Shadowdark: House Rules
Some house rules for my Shadowdark games! Subject to change, of course.
Character Creation & Death
- After rolling your six stats in order, you can swap two of them.
- Your character's appearance and personality is entirely up to you.
- When your character dies, your new character starts at the same level, but with their XP reset to 0.
Treasure & Experience
- Treasures are worth 1xp for every 100gp of value.
- Treasures worth less than 100gp grant no Experience, but a hoard of the same item (e.g. a pile of gold coins, a bag of rubies) can be treated as one treasure.
- Magic items and other artifacts with intangible value also grant XP, depending on their significance.
- Quests may have XP rewards for their accomplishment, which the players learn when the quest is accepted.
- Certain great deeds may have xp rewards, revealed at the end of the session when the deed is accomplished.
- All experience is granted when treasure is secured (stored in someone's backpack, hidden in a safe place, etc). To level up, heroes must be resting in a safe haven.
Combat Initiative
- Combat initiative is side-based, starting with the players' side.
- When combat begins, each player must make a DEX roll (DC = 10 + Level of leading monster). On a failed roll, that player's hero is taken off-guard and cannot act on the first round.
- Players can act in any order when it is their side's turn in combat, with Focus rolls happening before anything else.
Luck Tokens
- Each player receives a luck token at the start of each session.
- Players can use luck tokens to reroll any one die rolled during active adventuring. This includes attack rolls, damage rolls, encounter rolls, etc but not downtime activities such as carousing rolls or talent rolls.