Variant Rules (Equals Equals)

These aren't so much variant rules as ways of using existing rules in creative ways. I dislike actually changing or restricting rules and will only do so when:

a) A particular variant in a book is much stronger than something available in a core rulebook (i.e. PHB, DMG, Monster Manual)

b) The existing rules are restrictive and I'd like to loosen things up to make it more interesting (for example, a person CAN'T EVEN TRY to track unless they have the track feat. Allow them to track, but with a huge penalty)

So yeah.

New Skill Usages

Bluff - Barter

Bluff checks can be made to persuade a merchant that an item is worth more or less than he thinks it is. You make your Bluff check with modifiers listed below, and the Merchant can oppose with a Sense Motive (to see if you're lying) and/or an Appraise (to see if his knowledge of the item's value outweighs your persuasiveness).

Your Bluff check has a -1 per 10% difference in price (of the lower value), so you get a -3 for saying that a 100 GP item you're selling is actually worth 130 GP. Obviously, if you don't know the item's actual value (with your own Appraise check), you're in hot water when it comes to convincing a merchant how worth it is.

Say Lightning Tiger thinks that a +4 Flaming Burst Longsword is truly worth 16,000 GP, and he tries to convince an informed merchant of the same thing. That weapon is worth 72,000 GP, which is 450% of 16,000. Thus, Lightning Tiger gets a -45 on that check. Ouch.

The attitude of a would-be victim of your duping may worsen, so watch out.

Diplomacy - Barter

Diplomacy checks will change the merchant's attitude toward you. See the skill description in PHB for NPC attitudes. NPC attitude shifts the prices as such:

• Hostile: 75%-100% increase, may refuse to sell to you, may attack/call guards
• Unfriendly: 10%-30% increase or refuses to sell to you
• Indifferent: No change, or 5% increase or decrease
• Friendly: 5%-20% reduction
• Helpful: 25%-50% reduction

Additional Diplomacy checks to affect their attitude further are made with a -5 penalty and use the original attitude's DC. For example: Medea walks into a merchant's shop and wants to buy a 100 GP item. The merchant dislikes half-elves (Unfriendly attitude). The item therefore costs 120 GP. The DC for raising an Unfriendly NPC to Indifferent is 15. She rolls, and is successful. She gets the item at base price, 100 GP. But what if she wants a further reduction? The DC for raising an NPC from Unfriendly to Friendly is 25. She rolls and gets a 3, which has 5 subtracted from it for a total of -2. The merchant is now unfriendly to her again, because he already gave her a break and she's asking for even more.

Intimidate - Barter

On the other hand, you can Intimidate a merchant into giving you a better deal out of fear for their health and safety. Intimidation is done per the rules on Intimidate listed in the PHB.

Kate walks into a bar and asks for beer, the finest in the house. The barkeep, accustomed to fine lasses, is Unfriendly toward this this big smelly woman covered in dead animal skin, and he charges her 20 GP for a mug. She dislikes this price. So she slams her fist and tells the merchant that if he doesn't give her a better deal on the God-damn beer, she'll rip his friggin nuts off and use them to play darts. Kate and the barkeep make their opposed rolls, which the barkeep fails. He is now "friendly" toward her, and will give her a price reduction down to 12 GP.

She guzzles her beer and leaves the bar, and now that she's no longer in the barkeep's presence, the Intimidation ends and he immediately becomes Hostile toward her, calling the town guard and saying he was robbed.

Sense Motive - Combat

You can use Sense Motive to get a gut feeling of how difficult a particular opponent is. The base DC is 25. They'll be rated on some kind of scale, like "don't bother yawning" to "a worthy adversary" to "have monkeys flown out your rear recently? 'Cause if so, you may have a chance." Your Sense Motive gets a bonus equal to twice the number of rounds they've been in combat.

Skill Mentoring

To encourage teamwork and creative use of Skills, I've created a way in which a team's skillful members (Bards, Rangers, Rogues, etc.) can lend aid to the less-skillful members.

If you're a Skill master, i.e. have max ranks in a Skill or any feat directly related to Skills, using the Aid action to help an ally with a Skill check has additional benefits. Instead of a mere +2, they are instead considered trained in that Skill and can "borrow" ranks from you. You decide what bonus they get, and this is the effective number of ranks they have in that skill until your next turn. You then deduct that number from your own ranks.

Feats

Automatic Heighten Spell

Because I don't think lower-level spells should become useless at higher levels, every character gets "Heighten Spell" as a bonus feat. This is a metamagic feat with only one effect: if you prepare or cast a lower-level spell as a higher-level spell (for example, using a 5th-level spell slot to cast Fireball), the spell's level is effectively increased for the purposes of Spellcraft, Concentration, spell save DCs, etc.

Keep in mind that you can't just automatically do this. It's a metamagic feat. If you prepare spells you'll need to prepare the spell ahead of time as such, and if you spontaneously cast spells then keep in mind that applying a metamagic feat to a spontaneous spell increases the casting time to a full-round action. And full-round spells go off at the beginning of your next turn, so this can screw you in the wrong situations.

Scribe Scroll

I play a Wizard myself, and I've recently found the joy of the free Scribe Scroll feat that Wizards get! Can't spontaneously cast spells? Fine. Prepare a scroll (up to six spells in a single scroll) and keep it handy for whatever kind of situation. Do this multiple times for multiple kinds of situations. Scribing a scroll only costs you an amount of XP equal to caster level x spell level. If you're level 10 that's 30 XP for a Fireball, an insignificant fraction of what you get from a single encounter, and you can prepare 40 XP-worth of scrolls in a single full day. A good deal, if you ask me.

Only one downside: money. Making a scroll costs money (one-half of 25 x Spell Level x Caster Level). That starts to add up once you have twenty spells in reserve "just in case." And Wizards are all about just-in-case.

Because I have a soft spot in my heart for Wizards, I'm adding these on to the Scribe Scroll feat:

• You can prepare a "personal scroll" for your own use. Nobody besides you can use these. Because you can't powergame by selling them, scrolls made in this way cost an amount of gold equal to Caster Level x Spell Level x 5.
• You can choose to lower your effective Caster Level when making a scroll. No sense in scribing a scroll of Shocking Grasp as a tenth-level caster, when the maximum level to benefit from is fifth. So prepare it as a fifth-level caster. Keep in mind that this affects things like spell resistance, counterspells, etc., that take caster level into account.

This applies to any other class who take the feat as well. Even Sorcerers.