House Rules

These are a partial collection of the house rules we have been using. I will be adding additional sets as and when the situations call for it.

HOUSE RULES ON HEALING:

HEALING AFTER COMBAT:

• Heal Skill: Heals D5 Wounds to the lightly wounded or 1 wound to the heavily wounded. Once only per combat engagement. May be combined with Spell and Draught.
• Surgery Talent: Required for usable limb or organ after critical damage. The blow which caused the critical cannot be healed unless treated by a character with this talent. Successful Heal tests will prevent infection only, not heal the wounds which were the mechanism of injury.
  
  For example: A character with 13 Wounds total takes a hit for 7 wounds, leaving him with 6 Wounds. He then takes another blow which does 10 wounds, giving him a +4 Crit and taking off his hand. The character must receive successful surgery before he can recover the 10 wounds caused by the removal of his hand. Also, he may not use a prosthetic until surgery is performed and will have to be treated continuously by someone with the heal skill to insure the wound does not become infected. He can, however, be healed of the initial 7 wounds done to him through normal means.

• Healing Draught: As Heal Skill, may be combined with Heal skill and Spell effects.
  
• Petty Magic Healing: As core rulebook, and may be combined with Heal skill and Healing Draught. Not a substitute for Surgery Talent.
  
• Sigmar's Healing Hand: Dwarfs and Humans brought up in and faithful to the basic tenets of Sigmarite worship (Eg who strive to defend the Empire in word and deed) gain the full benefit of this spell. Others gain only D5 wounds in healing. Scars remain in either case and this spell is not a substitute for Surgery Talent.
  
• Healing Hysh: As core rulebook. Not a substitute for Surgery Talent in any way.
  
• Shallya's Cure Wounds: As core rulebook. All Wounds healed by this spell do not scar and ignore the Surgery Talent rules above. If a prosthetic is neccesary, the limb is perfectly formed and ready to accept the articificial limb.

HEALING OVER TIME:

The day that the combat occurred and any Heal tests have been made at that time do not count for the purposes of healing over time. All healing over time tests and results begin the day after the combat or mechanism of injury.

Wound Recovery Period: an abstraction of 10 Days minus the character's Toughness which tells the healer how often he must make tests. During each recovery period, the PC must make a Toughness test before the healer makes their skill check. This is in addition to any other tests from moving a wounded person, etc.

For example: Imrak has a Toughness of 5, and therefore his wound recovery period is 5. Every 5 days, Imrak regains a Wound if heavily wounded, and a Healer need only test every five days to assist him in healing.

Modifiers to the Heal Test:

+5 if Healer is of same race as wounded character

+10 per degree of success on the Toughness test made by the character for each wound recovery period

+10 for calm and clean environment

+20 for hospital environment

-5 Race of healer different from wounded character

-10 per degree of success on the Toughness test failed by the character for each wound recovery peroid

-10 for shelterless/dirty/distracting/no bandages environment

-20 for filthy/without water or alcohol environment

• A Greviously Wounded Player Character: It is only possible for player characters to be greviously wounded. This state is reached by characters who reach critical values and spend fate points to avoid the critical results. They may not heal at all until treated by a character with Heal skill. They only heal at a rate of 1 wound per Wound Recovery Period, and the Healer must make a heal test each day of the period or no healing takes place. If they are unconscious for more than a week, they must make a Toughness test or loose 1d10% from a random characteristic. Each week they must make another test. These rules assume the character is not moved, if they are, the rules for heavily wounded characters who exert themselves take effect.
• Heavily Wounded Characters: A heavily wounded character does not heal without a person with Heal skill present. If a healer is present, they heal one wound per Wound Recovery Period with a successful Heal test. If the character insists on moving or being moved, he must make an additional Toughness test for every movement or exertion period, failure meaning that the week is wasted and no healing occurs.
• Lightly Wounded Characters: A lightly wounded character heals one wound per day without a healer assuming they rest completely. A successful toughness test gains an additional wound each day. A healer who makes his skill check improves that by one wound per day. Every Wound Recovery Period, the character regains an additional Wound. If a lightly wounded character is exerting himself beyond moderate effort, then a Toughness test must be made in order to recover the otherwise naturally recovered wound. A healer may still make an unmodified test to allow the character to heal an additional wound and the character automatically gains the Wound REovery Period Wound as well.
• Spells & Ointments: are outside these rules in that if the caster has not already healed the wounded person via that spell or ointment, they may do so (Most likely elevating them to lightly wounded and out of danger. Characters with healing magics or ointments must wait until the character heals without magic and enters the next wound state before casting the same healing spell on them.

Damn Lengthy Example:

Imrak has lost 22 Wounds when he only has 17 Wounds. His injuries have put him into a Critical Value of +5 . Imrak spent a Fate Point to avoid a critical result, and was knocked out, counting as greviously wounded.

Andric successfully Heals the poor dwarf, restoring one wound. Andric also attempts Petty Magic (Divine): Heal, restoring another wound and bringing Imrak to -3 Wounds. Imrak is still unconscious and counts as greviously wounded.

The party decides they must move him over the next two days. Imrak makes his toughness test with no degree of success ot spare, and thus Andric suffers no penalty or bonus to his heal rolls on either day.

Once at the Coaching Inn, Andric makes his heal tests daily, succeeding at them all. At the end of 7th day after Imrak was wounded (Wound Recovery Period of 5 plus 2 days wasted from movement ) he has -2 Wounds and is still unconscious. Andric may not cast his Heal spell on Imrak again yet, as Imrak hasn't gained a better wound state yet. Imrak makes a Toughness test as he remains in a coma. Imrak makes it by three degrees, does not lose stats and modifies all of Andric's heal tests by +30.

The next Wound Recovery Period, Andric gets his hands on a healing ointment and applies it to Imrak's wound, raising Imrak to -1 wounds.

Andric then makes his heal tests for the Wound Recovery Period, raising Imrak to 0 Wounds and improving his wound state to heavily wounded! As his wound state has changed, Andric can and does cast his heal spell, giving Imrak 1 wound.

Imrak and the party are thrown out of the Inn for nonpayment of rent and disturbing the peace of the other patrons. Imrak must make a Toughness test as he exerts himself pounding the face of the innkeep in. He fails by one degree. Andric then makes his Heal test at the end of the Wound Recovery Period at a -10. Andric succeeds in his test and Imrak rises to 2 Wounds!

Imrak has been unable to walk around for 15 days so far. At the end of the next five days, Imrak makes his toughness test by four degrees of success, and Andric succeeds with his Heal test. Imrak now has 3 wounds after 20 days and Andric is getting impatient to be on his way, so he splurges on another healing ointment, raising Imrak's Wounds to 4 and raising his Wound State to lightly wounded.

Now Imrak starts to heal much faster on his own, let alone with assistance. Andric then casts his heal spell and makes his heal skill (5 on a D5) test, and slathers some more ointment on the Dwarf. The ointment is getting weak now, and only gives Imrak (1 on a D5) Wound. Imrak makes his toughness test and lies still all day. He therefore gains 8 wounds, giving him a total of 12 wounds after 21 days!

Hurrah! The next day he rests completely and makes his Toughness test, and Andric makes his heal test (1 on a D5), but cannot use the ointment or spell. Now Imrak has 14 wounds.

Out of money, the party has to leave their lodgings and walk all day. Imrak makes his toughness test and regains one wound, but Andric fails to Heal him.

Imrak manages to find a place to rest all the next day, makes his toughness test, and Andric heals him (2 on a D5) of all the remaining damage.

Just 24 days after nearly being killed, Imrak is fully healed! Dwarfish constituition is something else. An average human would take much longer to recover, especially without skilled medical or magical assistance.

HOUSE RULES ON COMBAT:

CRITICALS:

We use the Original Critical Charts from WFRP 1st Ed as they cover more ground than those in the 2nd Ed book and more mechanism of injury specific. To arrive at the expanded numbers we have a chart giving results from one to fifteen derived from an index between D100 and Critical Value of +1 through +10 ( Chart provided by Tom).

Critical Value: In order to speed up combat and make it a wee bit more brutal, once a person get a critical value, any successive wounds add to that value.

For example: Andric pounds a goblin which only has 7 wounds for 9 wounds after toughness, resulting in a +2 Critical. The +1 Critical roll does not kill the goblin, merely making him drop his shield. The next round, Luther punches an arrow into the greenskin, doing 6 wounds after toughness and armor. This attack results in a +8 Critical, not a +6 as the rules would have it.

HOUSE RULES ON MAGIC:

Spell Ingredients:

General Rules: All ingredients are consumed in their use. However, spell ingredients that confer more than a one point bonus can be split up.

For example: Andric has water from The Reik he wishes to use to insure he casts his heal spell on poor Imrak. He has an ounce of water from the River Reik (+3), the lifesblood of the Empire, but he knows that he also has to heal Luther when Imrak is restored. He decides to use a (+1) for Imrak and a (+1) for Luther. Most of the water is used up, leaving only a +1 bonus to be used later.

Arcane: The arcane spell list ingredients are not at all complete, nor do I wish to complete them here, as it is Magic we are talking about and there should be some mystery to them. Suffice to say a that a closer look at the theme of the spell vs the ingredient is in order.

Divine: The religious spell ingredients are not as satifactory: First, I prefer the term Offering, rather than ingredient. The priest is making an Offering to his or her God in exchange for bolstering his faith to cast the spell. Careful attention to themes should be made here, perhaps more careful than those in the Arcane spell lists.

For Example: Andric is a priest of Sigmar, who is the The God of the Empire. The things that make the Empire and therefore Sigmar great are its people, their prayers, the creatures that walk its earth, and the rivers that provide its lifeblood. Thus the Petty Divine Offerings for a Sigmarite priest might be:

Offerings to Sigmar for courage: Fur from a Dog (+1), Fur from a Wolf (+2)

Offerings to Sigmar for Speed: An arrow (+1), Fire (+2)

Offering to Sigmar for Fortitude: Blood of a Dog +1, Blood of a Wolf +2, Blood of a Dwarf, willingly given (+3)

Offerings to Sigmar for Healing: Waters from an Imperial Stream(+1), Waters of an Imperial River (+2), Waters of the Reik (+3)

Offerings to Sigmar for Strength: Blood of an Ox (+1), Blood of the Sigmarite faithful (+2), Blood of an Imperial Hero (+3)

Offerings to Sigmar for Protection: Prayer stone (+1), Prayer Paper(+2), Sanctified Seal (+3)

OTHER RULES:

ARMOR AND ENCUMBERANCE RULES:

Armor Penalties: Medium armor induces a -10 Agility penalty. Heavy armor induces a -20 Agility penalty.

Encumberance Values: There is a slight problem with the encumberance rules, which we addressed like this:

Encumberance values affect movement only. For every fifty encumberance over base encumberance value, you lose one point from M.

Encumberance Tolerance:

Humans, halflings, and Elves keep their original encumberance rates (Str x10).

Dwarfs lose the Sturdy Talent and gain Dwarfish Build Talent.

The Sturdy Talent: is modified in that it allows a person to carry Str X15 in Encumberance before suffering a move penalty. This does not modify the Agility penalty for medium and heavy armor.

Dwarfish Build Talent: gives the Dwarf Str x20 before suffering encumberance penalties, and halves the Agility penalty for medium and heavy armors.

EXPERIENCE AWARDS:

We have several categories of XP award:

Play: Showing up for the session and participating.

Best Roleplay: The person the group collectively believes to have best played their role and contributed most to the fun factor.

Best Quote: The person who said or did the most memorable or funny thing.

Game Support: Those who, even if they are unable to play, have written material in support of the players and the game in the downtime between games have the opportunity to gain up to a third of the XP earned in the adventure.

Additional Useful Rules Prepared by Others for Which We Take no Credit:

Liber Fanatica Rules: All the published Volumes are useful, but we have focused mostly on the skills: http://www.liberfanatica.net/

Tradesmen Rules: These are great, as the Tradesman career path is far too underrepresented in the standard rules. http://www.geocities.com/leonpoi19/trades.pdf