House Rules
house rules
I will generally be following the core D&D 3E rulebooks. However I will impose a few "tweaks" to the core rules. Some of these are made in order to better capture the feel of the setting, others address what I feel to be general roleplaying problems raised by the standard rules as written.
I will also be using the Using D&D 3E with HarnWorld guide developed by Shane Morales as a guideline. Shane's guide may be downloaded from his Hârn page. Players are encouraged to download and study this guide, though it should not be taken as gospel.
Classes
All classes listed in the Player's Handbook are available to player characters with the exception of Monk. This may change at some point in the future.
Races
All races listed in the Player's Handbook are available to player characters with the exception of half-orc. This may change at some point in the future.
Elves
In Hârn, it is rare for elves (Sindarin) to set foot outside their home kingdom of Evael, so players should be aware that elven player characters are likely to draw attention. Half-elves, while very rare in Hârn, can generally pass for human.
Halflings & Gnome
Officially Hârn has no halflings or gnomes. However, I have no objection to tweaking the setting to accomodate these races if a player wishes to play either of them.
Multi-classing
When generating a character, the player should nominate all classes that he or she intends the character to multi-class into. The character starts out at 1st level in one of these classes (at the player's choice) and "0th" level in the others.
The character can take skills and feats in any of her level zero classes as if she actually had levels in those classes. However, she must spend one skill point per level and four at 1st level on skills exclusive to, or at least very closely related to, each level zero class she has.
If a player wishes to add an unlisted class to an existing character, he or she may do so, but the character must spend a certain period of game time undergoing training. The duration of training may be several months or several years depending on which class is being trained for.
Barbarians
A character can only add a Barbarian class if he or she was raised in one of the barbarian tribal nations.
Paladins
The Player's Handbook states that if a paladin chooses to multi-class, he or she can no longer progress as a paladin. I may relax this restriction for certain characters.
Alignment
The Know Alignment spell is banned in my game. Detect Evil, Detect Good, etc. will only detect instances of "supernatural" evil. This means, for instance, that Detect Evil will not detect a "normal" character or creature that is Evil-aligned. Creatures such as orcs, goblins, ogres and so on will not show up. Undead, demons and various supernatural creatures will.
Paladins, blackguards and clerics who draw power from their connections with supernaturally good or evil forces will show up on these spells.
In practise, these restrictions mean that it is not generally possible to divine a creature's alignment using magical means.
Alignment change
For most characters, alignment is no big deal. Alignment reflects how the character behaves - not the other way around. If a Lawful Good character starts behaving in a Lawful Neutral fashion, then it is simply a matter of adjusting the character's sheet to reflect the change.
For paladins and clerics, the rules are different. Depending on their deity, clerics are permitted some scope for drift so long as they remain correctly aligned on their deity's primary axis. For example, a cleric of a primarily Lawful deity is permitted to be Lawful Good, Lawful Evil or Lawful Neutral and may even drift between the three more or less at will, but as soon as she moves away from Lawful, she stands to lose her powers.
Paladins must remain Lawful Good or lose their powers. End of story.
Wizards
In Hârn, wizards are known as Shek Pvar. I will be following the guidelines in Shane Morales' Using D&D 3E with HârnWorld with some slight adjustments. In short, Hârnic magic is divided into six "convocations" which represent elemental principles and correspond roughly to D&D's schools of arcane magic. The convocations are generally shown arranged in a circle known as the Pvaric wheel.
When a budding wizard takes her first level, she must choose to attune to one of the six elemental principles. This is known as her primary element. The elements adjacent to her primary element on the Pvaric wheel are her secondary elements. The next two are her tertiary elements. The remain element, directly opposite her primary on the wheel, is her diametric element.
At 4th, 7th, 10th, 13th and 16th levels, the wizard may attune to a new element. At 4th and 7th levels she must attune to one of her secondary elements, at 10th and 13th, she may attune to either of her tertiary elements. Only upon reaching level 16 can a wizard attune to her diametric element.
A wizard automatically knows all spells belonging to any convocation to which she is attuned and may cast those spells without the aid of material components. A wizard may not ever learn or cast spells from her diametric element until she attunes to that element upon gaining her 16th level as a wizard.
Spells from un-attuned convocations must be learnt according to the rules laid out in the Players Handbook. When attempting to learn spells from one of her tertiary elements, a wizard suffers a -4 penalty to her Spellcraft check. When casting a spell from an un-attuned convocation, the wizard must use the material components listed in the spell's description.
Finally, the Shek Pvar are bound to a code of conduct. This is detailed in Shane Morales' Using D&D 3E with HârnWorld.
Sorcerers
Having a natural ability for magic, sorcerers are not bound by the elemental disciplines of the Shek Pvar. However, they are regarded by the Shek Pvar as "wilders" or dangerous amateurs. In practice, the Shek Pvar tend to turn a blind eye to sorcerers provided they keep a low profile.
For their part, sorcerers hold the Shek Pvar in equal disdain.
Prestige Classes & Custom Rules
It is my belief that the standard skills & feats in the Player's Handbook, along with 3E's flexible multi-classing system provide rich opportunity for tuning a character to a player's individual tastes.
With that in mind, I would encourage players to stick to the classes, skills and feats listed in the Player's Handbook. On the other hand, I don't intend to be a Nazi about this, so if you have a vision for your character that requires a certain prestige class, skill or feat from another source, then talk to me about it and we'll see what we can do.
Hârn & HârnWorld are © Columbia Games and N. Robin Crossby.