4e Homebrew: General

[Iamnotsuicidesoldier1]

4e Homebrew: General

House Rules: Races
Races have signifigant changes, largely being that any race can gain a +2 bonus to eitheir ability, regardless of their original race ability type. So for instance, a Dragonborn could take +2 Strength and Dexterity, or a Gnome +2 Strength and constitution. In this way, you can play any race with any class without any kind of limitations. This essentially allows for a broader combination of race/class combinations, and hopefully increases the versatility of gameplay. This applies to all racial powers as well, which can use your highest ability modifier, instead of the racial power presented. The normal +2 bonus to only one attribute applies to humans. A lot of homebrew races have been added, and for more details on each race, please see the 4e Homebrew: Races section of the subforum.


House Rules: Classes
Classes will remain largely the same, with a handful of subclasses (6) and two brand new Classes (2), the Death Knight and Demon Hunter being allowed. This will show up from time to time in various battles, and were originally meant just for me for my personal use as a GM, but I decided it would be fun to let players choose them as well.


Feats
For the most part feats are the same, with the exception of a handful of new feats, predominately racial feats, available in the game. At character creation, you get two free racial feats, and a free proficiency and expertise feat, either with a weapon or implement. At level 11 and 21, you gain another free racial feat. All ability requirements for feats have been removed, so for instance instead of needing 15 Strength for heavy shield proficiency, or 13 Strength and 13 Constitution for hide armor proficiency, this has been removed. This allows for more feat combinations without a need to wait for higher levels or artificially weaken your character. It is also particularly useful with weapon specialization feats, that usually rely on dexterity or constitution as a secondary feat. As well, you can take multiple Hybrid Talent feats, effectively allowing several more combinations of Hybrid classes.


Exalted themes
Throughout gameplay, you can pick up a second theme, known as an "Exalted Theme", which reflects choices your character benefits from over time, and a chosen profession, rather than something you start off with. This Exalted theme will vary considerably in what's required to obtain it, and will more or less rely heavily upon story elements to obtain. You can change your Exalted Theme over time, however going back to an earlier theme will be much harder to achieve. Exalted themes, like regular theme's, won't have a dramatic impact on gameplay, but will be an ever present concept in the background.


Magic Item Enhancement Bonus
Magic items still possess their magical effects, but the additional enhancement bonus always applies to your character, magical items in use or not. This way, you don't feel the need to replace an item you want with a higher level item, and equipment will simply scale with level, instead of with items. I hope this will simplify things quite a bit in gameplay, and make the game a little easier to play out. It will also make things more easily balanced, so you don't have to worry substantially about equipment, and will allow players to more or less keep the same weapons throughout the game, even from creation, instead of needing to "find" superior weapons throughout the game, such as roleplay wise somehow finding that exact spear you wanted planted mysteriously on a dragon. Special abilities dependent on particular magic weapons are not effected, however. Thus while the usual magical enhancement bonuses scale with level instead of with the item, the special abilities still depend on the weapon itself.

These levels are equivalent to +1 at each sequential level interval, so at level 1 you possess an additional +1 to all effected stats, with the bonus at level 6 being +2, etc. up to level 26. The levels at which you experience an additional bonuses are are 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, and 26, providing a +1, +2, +3, +4, +5 and +6 bonus, respectively.


Armor
Armor works similarly to magic items, and it will more or less ends up functionally the same as the original books. Instead of waiting to get superior armor items at the appropriate level and magically "finding" these items along the way, you receive extra AC as you level, dependent on your level. For light armor, such as cloth, leather, and hide, you receive additional +1 AC bonuses at level 11, and 21, while with heavy armor, you receive a +1 bonus at level 6, 11, 16, 21, and 26. Thus at level 16 if you are using plate armor, you would automatically receive a +3 bonus to AC, even if your armor is not Warplate armor. In this manner, you do not have to worry quite as much about frequently replacing armor to stay balanced with other players or monsters at your level. While such armor and their special effects are available, these effects only become available when you reach the desired level, rather than reaching the minimum enhancement bonus required by type of armor you desire.

Hopefully, this will simplify level progression somewhat and make your characters less dependent on getting new equipment. For equipment dependent classes such as Paladins and Fighters, it can make the game considerably easier to play, and remove a lot of the logistical hassle. For specific equipment that provides additional bonuses (such as resist all), usually there is an additional penalty with the armor.  

[Iamnotsuicidesoldier1]

Basic online gameplay rules
Because playing online is slightly different than playing in real life, and tends to be much slower, there are some basic rules that will be applied to help speed things up. First, your initiative will be rolled as a group, and whichever side wins gets to go first; you all act at the same time as a team instead of as individuals, which will make it take less time for players to respond. Instead of 5 players with a 2 day delay in their response taking 10 days to play, it will only take 2 days as you will all play together and initiative order will be irrelevant. Initiative will be rolled by me, the GM, instead of by you, to help save time and reduce the amount of rolls required (and group check in delays), as well as perception in most (but not all) instances. Sorry if you like rolling for initiative, this is done as a way to speed things up. Skill checks will often be handled the same way unless they are active skillchecks.

Finally, I expect a 2-3 day delay at most for most players. If you someone is taking too long or misses some time etc. they will simply be skipped over. This way you also feel less guilty for halting the entire game and you can take solace in the fact that everyone else got to play. Of course you may lose an opportunity to defend yourself, but this is the way it goes. Opportunity attacks will also be automatically rolled by me, and it is encouraged that you roll your opportunity attacks that you might incur yourself (if you know the creature's stats who's attacking you). You will be expected to list where you want your character to go, but this might be confusing at times. The space, usually denoted by a letter and then a number, is ideal.

Maps will likely be the hardest, as not all maps will be the same and it might be hard to count out exactly where your people are. If you need help, please feel free to tell me where you want it, or to ask me questions. The maps will vary in quality wildly, and due to the inherent difficulty of translating it to online, will take far more effort and skill. I am by no means an expert map maker, so you will simply have to bear with me on this one. Any input, criticism or help you can be in that arena would be much appreciated. I will try my best to produce as high a quality maps as possible, but hopefully you can understand that this will be a key weak point. Anyways!

For any further questions, please feel free to contact me.



Ideal Post Set-up
While your post set up will largely be left up to you, idealistically you'd show your move, minor, standard/attack action for the turn. While the exact post set up can be by your choice, a good example would be as follows.


Move:
Minor:
Attack/Standard Action: vs. Defense

Target: Attack roll:
Damage: Dice Roll


Example
Move: K2 to K6
Minor: Divine Challenge
Attack: Ardent Strike (At-will) vs. AC

Target: C1-Yaun-Ti, Attack roll: 14
Damage: Dice Roll, Damage: 8