Miscelleneous house rules

The effects of feats, magical enhancements, and/or psionic enhancements which increase a weapon's 'threat range' do NOT stack. Thus, a keen rapier in the hands of someone with the Improved Critical (rapier) feat has a threat range of 15-20 (instead of 12-20 as it would be if they stacked).

My apologies to those who had their heart set on nearly guaranteed threats on every hit, but I had to decide between removing keen weapons from the game, or putting this ruling into effect. I prefer to leave the keen weapons in, for those who do not want to take improved critical but desire to strive for a keen weapon some day. On the bright side, this removes the possibility of the opponents of the PC's having the same abilities...which in the end, makes the house rule more of a benefit to the pc's than it is a hindrance.

Death and Dieing

Normally a character is disabled upon reaching 0 hitpoints, unconscious if less than 0, and dead upon reaching -10 or lower hit points. With this rules variant, a pc subtracts their Constitution bonus to provide a range for disabled but still conscious, and 2x CON bonus for negative points before death. Additionally, a PC with the Toughness feat may add the 1 point from to their 'conscious and death ranges.'

Thus, a pc with a CON of 18 (+4 bonus) is disabled but still conscious from 0 to -4 hps, Unconscious from -4 to -17, and dead upon reaching -18 or lower. If this pc also had the toughness feat, they would be disabled but conscious from 0 to -5 and would not die until reaching -18.

For those with a Constitution penalty instead of bonus, no modifier is applied to disabled (thus 0 hp's is disabled) and their constitution penalty (not doubled) is applied to determine death.

Thus, a PC with a Constitution penalty of -2 is disabled at 0 hitpoints, unconscious from -1 to -7 hitpoints, and dead upon reaching -8 or lower.

This rules variant is introduced to reflect that those with higher constitution are better able to handle severe trauma, pain, blood-loss, etc.

Stabilizing rolls: A character who is reduced below 0 hitpoints loses 1 hitpoint each round until they are stabilized. If they receive aid in the form of successful healing skillcheck or magical healing, they automatically stabilize. Without such aid, the chance of stabilizing requires a successful d20 roll vs. DC19.

Harm Spell Addendum

Currently the Harm spell is a bit overpowered, given it's a touch attack and gets no saving throw. It is hereby modified so that it gets a Fortitude Save like the other Inflict spell; if successful, the target will lose half only half of his hit points minus 1d4.

Hit points on level advancement

As in the core rules, all characters at 1st-level get 'maximum' hit points and need not roll. Additionally, upon attaining a new level, certain dreadfully low results are 'thrown out', allowing the player to re-roll. Results considered dreadfully low vary by class, as determined on the table below:

Instant Kills

There are two rules regarding potential 'instant death' situations. The first is the Massive Damage rule from the core books, and the 2nd is a variant on the optional Instant Kill rule from the DMG.

Death from Massive Damage

Any time a character or creature takes 50 or more points of damage from a single blow or attack form (spell, breath weapon, etc.) a Fortitude save (DC15) must be made. Failure results in instant death from shock and trauma, regardless of how many hit points the wounded person/creature has remaining.

Instant Kill Criticals

Any time a creature or player rolls a natural 20 to hit and then gets a natural 20 on their crit roll, yet another roll to attack is made. Should this third roll be sufficient to hit as well, a 'potential instant kill' is landed. The player or creature rolls critical damage normally, and the target is wounded for that amount of damage. Additionally, the target must successfully make a Fortitude save vs. a DC equal to the amount of damage taken or be instantly slain by the blow. Note that the 1st attack and 2nd roll (the crit roll) must both be a natural 20, not just a roll within the crit-range of the weapon. This is to prevent weapons, feats, and magical items with greater threat ranges from becoming far more powerful than they are intended.

This is modified from the optional rule as presented in the DMG in that it DOES allow a saving throw. As presented in the DMG, it is plain and simple an instant death with NO save. The saving throw is allowed to give victims a fighting chance. It should be noted, however, that a typical critical is going to do a hefty amount of damage, so that saving throw won't usually be all that easy. :-)

Language skill addendum

As in the core rules, all characters (other than Barbarians) begin play with literacy in any languages that they have. NOTE: there are limitations on what languages can be taken at character creation with regards to the human tongues and the olde tongues. All languages listed in the PHB are fair game, however, for other languages on the language trees, please consult your DM to be sure you qualify.

Any additional languages taken during the game must be either taken as Speak Language (language name) OR Read Language (language name), thus requiring 2 ranks in order to both speak and read/write any new languages.

For languages which are 'related' to one of your starting languages, ranks can be purchases as class skills. Languages outside of this requisite, however, are purchased as cross-class skills and require the standard 2 skill-points per rank, thus requiring 4 skill points in order to both speak and read the tongue. The language tree shows related languages, for the purposes of determining whether a language can be treated as a 'class skill' or not, assume that any language connected to one of your starting languages by only one level are 'related.'

Languages taken prior to the implementation of this rule are exempt (i.e. grandfathered in).

Resurrection in the Campaign

In order to justify that even nobility and influential people DO die, there will be a certain amount of uncertainty in resurrection (and raise dead, etc.). For a character to come back from the dead, he must roll a Diplomacy or Charisma check. The base DC of this check is 8, modified as indicated on the following table:.

	DC
Base DC of resurrection check	8
Person has died before	+ 4 for each previous death
Faith of the cleric performing ritual or that of the person being raised is the 'death/afterlife god(dess) of their pantheon (i.e. Wee Jas)	-4
Faith of the cleric performing ritual, or that of the person being raised, is of a deity very closely allied to the pantheon's death/afterlife god(dess). (i.e. Norebo) (This does NOT stack with the -4 for being of the actual afterlife/death deities fate...only the best of the two modifiers applies))	-2
Cleric performing ritual is of same faith as person being raised.	- 2 AND - Cha bonus of priest
Person has lived quite piously and true to his faith	- 2
Person has lived impiously, and/or paid little attention to matters of religion	+ 4
Person has performed several great services for the faith of the cleric performing the ritual in the last several years.	- 2
Person has performed numerous great services for the faith of the cleric performing the ritual in the last several years.	-4
Person has actively wronged or opposed the faith of the cleric performing the ritual in the last few years.	+ 4
Person has grievously wronged, or aggressively opposed the faith of the cleric performing the ritual in the last decade.	+8
Person is an atheist	+ 8*
Cleric performing ritual is of an 'allied faith' to that of the person being raised	- Cha bonus of priest
The faith of the cleric and that of the person being raised are ambivalent or neutral towards one another.	+ 4
Cleric performing ritual is of an 'opposed faith' to that of the person being raised	+ 8
The faith of the cleric performing the ritual is actively an enemy of the faith of the person being raised.	No chance of success

*Note that in the case of an atheist, not only is the DC modified by +8, but most clerics will be of a faith considered at the very least 'neutral or ambivalent' towards atheism, resulting in an additional +4 to the DC, for a total of +12. Also, many faiths are NOT ambivalent towards atheism, and in such cases the 'opposed faith' modifier is added as well. Atheism is not a good idea if you want the gods to be willing to return you to life. . .

Failure: This attempt cannot be 'retried.' Matters of the divine are not to be trifled with, and only one raise attempt can be made per death. One must choose wisely the priest to perform such a ritual the first time, for the gods simply won't even listen a second time. (Think of it as multiple attempts being viewed as 'badgering the gods,' something which is just never a very good idea.)

Tumbling addendum

When using the tumbling skill to avoid Attacks of Opportunity, in addition to a failure resulting in possible AoO, should any AoO from an opponent whose square you have gone THROUGH actually hit the tumbling character, the character must make a balance check of DC10+damage taken or be knocked prone in the adjacent square from which they came. A successful Balance check still causes the character to be stopped in the square from which they came, but they do not fall prone.

Failure of the tumbling check when trying to pass through threatened (but unoccupied) squares is handled normally, the player suffers AoO, but still completes the movement.

The optional Tumbling rule introduced in Song & Silence is replacing the prior house rule regarding tumbling through threatened or occupied squares. This rule allows opponents to make a reflex save vs. the result of your tumble check. If the check succeeds, they are allowed attacks of opportunity as normal. Opponents receive a plus 10 on their reflex save if you are going THROUGH the square they occupy.

Additionally, the rules for "extreme tumbling" as detailed in Oriental Adventures have been adopted for the campaign. The table below details what can be accomplished:

Extreme Tumbling table

Weapon Proficiencies Addendum

Martial Weapon Groups

Instead of each martial weapon requiring a separate proficiency, martial weapons are classed into groups, and each proficiency gains the feat taker familiarity with all members of the group. This only applies to proficiency, other weapon specific feats still must be applied to a specific weapon. Classes which already start with "martial weapon proficiency" already have all weapon groups. These groups are:

Axes: Throwing axe, hand axe, battle axe, great axe, dwarven waraxe (wielded as a Large weapon), halberd.

Hammers/Picks: Light hammer, warhammer, light pick, heavy pick, greatclub.

Large Swords: falchion, great sword, bastard sword (wielded as a Large weapon).

Exotic Weapon Prerequisites

When taking an Exotic Weapon Proficiency, it is necessary first to have the Martial Weapon Group Proficiency for the weapon type, too. For example, to use a dire flail, one would not only have to have the Exotic Weapon Proficiency for the dire flail, but the Martial Weapon Proficiency for flails. Weapons that have no martial antecedent (such as bolas) may ignore this rule.

Bow Feat Conversion

When acquiring a feat that requires specification of weapon for its effects (such as Weapon Specialization or Improved Critical) regular and composite versions of a long or shortbow are considered to be the same, so only the distinction between long and shortbow need be made.

House Rules for the Campaign

Criticals and Threat ranges