two options for determining who in your campaign world is powerful and who is not: the obvious character level, and the Elite vs Nonelite system. In the latter, elites use the Elite Array (15, 13, 12, 10, 8; equivalent to 25 point buy); nonelites use the Nonelite Array (13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8; equivalent to 15 point buy) or the Standard Array (10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10; equivalent to 12 point buy). There may also be a thing about Elites maximizing their hp at first level while Nonelites do not.

I use both of these things, sort of. But I also use other things to determine who's weak and who's powerful.

• Class Level: Almost every person in the world is class level 1 at most. Only the most impressive get past level 3-5. I can count the number of mortal NPCs in the world who have 7 class levels without taking off my shoes. So adventurers who adventure for awhile are awfully powerful by mortal standards. Especially because I apply the CR system as it's written, which means characters, by fighting monsters which are weaker than they are, can get more XP from me faster than they get from most DMs; I think I might stop being quite so generous with XP. (Even though there are no NPCs above class level 7, items which require higher levels to create are plentiful. Don't ask how that happens.)
• Point Buy: PCs and the most naturally talented NPCs start with point buy 30. Most NPCs start with the Standard or Nonelite Array, or with point buy somewhere in the 12-25 range.
• Class Tier: The overwhelming majority of NPCs are Commoners. Of those that aren't, most are other NPC classes like Expert or Warrior. Of those that aren't, most are other low-tier classes like Samurai and Fighter. Some are mid-tier classes like Bard or Factotum, and a handful of the most skilled are high-tier classes like Cleric or Wizard. This, more than class level or point buy, is why churches and cults and mage guilds and the druids who rule the Elves wield so much power.
• Divine Rank: The gods have divine ranks. Because I prefer smaller numbers, I'm inclined to limit my custom pantheon in the same way I limit class level: every god is divine rank 1-5. I've also been considering a system where gods (and only gods) get to gestalt, probably with racial HD or between a high-tier class and a low-tier class, or between two mid-tier classes. (These two things make gods much more powerful than even the most powerful of level 20 PCs, but still in theory defeatable by the most powerful mortals.)

I think I'm going to limit all characters to at most class level 20 (10+ already being epic in this campaign). E20 is kind of a silly concept; nobody's ever going to get that high in the first place in this campaign. But if they do, then they can start advancing as deities. If it ever becomes a thing, I'll come up with rules for doing that. Maybe once you ding 20, you gain divine rank 0; that way, everybody gets a capstone even if their class doesn't give them one. Perhaps at level 20 you stop gaining experience altogether, though you're free to keep gaining gold, and advancing divine ranks depends only on RP. Maybe there'll be a way to gain divine rank 0 through RP before hitting 20 if any players are inclined to seek it out (perhaps by killing an existing god). Maybe you get to gestalt if you hit divine rank 1. These are all interesting ideas.

Custom Reincarnate Tables 3: Revenge of the Custom Reincarnate Tables

If you are looking for (or wish to return to) the central list of my updated Reincarnate tables, click here.

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Once upon a time, I posted my procedure for creating custom reincarnate tables. Then I posted the complete set of tables that I use.

But recently, I realized that MonsterForge's database of 1062 monsters, which I used to create my lists, only draws from eight sourcebooks (Monster Manuals 1-4, the Fiend Folio, and 3/5ths of the It's ____ Outside series*).

*(Some elements of the D&D community call Stormwrack "It's Wet Outside", Sandstorm "It's Hot Outside", Frostburn "It's Cold Outside", and either Cityscape or Dungeonscape "It's Not Outside". MonsterForge uses the first three of these.)

But I allow somewhat more sources than just those.

So, over the past week or two, I constructed a new database, copying monster information from every sourcebook I allow, bringing the total monsters up to 1750.

(I skipped most templates. I might do a template database eventually. I also didn't import creatures that didn't already have stat blocks written, because the main purpose of this database is for creating dynamic random encounter tables.

Having completed the new database, the first thing I did was construct new random encounter tables.

(Actually, no, the first thing I did was determine that the average (mean) base 3.5e creature is roughly CR 7, has 11 HD, ability scores (counting -- as 0) of Str 19, Dex 14, Con 15, Int 8, Wis 13, Cha 11, and is found on page 136 of whatever book it's in.
The mode creature is CR 3, 4 HD, Str 10, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10, and is found on page 95.
The median creature is CR 6, 8 HD, Str 18, Dex 14, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 11, and found on page 142.)

These new tables are somewhat longer, so I switched from 1d% (which would have required two tables for most Types and four for one) to 1d200 (which requires two tables for only one Type -- Outsider, by far the most numerous Type. I still use two tables for it because there's no more convenient way to roll 1d400 unless you happen to own a d40). Hopefully you can figure out on your own how to roll 1d200. It involves a d10 and a d20.

(There were well over 300 Outsiders, but there were only 210 Magical Beasts. In the interest of minimizing the number of times you have to roll, I trimmed the ten most powerful Magical Beasts (other than Leviathan, which I figured was too iconic to leave out).)

Because I didn't import any templates, and didn't want to just keep using the incomplete template table when I had made all the other tables more complete, I eliminated "Reroll, +template" from every table.

Because they're so much longer, and the original post was already so cumbersome, I'll be doling out the new tables over the course of the next month. Afterwards, I'll post a summary linking to all of them, for ease of use.

Re-Rethinking Epic Options

Some time ago, I made a post about [Epic] feats as normal feats. But I have since realized that this doesn't even go far enough: most [Epic] options in general (e.g., epic prestige classes) are terrible compared to regular options. (Major exception: Epic Spellcasting, which is just stupid broken. More on that later.)

So I think I will refine broaden my rules by ditching the specific [epic] feat options and adding the following more general rule, based on the Alexandrian's observation that the most powerful heroes in fiction are at most 5th level:

For the purpose of [epic] feats, prestige classes, and other options, a character is considered epic at 10th level instead of 20th level. After 10th level, regular feat slots may be used to acquire [epic] feats. All other prerequisites still apply.

A substantial majority of [epic] options still require 20+levels worth of ranks in skills, however. Rather than institute an across-the-board subtraction of 10 from all [epic] skill prerequisites (leaving many requiring fewer ranks than pre-[epic] things), or from all skill prerequisites (leaving many pre-[epic] things with no skill prerequisites at all), I will go with my old "add a new option and make it a feat" standby:

Skill Master
Prerequisite: Skill Focus in the skill selected
Benefit: For the purpose of of qualifying for feats, prestige classes, and other options, you are treated as though you have 15 more ranks in the selected skill than you actually have.

Additionally: Epic Spellcasting is completely broken. But I'm going to allow it just as it already is, except that actual epic spells don't exist. You can use epic spell slots only for metamagic'd versions of regular slots.

On the Virtues of "Yes, And"

You may have heard the virtues of "Yes, and" extolled. If not at DMing school, then perhaps at improv comedy school.

The thinking goes like this: Saying "no" to a player discourages them and makes them sad and makes them not be having as much fun. (Saying "no" to an improv comedian not only makes them sad, it also disrupts the pace of the banter and throws everyone off their game and makes the act less funny, so the parallels are only surface-deep.)

Consider the following:

"Yes, and" > "Yes" > "Yes, but" > "No, but" > "No"

Always aspire to be as far left on this list as you possibly can. Whenever you make a decree, ask yourself "is there a good reason I'm here, and not one to the left?" Going one to the left if you can will make it more fun for your player and more fun for you. (A possible exception is players who ask for all sorts of stupid things for no other reason than because they suspect you'll let them get away with it. I'm honestly not sure how to deal with this kind of player. It may be that this is the only situation in which an unadorned "no" can actually be justified.)

Certainly, there are good reasons to find yourself somewhere on the right. Some things are just broken. Leadership, for example. This core principle is why I go with the "yes, but" of nerfing it, rather than the "no" of banning it outright. Similarly, rather than banning Divine Metamagic ("no"), only ban nightstick abuse ("yes, but").
Rather than disallow all flaws, allow them and make an effort to exploit them to the fullest possible extent -- if people take Shaky, throw lots of ranged and flying enemies at them; if they take Murky-Eyed, throw them against lots of enemies with concealment (This works out to either a "yes, but" or a "yes, and", depending on the adventurousness of the player).
You want to buy 50 flasks of lamp oil? Yes, but several sessions later you may find a factotum casting a scorching ray at them.

But it's still always more fun for everyone to go as far to the left as possible. You want your character to be a prince? Yes, and also take this plot I've hung on that hook for you.
You want to buy dragonhide armor? Yes, and what colour is it in case you come across somebody who doesn't take kindly to you wearing a relative? (Is "Yes, if you provide the dragon skin" a "Yes, and", a "Yes, but", or a "No, but"? Probably depends on how plausible the party killing a dragon is at their level.)
See how much more fun that is for you, the player, and the party than just "yes"?

As of this writing, I just told a player "no, but". I'm sadly in the bad habit of saying "no, but" much more often than I ought, though I've mostly broken myself of the habit of outright "no"s. The question was "Can I use this homebrewed flaw?" and my answer was "No, but you may refluff a WotC-published flaw to achieve a similar effect." (Homebrewed flaws tend to be terrible, or as I heard them described once, "pants on head retarded", so I am more prejudiced against them than I am against other homebrew, even if an individual flaw seems non-terrible on the surface. Not that I'm not prejudiced against homebrew in general. But this is prejudice, which is why my wording was "I'd rather you didn't, though I may allow it if it's a deal-breaker" rather than a flat "no". An empty justification, perhaps.)

The other day, I got to say "yes, and", and it made me feel good. A player asked if he could use Central Casting: Heroes of Legend (which seems awesome, by the way). I said (provisionally) sure, and when he rolled up a character, I got to say "Oh, hey, 'human nomads' probably means a nation of sailors who didn't bothered to recolonize the land when the Subsidence came, and 'light cavalry' means riders of sharks or dolphins or porpoises, and 'skiing' means 'water skiing'." It made me feel like I was World Head again.

Proper Housekeeping: How Many Rules Are Good?

There is a golden rule of houseruling that everyone should always keep in mind when they decide to enforce a house rule, and that is:

A house rule should always either a.) make the game more fun or b.) make the game more realistic while not making it less fun.

I will draw an analogy with John Stuart Mill. A (very) rough summary of Mill's ethics: Restricting freedom by declaring a thing unacceptable (e.g., passing a law against it) is inherently an evil act; the only way for banning an act to be good is if that act is more evil than the evil of banning it. Even more roughly: freedom is good and restricting freedom is evil, so the only acts it is good to restrict are those acts which restrict freedom even more. (The garuda of Perdido Street Station are explicitly Millian in this limited sense: the only crime in garuda society is "choice theft". Anything which restricts another person's choices is choice theft, and thus criminal.)

The analogy is this: a house rule is inherently an evil. Each house rule you add makes the game slightly more confusing and gives your players one more thing they need to remember. I am lawful neutral and have a strong "rules for the sake of rules" tendency, so this is a hard thing for me to keep in mind, but it's important.

So every houserule needs to have a reason to exist. As above, it needs to make the game more fun, or it needs to make the game more realistic while not making it less fun. Because houserules inherently make the game slightly less fun, this second clause should be read as "make the game more realistic while making it also slightly more fun", unless you're playing with a table full of hardcore simulationists for whom increased realism is automatically more fun (this describes me to an extent).

That said, I've decided to make an audit of all my current house rules, to make sure they all adhere to this rule.

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• Ability scores: point buy 30, starting at 8, as on page 169 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
• All characters begin with 1,000 gold and an adventurer's kit containing a backpack, 5 torches, flint & steel, 50' hempen rope, a waterskin, and clothing of your choice (excluding courtier's outfit, noble's outfit, and royal outfit).
• All characters begin at 0 experience.
• Content from any 3.5e rulebook or supplement published by Wizards Of The Coast may be used (including some material for other campaign settings). Other sources -- particularly Dragon magazine, the Wizards of the Coast website, and official 3.0e sourcebooks -- may be permitted, with DM review in each instance.
• A character may have up to 2 flaws and up to 1 trait (but bear in mind that you should consider no flaw “safe”; I may deliberately throw encounters at you which prey specifically on your flaws).

These are not really "house rules" so much as they are "variables that it is necessary to define for every game". I could just say "begin play according to the PHB", with the standard 3d6 ability scores and starting wealth rolled by class, but those are rules that are so rarely used they almost count as house rules in their own right. (Plus rolling for ability scores is evil and sadistic and I would never inflict that on anyone.)

Incidentally, I picked that high starting gold amount for a reason: it's enough to get anything cheaper than a +1 weapon or armor. You can afford good stuff, increasing survivability at the painful low levels, without significantly changing balance (creatures with DR/magic will still be fully effective until after you've won a few fights, because you can't afford a magic item).

• Monster class progressions (e.g., from Savage Species) may be used. A character is not required to finish their monster class progression before entering another class; however, a character may not have more class levels than monster levels unless their monster class progression is complete. The “empty levels” that do not add hit dice may be reduced like level adjustment, as below. The experience cost to do so is determined by the final LA of the monster class.
• Bloodlines (from Unearthed Arcana) may be used. A bloodline level counts as a level adjustment and nothing more; it does not count as a class level for any purpose. However, bloodline levels may be reduced like level adjustment, as below. The experience cost to do so is determined by the bloodline strength (+1 for Minor, +2 for Intermediate, +3 for Major).

These are partially laying out some specific things that I will allow and which not every DM does. So, again, variables that need to be defined for each game, rather than house rules. They also lay out some minor changes and adjustments.

The "empty levels are level adjustment" thing is simply making explicit something that was previously implicit, so not even really a house rule, per se, because it's not even really a change.

The "bloodline levels are level adjustment" are making simple something that was unnecessarily complicated. The game already has class levels and hit dice and level adjustment (which are confusing enough), and Unearthed Arcana saw fit to create a new category that nothing else uses? Pshaw. Just use one of the existing ones. So this increases fun by leading to a net decrease in complexity.

• A character may have up to two base classes without an experience penalty, or three if one of them is their racial favored class (or if their racial favored class is “any”). After that, experience penalties for multi-classing apply.

I'm starting to rethink this rule. When I instituted it, I hadn't realized that prestige classes don't count towards experience penalties. With that in mind, the default rule seems fine - you get a class plus your racial favored class, which should be plenty for anybody who isn't going some bizarre build that calls for dipping half a dozen different classes.

I do want to discourage said bizarre builds, so I don't want to just say "no experience penalties for multiclassing ever" like most DMs do. Being restricted to one or two base classes is a little harsh, though - sometimes a 1-level dip is just the thing to make a build even playable. So two or three is a fine number.

But the bookkeeping for XP penalties if anybody actually does choose to go with such a build is a nightmare, so I don't want it to ever happen. If I really want to discourage such bizarre builds, I should just say you're not allowed to play a character with more than a certain number of base classes. However, the very fact that the bookkeeping for these XP penalties is such a nightmare will automatically prevent 99% of players from even bothering with them, so the problem solves itself.

In short: not using the penalties would be going too far, and keeping them as-is isn't any fun, so I think this compromise does fall into the "makes the game more fun" zone.

• A modified version of Unearthed Arcana’s variant rule for reducing level adjustment may be used. A character’s level adjustment may be reduced at any time (including at character creation), provided the character has enough experience. You may spend as much experience as you desire, but your total experience cannot go below zero. Your class levels are never reduced in this way, no matter how much experience you spend.
Starting LA : XP Cost
1 : 6,000
2 : 11,000; 13,000
3 : 16,000; 21,000; 23,000
4 : 21,000; 29,000; 34,000; 36,000
5 : 26,000; 37,000; 45,000; 50,000; 52,000
6 : 31,000; 45,000; 56,000; 64,000; 69,000; 71,000
7 : 36,000; 53,000; 67,000; 78,000; 86,000; 91,000; 93,000
8 : 41,000; 61,000; 78,000; 92,000; 103,000; 111,000; 116,000; 118,000
9 : 46,000; 69,000; 89,000; 106,000; 120,000; 131,000; 139,000; 144,000; 146,000
For example, a character with a +3 level adjust may reduce it to +2 by spending 16,000 XP, to +1 by spending another 21,000, and to +0 by spending another 23,000.

This... I unfortunately haven't had a chance to test this system extensively. It does, however, simplify and streamline the baffling-even-once-you-understand-it Unearthed Arcana system (the UA writers must have had a fetish for needlessly complex house rules), making it probably a good house rule.

• If your name is in the "Player Name" field of a sheet, only you may play that character. If there is no name in that field, anybody may play that character. You may claim or unclaim a character at any time.

I'm actually considering doing away with this rule, and saying that pregen characters are always fair game for anybody to play. But what if a player gets really attached to one? (Unlikely, I know, what with the players not having had a hand in their creation.) So this rule is definitely a candidate for deletion.

• A character is considered dead if he reaches negative his Constitution score or negative 10, whichever is further from zero.

I play with this rule because I played with it in the first game I played in. But what's the point of it? It doesn't make the game any more realistic (high constitution already means you're less likely to die, you've already got an extra hit point for every two points of constitution you have, plus it adds to your fortitude saves.) It makes a character slightly less likely to die in one hit if they're low on HP, which is I suppose good, but is it worth making a house rule about it, given the John Stuart Mill analogy? I don't think so. Definitely a candidate for deletion.

• An attack roll of 1 is a threat for a critical miss, which works just like the inverse of a threat for a critical hit: you roll to confirm the fumble, and if your confirmation roll would miss your target, you have critically fumbled.
If you critical fumble on the last attack you would make on your turn, various bad things happen (e.g.: you hit yourself or an ally, your weapon breaks, etc). If you still have attacks left to make when you critical fumble, you lose them, but nothing else bad happens.

The grounds on which people object to critical fumbles (usually "it makes no sense for you to be more likely to hurt yourself as you level up") apply only to unadorned "you hit yourself if you roll a 1". Everything about this rule is designed to answer that objection, and it does so admirably. But does critical fumbling as a concept actually improve the game?

Yes! I refer you to the tales my players still tell of excessively powerful monsters biting themselves to death in the chaotic throes of combat. And isn't the ability to tell stories of your exploits the point of D&D? The critical fumble rule stays.

• The reincarnate spell chooses randomly from custom lists. A creature is overwhelmingly likely to be reincarnated as a creature of its type and somewhat less likely to be reincarnated as a creature of a different but similar type.
Gender is random. The original form's racial hit dice and level adjustment are removed. Half the experience points for any previously paid off level adjustment are immediately refunded to the character. If a character is reincarnated as a creature with more than one racial hit die and/or a level adjustment, the racial hit dice and level adjustment are applied to the character. If a creature doesn’t like its new form, it has the option of refusing to return, in which case the spell is wasted, as with any resurrection spell.
• The experience of dying and returning to life leaves a person drained of vitality even beyond the loss of a level. Upon resurrection, a character is aged a number of years equal to 1d20 minus their Constitution modifier (a negative Constitution modifier can increase the number of years aged). The True Resurrection spell negates this effect. These years are added to the base adult age in the case of the Reincarnate spell.

The former of these makes the game both more fun (though many people will argue that allowing Reincarnate at all makes the game less fun; these people are spoilsports) and more realistic (living constructs, native outsiders, and monstrous humanoids coming back as humanoids? engineers not having a chance to come back as engineers? Nonsense!). It stays.

The latter is an attempt to stave off the revolving door of death, which enough people complain about that it seems to be something that makes it more fun for some. That makes it good. It helps that rules for resurrection and reincarnation will only be used very rarely, so they're not something the PCs really have to keep in mind.

• A wizard may copy any arcane scroll into his spellbook, even if it is not on the Wizard class list. However, to do so he must pass an additional Use Magic Device check as if he were casting the spell from the scroll. The Archivist must do the same for spells which are not on the Cleric class list.

This isn't so much a house rule as it is an answer to a question that actually did come up. Only wizards and archivists even need to pay attention to it.

• There are no negative levels. In place of each negative level bestowed, the victim immediately ages 3d10 years. The victim may immediately roll a fortitude saving throw at the same difficulty as removing the negative level; if this saving throw succeeds, the aging is halved. If the victim receives a restoration spell within 24 hours, the aging is reversed; otherwise, it is permanent.

This makes the game more fun (nobody likes negative levels). I guess nobody can really describe the effect of having your life sucked out by an undead monster, so it doesn't really alter the "realism" scale.

• When crafting an item or casting a spell with an experience component, you may spend as much experience as you have, but your total experience cannot go below zero. Your class levels are never reduced in this way, no matter how much experience you spend.

This: probably unnecessary. I don't know that it makes the game more fun at all. I could drop it, though it would require altering the level adjustment reduction rules for consistency. Definitely a candidate for deletion.

• Participants in combat act on a shared initiative. Each member of each group (usually there are two groups: the PCs, and whatever they are fighting) rolls initiative and reports the highest initiative from each group.
In cases where there would be a surprise round, initiative is not rolled. The surprising party simply goes first, and the surprised party begins combat flat-footed.

As far as I've been able to tell so far, this house rule improves the game. It certainly speeds it up, though I have several players who don't seem to understand the principle of it at all and simply wait until everybody else has gone. I'm hoping eventually the principle of coöperation will click in everybody's minds.

• If you are a prepared caster, casting a level 0 spell does not remove it from your mind. If you are a spontaneous caster, casting a level 0 spell does not use up a spell slot.
This does not apply to Cure Minor Wounds or Repair Minor Damage, nor does it apply to any spell-like abilities. If you use a level 0 spell or spell slot to do anything other than cast that particular spell (e.g., spontaneously cast Inflict Minor Wounds by sacrificing a different spell), it still unprepares the spell/uses the spell slot. If you apply a metamagic effect to a level 0 spell, casting it unprepares the spell/uses the spell slot, even if it doesn't change the spell's level.

This: also probably unnecessary. You can accomplish much the same end by just taking reserve feats. Who actually runs out of 0-level spells, anyway? Does that happen? Are 0-level spells so useful people are in danger of running out of them?

HP Rolling Alternatives

Not realizing this seems to be common, so I'll just point it out here: the default rule is to maximize the hit points you get at first level. A barbarian gets 12+con, a wizard gets 4+con. Only at levels after first level do you roll your hit die.

I'm massively opposed to rolling stats, much preferring point buy. And it sometimes strikes me as inconsistent that I do roll for HP. The difference, I suppose, is that HP should even out to an average after enough levels. I might eventually switch over to half-plus-one (alternately phrased as average-rounded-up, though that's a worse phrasing given D&D's Always Round Down rule) for HD rolls, but until then, is there some way to make rolling HD better?

I've played in high-powered campaigns where if you roll below average on your hit die (after 1st), you simply take whatever is on the opposite side of the die. E.g., if you roll a 1 on a d12, you instead take a 12. If you roll a 3 on a d6, you instead take a 4. This obviously had the effect of substantially increasing one's hit points.

It has occurred to me to institute a system whereby, at each level (after 1st), you may choose whether to roll your HD as normal, or take your average HD (rounded up does seem to be the standard, but offering it as an option should probably round down, to make it a choice between the certainty of one result, or a random result that could be much higher or much lower but which will average out to slightly higher than the certain result; it may still be an even choice, because people supposedly tend to pick the devil they know over the devil they don't). But I haven't thought through this idea, and I don't think I'll ever test or implement it.

I've also heard tell of a house rule to this effect: if you don't like your HD roll (after 1st), you can reroll on the next die down (d12, d10, d8, d6, d4). You can continue to do this until you hit the d4.
This has the effect of making a high hit die mean more: not only are you getting a higher number to start with (on average, each HD step increases your HP by 1/level), you're getting more cushion in case you roll poorly. No more barbarian crippled by rolling a 1 for his level 2 HD! Well, he still can, but it's profoundly unlikely (unless my math's wrong (which it is -- see if you can identify why), he has a 1/23,040 chance under this system to wind up with a 1, where before he had a 1/12 chance).
I like this system, and may implement it at some point in the future. Especially because it benefits high-HD classes (i.e., melee) quite a bit and benefits low-HD classes (i.e., spellcasters) not a whit, which is good.

Fixing Leadership and Thrallherd

The Leadership feat (and, by extension, the Thrallherd prestige class, which is effectively "Leadership but better") is commonly recognized as potentially game-breakingly powerful. The common response is to just ban them, and perhaps that's a sensible response. I've never encountered any players who wanted to go to the trouble of figuring out how Leadership works just for its own sake; the only reason most people want to take it is to abuse it. "Has minions" is certainly a fun character archetype, but D&D makes it awkward enough to make it undesirable.

But it's never fun to take away options. So what can we do to fix it?

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Well, the first two questions which spring to mind: what, exactly, is the problem with Leadership (and by extension with Thrallherd)? Does Thrallherd add any extra problems on top of that?

I don't know what most people use their Followers for, but they're not likely to be of much use for anything other than setting them up in a city running a business and funneling most of their profits to you, and if you want to take a feat to get a little bit of the pittance that NPCs can earn in a lifetime, that's fine. So the followers are not a problem.

While I'm on the topic of followers, I'll answer the second question before returning to the first. The main difference between the thrallherd and the Leadership feat is that the thrallherd can abuse his believers mercilessly with no penalty, while the leader takes a penalty to his leadership score if he does so. So the thrallherd can potentially have, for example, an infinite number of human sacrifices.

Solution: if that many people are going missing, the authorities are going to start investigating. Paladins and celestials are going to start coming after you, in large enough numbers as to constitute a genuine inconvenience.

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So, having dispensed with any problems inherent to followers/believers, the main problem with Leadership the cohort. Specifically, that the cohort is effectively an extra PC (a couple levels lower than the others, but who doesn't take experience away from the party).

We can fix that by obeying the rules laid out on pp. 105-106 of the Dungeon Master's Guide. Specifically, two things: first, the player can attempt to attract a cohort of a particular race, class, and alignment, with no guarantee that this attempt succeeds; second, the PC can control his cohort's actions in combat, but the DM controls all the specifics of the build. So if the PC tries to attract a gray elf batman wizard, the DM is entirely free to hand him a goblin commoner instead.

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So the problem is satisfactorily solved. Done. I would, however, like to consider actual modifications to the rules, for those who aren't satisfied with the above easy solutions, or for DMs who don't want to go to the effort of building cohorts and punishing Charles Manson PCs in-character.

To wit: limit the classes. Followers and believers can only ever be NPC classes (or, far better but slightly messier, tier 6 classes). Cohorts and thralls start as NPC classes (or tier 6 classes, or maybe let them take tier 5 classes), but you can take additional feats to improve the list of classes they can take.

So, feats:

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Without the following feats, cohorts and thralls are limited to Samurai (Complete Warrior), Aristocrat, Warrior, or Commoner. Followers and believers are always limited to those four classes.

Improved Cohort I
Prerequisite: Leadership and character level 8; or thrallherd level 2
Benefit: Your cohort or thrall may take levels in Fighter, Monk, Ninja, Healer, Swashbuckler, Soulknife, Samurai (Oriental Adventures) Expert, Paladin, or Knight.

Improved Cohort II
Prerequisite: Improved Cohort I; and character level 10 or thrallherd level 4
Benefit: Your cohort or thrall may take levels in Rogue, Barbarian, Warlock, Warmage, Scout, Ranger, Hexblade, Adept, or Marshal.

Improved Cohort III
Prerequisite: Improved Cohort I-II; and character level 12 or thrallherd level 6
Benefit: Your cohort or thrall may take levels in Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Bard, Swordsage, Duskblade, Factotum, Warblade, or Psionic Warrior.

Improved Cohort IV
Prerequisite: Improved Cohort I-III; and character level 14 or thrallherd level 8
Benefit: Your cohort or thrall may take levels in Sorcerer, Favored Soul, or Psion.

Improved Cohort V
Prerequisite: Improved Cohort I-IV; and character level 16 or thrallherd level 10
Benefit: Your cohort or thrall may take levels in Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Archivist, or Artificer.