In Darker Times: House Rules

These custom rules apply only to Gabbie Gibson's "In Darker Times" 4th Edition D&amp;D game. Other GMs are encouraged to adopt these rules, as they have so far been found very useful to encouraging an enjoyable game.

Skills
The skill system as a whole has received major overhauls, making it more similar to a 3rd Edition system.

Skill Points
Instead of 4th Edition's skill training system, which has characters advancing automatically with level, "In Darker Times" has characters gain skill points with each level which they may assign as they choose. Skill points are used as a bonus to skill checks in place of the trained skill bonus and level bonus. Skill points may be assigned relatively freely - any character may improve any skill, as appropriate to their nature. This basic system is a radical change from the standard 4th Edition model. In particular, many effects related to trained skills must be adjusted to work with the new system.
 * Trained Skills and Level Bonus: No character gains trained skills, and the level bonus to skills is eliminated.
 * Starting Skill Points: At 1st level, each character is given a number of skill points to divide among their skills. The precise number is determined primarily by class: skill points at first level equal: ([number of trained skills] + 1) * 5.
 * e.g., a fighter (who starts with 3 trained skills) would start with 20 skill points, (3+1)*5. A rogue (who starts with 6 trained skills) would begin with 35 skill points, (6+1)*5.
 * Gaining Skill Points: At each subsequent level, characters gain additional skill points equal to the number of trained skills they gain at first level plus 1.
 * e.g., a fighter would gain 4 skill points each level, while a rogue would gain 7.
 * Maximum Rank: Skills cannot be made too strong at any point in advancement. At 1st level, the "max rank", or maximum number of points that may be assigned to each skill, is 5 points. This max rank increases by 1 point at every even level.
 * A 1st-level character, no matter how many skill points he receives, can only place 5 points into any one skill. At 2nd level, he may place points in his skills and bring any of them up to 6 points. At 3rd level, the cap is still 6, but skill points are still received and may be distributed among skills below 6 points. At 4th level, max ranks increases to 7, and skill points may be used to bring any skill up to 7 points.
 * Bards: Bards gain an additional 5 skill points at 1st level, and 1 additional skill point at each level thereafter. (Effectively placing bards at 6 starting trained skills instead of 5.)
 * Racial Trained Skills: Some races, such as humans and eladrin, gain a free trained skill at 1st level. This is replaced thus: "You gain an additional 5 skill points at 1st level, and 1 additional skill point at each subsequent level."
 * Skill Training: The Skill Training feat now provides 5 additional skill points when it is gained, and 1 additional skill point at each level thereafter.
 * Multiclassing: Multiclass feats which grant skill training provide a one-time bonus of 5 skill points.
 * Retraining Skills: Skills may still be retrained under this system while leveling. As your retraining option each level, you may move up to 5 skill points between skills as you choose.
 * Skill Requirements: For any paths, feats, abilities, or items which require skill training, you count as "trained" if you have at least (max rank - 4) ranks in the appropriate skill. If you cease to have the appropriate ranks (for example, by leveling and not increasing your ranks in that skill), the normal penalties for ceasing to qualify for an ability apply.

Class features that relate to trained skills are ruled on a case-by-case basis. Currently ruled features are:
 * Grey Guard: The Gray Guard Vigilance feature now reads: "You are always treated as having max ranks in Perception and Streetwise. If you already had ranks in these skills, you may assign them elsewhere. In addition, enemies marked by you cannot benefit from concealment or total concealment against your attacks."
 * Thuranni Shadow Killer: The Thuranni Silence feature now reads: "Any ally within 3 squares of you gains bonus ranks in Stealth equal to one-half your ranks in Stealth (rounded up). These bonus ranks provide each ally a maximum total number of ranks in Stealth equal to your ranks in Stealth, or ranks equal to (5 + 1/2 your level - 2), whichever is lower." Thus, an 11th level Thuranni Shadow Killer with maximum Stealth (10 ranks) would provide allies within 3 squares 5 bonus ranks in Stealth, but only if that did not bring an ally over 8 ranks. An ally with 4 ranks in Stealth would be brought to 8 ranks.

Passive Skills
To better reflect the attentiveness of a character engaged in other activities, the basis for passive skills has been reduced to 5 instead of 10. That is, a character's passive Perception and passive Insight scores are now equal to 5 + their modifiers.

Feats

 * The White Lotus feats (Dragon #373) no longer require the Arcane power source.

Rituals
One of the most expansive and enjoyable system overhauls in the "In Darker Times" campaign is a massive revision to the governing rules for rituals. In basic 4th Edition D&amp;D, rituals tend to see minimal use due to their high cost (making them too expensive to use regularly) and long casting times (which limit creative tactical functions). While magic in earlier editions tended to become overpowering, these rules attempt to strike a balance between the incredible utility of 3.5E spells and the improved balance of 4E rituals.

Ritual Standardization &amp; Ritual Tiers
Most rituals now have standardized casting costs and casting times. Some rituals, roughly one-quarter of those presently released, still have longer casting times and more expensive component costs. The rest, however, are determined by a relatively simple formula which can be easily calculated on the spot. Partially as a consequence of this standardization, rituals are now organized into five-level-wide "tiers". Thus, rituals of levels 1-5 are a tier, as are levels 6-10, 11-15, and so on. Standardization was intended largely to reduce the cost and time of rituals. All rituals standardized in this way (marked on the tables below) now use the alternatives below in place of their listed time and cost. Note that while many rituals are both time-standardized and cost-standardized, some have one but not the other.
 * Casting Time: All time-standardized rituals have a casting time of 5 rounds (or 30 seconds).
 * Component Cost: All cost-standardized rituals have a cost equal to (level * tier cost). Each tier of rituals has a cost associated with it, which is the primary factor in the casting cost of a ritual. These costs are shown on the table to the right. As examples of how this works, consider Sending (1) and Linked Portal (8), two common cost-standardized rituals. Casting Sending under these rules would cost 5 gp (1 * 5), while Linked Portal would cost 80 gp (8 * 10).

Free Rituals
Several classes (bards, clerics, druids, and wizards) receive Ritual Casting as a feature at 1st level. These classes may now cast two cost-standardized rituals of any tier below their own for free each day. Thus, while a level 1 wizard could not cast free rituals at all, being in the lowest tier, a level 14 wizard could cast two free rituals of level 10 or lower every day.

Buying and Learning Rituals
The market price of a cost-standardized ritual is five times its casting cost. Thus, hiring a spellcaster to cast Sending would cost 25 gp (1 * 5 * 5). The market price of a non-cost-standardized ritual is five times its (adjusted) casting cost.

Learning a new ritual still costs the market price of that ritual in most cases; however, this cost represents the cost paid to acquire the ritual formula and practice it, not special materials used for scribing that ritual into a book. In line with this thematic change, if a character manages to acquire a ritual formula, it may be copied into their own ritual book for only twice the casting cost. For example, while learning Sending would normally cost its market value of 25 gp, borrowing a friendly NPC's ritual book would let a character learn Sending for only 10 gp. To offset this, a character may only cast a ritual from their own ritual book or from a ritual scroll. Any rituals one wishes to cast must be copied into one's own book or scribed into a scroll.

List of Rituals
This list serves several functions. First, it is a complete (as of August 2009) list of all rituals, making it valuable to anyone trying to find a new tool for their game. Second, it matches each ritual with newly-adjusted costs and casting times. Finally, it shows which rituals are associated with which skills, making it simple to find the appropriate rituals for your character and ignore the rest.