What single houserule has made your game AWESOME?

[Garthanos]

Wanna share more details on this? Sounds interesting.

For example, are you just telling them what's being attacked (Reflex for example) and letting them roll the attack against themselves? Or, are you rolling against them and they get a roll to reduce, etc?

Anyway yea, more details please

Here is a thread ...

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...-defenses-rather-than-dm-rolling-attacks.html


But here is my take.

On the Player Character sheet you now record the Defenses without the base 10 value and the player rolls d20 instead and adds… it is compared to an Attack value which is static 10 + mods for the NPC’s.(it is supposed to be 12 if you want to maintain the odds but I have low player count and sneak things like this in --- shush dont tell).

The DM describes an attack (and the nature of its primary effects generally and what defense it is against).. Basically you describe the start of the attack without its full... culmination just like a player might do.

The player should then describe how this attack against their character is minimized by luck and energy and skill! The difference between the description for a failed defense (unless that hit reduces you below 0 hp) and a successful one … is pretty much how desparate or last second it normally seems and/or how much apparent energy/luck it takes to accomplish, even a successful defense could be described many ways... ranging from the bad guy doing really poorly, the character doing really well with the ability associated with defense, or the character getting wierdly lucky if that is the pc’s style. The lucky hero, the tough hero, magical hero and skilled heros the archetype often inspires the nature of there defense. Note A magical hero can even describe his defensive actions and how they minimize his injuries in terms of his magic, just make it fit the theme of your character... exploit what you do with your at-wills perhaps.

Which of the attributes you use for your defensive actions may also affect how you describe it,(is it Intelligence representing forethought and predicting your enemies actions so reacting almost before they act or is it dexterity defense without a thought nerves of lightning) but they dont always have to. ie. which attribute is luck? and which matters if you just feel like describing a quirky sort of jinx like failure on the enemies attacks? A d20 is a pretty hefty impact and can overshadow your defensive values. Did you luck out and the armor take more of the hit than it seemed (heavy armor?)

It becomes a descriptive choice. A hit that reduces the character below zero hp might best be described by the DM who then includes after effects, this is the point were a true wound mechanic might come in to play.

Yes I cut an pasted too. I do roll the enemy damage against them but I am thinking about alternatives I don't like rolling.

 

[DanmarLOK]

I do a couple of things to keep combats moving along, +2 to hit across the board and using average damage instead of rolling it. It puts the hit percentages in the 70%'ish range (missing sucks) and just having to worry about a d20 rather than a d20 + 1d12 +1d6+1d8+ etc, makes each player's turn that much faster. Started doing it for solo playtesting monster/encounter design to minimize variables and liked it so much I kept it and the players unanimously use it (they have the option to roll damage dice if they want). It greatly speeds up my turn, I can burn through 10-15 standards/minion attacks very quickly.

 

[Hellzon]

I would have to go with the initiative system we use (ars ludi). Since I have posted it before, I will simply paste it here...

As a bonus, this makes PbP go faster, since you don't have to wait for the bloke whose turn it is to find out that it's his turn.

 

[Storminator]

We don't have a lot of house rules. But we like the minion rule we have.

Any time a minion takes damage, it makes a save. Fail the save - die. Make the save - live! But we also have minions take damage from misses, and if you crit a minion it automatically dies.

Makes minions a lot more interesting, without any more bookkeeping.

PS

 

[Garthanos]

We don't have a lot of house rules. But we like the minion rule we have.

Any time a minion takes damage, it makes a save. Fail the save - die. Make the save - live! But we also have minions take damage from misses, and if you crit a minion it automatically dies.

Makes minions a lot more interesting, without any more bookkeeping.

PS

My minion house rules allow any minion a pc cares to try to save (insert your favorite method here) with a standard action a round or two after they take anything but a critical hit... will automatically work. I also have bloodiable minions so that missed/non-targetted attacks bloody them. Minions saved arent battle ready just ... not dead.

Some of my games only have 1 or 2 at most 3 pcs I supplement them and prefer non-heroics to be minions.

 

[Thraug]

On the Player Character sheet you now record the Defenses without the base 10 value and the player rolls d20 instead and adds… it is compared to an Attack value which is static 10 + mods for the NPC’s.(it is supposed to be 12 if you want to maintain the odds but I have low player count and sneak things like this in --- shush dont tell).

I love this rule, and will use it in my campaign, but with a slight change to make it even more efficient and easier on players.

The target DC needed to avoid an attack is: Attack Bonus + 22. Characters roll their full defense + 1d20 vs this DC.

Not much of a change to the original calculation, just moving the -10 modifier from the players defense to the attackers attack DC. This doens't alter the hit/miss chances. The rationale for this minor alteration is that players can keep the defense values on their character sheet as RAW, which is most useful for those using the Character Generator to print out characters.

 

[Garthanos]

I love this rule, and will use it in my campaign, but with a slight change to make it even more efficient and easier on players.

As a serious fan of CB and the ease it provides I massively approve. ;-)

 

[ravenheart]

We do the fate point thing as well, but hmm... let's see...

I would have to go with the initiative system we use (ars ludi). Since I have posted it before, I will simply paste it here...

---paste---

Basically PC's/Creatures roll initiative (I roll once for the creatures). Those players who beat the creatures go (if any do) then the creatures go (all of them) then back to ALL PC's including those who got to go before the creatures and we then simply alternate from there, Creatures > PC's > Creatures > PC's etc.

Players decide amongst themselves who is going to go, who follows next etc. It keeps everyone engaged, and those who are not quite ready figure it out while the others go. It also allows for more player strategy (you go here, then i will go here and do this) etc. It's all per RAW since a) everyone can delay to go at the same-ish time and b) you can shout commands as free actions.

This method (referred to as the ars ludi method) sped our encounters up enough that nothing else needed to be done. It's become one person after the next after the next - bam bam bam, no real downtime between each persons actions.

As has been pointed out to me, it is not EXACTLY per RAW because you can have a situation where, let's say for example, someone is unconscious... so when it comes back to the PC's turn, they could (using this method) have the cleric go first and heal the unconscious player, who could then stand when the cleric is done and have his turn -- but as per RAW if you are unconscious, you can not delay -- so you could argue the unconscious player has to roll his death save before the rest of the players go and do nothing else, etc. I let it go (the one time it has happened from what I remember). These little workings of the system are exciting to the players and don't hurt the encounter imo.

Again, this has 1) saved us a lot of time and 2) made the encounters much more dynamic and exciting. Previously it was easy to ignore what happened after you went - the battle field was going to change so much as players kind of did their own thing etc that there wasn't much of a point to plan what you were going to do next - might as well do something else. Now, the mobs go (I am quick at running this) and then right back to PC's who have been watching it unfold and have been planning as it went for how they were going to (together) setup their next turns.

This is the method I use, but it is NOT my invention. You can see it here... http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.ph...silent-killer/

---/paste---

I'm really warming up to this idea, but I have one concern: What do you do with monsters/PCs that have specific intiative-related powers/features? Such as multiple initiative counts (ex. Behir) or initative switching (ex. Guileful Switch)?

 

[eriktheguy]

I like these minion ideas. My favorite part is that the DM can implement them without the players needing to know (my players don't care for house rules as much as I do).
I can understand bloodied minions on miss damage or non-attack damage. I think sufficient damage should still kill a minion, so perhaps any source that deals (2*level) damage to a minion kills it anyways?

Another thing I do. When a player applies AOE damage to a group of monsters who all have the same HP, I sometimes drop some of them. For example, 15 damage against 4 monsters with 20 HP each, perhaps 2 of them die.

And of course lower monster HP, and compensate w/ more monsters or more damage. Just needs to be said again.

 

[Garthanos]

Another thing I do. When a player applies AOE damage to a group of monsters who all have the same HP, I sometimes drop some of them. For example, 15 damage against 4 monsters with 20 HP each, perhaps 2 of them die.
.

I do much the same... basically say the area attack would bloody a bunch of monsters... I bloody 2 of 4 leave one just fine and have one dead.

Bloodied minions become fodder for pcs wanting to intimidate too. If intimidate werent quite so front loadable its actually rather cool way to end some fights.