Main Page
House Rules
AD&D Links
Webrings
Tarania's Religions
Races of Tarania
Maps of Tarania
Tarania's Calendar
-----blood-----
















































House Rules
Note: I did not make all of these rules up; I picked up several from the internet.
Back to the Tarania main page
Play by E-Mail combat
SubAbility scores () Wizard magic () Dwarf/Gnome wizards
 Spell Components () Spells in Combat () Priest magic
Revised priest THAC0 chart () Bladed weapons vs. skeletons
My personal rules about experience () Money () Food
Death's Door () Strength Renumbering () Humans' Climb Walls bonus
 No level limits! () Movement adjustment for STR/DEX
Multi-/Dual-classing () Low Hit Points' Effect on Combat

Play by E-Mail Combat:
    The DM sends out the situation, for example: 8 men, clad in chain mail and carrying drawn swords and large shields walk calmly toward you, in plain sight from a long way down the path.  When they are near, they all simultaneously start running toward you.
   The players tell the DM what their character plans to do during the battle, including what weapons, spells, tactics, etc. they will use as well as anything else their character plans to do during the battle.  The DM plays the battle until either it is over or (s)he decides that the players need to be told what has happened and react to the new situation.  The DM tells them what has happened (or at least the important parts) and asks what they do next.

SubAbility Scores:
    Each ability score is divided in to two sub-abilities.  Each sub-ability determines some of the characteristics which are normally determined by the main ability.  They are divided like so:
STR:
Muscle: attack adjustment, damage adjustment, max. press, open doors, bend bars/lift gates
Stamina: weight allowance, move adj.
DEX:
Aim: missile adj., thief skill modifiers to pick pockets and open locks
Balance: reaction adj., def. adj, thief skill modifiers to move silently and climb walls
CON:
Fitness: HP adj., Ressurection %
Health: sys. shock, poison save
WIS:
Intuition: bonus spells, (priests only) % spell failure (priests only), perception (I use intuition checks for perception)
Willpower: magic def. adj., spell immunity
INT:
Reason: max. spell level (wizards only), max # spells (wizards only), illusion immunity
Knowlege: # of languages, % to learn spells
CHA:
Leadership: loyalty base, # henchmen
Appearance: reaction adj.
  Sub-abilities must be 2 or less ability points off of the main ability, so if a character's CON is 12 his Fitness and Health must be from 10 to 14.  For each point one subability from a main ability is higher than the main ability the other sub-ability must be a point lower.  So if a character has CON 12 and a fitness of 11, they have a health of 13.

Wizard Magic:
    Running out of spell points prevents further spellcasting, unless the caster wishes to use their reserve power, which can be dangerous, or even fatal.  Each spell has a spell point cost based on its level, summarized in the following table:
TABLE 1
spell lvl: Cantrip  1 2 3 4  5  6  7  8  9
Spell pts:    1     2 4 7 10 14 17 21 25 30
    Each wizard character begins with 6 spell points.  They then gain SP as they gain levels.  Their max. SP total is listed on this table:
TABLE 2
wizard lvl: 1 2 3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Spell pts : 6 9 11 14 20 26 35 ...  i'll finish this later
Bonus*    : 2 2 4  6  9  12 16 ...
( * the "bonus" above is for school specialization; those SP must be spent on spells from the specialist's school.  It is a total, not cumulative.)
Wizards may learn spells whose total spell point costs add up to the total spell points they have.  Cantrip is not counted against this total; all wizards know it.  They may only learn spells of levels which would be allowed for wizards of their level in the players' handbook.  They spend spell points equal to the cost of the spell from their spell point pool, which is i listed in table 2. They recharge a sixth of their spell point maximum per hour, until they are at full again.  This system is designed to allow the characters to cast one spell more than once without having to learn it more than once.
    I have tried to offset the fact that low-level wizards are weaker than other classes and that high-level wizards are more powerful.

Dwarf/Gnome wizards: 
   Dwarves may be earth elementalists but have some restrictions on their spell use.  I will at some point make specific rules on this.
   Gnome wizards, in addition to being able to be illusionists, may also become earth elementalists or artificers, although they are rare.

Spells in combat:
   Close-combat spells (Burning Hands, Shocking Grasp) that are especially made for close combat, can be cast without creating attacks of opportunity. 

Spell Components:
   I don't like bothering with material spell components, so in my game they will not be used unless I specifically say otherwise, or magical items are being created.  (They will always require material components.)

Priest magic:
   The DM chooses whether the god wants to allow the PC to cast a spell based on the god's personality and temperament, whether the PC has prayed a lot and/or worked toward the god's aims recently, and whether the spell itself works for or against the deity's aims. All priests must be specialty priests.  Priests can cast any spell their god will allow them to, though it puts them at serious risk to cast a spell with level above what is allowed by the normal rules for priests.  They must roll a constitution check or fall to the ground, unconscious.  If they fail their Constitution check they roll a ressurection survival roll, and if that fails they die.
   Druids cast Speak With Animals as a first level spell, Neutralize Poison as a third level spell, and Cure Light Wounds as a second level spell.

Priest Thaco:
   Priests get a -1 bonus to their thaco when their level is a multiple of 3.  Basically this means that the THAC0 advancement goes as follows:
Level:1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10  11  12 ...
THAC0:20  20  19  18  18  17  16  16  15  14  14  13 etc.

Blunt weapons or Sharp weapons vs. skeletons:
   Blunt weapons will do normal damage vs skeletons and sharp weapons will do about 2/3 damage.  (If you want, I'll give you the exact damage penalty for your particular weapon.  However, trying to use makeshift blunt weapons [a stout stick or something] is quite futile; you'll be better off using normal weapons, considering what little damage you do to a bone by swinging a wood pole at it.)

My Personal Rules About Experience:
   Characters gain no XP bonus for high prime requisite ability scores.  Those with high scores will already tend to do better than others without the extra help.
   The DM gives XP out as they see fit, according to what you do rather than what you kill.  This includes awards for good ideas, a successful attack, winning a battle, solving a puzzle, etc.

Gold pieces, silver pieces, copper pieces, they're all the same anyway:
   Why bother keeping track of what's what when you can just say the character has <X> GP worth of various wealth, and just forget about getting change, trying to carry aroung 10000 copper pieces, or something like that.  In my opinion, it takes away from the more interesting parts of the game.  (And it's an extra big pain to deal with when playing over E-Mail.)

Food:
   My opinion on messing with the petty expenses of food is similar.  If some party members can hunt or trap or the like, worrying about the mechanics of obtaining food is pointless.  If not, I simply deduct a reasonable amount of money every once in a while, which is assumed to have gone for food.

Death's Door:
   Instead of the rules of "knocking on death's door", whereby a PC is unconscious between 0 and -10 hitpoints, the interval is between 0 and half CON +5, rounded up. The reason is to make it more varied and more character specific.

Humans climbing walls:
   Due to their height advantage over other races, Humans gain +5% to their climb walls ability

Strength Renumbering:
 Old Value          New Value
 18 or less           Remains the Same
 18 / 01 - 50       19
 18 / 51 - 75       20
 18 / 76 - 90       21
 18 / 91 - 99       22
 18 / 00               23
 19 or more         5 more than before

Level limits:
    I don't like level limits.  They make it so that someone can't continue playing a demihuman for as long as a Human, so that the player is kind of removed from the game, unless the DM has them make a new high-level character.

Movement adjustment for strength (stamina) and Dexterity (balance):
STR:1-3  4  5
MV :-3  -2 -1

DEX:1-3  4-5  6-7
MV :-3  -2    -1


Multiclassing/Dual-classing:
   Humans may be multiclass.  Non-humans may be dual-class.
   These requirements make most multiclass characters advance significantly faster than by the normal rules.  This should make it more fair to play multiclass characters.  For an explanation of why these rules are like this, go here.
fighter/mage               x1.6
ranger/mage               x1.7
fighter/thief                x1.4
mage/thief                  x2.0   (no break here)
fighter/cleric               x1.4
cleric/mage                x1.9
fighhter/mage/cleric    x2.4   (as opposed to 3x by normal rules)

Low Hit Points' Effect On Combat:
(5% means the character is at 5% of max hit points, etc.)
5%    -3 to hit, damage, and initiative, and no dexterity bonus to AC.
10%  -2 to hit, damage, and initiative.
25%  -1 to damage and initiative.
    Do you know of any rules you think I should add? Mail them to me at Mercury27@geocities.com.  If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.