Most Common House Rules

[TarionzCousin]

+1 Description Rule

In games I've run, I've instituted the following rule.

* The player gets a +1 to their die roll if they describe in some detail exactly what their character is doing.

Example #1: "I duck under the demon's barbed sword and lunge forward, smelling his carrion breath, and stab upwards with my short sword 'Bloodletter,' puncturing the beast's lung."

Example #2: "Feeling around carefully, with the lightest of touches, I search the chest over its entire exposed surface. If I don't find anything, I tip it up and reveal the underside, letting my fingers delve along it in hopes of finding some sort of opening mechanism."

Example #3: "I try to convince the alchemist that by giving me a discount on these potions, his fame will spread and he will become wealthy from all of his new customers."

It adds flavor to the game, and it allows the players to be creative.

 

[Greg K]

I General
1. Rule 0 is in effect

II. Races
Elf: Immunity to Sleep is replaced by +10 save to save vs sleep (Sean Reynold's Fewer Absolutes )

Half Elf- Immunity to Sleep is replaced by +10 save to save vs sleep (Sean Reynold's Fewer Absolutes )

III Classes
1. Barbarian: Barbarians must come from a culture in the campaign. The choice of culture determines the following:
a) A barbarian's culture determines weapon's of proficiency in the form of cultural weapon groups (nod to 1e)
b) Whether or not a barbarian rages. Barbarians that do not rage use the Hunter variant (UA). A barbarian using the hunter variant automatically has favored terrain (UA) instead of favored enemy

2. Cleric
a) Cleric's must have a god
b) cleric's changed as follows
-Hit Die: d6
-BAB: Poor
-Good Save: Will only
-Armor Proficiency: Light armor only
-Spontaneous Divine Casting (UA)
-Divine Grace at 2nd Level as Paladin
-Turn/Rebuke Undead at 3rd level as Paladin unless the ability is granted as a domain ability
-Deity Specific spell list

3. Druid
-BAB: Poor
-Hit Die: d6
-Save: Will
-Armor: Light only
-spontaneous divine casting UA
-must use shapechange option from PHB2
-Venom Immunity: Immunity is replaced by +10 save (Sean Reynold's Fewer Absolutes "

4. Fighter
a)does not start proficient in Heavy armor. heavy armor granted at 3rd level. If the fighter has already gained proficient in heavy armor, they may take another fighter bonus feat.


5. Monk:
-Replaced by a variant of the OA Shaman (for current campaign)
Otherwise:
-Purity of Body: Immunity is replaced by +10 Save vs nonmagical disease(Sean Reynold's Fewer Absolutes )
-Diamond Body: Immunity is replaced by +10 Save vs. Poison (Sean Reynold's Fewer Absolutes )

6. Paladin: The paladin is currently a PrC. In the past,
- Detect Unholy: replaces detect evil: As per Detects Evil except detects Evil Undead, Evil Outsiders, Evil Elementals, Evil Divine casters, and people and places under the effects of evil divine magic.
-Aura of Courage: Immunity is replaced by +10 Save vs. Fear (Sean Reynold's Fewer Absolutes )
- does not start proficient in Heavy armor. heavy armor granted at 3rd level

7. Ranger: The ranger is currently a PrC. The barbarian and the wilderness rogue currently take its role as wilderness classes.

8.Sorcerer
-Bluff, Intimidate, and UMD are class skills
-Eschew Materials for free at first level
-Bonus metamagic at 5,10,15,20

9.Wizard
-Speak Language is a class skill
-use vitalizing spell points (UA)
- The spells a wizard may automatically add to his or her book upon gaining a level must be a spell that the wizard has either on a scroll or another wizard's spellbook to which the wizard has access.

10. Wizard Specialists
-must use the Variant Specialist Wizard Abilities (UA)

11. Class variants
Barbarian: Hunter (UA), Urban (house)
Bard: Bardic Sage(UA), Divine (UA), Savage (UA)
Cleric: Champion of Good (UA), Cloistered Cleric (UA)
Druid: Ollave "True Druid" (house)
Fighter: Thug (PHB), several variants that use thug as a starting point, but with different skills
Monk: Monk Fighting Styles (UA)
Rogue: Martial Rogue, Wilderness Rogue (UA)
Sorcerer: Battle Sorcerer (UA)


12. Classes (non core)
Assassin
Courtier
Healer
Knight (Hong's Knight)
Myrmidon (AEG's Mercenaries)
Noble
Psychic (Green Ronin's Psychic's Handbook)
Shaman (Green Ronin's Shaman's Handbook)
Shaman OA (Oriental Adventures)
Swashbuckler
Witch (Green Ronin's Witch's Handbook)

13. Multiclassing
a. 3.0 Apprentice Level
b. After first level, learning a new base class has prequisites. The prerequisies are either
-Continue Adventuring: The character needs a trainer (which may be another PC) and must meet certain feat and skill requirements similar those of a PrC, but less stringent.

-The character spends a specific amount of time away from the campaign at an academy, monastery, living with a barbarian tribe or clan.

14. NPC classes
The only NPC classes are commoner or expert. The latter is further broken down by type (craftsmen, merchant, performer, professional, scholar). All other NPC classes use applicable PC classes (or class variants).

VI Skills
1. Most Trained only skills can be used UntrainedFewer Absolutes )

2. Knowledge Skills
- Knowledge (local): Must specificy country or city
- knowledge (Region): Must specify region
- if a knowledge skill is used untrained, one cannot gain more than knowledge available at DC10

3. UMD does not allow one to ignore race or alignment restrictions.

4. New Skills
- Knowledge (Politics)
- Knowledge (Streetwise)
- Knowledge (Warfare)
- Navigate (d20 Modern)
- Research (d20 Modern)
- Urban Survival

5. Background Skills
- all characters begin with 3 ranks in both knowledge (own culture) and Knowledge (own region) borrowed from ICE's Rolemaster Standard System


VII. Action Points (UA)

VIII. Combat
1. class based defense
2. Armor as DR (UA)
3. Mass Damage with reduced threshold (UA)
4. Fatigue:
__50% of hit point lost: Fatigued
__75% of hit points lost: Exhausted

IX. Poison
URL=http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/variantcontinuingpoison.html]a)continuing poison[/URL] ) (Sean Reynolds)
URL=http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/poisondesignator.html]b)poison as spell designator[/URL] ) (Sean Reynolds)



XI. Magic Item Creation
URL=http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/variantforgering.html]a) Forge Ring Variant[/URL] ) (Sean Reynolds)
URL=http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/recharging items.html]b)Recharging Magic Items[/URL] ) (Sean Reynolds)

 

[Xanterith]

On a 20 for a skill check add +10 to the result. So a 20 = 20 + 10 + modifier
On a 1 for a skill check, subtract 10 from the result. So 1 - 10 + modifier.

20 - 20 - 20 on any hit is automatic death, if the creature is susceptible to critical hits. I actually have seen this a couple times in since 3.0 came out.

On a roll of 1 in combat, roll to hit. A miss is a fumble.

Max HP's at first level, re-roll all ones for HP's

One I use for skill points: Once a character takes a class that has a skill, it is forever moving forward a class skill. ie A rogue goes into wizard, MS and HiS are class skills.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Common House Rule

Oh, wait. I posted my "made it up myself" rare houserule. Here's one I would guess to be fairly common:

Re-roll all cocked dice, dice that fall on the ground, or dice that exploded when they hit the table.

 

[erf_beto]

I´ve found this on the web some weeks ago, and I thought it was quite good, though I haven´t playtested it yet:
Class Dodge Bonus
http://home.gwi.net/~rdorman/frilond/rul/classdodge.htm

Simply put, each class grants a dodge bonus according to level, wich stacks with every other dodge bonus (as normal), but with a very nice twist:

"A slight change is made to how dodge bonuses, Dexterity bonuses to AC, and armor interact. A character's total dodge bonus is his dodge bonuses from all sources (dodge bonuses stack, unlike most bonus types), plus his Dexterity modifier. A suit of armor's maximum Dexterity bonus is changed to its maximum dodge bonus. Thus, a character with a 14 Dexterity and a +3 dodge bonus is considered to have a total dodge bonus of +5 (+2 Dex,+3 dodge). If wearing hide armor, however, he is limited by its maximum dodge bonus of +4, giving him an AC of 18 (+4 armor,+4 dodge)."

I dont know about you, but since bonuses aren't really that high compared to BAB progression (Dodge bonuses range from 0 at 1st to +4(wiz), +5(clr), +6(ftr), or +8(brb) on 20th level), I think it would work quite well...