Felltower House Rules Examined

As promised in the comments, I decided to take a look at some house rules/ways we run the rules in Felltower. Our base rules set is DFRPG, but with specific add-ons from Basic Set, Martial Arts, and some other DF supplements.

The format here is a quick look at what the rule is, the slant towards PCs or NPCs, and why I think so. I'd be curious to hear comments on the ratings from both players and readers, but obviously play experience is critical for determining how they actually work.

My ratings are:

Pro-PC: This generally makes the game easier on PCs, usually by making it easier to accomplish tasks that save their lives or inflict damage.

Neutral: A toss-up. Helps NPCs and PCs equally. Probably exists in the game to make everyone's lives easier but that's not always the case.

Pro-NPC: Turns up the difficulty on PCs.

These is probably not a complete list, but let's try.

Missile Spell Casting/Explosion Rules

Missile Spells in DF Felltower get a cost reduction every second of buildup, contrary to the rules as written. They also do damage at 1, 2/3, and 1/3 of the roll in a 3-hex area blast for explosive spells, there are explosive variants of every missile spell, and explosive spells are not a different spell, just a different cost.

Favorability: Pro-PC. These make casters much more effective at a lower costs in character points, energy costs, and skill. Sure, NPCs also use these spells, but NPCs don't have the same issues - they aren't working with a point budget (not a fixed one, anyway), and don't have to worry about FP recovery and Paut costs as much.

Potion Drinking Speed

The rules as written require you to draw a potion (Ready), open it (Ready), then quaff it (Ready.) The effects take place the following turn.

As we run them?

Draw a potion (Ready), Open and Drink (Ready), effects are instant.

Favorability to the PCs: Pro-PC.

It's quite rare for enemies to use potions. They'll use grenades, some quite liberally, but not as drinkable potions. The speed is so quick that a major wound can be dealt with very quickly and efficiently, and any special-purpose attack (like, say, Magebane grenades) can be undone in a single second with a good Fast-Draw roll. NPCs can deal an attack in the order at A, the PC can go on B and undo it, and then we move on before anyone can take advantage. This happens so frequently that if we switched back to the rules as written it would significantly alter the balance of power against the PCs in resource-heavy fights.

Item Enchantment Speed

The rules as written don't have any enchantment speed.

Our rules are 1 day per $100. $30,000 items take 300 days.

Favorability to the PCs: Neutral.

NPCs don't ever order magic items, so this doesn't affect them. But the PCs get access to on-demand enchantment, which isn't actually what the rules as written say - they specifically say the GM decides what the shop has, not that the PCs can order whatever they like. Those two changes I feel cancel each other out and make this neutral. You can order from a list but you have to wait vs. you have to just have cash in hand and luck into the shop selling what you want.

Bypassing Missile Shield with a 3-4

The rules as written makes this spell absolute defense, just like any other immunity-type spell.

Favorability to PCs: Pro-PC.

PCs dominate the higher-skill and damage missile role, and often have missile types - Scouts, wizards - in the back of heavy front line fighters. Monsters don't always have the luxury of this in encounters that come off as believable - you can't have archer-types and ranged spellcaster variants of every monster to mix in, or at least Felltower does not. The house rule allows for missile-heavy characters - let's face it, basically Scouts - to put 1-2 shots per second at a magic-using foe out of their inevitable twin Cornucopia Quivers until they get a lucky hit. That hit is a critical, so it also means the foe cannot defend . . . although the original ruling states they could. It does not spell out how to square "3-4 always a critical" and criticals bypassing defenses with the issue of two defenses. I have ideas, but they add a lot of complication and can and will get rules lawyer arguments about expanding them to Sacrificial defenses or All-Out Defense (Double) in ways I don't want to deal with.
No special effects on most criticals

Rules as written? Roll on the Critical Hit Table.

Our rules? 3 is max damage. Any other critical hit just bypasses defenses. (This is taken from the abstract combat system in Basic Set.)

Favorability to PCs: Pro-PC.

The PCs are on the receiving end of more criticals than they deal out, and also generally have high-damage attacks. Foes with lower damage attacks simply can't get a lucky double or triple damage hit, or force a funny bone cripple, or reduce or bypass DR, get a fluke disarm or eye shot. You have 1d+1 cutting damage and the PCs have DR 7+? Oh well. PCs never have to adjust for an unexpected case - their DR really does decide if they can be hurt or crippled and no roll can bypass that unless it's a random hit on a lightly armored or unarmored location.

Unconsciousness Roll Timing

Rules as written have you roll to fall unconcious at the end of a turn where you do something other than Do Nothing.

Felltower has them rolled at the start of a turn in which you decide to do something other than Do Nothing.

Favorability to the PCs: Pro-NPC.

This would be neutral, but look at the potion rules. Allowing a full turn to act before needing to roll means you can get out and drink a potion to heal yourself, which, with a good enough potion and roll, potentially takes you out of the range of injury that forces a roll. Or you can move close to your cleric and let the chips fall where they may, knowing Major Healing and Awaken - also boosted in speed of casting time by potion recovery timing with Paut - will undo a poor roll.



There are more, but this is a good start. I'll have to get to Size Modifier poison rules, our grappling rules, effects of PI and Magery levels on spell limits, etc. some other time. But at a quick glance, it seems like the rules generally slant pro-PC . . . and that the potion rules really skew other rules hard.