This is the first of a few pages to clarify some house rules for the Tales of Greyhawk Campaign. They represent my ideas for an ideal game. If there's something here that players disagree with, I'd be happy to talk it through.
Other pages will include:
- Class-Specific Rules (for class abilities and features)
If characters show an interest, I might add
Note: Some of these may become more difficult/problematic while using D&D Beyond.
Hit Points
At each level, players choose whether to roll for hit points, or take the average. The average is half the die rounded up, so a character with a d6 Hit Dice (average 3.5) takes 4, a d10 takes 6, and so on. If a player rolls for hit points, they roll their hit dice for that level. They can then take their first roll or choose to reroll the dice, but they must take the results of the second roll, even if it is lower. Players may reroll any result of a “1”, this does not count as a roll or reroll.
Reasoning: You have a better chance of a higher hit point total with the random rolls, but it's not guaranteed. Low hit points sucks, so I think in this case it's better to let a player choose to take average, and a roll of a 1 on a hit point roll is always unacceptable.
Character Information
When creating a character, I would like you to think of the following things, some crunch, but others fluff.
- Name. When choosing a name, no modern or joke names, or movie/tv character references. If you're going for a laugh or even a chuckle, choose a different name.
- Background – tie this into your character’s story
- You can choose either an Ethnicity or a Region. (See Humans for human ethnicities)
- Describe your character's looks: eyes, hair, general height and weight (skinny, tall, average), distinguishing features.
- Family and friends, or lack thereof
- Are you a member of an organization?
- Who is your patron deity? (See Core Pantheon or open the Faiths of Oerth tab for other pantheons and gods)
Why did you choose to adventure?
For the Tales of Greyhawk Campaign, all characters start in
Diamond Lake. You could have grown up there, or are stuck in town for some other reason. Look for an upcoming Post "Why Diamond Lake?" for ideas.
Your characters all know one another, although they may not be friends or close associates, but you're all stuck in Diamond Lake. Many of you may have run afoul of Kullen's Bulldogs. Once we get to character creation, I'll try to help characters forge connections.
Reasoning: These questions and the next few choices are an attempt to ground the character in the game world, and giving some minor advantages for doing that.
Ethnicity or Region
Characters, in addition to choosing a Background, should choose an Ethnicity or a Region. In Greyhawk, the character could be Oeridian, or maybe they're from Furyondy.
If the player chooses an Ethnicity or Region, they gain the benefit of a "Knowledge" skill. Knowledge (Furyondy), or Knowledge (Oeridian) that they can use when a question comes up about that topic. For an Ethnicity, it might be a question about customs, etiquette, terms of address, etc. For a Region it might be a political question, who rules the next town, what's the best way to get into the city, etc. There is some overlap with the History skill, but this represents knowledge of your culture and home. You can't use Knowledge (Furyondy) to understand something about the Free City of Greyhawk.
A player can choose both, but they gain the advantage of only one of them, so the player needs to prioritize, does the character identify more with their region, or their ethnicity.
If a player chooses a hometown, the character also gets Knowledge (their hometown), and can make those rolls as if specialized (double the proficiency bonus).
Note: I don't know how to implement this in D&D Beyond, so we may just handwave it, or try and figure out how to implement it at the table.
Example: Bragi Autumnfyr was the eldest son of an animal trainer in the Hold of the Sea Princes, looking at the map, he was raised in the small town of Port Westkeep. He gains Knowledge (Sea Princes) as a skill. He also gains Knowledge (Port Westkeep), and has specialization on any knowledge roll about his hometown.
Languages
In Greyhawk, the Common tongue is Aerdi, which was spread throughout the Flanaess when the Aerdy Empire controlled most of the continent. The Flanaess is also something of a melting pot, most humans are a mix of ethnicities. That said, if your character is a full-blooded (or mostly) Flan (or other ethnicity), you will get the bonus language Flannae, same for the other ethnicities, very similar to starting with elven if you roll up an elf.
As a house rule, every character may choose a number of bonus languages equal to their intelligence bonus. Intelligence penalties do not result in fewer languages. This is in addition to any languages learned through class, background, feat, or character ability.
See the Languages page for more information on the languages of Oerth.
Reasoning: Language is an important part of the game worlds, and hand-waving it all with "everyone speaks common" limits some of the nuance of any world. Meeting a magic-hating Schnai barbarian who only speaks Fruz can be a fun encounter, especially if the wizard is the only one in the party who speaks Fruz. Or maybe all of the characters in the party speak Velondi, and use that to have private conversations in public. I think there's a module on Foundry that can let the characters type in the chat "in-language".
Experience Points
Experience Points are assigned at the end of each session. Experience is earned by overcoming obstacles, meeting challenges, and continuing the story. While combat is certainly a way of meeting some challenges, sneaking past the bear is worth as much as killing the bear. Outsmarting or outmaneuvering antagonists counts as overcoming obstacles. In fact there are times when combat is the worst solution. Fighting the king's guard to speak to the king is certain to result in the party being unable to convince the king of anything, and killing a shopkeeper is not a challenge, nor does it do anything to continue the story. Traps are a good example to use. Think of a trap on a treasure chest. Unless the chest holds something relevant to the storyline, removing its traps and picking the lock aren't worth XP. Bypassing a trapped room, or opening the vault to obtain the Orb of Dragonkind would be worth XP, and possibly require more than a quick d20 roll.
The Temple Campaign didn't have a lot of opportunities for Downtime, but this new campaign will have considerably more. Downtime is one of the main ways that the player characters can shape the world and the campaign, whether its founding an organization, building a base of operations, even buying and selling items or spending a week carousing/barhopping adds depth to the campaign and increases player agency. Downtime actions also earn experience points, unless you spend all of your downtime, resting in your room.
Part of the Temple Campaign focused on using the Domain-Building Rules. While these would also be worth experience, I don't think we are going in that direction for this campaign, unless you surprise me.
Characters Below Level
Because players sometimes miss games or bring in new characters, some characters may be below level. Even if a player misses multiple sessions, their character will always be kept at most one level lower than the highest party member's level, adjusting their XP as needed.
Earn XP Downtime Action
Players who have missed sessions can gain XP using the Downtime Action "Earn XP". This allows the character to catch up, but not exceed the maximum XP total of the group (which the GM will track).
Inspiration
Player's Handbook
Inspiration is a rule the Dungeon Master can use to reward you for playing your character in a way that’s true to his or her personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw. By using inspiration, you can draw on your personality trait of compassion for the downtrodden to give you an edge in negotiating with the Beggar Prince. Or inspiration can let you call on your bond to the defense of your home village to push past the effect of a spell that has been laid on you.
Gaining Inspiration: Your DM can choose to give you inspiration for a variety of reasons. Typically, DMs award it when you play out your personality traits, give in to the drawbacks presented by a flaw or bond, and otherwise portray your character in a compelling way. Your DM will tell you how you can earn inspiration in the game. You either have inspiration or you don’t—you can’t stockpile multiple “inspirations” for later use.
Using Inspiration: If you have inspiration, you can expend it when you make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check. Spending your inspiration gives you advantage on that roll. Additionally, if you have inspiration, you can reward another player for good roleplaying, clever thinking, or simply doing something exciting in the game. When another player character does something that really contributes to the story in a fun and interesting way, you can give up your inspiration to give that character inspiration.
House Rule
Everyone starts each game session with Inspiration. In addition if a character does something heroic or just plain cool, another player can request Inspiration for that action. If a character does something that makes everyone at the table stop, claps, laugh, etc. that should probably be a cause for Inspiration. I'm paying attention to too many things, so I won't pick up on it. I'm turning it over to the players. That said, don't abuse it, "Rudy stabs the big bad in the back." is not a reason for Inspiration, Rudy stabs everyone in the back if she can. Players request, GM gets the final say.
Character Death
In case of a character death, the player may roll up a new character, who starts one level below their previous character. The new character’s experience total is set at the midpoint of that level. New characters must be fundamentally different from the previous character, NO Bob the Barbarian the Third.
Alignment
Greyhawk is more Conan and Gray Mouser and Lankhmar than Forgotten Realms and LOTR. Much less black and white and more many shades of Grey. Alignment is primarily the realm of outer-planar creatures, and even that can change. Celestials have a good aura, demons are chaotic evil, devils are lawful evil, and undead are generally evil, although a corrupted celestial may have an evil alignment, and a redeemed demon or devil could be good. For the most part, anyone on the material plane does not register an alignment unless they tie themselves to a power. Paladins, clerics, and warlocks are known for having an aura of good or evil depending on their patrons.
For most purposes, lets ignore alignment in this game, people (and characters) should be judged on how they act, not what's on their character sheet. That said, it brings up a sticking point for me (see the next section).
Inter-Character Conflict
Gimli and Legolas had a rivalry that spanned the novels, elves and dwarves don't always see eye-to-eye. The paladin and the rogue may trade barbs throughout the campaign. That is perfectly okay, to a point.
Both PLAYERS should agree to role-play the rivalry, and if I feel like it's getting uncomfortable I will step in and ask that the player(s) back off a bit. The players should regularly check in with one another (maybe in side-chat) to make sure that things are going okay. If that's not happening and one of the players starts getting uncomfortable, let me know. I tend to have less tolerance, so I may have already started to intervene.
That said. There is never a point where PvP (player versus player) is acceptable in my game. Argue and disagree all you want. If one player begins to take actions against another player, that character will be eaten by a great red wyrm that happens to have a +30 to hit (and advantage), swallowed whole and incinerated in the wyrm's stomach, or something maybe more appropriate to the story at the time. PvP isn't happening in my campaigns, period.
Non-Lethal Damage
Rules as Written. Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable.
Slight Change to Rules as Written here. If your intent is not to kill, but to incapacitate or knock out an enemy, you must make that determination before you attack. When you make a non-lethal attack you "pull your punch" in some way. This requires a -2 to hit, which is equivalent to the target having cover. Targets brought to 0 hp using non-lethal attacks are unconscious, but stabilized, even if some lethal attacks were used during the combat.
Note: This applies to PCs targeted with non-lethal attacks as well.
Secondary Skills (aka Tool Proficiencies)
Tool proficiencies are changed in my campaigns, and are replaced with Secondary Skills. Instead of Blacksmithing Tools, you are trained as a Blacksmith, instead of Thieves' Tools, you are trained in Thievery. The Secondary Skill proficiency is expanded a bit, instead of just being able to use the tools, an Innkeep may be able to tell if the wine you're drinking is watered down, or an unusual color, or maybe realize that the "patrons" of an establishment don't seem like patrons at all.
Based on the character's background story, I will add a Secondary skill for each character that represents a character's upbringing, but you have to work with me here. If you said that you character is from a farming family, it might be Farmer, Butcher, or Animal Husbandry. If you insist that your character was raised studying at the monastery and did nothing else then I won't be able to add any secondary skills (in other words, work with me here). The player may also choose to switch out gaming set (gambler) or musical instrument with a secondary skill.
Vehicle skills apply to all vehicles of a type, land (Driver), sea (Sailor), or air (Aeronaut, uncommon), and don't need to be taken for each vehicle separately. Musical Instruments are also categorized, Strings, Wind, Percussion, in the same manner.
Example: Bragi was raised by an animal trainer, but animal handling is not a secondary skill, so he'll take Animal Handling as one of his Ranger Skills. Maybe he spent time in the stables tooling leather (Leatherworking) or whittling (Woodcarving). However, the player goes in a different direction, when Bragi was caught with a nobleman's daughter he was sold into slavery and forced to worked in the mines, so he chooses Miner as his secondary skill. Common secondary skills flesh out the character more, and can be useful in certain circumstances, but they're not game breaking.
Hiding
Since RAW states that "The DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for Hiding", here's my (the GM's) take, using an example.
There needs to be a chance for the creature you are hiding from to lose track of you. Hiding behind a tree in the woods, the creature is never going to be certain which tree. Hiding behind the one tree in an open meadow, if the target doesn't know you're there, you make a Hide Check. If you have a sniper ability that lets you attack and hide before the target can see you, still doesn't know you're there. You pop out from behind the "only" tree, take a shot, the target sees you, then you pop back behind the tree. If I'm the target, I will keep guarding against the sniper behind the tree. I know you're there. I may not be able to see you behind the tree (full cover), but I'm not giving you a clean shot.
Magic Item Attunement
A relaxation of the Attunement Rules, a character may attune to a number of items equal to his Proficiency Bonus +1. This gives an extra attunement at 5th, 11th, and 16th level. This combines with added attunements from class features.
Reasoning: Three items limits each character to a set of basic magic gear for their character type. For martial characters, armor almost always requires attunement, and all the best weapons do as well, leaving one slot for that random item. Spellcasters usually have a spell-enhancing item, a staff or wand (most require attunement, and that random slot. I thought of just getting rid of attunement, but unlimited magic items could have the reverse effect. The extra attunement slots will allow higher-level characters to have more of that "cool" gear, and not just the nearly-mandatory gear.
Magic Item - Wondrous Architecture
From the classic Teleportation Circle, to a Levitation shaft in a wizard's tower, Wondrous Architecture is a new class of Wondrous Item. These "Items" may be furnishings or room enhancements and can have as many different effects as Wondrous Items can. In general Wondrous Architecture is built into a structure, immobile, and rarely requires attunement.
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