Magadon Games

History of Etrigil, the home of the Demon King's army. (Part1) Magadon_Games:_Dagon

These are some house rules for the campaign played by the Magadon Industries D&D 3.5 group.

Stealth:

Hide and Move Silently are almost always rolled together so they are now just one stat called Stealth.

If you have a bonus to one of the stats you can use it for both, if your class gives you a bonus to both Hide and Move Silently, use the bonus that is greater.

Perception:

Spot and Listen are also merged into Perception with the same rules for using your best bonus from each of the skills for Perception.

Magic Weapon/Items Sizes:

In 3.5 they introduced weapon sizes for different scales of people. It makes creating loot tables a nightmare so House Rule, magic weapons/wands/rods, etc. can change to fit the person they are bound to. To bind yourself to the weapon so it fits you, you have to cut your hand (1d4-1) then hold the weapon in a combat stance for 30 seconds. If you can't reasonably hold the weapon up for 30 seconds, it's too damn big, you're not strong enough, and you can't use it.

(Exploit: If you hang the weapon from a rope or use magic to make it weightless, your strength is meaningless! Want to shrink a giant sword to be gnome sized? Hang it from a tree and pose until you trick the magic into working.)

This ritual can be used by anyone at any time (Out of combat) because it is a blessing on the world from the God of War. The physical damage of the blade will be downgraded if it shrinks but upgraded if it grows into a larger size category.

Flanking Advantage:

If two or more people are attacking the same enemy within 10 feet of each other, the first person attacks normally, the second person gains "Advantage" allowing two attack rolls and you keep the better of the two rolls, if a third person is also attacking that enemy they also attack with advantage and gain a +2 to damage with melee.

This encourages teamwork and tactical thinking. Do you want everyone to hold their action so that the weakest melee attacker goes first even if they are slower? Do you want to have the weakest melee attacker go last so they get the bonus?

Size and Advantage:

The GM may rule that if the size difference between attacker and defender is so great it may create an advantage to hit or damage.

Use Magic Device:

If you have a magic device that requires an activation roll every time you use it, after using it three times you don't have to roll to activate it again.

By that point, you pretty much know how it works so rolling over and over again just wastes everyone's time. Put a * next to it on your character sheet to indicate you are familiar with it.

Goodberry:

For evil GM reasons, The spell Goodberry now consumes it's spell components. BWAHAHAHAHA!

Alignments:

Please remember, D&D is not a single-player game. When writing your character please make them someone who wants to be adventuring for some reason. You can be evil, you can even be chaotic evil and still understand that working in a group is more enjoyable and makes you more successful.

Please don't write your character as a lone-wolf who is going to always have a bad attitude and be looking for any opportunity to stab everyone else in the back and steal their stuff. That kind of character ruins the fun for everyone and frankly is not realistic.

A mass-murdering psychopath might be able to survive in modern society but in D&D society, if you are a complete dick-cheese to everyone you meet, you would be stabbed before you made it out of puberty. Fantasy settings may have magic and wonder but they don't have child protective services and no one would stop your parents from drowning you in the wash-water for before you have a chance to grow into a sociopathic murder-hobo.

Please at least be able to pretend to be a normal person.

This goes for "Chaotic Good" people as well. If you are going around murdering people and killing town guards because they "Work for The Man" I will change your alignment and you will end up getting your entire party labeled as wanted criminals.

"Normal" is defined by society as a whole, not by your specific code. "Good" and "Evil" are defined by the Gods as a whole, not by anyone one single God.

If your "Good" God tells you in a dream to lock the doors on an orphanage and burn it down with all the children inside to prevent some kind of future apocalypse, it's still an evil act so consider that maybe it's not your God who's speaking too you.

Pre-Game Level-Buddies!

Want to start the game at level 2 instead of level 1? Find one or more level-buddies and make your characters together. Write up your characters then work out a story where you met and went on some kind of adventure together.

Was one of your childhood friends framed for murder? Did someone steal your father's sword and armor and that was all you had left of him? Is your mother sick and the only cure is a plant from a faraway place that you will need help traveling to?

Get together and work out a story where two or more of you go on an adventure and try to accomplish some goal. You don't need to succeed on the quest but trying will give you enough XP to make it to level 2.

This will allow you too flesh out your characters together, establish their personalities, and have someone you are comfortable with on the team when the game starts.

Remember, failing at your mission may be better for forming an emotional bond in your group. If your party fails to get that medicine back to one of your mothers and she is dead when your group returns home to save her, imagine how much more close your characters would be if they went through the grieving process together.

It also makes my job easier as a DM to get you together if you aren't just 5 random people who don't know each other.

Write a good story that you and your level-buddies can keep as your shared history. Include your own inside jokes, and quirks, funny stories or sayings that an NPC shared with you?

Maybe while you were traveling together you learned the hard way that Dwarves fart in their sleep and ever since then you've had to make excuses not to share a tent with the dwarf in your party?
Maybe you traveled with an NPC who died and your characters feel guilt over the loss?
Maybe one of you pulled off an epic practical joke that started a joke war?

Have fun with it, write a story together, get a level!

Hit Points

Level 1, you stat off with max hit points, beyond that you roll your hit-dice normally.

Death I don't like it when characters die so I'm going to crib some D&D 5th edition rules and have it so that when you fall bellow 0 HP you are on death's door. If someone can heal you up to at least 1 HP that round you live. If no one can heal you, you have to make a saving throw vs DC 10 (We'll call it a Death Roll) You roll every round, and if you get 3, cumulative successes, you wake up with 1 HP. If you get 3 cumulative failures before you get 3 cumulative successes you die. For caster classes, I will give you 1 and ONLY ONE roll every session you are at death's door using your primary stat. (Representing your will to live overcoming your puny physical frailty) So if you are at two failures and you have Intelligence higher than your Stamina, you might want to consider using that instead.

The only exception to this rule is if you go more into the negative HP than you have total positive hit points. Example: If you fall off a building and take 200 hit points damage when you only had 30 to begin with, there just isn't enough left of you to save.

Starting Gear/Gold

Random Starting Gold by Class
Barbarian 4d4 × 10
Paladin 6d4 × 10
Bard 4d4 × 10
Ranger 6d4 × 10
Cleric 5d4 × 10
Rogue 5d4 × 10
Druid 2d4 × 10
Sorcerer 3d4 × 10
Fighter 6d4 × 10
Wizard 3d4 × 10
Monk 5d4

Grab whatever gear you want (Non-magical) But beware your carry limit. (Based on your strength)