Bad House Rules

[rounser]

"The Ravagers of Erythnuul will take your family, your property, and your worthless life..... but they won't take Imperial Gold Coins. The new Garl Glittergoldcard.... it's everywhere you want to be"

LOL

 

[Darklone]

I have to sheepishly admit I tried that one, too.

Oddly, it never showed up as broken in actual game-play, probably because all the sorcerers and bards were multi-classed. I just gave it a real hard think one day, and realized it was way too good, especially considering that I already house-rule the sorcerer fairly extensively.

I used the "roll HP and if you don't like it, you can roll again" rule for quite a while ... but it ended up being too much. I'm all for enhancing PCs' survival, but most of my PCs were only a HP or two per level away from max. Makes it tough to challenge them with normal encounters.


Jeff

Ohh, I use the same hp rule as Old One (DM rolls hidden as well, player chooses which result to take). Works fine if the DM takes it into account and my game is houserule heavy anyway ... But here we're talking about the bad houserules (hope my players don't start to post )...

Hyper: Eeeks. That's nearly as bad as drowloving DMs who send a drow NPC with the group all the time... oops, that was another thread.

Our sorcerer wasn't soo bad since he had a penchant for melee.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Also, this character was an extremely famous high level paladin who's pretty much a household name as a famous hero

If he was 14th level+ one wonders why he didn't use Death Ward to protect himself from the enervations (unless it was 3e of course. My main point is that 3.5e paladins do have a protection against that sort of thing once they reach high level)

Cheers

 

[SableWyvern]

Not really a rule, because did not effect gameplay, but one DM made it a requirement to roll to-hit rolls and damage at the same time, and if you forgot, He would act like its the end of the world.

Not far from the rule I use. No end of the world, though.

If you've missed a session or two, and get forgetful, you probably get a couple of reminders. Anyone may get one reminder, if I'm in a good mood.

Then, it is assumed that the damage rolled with an attack is the damage done. So, no damage dice = damage done nil.

Speeds combat up immensely, and the players rarely forget.

Oh, and the same rule applies to me, unless I'm needing to continually swap damage dice for different critters/attack forms in the same battle, in which case I generally let myself off a couple of times.

 

[just__al]

Not far from the rule I use. No end of the world, though.

If you've missed a session or two, and get forgetful, you probably get a couple of reminders. Anyone may get one reminder, if I'm in a good mood.

Then, it is assumed that the damage rolled with an attack is the damage done. So, no damage dice = damage done nil.

Speeds combat up immensely, and the players rarely forget.

Oh, and the same rule applies to me, unless I'm needing to continually swap damage dice for different critters/attack forms in the same battle, in which case I generally let myself off a couple of times.

I encourage my players to do this. I do it when I play as much as possible (including having color coordinated d20's and damage dice for multiple attacks) but I never require it. I almost feel bad for the efficient players at my table because they wait on the slow pokes.

I don't do this as a DM because... well... Wow, I could speed up the game a little bit. Why don't I do this?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

These are from 1st ed. but...

New characters always start at level one. (In a twelfth level party, and no resurrection...)

Roll 5d6 for ability scores, rerolling 1s. (We had a character with all 18s...)

A 20 to hit roll followed by a maximum damage roll killed the target dead. (Daggers had a 1 in 4 chance of killing following a 20...)

The number of times the weapon speed would fit into 20 was how many attacks you got in a round... (See the dagger comment above... same game.)

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* Whoops, forgot one real stinker... No one gets experience unless a PC dies, otherwise it was too easy... same game as the 'all PCs start at level 1'...

 

[Matafuego]

Hehe. I had a DM that didn't know how the metamagic rules worked. He had it set up so that, as a thirteenth level Sorcerer, I could cast a second level spell (Say Acid Arrow) 27 times in one round with the 'quicken spell' feat. Now, I was useless for the rest of the day, but think about that. 54d4 damage in one round. Followed by an additional four rounds of 54d4 damage. He wouldn't change it either, even after demonstrating to him it's brokenness. I didn't complain too much, mind you, but still. (The game was mostly about roleplaying anyway. I only got to go [pardon the pun] medieval on some creature's ass twice. ^_^)

This is also the DM that gave out the cleric domain ability for 'Luck' out as a feat. That could be taken multiple time. (yes. It's broken. Trust me)

~Alloran

I usually hand out "Jokers" at the beggining of the game, two or three for the whole party. Each Joker can be traded out for a reroll, it works out pretty good, specially when there's practically no ressurrection.

And I would love to find some decent fumble table (nowadays only if you roll two 1's in a row it get's nasty but I would want something that depends on your ability).

Worst 2 house rules?
All in 2e...

A completely NASTY critical/fumble table a DM once used, I argued with him for half an hour about its unfairness before we actually get to play (we were setting up the food and everything, no actual play loss) about it and he ruled that he liked it and we would have to play by it.
One of the other players (a Minotaur...another horrible house rule) rolled two 20's vs Mike, the chief of the militia (they were wrestling on an arena in a bar...), and Mike then proceed to fumble... two broken arms, a broken nose and a broken leg... a level 1 versus a level 5...
Thanks to that critical table we also managed to kill a level 20 wizard in the same day (we were still level one...)

Another rule was a Wish rule. You could use one of those Rings of Wishes to Wish for a Bag of Recharging Items, and recharge the Ring of Wishes in it... It went downhill from there.

 

[Drakon66]

I offer my players one of three methods of rolling stat numbers:

1. Roll 3d6 seven times and keep the best six.
2. Roll 4d6 six times and keep the best three in each roll.
And for those who like to mix and match there numbers from a total,
3. Roll 17d6 and spread the total around your six stats.

These seem to work well and the PC's get a choice. However I played with a DM who would let you roll 4d6 seven times keeping the best three in each roll and the best six rolls for the stats....AND you could reroll ALL 1's and 2's. Needless to say the stat numbers in that game where SICK!

Jeff

 

[Mouseferatu]

3. Roll 17d6 and spread the total around your six stats.

17? Really? I like mixing and matching, but I don't think I'd select an option that lowered the potential maximum to less than a straight 3d6 six times. The ability to mix and match is cool, but it's not that cool, not when both your other options allow methods of ditching low scores/die rolls. 17d6 leaves you with one stat that only has the equivalent of two dice attached to it, not three. By the law of averages, you're going to wind up with lower overall abilities than straight 3d6. I'm no power-gamer, but I can't imagine ever taking that option.

But obviously, YMM (and clearly does) V.

 

[Tiberius]

Heh, I've thrown out a few stinkers in my games. The biggest one (IMO) sprouted from my dislike of the removal of the threat of permanant death. In 1&2E, you needed to make a system shock check each time you were resurrected, with failure indicating that you had died forever. I was initially displeased with the removal of this from 3E, so I added in the following system: You get 2 or 3 "free" resurrections (free of risk of permadeath). Each death thereafter, you had a 10% cumulative chance of permanant death. My players were kind enough to wait for a while before telling me I was on crack and such. I probably should have consulted them first.