Most Common House Rules

Since the last thread I had going was fried in the recent outage, I would like to start this again, begging my enworld mates to repost what they already posted a few weeks ago.

This thread is designed to get a birds-eye view of the most common house rules that we use in our d20 games. If you are listing a mechanic that isn't obvious or part of an "official" rules variant, some explanation as to what "broken rule" you are trying to fix is helpful, but not necessary.

Also if you are changing or removing an existing rule, let's list these too, though this usually requires some explanation why to be helpful to others.

I'll start with a few of mine:

* Dodge is a +1 AC bonus to all opponents, not to just one opponent per round. It makes only a minor difference in actual play and is much easier to manage in-game.
* Opposed Diplomacy checks -- I think this is Rich Burlew mechanic (of Order of the Stick fame). Located here.
* Opposed Tumble - Monte Cook has a good rule, yet I just can't seem to find the online version. Basically it's d20 + Tumble Skill vs. d20 + Opponents BAB + Dex Modifer. (or maybe just BAB, I can't remember.)
* Action Points - From Unearthed Arcana
* Arificer's Handbook for creation of Magic Items, and I will try to combine it with the Craft Points system.

I am starting my new campaign in about two months and I would love to know what is working for some and what existing rules are NOT working for others. I also might use the spellcasting classes from Arcana Evolved, but I am not sure.

I'd like to add a few others:

* Removal of Alignment - I like the way that AE manages this. If I DID decide to include alignments then Detect spells would only detect those with an alignment descriptor. ie, Detect Evil would only detect creatures with [Evil] desriptor. Maybe evil undead and outsiders could be detected as well.

* Spell Focus and Greater Spell focus - I would keep spell focus at +1, but GSF would be worth +2 for a total of +3 to make the feat chain more desirable.

* Keen and Improved Critical Stack -- Read the great argument written by Sean K Reynolds.

* Toughness is worth +1hp per level and do away with Improved Toughness. In it's current incarnation Toughness becomes irrelevant at mid levels and higher.

also synergy bonuses increasing with ranks ,many varients out there, mine is +1 for every 4 ranks. a similar change to the +2/+2 skill feats. having them increase by rank or level depends on your view point if they are taken to increase the max limit or gain some skill in cross class.

many grant craft and profesion to all classes.
+1 skill point/4 levels in spot/listen/search representing your expirience.
added skill points to all classes in some form or another
added feats as either bonuses to classes from a list or just handing them out.
let barbarians read
Z

I do away with cross-class skills. All skills cost 1 point per rank for everyone.

Makes it easier to verify the totals are correct and most classes get so few points anyway it doesn't seem to hurt anything.

Hit points are rolled as 1/2 hit die + 1/2 maximum for hit die. Ie, a cleric rolls 1d4+4, a barbarian 1d6+6. While this leads to fighter having to roll a "d5," it's easy to fake that for one roll per level.

This prevents bad die rolls over a few levels from cripling characters.

Well let's see, I've adopted a few from here and WotC.

Shields are all +1 above their normal AC bonus.

Monks have same BAB as fighters.

No "Common" language. We're using FR and each region has it's own language (Cormyrian, Dalelandian, etc.) We made a modification that gives a character a bonus skill point to use toward a language if they are in the region for at least 30 days and are actively trying to learn that language. I modified each regional language to have its own DC to learn. A players INT mod. is used as is a modifier for every month spent learning the language.

Those are the ones I have picked up from other DM's. We have a few others. The most notable are:

A variable recovery rate for healing potions and spells. I created 5 levels of healing recovery to make healing feel more miraculous and to also dissuade the "fighter with potions strapped to his chest".

1st-4th lvl. healers/potions = heal at the rate of 1 hp/8 rds. (normal cost)
5th-8th lvl. healers/potions = heal at the rate of 1 hp/4 rds. (cost x 1.5)
9th-12th lvl. healers/potions = heal at the rate of 1 hp/2 rds. (cost x 2)
13th-16th lvl. healers/potions = heal at the rate of 1 hp/rd. (cost x 2.5)
17th-20th lvl. healers/potions = heal at the rate of 2 hp/rd. (cost x 3)

All magical items have a magical signature that is unique. Some magical items don't mix well with others. Magical items "bond" in a sense to their user. Anytime a character acquires a new item, it has a 20% of reacting with an existing item. 1 of 3 things can happen: item explodes doing 1d6 per 1000gp value of item, item releases its energy back to the weave making it non-magical, or one item drains the magical power of the other item leaving that item non-magical while making itself even more powerful. Any spellcaster can sense a bad resonance long before anything bad happens. Reactions take 1 hr. per 1000gp value of the item, and spellcasters can make Spellcraft checks (DC=15) every 10 minutes. Once the items are separated, there is no chance of a reaction. If 2 items are compatible, they are always compatible with each other.

Our other houserules are mostly UA and IH variants.

Boy, I forgot to mention our biggest houserule! We play a diceless style of gaming. I use DM Genie to manage my campaigns, and it has an autoroll feature that allows it to make all of the rolls. This has several advantages. The most important is immersion and roleplaying. With the mechanics tucked away, players focus on telling the story through their players eyes and not worrying about which dice to throw when. Roleplaying is also much more suspensful since I make all of their skill checks like spot with a simple click. There's no foreshadowing giving the surprise away anymore. Another advantage is that playing diceless almost eliminates metagaming. Players have to rely more on descriptions and less on seeing rolls, so they tend to react more realisitically. One other huge advantage is combat. It literally flies now. Sunday we had a major battle with 5 PC's against a band of 8 Orogs. The entire battle took less than 30 minutes. Since DM Genie makes all of the rolls, the players also do not know their exact HP total during combat. We use a projection system for battles, and we utilize a color coding system for relative health. Green is 100%, yellow is 75%, Orange is 50%, and Red is 25%. It adds a lot more tension to the combat and players use a lot more strategy. Once the battle is over, they have a chance to look each other over and get their exact totals.

I've had 3 "old-timers" (I hate that term, especially since I'm one of them ) in my group who were completely against the diceless gaming when they first played. 1 of them also DM's and now runs the same type of system with DM Genie. The other 2 have said a bunch of times that they would never want to play with dice again. I'll admit, I was a little hesitant myself at first, but with the mechanics basically hidden away, there is so much more roleplaying going on. Not to mention that characters actions can be carried out much more quickly. And by describing them instead of just using numbers, the players feel more immersed in whatever actions they are engaged in.

To add to my already long-winded replies, the published variants we are currently using are:

Clobbered Variant (DMG)
Opposed Roll Variant (automatically scripted into DM Genie, thanks Wiseman13) (DMG)
Armor Damage Reduction and Natural Armor Damage Reduction (UA)
Attack and Defense Challenges (Iron Heroes)
Stunts (Iron Heroes)

mmm this diceless game sounds interesting but i'll give it a test run with a one shot adventure or two before implementing it.
Z

ceratitis said:

mmm this diceless game sounds interesting but i'll give it a test run with a one shot adventure or two before implementing it.
Z

Click to expand...

That's the approach we took too. In fact, after 3 sessions, we went back to dice to see if the difference was as big as we were perceiving. Everyone voted to go back to diceless. The hardest part of the transition was getting a couple of the players over their superstition that it actually makes a difference who rolls the dice or if a computer generates a number. A couple of large-scale splatterfests changed their minds pretty quickly. With combat so much faster and smoother now, there is much more focus on descriptions. The other cool byproduct for me as a DM is that my players got more descriptive with their actions. I think part of it was the fact that they could more easily concentrate on what's going on, and the other is that I think it replaces the action of rolling dice in regards to actively participating in the game.

If you are using DM Genie to manage your games, you will have a blast at the amount of suspense it allows you as it makes rolls with simple clicks, with the players unaware of what is next. Ambushes and traps are very exciting as I just make the appropriate rolls and then describe the events up to the point that the player can actually do something. I've had players literally jump at the descriptions of some encounters. Of course many of these surprises are accompanied by sound effects thanks to RPG Soundmixer!

I should mention that using DM Genie has much more to do with the fluidity of our gaming than playing diceless. It manages everything, the interface is amazing and every single aspect of the game is a click away. Not to mention that it's completely customizeable. You can easily create things like races, items, classes, races, and more. I even customized the built in calendar to the Harptos Calendar of FR.

Playing Diceless just made it even more efficient, and more suspenseful.

Oops, end of commercial. :\ Sorry about that. To get back on topic, if I could only keep one of my houserules, diceless gaming would be it for sure!

One of my favorites deals with hit points below 0:

Disabled: Instead of just 0hp, Disabled happens at 0 down to negative hp = to your Con modifier (min of 1).

Dying: This follows Disabled hp range and extends to negative hp equal to Con -1.

Dead: When the character reaches negative hp = to Con score, they are Dead.

A character with a 10 Con would be Disabled from 0hp to -1hp, Dying from -2hp to -9hp and Dead at -10hp. While a character with an 18 Con would be Disabled from 0hp to -4hp, Dying from -5hp to -17hp and Dead at -18hp.