Houserules: Good for measuring houses

[Crystalwind]

I presume most people who read this comic (and therefore most people who visit this forum) have, at least at some point, played the game that it follows the rules of. But, like all D&D players, I find the normal rules to have a few issues, and what's the point of having a DM if they don't get to make some decisions that the book doesn't tell them to make? Hence, houserules are born.

This thread is a place to discuss yours, perhaps offer advice on others, and generally talk about ow much more fun it is when characters can make fortitude saves to shrug off their need for sleep. Homebrew classes, monsters and such may go here, but personally I'd recommend a new thread for major HB stuff.

So, I'll go first. Here are some that I implement:

• Since fighting classes tend to be underpowered at higher levels, I like to make Concentration checks occur more often so as to make spellcasting classes have a harder time at close range.
  
• In some of my more casual campaigns, I like to follow some variety of a "no instant KO" rule, where characters who've been conscious for a certain number of turns are resistant to being knocked from consciousness to death. For example, if a character at 3 HP is dealt 17 damage, usually they'll just drop to -9, giving other characters a chance to save them. However, if they're saved by being healed to to 9 HP and then dealt 24 damage, they'll die.
  
• In general, I like to be more generous around instant death. Spells that cause instant death may have a slight delay so they can be dispelled, might be easier to resist, or might not quite kill the target, although this isn't always the case.
• Since I've never liked the idea of humans being the "base" race and the most diverse one, I like to give them a stat bonus (usually charisma, since most other races tend to have race-wide grudges held against them) a stat penalty, a usual alignment, and sometimes a favoured class.
  

There are some others, but those are some of the first to come to mind. Feel free to drop by here and leave yours!

[rogonandi]

One of the Human race houserules I give my players is that they get to choose a skill they treat as a class skill rather than cross-class. I do this in keeping with how D&D states that humans are adaptable (and often like to learn things when it's weird for them to.) However, it doesn't mean the character can disable traps like a Rogue can if they decide to put their free class skill into Disable Device.

[Grue]

When it comes to races, what usually happened was three things:
1. Shift Humans from player race to monster race.
2. Combine all Elves (including Half Elves) into one race called Elf
3. Rename Half Orcs to something different (Suborcian was the last one)

[Crystalwind]

Another houserule I've tried once is rewarding non-metagaming roleplaying through giving "determination bonuses" for actions that a character has a good in-character reason for doing, but which the player recognizes as being a bad decision. It'll take a while to explain, so I'll give an example:

Aasaramodesuar Dragontooth the Great, a NE sorcerer, decides to just for kicks steal from Baldinarios Karthikasura, Crusher of All, a CN barbarian. In the middle of the night, Aasaramodesuar Dragontooth the Great goes after a tusk from a dire boar that Baldinarios Karthikasura, Crusher of All slew. Aasaramodesuar Dragontooth the Great gets no bonus when trying to steal the tusk because he has no reason in-character, but his player's angry at Baldinarios Karthikasura, Crusher of All's player, and they come up with a shoddy excuse and it happens.

In the morning, Baldinarios Karthikasura, Crusher of All finds the tusk missing in the morning. Cornaliharutan'shoth Vocablurad, Servant of the Thousandth Sun, a CG cleric, notices that Aasaramodesuar Dragontooth the Great has the tusk, but decides to claim to be the one who did it so that they can try to end the whole mess without Aasaramodesuar Dragontooth the Great and Baldinarios Karthikasura, Crusher of All growing to be enemies, which means getting the tusk back secretly and returning it, since Aasaramodesuar Dragontooth the Great won't. Now, OOC, there's no reason for Cornaliharutan'shoth Vocablurad, Servant of the Thousandth Sun to risk their neck for a thief, but they do it anyway, so they get an extreme bonus to the Bluff check.

However, in the end, when Cornaliharutan'shoth Vocablurad, Servant of the Thousandth Sun and Aasaramodesuar Dragontooth the Great try to negotiate for the tusk, Horanu Sehativul Shatterbark of Darkelm, LN druid, overhears it, and, despite the fact that telling Baldinarios Karthikasura, Crusher of All would accomplish nothing OOC, they do anyway because they feel he deserves to know. They get a bonus to their Diplomacy check to make it seem reasonable... But it's not quite enough. Baldinarios Karthikasura, Crusher of All goes berserk and kills Aasaramodesuar Dragontooth the Great. Normally, I wouldn't give XP for killing another PC without them actually being on the enemy's side for some reason, but both Baldinarios Karthikasura, Crusher of All (because he did the killing for a good reason in-character in retaliation for an attack due to OOC stuff) and Sehativul Shatterbark of Darkelm (because she caused in-party conflict because of in-character morals) get some XP for the act, and there's less of a cost when Cornaliharutan'shoth Vocablurad, Servant of the Thousandth Sun raises Aasaramodesuar Dragontooth the Great from the death despite the fact that Aasaramodesuar Dragontooth the Great's player had already lost interest in the character and had stated they weren't going to come back.

Obviously, when possible, in-story rewards are the best way to promote this (for example, the failed Raise Dead attempt making the Dragontooth family more sympathetic), but I like to give them a bit of a numerical advantage because really, you're going to be a lot more devoted to a fight when the enemy's the man who destroyed your village than when they're some random monster you came across in the wilderness.

[grogg]

I've been meaning to respond here for a while.  There are a bunch of house rules I use.  Most of them are minor things but the big ones are:

1)  Ranged combatants don't have to track mundane ammo.  I don't feel like slowing down a plodding combat system even more by worrying about how full their quiver is.  All I ask is that an archer drop a few gold when they get back to town to "replenish" their supply of arrows.

2)  Death, level loss, magic item creation results in an XP Debt rather than XP Loss.  This eliminates de-leveling, power loss and all sorts of annoying things.  New XP is split in half between paying off the debt and leveling up.  

3)  As a DM, I firmly believe that awesome trumps rules.  So if you want your character to leap off the top of the wall and drive his spear into the back of the rampaging monster below, try it.  I'll do my best to help your character pull it off.  

4)  I'm sure there was one other thing I wanted to put but I can't remember it, now.  It obviously isn't important.  

[rogonandi]

Apr 17, 2014 13:26:20 GMT grogg said:

I've been meaning to respond here for a while.  There are a bunch of house rules I use.  Most of them are minor things but the big ones are:

1)  Ranged combatants don't have to track mundane ammo.  I don't feel like slowing down a plodding combat system even more by worrying about how full their quiver is.  All I ask is that an archer drop a few gold when they get back to town to "replenish" their supply of arrows.

2)  Death, level loss, magic item creation results in an XP Debt rather than XP Loss.  This eliminates de-leveling, power loss and all sorts of annoying things.  New XP is split in half between paying off the debt and leveling up.  

3)  As a DM, I firmly believe that awesome trumps rules.  So if you want your character to leap off the top of the wall and drive his spear into the back of the rampaging monster below, try it.  I'll do my best to help your character pull it off.  

4)  I'm sure there was one other thing I wanted to put but I can't remember it, now.  It obviously isn't important.  

1. Unless the ammo itself is special in some way (magic in a different way than the bow etc) I don't count ammo either.

2. When I was playing with human players rather than writing this comic, if a character dies I usually just gave them an EXP penalty rather than forcing them back an entire level. This softened the blow of catching up to the other players somewhat. Also, the amount of diamonds needed to raise the dead was quite a bit less (1500 GP instead of 5000 GP for raise dead.)

3. I wasn't quite that permissive, but natural 20s and natural 1s can produce some pretty dramatic results. There was one instance where a player of mine rolled 3 natural 20's in a row. What happened afterword was that he sheathed his weapon, calmly walked up to the monster, lifted it over his head, and threw it out of the atmosphere into the stars of outer space where it exploded in a nuclear-level blast.

[Crystalwind]

Apr 17, 2014 13:26:20 GMT grogg said:

I've been meaning to respond here for a while.  There are a bunch of house rules I use.  Most of them are minor things but the big ones are:

1)  Ranged combatants don't have to track mundane ammo.  I don't feel like slowing down a plodding combat system even more by worrying about how full their quiver is.  All I ask is that an archer drop a few gold when they get back to town to "replenish" their supply of arrows.

2)  Death, level loss, magic item creation results in an XP Debt rather than XP Loss.  This eliminates de-leveling, power loss and all sorts of annoying things.  New XP is split in half between paying off the debt and leveling up.  

3)  As a DM, I firmly believe that awesome trumps rules.  So if you want your character to leap off the top of the wall and drive his spear into the back of the rampaging monster below, try it.  I'll do my best to help your character pull it off.  

4)  I'm sure there was one other thing I wanted to put but I can't remember it, now.  It obviously isn't important.  

1. Yeah, that seems to be a popular rule. I follow it partially because it's convenient and partially because combat classes need all the advantages they can get against magic classes to keep the game balanced, and combat classes have a major advantage range-wise.
   
2. I should really try this out. It makes things skills and feats and such less weird. "Hey, you used to speak Celestial! What gives?" "I got hit by a a Wight."
   
3. I'm never quite sure what to do about players trying awesome things, personally. On one hand, it seems like it would be a lot more fun, but on the other hand, it seems like it could also be a bit unbalanced. If you made it work, congratulations.
   
4. There was this one time a player tried to give their character some mental disorder (don't remember what it was) specifically to get away with not remembering stuff. Since then, I've been thinking about giving characters a forgetfulness score that goes up every time they forget something really major or down every time they remember a really minor detail, and then using it to determine if their characters forgets stuff that the player remembers. It would have the plus side of giving me the chance to stop extreme metagaming. "But only Greater Shadows have Spring Attack! "Nope, sorry. Your character doesn't remember that Shadows aren't that nimble."
   

[rogonandi]

There was this one time a player tried to give their character some mental disorder (don't remember what it was) specifically to get away with not remembering stuff. Since then, I've been thinking about giving characters a forgetfulness score that goes up every time they forget something really major or down every time they remember a really minor detail, and then using it to determine if their characters forgets stuff that the player remembers. It would have the plus side of giving me the chance to stop extreme metagaming. "But only Greater Shadows have Spring Attack! "Nope, sorry. Your character doesn't remember that Shadows aren't that nimble."

I don't know why, but I think players who tell the DM what abilities the monsters are supposed to have are just adorable. It's almost like they're the ones running the game! Hehehe!

[grogg]

I've had it happen a few times were players have reminded me of a monsters ability only for the battle to suddenly swing against them. I've also taken things players have said and ran with them, building entire adventures/encounters off of them. Never ask the dragon to pass the hot sauce.

I remembered #4! Natural 1's in combat are automatic misses. Roll 1d20. If you roll poorly something horrible may happen. If you roll well something awesome. I implemented that rule because there was one session I had were a player seemed to alternate between natural 1's and natural 20's. So I just started making things up. "You missed this bandit but in your back swing you hit the bandit behind you. Give me a bluff check to pull off a 'I meant to do that' look".

[Crystalwind]

Players are soooo cute when they're certain about how anything should work. I always feel sorry for them when they discover the hard way that kobolds have been balanced for them. While, briefly. Until their entire party is killed and they make a new one consisting entirely of kobolds.

Also, I remembered about another one of my rules: Fireballs are waaaay different in enclosed spaces. Not only does it generate smoke (well, if it hits someone, because it has to have something to burn) which is a major pain, and if the growth's limited in one direction, it expands in the others... So if you cast a fireball in a 5-foot-wide and 5-foot-tall corridor, your entire party will hate you, even if they survive the burns and the blinding amounts of smoke.

[DSmaster21]

I don't really have houserules more like unspoken player house-sanction. Some of my players more than others.

Player 1: Cross-dressing is only allowed up to a point. This player likes to play simpler characters like barbarians and fighters and then try to use his subpar -3 CHA bonus and no ranks in Disguise, Bluff or Diplomacy to seduce NPCs of both genders. Anyone he does seduce, on the rare times that he beats anyone's sense motive, he knocks out and pickpockets. Interesting and kinda of a creepy sort of quirky but as long as he does not go into any detail on how he wants to go about these situations I let it pass.

Player 2: Careful. This player actually reads the rules and actually tries to come up with new characters with different motivations and decent role-playing potential as well as usefulness in combat. However although this player is almost a perfect player balancing both RP and Combat he does too good a job as some players can easily fade into the background.

Player 3: Speak up. This player is very willing to try new things and has a great time in combat encounters but he is kind of shy when it comes to being part of RP encounters. If he would jump into character more often it would be great.


Player 4: Show up and try to run ideas by me first. This player was one of the few of us who had a job and his workplace had a bit of a lack of labor so he was doing really random hours so he might play for a couple of hours on a day he said he would be free and then go to work. He played a bard and since then no one has ever offered to play one because they saw that all he was doing was giving them bonuses which they thought would be boring because I didn't want to mess with his character too much. He offered to run a session which he created characters for based on this thing called Corruption of Champions or something. It got kind of awkward. And I had declared pre-session that this would be canon and part of my campaign world to support him.

Player 5: Bland Paladins. Not to be mean to this player or anything but she played paladins and only paladins. Her paladins never joined in the RP and all her combat was spent standing in the frontlines taking the occasional back and forth attack.

Player 6: Read the Rules. Just Ugh. This player causes in 99% of my frustrations. I have literally handed him the player's handbooks said "read it" have him hand it back two weeks later and say that he didn't feel like reading it. This has happened for every game system we have ever tried. He never remembers what to use for X power he has. He played a rogue with a Dex of 13 and Strength 17. He forgot to put points into stealth and when the other rogue snuck past and he got caught so he threw a tantrum. He tried to DM and claimed that the rules were boring so he would just make it up as he went along. He threw a lich (Straight out the MM) at us in 2 out of the 3 sessions he DMed (We were level three). The lich fled when we beat its minions. I then asked if I could use our characters in a non-canon session and he let me so I threw the lich at us and it cast maximized fireball and we all died.

[Crystalwind]

May 4, 2014 20:23:43 GMT DSmaster21 said:

Player 6: Read the Rules. Just Ugh. This player causes in 99% of my frustrations. I have literally handed him the player's handbooks said "read it" have him hand it back two weeks later and say that he didn't feel like reading it. This has happened for every game system we have ever tried. He never remembers what to use for X power he has. He played a rogue with a Dex of 13 and Strength 17. He forgot to put points into stealth and when the other rogue snuck past and he got caught so he threw a tantrum. He tried to DM and claimed that the rules were boring so he would just make it up as he went along. He threw a lich (Straight out the MM) at us in 2 out of the 3 sessions he DMed (We were level three). The lich fled when we beat its minions. I then asked if I could use our characters in a non-canon session and he let me so I threw the lich at us and it cast maximized fireball and we all died.

Oh man. Players who don't know the rules are hilarious, but get old really fast. I have this one who's been playing a sorcerer for years, and still forgets that sorcerers only know certain spells. I have another who always tries to make characters that don't actually fit into any real races or classes, and all have these overpowered special abilities. Though, all things considered, they're not quite as bad as the players who are always rules-lawyering and complaining about the DM giving a +3 bonus instead of a +2 for odd modifiers.

[grogg]

May 5, 2014 0:13:32 GMT Crystalwind said:

To be honest, there's something I enjoy about playing with people that don't know the rules.  They're always willing to try new things.  Yea, they may not be "optimal" but I find that everyone has more fun at the table.  And, of course, you don't have to deal with all the rule lawyering.  

[DSmaster21]

May 5, 2014 16:29:39 GMT grogg said:

Rules Lawyers are one thing.* And I agree that interesting things can happen with players who don't know the rules but I think you really mean newer players. For older players it occurs for 3 reasons: 1: It is laziness and refusal to learn them or devote their own time to the group. 2: (My player's case) A much more abominable form I call the reverse rules lawyer, willfully not learning the rules so as to insist on using your own. My player many times would state that a rule that I was using in my favor was no longer a rule for our games, This included things like my character no longer being allowed class features that were inconvenient. His basis for these decisions were that he did not remember "that" from when he read the rules. (Hint: he never actually read the rules despite borrowing my book for 3 weeks) 3 Other, This form is benevolent or unintentional, the player grows too busy to go over the rules to keep them fresh. This form can lead to no longer being part of the group despite the lack of poor intentions. One of my players can no longer come to games and that is okay, if he is free we would love for him to come back but if you are tired, cranky and forgetful when we game it can ruin the game for both you and us.


*(I will freely admitting to being one mostly because I mostly dm but love to play so I make DMPCs but I make them suboptimal and rather bland flavorwise so as to not overshadow my players. So when I can play the cheese comes out which leads to DM frustration in some [but not all] cases as some DMs don't have the focus or willingness to read the rules to be able to challenge me. This leads to DMs refusing to let me play which leads me to DM which leads to me burning out because I feel bored which leads me to try to find groups that will let me play. And the cycle continues. This is why I have to build flavorful characters from the ground up which I can never balance between their gimmicks and traits versus their playability.)