The House Always Wins
Hello and welcome all,
In this page we'll be discussing some house rulings, and what they mean for you as a player, as well as for you as a character. I'll begin by breaking down the rulings between story and gameplay, as categorized below. Story rulings directly affect things such as: Character creation, Character backstories, and the world of Aneirys herself. Gameplay rulings affect things like combat, downtime, and travel.
I have a simple set of things I need to know about your characters to tie them in if you want them to truly be a part of the world around them, and it's all super simple stuff that you do normally anyway. Here's the list:
Part of the reason I'm reaching out about this game without a set date for starting is that I'm relatively open to quite a few third-party options for characters, but I'll need to write some world stuff as to how that race exists in Aneirys. So if when making your character you have an idea for a race or class that isn't core, please reach out about it. Another interesting idea that was brought up to me handles how Intelligence works on a character. I've found that Intelligence seems to have gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to attributes, so I'm proposing a bit of a shift:
Variant Intelligence - Intelligence Proficiencies
The idea is as follows: At time of creation, your character may select a number of additional skill/language/tool proficiencies equal to half of your INT mod, rounded up. The Table below should do an okay job explaining what that looks like.
To make things simpler in combat, and to hopefully speed up the combat to the more entertaining bits - I'm looking to use a standardized system of movement. Moving in any direction costs a standard of five feet per square. Diagonal movement is the same. This system does come with a small heads up.
D&D is, at it's core, a storytelling game about brave heroes and their iconic styles and abilities. As a result, I'm not the biggest fan of fifth edition's restrictions on Magic Items due to attunement. For those of you who have played a game of mine before, you know that I'll often reward with homebrewed magical items (if any) or simple utility magical items. In Aneirys, it will be much the same, and most of these won't require attunement to be used properly - and as such, won't fall into the "Max 3 Attuned Items" ruling. If there is a specific magical item you want, you'll (hopefully) most likely talk to me about it - and I'll go from there.
Sprinting is one of those "one and done" rulings. Any character at any point may sprint during combat. This is a full-round action, requiring your move, attack, bonus, and most likely your free actions. In return, your character moves at five times their normal move speed in a straight line. This action always provokes an attack of opportunity.
When leveling your character up (or creating them from scratch), each level beyond first will be rolled rather than averaged - and you may reroll 1s.
here's much to like about this system, and much to have gripes with. For instance, even with the subclass system, characters can often feel like they must be played in the way they are meant to be played - sometimes going so far as to feel punishing when you deviate from the norm. To attempt to correct this (as well as provide a wider development path for characters) I'll be looking into implementing a sort of "combination level up" whenever an ability score increase is granted.
Currently, the changes are: Whenever an ability score increase is granted (4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, 20th) you may choose to take both a feat and increase your stats. Doing so still requires you be mindful of the attribute hardcap of twenty, and if the feat in question were to also increase an attribute, you sacrifice the increase granted by the feat.
In this page we'll be discussing some house rulings, and what they mean for you as a player, as well as for you as a character. I'll begin by breaking down the rulings between story and gameplay, as categorized below. Story rulings directly affect things such as: Character creation, Character backstories, and the world of Aneirys herself. Gameplay rulings affect things like combat, downtime, and travel.
Story
Backstories
If you haven't read The World of Aneirys, I highly suggest you do so - it's a brief explanation as to what your party is and why you're there! It's also free to read, so no real drawbacks!I have a simple set of things I need to know about your characters to tie them in if you want them to truly be a part of the world around them, and it's all super simple stuff that you do normally anyway. Here's the list:
- Where are you from? (Location, friends, family)
- How did you discover what you were? (Class)
- What milestone events have occurred? (Class levels 2 & 3)
- Why did you go to Halgen and become an Adventurer?
- Where did you travel through between home and Halgen?
- If you travelled, did you meet anyone from those towns/cities?
Alignment
I may get a lot of flak over this, but I don't really subscribe to the idea that alignment is a static part of your characters. I understand if you had to choose an alignment because of a class restriction, but as far as I'm concerned both morals and ideals are dynamic and ever-changing. So unless you specifically need an alignment for a certain ability or feature, don't worry about picking one.Character Creation
Part of the reason I'm reaching out about this game without a set date for starting is that I'm relatively open to quite a few third-party options for characters, but I'll need to write some world stuff as to how that race exists in Aneirys. So if when making your character you have an idea for a race or class that isn't core, please reach out about it. Another interesting idea that was brought up to me handles how Intelligence works on a character. I've found that Intelligence seems to have gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to attributes, so I'm proposing a bit of a shift:
Variant Intelligence - Intelligence Proficiencies
The idea is as follows: At time of creation, your character may select a number of additional skill/language/tool proficiencies equal to half of your INT mod, rounded up. The Table below should do an okay job explaining what that looks like.
Gameplay
Grid Movement Change
To make things simpler in combat, and to hopefully speed up the combat to the more entertaining bits - I'm looking to use a standardized system of movement. Moving in any direction costs a standard of five feet per square. Diagonal movement is the same. This system does come with a small heads up.
Enemies also use this movement.
Altered Attunement
D&D is, at it's core, a storytelling game about brave heroes and their iconic styles and abilities. As a result, I'm not the biggest fan of fifth edition's restrictions on Magic Items due to attunement. For those of you who have played a game of mine before, you know that I'll often reward with homebrewed magical items (if any) or simple utility magical items. In Aneirys, it will be much the same, and most of these won't require attunement to be used properly - and as such, won't fall into the "Max 3 Attuned Items" ruling. If there is a specific magical item you want, you'll (hopefully) most likely talk to me about it - and I'll go from there.
Sprinting
Sprinting is one of those "one and done" rulings. Any character at any point may sprint during combat. This is a full-round action, requiring your move, attack, bonus, and most likely your free actions. In return, your character moves at five times their normal move speed in a straight line. This action always provokes an attack of opportunity.
Hit Dice
When leveling your character up (or creating them from scratch), each level beyond first will be rolled rather than averaged - and you may reroll 1s.
Ability Feat Scores
T
here's much to like about this system, and much to have gripes with. For instance, even with the subclass system, characters can often feel like they must be played in the way they are meant to be played - sometimes going so far as to feel punishing when you deviate from the norm. To attempt to correct this (as well as provide a wider development path for characters) I'll be looking into implementing a sort of "combination level up" whenever an ability score increase is granted.
Currently, the changes are: Whenever an ability score increase is granted (4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, 20th) you may choose to take both a feat and increase your stats. Doing so still requires you be mindful of the attribute hardcap of twenty, and if the feat in question were to also increase an attribute, you sacrifice the increase granted by the feat.
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