House Rules: Choose Em, Don't Use Em, or Abuse Em?

[I'm A Banana]

I use everything in the threads in my sigs.

I also use a lot of stuff from Stuff, Etc (the Final Fantasy d20 stuff is golden. ).

The rest of it really depends on my mood, what I want to accomplish with the campaign, etc. I rarely need to alter much, if anything, in the ways of rules themselves. I just add and add, and take away sometimes (such as when I used the philosopher and white mage classes to replace the cleric).

 

[Jeph]

Class defense bonus ala Starwars (Good for Rogue, Bard, and Ranger, Poor for Cleric, Sorcerer, and Wizard, Average for everyone else), fixed HP per level (max at lv 1, half max die value at each additional level), fixed 'broken' spells (harm etc, but not Haste or Polymorph, they're just fon for both sides!), higher cost for magic items if I let characters have them at all, armor=DR.

 

[Zappo]

I only change things that threaten to ruin the game (broken stuff), and things that my players ask me to change (shafted stuff).

Right now, the first category includes Harm and Miasma, and the second category is empty.

Back during 2E, I changed three psionic powers, one kit, and allowed certain non-fighters to get multiple attacks (this last one was a flavor thing).

That's it. So I guess I stick pretty much to the law. It's not that I think printed stuff is perfect, but I think that minor balance problems aren't worth the time to house-rule them. And sticking to the law has the advantage of maximum compatibility. I can take any crunch I like from anywhere and 90% of the time I can use it as is.

OTOH, I add lots of stuff. All important NPC spellcasters in my campaigns have some custom spells; most permanent magical items are custom-made; I have new PrCs and monsters, and I add new rules for things that the manuals don't cover (though I stick to the design style of 3E as much as possible).

 

[Deedlit]

The house rules for a campaign that I play in(A campaign I act as DM's assistant in) include not using the minimum ability scores to cast certain spells (We did away with ability score requirements in 2E and don't like having them hang around in this form still), replacing the wood elf with a more Lodoss-inspired subrace(We don't like the idea of elves with a racial penalty to INT, we prefer the cool wood elves of most fantasy) ,heavy monster rancher influence creating a few monsters, and tons of custom spells. Also, we banned harm, miasma, and heal. Of course, when I DM, it's even more house ruled, and since it's often in dragonlance, I use the kencyclopedia as a major source despite it being unofficial. (And when it's not, it's in Lodoss, which all the gaming material for is from house rules.)

 

[Severion]

My houserules are pretty minimal (don't get to game much). The big one is my D12 for untrained skill rolls. Another is specific targetting of area spells (ie sleep). The only specific change so far is Drow do not get SR (or MR from earlier editions)

 

[Mark]

Got about one percent of the registered names having responded to this so far. Let's see if we can get a few more through the weekend.

Joshua - I'm calling anything in published as a regular rule, and if you tweek those, then it is a house rule (for the purposes of this poll.)

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Does that include using the optional rule called Prestige Classes?

 

[Mark]

Does that include using the optional rule called Prestige Classes?

Heh heh. Good one.

BTW, Bendris? When the hell are you going to join us at a Chicago Gameday?

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Heh heh. Good one.

Sometimes I throw that one in. I've actually gotten into a debate with someone that insisted that they were standard to the rules. It took 2 pages to point out the difference between "Standard Component" and "Standardly Used".

I took the rest of my reply to the other thread.

 

[Mark]

Sometimes I throw that one in. I've actually gotten into a debate with someone that insisted that they were standard to the rules. It took 2 pages to point out the difference between "Standard Component" and "Standardly Used".

That's some explaining, all right.

I took the rest of my reply to the other thread.

Got it.