D&D 4E My Proposed 4e House Rules (so far)

[pukunui]

Hi all,

Just thought I'd share my (growing) list of proposed house rules for 4e. With some of these things, I'm going to wait until I've had a chance to see how the game plays out as written but with others, I'm going to change them right from the start either because I don't agree with what WotC has done or because it'll fit into my homebrew campaign setting better that way.

Without further adieu, here goes:

1) Replace Elf's group perception aura with something else. I dislike the group auras. EDIT: I thought about giving them a +1 Reflex Defence bonus, but people have said that's overpowering, so I'll have to come up with something else.

2) Give Half-Elves +2 CHA, +2 any and allow them to choose elf or eladrin for their non-human heritage. Replace group diplomacy aura with ??. If you can have half-elves, why not half-eladrin (and half-drow) as well? This would determine what racial feats you can access in addition to the human and half-elf ones. I'm also considering letting the half-elf/half-eladrin choose the elf/eladrin racial encounter power instead of an at-will-to-encounter power should they so desire it. I haven't decided what to replace the group diplomacy bonus with yet, though. I'm considering just giving half-elves the Jack of All Trades feat for free.

3) Tieflings don't all look the same. This is just a fluff change. I hate the crocodile tails and massive horns. I also don't like the whole "all the PCs races get along like one big happy family" thing, so I'm going to make tieflings the "freaks" of my world. People are afraid of them.

4) Change the way racial stat bonuses are allocated. I am thinking about making it so that races with static stat bonuses only have one and can then choose to place the second one somewhere else. (By way of an example: eladrin would get +2 DEX and either +2 INT or +2 CHA).

5) Add aasimar as a playable race. See here for details.

6) Use the SWSE version of the Linguist feat, which grants 1 + Int mod bonus languages instead of 4e's flat 3 bonus languages. I don't like how INT has been made the dump stat of 4e, so I want to give it a bit more oomph.

7) Skill Challenges: Action points can be used to reroll failed skill checks and a natural 20 counts as two successes. I got these from Keith Baker (here).

8) Do something else with Milestones. I'm not entirely sure what yet. I'm just worried I'll forget about them. There's a different thread dealing with this issue in which someone has suggested making it every encounter but giving the players a choice. I think it's an action point, a healing surge, or a daily power or something.

That's all I've got for now.


Thoughts?


Cheers,
Jonathan

 

[Szatany]

2) Replace Elf's group perception aura with +1 to Reflex Defense. I dislike the group auras. Someone else suggested this change and I like it, so I'm going to use it.

In another thread I suggested this replacement for elven aura:

Group Awareness ---- Elf Racial Power
Using your sharp senses you point out a hidden threat.
Daily
Free Action ---- Close Burst 5
Targets: Each ally within burst
Effect: Allies gain a +5 power bonus to Perception checks until the beginning of your next turn.

6) Make Turn Undead an optional feat and give clerics the deity-specific Channel Divinity feat automatically instead.

I like that very much.

 

[Aegir]

While I love the new skill system, I think I'd add back in the bit about Int affecting how many trained skills you have. Aside from the outliers (fighters get three, rogues get six), every class is locked in at 4-5 skills to choose from (tho' they can expand that with feats), but I see no reason why it shouldn't be + Int mod like 3E.

I would however take key abilities into account before doing that. Instead of wizard getting Arcana + 3 others, maybe give them Arcana + Int, Warlord 1-2 + Int, and the other classes I'd only drop one (maybe two in a couple cases) before adding Int.

I also wouldn't let it be cumulative: this is all based off your Int at Lv 1, so no gaining more skills as you go because of raising Int.

 

[pukunui]

In another thread I suggested this replacement for elven aura:

Group Awareness ---- Elf Racial Power
Using your sharp senses you point out a hidden threat.
Daily
Free Action ---- Close Burst 5
Targets: Each ally within burst
Effect: Allies gain a +5 power bonus to Perception checks until the beginning of your next turn.

That's an intriguing idea. I don't know if it works for me though ... but thanks for sharing!

I like that very much.

Cool. Ari Marmell said he didn't think it would unbalance things too much.

While I love the new skill system, I think I'd add back in the bit about Int affecting how many trained skills you have. Aside from the outliers (fighters get three, rogues get six), every class is locked in at 4-5 skills to choose from (tho' they can expand that with feats), but I see no reason why it shouldn't be + Int mod like 3E.

I would however take key abilities into account before doing that. Instead of wizard getting Arcana + 3 others, maybe give them Arcana + Int, Warlord 1-2 + Int, and the other classes I'd only drop one (maybe two in a couple cases) before adding Int.

I also wouldn't let it be cumulative: this is all based off your Int at Lv 1, so no gaining more skills as you go because of raising Int.

That's an interesting idea. I guess the only reason I'd hesitate to do that is because there aren't as many skills as there were in 3e. But I dunno. I've been toying with the idea of bringing back Secondary Skills from 2e just for some flavor stuff.

 

[Sashi]

1) Change Dragonborn racial stat bonuses to +2 STR, +2 WIS. I don't really get why Dragonborn get a bonus to CHA. I think it makes more sense that they should be more perceptive since they are now a fairly nomadic race (and I'm going to play this up even more by having the dragonborn be the "noble savages" of my world).

This is literally a fluff decision on crunch, never do this. Upping WIS instead of CHA makes dragonborn literally fall into the cleric class, are you sure you want to make perfect clerics who also have a daily flame blast power?

2) Replace Elf's group perception aura with +1 to Reflex Defense. I dislike the group auras. Someone else suggested this change and I like it, so I'm going to use it.

Overpowered. +1 to the group doesn't aid the elf much (some of his allies won't be surpised sometimes, that's about it). +1 reflex def is a pretty big benefit directly to the elf. Find something else or just knock the ability off, it's doubtful anyone will really miss it.

3) Give Half-Elves +2 CHA, +2 any and allow them to choose elf, eladrin or drow for their non-human heritage. Replace group diplomacy aura with ??. If you can have half-elves, why not half-eladrin and half-drow as well? This would just determine what racial feats you can access in addition to the human and half-elf ones. I haven't decided what to replace the group diplomacy bonus with yet, though.

Acceptable. There's no reason you need to replace the diplomacy aura, especially with that floating stat, see elf.

4) Tieflings don't all look the same. This is just a fluff change. I hate the crocodile tails and massive horns. I also don't like the whole "all the PCs races get along like one big happy family" thing, so I'm going to make tieflings the "freaks" of my world. People are afraid of them.

Agreed. My Tieflings are all going to look like humans/elves/dwarves/etc, but with a single "mark" (small horns, vestigial tail, spines on elbows/knees, farts smell of brimstone, etc) that grants a +2 perception to discern that they're nonhuman/elf/dwarf/etc

5) Add aasimar as a playable race. (See my other thread for details.)

Haven't seen the race. Fine as long as the race is balanced.

6) Make Turn Undead an optional feat and give clerics the deity-specific Channel Divinity feat automatically instead. This one I'm not sure about yet. I'm getting rid of all of the chaotic deities from my pantheon because I want the gods, even the evil ones, to represent law and order. I suppose that this could mean that all clerics would be able to turn undead because all gods view undead as an abomination and against the law of the cosmos. On the other hand, I also think clerics should be different depending on their chosen deity by default rather than as an optional choice ...

Fine as long as you run your own campaigns. Not a good idea if you're going to run published campaigns ("if there is a cleric in the party he may turn undead to uncover IMPORTANT PLOT POINT X")

7) Use the SWSE version of the Linguist feat, which grants 1 + Int mod bonus languages instead of 4e's flat 3 bonus languages. I don't like how INT has been made the dump stat of 4e, so I want to give it a bit more oomph.

Fine. There are fewer languages anyway. It's not like anyone needs to speak "roper" anyway.

8) Change the Extended Rest rules to once every 24 hours instead of once every 12 hours and make it so only a certain number of hit points are restored rather than all hit points. This is one I'm going to wait on. I want to see how the default rules play out before changing them. If I do implement this change, I'll leave everything else to do with resting alone.

The current rules don't allow a rest every 12 hours, they just require that you wait 12 hours before resting each "day" (however you define that). If you require a wait of 24 hours before resting does that mean that if the party rested at 10PM on Tuesday, they can't rest at 9PM on Wednsday? This is just unnecessary.

 

[Zinovia]

I've been toying with the idea of bringing back Secondary Skills from 2e just for some flavor stuff.

I skipped straight from 1st Edition to Rolemaster, and then to 3E without pausing for more than a single game session of D&D 2E. Is it possible to do a few sentence summary of how the secondary skills rules worked in 2E?

I was thinking of grafting on some fairly informal rules for secondary skills in 4E because I am sad that they are gone completely. Given my game experience, I am looking at 3.5 and Rolemaster to see what general categories of skills I may use. I'm not sure how I want to implement this mechanically yet. Rolemaster had too damned many skills though - even secondary skills, which in that system use a separate set of skill points to purchase. I want something fairly simple to tack onto 4E.

The reason to not just RP them is the inevitable mid-game revelation, "Oh, of course I can sail a boat. Sure my character is from Inlandia, 500 leagues from the nearest sea, but I learned to sail a boat while I was on my coming of age journey and traveled to Vikingfjord. I did tell you that, didn't I?" Whether they did or not, I don't want potentially useful secondary skills being just written into character backstories. I want everyone to have a roughly comparable number of them.

I was thinking of giving everyone a profession or general background skill, and then a couple of hobbies or craft skills. These can't be used to increase "real" game skills, but could still be useful. Were you raised as a farmer? Then if a question comes up about animal husbandry, crops, growing seasons, and the local farming community, you can probably answer it. Likewise you can probably fix a cart if the wheel comes off mid-journey, and you won't cut your own leg off if you grab a scythe as an improvised weapon. Being raised in a temple won't automatically grant Religion skill, but you will have some knowledge of the church hierarchy as well as some potentially useful contacts. You know how to forge a note to visit the restricted area in the grand temple library (that's where all the most interesting books are.) Stuff like that.

It's largely a roleplaying thing, but helps the characters think creatively, and adds depth to them and to the game world. I don't want to see secondary skills fall by the wayside, but I'm still not sure of how precisely to implement rules for them in 4E.

 

[pukunui]

This is literally a fluff decision on crunch, never do this.

Why not?

Upping WIS instead of CHA makes dragonborn literally fall into the cleric class, are you sure you want to make perfect clerics who also have a daily flame blast power?

How does it do this? I just don't get why dragonborn have a bonus to CHA and I don't like how fully half the races in the PHB get it. Charisma is definitely went from being 3e's dump stat to 4e's "in" stat, that's for sure!

Overpowered. +1 to the group doesn't aid the elf much (some of his allies won't be surpised sometimes, that's about it). +1 reflex def is a pretty big benefit directly to the elf. Find something else or just knock the ability off, it's doubtful anyone will really miss it.

Is it overpowered because of all the other things elves get? The eladrin gets a +1 to Will defense.

Acceptable. There's no reason you need to replace the diplomacy aura, especially with that floating stat, see elf.

Fair enough. Maybe I'll just do that.

Agreed. My Tieflings are all going to look like humans/elves/dwarves/etc, but with a single "mark" (small horns, vestigial tail, spines on elbows/knees, farts smell of brimstone, etc) that grants a +2 perception to discern that they're nonhuman/elf/dwarf/etc

Interesting. I'm going to keep the "humans transformed through a devilish pact" thing, but I'm just going to make it so they can have unique features. They don't all have to have ridiculously large crocodile tails and massive horns.

Fine as long as you run your own campaigns. Not a good idea if you're going to run published campaigns ("if there is a cleric in the party he may turn undead to uncover IMPORTANT PLOT POINT X")

This is a valid point.

Fine. There are fewer languages anyway. It's not like anyone needs to speak "roper" anyway.

Cool.

The current rules don't allow a rest every 12 hours, they just require that you wait 12 hours before resting each "day" (however you define that). If you require a wait of 24 hours before resting does that mean that if the party rested at 10PM on Tuesday, they can't rest at 9PM on Wednsday? This is just unnecessary.

It doesn't say that. It just says you have to wait 12 hours after finishing an extended rest before you can start another one. Granted, you couldn't do this every day, but theoretically at least you could take an extended rest from midnight till 6am, then adventure until 6pm, then take another extended rest until the end of the day.

I skipped straight from 1st Edition to Rolemaster, and then to 3E without pausing for more than a single game session of D&D 2E. Is it possible to do a few sentence summary of how the secondary skills rules worked in 2E?

I haven't got my book right here in front of me (it's in the closet) but I am fairly certain that 2e Secondary Skills had no mechanical benefit whatsoever. You just picked one (or possibly two on occasion) and it had a list of things you could do with it and it was just assumed that your character could do those things without needing to make any sort of check. So if you chose blacksmith, it was assumed you knew how to use a forge to make weapons and stuff. That was it. I think. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong (or I'll correct myself later when I have time to go look).

 

[Sashi]

Dragonborn were given a bonus to CHA because STR+CHA makes them good paladins, and their other abilities are balanced with the consideration that their stat mods are already making them exceptional paladins. The breath weapon is essentially a bonus blasting power. Clerics are better at blasto than paladins, so granting an additional blasto power is more advantageous to clerics than paladins.

Stat mods are a pretty big thing to be messing around with for fluff reasons. If you absolutely must make a mechanical change to alter the Dragonborn role in your world consider messing with the skill benefits. +2 Nature instead of +2 History is a bit more powerful, but it's not going to change the classes that the Dragonborn fall into.

For the elf, basically yes. +1 to your allies is a minor benefit while +1 to your personal defense is fairly major (it permanently puts your defense progressions 2 levels higher).

 

[pukunui]

Dragonborn were given a bonus to CHA because STR+CHA makes them good paladins, and their other abilities are balanced with the consideration that their stat mods are already making them exceptional paladins. The breath weapon is essentially a bonus blasting power. Clerics are better at blasto than paladins, so granting an additional blasto power is more advantageous to clerics than paladins.

I don't want them to be good paladins, though. I'm changing the dragonborn fluff so that having them be tailor-made for the paladin class doesn't make as much sense. I want them to be more tailor-made for the fighter class, which is why I thought STR and WIS would be a good combo (since there are a number of fighter-things based on WIS). If it means they make good clerics too well is that such a bad thing? My players aren't munchkins. I don't think I'll end up with a party full of dragonborn clerics. If anything, they're the opposite (the type who thinks that a mechanically flawed character makes for better roleplaying).

Stat mods are a pretty big thing to be messing around with for fluff reasons. If you absolutely must make a mechanical change to alter the Dragonborn role in your world consider messing with the skill benefits. +2 Nature instead of +2 History is a bit more powerful, but it's not going to change the classes that the Dragonborn fall into.

+2 Nature is pretty good actually. It fits the "noble savage" type fluff I want the dragonborn to have.

For the elf, basically yes. +1 to your allies is a minor benefit while +1 to your personal defense is fairly major (it permanently puts your defense progressions 2 levels higher).

So is a permanent +1 to Reflex better than a permanent +1 to Will?

 

[Cryptos]

While I love the new skill system, I think I'd add back in the bit about Int affecting how many trained skills you have. Aside from the outliers (fighters get three, rogues get six), every class is locked in at 4-5 skills to choose from (tho' they can expand that with feats), but I see no reason why it shouldn't be + Int mod like 3E.

I would however take key abilities into account before doing that. Instead of wizard getting Arcana + 3 others, maybe give them Arcana + Int, Warlord 1-2 + Int, and the other classes I'd only drop one (maybe two in a couple cases) before adding Int.

I also wouldn't let it be cumulative: this is all based off your Int at Lv 1, so no gaining more skills as you go because of raising Int.

I don't know... for some, assuming the default array, it could be a wash. (Your wizard with Arcana +Int is getting Arcana +3, just as they do now.) For others, it might bring about more stat-related hardships, as people are already complaining about the stat requirements on feats. If rogues suddenly feel they need more INT to get the most skills, they lose out on a lot of feat choices, and gain very little in feat choices from INT.

I did like Pukuni's idea of bring in secondary skills. I've also been going back and forth on literacy. On one side, I don't know if I want to deal with it in game in terms of PCs being illiterate. On the other side, it is a fairly dark setting I'm using, and illiteracy is reasonably common with the NPCs of most races. I was just going to ask players to work it into their backgrounds somehow that they were taught how to read and write.

But I might do this: A character with an Int bonus is literate in one language per +1 Int bonus. If they don't know that many languages, or don't want to be literate for some reason in a given language, they can identify one trade skill or vocation their character knows per +1. They gain a bonus to ability checks and knowledge checks relating to that trade skill or vocation, and to interaction checks with someone sharing that vocation, as if they were Trained (+5).