Silly House Rules

[Tinker Gnome]

Are there any house rules in your game that you personally do not like? For me, one is that even if your Halfling or Gnome, may have an 18 Strenegth, they would never win against a Half-orc in armwrestling or something like that. I know they would take a penalty due to their smaller size, but there should still be a chance of winning.

Another one is the "Instant Death" rule, that basically means that if a Giant or Dragon were to step on you, you die. So, this means that the PCs cant do anything in straight up combat against Giants or Dragons of they will die with only a Reflex saving thow perhaps. Granted, the DM is just begging for the PCs, when they get to a higher level to Polymorph into Dragons and stomp on the BBEG. The DM also wanted to put the Heat Metal spell under this rule for some eason, but me and another player said "NO!!!"

 

[reanjr]

I like all the house rules in our game.

I may be biased as I am the DM.

Seriously, though, I don't mind house rules unless they are sprung on me out of nowhere. In my current campaign, the only bit of house rules I have is a Feat that was necessary to make one of the character's concepts work (Ravenloft campaign where necromancy spells call for powers checks, feat reduces this amount by 3%).

 

[green slime]

Are there any house rules in your game that you personally do not like? For me, one is that even if your Halfling or Gnome, may have an 18 Strenegth, they would never win against a Half-orc in armwrestling or something like that. I know they would take a penalty due to their smaller size, but there should still be a chance of winning.

Another one is the "Instant Death" rule, that basically means that if a Giant or Dragon were to step on you, you die. So, this means that the PCs cant do anything in straight up combat against Giants or Dragons of they will die with only a Reflex saving thow perhaps. Granted, the DM is just begging for the PCs, when they get to a higher level to Polymorph into Dragons and stomp on the BBEG. The DM also wanted to put the Heat Metal spell under this rule for some eason, but me and another player said "NO!!!"

Can hardly be worse than disintegrate, finger of death, or slay living.

But save or die effects aren't fun. Someone should tell your DM that. If he disagrees, offer to DM for a while, and show him how much fun it is.

Little folk are already penalized for their size difference by a -2 to Strength. This means, that no beginning gnome/halfling will have 18 in Strength. In order to gain that Strength, the little folk have to acquire magical items, or place a lot of level bonuses into Strength. But once they have acquired 18 in Strength, that are just as strong as any other character with that Strength score.

Does he penalize Elves with 18 Strength as well, because of their brittle-looking spindly arms, when they arm-wrestle half-orcs?

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Can hardly be worse than disintegrate, finger of death, or slay living.

But save or die effects aren't fun. Someone should tell your DM that. If he disagrees, offer to DM for a while, and show him how much fun it is.

Little folk are already penalized for their size difference by a -2 to Strength. This means, that no beginning gnome/halfling will have 18 in Strength. In order to gain that Strength, the little folk have to acquire magical items, or place a lot of level bonuses into Strength. But once they have acquired 18 in Strength, that are just as strong as any other character with that Strength score.

Does he penalize Elves with 18 Strength as well, because of their brittle-looking spindly arms, when they arm-wrestle half-orcs?

True on the death part, but I would not feel as cheated by those cause they are listed as under the rules as being save or die effects.

I would try to convince him of the other one, but I dont think it would work, and it is not worth the effort really.

 

[genshou]

House rules of that sort I dislike. I have my own that you've probably seen in this forum (I don't feel like pimping today), but those sorts I generally dislike. I've applied a modifier to Strength checks equal to the size modifier on grapple checks, but even then it's not an automatic win on arm-wrestling (just a -4 penalty).

One thing I absolutely hate is when the DM changes the rules on magic so things normally available to a character of a certain level now require a feat or are not available at all. Or when they change item creation rules so harshly that a healing potion is useless by the time it can be afforded. Ooooh, 1d8+1 hit points! Why not just buy a castle instead at that price?

It's better just to change the feel of magic in the setting by restricting NPCs more, rather than making the PCs suboptimal. Maybe the PC is that one in a million mages who just has enough potential to reach the PHB level in a low-magic world? It's fair enough for me.

 

[airwalkrr]

I hate it when a DM allows the PCs to build their characters using any sourcebook they can find on the shelf. Power creep just gets awful when that happens and I don't like having to spend all my time optimizing my character just so I can keep up with the others.

I also think rules that take the randomness out of the game are silly. Like the idea mentioned that gnomes and halflings always lose arm-wrestling or that a PC auto-dies after being stomped by a dragon. While arguably more realistic (and do note that this is quite debatable), it is just bad for the game. If the DM doesn't want your PCs to be able to beat dragons and giants, he should make sure the only dragons and giants your party comes across are 8 or more CRs higher than your average character level. Not that I have ever come across these house rules in particular, but I've seen similar ones.

I also dislike house rules that just because that suit of leather armor came from a bugbear that no one will pay you more than a copper piece or two for it. It's a perfectly good suit of leather armor! It just needs some cleaning and I'm sure the 50% markup the shopkeeper does is good enough to take care of that.

 

[SpiralBound]

I hate it when a DM allows the PCs to build their characters using any sourcebook they can find on the shelf. Power creep just gets awful when that happens and I don't like having to spend all my time optimizing my character just so I can keep up with the others.

I agree. Allowing this is really an "all or nothing" ruling. Once you let one or two people do it, then you're pretty much forced into demanding that all players do it. I think that the main reason that DMs do this is because a) they want to be nice to players, and b) they don't have the time to intently study the requested alt. sourcebook material and fully consider the rammifications of allowing certain combinations of variant rules and abilities into the game. In all fairness, it's also not easy to see ahead of time just what those effects would be.

I also dislike house rules that just because that suit of leather armor came from a bugbear that no one will pay you more than a copper piece or two for it. It's a perfectly good suit of leather armor! It just needs some cleaning and I'm sure the 50% markup the shopkeeper does is good enough to take care of that.

While I agree that it should not be worthless, I can see a reasonable justification for not getting as much as you would for a human's leather armor. (Assuming that you're selling this to a merchant whose customers are humans, if his customers are Bugbears then no price lowering is justified.) Consider that while a Bugbear is classified as a medium creature, they are still significantly larger than a human, both in height and girth. A Bugbear is 9 or more feet tall and judging from the picture in the MM, well over 350 Lbs. His leather armor would need to be adjusted significantly to fit a 6 foot 250 Lb human. The re-sizing required would eat into the merchant's profits.

Also, consider the fact that most Bugbears are more than just dirty, they are brutal and savage. Therefore, they will not maintain their equipment like a trained soldier would, thereby adding repair costs onto the cleaning costs as the merchant would likely have to replace missing straps, restitch some panels, repair deep cuts in the armor, etc.

Furthermore they may "decorate" it in ways that would detract from the saleability of the item among humans or other more civilized races. The Bugbear in the MM has two hands nailed to his shield and a rotting skull tied to his loincloth. I can only imagine what he would tie on, stitch into, smear onto or otherwise semi-permanently attach to his suit of leather armor!!!

Again, I don't think that you should get only coppers, but I could definitely see the merchant NPC going, "Yuck! Where did you get THAT armor? Do you realise how much it's going to cost me to make that disgusting armor salable to the townsfolk here? I'm not going to be able to give you full market value on that one... I'd be run out of town if I tried selling it looking like that. At least peel the badger corpse off the back before bringing it into town, I'm never going to get this smell out of my shop!"

 

[genshou]

I agree. Allowing this is really an "all or nothing" ruling. Once you let one or two people do it, then you're pretty much forced into demanding that all players do it. I think that the main reason that DMs do this is because a) they want to be nice to players, and b) they don't have the time to intently study the requested alt. sourcebook material and fully consider the rammifications of allowing certain combinations of variant rules and abilities into the game. In all fairness, it's also not easy to see ahead of time just what those effects would be.

All valid points, except for one. Just because one or two people do it, that doesn't make everyone required to. I have an "open door policy" on 3rd-party stuff. Bring it into me and tell me who wrote it, and I'll look it over and approve or veto it, even if it was written by the player. I'm running a cooperative team game rather than a tournament or PvP, so it's not a big deal most of the time. If something does become a problem, I have enough trust with my players that they're willing to work with me to fix the problem.

Even with this policy, some players never bring any variant stuff in for their characters.

While I agree that it should not be worthless, I can see a reasonable justification for not getting as much as you would for a human's leather armor. (Assuming that you're selling this to a merchant whose customers are humans, if his customers are Bugbears then no price lowering is justified.) Consider that while a Bugbear is classified as a medium creature, they are still significantly larger than a human, both in height and girth. A Bugbear is 9 or more feet tall and judging from the picture in the MM, well over 350 Lbs. His leather armor would need to be adjusted significantly to fit a 6 foot 250 Lb human. The re-sizing required would eat into the merchant's profits.

Also, consider the fact that most Bugbears are more than just dirty, they are brutal and savage. Therefore, they will not maintain their equipment like a trained soldier would, thereby adding repair costs onto the cleaning costs as the merchant would likely have to replace missing straps, restitch some panels, repair deep cuts in the armor, etc.

Furthermore they may "decorate" it in ways that would detract from the saleability of the item among humans or other more civilized races. The Bugbear in the MM has two hands nailed to his shield and a rotting skull tied to his loincloth. I can only imagine what he would tie on, stitch into, smear onto or otherwise semi-permanently attach to his suit of leather armor!!!

Again, I don't think that you should get only coppers, but I could definitely see the merchant NPC going, "Yuck! Where did you get THAT armor? Do you realise how much it's going to cost me to make that disgusting armor salable to the townsfolk here? I'm not going to be able to give you full market value on that one... I'd be run out of town if I tried selling it looking like that. At least peel the badger corpse off the back before bringing it into town, I'm never going to get this smell out of my shop!"

QFT.

 

[Thaniel]

While I agree that it should not be worthless, I can see a reasonable justification for not getting as much as you would for a human's leather armor. (Assuming that you're selling this to a merchant whose customers are humans, if his customers are Bugbears then no price lowering is justified.) Consider that while a Bugbear is classified as a medium creature, they are still significantly larger than a human, both in height and girth. A Bugbear is 9 or more feet tall and judging from the picture in the MM, well over 350 Lbs. His leather armor would need to be adjusted significantly to fit a 6 foot 250 Lb human. The re-sizing required would eat into the merchant's profits.

*snip*

I agree with most of this (and of the snipped part), except that the MM says that bugbears are around 7 feet tall. Not 9+. Huge difference.

 

[genshou]

I agree with most of this (and of the snipped part), except that the MM says that bugbears are around 7 feet tall. Not 9+. Huge difference.

Right, I forgot to point that out previously. That's a significant difference. Still, a 7-foot bugbear's armour would have to be refitted for the average human.