For Players: How do you feel about House Rules?

[babomb]

How do I feel about house rules as a player? Well, as long as they're reasonably fair and are given to me in advance on a piece of paper or the campaign website, I'll play with nearly any house rules and be darned glad to do it. Heck, DMing is a lot of work. If he wants to change a few rules, well, that's fine with me. If I have a specific issue with a house rule, I'll bring it up.

 

[reiella]

But as a player, as I was saying, it's often annoying. First of all because you know the game, and maybe you even have a strategy sometimes, and as soon as you start playing with the new group you may find out that what you knew was suddenly "wrong". Luckily my DMs used only a few HR, not pages and pages of them... in any case, having tried the core rules as well, I didn't find any improvement to the game.

Well, that would be annoying, but then it even takes the role of interpreter away from the DM. Stuff like maintaining that Animal Empathy from PsiHB gives an enhancement bonus and not an unnamed bonus, that the readied actions don't exactly take place "immediately before the triggering condition" (makes readying against a charge difficult with a shortspear, since the guy would be out of range 'immediately' before the triggering condition), or that Immunity to Psionics on the Magister and Modrons is a copy error from 2nd edition.

I probably have more "interpretations" of the rules as written that disagree with the Sage than I have house rules. And I don't really consider those house rules at all.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I'm not a huge fan of Rule 0 fascists. What's the point of giving us the rulebook if you're just going to over-rule it.

Personal preference. Changes made due to a game world that differs from the standard game somehow. Errors not yet fixed (but it's debatable whether these are house rules)

To me, the DM must at least base his decisions on the rules, and must be able to justify his position beyond 'I say so'. It's very frustrating otherwise.

Well, they "must" nothing. But I agree in spirit: They should. They should stay to the standard rule as much as possible (to lessen the impact on game balance). They should think about the rules (to avoid ruling things that seem smart at first look but are actually stupid). They should give their players a reason why they did so.

Referees don't make rules up.

But DM's are not just referees. They're everything about the game the players aren't. That's quite a lot to do for a single person.

 

[Zhure]

Houserules are like armpits. Everybody has a couple and they all stink except mine.

The only houserules I loathe are the ones that come up AFTER character creation.

"Cleave doesn't work that way in my games."
"Thanks for telling me before I wasted a feat."

Greg

 

[Thanee]

I dont have a problem with house rules as long as they are reasonable and clear. Of course, it's best to know everything beforehand.

We do use a few house rules in our games usually (often after we discover some weaknesses in the system, or parts we simply dont like that way (like some of the now overly reduced spell durations in 3.5); so if we highly dislike something and agree on a method to change it, we incorporate a house rule), but we usually go with the rules as written, only very few things get changed (beyond the leeway the rules give anyways).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Calico_Jack73]

I like them both as a DM and a Player if there is a reason for them. In both cases I can't stand abstract combat so most of the time they revolve around making combat blow-by-blow rather than abstract. Others really are "rules" from other games which worked great and I incorporate into the game.

While it wasn't so popular when I posted it before I like Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu experience system for adding skill ranks while in the middle of an adventure. If my players successfully use a skill in the course of the game they put a tick mark next to the skill. If they level up IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ADVENTURE they don't have time to train to raise their skills but they may have learned enough by using them that they can go ahead and assign skill points to the skill. I have them make a Skill roll (the skill they want to improve) against a DC of 30. If they FAIL they can freely add skill points... if they succeed they didn't learn anything appreciable. The point is, the more learned you are the harder it is to improve without some effort.

By the book the PC's should just instantly add points as soon as they gain that level but I don't buy it. How do you justify someone adding points to a Knowledge skill when they had none before. My house rule isn't to penalize the players, just to enforce a little realism.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I have them make a Skill roll (the skill they want to improve) against a DC of 30. If they FAIL they can freely add skill points... if they succeed they didn't learn anything appreciable.

I don't like it. But it's just one of those that thinks that noone should be punished for a lucky roll, and I hated 2e mostly for that low/high roll crap.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

How do you determine a lucky roll? Lucky is getting the best result possible considering the circumstances. Being lucky could be rolling a 1 or a 20 if either were the best possible outcome.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

How do you determine a lucky roll? Lucky is getting the best result possible considering the circumstances. Being lucky could be rolling a 1 or a 20 if either were the best possible outcome.

In D&D I invariably designate 20 as the best possible result on a d20 for he who rolls. Everything else is AD&D.

And your method seems half-hearted: You only do it with skills. What about BAB? Saves? IMO the rate in which you learn stuff is already lower at higher levels, because you need more XP the higher the level is you want to achieve. And making it harder to become better with skills, but not with attacks and the like practically makes skills weaker.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

And your method seems half-hearted: You only do it with skills. What about BAB? Saves?

Given the combat nature of the D&D experience system I think most PCs get plenty of practice to justify advances in BAB and Saves without the need for the Cthulhu-esque system.