D&D 1E Common House Rules for AD&D?

[overgeeked]

I’m curious what people’s common house rules are for AD&D. I cut my teeth on it back in the day, and we mixed it rather liberally with B/X and BECMI. So my recollection of AD&D is wildly skewed.

So I’m trying to get a sense of how other people actually played and what house rules they used. Whether it was back-in-the-day or yesterday, doesn’t matter.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Well, one common house rule was adding in bits from B/X and BECMI and 1e and 2e. I started in 2e, and didn't even realize there was an difference between 1e and 2e for ages. BECMI was obviously different because of Race As Class etc.

Common houserules when I was playing/running were options from the DMG like Death's Door (going to -10 hp or -CON hp), ignoring demihuman level limits, mixing up dual-classing and multi-classing, allowing wizards a saving throw or CON (or INT) check to keep from losing a spell when hit in combat, and making up new classes and spells.

One idiot (me - I was this idiot) even ruled that magic items of elven make get more powerful over time, so when a party came across a stash of magic weapons hidden by elves everything was at like +6 or higher. And I remember a campaign where we played 100th level characters and someone had a weapon that dealt percentile damage - that is, it would take away 0 to 99% of the target's hit points on a successful hit.

Good times!

 

[Voadam]

I used B/X D&D initiative in 1e combined with segment casting and did not use the full complex 1e initiative from the DMG with the special rules for ties or the extra attacks each segment against casters.

I did not roll for diseases.

I did not use henchmen/retainer Charisma rules, acquiring henchmen was rare and roleplayed out.

I did not always call for open door strength rolls.

I rarely tracked time closely and so random encounters were probably less than called for under the rules.

At various points I used various critical hit systems. Sometimes charts, sometimes double damage.

I eventually went with cumulative falling damage in 2e. So 10' = 1d6, 20' = 3d6, 30' = 6d6, etc.

I used things from other sources, like an alien from a palladium game or an archmage bad guy using magic from rolemaster that did rolemaster crits.

 

[LoganRan]

Our group didn't add a lot to AD&D but we ignored huge swaths of material (surprise potentially resulting in multiple segments worth of actions, weapon speed factors and lengths, weapon attack adjustments vs armor class and much more).

As far as changes/additions, we used a simple initiative system similar to B/X and we used a house rule of '20' is a critical hit and '1' is a fumble.

 

[Plaguescarred]

When playing AD&D we had houserules for Critical hit x2 damage minimum full damage, rolling HP x2 take the best, ignore racial level limit, ignore gender ability score limit, weapon specialization to Fighter, Paladin and Ranger and many more i can't remember.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Natural 20 does maximum damage. Initiative is per side or group, usually PCs vs Monsters.

 

[Willie the Duck]

allowing wizards a saving throw or CON (or INT) check to keep from losing a spell when hit in combat, and making up new classes and spells.

I don't remember that prior to 3e coming out. We did, however, have multiple ways of the magic user going earlier in the round than the AD&D initiative rules would have indicated. Which is to say we might have used the 1e initiative (or out best stab at it) once or twice, but mostly we ported BX/BECMI (or 2e AD&D, when that got hybridized in) initiative instead.

Beyond that, I agree with the sentiment of we ignored more rules than added, excepting of course each individual DM's binder full of actual house rules, homebrewed content, Dragon Magazine classes, new races, and so on and so forth.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It depends on how you define house rules!

For example, would this include rules that people didn't play with?
If so, I think the most common house rule is "no weapon v. AC adjustment."

Is it rules that people modified?
Maybe go with "not dead until -10."

How about rules people often didn't know?
Maybe letting elves get raised and resurrected?*

How about optional subsystems people didn't use?
Psionics.

Or subsystems people thought were optional because they were way too fiddly?
Grappling, unarmed combat in general.


Really, isn't 1e pretty much all optional?




*yes, yes, rod of resurrection. Because reasons.

 

[jgsugden]

We had a lot, and they differed between games. My favorites:

1.) We eliminated the round based combat and went to a segmented system. If you wanted to do something, it took a number of segments to achieve. People could foil what you were doing by getting out of reach before an attack went off, etc... - dodging attackers. Because that group of players was extremely fast, the system did not drag and we had a lot of fun with it.

2.) Advancement - the level limits by race were soft. Instead of stopping advancement, we doubled what you needed to get the next level.

3.) Saving Throws - we found them too harsh in a save or die world. So, we gave 'luck points' out as a reward. After rolling a saving throw, you could spend luck points, if you had enough, to turn a failure to a success. You'd get a luck point for an awesome RP moment.

 

[Voadam]

I tried to use the weapon vs. AC chart but gave up after realizing the number of overlapping armor and with shield, without shield combos for various ACs made it conceptually incoherent in execution. Also it was a big combat speedbump in practice at the table.

I also generally ignored encumbrance beyond armor type.

I think I eventually dropped training costs before 2e came out, but maybe not.