Talk:Shackled City house rules

From AJS.COM

Post to Wizards boards

This is just a copy of the text posted to the Wizards boards. I'll re-post it after the update to the boards.

I'm introducing some house rules for psionics / magic transparency in my game. I was going to link to them, but it's a pain to do so, since Wizards' external link handling eats some characters in URLs (doh!)

So, here it is. I've removed the flavor parts that come before the mechanics. They just describe that spells and powers use the same energies, but work in different ways. Please let me know what you think:

Because of the differences, there are sharp mechanical contrasts between magic and psionics. This makes many tasks more difficult when mixing the two. As a result, the following limitations are placed on their interaction:

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[*] All skill checks based on Spellcraft or Psicraft are made at -2 when dealing with psioncs or magic respectively.
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[*] Spellcraft/psicraft checks made with Detect Psionics/Magic to determine detail such as discipline or school are made at -5 instead of -2. This is the same penalty as a specialist wizard suffers with respect to prohibited schools.
[*] This penalty is reduced back to -2 if the character has 1 or more ranks in both psicraft and spellcraft.
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[*] Spell resistance opposes powers and power resistance opposes spells, but not as well as normal. Caster level checks to overcome the opposite type of resistance are made at +2
[*] The strongest spells and powers can be immune to tampering, except by their associated magics.
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[*] Spells of 9th level cannot be affected (e.g. dispelled, counterspelled, etc.), but can be detected by the use of psionics. Power resistance functions against such spells, but the caster level check is made at +4.
[*] Powers of 9th level cannot be affected (e.g. dispelled, counterspelled, etc.), but can be detected by the use of spells. Spell resistance functions against such powers, but the caster level check is made at +4.
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[*] Powers and spells cannot combine their effects in a single item, though an item with multiple distinct "parts" can be enchanted with magic and psioncs in distinct areas (e.g. multi-headed weapons).
[*] Stacking rules apply as normal.
[*] Rogues may detect magical or psionic traps equally, but they may also specialize. They do this by taking the Skill Focus (Search, psionic) or Skill Focus (Search, magic) feats. Only one such feat may be taken, not both. The rogue gains a +2 insight bonus to all checks against their specialty trap type, and a -1 insight penalty to all checks against the other type. These bonuses are in addition to the bonus gained from the Skill Focus. The Skill Focus (Disable Device) feat may be similarly augmented by rogues. These feats can also be taken by any other class which has the trapfinding class special ability.
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