Favorite House/Variant Rules

[Reynard]

I am very tenuously considering running D&D 3.5 again (after a train wreck of a campaign meltdown), and I was wondering what variant and house rules people have implemented and have found enhance the game. I am thinking stuff from other d20 publishers, from UA, or just house rules that make sense to you.

Please tell me why the rule works, or, if you like, why a certain attempt to use a house rule failed.

Thanks.

 

[Thanee]

A fairly simple, yet important house rule:

A hit point roll below HD/2 counts as HD/2 instead (i.e. HD/2 = 4 for the d8).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Warden]

We use "wound thresholds," modified from the old Earthdawn game. Each characters has a Wound Threshold of 4 + Constitution modifier + various class modifiers per level (meaning that fighters gain a higher bonus than wizards). If a character takes a single attack equal to or greater than their Wound Threshold, they suffer from a wound and incur a cummulative -1 penalty to all physical actions and Concentration checks. Just to replicate the actual effects of combat on the humanoid body. Any creature without a Constitution score is immune to wounds.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I quite like the stacking CLs, it takes away some of the need for the MT (which needs a character level cap). Giving the Sorcerer UMD is merely aesthetically pleasing. Dodge giving a flat +1 wipes out the hassle over such a small issue.

Hmm, I don't think I have many houserules, we wanted to have as few as possible you see.

 

[Qvintus]

Well curently we are playing with a house rule that if you fail a save or die spell you fall down on -1 hp i stede of died keep's the ress down

 

[DarrenGMiller]

I am currently not really using any house rules, since I wanted this campaign to use the RAW for 3.5 (fro the first time... I am usually house rule heavy). Here are some that I have used recently:

1. Spell Points: I have not found a spell point system I am totally satisfied with, but I may experiment with the one from Unearthed Arcana at some point.

2. Heroic Paths: I have allowed players to swap out a starting feat at character creation and instead choose a heroic path from Midnight.

3. Expanded Races: Last campaign I ran, we used an expanded library of races, including variations of the races, such as Snow Elves and Elflings (a la Midnight as well).

4. Wizardless: I replaced the Wizard with the Midnight Channeller in the last game.

5. Grim & Gritty: I used G&G 3.6 for my Midnight Game, along with Defense, Weapon Degradation and Massive Damage equals Con score. This could be done as Con score + BAB.

6. Preferred Class: I am using this one now. A player may choose an alternate preferred class from what is stated in the PHB if the character background justifies it.

7. Wound Point & Vitality: Borrowed from Star Wars D20. I know some people who use this in D&D games. I don't care for it, but they like it.

As I said, right now house rules are out of favor with me. Currently, nobody in my game is running a Wizard, since most of us agree that the fire & forget system is not what we want and that spell point systems as currently concieved don't quite do it either. I have seen from my current campaign that many house rules affect how the game plays mechanically and alter balance, which sometimes causes other rules to require "fixing." Just be judicious about what you house rule. I also recommend against house ruling custom rules to mimic the mechanics of your favorite video game. That is just from my personal experience with DM's who have done that. It has become one of my pet peeves.

DM

 

[Li Shenron]

I think we've used a few tens in the course of our gaming career (that means, about 4 years ).

Most of them were minor, anyway, and the improvement was minimal. Some example are:

- no multiclassing penalties
- stacking caster level
- minimum hp per HD (several versions)
- critical fumbles
- some UA class variants
- occasional adjustment to PrCl prerequisites (in favor of players)

Major house rules have obviously more significant effect on the game, but also carry bigger risks. Do a thing as simple as using UA's "armor as DR" variant, and you may notice only later that some weapons would never do damage to certain characters. It can be hard to predict all the consequences. One of us tried an initiative variant some time ago (involving splitting your round of multiattacks at lower initiatives) but later had to ditch the HR and go back to the core rule.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Pretty much standard house rules for all our campaigns --
0. Point buy for stats
1. All characters get the Able Learner feat for free. Formally just a house rule of 1:1 cross-class skills.
2. Minimum hit points (1/2 die)
3. Armor Damage Conversion
4. Revised transformation spells, Gate, and MDJ.

Rules we're trying next campaign --
1. Eberron action points
2. Turning check against CR instead of HD (Use HD for Turning Damage as normal)
3. Standing from Prone as a full round action to avoid AoO.

When there are less than 4 players we use Gestalt.

 

[delericho]

Here's a few:

- Fixed HP per level (3/4/6/8/9 for d4/6/8/10/12)
- A PC with 1 or more hit point cannot be slain by direct damage. The lowest his hit point total can be reduced to is -1. However, a character with 0 or fewer hit points gains no such protection. This rule applies only to PCs - NPCs, cohorts, familiars, animal companions and mounts all take damage normally.
- Fixed starting cash (75% of maximum by class)
- No multiclass penalties, or multiclass restrictions for Paladin/Monk
- If a character multiclasses into a class with higher HD/Skill Points, he gets additional points to make up the difference
- Charisma has nothing to do with appearance (this has absolutely no in-game effect)
- Encumberance is not used (movement is impeded only by armour)
- No need to track rations or inn/tavern costs (if it becomes important, assume the party has supplies for a week)

And a few we either haven't used, but were going to in the next campaign, or that we adopted late in the current campaign, and were going to adopt from level 1 next time:

- Monetary values less than 1 gp are ignored
- No need to track mundane ammunition
- Gnomish ability adjustments are +2 Con/-2 Wis. Halflings have no ability adjustments

We don't use all of these all the time, and have also experimented with certain rules from Unearthed Arcana and Arcana Evolved (weapon groups are a favourite).

Some of these rules exist purely for flavour reasons (the Charisma thing, for instance). Some exist because I don't like randomness in character management. A couple exist to deal with small balance issues (a Wizard/Rogue is more or less powerful depending on which order you take the classes in the core rules, and Small fighters really suffer for that Str penalty). Finally, some exist to reduce book-keeping (encumberance, ammunition, costs under 1gp).

I haven't seen any great problems with any of these rules, although the higher than average fixed hit points and the one about dropping to -1 hit points do significantly reduce character fatality (except at higher levels, when most deaths are by instant death effects).

 

[dcollins]

I play 3.0 with these Variants & House Rules: http://superdan.net.home.comcast.net/housrule.html