Author Topic: House Rules  (Read 17456 times)

Flawless P

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House Rules
« on: November 11, 2011, 02:46:49 PM »
I know that there have been a lot of conversation about house rules in the past, such as Ross' Ravenloft punching maniac and all, but I just wanted a place for us to all discuss what house rules we use in games and why... I can start off the list with my short list of 11 House Rules that started off unspoken and ended up becoming official when I wrote them up...

These are for DnD 3.5


House Rules

1. Diagonal Movement is no more expensive than normal movement.

2. Dodge is added to AC as a flat +1 Bonus, any class features or feats that depend on your dodge target still require you to choose one character.

3. If you gain a permanent increase to intelligence through attribute points or wish/manuals you retroactively gain skill points in the same manner as constitution. Temporary Intelligence boosts or boosts from magic items do not qualify for retroactive skill point increase.

4. Critical Hits and Critical Misses defer to a critical hit and miss chart. A critical miss is not just an automatic miss it can and usually will come with some kind of detriment to your character.(Unless I'm running the game then you just automatically miss. SEE: My Rant on Why Critical Fumbles make no sense.)

5. Magic Weapons and Armor do not have to have a minimum of a +1 enhancement before receiving other named enhancements (such as keen).

6. Free actions still exist and can be taken at any time; they do not count against your total of swift or immediate actions for the turn. Such instances include talking (to a limit), and quick draw.

7. XP by and large means nothing. Gaining levels is subject to DM approval, regardless of how many enemies you've killed.

8. You do not roll to confirm a critical hit. If you threaten a critical and would normally strike the target then the attack is a critical hit. Natural 20's always hit and also auto confirm. Feats that assist you in confirming critical hits are not accessible. If you want a feat that requires one of the affected feats talk to the DM so he can come up with a new prerequisite.

9. A Paladins Detect Evil can be used as a free action. Rounds of concentration still take place but it can be activated and maintained as desired. Any time a new creature enters the area of effect you must wait 3 rounds to learn if they are evil or not. I.E. No 2nd round detecting presence of evil when only the one creature is new. This comes with the caveat that the DM will not tell you when someone you are talking too is evil regardless of if you say "I leave it on all the time." However if you request to check their alignment he will then let you know if you have detected anything.

10. Most spells with an xp or high gold cost have those requirements removed subject to DM's approval/discretion.

11. Spell casters who must prepare their spells in advance can take an hour of uninterrupted mediation to swap out the unused spells they have prepared for the day for new one's.


I'd love to hear others.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2011, 03:42:12 PM by Flawless P »
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SageNytell

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #1 on: November 11, 2011, 03:09:45 PM »
3.5? Fighters get at least 4 skill points/level.  Everyone gets something to contribute outside of combat.

You can either roll for HP, or I'll give you 1 better than half per level. (i.e. in Pathfinder d6 gets 4/level, d8 gets 5, d10 gets 6, d12 7)

If it sounds cool, we'll figure out a way to make it work, rules be damned.  Just understand that if you've done it, the bad guys can do similar.

Flawless P

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #2 on: November 11, 2011, 03:41:10 PM »
If it sounds cool, we'll figure out a way to make it work, rules be damned.  Just understand that if you've done it, the bad guys can do similar.

This is by far my favorite of the set.

Also you don't have to hold it to the 3.5 rules set i'm more than happy to hear house rules for other systems.
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clockworkjoe

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #3 on: November 11, 2011, 03:59:31 PM »
Fighters in 3.5e get:

Skill Points at 1st Level

(2 + Int modifier) ×4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level

2 + Int modifier.

Fighters suck in 3.X D&D.

SageNytell

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #4 on: November 11, 2011, 04:18:31 PM »
Fighters suck in 3.X D&D.

Thus the update to at least 4/level, and I've toyed with 6/level. If Rangers and Paladins can have time between fighting knowledge, magic, and their other esoteric duties to be good at looking at things, diplomatic, a strong swimmer, knowledgeable about religion, riding a fucking chocobo, and knowing how to make a really fucking cool hammer in a forge, why is my Fighter so damn lazy that other than sharpening his +X vorpal sword and thinking up new ways to stab a dude he can only climb a rock and shout at people?

It's a simple fix, and I won't play the game with a fighter without it.

Tadanori Oyama

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #5 on: November 11, 2011, 04:27:54 PM »
I just replace fighters with Warblades. Fuck standing still and swinging a sword.

Flawless P

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #6 on: November 11, 2011, 05:13:45 PM »
I just replace fighters with Warblades. Fuck standing still and swinging a sword.

I refuse to use Tome of Battle, I don't feel like reading it. But I do like the Improved Unarmed Strike Feat.
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Tadanori Oyama

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #7 on: November 11, 2011, 05:27:21 PM »
I love Tome of Battle. Puts melee fighters on the right power curve. What's more fun for a sword fighter than making a Standard attack with +2d6 that ignores DR and Hardness? Nothing, that's what.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2011, 05:34:37 PM by Tadanori Oyama »

Moondog

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #8 on: November 11, 2011, 11:46:16 PM »
I just replace fighters with Warblades. Fuck standing still and swinging a sword.

This is what I do.  At least for my players who can be bothered to keep track of things more complicated than 'I hit it with a piece of metal until it stops moving' (and those players I try to direct to playing a Barbarian).

Incidentally, I am currently running my own 3.5 campaign, and have a few house rules of my own. I write everything in a horrible shorthand which is only readable by myself and people able to decipher alien script so there's a bit of translation going on here.

1: There are no critical misses. It makes no sense to penalize the people who are the best at combat (ie who make the most attacks) with something that will only ruin their day. A roll of 1 is merely a miss. 

2. I always do critical confirmation rolls: many of my friends don't bother with them, as they slow the flow of combat a bit and tend to kill tension, but I like to keep a buffer between my low level player characters and one-hit death.

3. (private DM house-rule unbeknownst to players) Player Characters will never die because they flubbed one roll through no fault of their own. If they do something stupid 'so there's this large inky black sphere of nothingness that seems to destroy the stick I poke it with. . .I jump in!' deserving of death, no mercy is to be had for them, however.

4. (private DM house-rule unknown to players) Keep the game moving. If the PCs are standing around with nothing happening for more than 10 minutes, orcs attack. Or something explodes. Give them time to think and plan if they want it, but otherwise, move move move).

5. Do everything you can as a DM to never outright tell a player 'No, you can't do that.' If they want something unreasonable, work with them to tone it down to something that works.

5.5. Let the players do awesome things whenever they can plausibly get away with it. If they're running from the captain of the guard in a city's docks and they climb a set of stairs and ask if there are casks to be tumbled, there will be casks for tumbling.

6: I've pretty much gone through and changed most feats in 3.5 that relate to combat, to make them scale properly. I hate the concept of 'feat trees', because let's be honest, most characters will only ever get 7 feats THEIR WHOLE LIVES (if they live to 18th level), so it's entirely unreasonable to make someone spend 5 feats to be good with a bow.

If they have a concept such as 'I am a Sniper' there should be 1 feat which lets them be a sniper, available from 1st level. It must scale as they go up in level, based around their attack bonus: At +0 (so 3/4 classes like clerics (who really don't need anything to boost them but oh well) and marshals and bards (who need all the help they can get) can benefit from it), at +1, at +5, at +10, at +15, and at +20 BAB the benefit must become more awesome.

Example: Lightning Reflexes (Vanilla version: Gain +2 to reflex saves.)

 +0: You gain a +3 bonus to your Reflex saves.
 +1: You gain Evasion, if you already have Evasion, that stacks to Improved Evasion.
 +6: You may make a Balance Check in place of your Reflex save.
 +11: You gain a +3 bonus to your Initiative.
 +16: When you take the Full Defense Action, add your level to your AC.

6.5: Share the work of balancing with the players; If they want a new feat to accomplish something, or a new spell, or a new trait, make them come up with it, and work with them to work it out. Same goes for a cool background story, or anything else. (It helps that because I'm using a homebrew setting, my more creative players can spontaneously come up with stuff like traditions and what not to add detail and life to the setting).

7. (secret DM rule unknown to players) The Dice come in secondary to dramatic tension in fights; if the villain is on the ropes, and the player makes a sweet speech before making the what should be the last attack but rolls an awful to-hit, he just happens to be inspired by his words enough to get a morale bonus to attack just high enough to hit and end things then and there. Further, if the bad guy does something similar, same rules apply.

8. Force Cage allows a save. Every other round.

9. Ability damage is unchanged, but effective save-or-die effects work differently; they take a number of rounds equal to the affected character's constitution bonus to take full effect.

Example: Broham of Boletaria has a Constitution score of 18, giving him a +4 Constitution bonus. He happens to catch the gaze of a medusa, and flubs his save. His feet immediately turn to stone, dropping his base speed to 0, and removing his dexterity bonus to AC and ability to make Attacks of Opportunity. He can still cast spells, chug a potion, or otherwise defend himself, however.

On the second round, he gets another save, which he again flubs. His shield arm is now stone, and useless for attacks and shield holding.

And so forth; I refuse to kill off a player character because of a single shitty roll on their part (especially because they refuse to have a cleric in the party), but I'm not going to completely neuter dangerous enemies.

This also goes for player attacks, barring low level utility spells like Sleep and Color Spray.

10. Intelligent enemies in combat will act according to their intelligence, and take full advantage of every possible opening. 

My group likes to bunch up and go after targets one at a time, leaving their back ranks exposed. Thus far, it hasn't cost them any characters because everything dies in one or two hits, and they can get away with it. When they get to meet their first Devil or Demon (or anything which can teleport) however, they'll quickly learn that tactical thought is vital. 

DEMON TACTICS 101: bait warriors to charge; laugh and use Quickened Teleport to get behind the squishies. Begin to maul.

There are more but they're mostly related to my setting.
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Flawless P

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #9 on: November 12, 2011, 02:16:59 AM »
1: There are no critical misses. It makes no sense to penalize the people who are the best at combat (ie who make the most attacks) with something that will only ruin their day. A roll of 1 is merely a miss. 

4. Critical Hits and Critical Misses defer to a critical hit and miss chart. A critical miss is not just an automatic miss it can and usually will come with some kind of detriment to your character.(Unless I'm running the game then you just automatically miss. SEE: My Rant on Why Critical Fumbles make no sense.)

Glad to see someone else agrees with me, I had one of my friends who runs games (badly) argue this point with me for over an hour, without giving any real reason why I was "wrong" other than "It makes things more interesting."
42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
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Flawless P

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #10 on: November 12, 2011, 04:42:48 PM »
I have one for Call of Cthulhu, but it's kinda just me being nice.

AoE attacks will within reason give a Luck Roll for half damage. I started using this after the first time I ran CoC they TPK'd against the wind monster in King of Chicago.

They all loved it so much that we have made "Call" one of our regular games.
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Flawless P

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #11 on: May 30, 2013, 05:39:29 PM »
Performing some thread necromancy to see if anyone here plays games straight up with houseruling only coming out in one of every fifty cases.

I am starting a new game using Pathfinder tomorrow, and we have all agreed to abide by the rules of the system as strictly as is humanly possible.

Just wanted to see if anyone has any experience in this kind of thing since I tend to make things up in favor of a rule I find not so fun.
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sinanju

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #12 on: May 30, 2013, 08:51:39 PM »
Our D&D group eliminated critical misses. A roll of 1 is an automatic miss, but that's it. No other penalty. (I hate the D20 system, where you're as likely to whiff with a 1 as to crit with a 20 no matter how skilled you are. Doing away with exaggerated critical failures mollifies me somewhat. But I still prefer the 3d6 system of GURPS and similar systems, where you can expect some consistency of results in your attempts to use a skill.)

Teapot

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #13 on: May 30, 2013, 09:23:56 PM »
I've been using the "blackjack" rules for CoC for about ten years or so. Makes opposed skills easier.

In 3.x I'm thinking I'll just shove the fighter/rogue into one class to keep up.

QuickreleasePersonalitY

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Re: House Rules
« Reply #14 on: May 30, 2013, 09:29:14 PM »
Not really house rules but:

Coc & Chartmaster:  use the Resistance Table for everything.  For CoC, 'Damage Taken' becomes a Potency against HP to 'survive'.
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