The Hinterlands campaign will have a handful of house rules to enhance play and player agency. These come out of the interest to make a sandbox still feel like a progressive series of adventures, as well as an interest to introduce elements of the game that 4th edition lacks or handles terribly (I'm looking at you, three-hour combat encounters).
First, a few rules-of-thumb:
XP will be given to individuals, not as a lump sum. One of the benefits of a sandbox campaign means I can award XP for individual bravado, ingenuity, or cunning. Rather than give each player a set and equal amount of XP after each encounter, I'll be awarding each player individually based on their participation and effort. Educational buzz-words aside, Nobody's going to be getting less than the minimum they'll need. Rather, extra XP will come to those who display exceptional bravado, ruthlessness, ingenuity, and/or deviousness.
No hand-holding will be given. In the context of D&D, this means the age-old "you don't want to go there, it's far too high level". Should you wish to do something, I won't stop you, however high or imbalanced it might be. It'll be up to the players to figure out based on context clues whether a higher risk is worth the higher reward.
Finally, Individual "mini-sessions" will be available. If a player (or their character) wants to do something that the other player's don't, or the other players are too busy to play this session, I'll be willing to conduct sessions with individuals. These'll be side-quests, and I won't carry on the current all-player quest without all players. As above, this will count for XP; however, I'm not going to let players just grind XP and ascend levels above their companions.
And Now the House rules:
1. Luxury Items are XP
Players have little incentive to buy luxury items (beyond the soft influence of roleplaying). In a world of unpredictable magic and dangerous foes, a lance or iron axe will serve a character tenfold more than any luxuriant clothes, decor, or abode. However, in practicality, luxury products increased status and affluence. Should a player wish, they can spend their gold on luxury items, and I'll award XP equal to half the item's cost in gold. "Luxury" item is defined by the DM on a case-by-case basis. Additionally, the item has to be used: There will be no buying empty mansions, unworn jewel-encrusted kaftans, or golden chalices untouched by wine.
2. "Overflow" Damage
A hit's damage isn't only dependable on the weapon's sharpness or the spell's potency. A towering barbarian can turn a broken chair-leg into a blood-spattered mace, and an archmage could turn even the simplest magic missile into more of a thermonuclear missile. As such:
When an attack is successful, add the difference between the natural dice roll and the target defence to the damage.
For example, a roll of 19 with an arcing sword against a poor orcish archer's measly 13 AC would not only do the usual damage, but with an additional +6 damage from the potency of the roll. This only includes the natural roll, not the roll plus bonuses (which means, yes, this rule will lose relevance as we move up in levels). This provides variance in attack damage and will expedite D&D 4th edition's lengthy combat encounters in earlier levels.
When it comes to critical hits, however:
A critical hit (natural 20) will result in the attack's max damage being added to rolled damage.
For example, a critical hit using a power that does 3[W] (say, a 1d8 longsword) will result in 24 damage PLUS bonuses PLUS 3d8 damage. This extra roll does not include bonuses.
As both of these rules apply to players and enemies alike, this could get dangerous. Armour will become all the more important, and could tell the difference between 10 and 20 damage (life or death, sometimes). Additionally, this makes attacks that target the often-lower defenses (will and fortitude) all the more ruthless, making casters and magic a terrible force to behold (but adversely making the typical "glass cannon" mage all the more susceptible to damage).
3. The Wyrd Scale
The borders between different times, planes, universes, and timelines is tentative at best. Especially in this world, where even now vast wounds between the planes still howl and spew forth cosmic oddities, this defines civilization. This is in part due to the actions of the people of the world: meddling with the Wyrd, or with large amounts of magic, further weaken the boundaries between the planes, resulting in the Wyrd gaining more influence over the world. I'm going to create a scale that will depict the battle between normality and weirdness. The more player influence with the Wyrd, the stranger things will get in the area, and vice versa. The Wyrd naturally recedes after a time relative to the potency of whatever brought it there: likewise, things naturally tick down the scale, at a nigh-unnoticable rate.
Notes on these rules
This game looks like it'll turn into a fast-paced and blood-filled one, with plenty of strange happenings and non-uniformity. As fun as that sounds, it's never happened in our gaming group before: therefore, these rules could change once they get off the paper and onto the gaming table. We'll see how things go.
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