Unified House Rule Document Update AND Handy Linked PDF

Mid-year update whaaaat.

Mostly this is because I'm always a little bit "oh no!" when I discover someone's been reading the house rule doc and it's NOT UP TO DATE OH NO.

Occasionally I get a comment that's like "hey could you put all the Lorebonds and elf powers and stuff into the one pdf?" so that it can basically be played out of the box.
The answer is - kinda!

You can now find a Linked PDF Version here. Intended to be used/perused digitally, everything you need an external resource should have a handy-dandy link.

You can find the non-Linked PDF Version here. Intended to be printed out for table use.

Linked Version

Unlinked Version

For context for some of these changes, at the beginning of the year we had the campaign's first ever TPK! So we skipped the timeframe forward half a century so people could see what's happened in the interrim.
How exciting!

Change Log:

Religion:

- Added Zeanism, based on the teachings of one of the player characters who took the Termaxian "do whatever you want, the gods aren't watching!" thing to heart.
Basically this is the drug religion now, and the Cleric spell allows you to take drugs with no downsides!
- Termaxianism has changed in the last 50 years, mostly because they're pretty sure that God lost the final war for all creation. Now it's up to them to finish the fight. No change besides their general lore.
- Nonanism is now accepting of the Undead and Necromancy in general. Pragmatism or corruption? Who can say? Another lore change, they're mechanically the same. 

Char Gen:

- Removed the Cartographer equipment pack because it contained paper and pens and I can't be fucked to enforce the need for paper in order to draw a map any more. It was a boring idea anyway.

Experience Points:

- Added Party Roles as directly inspired by John Bell at the Retired Adventurer. This has been real useful for keeping track of stuff and keeping players engaged even if they're not directly involved in the action.

Living Standards:

- Originally you needed to get to Comfortable conditions in order to heal from 0HP to 1HP, no longer! Otherwise it interacts weirdly with the "Take a Break" option where you eat a ration to heal 1d6 HP.

- Comfortable conditions now give you an extra 1d6 bump if you're already at full health! You'd imagine everyone would prefer comfy sleeps, but if you get nothing extra at max health you may as well save your money and live in a bin.
- Splendid conditions grant 1d6+level extra temp HP, since Comfortable conditions stole that thunder.

Big Purple d30 Rule

- Now upgrades a single die roll to the next die size when used. Previously you could replace any single roll with the Big Purple d30, which had the surprisingly underwhelming effect of making it an "I Win" button. This compounded by the large number of d30s players would accrue through buying me beer...

Downtime Activities

- Magical Research went through a few changes to make it slightly more interesting.

Fancy Combat Actions

- Changes to Sneak Attack. Now you roll when attacking from surprise to find your extra attack bonus, and enemies with high Awareness (renamed Search) have a chance of avoiding the damage multiplier.

Fancy Combat Reactions

- Split these off into their own heading.

- Parry covers all defensive melee actions. Smaller weapons can counter, larger weapons can disarm, and setting spears against charge is now covered under the Parry banner.

Melee Weapon Types

- One day I'll probably either remove these or make them Fighter-only, but for now I'm simplifying further. I've got lots of players and don't want things to stay as fiddly as they were.
- Axes remain the same - double damage on evens vs low armour.

- Hammers get +2 vs Chain or better. Straight up.
- Swords get +1 to hit across the board. Versatile, never a bad choice, a little boring.

- Knives give bonus damage if you beat their AC with your Wrestle Roll because you're shanking the shit out of them.
- Whips remain.

Ranged Weapon Options

- Flintlocks are in the game post-timeskip! Hurrah! That's basically it.

Death & Dismemberment

- Rewritten for the millionth time. This remains one of my favourite subsystems but boy is it hard to explain when you're not just passing out dice around a table.

Running Away

- Added a section on this very important aspect of not dying.

- More on running away here.

New Skills

- Search renamed to Awareness.

- Sneak Attack: When attacking from Surprise, roll Sneak Attack. On success, gain the result as a bonus to hit. If the enemy fails an Awareness check, multiply damage by your whole Sneak Attack score. Even your standard 1-in-6 character gets a little benefit maybe.

Saving Throws

- Hey what I renamed them! Makes it easier, and I don't think I ever called a save vs device.

- Stun, Doom, Blast, Law, Chaos.

- All as per usual, except Law is your save vs Lawful magic. Makes that more of a divide I guess!

Also one of my players made a rad new character sheet. Hurrah!