House Rules for D&D 3^rd Edition

Introduction

This document is an attempt to standardize my official rulings for interpretable rules and technical details of Wizards Of the Coast's D&D 3^rd Edition. Hopefully, this will clarify certain issues that may become important either during the adventure, or in the act of character creation, since I encourage all my players to come up with unique and interesting characters. Undoubtedly, there will be rules that I have not covered here, that I have forgotten, or that I don't consider pertinent and so have not put any effort into including them here. If I missed something important, it will likely be revised in a later edition of this document. For now, I ask for your patience and your input in how this might become a better document, and/or have any mistakes I've made corrected.

I know this may be a lot to learn and get used to, but game balance is extremely important as it becomes logarithmically more difficult at high levels. These rules serve to assist not only in avoiding confusion, but also to avoid having ½ the party being hopelessly unstoppable, while the other half drop like flies at every challenge.

I may be contacted at the e-mail address gribbles@mail.com if you have any further questions or comments.

-- Dave Warren

Rules specific to this adventure:

·       Official Description:

412 The Universal Nullifier

System: D&D 3.0

Saturday 8 PM in room 154 for 10 hours

GM: Dave Warren

Power Level: 24th lvl

Variations: no psionics, no gods, otherwise outlined at http://thegribbles.tripod.com

Type: RPG

Characters can be provided by GM

The Steak Council has discovered that a forbidden artifact, "The

Universal Nullifier" has been found and will end the multiverse

unless you heroes can prevent it.

List of suitable Sources:

3.0 basic books
Dragon Magazine articles
The Wizard’s of the Coast Website http://www.wizards.com/
Epic Level Handbook
Forgotten Realms Campaign Book
Book of Exalted Deeds
Fiend Folio
Savage Species—Note: the ECLs for most creatures in this book are WRONG! I have a different rule of thumb system for this. If you want, you can use these rules, but see the creature section for more information.
Miniatures Handbook
Monster Manual 2
Manual of the Planes
Book of Vile Darkness—Note:
Defenders Of The Faith
Faiths and Pantheons
Lords of Darkness
Magic of Faerun
Masters of the Wild
Monsters of Faerun
Oriental Adventures
Unapproachable East
Song and Silence
Sword and Fist
Tome and Blood
Complete Warrior – note: only things that do not countermand Sword and Fist, and most things that can only be modeled in 3.5 (such as DR /evil will be modeled differently.
If you have a 3^rd party item that you wish to include, or something that has 3.5 issues from any of the 3.5 books above, mail me at gribbles@mail.com and we can work something out.

Starting money for the adventure will be 1.9 million gold. Prices for epic items are as listed in the Epic Level Handbook, but are usually overpriced, so feel free to just buy a boatload of lower class items. See the semi-epic section for more rules about magic items.
Starting experience for the adventure will be 276,000. Creation of magic items will result in de-leveling. There are enough encounters in the adventure (some of which are especially tough) that people might level during the adventure -- especially those who have de-leveled because of magic item creation. If people wish to keep track of this, I would be happy to allow people to level immediately. You might wish to keep this in mind, and have your next level planned ahead of time. This will keep things flowing since it is often quite tricky at high levels to level your character quickly.
You may not have any Cohorts, but you may have followers of 7^th lvl or below.

no sacred fist
no cursed
no unicorns as your base character.
no mamono
Your character must be of Huge size or less, and be capable of speech.
no spellfire wielders (this is mostly because it can be broken if abused, and I just don't like it)
no Incantatrix (I know this one hurts. It is however, a bit too broken. If you want Improved Metamagic take it as an Epic feat -- see the semi-epic section for more details)
no half clay golem, demilich, or paragon template
no epic pseudonatural template creature with more than 6 hit dice.
no mind rape
no hide life
no earth reaver
no artifacts. You may have powerful magic items that do the same (calculated with normal magic item creation rules), but you cannot have anything that counts as an actual artifact. You might get some as treasure though J.
no half-celestial celestials, no half-fiend fiends, no half-troll trolls, etc. (you can however have a half-fiend tiefling, since you would be like 33/64 fiend or something). This does not mean you can’t take such templates normally, only that creatures of the same race can’t gain a template for breeding with their own creature type.
Frenzied Berserker and War Hulk use 3.5 rules for 2H power attack.

Improved Metamagic requires 26 ranks of Spellcraft and Knowledge:Arcana, and 4 other Metamagic feats.
Legendary Tracker requires 24 ranks in both skills, but is otherwise the same.
All other epic feats that require 30 ranks in a skill require only 27.

Rules that apply to all games I DM:

General Stuff:

If I say something isn’t allowed, then (with a few special exceptions) I won’t use it against you. This is fair, and means you don’t have to plan for things that you can’t possibly possess (like psionics).
Insane ability scores (beyond the bounds of reasonable possibility) will not be accepted. If you need a guaranteed set use these: 18, 16, 16, 14, 13, 11. The preferred method for stat generation is 4d6 drop lowest, reroll ones.
Grabbing something out of a handy haversack is a partial action, so long as the opening to it is reachable.
All DR/- stacks with itself and applies to all damage regardless of type or source. The exception to this is the damage caused by starvation, thirst or suffocation. Damages of different types from the same source stack for the purpose of damage reduction.
Heroic successes and failures apply. This means that a natural 20 becomes a roll of 30, and natural 1 becomes a -10. This applies to attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks and stat checks, but not to initiative.
Things that multiply damage on a critical hit will stack (multiply that lot by two again, etc.), but only if they are from different sources.

Example: PowerMan 5000 has power critical on his mercurial greatsword, is a weapon master for it, is wearing rhino hide armor, and riding a horse using deadly charge. He gets 5(weapon master + power critical for mercurial greatsword) X 3(deadly charge) X 2(rhino hide armor) = 30X damage! Not an easy thing to manage, but very impressive.

· I don’t deal with taint, but if you are something that normally possessed taint, then you will give off an evil aura that cannot be suppressed or hidden (and will probably be noticed in a second by a paladin). This will usually give off an indication of your alignment even without conscious effort by the detector.

· A standard action is a partial action + a move action. A full round action is when you convert your base standard action (both parts at once) in for a bigger chunk called a full round action. A partial action can ONLY be used for an attack, a partial charge, or a spell (or spell like ability, supernatural or extraordinary abilities) that only takes “one action” to do. Anything that can be performed as a partial action can also be performed as a part of a standard action.

What will be expected to present upon entering the game:

A character sheet specifying all your carried equipment, how it is being carried, all your relevant computed numerical figures, and an explanation of how you generated those numbers including bonus types for stackability purposes.
A itemized list of purchased equipment including cost, experience used in its creation, etc.
A complete planning page explaining what levels were taken in what order, what feats were taken at what levels, and what discretionary stat points went where, etc.

Feats

A feat is a special ability that lets you use your actions for things other than the basic uses of attack, cast a spell, etc. or adjusts any of those to do different things. All feats work in any context you would normally get actions.
Power Lunge with a 2H weapon gives you 3 times your strength modifier in damage, but is otherwise the same.
We use the version of expert tactician from the 1^st printing of Sword and Fist. If you make someone flat footed as a result of a partial action, a free action or a no action on your part, this feat will not activate.
Improved Trip can trigger a Knockdown attempt.
Monkey Grip can be used to hold a single weapon two size categories larger than you in both hands.
Any feat that grants the character a flat bonus (to a skill, a class ability, etc.) can be taken multiple times. Exceptions to this are improved initiative, spellcasting prodigy, feats that deal with random bonuses, feats that grant additional attacks,
Expertise and Power Attack can always be used up to the character’s base attack bonus, but if used together, the base attack must be divided.
Dirty Fighting adds a bonus +1d4 damage to each attack of a full attack action. The damage type matches the weapon’s.
Jack of All Trades does not apply to knowledge skills.

Class abilities

Supreme cleave is not limited to one 5-foot step per round. You can make as many 5-foot steps (or fractions thereof) that would equal a distance you could cover in a double move.

Base Classes

Barbarian:

Barbarians have good reflex save and gain evasion at 3^rd level, and improved evasion at the 14^th level.
They also get damage reduction 1/- every 5 levels

Bard:

All bardic lore (such as Loremaster) stacks with any other lore as well as any knowledge skill taken by the character concerning material relevant to the check. Example: Rayne Portence, the girl who knows everything, is a 15th level bard who has maxed out ranks of many knowledge skills. Her total bonus for those knowledge skills will be 15 (her bardic lore) +18 (her maxed out skill ranks) +8 (her int mod) = +41.
Bards have a base 6 skill points per level

Monk:

The monk base attack bonus superior number of attacks per round is not limited arbitrarily at five per round.
Monk superior base move speed is never considered supernatural, even above 60 feet. This means that expeditious retreat will double it at any level.
All monk Ki abilities continue to function in an anti-magic field.
No more than one monk Ki power that requires a save can be made in a single strike.
Characters with monk base attack and normal base attack may choose to stack their base attacks together for the purposes of determining to hit at the normal fall off, but must use only the monk base attack for the superior fall off.

Paladin:

The paladin’s detect evil vision is always active with the benefits of first round of use, until you concentrate, and can get more precise results.

Sorcerer:

A sorcerer with the Quicken Spell feat may cast one quickened spell per round as a free action. This does not incur a sorcerer's full round casting of metamagic enhanced spells, but the spell still takes up a slot 4 levels higher.

Prestige classes

For the purposes of qualifying for a prestige class, the feat gained at the first, third, sixth, etc. levels happens before the class is taken, and may be used as a prerequisite feat for that level's class. This policy is true for discretionary stat points, but not for skills, spell slots, saves, or base attack bonus -- all of whom are granted by the character’s classes.
If a class would cause you to loose something, (a class ability, access to certain spells, or part of your spell progression, etc.) then you can choose to loose it before or after the class’ other features, but it still must be lost before the character has actually leveled.

Example: Scaroth the drow fighter wishes to become a Forsaker. In order to manage this, she needs to have the Lightning Reflexes feat. Her intelligent sword would normally grant this feat to her, but she will need to part with it to become a Forsaker, so she decides to loose it after the training/leveling. Once she is apart from her sword, she no longer has the feat, but is still a Forsaker. (Note that this is kind of a bad example, but it’s the best I could think of on short notice.)

Skills:

General:

Anytime a feat grants you a bonus to a skill, that skill is now a class skill for you.
If a skill ever appears on your class skill list for any class you take, that skill is a class skill for you from then on.

Example: Nathan takes a rogue level at first and gains massive skills, and then takes a level of bard at second. Starting at second level, he now has all skills except Heal, Animal Empathy, Handle Animal, and Ride as class skills, even if he goes back to rogue or becomes a wizard.

Jump:

A jump check is never limited by the jumper’s height. Jumps can always be shortened to any desired height or distance as a no action.

Balance

Balance can be used to counter trip attacks. DC is 10+total trip attack check.

Intimidate:

Use of the skill intimidate can never be used to require a will save DC on the part of those affected, instead it is treated as if it were diplomacy and upgrade or downgrade the subject's reaction status. A favorable result will produce an intimidated or frightened subject. This will usually end up providing useful benefits, but has no specific game effect.

Iaijutsu Focus:

As a standard action (not a partial action) you can use Iaijutsu Focus on a flat-footed opponent within your reach. This need not be the first round of a combat, but you must be able to draw your sword from a sheath on your person, and may not have a weapon, or a shield other than a buckler, in your off hand. You cannot perform Iaijutsu while wielding a weapon two-handed.

Movement

Characters with a move speed in excess of normal have a longer “5-foot step” than characters with normal move speed. This applies only to those who by class feature or template, etc. have an unrepresentative base move. For those characters, divide the base move by the normal move (rounding down), and multiply by 5 feet. A 5-foot step can only be made in a strait line, but it need not fit a grid direction.

Magic Items

Metamagic feat rods are available for all metamagic feats, and have prices analogous to those in Tome & Blood. Metamagic feat rods of Heighten Spell or other metamagic past +4 are epic items, and I’m not sure how to price them. Likely they would be too expensive to buy reasonably, but if you have a desperate need, e-mail me.
Custom-made Magic items that are functionally identical to available items will not be accepted unless they cost the same amount. (This means you, Jim! No ring of infinite delay poison for you! Bad munchkin! J)
No use-activated or command word items that cast 9^th level spells.

Spells

Shapechange: Your assumed form can be any non-unique creature from fine to colossal. The assumed form can be up to twice your caster level in hit dice (to a max of 50 HD) and cannot have a CR higher than your caster level. Other than this, it is as in the Player’s Handbook.
Time Stop: You cannot cast time stop from within a time stop, but any time saving measures that can normally be applied (such as quicken spell, haste, etc.) will remain active in time stop. All time-based recharge items on your person (such as a circlet of blasting) do not reset inside a time stop, but your natural ones (such as a breath weapon) will recharge normally for you.
Detect good/evil will be able to identify both good and evil, but if you find a strong aura of something with a similar alignment to you, it will not cause any ailments to view it.

Creatures

As a rule of thumb, a creature’s ECL is 1.5 times it’s CR rounded up.
Character class hit dice count as racial hit dice for determining the DCs of racially granted abilities as well as abilities whose availability is determined by the base creature’s hit dice.

Semi-Epic Rules

All prestige classes that your character has taken can be continued after the 20th level. All benefits gained from that class that can fit a pattern -- regular or irregular -- even if they had 5 levels -- can be gained again after the 20th level. If you are unsure, e-mail me.

For example, the Red Wizard prestige class offers two benefits that occur mostly regularly through the 10 level progression. That of spell power +1 every other level, and specialist defense almost every other level. I won't bother about it being exactly a pattern. As long as it can work, you can gain the benefits.

Items that produce an effect that does not list a maximum in the normal magic item creation section can have a caster level higher than 20 and not be an epic item for the purpose of monetary multiplier. The only exception to this is the skill pump items, which require the creator to have the same number of ranks in the skill as the item grants and therefore must be epic above 23.
Anytime a character who’s ECL is (at the time they gain the feat) higher than 20 gains a bonus feat, it can be taken from the list of epic feats. Normal feat class limitations apply (e.g. fighter must be taken from fighter list, wizard from wizard, etc.)
Any character with more than 20 character levels can take the epic version of any of the base classes as if they had 20 levels of that class. Class abilities grow normally and stack with the epic levels. The character gains the listed abilities in the order specified, and saving throws also continue to increase at the same rate, as if you had taken a level in the base class.

Base Attack Bonus:

Characters with more than +20 base attack bonus still have one attack per round per +5 bonus, rounded up. Characters with more than 20 levels of any combination still gain base attack bonus as they would if they were non-epic characters taking the same class. Epic prestige classes not directly analogous to non-Epic prestige classes are divided into two categories: those that require a high base attack bonus and/or numerous fighter feats gain good base attack bonus, all others gain has wizard. Of course, characters that have lots of attacks per round and don't want to use all of them (because many of them have a very small chance of hitting) may forgo those attacks completely.

Saving Throws:

In the same way as base attack bonus, epic prestige classes analogous to non-epic classes continue the progression as if you had taken more than the maximum level of the class. For epic classes not analogous to non-epic ones, the results are this: classes with 6 or more skill points per level get just good reflex, spellcasting classes get only will, fighting classes (those that meet the above requirements for good base attack bonus) get only fort, and monk classes get all three.