CounterSpelling Bee

GAH!!! Counterspells are such a great idea that got turned annoying and useless somewhere along the line. Let’s look at the SRD so you can see what I’m talking about:

COUNTERSPELLS

It is possible to cast any spell as a counterspell. By doing so, you are using the spell’s energy to disrupt the casting of the same spell by another character. Counterspelling works even if one spell is divine and the other arcane.

 

How Counterspells Work: To use a counterspell, you must select an opponent as the target of the counterspell. You do this by choosing the ready action. In doing so, you elect to wait to complete your action until your opponent tries to cast a spell. (You may still move your speed, since ready is a standard action.)

If the target of your counterspell tries to cast a spell, make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + the spell’s level). This check is a free action. If the check succeeds, you correctly identify the opponent’s spell and can attempt to counter it. If the check fails, you can’t do either of these things.

To complete the action, you must then cast the correct spell. As a general rule, a spell can only counter itself. If you are able to cast the same spell and you have it prepared (if you prepare spells), you cast it, altering it slightly to create a counterspell effect. If the target is within range, both spells automatically negate each other with no other results.

 

Counterspelling Metamagic Spells: Metamagic feats are not taken into account when determining whether a spell can be countered

 

Specific Exceptions: Some spells specifically counter each other, especially when they have diametrically opposed effects.

 

Dispel Magic as a Counterspell: You can use dispel magic to counterspell another spellcaster, and you don’t need to identify the spell he or she is casting. However, dispel magic doesn’t always work as a counterspell (see the spell description).

So, in other words, if I want to stop someone from whipping a whammy at me, I have to (1) identify the spell, then (2) happen to have the exact same spell ready for casting!This is so useless. I would make may change so that one only needs have spell of the same level prepared. The text would look something like this:

How Counterspells Work: To use a counterspell, you must select an opponent as the target of the counterspell. You do this by choosing the ready action. In doing so, you elect to wait to complete your action until your opponent tries to cast a spell. (You may still move your speed, since ready is a standard action.)

If the target of your counterspell tries to cast a spell, make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + the spell’s level). This check is a free action. If the check succeeds, you correctly identify the opponent’s spell and can attempt to counter it. If the check fails, you can’t do either of these things.

To complete the action, you must then release spell energy of the same level and type (arcane or divine) as the spell you wish to counter. You effectively lose the appropriate spell slot for the day. If the target is within range, both spells automatically negate each other with no other results.

Counterspelling Metamagic Spells: If a spell’s level is raised by a metamagic feat, then it takes a spell slot of the modified level in order to counterspell it.

Tis last bit at least makes Metamagic seem a little more useful, but I will whine about that in a later post.

House Rule #2

When leveling up, a roll of less than half on your HD earns you an automatic re-roll.  Nothing suck like earningyourself a whole 1 HP for managing to survive all that time.

A Look At Halflings

Halflings are weird critters, let’s face it, they’re really just hobbits with a name change.

The real problem is, with  few Tolkinean exceptions, hobbits make horrible adventurers. They want to say at home and munch on things, and drink stuff, and snuggle in front of the fire. They aren’t interested in saving the world.  Or even the next town over. Heck, they aren’t even very good at saving their own town, except for the above mentioned few exceptions.

So the concept of the Halfling has evolved over time, making them less like  Hobbits, and more like Kender. They are quicker and more agile, they are known for their curiosity and social skills. I am all for this shift.

The SRD gives us the following crunch on the halfling race, with my thoughts added in:

• +2 Dexterity, –2 Strength. I would like to see a bonus to CHA here, as well, to show the Halfing’s social side. Would +1 DEX, +1 CHA, -2 STR be too little a trade? or maybe +2 DEX, +2CHA, -2STR, -2CON?
• Small: As a Small creature, a halfling gains a +1 size bonus to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks, but she uses smaller weapons than humans use, and her lifting and carrying limits are three-quarters of those of a Medium character. Yup, tiny is as tiny does.
• Halfling base land speed is 20 feet. Tiny legs? Check.
• +2 racial bonus on Climb, Jump, and Move Silently checks.Here’s where the changes away from hobbit take place, current halflings are like little gymnasts! Climb and Move Silently I can accept, but jump? Their legs are too short to run well, but they can jump better? this doesn’t make sense to me.
• +1 racial bonus on all saving throws. WTF?!? Why the heck should this be?They are small and curious, not stout and hearty, like the dwarfs. I say it goes.
• +2 morale bonus on saving throws against fear: This bonus stacks with the halfling’s +1 bonus on saving throws in general. I like the save vs. fear. It fits against the new fearless halfling. Hobbits would be afraid of their own shadow.
• +1 racial bonus on attack rolls with thrown weapons and slings.Sure, little guys have to be good at a distance, it makes sense. Plus, it ties in with their nimbleness.
• +2 racial bonus on Listen checks. WHY? Does having your ears closer to the ground make you hear better? I think this would be better off as a bonus to Diplomacy, to reflect their social nature.
• Automatic Languages: Common and Halfling. Bonus Languages: Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Goblin, and Orc.
• Favored Class: Rogue. A multiclass halfling’s rogue class does not count when determining whether she takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing. Possibly add Bard.

HP and Pain

One of the points that has always bothered me about D&D has been the hit point system.  The thing that sticks in my craw is summed up in the first sentence under the topic in the SRD:

Your hit points measure how hard you are to kill. No matter how many hit points you lose, your character isn’t hindered in any way until your hit points drop to 0 or lower.

This kind of bothers me in that a warrior who is 1 point away from dropping over has the same speed, strength, and bravery as if he were fully rested and ready to attack.

The Unearthed Arcana section of the SRD offers up some suggestions here, but I’m not sure how much I like them. I think they’re a good starting point for musings, though.  The one section that interests me is the idea of playing with the massive damage rules.

The normal massive damage rules state:

Massive Damage: If you ever sustain a single attack deals 50 points of damage or more and it doesn’t kill you outright, you must make a DC 15 Fortitude save. If this saving throw fails, you die regardless of your current hit points. If you take 50 points of damage or more from multiple attacks, no one of which dealt 50 or more points of damage itself, the massive damage rule does not apply.

The point is, a mighty enough blow can kill an opponent outright. But I don’t ant to kill people outright, I just want them to feel at thought they’re running the risk of getting jacked up.  this means two things (1) my rule doesn’t need to apply to overly powerful blows only and (2) the penalty for being hit doesn’t need to be death.

So here are my thoughts. Let’s lessen the necessary power of the blow, to points of damage equal to a character’s CON score. Con, after all, is supposed to be a measure of the kind of punishment your character can take.  This will, granted, make getting injured easier or at least more common at higher levels, but it will be easier to save against as well.

O.K. so we have a target number for when this takes effect. Now what is the effect? Well, my current thought is, why not make a new condition called injured. An injured character takes a –1 penalty on all rolls.

So currently I would end up with this:

Any time a character takes damage equal or grater to his injury threshold (Con) he must make a DC15 Fort save or become injured.  An injured character takes a –1 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks.

I can think of two immediately remaining questions:

(1) Should the effects of multiple injured conditions stack?

(2) Should there be some way of  shrugging off an injury in the heat of battle, such as resting for a turn?

A Look at Elves

Like all races, the SRD only offers crunch on Elves. Thank God. This race needs some tweaking.

The thumbnail text on the Wikipedia page on elves gives us this:

An elf is a creature of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of minor nature and fertility gods, who are often pictured as youthful-seeming men and women of great beauty living in forests and underground places and caves, or in wells and springs. They have been portrayed to be long-lived or immortal and as beings of magical powers.

I would like to bring that link to nature back to the forefront, by changing a few things up. The SRD presents the following rules, and I have added my comments:

+2 Dexterity, –2 Constitution. I don’t necessarily have a problem with this, swift but fragile is a nice balance. I kind of want to throw in a + to CHA, to account for innate elven beauty, but that might be too unbalancing.

Medium: As Medium creatures, elves have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size. No problems here.

Elf base land speed is 30 feet. O.K.

Immunity to magic sleep effects, and a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells or effects. This plays into the idea of elves being enchanters themselves. Maybe this would be a place to add a bonus to reflect the idea mentioned above under abilities?

Low-Light Vision: An elf can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. She retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions. Meh, they live in the forest, this makes sense to me.

Weapon Proficiency: Elves receive the Martial Weapon Proficiency feats for the longsword, rapier, longbow (including composite longbow), and shortbow (including composite shortbow) as bonus feats. Longsword always struck me as weird, since most artists picture elven blades as slim, curving things, (think of legolas’ swords in LoTR) not big ol’ hack-sticks. I would change that to scimitar.

+2 racial bonus on Listen, Search, and Spot checks. An elf who merely passes within 5 feet of a secret or concealed door is entitled to a Search check to notice it as if she were actively looking for it. What the heck is up with this last bit? Having pointy ears doesn’t make you a super detective. I say the secret or concealed door crap goes. The bonuses could be argued for, since an elf is in tune with nature and thus his surroundings.

Automatic Languages: Common and Elven. Bonus Languages: Draconic, Gnoll, Gnome, Goblin, Orc, and Sylvan. Why not?

Favored Class: Wizard. A multiclass elf’s wizard class does not count when determining whether she takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing. I want to bring the nature back to the elves, but not separate them completely from magic. I say the favored class should be Druid, or perhaps Druid and Ranger.

For the purpose of bringing the nature magic back to the elves, I would like to add in the idea that elven acrane casters have access to divine spells from the nature domain.

Flaws Rules

My group has fully embraced the idea of flaws. It was introduced to us in the 3.5 book Unearthed Arcana, and was luckily added to the OGC.  (you can find an SRD summary here) 

We are however, open to new and interesting flaws, so there may be occasional updates listing new flaws.

House Rules #1

When administering magical healing, you ALWAYS get to reroll  on a 1. Nothing sucks more than wasting a spell (or your last chance at life) on a 1. What kind of suck god only gives you that much healing power anyway?  The kind that wants their clerics to be openly mocked, that’s what kind.

Hello world!

This started out as an idea to make my own campaign world for D&D’s 3.5 rules.

I won’t use this time to trash 4^th edition D&D. I’m not sold on the idea that it is evil. But when My group played it, it wasn’t for us, for whatever reasons.  Maybe someday we’ll try it again and like it, but it won’t be right now.  We decided to head back to 3.5

When we got there though, we found that Piazo was making their own changes to the rules, a kind of evolutionary step to 3.5, so why not try that? We did, and we enjoyed it. We were playing the game we loved again, and trying out some different trick along the way. Yay Piazo, yay Pathfinder!

Pathfinder was and is, pretty cool. As we played, I began to think about the way I would build a world. Thoughts that had surfaced and resurfaced over and over again during my long career as a gamer. I told my group I wanted to make a new campaign world. They said “Awesome! Along the way, why don’t we tweak some things….”

So this is where I’m at, making my own mutation of the 3.5 OGL rules, for my home campaign.  This site is made for my group to toss around ideas and concepts and for me to have an easier time keeping track of things.

If you’ve stumbled upon it by accident or through some kind of weird accident, welcome, and don’t be afraid to comment, I’ll welcome the input.