D&D 4E My 4e House Rules - Yours?

[AntiStateQuixote]

I have three house rules in my current D&D game. We're 18 game sessions into the campaign, 7th level, and it's going well.

My house rules:

• Gain any single "expertise" feat of choice at 5th level free
• Gain any single "improved defense" feat of choice at 7th level free
• The party may cast two rituals up to the level of one of the casters at no material cost per day (within reason)

Reason for these house rules:

• Expertise is boring. Everyone is going to take it. Here have it free. Now do something interesting with your feat choices.
• Defense feats are almost a MUST by mid-paragon. Have one for free. I'm sure you'll get the others later.
• Rituals are cool. We don't use enough rituals. Here, hae some for free.

Results:
So far so good. The party dishes out a little more damage than "average" since several people took damage boosting feats in slots where they would have taken expertise. On the other hand, an eladrin swordmage has an arcane familiar "because it's cool" and I hear people talking about "what if I take this feat" that's a flavor thing instead of a "power up."

The ritual deal has been great. I HATE residium. I've tried to track some level of "components for rituals" but it's just too fiddley. Instead, the heroes cast knock when they want to cast it. They use sending when it makes sense. They haven't abused it, and I appreciate it, so looking good.

 

[Grimmjow]

nice!

so far the only BIG house rule we use is having line-of-sight when we teleport. Instead you can teleport anywhere within range. This makes teleporting without line of sight something you can do, but something that can get you killed.

For instance, if there was a locked door and my warpriest just teleported through the door he could unlock it. But if i knew ahead of time that the roof had caved in and he tleleported right into the cave in....dead.

It makes teleporting fun and something like that hasn't happened but it helps to make teleporting feel dangerous.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Extended rests have to be extended - a lazy weekend at the least. You can't just sleep overnight and get all your surges back.

Edit: I dropped the Free Expertise when Essentials came out.

 

[radja]

being on higher ground gives a +1 to hit vs adjacent enemies.

 

[Jarrod]

Skills can be used in combat as a minor action. I believe this one came from Penny Arcade. It makes in-combat skill challenges more attractive to players, instead of requiring a standard action.

 

[Taed]

Being prone with a ranged "gun-like" weapon gives +2 to hit -- think sniper. So, you'd get a +2 with a crossbow while prone, but -2 with a bow.

 

[Ryujin]

Only two:

- One free Expertise feat, for free, at level 1
- When making up a new character, at higher level, sum up all of the normal money given and buy what you want, without a restriction on the number of items (max item level is character level +2)

I've found that the second one gives more realistic higher level characters, because it allows the players to purchase a larger number of lower level items.

 

[the Jester]

Colorful critical hits (crits have a limb-chopping, bone-breaking, ear-removing, gut-wrenching extra effect, depending on how many hit points of damage it does vs. your remaining hps after the crit) and fumbles (only against an attack's first target).

 

[C4]

My 4e clone has a few house rules built-in. Most of them are little fixes for 4e's few wrinkles; a feat tax fix, a fix for the 1-square bubble, fixes for AC-gimped builds, etc.

My only really radical house rule is my replacement for hybrids and RAW MC feats; I wrote my own MC feats that allow power swapping without the repeated feat 'surcharge.'

 

[Nichwee]

House Rules:

1) Critical Fumbles = Lose any Minor/Move/Standard actions left in your turn after this action ends. ActionPoints can still regain you a second Standard Action tho. This realy makes peeps think about the order they do things in (Heal and Sustain get done first more, but it gets funny if they need to move away from their present target to get in range to use their minor)

2) Milestones cause a Endurance Check and a Save that can regain Healing Surges and Daily powers respectively (to encourage longer adventuring days)