House Rules feedback wanted
Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2015 12:55 am
Hi guys.
Sadly, I'm not a player here. I move around too much, and while I would greatly welcome the opportunity - you're all very very far away .
That said, I'll be starting another 7th Sea campaign soon, and like many people who GM this system - I've written out a few house rules.
They've gotten bigger and more numerous as the years went by, and I've recently made some pretty hefty changes to the skill system I'd like some feedback on before I subject my players to them.
First of all, thanks to Mark for letting me post 'm here and bothering you lot .
Here goes:
I've got 2 design principles when changing rules - and I'm trying not to break them.
These are "Don't fix what isn't broken", and "Keep It Simple Stupid".
I've posted them all scattered on my own group's forums - and will be compiling them in the days to come.
What I'd like to do is get a few more people to look them over and think about some effects I might not have anticipated, or just generally give me some feedback.
"This is awesome, I'm stealing this next time I GM" is what I'm hoping to hear - but what I mostly want out of this is a better ruleset.
Your own suggestions are also welcome.
I'll take the liberty of double or even triple posting as there'll be quite a bit of material here. Trying to post them together thematically.
The biggest changes are probably #2, and the skill changes in the followup post.
These are also the ones I want feedback on the most.
Thank you for reading.
1. Drama dice are not worth EXP.
(Self explanatory, and I think a houserule in many of your campaigns as well. Or worth exp even if you spend them, I think the motivation behind this rule change is clear. On to the bigger ones)
2. There's only 3 defensive knacks - and they can't have the same score
And these knacks are Footwork, Parry and Stunt. At character creation, all characters get one at 3, one at 2 and one at 1 for free.
Forget what you know about where these knacks normally are, dear AEG board - skills got quite an overhaul as well.
Their use is pretty much what you'd expect.
Footwork when you can normally use it, same with Parry, Stunt for /everything/ else.
3. Pommel Strike & Corps a Corps are toned down.
Prone opponents now use Stunt for defence, which makes Corps a Corps less of a total killer. A character can also spend a drama die to get up from prone without spending an action.
Basically - you steal your GM's drama dice (players like this) and it's still a good knack to bring defence down by a lot.
Still a powerful knack, but no longer the complete end of combat it used to be.
Pommel Strike no longer sets a character's defence to 5, it simply reduces it's passive defence by 10 for the same duration.
That's still powerful - and it's an excellent way to make hard-to-hit enemies become far, far easier to deal with, or open weaker enemies up to killing blows.
4. Negative Reputation and Reputation do not cancel each other out.
They are instead tracked separately and grant advantages separately.
5. Porté
One of my players will play a 1/2 blooded Porté Sorcerer, so these changes were made just for him. I ill incorporate them in future campaigns though. We also ruled bring can be done as part of an attack action because throwing the same bloodied knife at 3 opponents is just cool factor.
Attunement, Pocket and Catch are all fine. Catch is strictly a combat knack, and has it's unique niche - giving plenty of reason for increasing it. Pocket and Attunement both have static effects; you know what you're getting.
The ones that don't work are Blooding and Bring.
Blooding
In it's current state, Blooding forces the player to roll a (relatively) high TN check, with no penalties for failure - and a hefty reward for critical success.
There's nothing keeping a player from rolling again and again and again... and again. What's more; critical success in Blooding decreases the difficulty for Bring by so much, it makes much more sense to invest more in Blooding rather than Bring, even if Bring is the knack you want to be better at.
So here's a suggested overhaul.
To Blood an object, the sorcerer spends 10 actions. Success is automatic. The sorcerer can have 2 blooded objects for every rank in this knack.
In other words, I took away Blooding's ability to make Bring better (I folded that into Bring), but in return - you get to blood more objects - and there's incentive to increase the knack. It also does away with rolling dice just to roll dice (I don't think this will ever be done mid combat where the 10 wasted actions would matter).
Bring
You'd never increase Bring as it's written in the book. Blooding was the better way to increase Bring. Without it though, Bring's still a bit weak in comparison (after all - it's only use is getting a completely static TN of 20 to Bring an item. It'll make bring completely redundant once your resolve is high enough. So let's make it relevant again.
For ever rank in Bring, a Porté sorcerer can invest one of his blooded items with a drama die. Every die invested this way permanently decreases the difficulty of any Porté knacks with that item by 3. In addition, the number of drama dice invested this way are added to the sorcerers ranks in Attunement with regards to this item.
There's certain risks involved with being so narrowly bound with an item however.
The sorcerer loses the ability to "give up" his bond with the item at will, and must spend one drama die to dissolve the bond.
What's more, the TN to 'hand off' the item to another sorcerer increases by 5 for every drama die invested this way.
Should the item be destroyed - the sorcerer takes one dramatic wound.
Attunement
Works fine as is but with the change to Bring needs the following addendum.
Every rank above 5 in Attunement increases the range by 10 miles.
---
I have a lot of smaller house rules and changes in place - but I don't really want feedback on those.
If people are interested though, I can type 'm up.
Please do take a look at post #2 where the skill changes are.
Sadly, I'm not a player here. I move around too much, and while I would greatly welcome the opportunity - you're all very very far away .
That said, I'll be starting another 7th Sea campaign soon, and like many people who GM this system - I've written out a few house rules.
They've gotten bigger and more numerous as the years went by, and I've recently made some pretty hefty changes to the skill system I'd like some feedback on before I subject my players to them.
First of all, thanks to Mark for letting me post 'm here and bothering you lot .
Here goes:
I've got 2 design principles when changing rules - and I'm trying not to break them.
These are "Don't fix what isn't broken", and "Keep It Simple Stupid".
I've posted them all scattered on my own group's forums - and will be compiling them in the days to come.
What I'd like to do is get a few more people to look them over and think about some effects I might not have anticipated, or just generally give me some feedback.
"This is awesome, I'm stealing this next time I GM" is what I'm hoping to hear - but what I mostly want out of this is a better ruleset.
Your own suggestions are also welcome.
I'll take the liberty of double or even triple posting as there'll be quite a bit of material here. Trying to post them together thematically.
The biggest changes are probably #2, and the skill changes in the followup post.
These are also the ones I want feedback on the most.
Thank you for reading.
1. Drama dice are not worth EXP.
(Self explanatory, and I think a houserule in many of your campaigns as well. Or worth exp even if you spend them, I think the motivation behind this rule change is clear. On to the bigger ones)
2. There's only 3 defensive knacks - and they can't have the same score
And these knacks are Footwork, Parry and Stunt. At character creation, all characters get one at 3, one at 2 and one at 1 for free.
Forget what you know about where these knacks normally are, dear AEG board - skills got quite an overhaul as well.
Their use is pretty much what you'd expect.
Footwork when you can normally use it, same with Parry, Stunt for /everything/ else.
3. Pommel Strike & Corps a Corps are toned down.
Prone opponents now use Stunt for defence, which makes Corps a Corps less of a total killer. A character can also spend a drama die to get up from prone without spending an action.
Basically - you steal your GM's drama dice (players like this) and it's still a good knack to bring defence down by a lot.
Still a powerful knack, but no longer the complete end of combat it used to be.
Pommel Strike no longer sets a character's defence to 5, it simply reduces it's passive defence by 10 for the same duration.
That's still powerful - and it's an excellent way to make hard-to-hit enemies become far, far easier to deal with, or open weaker enemies up to killing blows.
4. Negative Reputation and Reputation do not cancel each other out.
They are instead tracked separately and grant advantages separately.
5. Porté
One of my players will play a 1/2 blooded Porté Sorcerer, so these changes were made just for him. I ill incorporate them in future campaigns though. We also ruled bring can be done as part of an attack action because throwing the same bloodied knife at 3 opponents is just cool factor.
Attunement, Pocket and Catch are all fine. Catch is strictly a combat knack, and has it's unique niche - giving plenty of reason for increasing it. Pocket and Attunement both have static effects; you know what you're getting.
The ones that don't work are Blooding and Bring.
Blooding
In it's current state, Blooding forces the player to roll a (relatively) high TN check, with no penalties for failure - and a hefty reward for critical success.
There's nothing keeping a player from rolling again and again and again... and again. What's more; critical success in Blooding decreases the difficulty for Bring by so much, it makes much more sense to invest more in Blooding rather than Bring, even if Bring is the knack you want to be better at.
So here's a suggested overhaul.
To Blood an object, the sorcerer spends 10 actions. Success is automatic. The sorcerer can have 2 blooded objects for every rank in this knack.
In other words, I took away Blooding's ability to make Bring better (I folded that into Bring), but in return - you get to blood more objects - and there's incentive to increase the knack. It also does away with rolling dice just to roll dice (I don't think this will ever be done mid combat where the 10 wasted actions would matter).
Bring
You'd never increase Bring as it's written in the book. Blooding was the better way to increase Bring. Without it though, Bring's still a bit weak in comparison (after all - it's only use is getting a completely static TN of 20 to Bring an item. It'll make bring completely redundant once your resolve is high enough. So let's make it relevant again.
For ever rank in Bring, a Porté sorcerer can invest one of his blooded items with a drama die. Every die invested this way permanently decreases the difficulty of any Porté knacks with that item by 3. In addition, the number of drama dice invested this way are added to the sorcerers ranks in Attunement with regards to this item.
There's certain risks involved with being so narrowly bound with an item however.
The sorcerer loses the ability to "give up" his bond with the item at will, and must spend one drama die to dissolve the bond.
What's more, the TN to 'hand off' the item to another sorcerer increases by 5 for every drama die invested this way.
Should the item be destroyed - the sorcerer takes one dramatic wound.
Attunement
Works fine as is but with the change to Bring needs the following addendum.
Every rank above 5 in Attunement increases the range by 10 miles.
---
I have a lot of smaller house rules and changes in place - but I don't really want feedback on those.
If people are interested though, I can type 'm up.
Please do take a look at post #2 where the skill changes are.