Do You Use Your RPG Rules as Written?
Celebrim
Legend
The scenarios where I typically have house rules:
a) There is absolutely no balance to the rules as written, leading to numerous win buttons which are used uncreatively, usually possessed by spellcasters. 3.5 is worse than 3.0 in this, in that 3.5 made a huge number of questionable changes to spell balance without play testing them, but it also includes the general problem of things like CoDzilla or fighters being tier 5 after level six or so.
b) The core game doesn't support the diversity of character types I want in the game or which I need for my homebrew, but none of the extended rules with the same intention are well balanced or well designed. The example here would be non-lawful good 'paladins' are a mess of muddled rules in 3.5, and every combination of a spell-casting class with a non-spellcasting class requires a PrC. In general, I see the very existence of PrC's in 3.X as evidence of design failure.
c) The rules silo actions that a character could reasonably propose regardless of skill, making them things only characters with exceptional skill can try. Having a feat that lets you do things that a kindergartener could do on a playground (if not well, he could at least try it) are particularly egregious examples. These are usually changed to things that make you much better at those things, but not absolutely, and a rule created to allow anyone to try it. Actually, if any area is likely to get further revision in my house rules, it's this sort of thing that I didn't really notice early on - things like 'Find Traps' and 'Track' desperately need to be rewritten in this manner.
d) In general, 'c' is a subcase of the rules are written to be a binary pass/fail sort of thing, rather than a degree. For example, in my game there is basically no such thing as immunity to fire. Even something like a fire elemental has fire resistance 100. Very little in my rules is 'automatic' full stop. Rather things are automatic for a given ability level in normal circumstances of play. This avoids situations where as written you are dealing with unstoppable forces and immovable objects.
e) The rules are silent on very basic aspects of how something would work for very natural propositions that a player would make, or else forbid a natural proposition explicitly in a way that discourages creativity seems designed just to . This generally happens because the players aren't relying on the rules to tell them what they can do, and so propose to do something that seems reasonable but which the rules are silent on. For example, can you cast a web targeting a flying creature and if so what happens? By the rules, 3.5 web doesn't work that way. Most DMs would probably respond to a proposition like, "I cast web on the griffin's wings to try to tangle it up" by pointing out in annoyance that the rules say, "These masses must be anchored to two or more solid and diametrically opposed points or else the web collapses upon itself and disappears.", and that would be that. Or they might accuse the player of 'rules lawyering'. I'm not that DM.
f) Anything that is explicitly that way purely for game balance but has no obvious in game reason. For example non-supernatural powers that are written like '1/day, you may...' for no obvious reason but game balance, are either excluded or rewritten to have different limitations.
g) Rules that has written require the table to metagame to avoid the implication of the rules or to create rulings that stop the player from abusing the rules on the fly. An example is that the rules of 3.X allow strong characters to rapidly tunnel through stone walls with basically any object or even their bare hands, a proposition that the otherwise simple to use hardness/hit point rules don't cover. For example, it's not actually called out that a beer mug breaks when you use it to try to smash a stone wall. Most DMs are happy to just handle this with rulings, and I get that, but in doing that I find you are actually discouraging players from bringing pick axes and crowbars into a dungeon because there is no middle ground between walls of tissue paper and walls of obdurium.
Celebim already covered it nicely but I'll add my 2c.
0-1 year in - usually 99 percent or more RAW
2-3 years in - usually 90 percent or more RAW.
If I'm running a long-standing game in the same edition for longer than 5 years the homebrew gets thick like a guinness draft.
0-1 year in - usually 99 percent or more RAW
2-3 years in - usually 90 percent or more RAW.
If I'm running a long-standing game in the same edition for longer than 5 years the homebrew gets thick like a guinness draft.
I'm not a Starbucks guy. I'm a Dunkin Donuts guy, but I like to pay for the coffee of the other folks behind me in line. It typically costs me less than $10, and makes the other people feel good, but more importantly, it makes me feel so good, and random acts of kindness change the world one person at a time.
The above has nothing to do with what you wrote above, but since I can't see where what you wrote above has anything to do with anything before it, I'm sharing this anecdote.
Be well
KB
I'm not a Starbucks guy. I'm a Dunkin Donuts guy, but I like to pay for the coffee of the other folks behind me in line. It typically costs me less than $10, and makes the other people feel good, but more importantly, it makes me feel so good, and random acts of kindness change the world one person at a time.
The above has nothing to do with what you wrote above, but since I can't see where what you wrote above has anything to do with anything before it, I'm sharing this anecdote.
Be well
KB
Oh, I am sorry.
I guess if you are playing in a Minecraft world then punching through Stone with your hands seems reasonable.
Actually, I'm sorry for being saucy. I missed that in Celebim's text wall. My bad.
Thanks for the quote.
KB
No worries, I just failed my internet etiquette check is all.
Hussar
Legend
To be honest, I look at your list, [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION], and pretty much shrug and play on. These things just don't bother me. Web doesn't work because it needs two anchors? Ok, fair enough. It just doesn't work. 1/day non-magical powers? Fantastic. It's a game, it needs balance. No skin off my nose.
Like I said, it just doesn't bother me. I simply cannot get up the energy to get bothered by this stuff anymore. I just want to play. If the game says X and X is fun? Good enough for me.
Like I said, it just doesn't bother me. I simply cannot get up the energy to get bothered by this stuff anymore. I just want to play. If the game says X and X is fun? Good enough for me.
aramis erak
Legend
For me,
0-0.25 years: 100% of what is in the core
0.25 to 1 year: 95%+ RAW.
2 years or more: 99%+; if not able to be played almost totally RAW + Errata, i'm not continuing to run it.
