T20 House Rule Swap Meet

[Morte]

These are my T20 house rules. [Reasons for the rule are in square brackets.]

I'm curious to see what other people use.

· You may re-roll up to four dice during chargen. You always take the newest roll, even if it’s worse than the previous. [This is meant to let players get roughly the character they want. E.g re-roll enlistment/commission/promotion if you want a navy officer, DEX and enlistment for a sniper, mustering out benfits for a rich git, etc.]

· I’ll usually waive rules about career and class eligibility if it fits the backstory, e.g. to allow a rogue/mercenary. [T20 is a bit weird in places.]

· You can start play with up to 20% of your skill points unspent, and spend them during the first couple of sessions. [Allows some leeway against “picking the wrong skills”.]

· I give half the normal XP, and always treat you as level 4 for the purposes of “200 XP/level” type awards. Characters level slowly, and the rate gradually decreases. However, every so often you can take points off “forgotten” skills and move them to “new” skills. I also allow this swapping with feats. [The aim is to shift the emphasis from “character advancement” to “character development”.]

· Psionics don’t really happen in my games. None of the PCs have psionic abilities. There are psions in the setting -- I haven’t un-invented the Zhodani -- but you never meet any. [If I wanted magic, I’d play D&D.]

· Laser weapons and PSUs lose 10% of their weight per TL after introduction. At TL = intro+3, PSUs can be built into the weapon rather than needing a cable.

· Ignore the rules about telescopic sights getting knocked out of alignment. [They're nonsense.]

· Shipping fees are charged partly by distance, so for a dton of bulk freight it’s Cr 500/trip + 500/parsec rather than 1000/trip. Other passenger/shipping charges split similarly. [J1 to J4 can turn a fairly similar profit at PC tonnages.]

· Armour Class affects attack rolls with fists/swords/bows etc -- as per the usual D20 abstraction, you’re rolling to make a useful hit. But it does not affect attack rolls for firearms -- with these you’re rolling to hit, period, and armour just gives damage reduction. Exception: chameleon armour always modifies attack rolls. [Goal: makes combat deadlier overall, increases the gap between firearms and melee weapons, encourages stealthy types.]

· All ship computers can run all the computer programs in the THB concurrently, and they are installed free as a matter of course. A TL9+ computer can do any number crunching or signal processing the players care to dream up. [I think no explanation is necessary.]

· I use fractional BAB and fractional saving throws. [Avoids weird multiclassing artefacts.]

· Redefined Martial Training feat: Characters are eligible if they have STR and DEX 12+ or if they have completed one term in the Army/Barbarian/Marine/Mercenary/Navy/Scout careers. It raises BAB by 0.25 per level for every level held in classes which do not grant +1.0 BAB/level. [T20 version lags on three levels out of four.]

· In some games: Ships depreciate 0.9% of present value per year on a reducing balance method. A ship may be leased for three times its depreciation; the operator gains no equity in the ship and returns it at the end of the lease. [Payments are lower than the normal hire-purchase scheme, but there’s no ship ownership jackpot at the end. This suits players who actually want to play merchants, rather than playing merchants who are forced into adventuring.]

· Special PBEM rule: Coffee, food, clothes and hair are not central concerns. You will not address them at length in every other post.

 

[savage]

Morte,
Good idea. I like the modification of Laser weapon weights. I did a few things with character creations as well. Gave them more feats in the class, allowed a skill to double the max skill points.

I've detailed on my game site several other alterations to T20 and canon that I've made;
1. an alternate starship selection system roughly based on TNE
2. Friends, Buddies, and Contacts from Shadowrun
3. Ursa Monks and WarChief prestige class
4. Docking, Towing, and Turbo manuever drive rules
5. Fuel Consumption (the 1/2 fuel rule for TL16 and above) and Jump Gates
6. Several methods of orbital drops
7. ship construction - multi and colossus spinal mounts for capital ships
8. XBITS- Where xboats are jumped communications instead of physical vessels...

I'm working on a few other variations.

Savage

 

[Shadowdancer]

Our biggest house rule is during Chargen, if you multiclass, and your new class gives starting feats that your character already obtained as starting feats in another class, you can substitute another class feat.

Also, we allow other non-service classes besides Belter and Barbarian to start their careers at age 14 (within reason -- has to have a plausible backstory; Noble, for example, would be allowed).

 

[lightsenshi]

Critical hits only apply to personal combat. ^_^

 

[Eric]

Ouch factor.

With about twenty-five percent of stamina points gone you take a -2 modifier to all checks.
With fifty percent gone the penalty is -4.
At seventy-five take a -6.

Characters with the toughness feat may ignore the first penalty and every penalty thereafter is two points less than normal.

For healing, if stamina is up but lifeblood is down the modifiers are as follows.

20% LB= -1
35% LB= -2
50% LB= -4
75% LB= -8
90% LB= -16

These effects come into play after the battle, when the adrenaline wears off.
Again characters with the toughness feat may ignore the first penalty and every penalty thereafter is only half.

Note. I'm still play testing this one so it's subject to change.

 

[Commander Drax]

Hi, when allocating damage from spinal weapons, I roll the 16d +1 die per usp level above 10. This has the effect of making Imperial Dreadnaughts something to be feared. As prior to this they could be quite easily mobbed by smaller lighter cruisers. This rule applies to any vessel that can mount a spinal mount, and adds to game balance, after all only suicidal types should want to form a fleet of 3 x 30,000 ton light cruisers vs a single 1,000,000 Ton Dreadnaught.

 

[myrmidon]

Hmm lets think:

Generation I have players roll each stat with 3d6 in order, twice and take the best roll - including a 'wild stat slot'. They can then either swap two stat pairs or swap one stat pair and sub the wild into another. Seems to give the ability to get whichever class is wanted without generally powering up the average stat.

Toughness feat gives 2 extra 'live to minus' as well as the 3stam/1LB
Con modifies the live to minus 10 rule as well.

Swipe feats from other D20 but be careful with the balance of combat feats. I've generally found that adding feats from DnD like tends to overpower that, more skill based stuff from say SG1 works nicely.

Tim

 

[Despasian]

Still working through my house rules, but have a few locked in:

CharGen:
During Prior History, Characters must spend at least half of their skill points in Class Skills.
Characters going to University must spend at least half in Knowledge/Profession/Craft skills.

If you multiclass and have duplicate Class Bonus Feats...Oh Well. [discourages min/max-ers]

Combat:
Made up a revised Armor List.
Battle Dress is NOT a vehicle (see other threads for the reasons for THAT), but I do have them "power assist" to counter some of the skill penalty, Max Dex restriction and loss of movement rate. Also increased greatly the cost of the high-end armors.

I don't let Critical Hits ignore AR.
They get Bonus Dice. and if they Double Crit [roll threat again on their crit check, AND make a hit roll] I give them max damage.

I also use something similar to Zanrain's modifiers for LB/STA loss.

Currently working on re-tooling the weapon stats as well. I felt there were some problems with the T20 list for my taste. Looks like I'll end up with a much different Weapon/Armor interaction

 

[Eric]

How's this, In melee combat for every two points of strength modifier and one point of armor penetration to the weapon.

 

[Flynn]

I use the Epic rules for skill checks to aid another: If you make the base DC of 10, you add +2 to the primary skill check. For every ten points higher on the skill check, you add an additional +1 to the primary skill check. For example, if your skill check to aid the Chief Engineer is a 21, which is ten or more points higher than ten but less than twenty points higher, of course, so you add +3 to the primary skill check.

Rewards higher skill levels.

Also, Skill Focus is +3, not +2. A few other minor changes to feats of this nature.

Hope this helps,
Flynn