House Rules

[Archangel Beth]

I'd allow regular Dodging in celestial combat, I think. At least, it's saved one PC from Force-loss that would have been... inconvenient.

[William]

Playing GURPS In Nomine, we recently had our first celestial combat and decided it was too slow -- reaching 0 Soul Hits now automatically strips one of either Forces or attributes at random (you can "aim" for either group, though not any in particular), and the rest are rolled naturally.

Given that angels and especially demons tend to have Wills in the 16-18 range, it was proving difficult to be effective over a few exchanges, and was frustrating the players when someone could make eight Will rolls in a row.

[Archangel Beth]

That's probably a good one.

I think that any conversion to 4e is going to be a very strong "Powered by GURPS" conversion, if I have anything to say about it. Then I can hack some rules that went a little too GURPSy and not worry about backflow issues.

Invulnerability, come here and sit beside me. *evil grin*

[thalcos]

Originally Posted by Archangel Beth

I'd allow regular Dodging in celestial combat, I think. At least, it's saved one PC from Force-loss that would have been... inconvenient.

That's probably a good idea. My PCs so rarely experience celestial combat that it hasn't come up yet. We had a bit during an extended stay in the Marches, but otherwise... one combatant or the other usually decides to flee really quickly so there's only a round or two of real action.

But I like the concept that something like a flying celestial form is so maneuverable that it could Dodge every round without interfering with an attack, while a ground-based combatant couldn't do that as easily.

[tbug]

We played our first game on In Nomine last week, and the only rule that was too cumbersome to keep using was the disturbance rule. Does anyone use the core rule in their games? What's the secret to keeping things moving? Is there a Java applet or something that I can use to just plug in numbers and tell people what they need to roll?

For now I'll just use the linear scale variant from the Game Master's Guide, but I'd be willing to give the core rules another crack if I could figure out how to make it work without bogging down play.

[alexondria]

The way I do it isn't realy core rules but I take into account how far away the pc's could hear a disturbance and if I think it's something that they should hear- I tell them they hear it. If I think it's something that they might hear- I have them roll. Otherwise I don't think about it. I also do the reverse for NPC's. If the pc's are making a small disturbance one room away from the npc- they are probably going to hear it. If they are making one huge disturbance after another then their is a good chance that a large portion of the celestial comunity in the area will hear it, which could result in extra demons to fight, repremands from superiors for not being quiet, to what ever else I think works well at the time.

[milliken]

I'm probably one of the more gear-headed IN players, and I don't use the disturbance rule literally, either. Typically, I just have the players roll for Perception, and decide if they're likely to have heard based on the total disturbance and the distance. I'll pick a plausible bonus or penalty, if things look close, based on the amount of noise and distance (which is roughly how we wound up implementing it in GURPS IN).

As a rule, player-generated disturbances seem to come in "too small for anyone but a Grig to hear" and "enough noise to be heard halfway across the continent". No one hears the former unless they're right on top of it, and everyone in town hears the latter, pretty much automatically. (The first case is typically an isolated Song use, or an Essence boost to skill or resonance. The second is the typical battle scene.)

---Walter

[William]

Following some consideration of Marches combat in GURPS In Nomine, I would recommend what is not exactly a house rule, but perhaps a wise setting element: since Ethereal Charm drastically reduces Songs, Lucid Dreaming skills, and mental combat skills (although not raw damage or Move, but these are bad enough), the first mover in a Marches Combat seemed likely to be able to land an irresistible first strike. It has been proposed in out-of-game discussion that most Ethereal Domains, therefore, employ "physical" mind-combat, with ST, DX, and HT mattering as stats. (This rule will not be employed in my game, since character creation is already long since passed.)

An additional countermeasure would be making one-shot, high-skill relics of Ethereal Charm (with a lot of negative Features: trackable, obviously a relic, noisy disturbance) being fairly frequent -- this being somewhat more workable in my game, after discussion with my players I may have it widely available.

Some additional house rules I did not mention earlier include the nonexistence of Coffins of Undeath (breaks the concept of undeath for me to have it be unwilling), and the Divine Logic attunement (seems unangelic).

[Rocket Man]

Arise, undead thread!

The main "house rule" my GM currently uses is the 333 roll = Ethereal Intervention. That generally means the involvement of a spirt from the Marches, though it can also sometimes refer to a "weird" event, such as when one of our angels discovered the ghost of a small child.

One idea I've had that I'd like to use if I GM myself sometime is that character get 6 free points on top of their starting 36. These 6 points can only be used on Vessels and (if desired) Roles. Players are of course free to "buff up" both from their regular point pool. Otherwise, it just seems strange that a Superior would assign a favored Servitor to Earth and not provide at least a basic Vessel/1 in which to do so.

EDIT: Make that 9 points -- I forgot that every Role requires at least one level of Status. And those who like having Role-less celestials, for whatever reason, can now start with a free Vessel/3 if they like. :)

[Rocket Man]

Another "house rule" I've mulled over is in regard to the Role/Status relationship. Right now, the RAW say that the more detailed a Role you have, the more Status it can have, but never actually specifies a ratio. A straight 1:1 would seem to invalidate some character concepts, such as the reclusive millionaire whose name is known, but whose face wouldn't be automatically recognized on the street and whose personal life is a bit of a mystery.

Therefore, I propose the following:

Status/Role: Celestials must buy at least one level of Role for every two levels of Status (or fraction thereof) that the Role has. This is a minimum! Roles that are especially well-known ("Jack Dakota, NFL quarterback") or very long-established ("Granny Jenkins, grandma to the whole neighborhood for 30 years") may require more Role levels at the GM's discretion.