House Rules

Supplies!

• Exploration role: Equipment manager. Intelligence+Investigation.
• Lighting: 1 roll/person, rolled at the start of the day and covers one day, including re-lightning needs. (The penalty here is the extra action needed to re-light).
• Rations: 1 roll/day, covers the party, rolled at end of day
• Camping: 1 roll/day, covers the party, rolled at end of day. When supplies are out, morale penalty, longer to get short rests
• Kits, ropes, etc: Per application, 1 roll/person of all the same dice. 1s will take effect after it is done. (e.g. 5 people using a d8 rope, 3 1s are rolled... everyone still benefits from ther rope but it is now d6->d4->broken. If appropriate, a successful check can negate a 1
In general: d8 takes one slot, d10 takes two slots, d12 takes three slots.

Resting

• Bind wounds: resting for an hour allows the expenditure of hit dice
• Short Rest: requires an uninterrupted period of 8 hours.
• Long Rest : requires an uninterrupted period of 7 days.
  • An interrupted long rest allows you to recover half of your missing resources if you spent at least 3.5 days resting
• Any strenuous activity, including travel (except by vehicle) and using a spell slot, interrupts a rest.

Rationale: Restricting resources in this way accomplishes two things: 1) It promotes finding creative solutions to problems / not making everything a combat. 2) it means that during wilderness exploration, the standard pacing of 0--2 encounters per day can impact your resources (instead of going nova on a random encounter with the anticipation of getting a long rest before going into a dungeon). 3) It encourages retreat from dangerous locations and returning while better prepared.

Underworld and vision / lighting

The Underworld is a place of oppressive darkness. Creatures that have not adapted to living there find that any darkvision that they have does not work. The Underworld also oppresses magical lights. Any magical effect that creates bright light creates dim light instead, at half the radius, and any magical effect that creates dim light creates no light at all.
Nonmagical items, such as torches and lanterns, produce the regular amount of light. A torch being carried lasts about an hour. A torch dropped in combat has a 1/6 chance per round to be extinguished by the frantic shuffle of combat.
A lantern being carried lasts about four hours. A lantern dropped in combat has a 1/20 chance per round to be extinguished by the frantic shuffle of combat.

Using hit die for weapon damage

To encourage a variety of weapons to be used, and to make your natural weapons (if any) an attractive option for combat, we'll be using your class hit die for weapon damage. Fighter hit die will be a d12. Monk hit die is a d8. Bard hit die is also a d8. So choose weapons that are cool, and don't be afraid to improvise!
If you are using a weapon with the light property, it takes a step down (d12 -> d10, d8->d6). If you are using a weapon with the versatile property, it takes a step up when wielding with two hands (d8->d10, d12 -> d12+2)

Player Rolls for Monster Attacks

To make combat a little more engaging between turns, we'll be experimenting with turing AC into a rollable stat against a fixed DC given by the monster's attack. To make the math work out, you'll have new stat: "Defense" and the DM will call for a Defense check against a certain difficulty. You roll a d20, add your defense stat, and if you meet or exceed the difficulty, you successfully avoid the attack. If you roll a nat 20, that's a fumble for your opponent. If you roll a nat 1, that's a critical for your opponent.

Inventory

You have a number of inventory slots equal to your strength score.

• Heavy armor takes three slots
• Medium armor takes two slots
• Light armor takes one slot
• Shields / Weapons take one slot each
• Quiver: Holds one ammo die (see below), takes one slot
• Potion Bandolier: Holds 3 potions that you can freely access
• The following bags take one slot each:
• A pouch can hold 5 pounds of stuff, and can be freely accessed
• A sack can hold 20 pounds of stuff, and requires an action to retrieve an item inside
• A backpack can hold up to 50 pounds of stuff. It requires an action to retrieve an item inside, and after your turn the backpack is on the ground
• A light pannier("saddlebag"): can hold up to 20 pounds of stuff, and can be freely accessed. Centaur only, and you can only have two.
• A heavy pannier("saddlebag"): can hold up to 50 pounds of stuff, and takes an action to withdraw an item. Centaur only, and you can only have two.
• If you have other things stored on your body are subject to regular object interaction rules
• Some items can be bundled: Javelins, torches, etc
• Ammo dice: We represent the ammunition that you are carrying with an ammo die. A standard quiver contains a d8. At the end of combat, you'll roll the ammo die to represent recovering ammunition that can be used again. If you roll a 1, then your die downgrades one step (e.g. d8 becomes d6, d6 becomes d4). If you roll a 1 on a d4, you have five pieces of ammunition left.
• If you are using fewer than half of your available slots, you get a speed bonus of +5
• If you are using more than 3/4 of your available slots, you take a speed penalty of -5

New Skills

Using some new skills to consolidate some ones that are easily confused / combined. Here's the complete skill list. If you have proficiency in two things that have been grouped into one skill (e.g. persuasion and deception, athletics and acrobatics) you may choose another skill of your choice:

• Animal Handling: Beasts
• Fitness: Specialized physical activity (Combines: Athletics, Acrobatics, Endurance)
• Knowledge- Arcana : (Abberations, Celestials, Constructs, Dragon, Elemental, Fiend, Ooze, Undead
• Knowledge- Divines: (Celestials, Fiends, Undead
• Knowledge- Fey: (Fey & Feygrove & Feywild)
• Knowledge- Cultures: Covers cultures of Verden
• Knowledge- History: Social, Political, Military history of Vien
• Knowledge- Underworld: The Underworld and creatures found there
• Knowledge- Nature: Beasts, Elementals, Monstrosity, Plant
• Investigation Systematic approach to finding information & making connections
• Medicine
• Perception : Attention to details
• Performance : Elicits a particular emotion, puts on a show
• Sleight of Hand
• Stealth: Covers hiding, moving silently, using a disguise
• Speechcraft: Deception, Persuasion, Oration
• Survival

Interactions of Stats & Skills

The above skills intentially do not have stats attached to them. The goal is that the DM will ask HOW you are accomplishing a task, and then call for particular ability check. The player then can ask if their skills apply (this will be easy on the character sheet, as you will have a list of just your proficiencies. See here: https://www.worldanvil.com/sheet/530504/view

• Strength: For physical force
• Dexterity: Agility, Reflexes, Balance
• Constitution: Stamina, Health
• Intelligence: Memory, Reason
• Wisdom: Using your senses, willpower
• Charisma: social influence, confidence

Training for Levelling up

• When you've earned enough XPMarks (see below) to level up you must spend (3+current level) weeks in training. Training time is not lost if you are interrupted.
• Until you are level 11, you must find a trainer of higher level than yourself to complete your training.

Rationale: This will encourage you to seek out trainers and form bonds with them. You may also have adventurers seeking to train under you during your downtime. This also slows the pace of the game down a bit to allow time to unfold. Once you are high enough level, you might be the only person of that level in the entire region/world, and you are capable of developing your own techniques.

XP Marks

Instead of using milestone levelling (as in Corferus, Zedon) or straight experience points (early Zedon, quickly abandoned), we'll be using an XP system inspired by the RPG Dungeon World. Roughly, each session you can earn one mark (sometimes up to two) for each of the following activities:

• Discover a lost secret of the world
• Have a series of bad rolls, or fail a really important roll
• Use our wits to Neutralize a non-trivial danger
• Defeating a non-trivial foe in battle
  • A lot of fights, or a big "boss fight" counts for 2
• Discovering a location that's new to you. (+1 mark if it is a significant place not previously on the map)
• Extracting a significant treasure from a dangerous place
  • For levels 1--4: a single item worth 100gp or more, or a non-consumable rare magic item while you are levels 1--4
• Gain the favor of an NPC whose significance is related to your tier
  • (e.g. captain of the guard for levels 1--4. Gods for levels 17--20)
• Deepen a bond with another character
• Significant Progress toward a goal that your character has, or you have for your character. For example:
  • Rurik finds a swamp to build his house
  • Jepsen has stolen something in every town
  • I want my character to fight with a different weapon every combat for three sessions
• Completion of a quest of significance, relative to your level (e.g. levels 1--4 should be completing quests significant to a town)
• Solve a non-trivial problem
• Roleplaying got us into an interesting situation

New Travel Rules

• Scout: Success: Chance to see danger, Fail: potential missed danger
• equipment manager: Success: Equipment roll is 75% instead of 50%. failure: no additional penalty
• Leader: Navigation as before
• weather + maps: Check first. Success means no weather penalties if the weather is avoidable. The weather will be known. Can mark and orient to known things on the map. Fail: Weather unpredictable and locations will take longer to find again.
• pathfinder/Survivalist: Success finds locations of interest, tracks, hunting grounds, etc. Fail: possible hazards, spread out if attacked, possible danger
• Forager: no longer a role, but an option for travel at slower speed

make a grid with Best In Slot passive checks for each job, use +/- 2d4s to modify terrain DCs to quickly adjudicate travel and narrate. roll 1d5 + random packs to narrate how various gear used during the travel. this gear might be found to be broken on equipment roll at end of day
Party failures still add +1 to DCs for lead check?