D&D 3.x Still playing 3e? Share your 3.0 and/or 3.5 house rules

[Edgar Ironpelt]

For me I never understood people wanting to find ways to let rogues and rangers etc get crits on undead. They don't have vital points in their anatomy, which is what a critical hit is searching for (especially something like a backstab). But I also don't reallyp rescribe to every class needing to be their most useful in every scenario, which seems to be where the sentiment comes from.

I don't want them to get crits on undead, but I do want them to get their class damage bonuses (favored enemy and sneak attack). Critical hits are a matter of luck but those class bonuses are a matter of character skill and knowledge. I want that that sort of character skill and knowledge to have a high value in my game as a counter to the "Magic is trumps" attitude I see not just in 3.x but in the earlier editions of D&D as well.

As for a rationalization, I use "the characters know that these things lack the usual mix of more-vulnerable and less-vulnerable points that living creatures have, so they don't angle to hit the more-vulnerable points in preference to the less-vulnerable ones. And knowing how to adjust their attacks this way gives them their class damage bonuses."

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

I'll add: I'm unfond of critical hit systems in general, and while I'm not quite annoyed enough by the 3.5e version to reflexively apply a house rule to nerf them (or outright eliminate them), I am toying with a rule that all crit multipliers are reduced by 1 (and since most weapons have a 2x multiplier, that means that most weapons won't do critical hits at all).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

For me I never understood people wanting to find ways to let rogues and rangers etc get crits on undead. They don't have vital points in their anatomy, which is what a critical hit is searching for (especially something like a backstab). But I also don't reallyp rescribe to every class needing to be their most useful in every scenario, which seems to be where the sentiment comes from.

But do they really not have weak points? How do they get destroyed at all?
Couldn't some skeleton bones be weaker than others, not to mention that in many mythologies, cutting or destroying zombie and vampire heads is a way to kil them. I think you could make a case for ghosts, because they are insubstantial, but physical things tend to have weak points and structurally important points. They don't need to be "vital" in the sense of sustaining life, but they are "vital" for sustaining function.

 

[Celebrim]

I'll add: I'm unfond of critical hit systems in general, and while I'm not quite annoyed enough by the 3.5e version to reflexively apply a house rule to nerf them (or outright eliminate them), I am toying with a rule that all crit multipliers are reduced by 1 (and since most weapons have a 2x multiplier, that means that most weapons won't do critical hits at all).

Like you I conceptually understand that critical hits are bad for the game, as they always favor the monsters over the PCs. But, while I can understand nerfing them, my solution leans in the other way.

1) Critical hits are one of the ways I can keep martials competitive with non-martials as damage dealers at higher levels.
2) I have a narrative currency in game that players have access to and one of the things it can do is turn a critical hit into a non-critical hit which keeps the PC's from being just randomly squashed by Bugbears or Frost Giants or other monsters can just turn a PC to jelly with a lucky roll. That solves the "die no save" problem represented by critical hits.