House Rules (DnD 4.1b1)

[haran.banjo]

Hello everyone, I'm starting this thread (also to say hello as a fresh-new member of this community! ) to list all the changes we made to the 4e rules in our home campaign.

Feel free to comment, any criticism will be appreciated!

Keep in mind that some ideas may already have appeared on these boards. This is by no means a plagiarsim tentative or something like that, but our collection of house rules.

I'll try to keep this thread updated with changes/additions.

Dispose
Opinion: Too often happens that a monster remains on the battlefield without having a single chance to defeat the PCs or turning the tables (besides a streak of 1s from PCs and of 20s from the monster, but that's . . . pointless). We found that typically the monster stays alive and injures 1 character, forcing him to spend an Healing Surge at the end of the encounter.
Solution: when the DM deems the situation appropriate, he can mark one or more monsters as "disposable", declaring this to the players. Anyone can spend 1 Healing Surge as a Free Action to instantly kill the monster.
This rule should be used with extreme caution. In some occasion, to speed up gameplay, the DM may force a player to spend a HS to "dispose" of the monster, or force the group to choose 1 character that MUST spend an HS to "dispose" of the monster.

Damage Flattening
Opinion: combat in 4e is too slow and sluggish (as always was also in previous edition), especially if you have players/DM that like to have the encounters to flow without many pauses.
Solution: our solution was to flatten the damage interely. The only rolls required in combat are the to-hit (more generically, the d20 ones).
The dice is assumed to always roll a fixed number:

d4:  3
d6:  4.5
d8:  6
d10: 7.5
d12: 9

The floating point numbers are rounded down. So 1d6 = 4, but 2d6 = 9.

Milestones (includes Healing Surge, Action Points and 5-minutes-day)
Opinion: milestones are an awkward gaming mechanic. I have a feeling that they were introduced to avoid the 5-minutes-day that plagues games like DnD - the characters unleash all of their abilities in the first encounter, then rest to recover. Rinse and repeat.
Solution: the solution is in 2 points:

• Heroic Burst
• Floating XP Reward

- Heroic Burst -
We removed Milestones and Action Points entirely. We instead made a broader usage of Healing Surges.
So, in addition to use Second Wind, you can actively consume an Healing Surge during an encounter to perform an Heroic Burst. An Heroic Burst is a Free Action that has the same effect of spending an Action Point. You can only do this once per encounter, and the Healing Surge used in this way is wasted (ie: doesn't heal anything).

- Floating XP Reward -
Instead of Milestones, to gratify the players that can handle multiple encounters per day comes the Floating XP Reward (FXR). This mechanic removes a number of XP from the first 2 encounters of the day, only to give them back (doubled!) in the third and fourth encounter. The number is left entirely to your taste. Just write down how many XP you removed from encounter 1 and 2, so you can give them in encounters 3 and 4. Encounters from 5 and over are handled normally.

An example:
Without FXR >>>
Enc 1: 2000 xp
Enc 2: 3000 xp
Enc 3: 2500 xp
Enc 4: 3300 xp

With FXR >>>
Enc 1: 1500 xp (removed 500 xp)
Enc 2: 2750 xp (removed 250 xp)
Enc 3: 3000 xp (added 250 x 2 xp)
Enc 4: 4300 xp (added 500 x 2 xp)

The DM can ALWAYS rule an exception and float the XP accordingly.

 

[Alex319]

Dispose
Opinion: Too often happens that a monster remains on the battlefield without having a single chance to defeat the PCs or turning the tables (besides a streak of 1s from PCs and of 20s from the monster, but that's . . . pointless). We found that typically the monster stays alive and injures 1 character, forcing him to spend an Healing Surge at the end of the encounter.
Solution: when the DM deems the situation appropriate, he can mark one or more monsters as "disposable", declaring this to the players. Anyone can spend 1 Healing Surge as a Free Action to instantly kill the monster.
This rule should be used with extreme caution. In some occasion, to speed up gameplay, the DM may force a player to spend a HS to "dispose" of the monster, or force the group to choose 1 character that MUST spend an HS to "dispose" of the monster.

I'm not 100% sure what the problem is. Is the problem just that there's a point in the battle when it's clear the characters will win and it's just "clean-up" from then on, and that makes the encounters drag out longer? This seems like a reasonable solution (as long as you only use it when the characters are actually solidly in that 'cleanup' phase, otherwise you might inadvertently make encounters much easier). Also, I'm not sure why you would ever want to force players to use this option. It seems to me like if they think they can kill the monster more cheaply (perhaps using effective tactics) then I don't see what's gained by stopping them from trying.

Damage Flattening
Opinion: combat in 4e is too slow and sluggish (as always was also in previous edition), especially if you have players/DM that like to have the encounters to flow without many pauses.
Solution: our solution was to flatten the damage interely. The only rolls required in combat are the to-hit (more generically, the d20 ones).
The dice is assumed to always roll a fixed number:

d4:  3
d6:  4.5
d8:  6
d10: 7.5
d12: 9

The floating point numbers are rounded down. So 1d6 = 4, but 2d6 = 9.

This seems like a reasonable solution and similar solutions have been proposed often. The only thing you do have to consider is what to do about abilities like the Brutal weapon property, Pray for More, Vorpal weapons, etc. that allow you to reroll damage rolls.

Milestones (includes Healing Surge, Action Points and 5-minutes-day)
- Heroic Burst -
We removed Milestones and Action Points entirely. We instead made a broader usage of Healing Surges.
So, in addition to use Second Wind, you can actively consume an Healing Surge during an encounter to perform an Heroic Burst. An Heroic Burst is a Free Action that has the same effect of spending an Action Point. You can only do this once per encounter, and the Healing Surge used in this way is wasted (ie: doesn't heal anything).

Part of the reason for the AP mechanic is to encourage players to keep going, because it gives them benefits as they go on (to counteract the loss of resources over the day) and because if, let's say, they have three action points, they'll be reset to one after they take an extended rest. Making it so you have to spend an HS instead of an AP seems like it would make that problem worse, because now if you run out of HSs not only can't you use HSs, you can't even get the benefits of APs. It also means players will run out of HSs more quickly. (Of course, if you like this kind of resource management, then this may be a positive.)

- Floating XP Reward -
Instead of Milestones, to gratify the players that can handle multiple encounters per day comes the Floating XP Reward (FXR). This mechanic removes a number of XP from the first 2 encounters of the day, only to give them back (doubled!) in the third and fourth encounter. The number is left entirely to your taste. Just write down how many XP you removed from encounter 1 and 2, so you can give them in encounters 3 and 4. Encounters from 5 and over are handled normally.

An example:
Without FXR >>>
Enc 1: 2000 xp
Enc 2: 3000 xp
Enc 3: 2500 xp
Enc 4: 3300 xp

With FXR >>>
Enc 1: 1500 xp (removed 500 xp)
Enc 2: 2750 xp (removed 250 xp)
Enc 3: 3000 xp (added 250 x 2 xp)
Enc 4: 4300 xp (added 500 x 2 xp)

The DM can ALWAYS rule an exception and float the XP accordingly.

If I'm understanding this correctly, the purpose of this mechanic is to penalize players for resting every one or two encounters (because then they won't get the XP bonuses), and to reward them if they go longer. But then what's the point of stopping the reward process after the fourth encounter? The way your system is designed, if, let's say, a dungeon had eight encounters in it, players would actually get MORE experience points by resting after the fourth encounter (thus going through two cycles of the 'floating' process) than by going through all eight encounters without resting at all!

A better way of achieving the same effect would be to, for example, say that the first encounter of the day is worth 50% of normal XP, the second encounter worth 75% of normal XP, the third encounter worth 100%, the fourth encounter worth 125%, and so on. This continually ramps ups the reward and encourages players to continue on. Of course if you wanted to you could cap the "multiplier" (say at 150% or 200% of normal XP) but there's no reason to decrease it after a certain point, as your system does.

 

[CapnZapp]

Hello Banjo,

Always interesting to see what houserules (and therefore problems) other people seem to favor.

Some notes:
* Dispose. Perhaps an easier solution is for the DM to have the power to turn any monster into a minion to keep up the drama steam. (That it, it loses all its hit points but one and doesn't take damage from a missed attack. Its bloodied/unbloodied status never changes)

* Damage Flattening. I too find that damage rolls have lost much of their relevance, when monsters have so many hit points. I'm running with powers always doing maximum damage, however. A bit simpler calculations than your system.

One thing though - have you increased damage equally for all damage dice?

d4: 2.5 to 3 is +0.5 or +20%
d6: 3.5 to 4.5 is +1 or +28.6%
d8: 4.5 to 6 is +1.5 or +33.3%
d10: 5.5 to 7.5 is +2 or +36.3%
d12: 6.5 to 9 is +2.5 or +38.5%

If your players are fine with this, I am too. Otherwise I wouldn't be surprised if everyone gravitated towards the biggest weapon (die) they could find!

* Heroic burst
Personally I feel healing surges are the most scarce resource. Requiring you to lose one each time you use up an action point to me only brings the party faster to the point when they must rest for the day. In other words, this rule encourages you to go "nova", then rest.

* Floating xp
I too recommend you to make it easy on yourself applying a factor to each encounter's XP, instead of shuffling xp back and forth.

And I too ask you to keep the increase in xp throughout the remainder of the day, for the reason given.

Which numbers that work I have no idea (whether its 50/75/100/125/150/150/150... percent or something else) . Let's hear your experiences from actual play!

 

[timbannock]

* Dispose. Perhaps an easier solution is for the DM to have the power to turn any monster into a minion to keep up the drama steam. (That it, it loses all its hit points but one and doesn't take damage from a missed attack. Its bloodied/unbloodied status never changes)

<snip>
* Heroic burst
Personally I feel healing surges are the most scarce resource. Requiring you to lose one each time you use up an action point to me only brings the party faster to the point when they must rest for the day. In other words, this rule encourages you to go "nova", then rest.

* Floating xp
I too recommend you to make it easy on yourself applying a factor to each encounter's XP, instead of shuffling xp back and forth.

Turning the remaining badguy(s) into a minion is definitely an easy, behind-the-screen effect. Just say to yourself "next hit and this guy's dead." I use that in 3.5E as well as 4E and it's great against encounters that are obviously a foregone conclusion.

To combat the nova-rest-nova cycle, I make APs and milestones more a "story" mechanic than a gamey "2 encounters = milestone" thing. My rule of thumb (so far un-playtested, but I've seen other folks on this board do similar things in their campaigns) is that you get APs awarded once an encounter, and again if some action you take is REALLY fun for the whole party (successful or not, and I'm talking all Players get a good "Wow" or "Haha" moment out of it). I'm okay with a few extra action points in play, because it makes missing on your Daily attack rolls and the like a little less disheartening.

But, if you take an extended rest...goodbye all but 1 of your 'banked' APs.

For milestones, I provide a little more mileage, but I expect more mileage too. Normally, milestones are reallly only good for APs, right? Well, I let milestones recharge a daily power, allow you to change the nature of a daily power in a way that's still thematically linked to it, or otherwise do something that's normally "not available." But, a milestone isn't at the "every 2 encounters mark," but rather, it comes when a true milestone is achieved: you succeed at a quest, you stop the badguy's evil ritual, etc. It usually comes at a time when there's still some fighting or whatever left to do (you complete the milestone mid-fight, for example), but I suppose if you wanted the milestones to be divorced from a straight-up fight encounter, you could just hand out Hero Points to complement the players' Action Points or whatever.

And same thing here: if you extended rest, bye bye Hero Point/milestone thingies.

I'm more of a free-form DM though, so this may or may not sound good to you. And note that these aren't my original ideas...they've been lifted from various posters on this Forum.

 

[Harr]

On Dispose: I saw the same problem in my games. In such a situation as a DM I just kill the monster. "It dies," or, "It falls unconscious from blood-loss, coup-de-gras?" Your solution might be good because it gives the player the power of the decision and that's almost always a good thing.

On Flat Damage: I adopted flat damage about 4 game sessions ago (about 12 combat encounters total) and the improvement in the game was SO dramatci I wouldn't even imagine going back to rolling and neither would my players... we had a new player yesterday and at one point he goes "Why don't you guys roll damage?" and all replied "Noooooo man you don't even know, you don't even know". At first we went with flat maximum damage, but after a recent irritating fight against a dragon we're trying out averaging to see how it shakes.

On getting rid of Milestones: I started trying this at the same time that I tried flat damage, and though the road on this one has been much bumpier, the improvemente on not having to think about milestones and short-vs-long resting is so good that we are persevering until we find the perfect replacement. Right now we're doing: no milestones, one Action point after every combat, no magic item use limits, no long rests, and Action points and Healing surges both reset at the beginning of each game session, never in the middle of one.

I always try to look for that 'most simple' solution, and as pertains to the rest-nova-rest thing, it happens that in 4e characters are robust enough that they actually can go 5+ encounters without long rest, which we almost never go over in a single session - so just in our experience of course, but simply saying "no long rests" actually worked out pretty well for us.

One thing though - have you increased damage equally for all damage dice?

d4: 2.5 to 3 is +0.5 or +20%
d6: 3.5 to 4.5 is +1 or +28.6%
d8: 4.5 to 6 is +1.5 or +33.3%
d10: 5.5 to 7.5 is +2 or +36.3%
d12: 6.5 to 9 is +2.5 or +38.5%

Huh, I never though about this! What would be a progression that approximates the most equal-power averaging for every dice? (not a math guy over here)

Edit -> Um, I mean whole-number progression of course

 

[CapnZapp]

Don't sweat it. The max dmg idea suffers from the same issue (see below). Guess the easiest solution is not to worry about it.

d4: 2.5 to 4 is +1.5 or +60%
d6: 3.5 to 6 is +2.5 or +71%
d8: 4.5 to 8 is +3.5 or +78%
d10: 5.5 to 10 is +4.5 or +82%
d12: 6.5 to 12 is +5.5 or +85%

If you do worry about it, here's a suggestion (for "max" dmg, not your own system, that I leave up to you):

d4: 2.5 to 4 is +1.5 or +60%
2d4: 5 to 9 is +4 or +80%
d6: 3.5 to 6 is +2.5 or +71%
d8: 4.5 to 8 is +3.5 or +78%
2d8: 9 to 15 is +6 or +67%
d10: 5.5 to 9 is +3.5 or +64%
d12: 6.5 to 11 is +4.5 or +69%

The difference is that the damage of 2d8's, d10's and d12's has been scaled back one notch, and that 2d4's is upped one notch.

This at least keeps the variations with twenty percentage units, with the least favored die type, the d4, becoming the most favored in pairs. Also, d8's are kept from being the clearly best choice.

One quirk of this system some might find problematic is that this favors the ubiquitous longsword, already the weapon of choice if you wish to maximize the chance for magic loot to match your favorite.

It slightly favors the board-and-sword fighting style over the two-hander style, but this difference should be negligible (less than 10%). Besides, the bigger die types still yield the most damage after all, even if the percentage increase from the average isn't the biggest any longer.

Regardless, this should help avoid the Greataxe being the only popular weapon around, which the "max dmg" system otherwise could lead to...

 

[Zelc]

IMO, the "Dispose" option should be "spend a healing surge to deal extra damage equal to twice your level vs. a bloodied enemy you hit". Once per round, of course. Enemies get to do it too except they only deal 1/2x their level in damage (1x for elites and 1.5x for solos... watch out!).

 

[haran.banjo]

Thank you, this thread is so full of good points and constructive criticism that I really don't know where to start!

Me and my group tried a couple of changes (Dispose and Flat Damage), leaving the other ones to future session.
I love to introduce changes at a slow pace, to allow players and myself to attune to the "new" system.

So, I'll start discussing the two changes on which I have a first-hand test.

Dispose
The Dispose mechanic was introduced mainly to speed up the "clean-up" phase of the battle.
As Alex319 says, I found out that I too am not inclined to force the players into spending an Healing Surge, but then I have players that like to speed up things and aren't very upset by having to spend an HS to obtain this.

Turning the enemy into a minion (like many suggested) often doesn't cut my flavor of "speeding up" gameplay, since you can always miss that monster or having to pay attention to micro-management such as "I have to heal character B because if C misses then the monster can kill B!", that at that point of battle (I feel) are pointless and more a frustrating exercise of concentration.

Obviously, this cannot be stated enough, you should use it WITH CARE, only when the last opponent/couple of opponents are in and you're pretty sure they don't stand a chance to really injure PCs, nor reinforcements are arriving and so on... Get a feeling, I'm sure you'll find a way to work it out.

Flat Damage
Actually, what I did was to take the 75% of the maximum obtainable value, and not an average of sort.
I am still evaluating how to implement rules for Vorpal Weapons and the like.
For critical hits, they do +50% of the damage. So, if a hit will strike for 13 damage, will crit for 19. A bit "spiker" than the original system, but less lethal than double damage.

The most notable thing, like Harr said, is that the improvement of using flat damage in the game is really incredible. Players actually spend more time thinking what to do than finding the appropriate die and rolling dices!

---

I still need a few thoughts and ideas for APs, Milestones and Healing Surge mix. Yet I read a couple of good ideas in this thread that I intend to develop further.

Thank you very much

 

[CapnZapp]

The most notable thing, like Harr said, is that the improvement of using flat damage in the game is really incredible. Players actually spend more time thinking what to do than finding the appropriate die and rolling dices!

Sounds very encouraging, esp. for me who's about to impose the "max dmg" rule onto my players!

Slightly off-topic: I'm a bit worried that the deviations above from the straight'n'simple maximums will be perceived as clumsy and bothersome.

You, who evidently have introduced a system no less complex. How did your players take the calculations your take on the system inevitably adds to the game?

Or should I begin with the "straight" maximums (d12 = 12 etc) and only later "discover" the high die slant, and introduce the calibrations only then, when (hopefully) everybody's sold on the idea (to roll that much less dice)?

 

[haran.banjo]

Sounds very encouraging, esp. for me who's about to impose the "max dmg" rule onto my players!

Slightly off-topic: I'm a bit worried that the deviations above from the straight'n'simple maximums will be perceived as clumsy and bothersome.

You, who evidently have introduced a system no less complex. How did your players take the calculations your take on the system inevitably adds to the game?

Or should I begin with the "straight" maximums (d12 = 12 etc) and only later "discover" the high die slant, and introduce the calibrations only then, when (hopefully) everybody's sold on the idea (to roll that much less dice)?

Actually, calculations are pretty easy.
Using power cards (Ander ones as I did, for example http://www.enworld.org/forum/4274554-post568.html ) you simply have to annotate the damage in the appropriate box, so that you have to make the calculation one time, before the first game.

Then again, it's so easy to calc on-the-fly that I not even worried - if they annotate the result to their power card or their sheet once calculated, you just need to do this once.