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Home | Forums | Main Systems | BareBones

Some BareBones House Rules

PostDateIcon Sun, 04/11/2021 - 6:23am | PostAuthorIcon galinor3

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.

‹ Sigil & Shadow New idea for balancing Spellcasters ›
PostCommentsIcon Login or register  | PostCategoryIcon   | PostTagIcon Tags: BareBones, house rules
Submitted by galinor3 on Sat, 04/24/2021 - 3:45am.

As an extra comment, one house rule I've also used in relation to magic was power levels. This merely allowed the 6 levels of spells in the rulebook to function over the 10 levels of advancement as proposed in my first post. So assuming a spell had six levels of advancement, the advancement actually spread over ten levels as below:

BB Level: New Level
1...........1
2...........2
3...........4
4...........6
5...........8
6...........10

For example the protection spell has new benefits at levels 1, 3, 5 and 6. Under the new rule they would simply be given at levels 1, 4, 8 and 10.

My gaming group kept the idea of gaining a new spell every new spell caster level. We dispensed with gaining 2 per level if the skill was primary and simply allowed an extra bonus spell at level 1 and 2 for primary skill practitioners or an a single bonus spell at level 1 if the skill was secondary.

Anyway magic works okay and we didn't have to rewrite the entire spell book to allow practitioners 10 levels of advancement.

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Submitted by galinor3 on Sat, 04/24/2021 - 3:57am.

Here are a couple of monsters that have been used.

CYCLOPS
A huge primitive giant with a single eye in the centre of its forehead. Many Cyclops are cannibalistic.

STR140 DEX55 LOG35 WIL80 BP100 INIT2 DR0 MOV18 RANK4 NAT EVIL Travel 15 Leagues20

Attack by weapon 100%, Dam+18, Giant Club 4D,
Thrown Boulder, 60% Damage 6D

HAG

These are foul ugly cunning hunters that always appear in a humanoid female form.

STR60 DEX65 LOG50 WIL45 BP30 INIT1 DR0 MOV8 RANK2 NAT EVIL TRAVEL 10 Leagues

Attack: Claw 50% 1D+2 Damage

Magic: Hags can change their appearance to that of a beautiful female of the viewer’s species. They can hold this appearance for up to three hours. They can also cast charm

These talents they use to lure victims out of the way to kill them

Cast magic 65%, Casting rank 2

Hags frequent out of the way places and pick off lone travelers.

Skill: Thief (Deception /impersonate, Open locks, sleight of hand, Stealth) 65%

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