Sunday, August 7, 2016

House Rules for Wrath of the Righteous-The 5th Crusade

1. Drinking a Potion is a move equivalent action instead of a standard action

2. Five Foot Step is altered to whatever your Natural reach is.  This change is primarily for the benefit of larger creatures who have a natural reach of 10 feet or greater, this allows them to take a “step” equal to their size.  Magical changes in size do NOT affect your five foot step.  In hopes of removing all doubt, if the creature or player doesn’t live their regular lives at a larger size it isn’t considered their “natural size” and they cannot take advantage of the greater step.

3. No longer use #3

4. Critical Hit cards are optional.  You may draw the card and decide whether to use or not

5. Critical Miss Cards are optional but you may NOT draw the card and decide.  If you don’t want to draw the card, besides your actions ending for that round you either drop your weapon, fall prone, or suffer some other undesirable fate that is up to the GM’s discretion and matches the attack you were attempting. Once the critical fail card is drawn you are stuck with it unless the GM decides the card doesn’t match the events.  Then the GM applies the fumble however they see fit.

6. Meta Magic Feats that increase a spell by 2 Levels or less get one free use/day. This free use may not be used for scribing scrolls or other magic item creations.

7.  Meta MagicComponents are spell components consumed in the casting of a spell that add a meta magic feat to the spell

8. Leadership: If anyone takes Leadership, I’ll explain in further detail but I run it differently, essentially using the chart to give a total number of HD of followers rather than a bunch of 1st and 2nd level NPCs. Your followers’ level cap is one level below your co-hort.

9. Max Hit Points your 1st three levels and every level that you gain a character point (4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th).

10. Combine Swim & Climb into one skill Athletics. When you put first skill point in rank you must decide if your athletics is strength or dexterity based.  This cannot be changed without following retraining rules.

11. Normal Game time is Sunday’s from 11:30 to 5:00.  When there are conflicts with that time we can discuss alternate time or the occasional extra session. Please try to respond to messages within a reasonable amount of time. 

12. Everyone receives a free weapon focus feat. If you don’t have a +1 BAB then you cannot benefit from this feat until you do.

13. Everyone receives one free skill rank each level in perception. Perception is a class skill.

14. Initiative: Ties go to the players

15. No Electronic Dice 

·         Pay attention! Even when it isn’t your turn/scene and try to limit speaking over others. Check out Facebook alerts and unimportant texts/messages/email before & after the game. Try to learn more about your fellow player’s characters and how they work.  Enjoy what your comrades do
·         Help each other out; combat can pull attention in multiple directions, while the GM is talking about the height of the ceiling, the parties’ spell-caster might be looking up area of effect rules.  If you hear a pertinent fact use the dry erase mat to write it down.
·         Use the dry erase mat to write down bonuses and penalties if you don’t keep track electronically.
·         Keep good notes, if you recovered a +2 weapon from a combat or bought an alchemical item somewhere it wouldn’t hurt to know it.  Saying I’m going to throw a tangelfoot bag is one thing, saying you’re throwing the last tanglefoot bag from crazy eddies in Gibraltar is more fun and provides the GM an opportunity to get creative. Keeping good notes includes keeping track of the source material your abilities/feats come from.
·         The GM has a lot to try to remember and manage.  Please make the effort to know your own characters abilities.  If you’ve leveled up and it’s the first time doing something, say so, and then we can take our time working through it.
·         This is a game and it’s supposed to be fun.  The higher level the party, the greater the complexity and thus the longer it takes to run combat.  Because of this sometimes a penalty such as being paralyzed feels worse than it was intended because despite the roll only saying three rounds it’s been an hour since you’ve been able to have your character act.  Speak up & say something to the GM.  Not saying that every time something gets said I’ll say yeah that’s long enough but I may come up with a lesser penalty that still allows you to do something.  Along the same lines, if you are sticking with advice numbers 9 & 10 you can still keep yourself entertained and be helpful to the others.  If you are down, help the GM run NPCs, offer to take over initiative until you are back or remind the other players of conditions and effects or how they can help you etc.  If you’ve been “killed” and are waiting for a return to action and don’t want to pay attention to the combat, review notes and previous posts about the game.
·         Remember your party members are counting on you to fulfill your portion of the social contract.  Communication helps.  It sucks to have your character die, it’s even worse when you discover that your fellow player forgot they had that wand of healing or the scroll of restoration.  It’s hard for people to plan if you never communicate your abilities and possessions, or worse don’t know them. 
·          All of us have parts of the game we excel at and portions we don’t enjoy as much.  If you mentally check out during the portions you don’t enjoy as much, those portions are never going to improve.  Try to identify what you don’t like about it and make suggestions for improvement at the appropriate time. 
·         If your character isn’t in the scene find out from the GM if he can make out of character suggestions to the players in scene.  For example, your character is at the temple being healed and the rest of the party heads to a meeting with the Sergeant at Arms.  You ask the GM if you can comment and permission is given.  So during the meeting, you can bring up notes from the blog or points of interest you don’t want forgotten. PAY ATTENTION to the scenes you aren’t in. If the primary review note taker is in a scene and you are not, let that person know you’ll take notes for them while they are involved and you are not.  If there is something you want to be sure is remembered let people know.
·         Use the blog.  This doesn’t mean you have to post new entries although you are welcome to.  It does mean to read the posts.  Comment on them. Ask Questions.  Make suggestions.  I find the review posts incredibly helpful; please use the comments for corrections as well as reminders, inspiration, and ideas.  Also this is an excellent location to give the GM a heads up you want to do whatever on game day.
·         LISTEN to each other. Don’t forget to say what you enjoy. Make suggestions for game improvement.    Some of the worst arguments I’ve been in come from when I mentally check out and quit listening to the other person, I think I know their point or perspective and don’t listen only to later discover I didn’t understand what they were trying to tell me.  Most of the time these aren’t major arguments but they are major time wasters.

·         If you make it fun for others you’ll find yourself having fun too. Make an effort; the more you put in the more you’ll get out.  

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