I'm looking to run 4th Edition some time in the future, and these are some of the House Rules I was thinking of using. A lot of them are borrowed from various boards on the net a lot of it from here, some of them are to address ideas and concerns we've had while playing, and others are just things I thought would be neat. I am interested to hear your thoughts and ideas about these
My game is only going to have 4 players, one to each role, and I am probably going to have them level up whenever it is appropriate, rather than handing out xp for each encounter.
Action Points:
-Action Points are granted at the end of each combat encounter rather than after every other, or “milestone.” However, they don’t carry over/stack, so you usually only ever have one, barring the use of special abilities.
-Action Points may be used for several things:
1. They may be used to take an extra standard action during your turn as per the rules.
2. They may be used to re-roll a single (non fumbled) die. (Because missing with your daily sucks)
3. They may be used to perform a “Stunt” a class and level appropriate action roughly equivalent in strength to an encounter power, these will be adjudicated by the DM to determine the rolls needed, effects and damage.
4. They may be rued to re-use an expended encounter ability.
Wounds:
-Whenever you fail a Death Save, are injured by some traps, or receive a Critical Hit, you take a Wound. Minions do not deal Wounds, Elites deal 2 Wounds per Crit, and Solos deal 3 per Crit.
-Every Wound you take prevents one Healing Surge from refreshing at the end of an Extended Rest.
-Every Wound you have gives you a cumulative -1 penalty to all skill checks.
-Wounds are healed by rest, and the use of the Healing and Endurance skills.
-An Extended Rest “in the field” such as camping or in an enemy dungeon does not heal any wounds, an Extended Rest in an inn, home, or such restores two.
-At the end of an Extended Rest, a character can make an Endurance check for each wound they have (after any granted for for resting has been removed) the difficulty is 15 + ½ the wounded character’s level + total # of wounds. Once the difficulty is set, roll for each wound.
-To use the Healing skill, at the beginning of an Extended Rest, the healer declares how many Wounds from each character he will try and heal. At the end of the Extended Rest, a character can make a Healing check for each wound they have declared they would treat, the difficulty is 15 + ½ the wounded character’s level + total # of Wounds for all the Wounded characters being treated. Once the difficulty is set, roll for each wound. Only one healing check for each wound may be made at the end of each extended rest, only those that are trained in Healing may both assist this roll and have their own Wounds treated in this manner. This means that with a healer, you can roll twice for each wound with both Healing and Endurance.
Fumbles
-Whenever a player/creature rolls a natural 1 on the first attack roll on their turn, their turn is over, and they may not act at all until the beginning of their next turn while they recover from the fumble. They may not use any actions including free actions, opportunity actions or immediate actions, additionally they automatically fail any saving throws they must make at the end of their turn.
Enchant Magic Item, Brew Potion, and Alchemy
-The rituals Enchant Magic Item, Brew Potion, and the feat Alchemy allow you to indeed make any Magic Item, Potion, or Alchemical concoction, but as broad as these are, they only give you the general idea of their construction, and are therefore less efficient. Items created using these cost 150% of the listed price of the item.
-However, there are specific recipes/rituals for different individual Items and Potions and such, and using such a specific recipe allows for the creation of the Item at 75% of the listed cost.
Skills
-Class Forte: Some classes are just better at some things than any other class will ever be. No one has studied magic like a Wizard, no one can thieve like a Rogue, no one knows religion like a Cleric. Nearly every class has one assigned skill when created, this skill is the Class Forte, whenever making a Skill Check for this skill, the player rolls two dice, and selects the highest. For the few classes that do not have an assigned skill, you may select one of your initial trained skills and declare that as your Forte, this skill may not be retrained as you advance in level.
-Background Skills: Ask yourself two questions when making your character: “What did my character do before becoming an adventurer?” and “What does my character enjoy doing in their spare time?” Each of these answers, such as baking, blacksmithing, origami, poetry, singing, and so on, become trained background skills for the character, based off an appropriate attribute.
-Trained Skills as Background: As a roleplaying note, each of your trained skills is just that, something you have trained yourself to excel in, some time in your past was devoted to learning how to do this at a professional level. You may have had a teacher, you may have struggled to learn these things on your own, the way you earned these skills will also reflect in the way you use them and the information received from them. A Wizard, a Warlord, and a Bard may each roll a 23 on their History check, and they may all receive the same pertinent information, but the Wizard recalls something from a dusty tome he once read, the Warlord knows of a famous battle fought nearby, and the Bard remembers a verse from an old song, and so on.
-Self Assisting a Skill Check: a character may use a related trained skill to assist themselves on a skill check. For example, a Rogue is picking a pocket using Thievery, if they are trained in Bluff, they can make a Bluff check at the same DC as the Thievery check, and if successful, they may add +2 to the Thievery roll. But be careful, a natural 1 on the Assist roll will cause a failure on the skill check itself.
Literacy
Knowing how to read is not so common, for many there were more important things to learn, or they just never got the chance. If a player chooses at character creation, they may decide that their character is illiterate. If they do so they may choose an additional Feat. If they wish to learn to read at a later date, they may spend a feat to do so.
My game is only going to have 4 players, one to each role, and I am probably going to have them level up whenever it is appropriate, rather than handing out xp for each encounter.
Action Points:
-Action Points are granted at the end of each combat encounter rather than after every other, or “milestone.” However, they don’t carry over/stack, so you usually only ever have one, barring the use of special abilities.
-Action Points may be used for several things:
1. They may be used to take an extra standard action during your turn as per the rules.
2. They may be used to re-roll a single (non fumbled) die. (Because missing with your daily sucks)
3. They may be used to perform a “Stunt” a class and level appropriate action roughly equivalent in strength to an encounter power, these will be adjudicated by the DM to determine the rolls needed, effects and damage.
4. They may be rued to re-use an expended encounter ability.
Wounds:
-Whenever you fail a Death Save, are injured by some traps, or receive a Critical Hit, you take a Wound. Minions do not deal Wounds, Elites deal 2 Wounds per Crit, and Solos deal 3 per Crit.
-Every Wound you take prevents one Healing Surge from refreshing at the end of an Extended Rest.
-Every Wound you have gives you a cumulative -1 penalty to all skill checks.
-Wounds are healed by rest, and the use of the Healing and Endurance skills.
-An Extended Rest “in the field” such as camping or in an enemy dungeon does not heal any wounds, an Extended Rest in an inn, home, or such restores two.
-At the end of an Extended Rest, a character can make an Endurance check for each wound they have (after any granted for for resting has been removed) the difficulty is 15 + ½ the wounded character’s level + total # of wounds. Once the difficulty is set, roll for each wound.
-To use the Healing skill, at the beginning of an Extended Rest, the healer declares how many Wounds from each character he will try and heal. At the end of the Extended Rest, a character can make a Healing check for each wound they have declared they would treat, the difficulty is 15 + ½ the wounded character’s level + total # of Wounds for all the Wounded characters being treated. Once the difficulty is set, roll for each wound. Only one healing check for each wound may be made at the end of each extended rest, only those that are trained in Healing may both assist this roll and have their own Wounds treated in this manner. This means that with a healer, you can roll twice for each wound with both Healing and Endurance.
Fumbles
-Whenever a player/creature rolls a natural 1 on the first attack roll on their turn, their turn is over, and they may not act at all until the beginning of their next turn while they recover from the fumble. They may not use any actions including free actions, opportunity actions or immediate actions, additionally they automatically fail any saving throws they must make at the end of their turn.
Enchant Magic Item, Brew Potion, and Alchemy
-The rituals Enchant Magic Item, Brew Potion, and the feat Alchemy allow you to indeed make any Magic Item, Potion, or Alchemical concoction, but as broad as these are, they only give you the general idea of their construction, and are therefore less efficient. Items created using these cost 150% of the listed price of the item.
-However, there are specific recipes/rituals for different individual Items and Potions and such, and using such a specific recipe allows for the creation of the Item at 75% of the listed cost.
Skills
-Class Forte: Some classes are just better at some things than any other class will ever be. No one has studied magic like a Wizard, no one can thieve like a Rogue, no one knows religion like a Cleric. Nearly every class has one assigned skill when created, this skill is the Class Forte, whenever making a Skill Check for this skill, the player rolls two dice, and selects the highest. For the few classes that do not have an assigned skill, you may select one of your initial trained skills and declare that as your Forte, this skill may not be retrained as you advance in level.
-Background Skills: Ask yourself two questions when making your character: “What did my character do before becoming an adventurer?” and “What does my character enjoy doing in their spare time?” Each of these answers, such as baking, blacksmithing, origami, poetry, singing, and so on, become trained background skills for the character, based off an appropriate attribute.
-Trained Skills as Background: As a roleplaying note, each of your trained skills is just that, something you have trained yourself to excel in, some time in your past was devoted to learning how to do this at a professional level. You may have had a teacher, you may have struggled to learn these things on your own, the way you earned these skills will also reflect in the way you use them and the information received from them. A Wizard, a Warlord, and a Bard may each roll a 23 on their History check, and they may all receive the same pertinent information, but the Wizard recalls something from a dusty tome he once read, the Warlord knows of a famous battle fought nearby, and the Bard remembers a verse from an old song, and so on.
-Self Assisting a Skill Check: a character may use a related trained skill to assist themselves on a skill check. For example, a Rogue is picking a pocket using Thievery, if they are trained in Bluff, they can make a Bluff check at the same DC as the Thievery check, and if successful, they may add +2 to the Thievery roll. But be careful, a natural 1 on the Assist roll will cause a failure on the skill check itself.
Literacy
Knowing how to read is not so common, for many there were more important things to learn, or they just never got the chance. If a player chooses at character creation, they may decide that their character is illiterate. If they do so they may choose an additional Feat. If they wish to learn to read at a later date, they may spend a feat to do so.
