These house rules for D&D 3.5 are provided as is, no warranty. Feel free to use them in your own game as you see fit. If you have any rules you'd like to contribute, please post them in our House Rules - D&D forum.

Character Generation

• Charles' Method:
  
  • For stats, roll 4d6, rerolling 1s, drop the lowest. do that seven times, dropping the lowest stat.
  • Make 3 sets of stats, use whichever you want.
  • Take max hit points at 1st level.
  • For each additional level, reroll hitpoints that come up less that 25% of max (1's on d4/d6, 1's and 2's on d8 / d10, 1's, 2's, 3's on d12).
• Shiva's Method
  If I am running a game with few players (2 or 3) or I want to amp up the players. I use this epic rolling method. This gives you 1st level characters with the punch of a second level party or at least a party of 4-5 characters.
  • 4d6 drop the lowest 2 rolls and add 6, rerolling 1s.
  • Do this 6 times and roll 2 sets picking the better set.
  • I like max hit points at first level and no less than 50% of hit die when leveling up. Say a fighter rolls a 4 he or she automatically gets a 5 as thats the minimum. he does not get to reroll.

Magic and Spells

• Charles' rule on heal spells or healing potions:
  If you're NOT in combat and a healing spell/potion/scroll/etc. is used, reroll any dice that come up at 25% of max or less. however, if the part is still in combat, then you do NOT get to reroll. This makes combat casting a bit less precise, but reduces the risk that a valuable spell slot will come up short when healing is involved.
• Shiva's addendum to this:
  My only comment on Charles' healing spells a potions and whatnot is that you should get to reroll 1s even in combat or at least that 1s become 2s in combat. Assuming at least d8 as the potential rolls. If we are talking about d3 or something then no a 1 is legitimate roll.
• Charles' rule on Wizard's spells learned per level:
  The PHB says wizards can add 3 new spells to their spell book each level. Any further additions require scrolls or bought/stolen/looted spell books to copy from.
  I think this puts an undue burden on wizards. The cleric doesn't go through this bottleneck. Nor is the fighter forced to kill more and more creatures to advance--er, nevermind.
  In any event, to combat this spell shortage, Wizards get the 3 spells as stated in PHB, plus a number of spells equal to their Intelligence modifier. This seems a fair increase without unbalancing things from the core.

Feats

• Two handed weapon style (by Shiva)
  Reqs: +1 to hit, proficiency with a two handed weapon
  A person who has this feat gets 2 times their strength modifier to damage with a 2 handed weapon.
  Normal: A person without this feat gets a 1.5 times their strength modifier to damage with a 2 handed weapon.
• Improved two handed weapon style (by Shiva)
  Reqs: +6 to hit, Two handed weapon style
  A person who has this feat gets 1.5 times their strength modifier to hit with a two handed weapon.
  Normal: A person without this feat gets only their strength modifier to hit with a 2 handed weapon.
• Double weapon expertise (by Shiva)
  Reqs: Proficiency with a double weapon
  A person with this feat gets the strength modifier for the double weapon as if it were a 2 handed weapon.
  Normal: A person without this feat gets no additional strength modifier for a double weapon.
• Fast Learner (by Charles)
  Prerequisites: Ability to memorize and cast 2nd level arcane spells from a spell book.
  Effect: By taking this feat, the caster is able to learn more spells at each level. The caster learns 5 spells at each level. This is not retroactive. It takes affect starting with the level in which the Feat is gained and any future levels.
  Normal: Normally, casters gain 3 spells per level.
  Special: This feat may be taken multiple times. Each additional Feat taken adds 2 extra spells learned at each level from that point forward.

Mechanics

• Attributes (by Shiva)
  The rules say that when a die roll needs to be rounded it should be rounded down.
  For example: If fighter hits with his great axe and has a +3 modifier because of his 17 Str it gets multiplied by 1.5 and the fraction is rounded down resulting in a total of 4 points of additional Str damage.
  However, this gives no benefit to the character with the 17 over one with a 16 both have a +3 modifier. The PC with a 17 can one day raise it to 18 but that isn't necessarily going to happen and it still doesn't reflect that there should be a distinction between the 2 scores.
  In cases where rounding is required if the character has the even (or lower) half of the modifier combination it be rounded down and if the character has the odd (or higher) half it will be rounded up. This allows for some distinction between the scores.
  Returning to the above example: Fighter would round up the 1.5 and result in a +5 instead of a +4 which a PC with a 16 would get.