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From Fax Encyclopedicus

"No Plot, Just Combat" Pick up and play, encounter-based combat. No plot, no story, just sandbox warfare. ==All Games== *Expect a maximum of three encounters per instance. ==3.5 games== ===General=== *36 PB *All 3.5 material allowed, but follow the notes as below. *Buffs lasting longer than 3 hours may be active at the start of a battle. *HP is max first level, average thereafter. *Fractional BAB/Saves *Up to 1 trait and 2 flaws *No Action Points *No LA above +2. LA buyoff not allowed as XP is irrelevant. * Aasimar and similarly all native outsiders do not grant weapon proficiencies for the purposes of class qualification. * Dragonlance's dragonspawn templates are banned. * Feats, abilities, and other benefits granted by spells or items may not be used to fulfill any qualification requirement. This excludes Psychic Reformation and similar instantaneous effects. * All forms of ''awaken'' are banned. * Splitting and similar effects copy only the item, not positive effects currently on it. * Undead are not immune to mind-affecting spells. * Kobolds may not qualify for lore-drake or epic feats. * Dusk Giants do not exist. * Sarrukh do not exist. * Shambling mounds do not exist. * You may not order a creature or player to fail a save in any fashion. * Initiate of Mystra is banned. * Pazuzu does not exist. * The Far Realms do not exist. * Time Travel is soft-banned: you breaka mah game, I breaka yo face. *Build for levels 1, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20. *Fax (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/) and Gral (http://www.gralamin.com/wiki/) homebrew is allowable. *Standard WBL ===Sources=== * Iron Kingdoms material is allowed on a case by case basis. * Dragon and Dungeon Magazine are banned. * Serpent Kingdoms is approval-only material. * Savage Species is approval-only material. ====Unearthed Arcana==== Allowed: * Flaws and traits. * Variant classes. :*Class variants (such as dungeoncrasher and feat rogue) may be mixed. * Additional Favored Class feat. * Prestige paladin and bard. * Racial paragons. ===Classes=== * Fighter is banned, excluding dungeoncrasher, as it is stupid. * Erudite is banned. * Domain wizards are banned. * Monk is full-bab or uses the [[Monk|d20r monk]]. * Unarmed swordsage is legal. * All druids are shapeshift druids as per PHB-II. In addition, all other sources of wild shape barring the wildshape ranger instead progress shapeshift. * Swordsages gain adaptive style as a bonus feat at level 4. * Clerics are not alignment locked. * All clerics are cloistered clerics. * Artificers may only shuffle bonuses between enhancement, insight, and competence. * 1d2 crusaders do not exist. * Archivists are limited to the following sources for spells: Domain lists, Cleric, Druid, Shugenja, Ranger, Paladin, Healer, Adept. * Focused specialists do not exist. * All prepared casters start with at minimum one spell scribed per level. * Swap the 1st and 6th level features for Lion Totem Barbarian (CCham) * Ghostwalk classes are banned. ===PrCs=== * Race requirements for PrCs are removed. * Subverted Psion is banned. * Arcane Archers may use crossbows. * Rainbow Servants are a 8/10 casting class that loses a caster level at first and second. * Planar Shepherd is banned. * Master of Many Forms is impossible to qualify for, or ought to be, and is banned. * Master Transmogrist is impossible to qualify for, or ought to be, and is banned. * Ruby Knight Vindicators may gain only one additional swift action per turn. * Tainted scholar and tainted sorcerer are both banned. * Dweomerkeeper is banned. * Cancer mage is banned. * Incantatrix is banned. * Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil's veils duplicate the effect of layers, rather than the effects of the whole spell, and are thus subject to dispelling and AMF. Beyond this, the class is unchanged. ===Feats=== * Retraining is not permitted except in extraordinary cases where a feat becomes useless. * Sanctum Spell does not apply for determining if you can affect a spell with items or spells. * Adaptive Style refreshes your maneuvers. * Mortalbane does not allow stacking uses. Arcane Strike does not allow stacking uses. This should be considered precedent. * Item Familiars are banned. * Greenbound Summoning is banned. * Mercantile Background is banned. * Uncanny Forethought is banned. * Arcane Thesis affects only the first applied metamagic. * Leadership, Undead Leadership, Thrallherd, and Dragon Cohort are banned. Similar or derivative effects are also banned. * Legendary locations that grant feats are unilaterally excluded from serving as pre-requisites. You may only use one per character. * Extra Spell is not list specific, but may be taken precisely once and with DM approval. * Reserves of Strength is banned. * Craft Contingent Spell has double XP costs, these cannot be reduced, and may produce only three contingent spells at a time. The conditions must be as or more exact than contingency normally requires, but no proofing assistance will be offered. * Alternative Source Spell with Battle Blessing does not work that way. No. It doesn't. Don't even think about it. * If a class give you a feat you already have, you can select a new feat that you could have taken when you took the original feat. ===Spells, Powers, &c=== * Teleportation subschool is now part of the evocation school. * Enchantment and Abjuration are now one school. * ''Polymorph'', ''alter self'', ''metamorphosis'', and all derivatives not specifying a single shape are likewise banned. * ''Genesis'' is banned. * ''Forced dream'' is banned. * ''Explosive runes'' is banned. * ''Timestop'' is banned. * ''Gate'' can no longer be used to call or summon. * ''Leech ghost skill'' is banned. * SLAs are not free of expensive, XP, or somatic components. * ''Embrace/shun the dark chaos'' is banned. * ''Glyph seals'' do not accept personal range spells. * There are no free wishes. * ''Starmantle cloak'' and evasion do not stack. * ''Contingency'' cannot be cast from a ''ring of spell storing''. * ''Ice assassin'''s material components cannot be obviated in any fashion. * ''Consumptive field'' is banned. * ''Dweomer of transference'' only converts spells cast by its caster. * ''Fusion'' is banned. * ''Mind blank'' and all derivatives are subject to a caster level check at a penalty dependent on available information. * The ''locate city'' bomb does not work. * ''Plane shift'' and similar are banned. * ''Contact other plane'' and similar effects that use a consultation are probably not going to be effective. * ''Acorn of far travel'' is banned. * ''Rope trick'''s duration is 10 min/level. * White Raven Tactics may be used precisely once per battle per player. * Persistent Spell's range requirements can not be obfuscated by any means, including but not limited to Ocular Spell, Reach spell, or any variant thereof. * Metamagic costs have a strict minimum value of one, unless the ability specifically reduces them to zero, such as DMM or an alternate cost payment method. * Divine Metamagic costs can only be paid with personal turn attempts, not with ''nightsticks'' or similar. ===Items=== * ''Dust of sneezing and choking'' is banned. * The ''ring of the beast'' is banned. * Custom item creation is not permitted except as per the bonus stacking\slot stacking rules in the MIC. A few item types, such as scrolls, are unaffected entirely by this. * Psionic items may be customized on an approval-only basis, as some of the rules effectively demand it. * ''Amulet of second chances'' is banned. * ''Thoughtbottle'' is banned. * ''Candle of invocation'' has no gate function. * ''Nightsticks'' do not stack. * Turn attempts or similar from multiples of the same item are considered unnamed bonuses from the same source, and thus do not stack. ===Skills=== * Caster Level from UMD checks caps at 20 for our purposes. * Diplomancy and its ilk are GM-adjudicated rather than running off the provided tables. * Intimidate and its results are not mind-affecting. * Hide and Move Silently are one skill, Stealth. It uses a Dexterity modifier. * Listen and Spot are one skill, Awareness. It uses a Wisdom modifier. * Open Lock and Disable Device are one skill, Disable Device. It uses a Dexterity modifier. * Balance, Escape Artist, and Tumble are one skill, Acrobatics. It uses a Dexterity modifier. * Climb, Jump, and Swim are one skill, Athletics. It uses a Strength modifier. ==4e games== *Stat Rules: -(10/10/10/10/10/8 starting scores (arrange as desired)) - 22 points distributed according to the following scale (each number reached requires the listed number of points, so to raise a stat from 10 to 16 would require ((3*1)+(3*2))= 9 points): 8-13: 1 point 14-16: 2 points 17: 3 points 18: 4 points *Wealth Rules: - One item of (Level + 1), One item of (Level), One item of (Level - 1), and gold equivalent to the value of a (Level - 1) item. - The predetermined items can be downgraded in level if desired; the difference in gold is then added to your gold total. - Gold may be used to purchase other items as can be afforded. All shopping is assumed to have occurred before the Instance-based game begins. *You can build for any of the following levels: 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, 25th, 30th. *"Damage"/"Damage roll" modifiers can only be applied once per target per power by a given character during said character's turn. These modifiers still apply on any damage/damage rolls the character is directly responsible for when it is <u>not</u> said character's turn (e.g. opportunity attacks, 'out-of-turn' attacks from allies, the secondary damage roll of <i>dire radiance</i>, etc.), but the once per target per power rule is still in effect (so if you used twin strike as an OA, you'd still only apply damage roll modifiers once, for each use of twin strike in that manner). This houserule is meant to curb excessive 'multiattack' abuse from a lone character, and brings the ranger in line with other melee strikers, such as the barbarian and the rogue. *All increases to a character's critical threat range which are not temporary (such as from a power effect) are capped at 19-20. Permanent 18-20 critical threat ranges (or larger) no longer exist. In addition to this, all feats which increase critical threat ranges are banned. Instead, at 21st level, all of your attack rolls score a critical hit on a result of 19-20. This is in response to the skewing of weapon favoritism regarding crit range augmentation, as well as the problems caused by certain paragon paths (daggermaster, student of caiphon, etc.). *Some classes (such as Whirling Barbarians) use powers that require multiple weapons (and have multiple [W] damage rolls), yet call for only a single attack roll in the "Attack:" line. Use [http://www.gralamin.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13 these rules] for such powers, in addition to the aforementioned houserules regarding multiattacks. *Hybrid Characters may take Hybrid Talent once per tier, in addition to the Hybrid Talent feat gained from Paragon Hybridizing if a hybrid character chooses to take that path. This is meant to increase the playability of suboptimal hybrids/allow for 'outlier' builds. *Do not use default background benefits of any kind. This mainly serves to stop Windrise Ports abuse, though there are other backgrounds available which are not properly balanced against one another. Instead, at 1st level you may simply elect to either: -Add one additional skill to your class skill list, or -Receive a +2 background bonus to one of your trained skills (not necessarily a class skill). -P.S.: Anyone caught trying to use Windrise Ports will be mercilessly flogged to the brink of death. *The Demigod epic destiny is banned. The Chosen/Heir of Siberys epic destinies require DM clearance (assume they are likewise banned if no such clearance is available). Any destiny which has a feature raising any of your ability scores loses that feature/that part of the feature. Instead, when you reach 21st level, you gain a +2 bonus to any two ability scores of your choice. This is to encourage more diversified selection of epic destinies since ability score increases are such a powerful lure. *Please use the most recent errata (currently the May release). Many of the previously listed bans/warns are covered by this document. Can be found [http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/updates here]. *Mounts and familiars of any kind must be approved by the DM (assume they are banned until told otherwise). *White Lotus feats must be approved by the DM (assume they are banned until told otherwise). *There is a spoiler entry titled 'Key' in [http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/22105109/DPR_King_Candidates_2.0&post_num=1#383284005 this post on Wizard's CharOp forum]. Tread carefully if you're doing/using any of the things inside this spoiler, and be forewarned that your character might be rejected if it mirrors one of these too closely (save for 'Dragon Magazine in general', as Dragon Magazine is usually allowed). --------------------------------------------- Math Fixes (Optional, Recommended) --------------------------------------------- *Add the following changes as desired. -Weapon Expertise and Versatile Expertise are banned. Instead, you gain a +1 feat bonus to all attack rolls at 1st level. This increases to +2 at 11th level and +3 at 21st level. Note that this bonus overlaps with the feat bonuses normally granted by other sources. -Paragon Defenses and Robust Defenses are banned. Instead, you gain a +1 feat bonus to AC and all defenses at 11th level. This increases to +2 at 21st level. Note that this bonus overlaps with the bonus normally granted by Armor Specialization feats. -Weapon Focus is banned. You gain a +1 feat bonus to all damage rolls at 1st level. This increases to +2 at 11th level and +3 at 21st level. Note that this bonus overlaps with the feat bonuses normally granted by other sources. --------------------------------------------- Variant: 4e IBG Gestalt (Optional) --------------------------------------------- *As above, except with the following changes. -When building the character, use [http://96.52.56.39/HomebrewWiki/index.php/Gestalt these rules] instead of the standard rules for character creation. If desired by the current IBG DM, use 'the awesome array' (18/18/16/14/12/10) instead of the 30 point buy. -Houserules regarding multiattacks, critfishing, hybridizing, etc. still apply. -Latest errata file still applies (currently the May release). -Hybrids are banned in Gestalt until further notice. --------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------- ==List of characters used== ===3.5=== ===4e===

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