House Rules

The following are 'House Rules' and are assumed to apply unless stated otherwise.  This listing may be updated at any times with new ideas, or abuse-prevention modifications.  If a house rule grants to all players an ability normally reserved for a specific class, players interested in that class should contact me in order to work out some modifications to preserve that class' balance.

House Rules:

• "Heroes Never Fail" -  This house rule reflects that the players are heroes, not incompetent boobs.  There may arise situations where a hero is in a position to make a skill check for which the two possible outcomes are success, and embarassing-and-useless failure.  In this situation, a failed skill check will serve to educate the hero as to the impossibilty of his task, and he may choose not to attempt it.  Example: Bob the Barbarian has been captured.  He is suspended over a boiling pit of lava, awaiting the arrival of the dark one who will attempt to eat his soul.  The player decides to attempt a feat of aerial acrobatics and rope tearing to work himself free, trapeeze style.  The player then botches the roll.  Rather than allow Bob to fall to his decidedly non-heroic and mundane death, the botched roll represents Bob the Barbarian realizing the futility of his escape attempt, and choosing instead to save his meager strength for a confrontation with the Dark One directly.  Note:  This does not mean you cannot fail a skill check.  It basically means you cannot fail a non-plot central or boring skill check.
• "Heroes Aren't Boring" - This house rule reflects that the mundane details of character's lives, while accurate in their portrayal, are frequently about as interesting as watching paint dry.  This means that heroes are generally assumed to succeed at mundane/stupid tasks;  in a large metropolis, it should be pretty easy for a HERO to find an inn.  Similarly, no HERO would be without his critical gear in a crisis situation;  heroes can generally assume that they posess any appropriate mundane items below 100gp in value.
• "Dice can be boring" - In situations where a skill check is made under the assumption that failure will simply mean repeated retries until success is reached, a frequently boring occassion is the studious watching of 15 straight 'gather information' checks to attempt to locate the acolyte's home.  In these situations, success is inevitable, but it may matter how much time is taken to acheive it.  Instead of watching die roll after die roll, one roll will be made.  If it succeeds, it will take the normal 'success' time.  If it fails, some other die shall be rolled, and the number revealed thereupon is how many 'rolls' it took to actually succeed.  Example: The heroes are attempting to locate the house of the acolyte in order to warn him of a pending attack upon his person.  A Gather Information check is rolled.  On success, the heroes would heroically arrive early, in time to warn the hapless acolyte and even ambush his would-be ambushers.  On a failure, the DM would roll 2d4.  It took the heroes that long to find the Acolyte's home, and they may be too late, or face stiff opposition!
• "Heroes never die... suddenly" - In many situations, especially combative ones, it is possible for the dice to conspire to suddenly murder a hero at an anticlimactic moment.  This is annoying to everyone.  The following rule is therefore inacted:  In a situation where a hero would be killed in a non-dramatic way, that hero is instead badly injured.  Maybe an arm broke, or he has suffered terrible scarring to his eyes and face.  Heroes can only be killed if they are deliberately 'finished off' by an opponent (full-round action) via overwhelming odds, or in climactic battles for the fate of the adventure.  This is to prevent 'revolving door' sessions where a string of bad rolls can result in a player either bringing in a series of increasingly unbelievable characters or being forced to sit out part of the session.  We're here to play.