#RPGaDAY2022 – Day 7: A Cool Part of a System
What a question! D&D, in all its iterations and edition, and with all its supplements, has so many systems and subsystems that I don't know where I'd start?!
Maybe I should focus on the three big house rules I've implemented:
Arduin's special ability charts. Arduin Grimoires begun their life as crazy AD&D supplements. Special ability charts were one of them. Every character can roll on their respective chart, and get anything from smelling so bad the monsters will spit them out to secretly being a were-creature. My players have been having a blast with it.
Critical hits and fumbles from the Dragon Magazine, issue 39. Common approach of natural 1 always being a fumble and natural 20 always a critical strike doesn't make sense to me. Why fixed 5%? Why doesn't a high level fighter become better? Carl Parlagreco introduces a simple system where probability of success or failure is determined as the difference between the attack roll and roll required to successfully hit. In other words, it scales with the level of the attacker.
Clinging to life. Classic D&D is very lethal. 0 hp? You are dead. For my game I decided to introduce two checks: first save versus death to see if you are still alive, and then roll under constitution score to remain conscious. This has created some rather memorable (and dramatic!) moments in my game.
There are so many cool systems and subsystem and whatnot... One life wouldn't be enough to explore them all!
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