D&D 4E My 4e House Rules - Yours?

[ACGalaga]

House Rule: Party Foul

If you spill a drink, you take -1 to your attack rolls till the end of the encounter. If not in an encounter then it applies to the next encounter.

 

[ffy]

Houserules for the current 'world' I am running my campaign in.

• Humans have 3 extra points to use in Point Buy. Humans are supposed to be the most populous race by far, and making them slightly overpowered helps convince the players to play human.
• Everyone has 1 action point in every encounter. No milestones.
• No limit on how many magic items you can use. No milestones.
• Free expertise (weapon and implement) for everyone at level 1.
• Inherent bonuses are always turned on.
• If someone has an awesome idea for a character build that requires bending the rules, a new houserule will probably be made for it.
• Avengers can always make 2 rolls in melee against their Oath target, no matter how many enemies are adjacent to them.

 

[Blue]

[*]No limit on how many magic items you can use. No milestones.

This is an actual rule, not a houserule. They introduced it when they introduced item rarity.

Though one houserule in a game I play is "no rarity, one magic item use per milestone" (in other words, the old rule). Without it the Artificer gets a rather large power upgrade since they can hand out temp HP for every item use.

I haven't run 4e with any houserules but I liked the "automatically learn languages from immersion" from above. Also considering various minion fixes - I don't like that they break so many rules.

 

[Octangula]

Also considering various minion fixes - I don't like that they break so many rules.

One thing you could consider is requiring them to take a solid enough hit to die. This 3-part article about taking shortcuts with HP tracking for monsters suggests level+3 as the threshold. Or maybe you could have then bloodied on a hit like that, requiring another to go down, with twice that taking them out completely.

I'm not currently running a game, although I am playing in one that's currently in late heroic going through Scales of War. The only house rules that spring to mind are that we're using drama cards, receiving one at the start of each module, and that ritual components aren't used, and instead casting a ritual costs a healing surge (unless the component cost would be significant, in which case our DM will probably make a ruling).

 

[Estlor]

Mages can use Tomes without a feat.

You don't need to houserule for this. Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium (the first source published that included Tomes after the existence of wizard subclasses) explicitly states all wizards are proficient with Tomes.

Some (misguided) people insist this doesn't actually give the other wizard subclasses proficiency since none of the following books mention it, but they're all published with the assumption that all you have is the PHB1 or Heroes of the Fallen Lands/Forgotten Kingdoms. Either that or because it was never updated to be so in the Compendium, but I can find a half dozen compendium things that contradict published content/errata so the compendium isn't 100% accurate either.

 

[Zaran]

You don't need to houserule for this. Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium (the first source published that included Tomes after the existence of wizard subclasses) explicitly states all wizards are proficient with Tomes.

Some (misguided) people insist this doesn't actually give the other wizard subclasses proficiency since none of the following books mention it, but they're all published with the assumption that all you have is the PHB1 or Heroes of the Fallen Lands/Forgotten Kingdoms. Either that or because it was never updated to be so in the Compendium, but I can find a half dozen compendium things that contradict published content/errata so the compendium isn't 100% accurate either.

Not only is it not updated in the compendium but the character builder will not let you use a Tome as an implement if you are playing a mage.

 

[Grimmjow]

Not only is it not updated in the compendium but the character builder will not let you use a Tome as an implement if you are playing a mage.

in my eyes the character builder is terrible. I never use it for my characters

 

[Rhenny]

Why would you want to go back to fixed healing instead of proportional healing? Healing that is proportional to the target's total makes a lot more sense.

My players are old school. They just feel that healing should be totally dependent on the caster. It works for them. It works for me.

 

[Zaran]

in my eyes the character builder is terrible. I never use it for my characters

Another thing that I feel proves that they all wizards don't have Tome Proficiency is the fact that the new wizard sub class that is actually in the book with the Tome Expertise feat does not have the proficiency to use tomes.

 

[Dragonblade]

For character creation, every PC gets one expertise feat for free. They may also choose two backgrounds or one background and one free multi-class feat.

Every PC gets 1 action point per encounter. No milestones.

I use inherent bonuses and magic items are rare, powerful, and mysterious. Think artifacts.

PCs may expend a standard action to recover any one encounter power. The power is usable immediately if the player has a sufficient action remaining to use it. Yes, this means that encounter powers with a Move or Minor action are useable effectively at will (though you give up a Standard action every round to recharge it). This is by design.