What are your vital houserules?

[Li Shenron]

She does have a PHB, or at least free access to mine, being my fiance an' all . The reason it'd be difficult is that my house rules modify core rules...

Is she joining a campaign of your own which you have been playing already for a while with the other players? If so, I suppose that they are already accustomed to your own house rules and you should stick to them. Unfortunately, in this case it's better to confuse one new player than many old ones, even if the new one is a girlfriend Tell her to keep in mind that what she reads in the PHB may be different that what your group has been using, and write down a list (hopefully short!) of what is different, with a reference at which chapter the original rule is in. She will know by your notes where expecting a difference.

If you are starting with everyone, then just go by the core rules if she's going to read the whole PHB, or suggests her to read only the parts you are not changing.

Furthermore, I wouldn't call "house rules" issues like forbidding a class, race or feat, or using extra material. I'd say those are campaign issues, rather than really house rules. In that case, I don't think she'll have a problem if you disallow e.g. Clerics of evil deities, she'll just know as soon as you tell her. Much different if you have chenged how the combat works: in that case, consider dropping your HRs entirely or keep only very few at least of the ones which are recurring often.

 

[Jack Daniel]

jack daniel, care to explain what defense bonus/DR rules you use? i've just decided to make use of a VP/WP system for my new game and the only change i've made thus far is to make criticals go straight to WP but reduce the critical multiplier by 2, instead increasing the threat range by any additional multiplier left over after the reduction [e.g. 20/x3 becomes 19-20/x1].

what else did you think needed change?

The rules are my own. I use the defense bonus progressions from d20 Modern, though I treat the actual mechanic differently to make it work in D&D -- I call it "base evade bonus" and treat it just like an increase to Dexterity bonus to AC, so it's capped by the sort of armor you wear, and goes away if you're flat-footed, for example. Armor DR is in addition to rather than in place of armor AC bonus, and it only protects wounds. The DR is random in order to prevent the unrealistic "warrior with a dagger cannot harm foe in platemail" flaw: anything that provides an armor bonus of +1 also provides DR 1d4/--, while an armor bonus of +2 or +3 comes with DR 1d6/--, +4 & +5 come with DR 1d8/--, +6 & +7 have DR 1d10/--, and a +8 armor bonus provides DR 1d12/--.

The rules for wounds and vitality (which, to keep the feel of my setting intact, I've called "hit points and fatigue points") are mostly outlined in chapter one of my setting book. And just to let you know, my method of dealing with critical hits is particularly ingenious--critical multipliers don't change, but when a character suffers a critical hit, only the base damage is wound damage. Any extra damage from the critical multiplier, or from damage that wouldn't normally be multiplied by a critical hit, remains vitality damage. That means that a character with a +1 flaming battleax who sneak attacks someone and scores a critical hit will deal 1d8+1 slashing damage to wound points, and 2d8+2 slashing and 1d6 fire damage to vitality. See?

 

[CombatWombat51]

Thanks for the advice, Li Shenron. The game I'm starting is going to be a brand new mix of people, and the others are familiar with the core rules. I think this exercise in cutting back on house rules, or setting material , is a good one... less is better, after all. Homebrew stuff just tends to pile up after time... a good revisiting of the old rules never hurts.

 

[Trainz]

Even hit die roll?

HAH ! Mes joueurs me la font toujours celle-la !

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I standardize a lot of character generation and advancement issues-- we use point buy for ability scores and average hit points for hit dice (except at first level).

Most of the core races are tweaked a little, to make some (Half-Elf, Half-Orc) a little more powerful, one (Dwarf) a little less, and two (Elf and Gnome) just a little more interesting. I've added a Half-Dwarf race. I rebalanced the Planetouched by adjusting their racial mods-- I've always hated the Tiefling Charisma penalty.

I use partial BAB and saving throw formulas to smooth out multiclassing. No class has a multiclassing restriction, but XP penalties for multiclassing still apply. (Half-Orcs are now FC: Any.)

I have a raft of other less important House Rules, relating to things like racial psionic powers, Anthropomorphic Animals, and small class tweaks.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

<Double post.>

 

[Nifft]

My most vital House Rules:

- 32 Point Buy.

- Roll for HP at every level (including 1st), but you get bonus "racial" HP at 1st level.

- Bonus "Education" skill points at every level (x4 at 1st).

- Critical hits only multiply weapon dice (and Weapon Spec. damage).

- Psionics are Different.

- Gnomes are Tiny.

-- N

PS: Of course, I have a whole page full of House Rules on my web site...

 

[Vahktang]

I GM but I have a world GM who's world we play in.
He has pages of house rules/campaign stuff (common is a pidgin language, all races are varients of humans with 'traits', etc).

But some are quite useful and important:

Death is not -10 HP, but -10 + CON bonus
Just makes more sense to me. Villains get it, too.

And I made Scorching Ray a third level spell
Choose between it and Fireball, camps for both.

And I'd like to do a fumble rule that would include weapons breaking and a missle into melee that includes friendly fire.
But my players don't, so we don't.

More later,

Vahktang

 

[MarauderX]

I use Luck Points, which are similar to Hero Points or whatever. A player may use them to reroll the last die roll, no matter who rolled it, but it must be used immediately.

Other than that, the regular table manners rules apply, and whatever happens don't make be bring out Robert's Rules of Order, 'cause the only thing I will do with it is beat you in the face with it.

 

[amwest]

1. When multi-classing, a character’s base attack progression should be treated as a fraction, (‘good’ BAB = +1, ‘medium’ BAB = +¾, and ‘bad’ BAB = +½.) When determining total BAB, add every level’s value and round down. This means that a Cleric2/Rogue2 would have a BAB of +3, instead of getting penalized with a +2. We all know this is how it should be, and the designers were just making the game accessible to people who aren't so good at math.

2. When multi-classing, any class that has a ‘good’ saving throw, gains a +2 class bonus to saves of that type. Class bonuses do not stack. A character’s base save progression should be treated as a fraction, (‘good’ saves = +3/6, and ‘bad’ saves = +2/6.) When determining total base save, add every level’s value to any class bonus and round down.

3. Characters are disabled from 0 to -Con Modifier HP, Dying from -Con Modifier to -Con Attribute HP, and dead if their HP fall below their negative Con rating. I find this adds a lot of interesting situations in battle, and brings the sometimes undervalued Con rating in line with Stregth and Dexterity. (Taken from Arcana Unearthed, p. 150.)

4. Balance and Tumble are merged into Acrobatics. Disable Device and Open Lock are merged into Disable Device. Hide and Move Silently are merged into Sneak. Even with a high Int a Rogue has little chance of taking all the skills he or she would like to. I've never seen a PC take Balance, yet it seems like anyone who can tumble should have such skills, so rolling these two together is a no-brainer. D20 Modern and other d20 games combine Open Lock and Disable Device, and isn't a Lock just another type of device? Combining Hide and Move Silently is the most difficult decision, but in the end it reduces the number of dice rolls in a game. I do like keeping my game running smoothly, and everyone who takes one takes the other anyway, so why not give them another skill point?

5. The penalties for Heavy and Medium armor are reversed. Medium armor reduces run rates to x3, while Heavy armor reduces movement to 20. Under the current rules, I rarely see any PCs wear medium armor. I think it is good if there is a use for every type of armor available in the game.