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You're Doing It Wrong - On Purpose

Stormonu

NeoGrognard
So, what D&D rules do you purposely change, alter or ignore in your own games? Do you replace them with your own versions or just leave them out? What has been the response by most of your group to the changes - do they grin and bear it, simply accept it, embrace it or have some other reaction?
 

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I know I houseruled stuff in 3e but it's been so long I forget the specifics.

I know a few things we either did wrong for a long time or just never used.

In 4e I have a few.

Everyone gets the same basic amount of skills (not including racial bonuses or those gained from feats.)

No class skill lists (anyone can choose any skill.)

Everyone gets a free +1 to hit to their main attack type.

Everyone gets melee training in their prime stat.

I give out XP at a nonstandard rate, sometimes slower sometimes faster.

My players generally like them, since it makes them better/more customizable.

If/when I start up a new 4e game I'd probably add a few more.

Running Edge of the Empire right now, adding in a lot of stuff as we go like tactical movement and clear healing rules.
 

We've changed so many 1e rules over so long a time that we eventually just called it our own system.

The one "rule" I often mostly ignore is encumbrance (though I really shouldn't); I don't have the patience to do baggage audits and most of my players don't have the inclination or the patience to worry about it.

Lanefan
 

I change stuff every campaign...and not always the same stuff.

Most often, though, I'll change race and/or class stuff to better suit the campaign.
 

There's stuff I change here and there. The big thing is that I don't force archers to track mundane ammo. I just ask that whenever they get back to town to drop a gold or two to restock their quivers.
 

I'm pretty lax on bookkeeping like tracking initiative and ammo, but we have a few specific houserules.

Official:
1) Max HP every level for PCs (and NPCs/creatures at the GMs discretion)
2) Critical hits are automatically confirmed
3) No auto-fail/success on natural 1/20

Those were all put up to a vote of sorts and officially accepted. Everyone loves them. I can give the arguments that got everyone on board if anyone's curious.

Monsters:
I also rebuild basically every monster to use an alternate statblock. I find the full Pathfinder statblock cumbersome and prefer tactical abilities over a ton of random spell-likes, so this is a normal part of my prep.

My players aren't involved in that process, but seem to like the end results.

Arms Race:
We also have some unofficial "don't be a jerk" guidelines that tie into the above.

Save or suck effects are kept to a minimum, by me rewriting monsters and the players avoiding them. Generally, the replacements use attribute damage instead as a sort of condition track. The players don't want to be taken out of a fight like a chump, so they're willing to extend the olive branch here.

Summons, shapeshifting, and animal companions aren't disallowed, but the player has to be responsible for keeping their turn to the same length as the other players'. Nobody's accepted the challenge as of yet.

Cheers!
Kinak
 

1. 3/4 hitpoints or roll. (Take your chances)
2. Criticals automatically confirm.
3. If you have a applicable skill, you can aid another on yourself. (Such as Knowledge Local helping Gather Info) Synergy be roleplayed.
4. God Call from 1st Ed.
5. Prestige Classes are feat trees.
6. Sunrods not discovered yet.
7. A day’s travel is 10 hours, not 8 hours (makes easier math)
 

Wow...where to begin? Well, coming from BECM, 1e and 2e predominantly...the stuff that immediately springs to mind (I'm sure there's more, but the finer details are long forgotten):

1. PCs begin first level with automatic max HP. But only 1st level. Re-rolls for results of 1 or 2 at subsequent levels were a matter of course if not an official "rule change."
2. Encumbrance, after a time/when I was in a fairly experienced group, was basically ignored.
3. Ammo tracking was basically...overlooked...until it reached ridiculous proportions or we were in a "serious" big fight. "You guys haven't been in a settled community in six months...[to the archer ranger guy] how many arrows do you think you have left?" In one particular "Underdark" campaign, as I recall, this became a real issue and we had to reinstate "arrow counting." Sling stones was never a question...just assumed the any sling-user was occasionally noticing/picking up decent pebbles along the way.
4. At some point in 1e's reign, well before 2e, Racial level restrictions were out the door before it was even opened.
5. Weapons reach, speed and the Weapon types v. armor tables were ignored/not in play. Roll to hit. Add in your ability & magic bonuses as applicable. Roll damage if necessary. The extra levels of +/- weren't really needed or desired.
6. Spontaneous spell choosing (from spells you had in your spellbook) for arcane casters at 2 spell levels below your highest castable spell level: a 5th level mage gains access to 3rd level spells. You still have 4 first level spells [slots] available for the day, but you can choose them, as needed, instead of having to memorize at the beginning of the day. At 7th level, the MU gains 4th level spells, so 1st and 2nd level spells can be chosen as needed. This was to help put them en par with clerics who (until the clerical spells "Spheres of Influence" of 2e) could just pick any spells they wanted.
7. Following that, though I honestly don't recall when/how long, MUs could apply their Int. modifier to spells per day, the same as Clerics and Druids could with their Wisdom bonuses.
--7a. Shortly thereafter, the "spell tier" tracking system was instilled and instead of a 17 Wis. cleric/17 Int. mage getting auto-: 2 1st/2 2nd/1 3rd (or whatever it was in those days), we just said: "Your ability bonus is +3, you get 3 tier of spells extra per day. Whether you chose to use that for 3 extra 1st level spells, 1 1st and 1 2nd or 1 3rd level [tier] spell, each day, was up to the player.
8. Racial class restrictions were basically dashed, within the AD&D system anyway (race as class in B-X/BECM was fairly well respected), after the advent of Unearthed Arcana.
9. Also after 1e's UA, and particularly after Dragonlance's books and modules (with the introduction of "Draconians"), and "Spelljammer" (though I think we played ONE session of it), custom classes and monsters were all the rage for a while. Things pulled out of (or based on) stuff from TV, cartoons, comic books, other game systems, were all the rage there for a while. Let me see it...as long as it wasn't overpowered [we had no concern or conception of something called "Balance" then. You could be more powerful than other PCs, do/have abilities they didn't, but don't get too crazy/out of control], we had some kooky, but fun, creations that were, most assuredly, not in line with RAW.

On the flip side, one thing we never really questioned or had any arguments about was the idea of changing or eliminating alignment restrictions. Everything "made sense" as far as we were concerned and alignment simply stayed in play, as written, without problem.
 

AD&D attack rolls and AC. The system used before 2000 is by far the worst game mechanic I've ever seen.
The underlying math is actually completely solid. You just have to rearrange the individual factors a little bit and you are golden. Substract AD&D armor class from the number 20, and you can simply use d20 attack bonuses.
It's like someone had a simple two step system and then went through a lot of work to come up with very creative ways to use a much longer process to get the same result.

There is only one greater mystery in D&D than the fact this system stayed in use for 26 years And that is that even 14 years after everyone learned how much eaier it could be done, almost all OSR games still have it in their rulrs.
AS&SH is particulary funny, as each class actually has its bonus to Hit written down in the table for each class description. Then the game sends you to a completely different part of the book, wher you use just that number to look up your row in the attack matrix. Or instead, you just add the number to your d20 roll, together with your bous from Strength and magic weapons, which are already added just like in 3rd edition, and ignore the whole matrix entirely. All the conversion you have to do is to substract a monsters listed AC from 19. (Because it would have been way to easy to use base of 10 for unarmored enemies with no modifiers, if that could also be 9.)

I love the game. With that 1 second converion in place. How the game coild ever become popular with that terrible rule is something that I will never understand.
 


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