House Rules

## Savage Frontier House Rules

To simulate the old-school feel and grittier style of West Marches, we will be using a number of house rules.

Many of these will be familiar to regular players, but others are specific to this campaign.

### At Death's Door

When a player is reduced to 0 hit points, they are knocked unconscious and begin making Death Saves.

As is usual, a 1 indicates 2 failed saves, 2-9 indicate a failure, 10 - 19 indicate a success, and a 20 indicates a success so resounding that the player immediately stands up on 1 hit point and may make a move, action, or bonus action.

#### Hovering at Death's Door

However, occasionally a character will find a heroic reserve of energy that helps them fight to their feet for one final push.

A character may choose to voluntarily fail a death saving throw in order to take one of the following actions:

* Move up to half their movement and make a single attack;
* Cast a cantrip or spell that does not require concentration;
* Drink a potion or eat a goodberry;
* Move up to their full movement and fall prone;
* Move up to 15 feet and give the Help action.

Additional actions may be approved by the DM upon request.

Immediately after completing this action, roll a d6 and gain that many levels of exhaustion. You then lapse back into unconsciousness and continue making death saves.

### Attacks of Opportunity

As is standard across my games, there are two major changes to how attacks of opportunity work:

* Standing from prone attracts an attack of opportunity;
* A creature (or character) may expend its reaction to prevent a single creature within 5-feet from making an attack of opportunity.

### Buying Equipment

Starting equipment or equipment bought upon character creation follow the normal rules.

Any equipment purchased after a character's arrival in the West Marches must be done using the inventory available at the various services in Hope.

**You must PM me with details of what you have purchased so that I can update the stock list. Failure to do so will result in forfeiture of the items bought and the gold spent.**

### Crafting

As a West Marches game is all about venturing out into the wilds in order to find fame and fortune, crafting of items/potions etc. will not be available to characters in the campaign.

You can, however, make use of the various experts in town (Muredach, Fizzbang etc.) to have them craft items for you while you're out adventuring.

You can read more about crafting in the Enchiridion of the West Marches on the Google Drive.

### Critical Hits

When a creature suffers a critical hit, we will roll on a special critical hit chart (there is one each for players and monsters) to determine the effect of the critical hit.

More often than not, this is simply an additional damage dice, but sometimes it is a more dangerous effect.

There are no special tables for critical misses, save that they always miss regardless of armor class.

### Feats

The optional feats rule will be in play, with feats available from level four.

Feats from the Player's Handbook or various third party sources may be used.

The Lucky feat requires DM approval.

### Flanking

The optional flanking rules will be used, but grant a flat +2 to attack rolls rather than advantage.

### Healer's Kit Dependency

Hit dice cannot be used to regain hit points on a short rest unless a single use from a Healer's Kit is used. You do not need to use multiple charges from a Healer's Kit in order to spend multiple hit dice.

### Initiative Variant

Initiative will be rolled at the start of each round of combat, with dexterity used as a tiebreaker.

This ought to create a more dynamic, unpredictable combat environment.

### Inspiration

Although technically an optional rule, I will award inspiration based on player actions and roleplay. Inspiration can be spent to grant advantage to a single d20 roll. This must be declared before making the roll.

Inspiration does not stack, nor can multiple incidences of inspiration be used on a single roll.

### Lingering Injuries

Whenever a 1 is rolled on a death saving throw, the character must also draw from the Enduring Wounds deck on Roll20. Full details on this system are available in a handout on Roll20.

### Mixing Potions

A player mixing potions or drinking two potions in subsequent rounds may find that the potion has an unexpected effect.

You have been warned!

### Multiclassing

As discussed in the [[Character Creation]] page, multiclassing is allowed, but certain classes are restricted to being chosen only at level 1.

### Piety

The Piety system from Gods of Faerun/Mythic Odyssey of Theros will be used in this game, although it is optional.

At the end of each session, you may send me a list of acts you think garnered Piety. I will then award the correct amount.

### Resurrection Penalties

Coming back from the dead is never easy.

Those who pay to be brought back may come back... changed.

### Rest Variants

We'll be using the Gritty Realism rest variant in this game.

This means that short rests take eight hours and long rests take five days. This only applies during overland journeys. **When you are in a dungeon or adventure location, however, rests revert to the standard eight-hour long rest and one-hour short rest.**

To counteract this, we will also be using the Idle Talents system as described in Rest for the Weary on the Google Drive. In addition, certain spells have had their durations extended.

* 10 Minutes: 1 hour
* 1 Hour: 8 hours
* 8 Hours: 5 days

### Sharing Loot Between Characters

The passing of magic items, gold, or loot items between characters controlled by the same player is strictly forbidden. While I'd like to leave it up to players to police this, I've decided to put in place rules against it to avoid exploitation. If Character A is in a party that gets an item that Character B needs, then they can sell it to Goldar/Muredach and Character B can buy it.

While I *may* make exceptions in cases where the characters being controlled by the same player have established an in-game bond, I'm inclined to simply disallow inter-character trades between characters controlled by a single player.

### Spell Changes

Due to the nature of the game, a number of spells perform differently in the West Marches.

* While traveling overland, spells with a duration of 1 hour have a duration of 8 hours.
* While traveling overland, spells with a duration of 8 hours have a duration of five days.
* The *Memento Mori* cantrip cannot be selected.
* Spells that specifically mention an alignment (such as *Protection from Evil & Good*) affect creatures with those alignments, regardless of their creature type.

### Wands Don't Recharge

Magic wands do not recharge. They do, however, have more charges to begin with.