AD&D Thoughts: House rules

[dorchadas]

I've been getting back into AD&D 2nd Edition again, mostly because of nostalgia, I expect. The first RPG I ever played in was first edition, and I played a bit of 2nd before I left D&D behind for Vampire, Shadowrun, and later Exalted. Anyway, I'm trying to come up some house rules for a campaign, and I'm curious what people think of the ones I have so far:

Character Creation Changes

• Level limits are removed. In addition, anyone can multiclass and anyone can dual-class. Multi-class characters cannot dual-class, and vice-versa.
  
• Dual-classed characters retain the advantages of the class they switched from, but suffer a 10% xp penalty for any adventure where they heavily rely on the old class's advantages.
  
• Humans receive a free +1 bonus in the attribute of their choice and 2 extra non-weapon proficiency slots.
  
• All classes receive 4 non-weapon proficiencies, plus a bonus for high intelligence, 1 extra per level and an additional one every other levels.
  
• All characters begin at 2nd level. Multi-class characters begin with enough xp to bring them to 2nd level in their least expensive class, and a similar amount of xp in their other classes.
  
• Hits points at beginning are the maximum possible. Beyond that, players may either roll (if feeling lucky) or take the statistical average for their die type, rounded down for mages.

Racial Changes
Elves

• Elves and half-elves do not have infravision. Instead, they can see as well by moonlight as a human can during the day and suffer penalties as though operating in moonlight for starlight conditions. They cannot see any better than a human in total darkness.
  
• The Elven chance to notice secret doors is an Intelligence Check. The check is made with a -5 penalty for merely passing near a secret door, and with no penalty if actively searching for one. Non-elves can search at -5 and have no chance to detect a secret door with a search.
  
• Elves are immune to all forms of magical sleep and receive a +5 bonus to saves vs. magical charm spells and similar effects.
  
• Elves need to sleep only four hours per day.

Half-elves

• Half-elves receive a +2 bonus to saves vs. magical sleep and charm spells.
  
• Half-elves can see twice as far in moonlight or starlight as a human can. Their penalties for acting remain the same.

Dwarves

• Dwarves have no chance for magical item failure.
  
• Dwarves' chance to learn about their underground environment is a Wisdom check. They receive a +5 bonus to detect grade or slope in passage and detect new tunnel/passage construction, a +2 bonus to detect sliding/shifting walls or rooms and no bonus to detect stonework traps, pits, and deadfalls or determine approximate depth underground.

Gnomes

Gnomes have no chance for magical item failure.

Gnomes' chance to learn about their underground environment is a Wisdom check. They receive a +5 bonus to detect grade or slope in passage and detect unsafe floors, walls or ceilings, a +2 bonus to determine approximate depth underground and no bonus to determine approximate direction underground.
Halflings

• Halflings never have infravision, nor can they determine passage grade or direction.

Bonus Attributes
All characters receive one bonus attribute point per 4 levels (or when they first reach 4th level in one of their classes, if multi-classed).

Attribute Checks
Attribute checks require a character to roll higher than (24 – the Attribute score). A 1 is always a failure and a 20 is always a success.

Class Changes

• Fighters can train others in weapon proficiencies at 3rd level as described in the Dark Sun rulebook, page 23.
  
• Fighters (only) may purchase Grand Mastery in weapons (See Combat and Tactics, page 72). All warriors may purchase weapon specializations. Non-warriors may purchase weapon expertise.
  
• All priests must be specialist priests. There are no clerics of "goodness" or other generic clerics. Priests may multiclass or not, depending on their particular deity's rulings.
  
• Similarly, all wizards must be specialist wizards. Multi-classed wizards may be specialists.
  
• For every four levels of experience, thieves learn an additional thieving ability, which begins at 21. See below for further details.
  
• For every seven levels of experience, bards learn an additional thieving ability, which begins at 21. See below for further details.

Thieving Abilities
All thieving abilities are changed to a d20-roll-high system. Existing bonuses and penalties for race, armor, etc. may be converted by dividing by 5. Thieves begin with any 8 of the following skills at the indicated values:

• Brew Poison—21
  
• Bribe Official—20 (Bards 19)
  
• Climb Walls—8 (Bards 10)
  
• Detect Magic—19 (Bards 18)
  
• Detect Noise—18 (Bards 17)
  
• Dig Tunnel—18 (Bards 20)
  
• Escape Bonds—19 (Bards 20)
  
• Forge Document—19 (Bards 18)
  
• Hide in Shadows—20
  
• Find/Remove Traps—20
  
• Move Silently—19 (Bards 20)
  
• Open Locks—19 (Bards 20)
  
• Pick Pocket—18 (Bards 19)
  
• Read Languages—21 (Bards 20)

The thief may lower these by 12 points total at character creation (no skill may be lowered by more than 6) and 6 points for every level they attain (no skill may be lowered by more than 3). The player may lower the range of success to negative numbers if desired (to offset penalties, for example), but a natural roll of 1 always fails. Bribe Official, Detect Magic, Dig Tunnel, Escape Bonds and Forge Document are detailed in Dragon Kings, pages 71-72. Brew poison, including rules to determine what poisons are known, is described in Dark Sun, page 36.

Bards begin with any 5 of the above abilities and receive 4 points at first level and 3 points per additional level to lower them.

Rangers begin with Move Silently—20 and Hide in Shadows—19 and receive 2 points per level.
Armor Class

AC ranges from -10, for a naked person, to 10 or higher for ancient great wyrms. THAC0 remains unchanged. To convert existing AC values, simply switch the + or – sign to its opposite.

Style Proficiencies

• One-handed Weapon - Characters who specialize in this style gain a special AC bonus of +1 while fighting with a one-handed weapon and no shield or off-hand weapon. By spending an additional proficiency slot, the character can increase his AC bonus to +2. With two slots, a critical hit may also occur on a roll of 19 or 20.
  
• Two-handed Weapon - While wielding a two-handed weapon, the specialist does +1 damage and the weapon's speed is lowered by 1. A second level of this proficiency increases the bonus to +2 and -2, respectively.
  
• Two Weapon - If not trained with this proficiency, the character suffers a –2 penalty to attacks with the primary weapon, and a –4 to attacks with the secondary weapon. A single level of this proficiency changes the penalty to -0 with the primary weapon and -2 with the secondary weapon, while a second level removes penalties entirely. This penalty is offset by the character’s reaction adjustment for high Dexterity. Rangers automatically start with two slots of two-weapon style.
  
• Weapon and Shield - A character with this skill will get an AC bonus vs. missile attacks of +2 with one slot and +3 with two slots. The second slot also increases the character's general AC by 1. If the character also has Two Weapon style, they can declare their shield as their second weapon. A hit with a shield either A) does damage as a club or B) knocks the target back 5 feet (if the same size as the target, +5 feet per size difference).

Non-weapon Proficiencies
All non-weapon proficiencies begin at a base of 12. For every point by which the relevant ability score exceeds 13, this decreases by 1 (-1 at 14, -2 at 15, etc.), and for every point below 8, it increases by one. Rolling over the value is a success. Every additional slot spent lowers the required score by 3. All proficiencies require only a single slot to purchase if they are within a class's allowed groups and two slots otherwise. Check modifiers are ignored.

Example: Bob the Fighter, with a Wisdom of 7, buys Hunting. Since it's a Wisdom-based proficiency and his Wisdom is below 8, his starting value is 13, meaning he needs to roll a 13 or higher to succeed. Spending an extra slot will lower that to 10, and a further slot will lower it to 7.
Weapon Damage

Weapon damage and speed will be taken from the charts in Myth and Magic, which actually make sense and don't raise longswords up to be the one godweapon to rule them all.

Weapon Mastery

• Weapon Specialization provides a +1 to hit and +2 damage. Ranged weapons receive a "Point Blank" range within 30 feet that is +2 to hit and +1 to hit at all other ranges.
  
• Weapon Mastery increases this to +3 to hit and +3 damage. Ranged weapons gain this bonus within 30 feet and +2 to hit at all other ranges.
  
• Weapon High Mastery allows critical strikes to happen on a roll of 19 or 20 (18 to 20 for Single-Weapon specialists). For ranged weapons, they gain a new ranged category—extreme range, that is 1/3rd farther than long range. Shots at extreme range at -10 to hit.
  
• Weapon Grand Mastery increases the weapons damage die type by one (d4 to d6, d8 to d10, etc.) and allows one extra attack per round.

Critical Hits
As in D&D 3.0, crits result on a natural 20 followed by a roll to check. If the second roll also indicates a hit, the strike does double damage. If the second roll is also a 20 and the third roll is a hit, the strike slays the target instantly.(Thanks to deathfromafar for this second rule!)

Shields Shall Be Splintered
Any character using a shield may block all damage from a single attack or automatically succeed at a save vs. spell for any Evocation/Invocation spell in exchange for the shield breaking.
Spell Components

Spell components are required, but anything with no cost listed or with a cost less than 10g is ignored as it is assumed the PC carries a variety of such items with them.
Detect Evil

Detect Evil spells, scrolls, items, class powers, etc., do not exist. Replace all of them with "Detect Chaos" (or "Detect Law," if reversed), exactly as in the Ravenloft rules.

I can talk about my campaign ideas as well if anyone cares.

Edit: Added a few things.

Comments

[meadowyravine.livejournal.com]

For this, "There are no clerics of "goodness" or other generic clerics" Do you mean for domains or deities? I'm guessing deities since you mention no generic ones, hopefully. My current cleric has Good as one of her domains and it's really pretty useful, but she also has a specific deity she follows.

In our house rules we ignore spell components less than about 1000g, just because we never found it fun to track them :p But they'd be needed for like a rez spell, of course.

I'd be interested to read about your campaign ideas!

[dorchadas]

Oh, I just meant that the generic "cleric" class as listed in the PHB, where you might sort of serve a god but don't actually have any mechanical effects based on it to the extent that you may as well be a cleric of "being awesome and smiting evil." :p Everyone's a specialty priest (or druid or ranger, depending on deity) with different rules, allowed spells, weapons, and so on based on their deity.

I probably won't actually require people to RP finding any more expensive components unless it's something like dragon testicles or whatever. I'll just abstract it out to charging at point of use. :p

For additional reference, some of this stuff (nonweapon proficiencies, attribute checks, and the inspiration for the thief skill revamp) are taken from the Myth and Magic 2nd ed. retro-clone.

I'll put up some stuff about the ideas in a bit, then :) Probably tomorrow, since it's pretty late here.