House Rules

The Rule of Common Sense
-Everybody must have fun. If someone is not having fun it is their right, obligation and duty to bring it up with the rest of the group so that everyone can work out a solution together. This means that while one player might want to be a God-Wizard who can out-sneak the Rogue and out-fight the Fighter, he or she cannot do so if doing so would infringe on the fun of the Rogue or Fighter players. It means that players that know how to optimize should either optimize to the level of the lowest-skilled player or severely rein in their more powerful abilities and use them only as a last resort.

[This rule is open to expansion at any time. It is the core of my gaming philosophy and applies to all of the games I participate in. While not exactly a house rule I'm putting it first anyway. Real house rules to come later]

Character Creation: D&D
-40 Point Buy, may not put more than 16 points into an ability score (Score of 18 before racial boosts)
-All official WotCo material is allowed, Dragon Compendium/Magazine material will generally be allowed, but please point it out for me
-Third Party material is on a case-by-case basis only. I reserve the right to use 3rd party material as a DM-only feature

Players like having fun and getting good things. As such I give a slightly higher Point Buy total and am generally relaxed on what people use. While I reserve the right to veto something if I feel it's not appropriate or ridiculously powerful, I try to let everyone get what they want. Just don't push it. Please.

D&D House Rules
-On Alternative Uses for Turn Attempts
--Multiple Nightsticks can be used, but they do not stack with each other - if a Nightstick does not cover the amount of turn attempts required for the intended purpose, the user must fill in the remaining turns with his/her personal pool. For example, DMM Persist costs seven turn attempts or a Nightstick plus three from the 3+CHA+Extra Turning+Other Sources pool.
---The Reliquary Holy Symbol adds turns directly to the user's personal pool but does not stack with itself
----Sources of bonus turn attempts that add to a pool add to all turning pools - for example, Extra Turning would add four turns to both Turn/Rebuke pools for a Cleric/Death Delver. Nightsticks, however, do not - they are used as disposable batteries that can be used for either pool but not both. The aforementioned Cleric/Death Delver has the following turning pools: 7+CHA/7+CHA/4 floating.

-On Nonstandard Races and LA
--Hobgoblins have LA 0 instead of LA +1. Their bonuses *are* better than some of the standard races, but all they get are two +2 boosts, Darkvision 60 and +4 to Move Silently. Contrast to Dwarves, who get a ridiculous amount of additional features, or the always powerful bonus feat/skill point of a vanilla Human. Since I don't like starting at super-low levels their boosts will already be falling off in terms of obvious superiority.

-XP costs used for crafting or learning new spells/powers, etc. can be replaced by gold at a five-to-one ratio. XP costs used in actually casting a spell or something like that must still be paid.