H is for House Rules

(Damn... busy day. I almost forgot about this post. 8)

Some of the house rules I plan to use in my Haume campaign:

*I’ve always been partial to allowing mages to use swords, like Gandalf, so what I plan to do is allow mages to use any magical sword at 4th level and higher. I am also toying with the idea of simply allowing them to use ANY magical weapon at 4th level or higher, except for ones allowed by the class, which they could use at 1st level.

* Only humans will have clerics, and those that worship certain saints will be allowed to use edged weapons.

* I saw something on a blog the other day that I’m going to steal to use with thieves. I think I will allow any character class the opportunity to do things covered by thieves’ skills, but the percentage represent a “second chance” that thieves will have if they fail the initial role. I was thinking ability checks for these activities, with heavy modifiers in most cases, but thieves could get a second chance, without modifiers, using their percentages if they fail. There will also be some instances that regular classes cannot succeed at. For instance, some locks will have NO chance for normal characters to succeed at , but thieves will have a chance.

* I think I’m going to use the B/X rules, along with John Becker’s B/X Companion. That being said, I also just got ahold of a hardcover of the LABYRINTH LORD and ADVANCED CHARACTERS rules, and I also have PDF’s of both The Rules Cyclopedia and Dark Dungeons, so those might get incorporated too.

* I will be using the “XP for treasure” rule.

* I will make it an ability check vs INT to understand a spell before copying it into your spellbook, and I will likely steal the max # of spells per level idea from AD&D. Magic is going to be a lot rarer in my campaign…. Each level will have a small list of commonly known spells, but most of the spells will be closely-guarded or highly personalized magics. I haven’t figured out what I’m doing with magic research rules yet.

* Demi-humans are EXTREMELY rare as players. Mostly, I’m thinking humans.

I’m sure I will come up with others ideas later (especially if I see steal-worthy ideas on other blogs), but this should do for now.