Some houserule ideas

[K Peterson]

Hello, I'm new to Basic Fantasy. I've spent the past couple months looking at various retro-clones - and considered running Rules Cyclopedia straight - before discovering BF. BF is a promising system... one that I won't need to house rule and white wash as much as other clones, to suits my needs.

I do have a few small house rules that I'll incorporate. Pretty straightforward stuff.

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                  Additional Armor
  Type                      Cost             Weight           AC
Padded Armor                 5gp              10lbs.          12
Studded Leather              35gp             20lbs.          14
Splint Mail                 200gp             45lbs.          16

Mainly, I wanted to introduce some additional options for starting characters - specifically for those that roll poorly for starting money. There's also quite a financial gap between Chain Mail and Plate Mail so I wanted to provide a stepping stone for desperate fighters.

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                 Experience Bonuses
           Wisdom   13+        +5% XP bonus
           Charisma 13+        +5% XP bonus

I've stolen this from S&W. I'm ditching the +10% XP bonus for Humans. The campaign I'm running is going to be human-centric - non-humans will be rarely encountered and will begin as NPCs. (Once 'first-contact' has been established then I'll allow the option to generate non-humans). WIS and CHA are often considered useless or 'dump-stats' so I wanted to provide a little more value to them.

There are a few other house rules I'm considering that I haven't fleshed out yet. Possibly a trait/'skill system whereas players write down some skills that their character possesses based on their background. No attribute rolls or anything - just implied knowledge. (F'rex: Bob the fighter has been employed as a sailor in the past. It'll be assumed that Bob will have some skill in sailing, rope use, swimming, possibly navigation). In the range of 4-5 of these 'skills'.

I'll likely include Masterwork Weapons in my campaign. I prefer to downplay minor magic items (+1 generic sword), and would rather that well-crafted weapons take that role. 'Real' magical items may be intelligent, be temporary (charges), or have side-effects. I want them to be special and not just stuffed into a Kobold chieftain's bed roll.

Opinions are welcome. Thanks.

[K Peterson]

One comment about my Traits house rule:

I'd rather use something like this to provide depth/focus to a character's background than introduce sub-classes. I really, really want to avoid extra classes. Rather than have a Ranger class, I'd prefer a character to be a Fighter but have Traits like Track, Area Knowledge, Survival, etc. Rather than have a Bard class, I'd prefer a character to be a Fighter or Thief and have Traits like Perform, Orate, or Inspire. You get the point. To me, sub-classes just add unnecessary complexity.

[rredmond]

Interesting ideas K! But seeing as how I'm mainly a 1E kinda guy (and TSGS too I guess ) I won't comment other than to say Welcome to the forums!

PS: Don't tell Solo about the whole 1E thing, 'kay?

[SmootRK]

Welcome. There is a background document floating around, not sure if it made it to an official document. It might help you achieve your houserule goals. I like the Wis/Cha idea, especially when used in combination with a very light rule set (such as BFRPG core only/mostly). When utilizing some of the extra classes and such (that you won't be using) those ability scores might come into play moreso, so I would not use it then.