House Rules for Exceptions to The Rule of Fives

[Bill_in_IN]

Thus far, I have found only one exception to the Rule of Fives. Do any of you know of other exceptions or House Ruled in some exceptions?

Explosive Gems (ITL, page 27) are exempt from this rule. I haven't found anything else called out as exempt.

In our Classic TFT days, since we played it over a decade after it went out of print, we used this exception on items that were declared to be magical artifacts. That is, they were usually very old or ancient and created via magic/spells that were not known in Cidri, long forgotten, or made by beings much more powerful than normal PCs would ever be. I know that artifacts can take in a wider definition than that but an example would be a sword that flames 2d+2 extra damage as opposed to 1d+1 and is truly the only one known in existence. Such an item could be exempt from the Rule of Fives of if the GM designed and stated it as such. We played long enough to where there were a very small number of these kinds of items existed in the game. However, these items could also have had their own level of consciousness in that they could assert some control over the character wielding it. Of course, it had its own background story.

[phiwum]

I haven't done any such thing, but I think that rare artifacts are a good time to suspend the Rule of Five.

[Bill_in_IN]

Originally Posted by phiwum

I haven't done any such thing, but I think that rare artifacts are a good time to suspend the Rule of Five.

It's an interesting way to bring in a decent story and a cool artifact that didn't make the PCs have to start running their inventory of magic items. But, they usually had a level of their own consciousness that, many times, allowed it to take control of the PC. You basically had to be a higher IQ character to run minimal risk of that.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by Bill_in_IN

Thus far, I have found only one exception to the Rule of Fives. Do any of you know of other exceptions or House Ruled in some exceptions?

The Conceal spell breaks the Rule of Five, since you can have up to 10 spells on a single object--five other spells and five Conceals.

[Bill_in_IN]

Originally Posted by Shostak

The Conceal spell breaks the Rule of Five, since you can have up to 10 spells on a single object--five other spells and five Conceals.

Ah!

Good catch. Thanks.

[Bill_in_IN]

For the more powerful artifacts, they would have their own IQ. The test of wills every time wielded was 3d6 on the difference PC and artifact IQ.

It was common in later Classic TFT play to have IQ 20 PCs. If the artifact had an IQ of 8, the PC had to roll a 12 on 3d6. A missed roll would mean the artifact could take control of the PC. The behavior was mostly guided by its back story.

This IQ of the artifact would probably need to be reduced to accommodate Legacy TFT.

[hcobb]

Aid is both in ROF (ITL 161) and out of it (ITL 18)

[Bill_in_IN]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Aid is both in ROF (ITL 161) and out of it (ITL 18)

Interesting point.

Reading the Aid Spell on page 18, I can't see where it says that Aid is exempt from the Rule of Fives (ROF) unless one points to the fact that there is no specific exclusion for it to be successfully cast on a character even if they have 5 magical items. Id this it or are you coming from another angle.

ITL Page 161 (Attribute Enhancers) gives many rules around the use and limitations of attribute enhancers. Yes, the ROF seems to apply to the maximum benefit for each attribute being +5 and the maximum number of magic items that provide such enhancements.

So, it seems that a character can have 5 magical items (including attribute enhancement) at still receive additive benefit from the Aid spell or potions. However, any cumulative benefit for each attribute is capped at +5.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by hcobb

Aid is both in ROF (ITL 161) and out of it (ITL 18)

Note: Aid is referred to on ITL p.162, not p.161.

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by Bill_in_IN

However, any cumulative benefit for each attribute is capped at +5.

How does one cast a spell that costs 50 fatigue then?