Houserules.

[Family]

I'd like to hear about what 4e gameplay houserules your group has in place, and what you think of them. Unlimited 2nd winds per encouter for example.

I'd also like to hear about any general rules your gaming group has concerning getting together. Does the DM have a special glass noone is allowed to touch? Do minion zombies pop up and attack your avatar if you swear? If you roll two dice and one drops on the floor...?

 

[Jack of Shadows]

Well,

The first thing I "fixed" was the silly rule that if you run out of movement in mid leap you automatically fall. The fact that inertia automatically fails you due to a game mechanic is just retarded. Simple fix, a character caught in mid leap must use a movement action to complete the jump at the beginning of the next round. Any forced movement follows the normal rules. If the forced move would have placed the character in hazardous terrain and the save is made the character falls prone at the end of the leap.

Fortunately this was the only rule that struck me as just plain stupid. The rest of the game is getting a thumbs up from me.

JoS

 

[Blue]

Background skills

I think the first house rule we'll be using is that at character creation PCs make up two background "non-adventuring skills" that aren't part of the normal skill system. These act like normal trained skills.

For instance, the dwarven paladin may take armor smithing and chanting, the half-elf rogue may take begging and fencing (selling things, not swordwork), a tiefling may take genealogy and fashion.

These can't have major overlap with a real skill, and just flesh out the rest of the PC's life. Maybe they come up in an adventure, or a PC finds a clever use of one during a skill challenge. Or maybe they just help remind the player of the other details of the PC and provide RP moments.

Cheers,
=Blue(23)

 

[Samurai]

I think the first house rule we'll be using is that at character creation PCs make up two background "non-adventuring skills" that aren't part of the normal skill system. These act like normal trained skills.

For instance, the dwarven paladin may take armor smithing and chanting, the half-elf rogue may take begging and fencing (selling things, not swordwork), a tiefling may take genealogy and fashion.

These can't have major overlap with a real skill, and just flesh out the rest of the PC's life. Maybe they come up in an adventure, or a PC finds a clever use of one during a skill challenge. Or maybe they just help remind the player of the other details of the PC and provide RP moments.

Cheers,
=Blue(23)

That's a really good idea Blue... I may just use that myself!

Here are the houserules I've come up with so far. They include everything from official errata to fixing multiclassing and skill challenges to old 3.5 concepts and ideas given a new 4e spin. Haven't had time to meet with the group about them yet... I expect some hesitancy, to be honest.

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=4283398&postcount=7

 

[Unlogic]

I have a pile of house rules I've been working on, but I haven't sprung them on my PCs yet.

Very like Blue(23)'s background skills, I'm going to have each PC take an "Occupation", which will give them small boosts to related skills and allow them to do anything directly related to that occupation that's not covered by other skills as if by a trained int/wis/cha (depending on profession) skill check.

For example, a PC might take Sailor, getting +1 each to athletics and nature (for climbing ropes, navigating the sea, predicting weather, etc) and gains the ability to control any seacraft with a trained wis-based check.

Other things:
*trying to make unarmed strikes remotely worthwhile as a character build (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=230320)

*add rules for disarm/sunder/grapple/trip/called shots

*change (slow it down) natural healing slightly so PCs ever have reason to ever avail themselves of a healer/doctor in town but don't need to go back to town for healing/rest for a day every hour of adventuring

*add encumbrance rules by volume in addition to weight, so the fact that a PC can carry 60 javelins doesn't mean they magically all fit in his belt pouch; it means his arms are full and they're in his way unless he finds a bag of holding, tenser's floating disk, or cart to dump them in.

*I really really want to redo the "magic item economy" extensively, in such a way that it is remotely capable of resembling a functioning, stable economy. I've yet to find any ideas how to do this yet though.

If you want more information on any of what I've made so far, ask and I'll post it here (or elsewhere if you prefer)