The Abiologists of House Oussath

House Oussath

Matriarch: Riss'Umrae Oussath (Impossible-bloodline Sorcerer)

The court of house Oussath comprises a large number of Pseudologoi, male-advisers to the house. A fact which has attracted promising magicians and artisans from other houses as petitioners seeking an opportunity to research, unhindered by material wants. Only the Guild of Crows rivals their research output and no house matches the output of magic items, with many common items first being exclusive to the house's artisans.

House Tortyl stock-NPCs and equipment

The druids and viziers of House Tortyl maintain several distilleries and bottling plants through the Pit. Deliveries of opium, grain and fungi are made around the clock where slaves and downtrodden workers produce laudanum or beer.

Drow Game Rules and Setting so far...

So. It's been a while since I've posted... anything. And as a consequence all of the games I've previously written about have been replaced.

So I'm going to mirror all of the House-Rules stuff for my new Dungeonpunk Drow Game which I gave the elevator pitch: Dishonored with Drow.

This builds on all my existing Pathfinder House Rules, with some extras to account for the setting.

Nonlethal Damage and Wound Points

I've decided to update my tangled mess of house-rules with some more, recent, changes.

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Nonlethal Damage and Wound Points

[Reminder: A character can elect to deal only nonlethal damage with a normally lethal weapon by taking a -4 penalty on their Attack Roll]

A character receiving nonlethal damage loses Vitality points as normal. The character can lose no more than a single Wound Point to the blow however. If they lose any Wound Points to nonlethal damage they must make a DC5+[Damage Received] Fort save or fall unconscious for d4 minutes (d4*10 rounds). This occurs in place of checks for Stunning. Nonlethal attacks reducing a creature to 0 Wounds may still cause a creature to begin dying.

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NPCs and the Stun Threshold

Instead of rolling Fort saves everytime an NPC loses Wound Point they have a Stun Threshold equal to their Fort save modifier + 5. This is compared to the damage received. If the damage is greater than their Stun Threshold they are treated as though they failed their save vs Stunning and are stunned until the end of their next turn. This is identical to taking 10 on the Fort save, except reducing the amount of dice rolled.

Bludgeoning damage treats the threshold as 2 lower.

PCs should roll Fort saves as normal.

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Duration Concentration 

Spells ordinarily (ie in the book) listed as having one of the following durations:
 * 1 round/level
 * 1 minute/level
 * 1 hour/level
May be extended by the spell's caster concentrating as a Standard Action that does not provoke an attack of oppportunity. Anything that could break your concentration when casting a spell can also break your concentration while you're maintaining one, and you cannot cast another spell while concentrating. The normal duration of the spell does not begin until your concentration is released or interrupted. Once a character has stopped concentrating (willingly or otherwise) they cannot recommence concentrating.

Properly, the new duration becomes Concentration + [old duration].

This has the effect of making certain rnd/level spells, like Summon Monster, actually useful at first level.

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Edit (26th Nov 2013 @ 1855): Sleep no longer allows the depletion of Wound Points.

Edit (26th Nov 2013 @ 1907): Changed the damage of sleep to d6+1.

Edit (26th Nov 2013 @ 1943): Got rid of sleep change.

Gunpowder and Alchemy

Given my inclusion of firearms I felt I should add Gunpowder to the Craft, Alchemy list...

Gunpowder Cartridge (x10)
Value 1gp; Alchemy Craft DC 5; Weight 1lb

Can be loaded into a firearm along with cast lead bullets (whose value is considered negligible). Unlike other kinds of ammunition cartridges are never re-useable on a miss, magic ammunition is likewise always destroyed and as such comparatively rare.

When ignited outside of a weapon, deliberately or accidentally, each stack of 10 or pound deals 1d6 fire damage to any creature holding or wearing it. The ammunition is ruined.

3lb or more be packed into an explosive charge as a DC10 Craft Engineering check. Failure indicates a failure to detonate while a successful explosion is a 5ft radius blast dealing 3 damage. A single item or creature at the focal point receives 18 damage (reflex half). Each time the amount of explosive is doubled the blast radius increases by 5ft, the blast damage increases by 1 and the damage at the focal point increases by 6. Any affected creature receives a reflex save to halve the damage at a DC equal to the engineer's skill check result when setting the explosive.

Examples
An Arquebusier carrying 20 cartridges for his weapon is targeted by someone speaking Ignan. They receive a Will save against the Ignan effect, if they fail they take 2d6 fire damage from the fireball.

An engineer sets 50lb of Gunpowder as a booby trap. Setting the trap requires a DC10 Craft check. Any creature within 25ft radius of the powder will take 7 damage (reflex for half) except for whichever creature sets off the trap, which instead takes 30 damage (reflex for half).

If the engineer instead used 100lb of powder the blast would be 30ft, blast damage 8 and focal damage of 36.

Houserules revision, damage types

Previous houserules on giving special properties to the different damage types didn't work how I wanted; tended to be too much of a pain to remember; plus I was not happy with how slashing worked at all. I've meditated and decided on some slightly simpler ones...

Damage Type	Special Effect
Slashing	On a confirmed critical receives a +2 bonus to damage.
Piercing	Cannot be reduced below 1 by Armour Resistance. Does not cause stunning on Wound Point loss.
Bludgeoning	+2 to Fort save DCs to resist stunning on Wound Point loss.

Belphagor's Quest: The Night of the Donkey

With exams and games being on hold it's been a while since I was able to post.

Characters:
Hadrian, Human Cleric 1/Fighter 1
Ar, Human Rogue 2
Eleanor, ElvenWizard 2

After Ar's sister, the Lady Omniscience, accidentally released a cthonic vampire from his tomb trying to sacrifice Ar to obtain immortality the party also noticed the Rhimefire zombies marching from the snow towards civilisation.

Travelling ahead of the horde the first settlement they came to was the Keep of Icehammer, a small Dwarven outpost well beyond normal caravans and dug into the bed of a frozen lake. At this point, the game took a turn for the Oglaf...

The dwarves, eager that their adventuring guests tell stories of generosity and improve the prestigue of the clan, held a feast in their honour. The elf Eleanor thought this a trap of some kind and insisted on staying in the stables, eating his own travel rations (for fear of poison) and talking to a donkey - in the hopes of learning the nature of the dwarven duplicity.

The dwarves would have been slighted, but they expected nothing less of an elf and just nodded amongst themselves about the alien ways of elves and why their kind has never been particularly liked. They brought out a meal to the elf, which was ignored.

After the cleric made the ladies faint with their 'gun show'; the dwarves asked them to share the stories of their travel. The party warned the dwarves of the approaching zombie horde only to be surprised by the eagerness of the dwarves to have their mettle tested by a real siege. The dwarves asked that the adventurers go east to a human settlement that traded with them - to ensure they survived they apocalypse.

Meanwhile, Ar decided to 'upgrade' their thieves tools... by breaking into the Toolsmith's workshop during the start of the feast. The irony was lost on no-one. They returned later, and joining in the festivities. By the time the burglary was discovered everyone was fairly drunk and the only one who had not attended the feast, an elf no less, was the obvious fit for the crime!

The elf claimed the donkey as an alibi, informing the incredulous dwarves that they had spent the entire evening talking. The donkey had no words to defend the elf. The dwarves had the elf taken away to the prisons as a suspect - delivering a speech about how the elf sullied the human's honour with his fae ways. As he was taken away the elf asked the donkey what he thought of this injustice; the donkey grunted 'sucks to be you' in its beast-tongue.

The party... including the real thief... was hired, to find the tools and discover evidence as to who took them. After some brainstorming to possible thieves that totally weren't the party the Cleric had to explain that ghosts were in fact real.

Some time later the dwarves were paying the Cleric to perform a fake exorcism. Despite being a 'dark' cleric they awed the locals with a display of hedge magic and pyrotechnics - igniting a pentagram of 100 candles with only a word. Demanding the spirit leave this place in the name of Janus, the two-faced master of portals.

The dwarves agreed 'what a brilliant night'.