D&D 4E 4e houserules

[Saishu_Heiki]

Firecubes don't bother me that much, but my provisory house rule would be this:

Now we can really "see" the fireballs inside the affected squares. It makes sense, at least to me.

So you have it set that Burst n expands vertically and horizontally n and diagonally 1+(n-1)? Not a terribly difficult rule to implement and keeps the shape roughly the same. I like it.

 

[HeinorNY]

Fluff-wise, I might allow tiefling characters to have less, uh, prominent horns and no tail. In fact, I might enforce it.

-Could you repeat that?

 

[withak]

-Could you repeat that?

Pardon me while I go get the hacksaw...

Ah, that's better!

 

[HeinorNY]

So you have it set that Burst n expands vertically and horizontally n and diagonally 1+(n-1)? Not a terribly difficult rule to implement and keeps the shape roughly the same. I like it.

I think probably the majority of burst spells will be Burst 2, so most of the time you will simply draw a square and cut the corners. If it's a Burst 3, cut 3 squares from the corners.
Still much simpler than figuring out bursts in 3.5, but looking better than firecubes

 

[invokethehojo]

I'm going to avoid all houserules unless they are absolutely necessary.

I am frankly quite exhausted with the house rule culture of role playing games, and very much hope that unlike all prior editions 4E is completely playable as is. It really is quite amazing that for 30 odd years we've had d&d that was, at some point in the play experience, critically flawed.

I just want to put my feet up and game with my buddies safe in the knowledge that the pro's have got it sorted.

I whole-heartedly agree. My core 3.5 groug basically fell apart because we all took turns dming, we all made house rules. Eventually we spent more time (literally) making/discussing house rules than we did playing.

Our groups only house rule for 4e: no house rules, play as is or don't

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Yes, 1-2-1-2. But since so many powers rely on moving around (Deft Strike) or moving the target (Positioning Strike), those powers could end up a little nerfed. I could also house rule that if you end your movement in the "middle" of a diagonal square you can complete your movement on that square, so if you use Positioning Strike to slide the target 2 squares diagonally, the target can still moves 2 squares, and if you slide the target 3 squares diagonally, he only move 2 squares.
House rule it won't be as simple as we thought initially, and we really need to see the full rules before anything.

I always thought it as less of "nerfing" movement powers, and more as a problem with all the backtracking involved with ensuring you counted the diagonals correctly if you diverge from straight lines. I know that this is what was one of the annoying things that happened in our 3E games, and why we are now very happy that it's gone. I like Euclid and Pythagoras* just as much as anyone else, but I am not so much a fan of bean-counting.
With the emphasis of movement, the problem would off course multiply.

But I wouldn't mind a change to the burst "templates" to make them a little more... "rounded". But if I think about stuff like "Entagle" or "Acid Fog", maybe I'll be fine with squares, after all. (Unless someone describes me away to create circles without throwing around the minis already standing on the battle mat, and without me trying to draw it by hand. I am too clumsy for either solution.)

*) Why does my Mozilla dictionary know Pythagoras, but not stuff like melee or spellcaster?

 

[Kwalish Kid]

The only house rules that I can see implementing are:

1) Smaller dragons. They may be very, very young, but I like the idea of a tiny dragon fighting lower level PCs.

2) Some system for "secondary skills" that give the PCs the potential to have ordinary jobs outside of adventuring. It may be something like 1st edition or it might even be something like d20 Modern. This leads to 3:

3) Separate social game from combat game. Players get a combat class and they get another class that represents their role in the game outside of the fight. So perhaps that fighter is the diplomatic noble and the wizard is the trapfinder. I would identify the roles of this other part of the RPG and then let players pick one of those as well.

 

[joela]

social

3) Separate social game from combat game. Players get a combat class and they get another class that represents their role in the game outside of the fight. So perhaps that fighter is the diplomatic noble and the wizard is the trapfinder. I would identify the roles of this other part of the RPG and then let players pick one of those as well.

intriguing. details?

 

[Dausuul]

I plan to run it pretty much "out of the box" to begin with, except that I'll be using hexes instead of squares. Unless my group runs into some glaring problem, I'll wait to house rule stuff until I have a feel for the system.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

No details yet, but I'll post this after I work on it. Expect to hear back after the release.