Rules

Contents 1 General 2 Character Creation 2.1 Races 2.1.1 New Race Option: Alairene High Elf 2.1.2 New Race Option: Wastelander Human 2.2 Deities and Religion 2.3 Languages 2.4 Important Constraint 2.5 Starting Gold 3 Play 3.1 Rule 1 3.2 Rule 2 4 Ban and Change List 5 Action Dice 6 Item Creation 7 Financial Transactions 8 Taint 9 Garrote and Strangling

General

Inferno uses the DnD 3.5 edition rule set. All WotC-published 3.5 material is fair game for character creation. I will consider non-WotC-published material on a case-by-case basis. I reserve the right to change or ban any rule, feat, prestige class, spell, item etc., even one that I had previously allowed, but I promise to give fair warning and to work with the characters to make the game fun for everyone. I also have full DM Rule Zero privileges:)

Character Creation

Characters start at 5th level, with a 30 point-buy for abilities. No Evil alignments are allowed. Characters may hail from any Region, whether on-map or off, but North Amen is encouraged as a place of origin.

• 'Dwarves' and 'Gnomes' are generally from the province of Cindel in North Amen.

• 'Elves' are generally from the Far North, or from the mystical island of Alair.

• 'Half-Elves' are generally from Bel Amar in North Amen.

• 'Halflings' are generally from the Thousand Provinces in North Amen.

• 'Half-Orcs' are generally from Kash and Fel'hewath in North Amen, as well as from the Orcish lands.

• 'Humans' and are generally from the provinces of Bel Amar, Kash, and Fel'hewath in North Amen, or from South Amen.

Races

Any 3.5, WotC-published, non-FR race is fair game. This includes races with ECL adjustments, but only if the ECL is +4 or less. Also, while this is not a general rule, it is my suggestion that you keep things reasonable - no random spawn of the Outer Planes, no children of the gods unless you have a) a good reason, and b) a great character background to back it up.

New Race Option: Alairene High Elf

These are the elves that hail from the mystical island of Alair

Stats: As Elf, except Immortal, +1 Cha, and can cast tongues 1/day

An Alairene High Elf who leaves Alair loses his Immortality, and instead gains the following life span:

Young: 500 years Middle Age: 1000 years Old Age: 1500 years Venerable: 2000 years Maximum age: +10d% years

New Race Option: Wastelander Human

These are the daring adventurers, outlaws and bandits who make their home in the Great Waste, south of Fel'hewath.

Stats: as human, except:

-Wastelanders treat the bastard sword (or katana) as a martial instead of an exotic weapon

-Wastelanders have a +2 racial bonus on Handle Animal and Ride checks

-In a desert setting only, Wastelanders have a +2 racial bonus on Fort saves to resist extreme temperature effects

Deities and Religion

Inferno will be using the FR gods, including both core and Mulhorandi pantheons. Obviously, no gods that cater only to evil worshippers are eligible PC patrons.

Languages

As standard DnD (more languages may be introduced later). Please, please please make sure you have your languages marked down at the beginning of campaign.

Note: the provinces of North Amen have regional dialects, not too different from Common (which is the official language of North Amen, a sort of amalgam of all provincial dialects). The dialects are:

• Bel Amarese
• Kashi
• Cindeli
• Muddlespeak (Dialect of the Thousand Provinces)
• Fel'hewathi

Humans in the Great Waste speak a dialect, nearly identical to Fel'hewathi. Natives of the Great Waste call themselves and one another "wanderers" when beyond its borders, and "survivors" within them. There are a few other Great-Waste-specific words:

• kayala : desert storm. Often used as a metaphor for impending danger
• khert : a curse-word (as in, "by khert!"). Simplification of ancient kha'ert', "sand-death."
• zoria : a beautiful, mysterious woman (homonym of zoriat, "desert")

Important Constraint

There is one constraint on character history and background: your character must be somehow connected to the North Ameni army. He or she can be a soldier, a mercenary, a spy, one of the numerous army mages and clerics, a non-combatant expert that the army takes on occasional expeditions (for instance, a surveyor), or something else, so long as you can relate him or her to the military. He or she may not be in the Navy.

Starting Gold

9000gp. Starting characters may not spend more than half of this sum on any one item.

Play

Play will currently be done by e-mail threads. The campaign is roughly divided into scene-like adventures. Thanks to gmail's conversation system, e-mail threads are collapsible and color-coded by responder, so it's pretty easy to look back throughout a scene. So I encourage everyone to use their gmail account! (In case people have set up forwarding to outlook or some other program).

In general, post order is first-come-first-serve, but try not to hog the thread.

In order to cut down on the enormous number of messages that rules clarifications, questions, etc. I am imposing the following two rules:

Rule 1

When you need to clarify something OOC, please ask me by gchat or send me a personal e-mail if I'm not online. This applies to both in-combat and out-of-combat situations.

Rule 2

When you take an action that involves other PCs or NPCs, please confirm with me before posting. You may communicate all the relevant rolls by gchat, using either physical dice or online dice rollers. After you roll, I will tell you the results of your roll, and then you may post.

• Example to clarify: Alisha wants to hit the orc with her longsword. She rolls to hit(15) and damage(4). She then tells me by gchat the results of her rolls. I tell her the longsword glances off the orc's armor. She then posts something to the effect of "a good clean cut nevertheless bounces off the orc's breastplate."

• Example #2: Powder wants to cast charm monster on an approaching bandit. He gchats me this, along with the save DC, and I roll the bandit's will save, coming up with a failure. I then tell this to Powder, and he posts, reporting that "the spell seems to take effect, as the bandit lowers his weapon and regards you with a cautious, yet not adversarial, look." The party may then proceed with posts to interact with the bandit, etc.

Note: climactic encounters will be done over chat. These shouldn't happen very often, so hopefully we can find times to play.

Ban and Change List

This is the list of banned and changed rules, prestige classes, races, etc.

• the Siphon Wiz/Sor spell from Complete Scoundrel is banned
• Communion, Contact Other Plane, and similar high-level divination spells function only in DM-designated locations (high temples, sacred sites, etc.). These sites may be jealously guarded, and/or hard-to-get to. On the plus side, most of these sites confer benefits to divination castings.
• the Jack of All Trades feat from Complete Adventurer is changed to read: "the character is treated as having 1 rank in every skill that he does not have ranks in. Whenever a character gains ranks in a new skill, the virtual rank granted by this feat for that skill disappears."

The FR spell Wieldskill (one of the exceptions to no-FR material in play) is a legal spell, though it has been changed from the FR version. See new spell decription here.

The item Nightstick from Libris Mortis is banned.

A ruling on taint: Undead and creatures with the Evil subtype only gain "virtual taint." Their "virtual" taint score is automatically 1/2 their Charisma score, +1 for undead, +2 for outsiders. PC undead suffer the full ill effects of taint, but also gain no benefits from accruing more taint - their twisted nature only makes physcial and mental corruption worse. Taint in Inferno is a deific, mind-affecting ability that bypasses undead mind-affecting immunities.

((This house rule overrules the HoH statement that Undead and creatures with the Evil subtype do not suffer any ill effects of taint.))

Action Dice

The full action dice system from Eberron will not be used. However, as the party defeats the forces of evil and brings light and goodness to the land, it will occasionally be granted 1 d6 action die per player. This die may be used to increase any 1 roll (attack, save, skill check, or damage), after which it is gone. Action dice may be saved up, but no more than one action die may be added to any 1 roll.

Item Creation

The Item Creation system has been slightly changed to make it easier for characters who wish to create items to not lag behind their fellows, provided they keep to a reasonable item limit. Essentially, each character who takes a level in the Artificer base class, or takes an Item creation feat, also gains a "craft reserve" of experience. This craft reserve exists until a character empties it via creating items. The reserve grows as the character rises in level, and it grows faster if the character takes more levels in the Artificer base class, or takes additional Item Creation Feats. The reserve may only be used for the creation of magic items.

Financial Transactions

In most cases, when you buy from or sell to strangers, you and the NPC make opposed Diplomacy (with some situational modifiers that I take into account - such as merchant attitude (95% of merchants in Kara are Indifferent, but evil folk / people in very isolated places might be Unfriendly, while good friends might be Friendly or even Helpful). The roll difference is crucial: for every 10 points you beat the merchant, the price goes down by 25% (if you're buying) or up by 25%(if you're selling), and vice versa. If the rolls are even, you buy/sell at market price.

There are two exceptions to this rule: if you're buying from or selling to a good friend (someone whose attitude is Friendly), or a store that does not allow bargaining, you can (or must, in the latter case) forego the opposed rolls and buy/sell at market price. Stores that don't allow bargaining are usually owned by government officials, and don't have / won't take cool stuff, however.

If you're buying or selling to a very good friend (someone whose attitude is Helpful), you can forego the opposed rolls and buy/sell at 25% advantage over market price (so buy at market price - 25%, sell at market price +25%).

Taint

Inferno will feature the Taint rules from Heroes of Horror.

Taint represents the characters' exposure to terrible/supernatural evil and horror. Every time a character is so exposed (e.g. the "freezer" of a serial killer, a mass epidemic, a horrible devil or demon in its true form, a creature of the Outer Planes, etc.), he or she makes a Will Save or Fort Save (DM's choice). The DC is 10+number of previous exposures. If the character fails, he or she gets a point of taint which is either mental (for will saves) or physical (for fort saves).

Both types of taint have thresholds, based on the character's Wis (for mental taint) or Con (for physical taint) scores. Every time a character passes either taint threshold he gains a mild insanity (if mental) or mind disturbing physical quality (if physical). Also, every time a character passes a new taint threshold, he or she gains a bonus feat. There are four thresholds total: Mild, Moderate, Severe, and Terminal. If a character reaches the terminal threshold, he or she goes permanently and incurably insane (if the taint is mental) or dies (if the taint is physical). Either way, the player must then roll up a new character.

Taint that has been recently acquired can be cleansed by Restoration spells and by certain other effects. Taint can also be removed by prolonged rest in a peaceful, well-lit, nourishing environment. Taint that remains with the character for more than three days cannot be cleansed except with a wish or a miracle.

Characters may not have any taint at the beginning of the campaign.

Garrote and Strangling

As there are evil assassins in this campaign, I am setting the official rules on using garrottes and forcibly strangling targets.

When initiating a Garrotte/Strangling attack, first determine a) if the target is helpless, and b) if the target is surprised. A helpless character is usually a paralyzed one. A suprised character is usually one that has lost his/her Dex bonus to AC vs. the strangler.

Next, make an opposed grapple check. Surprised characters take no penalties for opposed grapple checks, but helpless characters automatically fail them. If you lose the opposed grapple check, the strangle attempt fails. Garrottes give a +2 circumstance penalty on this check.

Finally, if you win the opposed grapple check, consult the following cases:

Case 1: If the character is helpless, he/she immediately becomes dying (-1 hp, loses 1hp/round unless stabilizes). Case 2: If the character is not helpless but surprised, he/she immediately has to make a Con check vs. DC 10 or become dying (see Case 1) Case 3: If the character is neither helpless nor surprised, he/she can continue to make opposed grapple checks for up to Con/2 rounds (Con is the character's con score. Round down.)