Rules for Sunday Night C&C Game

Last Updated: Sat Jun 7 2014

Character Generation

Reference edition is latest printing.
Ability scores are generated using 5d6 drop 2, in any order. At your option you may consider a net bonus of -2 or lower to be hopeless, and reroll. No need to use a die rolling service or roll20 for your stats, I trust you. Moreover, I don't care :).
Hit points are as usual, however, roll your hit die one additional time, and take these as 'temp' hit points. This does not include constituion bonuses. They are consumed first, and are not replenished.
12000 experience points to make your character.
Multiclassing as in 4th printing PHB.
All PHB classes are available except the Assassin.
Evil-aligned characters are ok, but their evil must not extend to hurting or ignoring the party.
Knights are fine, but bear in mind these modules are mostly dungeon crawls and horse riding and lances won't come up often, at least initially.
Spells are gained as described in the PHB.
Bonus (from intelligence) languages are gained as slots instead of actual languages. You may leave them empty and (permanently) fill them as you encounter things you'd like to converse with. You may learn thieves cant if you wish.
Roll starting gold as usual, but instead of spending it, take whatever mundane equipment your character can reasonably carry. This includes expert items. If you choose a walrus, remember, it's your responsibility to feed and take care of and take for walks. You may use gems of equal worth of the coins to reduce weight.
You may choose three items from the magic item list:

+1 weapon
10 pieces of +1 ammunition
+1 armor
Bracers of Armor +2
Cloak of Resistance +2
Stone of Good Luck
Restorative Ointment
Scroll with 3 levels of spells
Potion of Giant Strength (potency determined on drinking)
Sleep arrow
2 Potions of Cure Serious Wounds
Potion of Fly
Boots of Elvenkind
Clear Ioun Stone
Dusty Rose Ioun Stone

Setting

The setting is Goodman Games' "Aereth". (DCC 35: Gazetteer of the Known Realms... you don't need a copy to play.) It's not terribly important to the modules we're playing, but if it interests you, you will be in the north, with pleasant weather this time of year. The nearest town is Ironvale, which is 50% dwarven. It has a small castle and a population of around 3500 individuals, whose primary industry is mining.

Magic items find their way to other adventurers, rulers, evil-doers, etc. fairly quickly and are not typically found on the open market. Sale of magic items is not illegal, but is generally done without drawing too much attention. A "magic shop" may deal in nice blank spellbooks or components, but generally not in items. Crafting can be found, but is expensive and takes a long time.

Loot from known raiding parties or the like needs to be returned or fenced; a village will not be pleased to have their belongings sold back to them.

Aereth has many gods. Given an alignment I can suggest one for you, or you can simply invent one, or simply remain godless if you like.

Rules Changes

I generally run things "by the book" but if that becomes confusing where it's a matter of interpretation, I'll try to track things as they come up here. Notably, some things are so commonly house-ruled that the by the book version might seem strange, so I will outline those here:

Rolling a 1 or a 20 doesn't have any special meaning.
You may move half your speed in combat unless running/charging/closing. A spellcaster may not move and cast in the same round.
There are no "attacks of opportunity" as such. You must use the disengagement maneuvers to disengage from a dangerous melee opponent.
Missed shots or throws can hit friendlies, though the way I determine that will be different than in the PHB. If you are shooting at creatures who present a very large target compared to your allies, this won't be an issue.
Spells of CT 1 start at the top of the round and end on your initiative count. Spells of longer duration end on your initiative count in a subsequent round. Choose your spell at the top of the round, but you can generally choose your target when the spell goes off. Taking any damage will spoil your spell unless you make a CON siege check at CL=spell level.

Additionally, I have the following house rules:

You heal 1 hit point per day even if you are not resting, well-fed, kept warm, and wounds being tended to IF you aren't in the negatives. You just need to get your nightly sleep.
Racial abilities are like class abilities; add your level if you have them, don't if you don't. If you have a class ability and a racial ability with the same name, nothing special results from that.
You may charge only once every 6 rounds.

Friendly Advice

Monsters will attack you when you are down if it seems prudent to do so. So protect your fallen.
No wizard spells are off limits against PCs.

Roll20 Specific