DwD Studios

I know that this topic has been run before but it appears to have run a little dry. Barebones has been around for years and no doubt a number of players and GMs have adjusted their campaigns to fit their needs and likes. I was wondering what house rules are out there and what GMs liked to do

To get started, I thought that I would offer a few of my own house rules. Now I am not saying that they are better than the official rules. I'm just saying that these particular rules have been fun and worked for my gaming group.

1. A new Character Skill development table:

The old development table was great and allowed for fast character advancement. However for those who like a more long style campaign advancement but still want it pretty quick at the beginning here is an alternative version:

Some of the higher levels are a little more expensive yet are still affordable and 10 levels of advancement are now possible, which offer years of play.

Level...Bonus is half...Cost in DP
........Attribute +
1.......+10.............3
2.......+20.............6
3.......+25.............9
4.......+30.............12
5.......+35.............14
6.......+40.............16
7.......+45.............18
8.......+50.............20
9.......+55.............22
10......+60.............24

The bonuses given are the total for that level and not stackable.

2. If the campaign had ten levels of skill advancement it made sense to me to allow magic to also have ten levels of skill advancement too. So here is a new magical rule:

A new magical damage rule:

Magic
Level Damage
1.......2D
2.......3D
3.......3D+ ½ D
4.......4D
5.......4D+ ½ D
6.......5D
7.......5D+ ½ D
8.......6D
9.......6D+ ½ D
10......7D

All this really did was spread the magical power climb over ten levels instead of six.

3. Combat Damage Experience Bonuses.

The group I play with liked the idea that if magical characters could advance in power because of their experience level, why not non-magical characters too. We all felt that magic should be powerful, rare and dramatic, but agreed amongst ourselves that combat could advance too. So here is the table we use to advance combat damage over ten levels of skill advancement:

Skill Level Damage Bonus
1...............+0
2...............+1
3...............+1D5
4...............1D
5...............1D+1
6...............1D+1D5
7...............2D
8...............2D+1
9...............2D+1D5
10..............3D

As you can see magic still has a more powerful increase. It did make combat rather lethal though but we liked that. I am not saying that it would be for everyone.

Two other rules we adopted were firstly:
Offensive strike worked as described in the book with the above adjustments however once at level one, when a mode of attack was selected, it became fixed. For example if a player chose "Fire ball" as their attack, they always cast "Fire ball".

At level two they simply gained another mode of attack, such as "Lightning bolt". Both spells would do the same damage but their mode of use and overall effect would of course be different, as would effective defenses against these attacks. For example water puts out fire but conducts electricity.

The Second rule we used was:
Melee and Ranged combat skills were created exactly as in the rule book; however after level one we developed them as independent skills.

I am not saying "let’s adopt these rules" or anything like that. All I’m saying is these rules were fun to play for my gaming group because of the style of play we like to do and might interest some other BB gamers.

What house rules does everyone else use? Maybe you don’t use any. Maybe you have some and would like to share.