I really like the skill feats making those skills class skills. I may have to steal that one.
Common Houses rules for my games:
Critical Fumbles: If you roll a 1 on your attack roll, roll again. If the second roll would hit, the attack is a normal miss. If the second roll would be a miss, you fumble and I compare the number you rolled to my fumble chart, which causes effects from dropping your weapon to getting knocked off-balance and losing your Dex bonus to AC for one round.
Botched Saves: If you a roll a 1 on a saving throw, roll again (I really don't want to take the time to figure out what equipment might get damaged and roll for that) if the second roll is a failure, you take the maximum possible effect from the spell.
Fate Points Instead of story/ad-hoc/RPing XP, I aware Fate Points which can be used, by spending varying amounts, for things like re-rolls, buying up ability scores, making a fatal wound drop you to -5 instead, etc.
Movement bonuses: Characters add their Str and Dex modifiers to their base speed. (For combat only. It has no effect on their overland travel rate.)
Elf Favored Class: Elves treat Sorcerer rather than Wizard as their favored class, since they're supposed to be inately magical.
No Double Weapons: Except the quarterstaff and dwarven ergosh. I think the vast majority of the double weapons in the PHB (and other books) are lame and would be a greater danger to the wielder than their opponent. This also means the gnomish weapon familiarity is with the gnomish battle pick instead of the hook hammer.
Secret Initiative: Like other folks, I roll for the players and they don't know what they rolled (though it's pretty easy to figure out after the first round.)
Dead or Just Mostly Dead?: If a character gets dropped below 0 hitpoints, all the players know is the character took a hit and went down. (Barring grievous amounts of damage, where the character is dropped below -20 or had to/would have had to make a save vs. massive damage if the amount hadn't killed them outright.) Until one of the players takes the time to check for vitals or try to heal the downed character, they don't know if he's alive or dead, or how close to death he is. Prevents "Don't worry, Frank's only at -2, we've got 8 rounds before he bleeds to death" sort of moments and adds to the suspense. (In relation to the Fate Points system, I will automatically deduct the Fate Points and spare the character's life if the player has them available.)
Elemental Domains: Priests who have an elemental Domain (Air, Earth, Fire, Water) can choose to gain Energy Resistance in that element (Air=Electricity, Earth=Acid, Fire=Fire, Water=Cold) equal to their Charisma bonus times their Cleric level instead of the near-useless Turn/Rebuke elemental abilities those domains normally grant. I just prefer the idea of a priest of a Fire god not having to worry as much about being burned over him maybe being able to take control of a Fire Elemental if he ever runs into one.
