Bad House Rules

[I'm A Banana]

I do called shots = crits. Doesn't get too overpowered, really, ESPECIALLY at these higher levels. Usually balanced by (1), not everything is crit-able and (2) when wizards are tossing around many d6's worth of damage, it keeps the weapon-wielders still up there.

Though I'm thinking of changing it to called shot = threat...probably better.

I haven't seen a whole lot of real awful ones, to be honest -- most of 'em I've only heard of, and have run away scared.

 

[diaglo]

1) Mana casting. which in itself leads to a unique flavor. but in the campaign i played in it gave the spellcasters ultimate power.

they could spontaneously cast. all spellcasters.

no cost for metamagic feats when casting. so i could cast a maximized, extended, quickened....yadda yadda for the same cost as casting the normal version.

2) everyone got an heirloom item. which again, in itself is not a bad thing. however, when the item powered up without cost and generated the rest of the regalia on its own, plus became an NPC.

3) the gods made you a prestige class. no choice. the DM fitted you for a PrC. i have no problem with PrC. but i do have a problem with the DM telling me what my character is/should be. so the DM created a PrC. my character was a cleric. he became a Messiahic Avatar of the Goddess of Healing. I literally hovered.

 

[Felon]

I've had one DM who repeatedly tries to start a campaign based on Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Not just the world setting, mind you, but also the rules. Like dispel dice pools, and spells that were designed to be used on large units of soldiers being directed onto a group of 4 adventurers. Minotaurs getting 3 atacks a round at full BAB. Real mess.

Then there are my DM's keep trying to give incentives to play the underplayed classes. Giving players an extra 1000 starting gold for playing a ranger, an extra 1000 xp for playing a druid. Lame-ass stuff like that usually. Then one of them tried to come up wit kickass combat feats that turn bards into the 2e Blade kit. Guess what? Nobody's still real interested in playing them...but if someobody does, damn we'll be nasty lol.

 

[Felon]

Okay, I think I understand the point of this thread but in essence aren't you just pointing fingers at those you don't agree with and calling them unknowledgable or inexperienced?

We're having a few cheap laughs at sme bonehead house-rules. Go be constructive somewhere else.

 

[Felon]

....OK, OK, I'll let just a little constructiveness set in:

Ugh....no listen checks while sleeping? I hope you all never go head to head with an assassin or even a rogue! If a rogue sneak attacks you while sleeping, then you have to make a Fortitude= to damage dealt or die!!!

To be fair, there are no official rules for how sleeping affects listen checks, are there? If the DM made the penalty significant, it would be tatamount to failure. And then you're a coup de grace away from death's door.

Hell, I've had that happen. Sometimes players get careless about where they sleep.

1) No darkvision. Infravision is back in.

Personally, I detest them both. Darkvision is a non sequitor; if there's no light where you are, vision doesn't work. Ift's like giving someone the ability to hear in a vacum. Infravision at least works off a reasonable principle, that your eyes are picking the infra-red wavelengths generates by objetcs, but how would this stop a dwarf from stubbing his toe in the depths of some cold-ass mine?

1. Also, removed *all* costs for scribing spells into spellbooks.

Always seemed like a lame rule to me anyway. If there is some game balance issue that necessitates attaching a cost to learning spells, then why allow divine casters to gain automatic access to all spells that they are capable of casting? If there's no harm in doing that, why handicap the wizard by making him not only go out and pick up spells, but on top of that actually make pay to scribe them into his spellbook?

 

[Frostmarrow]

Personally, I detest them both. Darkvision is a non sequitor; if there's no light where you are, vision doesn't work. Ift's like giving someone the ability to hear in a vacum. Infravision at least works off a reasonable principle, that your eyes are picking the infra-red wavelengths generates by objetcs, but how would this stop a dwarf from stubbing his toe in the depths of some cold-ass mine?

What is total darkness for you and me is not so for an owl. I've seen through an IR-camera how an owl can fly through hoops in total darkness. That is, total darkness to me.

 

[Felon]

What is total darkness for you and me is not so for an owl. I've seen through an IR-camera how an owl can fly through hoops in total darkness. That is, total darkness to me.

Sounds like low-light vision to me, which is what owls actually have. I don't have a problem with creatures having excellent night vision.

Total darkness, OTOH, is not relative to the individual creature. It is the complete absence of any light sources. There is nothing to actually enter your eye and hit those cones and rods. You need Blindsight at this point.

Few places that you will likely go anytime have total darkness. Basements and broom closests don't really count since there is likely a crack somewhere allowing in a trickle of light in from some other crack--low-light goggles need very little to be effective (ain't technology wondrous?).

But perhaps someone else can correct me on this. Do low-light goggles do anything for spelunkers, even when they're not using some kind of artificial light source? Is there some form of background radiation underground that bounces around off of dead, cold rocks?

 

[mmu1]

I actually used that for a while, and found it worked quite well - with 7 PCs, I found that CR-appropriate creatures with average hit points tended to fold far too quickly, but creatures with higher CRs frequently had abilities that low-level PCs couldn't cope with.

We were a party of 4, and our only healer was a multi-classed bard.

And it wasn't just monsters - it was everyone but us. No exceptions. If one of use challenged an equal-level NPC to a duel, he'd have had max HP.

 

[mmu1]

Total darkness, OTOH, is not relative to the individual creature. It is the complete absence of any light sources. There is nothing to actually enter your eye and hit those cones and rods. You need Blindsight at this point.

But perhaps someone else can correct me on this. Do low-light goggles do anything for spelunkers? Is there some form of background radiation underground that bounces around off of dead, cold rocks?

Sure - as long as you're there, and your body is generating heat, there's radiation, which will light up your surroundings to anything sensitive enough to pick up on it - which rules out modern night vision goggles, but not Darkvision. The only difference between that and D&D Darkvision is that while your surroundings would be monochrome, living things would look like walking glow-sticks.

 

[MerricB]

Never played with this rule (back in 2E times) but had a few friends that did:

You only get XP for creatures you personally slay.

Pity the poor clerics.

Cheers!