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Aug 11, 2011 -- 3:34PM, thewok wrote:

This is a house rule I instituted in my games:

All wizards need not memorize spells at the start of the day.  All other spellbook rules apply.  Basically, you have a certain number of daily/encounter attack spells you can cast per interval.  You need not select which ones you need beforehand, but you cannot go over your limit.  You also cannot cast the same spell more than once per interval.

I do this too. It cuts down on bookkeeping, and basically turns the wizard into a spontaneous caster. Which fits better with his inability to add spells to his "spell book."

(It's a pet peeve of mine: if you can't add spells to it or learn spells from it, it's not a spell book. It's just a ritual book.) 

Mechanics

Cover:

If a group of pcs are ganging up on a lone monster, any ranged attacks against said monster can either suffer a cover penalty as appropriate (against a large creature, maybe one or two points) or they can risk it- miss by that much hit a random person (if their AC is good enough, said arrow would deflect off of plate armor, etc). The general basis is cover (partial, half, full).

Characters that would be trained specifically in use of such weapons (archers, ranged rangers, assassins, halflings with sling depending on culture) etc ignore these. It applies to monsters as well- if 4 kobolds are surrounding a halfling, the kobolds firing in suffer a penalty.

This rule was instituted in my games by agreement with players, who enjoyed the extra in game drama of firing into melee, where people are constantly moving. Sharpshooters have an advantage over average theif that picks up a bow.

Style/fluff

Improvised weapons system:

Your character wants to wield two daggers, but you dont want the feats, just the rule of cool? You 'technically' are using a shortsword, make a single attack, using shortswords damage, have no free hands, and describe it as twin knives.

'Improvised' armor:

You want to play a paladin who shields himself with faith? Buy the plate armor, you get that bonus, but can be described as in cloth. Said faith takes a prayer to bring to full effect, (conveniently) equal to time to put on plate armor.

Aug 13, 2011 -- 11:23AM, Complete4th wrote:

So while rituals and spells are both a kind of magic, there are clear thematic differences. One fits well with the wizard's scholarly flavor text, the other fits better with the innate powers flavor text of every other class.

I think of spells as being the same fundamental thing as rituals but which have been mastered either by talent or innate gifts just as you say or by ultra long hours of practice (... I say get rid of the standard spellbook swap let alone the extended one its incongruous - how can you swap out the mastery of something gained by long hours of practice? or talent for that matter)  the difference between a spell and a ritual is then just "can this be mastered to perform really fast under untoward circumstances... or cant it."   And you could even see spells as simply having trivialized cost or reusable components in the form of implements.

The additional restriction of daily or encounter could be seen as representing the extra effort involved in such fast casting if you take a daily and spend 4 hours casting it with N amounts of components you could probably do it more than once per day too... shrug.

Fictional example ... In the book Elric of Melnibone, the character descovers he could when desparate fast cast a certain rather potent ritual without any components etc. It was an eye awakening. (wow we has dailies!!!)
 
Breaking things is always faster than fixing or creating them...battle field magic is closer to raw expression of power.

• Reskin/refluff/reflavor your heart out.  I am not a huge stickler for keeping things as they are or banning mechanical concepts based on flavor disagreements.  We can work things out.
• Feats at every level: There are  hundreds of them, if not a  thousand.  Plenty for people to further  tailor their characters.  If  you're worried about people building the  ultimate death machines, limit  the feats they get at abnormal levels to  stuff that isn't as  combat-useful or almost completely  combat-independent (or just come up with more situations you can't entirely solve by charging with a gouge)
• All races gain +2 to two different ability scores.  Racial penalties are abolished (including weapon limitations for the Small size.  Maybe you use a sword bigger than you are, or a small-sized sword that you wield with heroic skill).  Don't let your cool concept be held back by mechanical limitations.



• At-Will Advancement: The only thing that changes about your at-wills   normally is damage.  For at-wills that do more than damage, consider   increasing certain aspects
  
  
  
  
  • Cleave (and cleave-like powers):  At 11th level, it damages two  adjacent enemies instead of one, while at  21st it's each adjacent enemy  other than the original target.  It might  even trigger on a miss or be  an effect.  It might also be treated as a  close attack for ignoring  the defenses of swarms
  
  
  
  • Some ranged implement attacks increase in range to match with the increased range that weapon users can take advantage of
  
  
  
  • Attacks  that allow for forced movement or the characters to  move/shift increase  in distance.  Some might allow teleporting an equal  distance instead of  their normal movement.  With reach, flying and  teleportation common at  higher tiers, it's not that big of a deal
  
  
  
  • Powers that offer defense and offense bonuses shouldn't scale  by  much, but it is an option, especially with the powers that offer a  low  bonus to begin with.
  
  
  
  • Powers that offer healing or temporary hit points increase their benefit at higher levels.  They have to anyways, since just an ability score modifier doesn't scale up fast enough to match monster damage
  
  
  
  • Some powers may pick up additional features, such as Disheartening Strike granting CA to the next attack against it
  • Some powers might target additional defenses (usually Attacks vs. AC targeting Fortitude or Reflex)
  
  
  



• Double  utility powers: You get two utility powers per slot instead  of one.   This is to encourage people to use ones that aren't just  combat  boosters, though it really depends on your group



• No need for class skills: Take whatever you can justify.  Your   primary and secondary ability scores only support so much, so it's not   as though you'll be easily acing hard DCs with a skill outside the norm.



• Alternate ability scores for some skills: It's really sad when a   wizard is the one telling the cleric all about religion.  So give more   options to more people.  Some examples:
  
  
  
  
  • Clerics, Avengers and Invokers can use Wisdom  for Religion, Paladins can use Charisma or  Wisdom.  Sorcerers, Warlocks  and Bards can use Charisma for Arcana  (some Warlocks might use  Constitution).  Trust your instincts, they're  how you channel that power  source to begin with!  Psionic classes might  also be able to use  Charisma or Wisdom for Arcana.
  
  
  
  • You might use Dexterity for Athletics
  
  
  
  • You might use Intelligence for some of the various Knowledge checks such as Nature
  
  
  
  • You might use Charisma or Intelligence for Insight or maybe even Perception
  
  
  
  • You might use Strength or perhaps a different physical score for Intimidate
  
  
  
  • Leader classes can use other ability scores for Heal
  • Some classes might use different skills/ability modifiers, such as a telekinetic psion using Arcana or Intelligence for Athletics and Strength checks, to represent floating around and lifting things with the power of your mind.
    
    
    
    
    • If  you find this stuff to be too much, then you can limit it to one  or two  alternate ability score uses per character, limit things to be based on class (such as Strength for Intimidate being given to fighters or brutal rogues) or require a feat  (with the  caveat that the feat can give training/skill bonus so it's  not just a  tax.  This works better if you give more feats), or you can  just run it  case-by-case and have your player characters tell you how  they're using  Strength to Intimidate the guards.  I'd still hand out  the fixes to  classes who are automatically trained in a skill though  (cleric,  paladin, bard, sorcerer, warlock).  It's nice not to have a  free  albatross around your neck when it comes to skills, since that  erodes  your choices.
    
    
    
  
  
  
• Backgrounds give you an additional trained skill: It's just more fun this way.  Plus, being the class with only three trained skills (Fighters, Battleminds) is just unfun during skill challenges.



• Born  Under A Bad Sign and other similar "use your highest stat for  HP"  backgrounds don't actually do that anymore.  Instead you just get  that  benefit, because it's otherwise something everyone picked  up.  It's just too useful not to pick.   Extra HP over the course of the campaign won't do that much later on (though it can be the difference between consciousness after a blow or not in early heroic tier), and  if it's  a problem just up monster damage by one or two points per tier.  Healing surge totals are where the real battle is.



• Similar to the above, feat taxes that everyone goes for because   they're required (Expertise, Improved Defenses) are handed out for   free.  Your Expertise bonus is added to your racial attacks that need   it.



• Bards are proficient in the rapier: It's an oversight that was missed in the latest round of errata.  Rogues get both the shuriken increased damage size and the +1 to hit that they get with daggers to make it even remotely competitive with slings, handcrossbows and daggers, and also gain proficiency with shortbows/can use them with other rogue powers.
• Classes which need MBAs get them.  Classes who have light armor but no score which boosts AC (Str-Wis rangers, no-Int warlocks, non-Dex barbarians, Con-shamans, swarm druids) get either heavy armor or the ability to use a secondary ability score for AC (barbarians have to trade in Barbarian Agility to get it.  May or may not nerf Barbarian Agility for Whirling Barbarians).  Classes whose primary and secondary ability scores are tied to the same defense (Str-Con/Dex-Int/Wis-Cha) get to use their secondary on a different defense, and maybe other skills as well (such as a Cunning Rogue using Int for Will, Insight, and Perception instead of Wisdom).