Rules (D&D 3.5)

Some of these might seem obvious, some are not. I'm just writing everything I can think of down here so there are no surprises later.
I will add new house-rules and add examples where there was a conflict of understanding in rules and what I/we ended up deciding upon for use as precedents (which technically is pretty much what most rules are). Most of this is really just so no-one can sue my ass call me unfair if I do something different then what they expect and I can point them to the place in this guide.
:::--Araxiel 1911 (talk) 17:50, February 27, 2014 (UTC)
==Session==
===The DM===
I'm not your enemy. Neither is there any reason for keeping anything secret. The more I know and the more you give me to work with, the better the game will be.
Be suspicious of NPCs, but never of the DM. Fight NPCs, not the DM.
I'm not here to make you fail. I'm here to tell a story and have people explore and interact with my world and my game. I'm like the developer of a video game and you are the player. The you're trying to beat the game, not the developer. If you're trying to beat the developer, you're using exploits and bugs. That doesn't mean it's gonna be easy (I'm not quite DarkSouls, but also no Skyrim. I'm somewhere in that Witcher II-on-medium spot)
While I will stick to the WotC-rules and the rules described here, I do remain the right to overrule anything if I really need to.
I also remain the right to be more lenient with rules, or rule in your favour if you can convince me.
===Secrets===
Don't plot something in secrecy, thinking I will try to stop you by just knowing what you want to do. In the end when you're trying to execute you're secret plot to world domination, I might just end up saying "that's not possible" or "this is not how this world works", and that makes no-one happy. There is a distinction between the DM and the NPCs. Just because I know what you are planning on doing, does not mean I will send NPCs after you to stop you from doing it (at least not in an arbitrary way). Meta-gaming being bad applies to the DM to. I will actually 'reward' such behaviour. So I will actually use the knowledge of what you're up to...so I will meta-game...but in a good way, trust me.
===The World and meta-knowledge===
Just because there is lore and explanation on how it works in the WotC publication does not mean it will work like that in my world. Yes, there are elves and dwarfs and trolls and whatnot and yes it's pretty much a standard fantasy world when it comes to all that...I'm just saying...stuff's different and don't be surprised if something works different then what the Player Handbook or what-have-we describes. A good example for this are the languages in my world.
===Permitted Books===
This rule counts for what kind of books and things you can use that I didn't specifically allowed.
So which books can you safely pick and choose form? None. That sounds weird but what I mean with that is that for example even the Player's Handbook uses things that I don't use (e.g. languages or races). Just because it's in a book does not mean you're automatically allowed to use it. But that doesn't mean I will not allow it. Tell me what you would like to use or be.
However, I'm not planning on babysit people. So here's a helpful table.
Again, this only applies to things that I haven't already given permission to use!
Automatically allowed source books
 	
Equipment,
Weapons,
Armour	
Magical/Unusual
Items	Feats	Spells
Player's Handbook 	Yes	
Yes	Yes 	Yes
Dungeon Master Guide 	Yes	DM 	DM 	DM
Monster Manual 	Yes	DM 	No 	DM
Complete Adventurer 	Yes	DM 	Yes 	Yes
Complete Arcana 	Yes	DM 	Yes 	Yes
Complete Divine 	DM 	DM 	DM 	DM
Complete Psionic 	No 	No 	No 	No
Complete Warrior 	Yes	Yes	Yes 	-
Complete Mage 	Yes	DM 	Yes 	Yes
Complete Scoundrel 	Yes	Yes	Yes 	Yes
Complete Champion 	DM 	DM 	DM 	DM
Player's Handbook II 	Yes	DM 	Yes 	Yes
Races Series 	DM 	DM 	DM 	DM
Mastering the Perils Series	DM 	DM 	DM 	DM
Heroes Series 	DM 	DM 	DM 	DM
Tome Series 	DM 	DM 	DM 	DM
Book of Exalted Series 	No 	No 	No 	No
Book of Vile Darkness 	No 	No 	No 	No
Spell Compendium 	- 	- 	- 	Yes
Magic Item Compendium 	DM 	DM 	- 	-
Miniatures Handbook 	No 	No 	No 	DM
Expanded Psionics Handbook 	No 	No 	No 	No
Monstrous Non-Setting Books	No 	No 	No 	No
Other Settings 	No 	No 	No 	No
Other Homebrew 	No 	No 	No 	No
(Yes = does not need permission, DM = ask DM if it hasn't already showed up or you're not sure, No = Must have DM's permission)
To emphasize:
No does not mean I will not allow a book "end of discussion". It means you're not automatically allowed to use it. I will need some time to work it into the world and/or make sense of it in the bigger picture and/or need an agreement with the player for gameplay and RP purpose.
Neither am I discouraging to go through other books. If you find a nifty class, item or enchantment in other books, draw my attention to it and I will try to get it into the world.
Talk to me if you want to use something that has not showed up yet or is not on this wiki
===Role-play===
Role play is encouraged and also rewarded. The more specific you are, the more (likely) I am to reward you. And sometimes, I will force being specific. You can't just say "I'll roll diplomacy on him"; You have to actually say something to somebody else. Then I will let you roll diplomacy. If you said something good, you'll get an obvious bonus. Especially when it comes to social skills, think of it in this way: The DM tells when someone is allowed to roll. It's not up to the players to decide when to roll what.
Don't fret away of character with weaknesses, because I will reward weaknesses. Not only can they lead to fun situations for us players, but they add flavour to the game.
For example think how interesting and funny it can be to play a short-sighted ranger. It'll mean you have a (let's say) -4 on spot checks and -2 on ranged attack rolls, however a +2 on listen and appraise checks and +1 survival for tracking. Of course, he tells nobody that he's short-sighted and fakes his way out of it (+4 on bluff checks when it comes to the topic of his eye sight) and is very sensitive when it comes to this topic. A "Remove Blindness-Deafness" spell would heal him, but he would never ask for it, since he doesn't want to admit to his weakness.
Or play a kleptomaniacal rogue. Ever so often, I'll going to ask you to make a will save. If you fail (or are not resisting it), you'll going to have to steal a certain object aka roll a Sleight of Hand check (with a +2 bonus). This means you'll get extra stuff (or trouble, depending on how successful you are) and probably some suspicion from your team-mates.
The more specific and role-play'y you are, the better the game.
(role-play'y is a word now)
===Min-Max'ing===
My campaigns are rather role-play focused. I discourage pure min-maxing; this is not some sort of MLG pro-league LoL-tournament in South Korea.
I am of course not saying you should not be powerful and be your most effective. Why I especially have a bit of a problem with Min-Max'ing is that it's basically meta-gaming at it's finest.
If that one thing adds some awesome and powerful stats to your character, yet there is no explanation why the character can or should be able to do it and the reason he can do it is "because that thing is in book so-and-so", then that smells of min-maxing and meta-gaming. Again, I'm not saying 'don't be powerful or effective'. Pick powerful spells and pick useful and powerful feats and weapons and whatnot. But don't limit your selection to "the best". Rather chose "the interesting", "the fun", "the useful", "the helpful" or "the effective".
I ultimately have this rule because I don't want to create a situation in which there is one character (or player) that becomes overpowered (especially combat wise) and that I then have to seemingly fight against and try to take out, because he keeps on messing with the balance and the game.
===Roleplay and Combat===
Keep in mind that you're role-playing a character. Characters don't think of "lolz XP and loot". Overcoming conflict in a appropriate way, not slaughtering everything that crosses your path, because you want the XP and loot, can/will yield more rewards than going on a killing spree through fantasy land. This is not Diablo III.
Think about when combat is necessary and when not. Solving a situation in an original way is not lesser, but rather even better than just rolling combat dice.
If you kill an encounter, you'll get the XP reward written in the Monster Manual.
If you solve an encounter, you might not only get the XP reward written in the Monster Manual but also a bonus for solving it in an original way.
This also means that just because combat is happening, characters don't stop being people and suddenly become emotionless units to be ordered around on a grid. Role-play is continuing in combat. This also means, people will retreat when they're afraid of dying. And this counts for both sides. Enemies in my game are more intelligent than some videogame zombie AI. They will try to encircle, they will wait, they will be afraid and angry, they will retreat and fight until death, they will make stupid mistakes and they will communicate with each other or surrender when they are loosing. They follow their leader and their companions can be friends, or they can hate that guy that is ordering them around and have no feelings for each other. Smart NPCs will try to talk and bluff their way out, animals can be afraid of fire and undead are...well they are the ones that might have videogame zombie AI...but even that is not sure.
And all those emotions also apply to player characters.
Role-play does not stop with rolling initiative.
==General Gameplay==
This section covers general Gameplay related rules. Things that should be kept in mind, but are not a direct change of the original D&D rules.
===The NE shorthand symbol===
NE stands for "Night's Edge". In other words; my homebrew content. When it says NE just check my homebrew in the appropriate section.
===Multi-classing===
No XP penalties because...it makes stuff unnecessary complicated.
===Leadership Feat===
Doesn't exist...or in other words; you don't need a feat to have someone follow you. If someone thinks you're worth following for whatever reason (or money), then they will.
===Gaining new Skills and Feats===
Putting new ranks into skills can not be done willy-nilly.
While skills such as Jump or Hide can always be obtained and increased, Knowledge for example has to be thought. And for most skills, there must be some explanation why you get better at it. After all, why should you in the middle of dungeon suddenly be better at swimming or riding?
However, a good way to 'circumvent' this is by bringing books with you. While the party rests or while you're waiting or something, it can be assumed your character is reading the book associated with the skill. More information about which skills need books and/or trainers and which don't can be found under Skills.
The same applies to feats. More information can be found under Feats.
In conclusion:
Somebody has to teach you if you want to put ranks in a new skill.
Improving existing skills need either further study of it through books or actual application. Practice usually means actually using it in action or combat.
===Gaining new Classes===
A wizard should not be able to suddenly have the possibility to learn how to rage in the middle of the forest. Gaining a new class needs somebody to train or teach them about it. If the classes are close enough, books can do; for example a Rogue can gain a new rank of Ranger or a Fighter to Barbarian. The character in question must have some understanding how the other class works. This can also be accomplished by observing the class in question perform in combat or similar.
Talk with the DM when it comes to acquiring new classes. Levelling up in class that you already have works like normal.
===Levelling Up===
You don't have to level up your classes and skills and feats and whatnot immediately. Especially if you need to a trainer for something special that you have no access to at the moment you're levelling up. However, I will treat you as if you levelled up . This means it is indeed advised to only wait if you have to. You can not allocate saved up points whenever you want. It must be while you're resting/sleeping.
====Storing Points====
You can not store more than 10 skill points, 2 feats and 1 class. If you go over the limit (e.g. levelling up), you have to invest the points that exceed your limit.
===Craft Points===
Since there won't be a lot of downtime and the way 3.5 handles crafting always irked me a bit, I'm adding the Craft Points system described in Unearthed Arcana on page 97.
===Character Traits===
I will hand out character traits according to the way someone role-plays or plays their character and according to their description of their character at the beginning. Examples can be found in Unearthed Arcana (UA) on Page 86.
Character traits are role-play inspired tiny changes to character stats, such as "Suspicious" which gives a +1 bonus on Sense Motive checks, but a –1 penalty on Diplomacy checks and Intimidate checks.
===General needs===
Sleeping on hard stone without a bedroll will leave you as fatigued as sleeping in armour. Resting also encompasses making a fire so you have enough light to eat, talk and repair, craft or write things in your spell book. And even that fire will need to be made out of something. You can't sleep in rain or freezing cold. You need to eat and drink something at least once daily. Well, you need to drink a bit more often, but that takes like a minute or less and can be done basically at any moment with a filled water skin.
You need to have supplies, both food and water and you can run out of it. You need the 8 hours of sleep and if you don't get them (because you're being attacked), you're going to be fatigued unless you can recover time lost in that intermission. However, characters don't immediately drop to the floor and fall asleep when the last enemy is killed. Unless you're some sort of psychopath, you can not properly sleep next to corpses. All that takes time.
Those are just examples, but things like this will play a role.
==Specific Gameplay==
Specific Gameplay rules are things that are directly changed from the rules found in D&D. They overrule and change existing rules.
==Combat==
For all the rules concerning combat, review the appropriate article on this wiki.
==Unused==
This is a repository for various rules that are not in effect right now, but I'm still keeping here for reference and maybe someone can do something with them.
===Pantaloons of boundless storage===
Storage matters. You need a backpack or similar to carry things. If you have no direct way of accessing an object (like a potion), you need a standard action to put down your backpack and cram it out (on top of the required action to use it). Unbuckling a backpack is a move action. Accessing a not easily accessible container that is not a backpack is a move action (such as an attached Sack (see Attachments). If you are being flung around a room, your stuff is being flung around, too.
And no, you can not hop around carry 8 weapons and 2 armours...and then be "over-encumbered" when picking up a piece of celery. And "bag's of holding" is not the fix-all-solution for this (they are very rare in this world).
Just watch your weight and note where you store your objects. Storage space is available where it makes sense:
Maybe a couple of potions attached to the belt, an axe and a shield on the back, a sword in a scabbard, a dagger strapped to the leg, a healing Magic Tile attached to the arm and a backpack full of various stuff, a bedroll and some various small items hanging from the backpack, and then of course armour and magical items. As soon as combat starts, the backpack is dropped. There you go, a fighter that makes sense and is not being over-encumbered by all the necessary things he needs to carry, without having to resort to using Pantaloons of boundless storage.
:::The Pantaloons of boundless Storage rule is not in effect as of now! I plan on maybe implement it at some point though. --Araxiel 1911 (talk) 12:20, February 16, 2014 (UTC)
Category:D&D 3.5
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Category:D&D 3.5 Rules