We have a variety of rules that we use in Dargas which are not strictly "by the book," although most of them are by some book. But, if all you have are the Players Handbook. Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide, some will not be familiar. This page lists all the custom rules.

1. Some things are simply different in Dargas.
2. We have a handful of rules to correct things that are incorrect or absent from the Core Rules.
3. Since this is an older campaign, started back in AD&D V1, the characters have been converted again and again to newer versions of the D&D game system: they did not start out as V3.5 characters, although that is where they are now. In order to keep the "feel" of the original characters, as they have been developed through years of role-playing, we have some non-standard conversions.
4. We have adopted Feats from certain non-core sources. Our drow, duergar, and tiefling characters can use the racial Feats from the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Races of Faerûn, and Underdark. Any character can use Feats from Song and Silence and Tome and Blood.
5. We've adopted a few of the optional rules from the Dungeon Master's Guide.
6. We're trying out some of the variant rules from the Unearthed Arcana rulebook.

Dargas is different

We have drow and duergar characters. In V3, that is not a standard option except in a Forgotten Realms campaign. In the Forgotten Realms, duergar speak Dwarven and drow speak Elvish, although the drow also have their own sign language, completely silent, known only to them. In Dargas, Duergar and Drow are full-fledged spoken languages. Perhaps they are dialects of Dwarven and Elvish, respectively, but they are sufficiently different to not be readily understood by one who speaks the language of the surface dwelling races.

V3 is incorrect or incomplete

Character aging

Character aging has been a feature of D&D since V1. The races have always aged at different rates, and there have always been categories of age: youthful, mature, old, venerable, whatever. But, the specific numbers for the age categories and life span for a given race has varied a lot across the different versions of the game. I discuss this in my treatise on Character Age in Dungeons and Dragons. We have adopted the V3.5 age categories, and have adjusted some of the early birthdays to accommodate them, with one exception: we think that V3 got it wrong with Humans: that version made that race age too quickly. Therefore, we have retained the V2 aging scale for Humans. Here is the racial aging chart we use:

Age Categories by Race

Race	Adulthood	Middle Age	Old Age	Venerable	Variance	Maximum Age
Human	15	45	67	90	+2d20	130
Dwarf	40	125	188	250	+2d100	450
Elf	110	175	263	350	+4d100	750
Gnome	40	100	150	200	+3d100	500
Half-elf	20	62	93	125	+3d20	185
Half-orc	14	30	45	60	+2d10	80
Halfling	20	50	75	100	+5d20	200

Note that a tiefling is essentially a human with fiendish ancestry. That makes her an Outsider, but she ages as a human does.

Down time

A character does not spend all her time adventuring. She may have a profession, may be living a life of luxury off her loot, or may actually be studying something or other and bettering herself. Since each player has several characters and usually only brings one at a time along on an adventure, we've concluded that for each full year a character does not adventure, she may use one Skill Point as desired.

Earned XP

The Dungeon Master's Guide has a chart for XP awards based on a character's ECL and a challenge's CR. I discuss this all in my treatise on Experience Point Awards. I concluded that the official method is flawed and we now use a Rationalized XP Table.

Character Conversion

Magic Items

In V2, a ring of protection would "stack" with a cloak of protection, and either would improve both saves and armor class. In V3, the usual magic items are a ring of protection, providing a Deflection bonus to armor class, and a cloak of resistance, providing a Resistance bonus to saves. One can make a ring of protection and resistance or a cloak of deflection and resistance, but two Deflection or Resistance bonuses do not stack

We have grandfathered all the V2 rings or cloaks of protection to be rings or cloaks of deflection and resistance. Similar bonuses do not stack, as is normal in V3, however, so there's no point in wearing one of each.

Specialty Priests

The V2 Dargas campaign had no standard "clerics". Instead, every deity had his or her "specialty priests". A specialty priest did not have access to every clerical spell, but did have a few special deity-given powers. Each deity granted different powers to his or her priests, providing some differentiation between character clerics.

In V3, different deities grant different domains, and that provides differentiation between clerics.

However, or V2 clerics were accustomed to their deity-granted powers. When we converted them to V3, we decided to convert those powers into special Feats available only to clerics of the appropriate deity. Some of these powers are vastly over-powered, compared to a normal Feat, but that seemed the only available mechanism.

Hel

The Norse Goddess of death and the underworld.

In V2, at L5, she granted her priests complete immunity to poison and disease.

In V3, the "Hel's Boon" Feat does exactly that. That power is well beyond any Feat; there are feats that grant immunity to a single poison.

Isis

The Egyptian goddess of magic, matrimony, and motherhood

In V2, she granted her priestesses 5% Magic Resistance per level. Additionally, at L10, her priestesses always made their saves against magic.

Chondara, the only priestess of Isis in the Dargas campaign, is retired. I would propose that Isis grant her priestesses Spell Resistance like a drow: the "Isis's Boon" feat, available at L1, grants spell resistance equal to (11 + CL).

Lei-Kung

The Chinese god of thunder, justice, punishment, and the uncovering of secrets.

In V2, at L5, he granted his priests the ability to act as a L4 thief. At L10, his priests would act as a thief of their level.

Elvira is the only cleric of Lei-Kung. She never reached L10, so she was only "used to" acting as a L4 thief. She is not fully converted yet, but the agreement, so far, is that there will be a dozen or so additional skills, characteristic of a rogue, that will be "class skills" for a cleric of Lei-Kung. Unlike every single other specialty priest, no Feat was proposed to get this ability: this is to be free.

Shina-Tsu-Hiko

The Japanese god of the winds.

In V2, at L10, he granted his priests the ability to fly at will.

In V3, the "Shina-Tsu-Hiko's Boon" Feat grants that ability. (What speed and maneuverability class?). Again, this is more powerful than any normal or Epic Feat: it is reminiscent of granting a spell-like ability, but those are typically usable once per day.

Sif

The Norse Goddess of war and excellence.

In V2, at L5 she granted her priests a one point boost to the ability score of his choice. At L10, her priests would advance directly to L11.

In V3, the "Sif's Boon" Feat is available to a cleric of Sif at L6. This will boost any ability score by one point, just as happens every four levels. This is the equivalent of an Epic Feat: one such Feat exists to boost each of the abilities.

Adding a level is very un-Feat-like. It's the sort of thing that an artifact like the book of exalted deeds grants. We did not come up with a reasonable mechanism for granting this, so, we threw up our hands and gave Marga and Tigerblade a free level, just like Elvira. (Note that we couldn't say that those two clerics had read the aforementioned artifact, since one person can only benefit once from reading such a book, and Tigerblade also has read a book of exalted deeds!)

Specialty Priest Feats

Feat	Type	Prerequisites
	Benefit
Hel's Boon	General	Cleric Level 5, patron deity Hel
	You are immune to all diseases and poisons.
Isis's Boon	General	Cleric Level 1, patron deity Isis
	You gain Spell Resistance of 11 + CL.
Shina-Tsu-Hiko's Boon	General	Cleric Level 10, patron deity Shina-Tsu-Hiko
	You gain the supernatural ability to fly at will with speed X and maneuverability class Y.
Sif's Boon	General	Cleric Level 5, patron deity Sif
	Add one to any ability score.

Elvira

Drow Racial Feats

Feat	Type	Prerequisites
	Benefit
Arachnid Rider	General	Drow elf, gray dwarf
	You receive a +2 bonus on all Handle Animal and Ride (any arachnid) checks. You may use the Handle Animal skill to affect monstrous spiders of Large size or smaller.
Daylight Adaptation	General	Drow elf, gray dwarf, orc
	If you are a type of creature that suffers circumstance penalties when exposed to bright light, you no longer suffer those penalties, whether the light comes from a natural or magical source of illumination.
Deepening Darkness	General	Ability to create darkness as a racial ability
	The darkness you create with your racial ability is treated as deeper darkness for the purpose of countering or being countered by spells such as daylight. All other effects (duration, area of darkness, and so on) are as the darkness spell. You can use your darkness ability two additional times per day.
Highborn Drow	General	Drow elf, base Will save +2
	You may use detect good, detect magic, and levitate once per day as spell-like abilities with a caster level equal to your character level.
Improved Levitation	General	Naturally able to levitate as a spell-like ability.
	You may use your levitate spell-like ability in 10-minute increments instead of all at once. The number of times per day you may now use the ability at this shorter duration is equal to your caster level. If you could levitate more than once per day, multiply your caster level by the number of times per day to get the total number of uses of levitate you have.
Lolth's Blessing	General	Drow elf, Wis 15, patron deity Lolth, ability to cast 3rd-level divine spells.
	You may use clairaudience/clairvoyance, detect lie, dispel magic, and suggestion once per day as spell-like abilities with a caster level equal to your character level.
Lolth's Meat	General	Drow elf
	If you kill a living creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher with a melee attack, you gain a +1 morale bonus on attack rolls, damage rolls, and saving throws for the rest of the encounter. If you kill such an opponent either by performing a coup de grace or with a touch spell, you gain a +2 morale bonus on attack rolls, damage rolls, and saving throws for the duration of the encounter. To qualify for this bonus, you must either reduce the target to -10 hp with your blow, or kill it with a touch spell (such as slay living).

Duergar Racial Feats

Feat	Type	Prerequisites
	Benefit
Arachnid Rider	General	Drow elf, gray dwarf
	You receive a +2 bonus on all Handle Animal and Ride (any arachnid) checks. You may use the Handle Animal skill to affect monstrous spiders of Large size or smaller.
Daylight Adaptation	General	Drow elf, gray dwarf, orc
	If you are a type of creature that suffers circumstance penalties when exposed to bright light, you no longer suffer those penalties, whether the light comes from a natural or magical source of illumination.
Duergar Mindshaper	General	Gray dwarf
	You gain +1 spell power (+1 on save DCs and a +1 bonus on checks to overcome spell resistance) on enchantment spells and spell-like abilities.
Iron Mind	General	Gray dwarf, Wis 13
	You receive a +4 bonus on saving throws against psionic effects such as those employed by a mind flayer or yuan-ti, and a +1 bonus on Will saves.

Tiefling Racial Feats

Feat	Type	Prerequisites
	Benefit
Deepening Darkness	General	Ability to create darkness as a racial ability
	The darkness you create with your racial ability is treated as deeper darkness for the purpose of countering or being countered by spells such as daylight. All other effects (duration, area of darkness, and so on) are as the darkness spell. You can use your darkness ability two additional times per day.
Fiendish Bloodline	General	Fey'ri, tanarukk, tiefling, base Fortiude, Reflex, and Will saves +1
	You gain the ability to cast protection from good three times per day and bane once per day as spell-like abilities with a caster level equal to your character level.
Improved Energy Resistance	General	Naturally resistant to a form of energy (acid, cold, electricity, fire, sonic).
	Choose one form of energy to which you have a natural (not spell- or item-granted) resistance. Your resistance to that type of energy increases by 5. You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack: each time you take the feat, it applies to another type of energy to which you have a natural resistance.
Improved Flight	General	Ability to fly (naturally, magically, or through shapechanging).
	Your maneuverability class while flying improves by one grade.
Outsider Wings	General	Aasimar or tiefling, base Fortitude, Reflex, and Will saves of +2, Celestial Bloodline or Fiendish Bloodline.
	You have sprouted wings (feathered if an aasimar, batlike if a tiefling), revealing the power of your supernatural bloodline. These allow you to fly at your land speed with average maneuverability. A medium or heavy load that would reduce your land speed reduces your fly speed a similar amount.

Book of Vile Darkness

Feats from the Book of Vile Darkness

Feat	Type	Prerequisites
	Benefit
Malign Spell Focus	General	Evil alignment
	Add +2 to the DC of any spell you cast with the Evil descriptor.

Song and Silence

Feats from Song and Silence

Feat	Type	Prerequisites
	Benefit
Alluring	General	Persuasive, Trustworthy
	You get a +2 bonus on Diplomacy checks and add +2 to the DCs of all your mind-affecting, language-dependent spells and spell-like abilities.
Multicultural	General	Speak Language (your chosen race)
	Choose any one humanoid race other than your own. Whenever you meet members of that race, they are likely to treat you as one of their own. You gain a +4 bonus on Charisma checks made to alter the attitude of a member of your chosen race.
Obscure Lore	General	Bardic Knowledge class ability
	You gain a +3 bonus on Bardic Knowledge checks.
Trustworthy	General
	You gain a +2 bonus on all Diplomacy and Gather Information checks.

Tome and Blood

Feats from Tome and Blood

Feat	Type	Prerequisites
	Benefit
Energy Substitution	Metamagic	Any other metamagic feat, 5 ranks in Knowledge(arcana)
	Choose one type of energy: acid,cold, electricity, fire, or sonic. You can modify a spell with an energy designator to use the chosen type of energy instead. A substituted spell works normally in all respects except the type of damage dealt. A substituted spell uses a spell slot of the spell's normal level, modified by any other metamagic feats. You can gain this feat multiple times. Each time it applies to a different type of energy.

Optional Rules from the Dungeon Masters Guide

Instead of Simple, Martial, and Exotic Weapons, this will allow finer grained specification of the types of weapons a character is proficient in, while allowing Feats such as Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and Improved Critical to apply to an entire Weapon Group, rather than to a single weapon.

Domain Wizards

All the players of wizards like this: each wizard electing to be a domain wizard selects a single arcane domain, just as each cleric selects two divine domains. She may now cast one extra spell per day at each spell level, which must be the specific domain spell pertaining to the domain she selected. All castings of that spell, whether as a domain spell or a regular spell, are at caster level +1.

Craft Points

A mechanism for campaigns with little downtime to allow characters with Item Creation Feats to spend accumulated Craft Points in place of time to make items; they are deemed to have been crafting the item in their spare time, rather than requiring months of uninterrupted time.

Level Adjustment Reduction

A way for characters to "buy off" their racial Level Adjustment in order to reduce their ECL to equal their CL. We analyzed this method and figured out an acceptable way to retrofit it to our high-level characters.