Favorite 4E Houserules

[Craft (Cheese)]

What are the best/coolest houserule you've seen around your 4E games? I don't really mean stuff like "you get improved defenses for free at level X", I wanna see some really out-there stuff.

My favorite I've seen so far is what I think was called the "fateful encounter." For certain encounters, specifically those encounters that were really important to one or more characters in particular, storywise (for example, a fight against that character's lifelong rival/nemesis), they get a pretty hefty power boost.

- All of their daily powers and resources, including healing surges, are refreshed at the beginning and the end of the encounter.

- They get three action points that last only for this encounter.

- You can spend action points to gain additional actions as many times as you want for the encounter, but only one per round.


It's really abusable, but I like the idea because it lets one player really shine for a moment that's really important to their character and, if they're into roleplay at all, them as well. It's also a great character and campaign-building aid, because if you want to take advantage of the fateful encounter system, you have to give your character a distinct set of motivations separate from those of the party as a whole, and it gives the DM a tool for weaving in that character's personal motivations for adventuring into the overall story. The downside is using the system this way means the character's motivation has to be resolved as a combat encounter, which can be a pretty difficult stretch sometimes. How would you fit in "I want to be a master violinist" or "I want to eat 100 tacos?"

Still though, it's a great idea in theory, and it's something I'd love to see smoothed over.

[The_Pyre]

For an arena game I'm in, all characters get a free Expertise feat at L5. Nothing fancy, but it fixes the math.

[Uruz2012]

2 things.

1) Allowing hybrid characters to take the hybrid talent feat more than once from only ONE of your classes. This opens up more viability where under the standard hybrid rules some classes end up totally gimped by their lack of class features.

2) Maybe not so much a house rule but a cool way of doing things. When our group was about to hit paragon we took 2 in-game years off. Each character got to have a really cool skill challenge montage of the events during the "break". My hybrid fighter/warden went on a journey alone in an elementally corrupted desert in search of a literally huge bulette. (I took the Earthshaker paragon) After an epic skill challenge battle which ended with the bulette charging and me planting my feet (Spiked Boots ftw) with a greatspear thus impaling it. I got to hack into it and devour it's heart; gaining it's power. Oh, and during the battle I got sprayed with it's blood and rolled through sand that bonded with my skin...

The whole group (4 players so it didn't take too long) got one of these epic story/skill challenges. Great opportunity to connect with our characters and get some roleplay into a pretty combat-heavy campaign.

[AsteriskAmp]

The downside is using the system this way means the character's motivation has to be resolved as a combat encounter, which can be a pretty difficult stretch sometimes. How would you fit in "I want to be a master violinist" or "I want to eat 100 tacos?"

Still though, it's a great idea in theory, and it's something I'd love to see smoothed over.
For the master violinist you could fluff a fight as a musical competition, only instead of damage you get improved public reception, if your character is musically inclined your powers will also tend toward that and you can have two violinist "dueling" over crowd reception.

[Kurald Galain]

My favorite houserule is banning some of the more abusive powers and feats, as well as not using skill challenges ever.

I find that the game plays better without the christmas tree effect, so I like using inherent bonuses and giving out almost no magical items. Other than that, I'm not a fan of the "free expertise and defense feats" houserule - I find that those feats are vastly overrated on forums.

[INDYSTAR188]

If you roll a natural 1 you automatically fail at whatever you're trying to do. Additionaly you grant an AoO to enemies able to take advantage. Depending on the epicness of the fail you might have something crazy happen too.

[The Troubadour]

When I use inherent bonuses, I like to give the various Master's Wands' power enhancements for free.

Also, instead of retraining for higher-level powers at levels 13, 15, 17, 19, 23, 25, 27 and 29, you simply learn the new powers of the appropriate type and keep the old ones. You can still use only a limited number of encounter and daily powers, and you can still use a single power once, but now you can choose them from an expanded list.

[DefKab]

It's not really a house'rule', and applies to more than 4th, but when I run a campaign, I make a note of enforcing three important things.

The first is importance. To me, PCs are heroes, known and renowned for their deeds even before play, so I make each player give me 1 reason why their character is important. This has ranged from being a backstabbing politician, to leading an All Warforged terrorist cell against the Gnomish Church. It gives a character history, and improves roleplay.

On top of the first note, I demand that each character makes an NPC as someone that they know, for good or bad. Things like their first mate on their custom submarine, or their daffy elvish love interest. I can then root these characters into my campaign, and if it deals with their Important Event, it's one of the best tugs I've seen.

And finally, I make the characters know each other. This, I believe, is straight out of the DMG... I go around the table, and each player chooses another player, and their characters form a relationship, whether for good, or for bad. Both players have to agree on the relationship, so a bitter hatred is planned out before hand. With this, everyone walks into the game knowing who they're playing with, their motivations, their past, and won't have surprises sprung on them like the Paladin's friend the Rogue being an evil prick...

That's my houserule though.

[Musco]

It's not a House Rule, just something I tried when we started 4th earlier this year (but that I intend to keep, I liked it), and it's not exclusive to 4th Edition, but what I did was have them make their characters and tell me a bit about it (even those guys that didn't know WHAT to talk about them yet).

Then, I made each of them a POV character (think A Song of Ice and Fire) and wrote a small, introductory chapter about them (4-6 pages), detailing how exactly they ended up on the road (based on what they had told me beforehand), so they'd have personal goals as individuals and no one would be able to "ride along" other players' stories, and how they ended up in the room where the campaign started, before a solo-interview with a Secretary of State.
I entwined those chapters, so some of them met others on the road and actually arrived together (so I "forced" them into smaller groups-inside-the-party, to prevent out-of-game friends from "teaming up" and closing themselves to the other players - the group was getting to know each other, I had played with almost all of them before, but they didn't necessarily play with each other), but took caution in making it happen near the start of the first session's spot, so they would be acquainted, but not close friends (with two exceptions).

So, when the first session started, I had them sitting together in a living room, and started calling them by the names to the Central Office, and they actually spontaneously started chatting in character in the living room, as one would leave and the other would enter, since some of them "knew" each other (from the stories), and the others were sitting in the same place, after all.

They also liked the introductory chapters a lot, started nagging me to write more pieces like those (though I think it wouldn't quite work, leaving stuff open is fine).

[Surrealistik]

I find that the game plays better without the christmas tree effect, so I like using inherent bonuses and giving out almost no magical items. Other than that, I'm not a fan of the "free expertise and defense feats" houserule - I find that those feats are vastly overrated on forums.

I hope you like losing out on those 1-2 feats then which you're inevitably going to take because they're too good not to by Paragon at latest.

As for my own favs:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=191041

[Katana_Geldar]

You can give up one square of forced movement in my game to slam something into a wall or tree for 1d6 damage.'

I also have abandoned the airy fairy rules of what makes a failed saving throw. A failed saving throw is a failed saving throw, no matter when it happens.

[surfarcher]

My favorite houserule is ... not using skill challenges ever.

As opposed to my favourite houserule where I am constantly using them out of combat. Without anyone ever noticing.

[tcrudisi]

I also have abandoned the airy fairy rules of what makes a failed saving throw. A failed saving throw is a failed saving throw, no matter when it happens.

I understand the logic for why it would work this way, I just dislike this houserule. I had a DM who used it and what we found is that we stopped using powers that granted saving throws. It forced us to do so after we ran into a monster that petrified you permanently when you failed a couple of saving throws. Literally it was "monster puts save ends on fighter, bard grants fighter a save which he fails, druid grants fighter a save which he fails ... fighter is now dead." Which was horribly unbalancing since the Fighter should have had two more turns before turning to stone, if we had not given him extra saves.

After that, I discovered the "when does a failed save count as a failed save?" rules and I find I enjoy that a lot more.

As for me, I rarely use house-rules of any sort. I've nerfed a couple of powers and that's it. (The only one that springs to mind is the Runepriest level 10 encounter which lets you create scrolls of healing. I only allow one to be made at any given time. This prevents the party from creating 30+ at the beginning of the day by the character with the second largest healing surge value and never worrying about healing again.)

[Kurald Galain]

As opposed to my favourite houserule where I am constantly using them out of combat. Without anyone ever noticing.

Well, it is telling that the SC system starts to break down as soon as players notice they are in one.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Well, it is telling that the SC system starts to break down as soon as players notice they are in one.

Well, if you divorce a set of rolls from the scene it's trying to describe, it just becomes a bunch of numbers. That can work if the numbers themselves are exciting and interesting, but skill challenges sorta aren't. When you're aware of a skill challenge it becomes "pick your highest skill on the list and roll for it" rather than thinking of the scene in terms of what your characters are actually doing.

[Kurald Galain]

When you're aware of a skill challenge it becomes "pick your highest skill on the list and roll for it" rather than thinking of the scene in terms of what your characters are actually doing.

Precisely my point; and if you're thinking of the scene (i.e. having one character's actions affect what another character can do) then you're not actually using the SC rules any more anyway. This is why I don't use them.

[Surrealistik]

Skill challenges are fine if they're reworked a little, and/or involve some kind of ongoing, 'real time' peril. I find they're at their best during a combat, with a time limit, or under lethal duress; essentially, you want to give the player more options and considerations than simply making the same skill check round after round.

[Reverent-One]

Well, if you divorce a set of rolls from the scene it's trying to describe, it just becomes a bunch of numbers. That can work if the numbers themselves are exciting and interesting, but skill challenges sorta aren't. When you're aware of a skill challenge it becomes "pick your highest skill on the list and roll for it" rather than thinking of the scene in terms of what your characters are actually doing.

Why would your character not do what they are best at? If you put a fighter, rogue, and wizard each in front of a locked door and put something they want on the other side, won't the fighter try to break it down, the rogue try to pick the lock, and the wizard try to use magic to open it?

[Craft (Cheese)]

Why would your character not do what they are best at? If you put a fighter, rogue, and wizard each in front of a locked door and put something they want on the other side, won't the fighter try to break it down, the rogue try to pick the lock, and the wizard try to use magic to open it?

There's a difference between that, and what skill challenges encourage:

DM: "Okay, you're in chains and brought before the high court minister. He begins to read the charg-"

Bard: "I roll for bluff!"

DM: "What? He hasn't even read the-"

Bard: "I got a 47! That meets the DC, right?"

DM: "Now hold on-"

Cleric: "I make a religion check! 39!"

Rogue: "I roll for Perception! 25!"

DM: "Fine! You're all convicted guilty! You're brought to the execution chamber and-"

Wizard: "Another skill challenge? I roll for Arcana! 43!"

DM: "Gah!"



Skill challenges encourage just thinking about the numbers and, at best, giving a reason why what you're trying could work after the fact. Ideally you should consider your character's actions, THEN decide what skill to roll for from that.

[Reverent-One]

How do the skill challenge rules encourage that when they say the exact opposite? They do, in fact, say that "you should consider your character's actions, THEN decide what skill to roll for from that".

[Craft (Cheese)]

How do the skill challenge rules encourage that when they say the exact opposite? They do, in fact, say that "you should consider your character's actions, THEN decide what skill to roll for from that".

It's because success or failure in the skill challenge depends on what you roll, not on what's actually going on in the scene. If you're aware that a skill challenge is taking place, you know that three failures no matter what will lead to failure in whatever it is you're trying to do, and four/eight/however many successes will lead to success, again, regardless of what it is you're actually doing in order to achieve this. Of course you can use DM fiat to fix this but if a system only works when you invoke rule 0...

[Reverent-One]

It's because success or failure in the skill challenge depends on what you roll, not on what's actually going on in the scene. If you're aware that a skill challenge is taking place, you know that three failures no matter what will lead to failure in whatever it is you're trying to do, and four/eight/however many successes will lead to success, again, regardless of what it is you're actually doing in order to achieve this. Of course you can use DM fiat to fix this but if a system only works when you invoke rule 0...

But it's what's going on in the scene that determines what you can roll. If the DM allows what happens in your example, rolling skills without the players determining what the characters are actually doing with those skills, then he is not following the skill challenge rules.

[Musco]

Sure he is, he's just opting NOT to force you to jump through some hoops to cheese your way out of it. Let me borrow Craft (Cheese)'s example:


There's a difference between that, and what skill challenges encourage:

DM: "Okay, you're in chains and brought before the high court minister. He begins to read the charg-"

Bard: "I roll for bluff!"

DM: "What? He hasn't even read the-"

Bard: "I got a 47! That meets the DC, right?" so I tell them they have got the wrong people

DM: "Now hold on-"

Cleric: "I make a religion check! 39!" I point out to the that they do not, in fact, have a proper priest of my faith to perform last rites, so by the law of the Gods, this trial has to be postponed, or I must be set free due to their neglecting of my religious freedom

Rogue: "I roll for Perception! 25!" do I notice something about his coat of arms, his clothes, his apparell or his appearance that can tell me where he's from, so I can try to find something he'll relate to and appeal to his humanity?

DM: "Fine! You're all convicted guilty! You're brought to the execution chamber and-" this is assuming the DM didn't let them justify their use of their skills and decided to punish them for no reason, of course

Wizard: "Another skill challenge? I roll for Arcana! 43!" I tell them that, under such circunstances as the Religion check pointed out, it's dangerous to execute us, since we'd probably bounce right off the Shadowfell and rise again as monsters, terrorizing the city, and they'd be to blame for such abominations being created

DM: "Gah!"

You see, unless the DM steps in and decides "no, sorry, that does not work" - and let's be honest, ANYTHING can work if you're good enough at fast-talking people (really, give me any situation and a Skill, and I can make the check work), bottom line is, "that does not work" is an arbitrary solution because the DM feels frustrated by the flaw inherent to the system -, it IS all about the numbers and ways to "force them in" a given situation.

[Reverent-One]

You see, unless the DM steps in and decides "no, sorry, that does not work" - and let's be honest, ANYTHING can work if you're good enough at fast-talking people (really, give me any situation and a Skill, and I can make the check work), bottom line is, "that does not work" is an arbitrary solution because the DM feels frustrated by the flaw inherent to the system -, it IS all about the numbers and ways to "force them in" a given situation.

In which case the problem is with having a skill system, and not the skill challenge, since the fast talking player could do the same thing with single skill checks.

[Reis Tahlen]

You see, unless the DM steps in and decides "no, sorry, that does not work" - and let's be honest, ANYTHING can work if you're good enough at fast-talking people (really, give me any situation and a Skill, and I can make the check work), bottom line is, "that does not work" is an arbitrary solution because the DM feels frustrated by the flaw inherent to the system -, it IS all about the numbers and ways to "force them in" a given situation.

Mmmh nope. Trying to Intimidate someone who's convinced he is truly more powerful than you, and sees no evidence to the contrary, should result in a failure. This is not frustration, nor arbitrary, it's part of the roleplaying process.

[Kurald Galain]

It's because success or failure in the skill challenge depends on what you roll, not on what's actually going on in the scene.
Precisely.


You see, unless the DM steps in and decides "no, sorry, that does not work" - and let's be honest, ANYTHING can work if you're good enough at fast-talking people (really, give me any situation and a Skill, and I can make the check work), bottom line is, "that does not work" is an arbitrary solution because the DM feels frustrated by the flaw inherent to the system -, it IS all about the numbers and ways to "force them in" a given situation.
QFT.

And yeah, I've seen many crazy skill uses. The most common ones are "I recall how <this task> was done in the past", "I pray to my god to help me perform <this task>" and "I use some kind of magic to perform <this task>", but I've also seen "I use heal to give my teammate a massage, making him better at <this task>".

It is obvious from the math that doing this gives you the best chance at success, which means that the rules directly encourage this behavior, and savvy players will pick up on this (and have picked up on this ever since 4E's first release).

[Kurald Galain]

Mmmh nope. Trying to Intimidate someone who's convinced he is truly more powerful than you, and sees no evidence to the contrary, should result in a failure. This is not frustration, nor arbitrary, it's part of the roleplaying process.

And indeed, Intimidate is well-known in LFR as the one skill that often cannot be used (or backfires) in social encounters. The result is that nobody trains it, and people use bluff or diplo instead.

[Reverent-One]

And yeah, I've seen many crazy skill uses. The most common ones are "I recall how <this task> was done in the past", "I pray to my god to help me perform <this task>" and "I use some kind of magic to perform <this task>", but I've also seen "I use heal to give my teammate a massage, making him better at <this task>".

It is obvious from the math that doing this gives you the best chance at success, which means that the rules directly encourage this behavior, and savvy players will pick up on this (and have picked up on this ever since 4E's first release).

And if the DM will allow that, then they should allow the same thing outside of a skill challenge. Which means the problem isn't the skill challenge.

[Musco]

It is. The problem is that the players, knowing the rules, realize that they are in a skill challenge, thus needing to get successes and avoid failing, and that it will directly impact their XP share and their current quest someway, so they will try their best to succeed. Quite different from, say, "I want to climb this tree and look to see if I can spot enemy scouts in the distance", which is a single, in-game and in-character situation translating into a skill check, for instance.

The IDEA that THOSE skill checks are inside a challenge, a challenge that they need to overcome to get a boon and gain XP, encourages the numeric thinking. I wouldn't pull those lame explanations if the situation wasn't described as a skill challenge (which the rules advise you to do), but rather would try to fast-talk them and think my way out of it, so even if I had 0 Charisma and was not trained in Bluff, given the chance, I would try to deny it were really us, thus having the DM ask me to roll for Bluff. Sure, some more skilled characters would pick this up and help me in the bluff, but in a skill challenge, this would be 1 success VS. 1 failure, which is a terrible trade-off, so I wouldn't even attempt it because of how the rules were thought of.

I actually do not use skill challenges, but rather go with skill checks derived from what they tell me they want to do, with appropriate modifiers (or auto-sucesses and auto-failures, depending on what they're doing/saying), and simply do a recap of what happened, some interesting and important moments out-of-combat, and award them XP for them, so they are not actively hunting for high skill checks, but rather playing the game and trying stuff that is different and/or fun.

[Musco]

Mmmh nope. Trying to Intimidate someone who's convinced he is truly more powerful than you, and sees no evidence to the contrary, should result in a failure. This is not frustration, nor arbitrary, it's part of the roleplaying process.


Sorry for the double-post, but the point above was more important, so I decided to do this one separately.

I agree with you in practice, but not in abstract. You could have an NPC be REALLY powerful. Way more than I was. And he KNEW it. I could still, very subtly, show him I knew where his family lived, his schedule and had a way to get to his infant children and defenseless wife (for example) when he was not in fact around to protect them. I'm pretty sure that even a badass would at least flinch a little when he realized this, which would be enough to say the check succeeded, depending on the situation and objective (like gain time or beat a skill challenge that requires X successes).

And I'm sure you'll agree that we actually see this all the time IRL. I work with some Judges and one of them was actually threatened like this a little while ago, and at the time it happened, she WAS a little shaken, even if she powered through it later (in game, the moment would have passed, though, and the Intimidate check would have been successful).

[Reverent-One]

It is. The problem is that the players, knowing the rules, realize that they are in a skill challenge, thus needing to get successes and avoid failing, and that it will directly impact their XP share and their current quest someway, so they will try their best to succeed. Quite different from, say, "I want to climb this tree and look to see if I can spot enemy scouts in the distance", which is a single, in-game and in-character situation translating into a skill check, for instance.

The IDEA that THOSE skill checks are inside a challenge, a challenge that they need to overcome to get a boon and gain XP, encourages the numeric thinking. I wouldn't pull those lame explanations if the situation wasn't described as a skill challenge (which the rules advise you to do), but rather would try to fast-talk them and think my way out of it, so even if I had 0 Charisma and was not trained in Bluff, given the chance, I would try to deny it were really us, thus having the DM ask me to roll for Bluff. Sure, some more skilled characters would pick this up and help me in the bluff, but in a skill challenge, this would be 1 success VS. 1 failure, which is a terrible trade-off, so I wouldn't even attempt it because of how the rules were thought of.

You mean if you're put in front of a magistrate and arguing your case with your life or freedom on the line while outside of a skill challenge, you're not going to try to use your best skills to get out of it?

[Musco]

Not really, no. I would think about what would my character do at that situation, and the most obvious solution would be to try a bluff first, almost immediately (hipotehtically speaking, depending on the situation per se other venues might be more obvious, but let's assume not, for now).

As I said, assuming the whole party was there, even if I botched the other guys would pick up the idea and roll with it, so someone with a better Bluff score could pick up the ball and keep the conversation going, it's not like it'd go "it wasn't us" "off with their heads!" "slash!" if they're giving us the chance to talk in the first place.

The problem IS on the skill challenge system itself, since it basically gives you this closed system and asks of you "succeed in X checks before you fail 3 checks, or you're screwed", so you have to go numeric in order to overcome it (or just go through the boring "we roll X skill Y times", depending on the challenge). Of course the situation above is not THAT different, but it's not in a closed system, so it's not "if I fail 3 checks, I'm getting the noose", it's more like "if I can't wriggle myself out of this one, I'm getting the noose", which you have to admit is waaaaay different, game-wise.

[surfarcher]

How about we all just move minis about and "blam blam" each other? Won't that be great roleplaying?

No.

How about if we sit there and pick out our best skills and use them regardless of the scene? Won't that be great roleplaying?

No.

Here's an idea.

Let us present a situation to our players, a situation with an objective the PCs have bought into, but with obstacles to that objective. Conflict. Let us now see how the PCs try to resolve the situation.

As arbitrator and interpreter I get to decide what's appropriate and what isn't...

DM: OK Demogorgon appears before you, barring the way. Demogrgon says "You may not pass without the fu of bar!"
Heroic Fighter: I use Intimidate!

All we need then is a mechanic for measuring progress and relative success...

Oh wait!

[Bearpunch]

The one thing our group really likes doing (on the occasion we play 4e) is what I like to call the "Critical Critical System" or the "20 again system".

When a player rolls a 20, all standard 4e rules apply, but the player (or monster) gets to roll the attack again, if it hits (like confirming a crit in 3.5), you add the primary modifier that aids the attack again, and any secondary effects are boosted (you push two squares, instead of one, etc.)

If you roll another 20 (it has happened), the above applies, and you get to reconfirm your hit, allowing for some truly brutal attacks and flourishes.

Yes, its a little unbalanced, but it is really fun to get three or four lucky strikes against the big bad at a pivotal point in the battle. Feels great and makes combat ever so slightly faster.

Also, skill challenges are more along the lines of "Okay, you're boned, what do you do?" and figure it out from there kind of thing, I feel it works better than the set number the book asks for.

EXP also does not matter in the slightest (except for building encounters), and the palyers level up every two or three games. Sometimes four, if there is an especially short adventure.

Most of my house rules are a little lazy, I'll admit, but everyone in the group enjoys them.

[Acora]

When using a ranged attack, if an ally is between you and your target and you roll a three or less, you hit the ally. The chance to hit allies increases as the number of allies between you and the enemy increases.

[Reverent-One]

Not really, no. I would think about what would my character do at that situation, and the most obvious solution would be to try a bluff first, almost immediately (hipotehtically speaking, depending on the situation per se other venues might be more obvious, but let's assume not, for now).

Even if you know you suck at lying? Your character wouldn't try to use their best talents?


The problem IS on the skill challenge system itself, since it basically gives you this closed system and asks of you "succeed in X checks before you fail 3 checks, or you're screwed", so you have to go numeric in order to overcome it (or just go through the boring "we roll X skill Y times", depending on the challenge). Of course the situation above is not THAT different, but it's not in a closed system, so it's not "if I fail 3 checks, I'm getting the noose", it's more like "if I can't wriggle myself out of this one, I'm getting the noose", which you have to admit is waaaaay different, game-wise.

Not really, either you succeed and good stuff happens, or you fail and bad stuff happens. Either way you have incentive to succeed, either way the mathematically best way to succeed is use your best skill if you can.

[Nyes the Dark]

2 in particular, both from the same group:

The Heroic Action, which is also known as the Action Movie point. Like an Action Point, but it also allows you to do things you normally couldn't, like cast multiple spells at once, or make a huge charge and just knock everything down along the way. It is a guarenteed success, but you roll to determine effectiveness, the higher the better. It sounds broken, and it probably is, but when you spend it, you don't regain it next session, or after a rest. It can go several sessions before you get it back, so you definitely need to plan on your use.

Another rule we use is that enemies can use Action Points after we use them. This is actually good in the meta sense, because it encourages being miserly with Action Points, which is preferred for me. Someone wastes a point redoing an attack just to finish a RE quicker. Surprise, the BBEG gets 3 tries with his Daily now! Hope you didn't like that character!

[Lokk]

You can give up one square of forced movement in my game to slam something into a wall or tree for 1d6 damage.'


My group does something like this as well, instead of giving up a square we do 1d4 for every square you would move into a solid object.

Edit: Dug out the full rule, 1d4 per square of forced movement into a solid object. other players and npcs are treated as "semi solid" objects and the damage is split between the two.

If the movement is 3+ squares save or be knocked prone, if the movement is more than 5 squares save or be dazed(save ends). If the movement is into another player or npc, both must save.

We also changed the way saves work as the effects never lasted more than 2-3 rounds. The difficulty of a save is determined by the natural roll of the attack that applies it. 2-10 difficulty is 10, 11+ sets the difficulty at that number (1s auto fail in our game). This makes abilities that give bonuses to saves actually useful.

Generally we find changes like this help out controllers and leaders and make it so we don't end up with leader, defender and everyone else playing a striker.

[The Troubadour]

We also changed the way saves work as the effects never lasted more than 2-3 rounds. The difficulty of a save is determined by the natural roll of the attack that applies it. 2-10 difficulty is 10, 11+ sets the difficulty at that number (1s auto fail in our game).

...Stunning effects must be truly deadly in your game, then.


This makes abilities that give bonuses to saves actually useful.

Actually, they'd be pretty much either obligatory (you'd need, say, a +4 bonus just to reduce the DC 14 to a slightly better than even chance of succeeding) or useless (what's the point of a +4 for a single roll when the DC is, say, 20)?

[Lokk]

...Stunning effects must be truly deadly in your game, then.


Actually, they'd be pretty much either obligatory (you'd need, say, a +4 bonus just to reduce the DC 14 to a slightly better than even chance of succeeding) or useless (what's the point of a +4 for a single roll when the DC is, say, 20)?


They can be but aren't always remember it's only the raw roll that determines the difficulty no pluses, so yeah if they roll a natural 20 you're boned, but that's the point. They rolled a natural 20 you should be boned. Most of the time it just ends up being in the mid teens though.

Also Id say an extra 20% is a fairly huge deal when your normal odds are 5%. I'll take 1/4 over 1/20 any day.

[Sipex]

I use a variation of the forced movement into an object rule except it's 1d10 damage per two squares (essentially falling rules but horizontally based instead).

[kieza]

I've mentioned it before, but I love my Plot Points houserule.

Every character enters the campaign with one Plot Point. They can get extra plot points at the start of the campaign by:

-Crafting a detailed background which ties into the campaign setting.
-Allowing the DM to add aspects to their background.
-Allowing the DM to add aspects to their background without being told what they are. (This counts for two.)

During the campaign, a character can get a Plot Point by:

-Roleplaying well. (Plot Points replace roleplaying XP in my campaigns.)
-Doing anything, in combat or out, which makes the DM go "Wow!"
-Being voted MVP by the players and DM at the end of a session.

A character can spend Plot Points during the campaign to:

-Introduce a new NPC in a position to help them.
-Add a character trait to an NPC, which does not contradict established fact.
-Add a prop or feature to a scene, which does not contradict established fact.
-Cause some event to occur in the "background" of the setting*.

Of course, all of this is subject to DM approval, but I encourage DMs to be lenient and work with the players when they want to spend a Plot Point.



*I've seen players use this option between adventures to introduce a new lieutenant for the villain, complete with the bare-bones framework for his evil plot. I worked up an adventure involving him before the next session and ran it, and the players agreed, it was awesome.

The specification for the villain was "A tragic villain, who started working for his boss in order to earn a favor that would undo his greatest mistake. His boss has put him to work producing war materiel in a hidden factory, which we have just learned about."

I wrote up the villain as a high elf serving the BBEG, an ascendant Lord of Faerie, in order to use the BBEG's resources to find and destroy a construct which he had created and accidentally bound his apprentice's soul into. His maddened apprentice went on a rampage possessing the golem, and managed to escape through a crossing into the Realm of Faerie. The BBEG put him to work creating golems for his war effort, which will supposedly eventually earn him some help fixing his mistake, but both this villain and the BBEG know that the only way he will ever earn the BBEG's unbegrudging assistance is by duplicating the accident which bound his apprentice into a golem.

[androkguz]

One of my house rules is something I call relative size:

If a group of PCs of a certain level, lets say 10, would run into a monster that is very far away from their level, lets say lvl 3 or level 20, then I "rescale" the monster so that it's level is increased or reduced to be closer to the party's level, but it's monster category is readjusted so that the monster still has the same XP value. Hence, a young white dragon (lvl 3 solo) becomes a lvl 7 elite, or a lvl 11 standard monster (or a lvl 19 minion). Likewise, the lvl 19 standard monster becomes a lvl 11 solo monster.
Their abilities have to be revised: when you level up, you remove attacks and keep only the most important; when leveling down, you add extra attacks and auras, but always keeping the sensation that this is the same monster, it is just that from your low level he is so skilled that it seems like he attacks more, or that the blades he has are moving so fast that they are like a damaging aura that you just can't dodge at this level.

I'm also thinking that perhaps multiple low level minions can eventually become a single higher level swarm monster.

This allows my players to run into monsters of any level that is appropiate for where and when they are, without the fear of being oneshot by a high level standard. It also allows me to place the monsters as I feel there would be in the area, not just as it would be level apropiate.

[DiscipleofBob]

Quickened Rest - Situation: You're chasing a baddie through some streets somewhere. He sics some of his guards on you. You fight off some of the guards and manage to resume the chase. Then you fight said baddie. Now clearly you did not get enough of a chance for a Short Rest and you might be down some encounters and Second Winds. That's hardly fair. A Quickened Rest is for when whatever reason you don't have time to take a tea break between combats. 1. You can't freely spend healing surges as you could during a Short Rest. 2. If you still have your Second Wind and/or healing powers such as Healing Word left from the previous encounter, you may use those now to heal yourself. 3. You regain all encounter powers, including any Second Winds or healing powers spent (doesn't mean you get to use them again though.)

Also, I haven't tried this one out yet, but I like the idea of the players eventually being able to learn more than one power per level. There are umpteen powers per level, why not learn more of them? Then they can switch between them during extended rests somewhat similar to a Wizard's Spellbook. It would convince some players to try out the powers that are only good for various specific situations.

[androkguz]

Also, I haven't tried this one out yet, but I like the idea of the players eventually being able to learn more than one power per level. There are umpteen powers per level, why not learn more of them? Then they can switch between them during extended rests somewhat similar to a Wizard's Spellbook. It would convince some players to try out the powers that are only good for various specific situations.

I would like to double the amount of utility powers that players get, encouraging them to get non-combat powers.
Also, maybe creating a feat that works similar to Ritual Casting, but instead of using arcana, religion and nature, it uses Streetwise, Dungeoneering and Diplomacy and instead of giving you access to rituals, it gives you access to contacts and allies.

[Fallbot]

You can give up one square of forced movement in my game to slam something into a wall or tree for 1d6 damage.'


We do this.

We also have an "If you roll a critical hit and also roll max damage, you get to add half your damage again to the total" rule, which we apply whenever we remember/think it would be cool.
(We use Maptool macros for attacks so damage is always rolled, even in the case of a critical where it's redundant)

[Democratus]

I've been working on mechanics to avoid the "15-minute workday". So I further entice my players to continue playing by offering more rewards.

Re-roll Points:
Much like action points, each milestone also gives a character a re-roll point (we use red poker chips). This can be spent to cause a re-roll of any dice roll that affects the character, whether it be something they are doing or something that is being done to them.

RP Action Points
If a player comes up with something clever, fun, or otherwise cool I give them an additional action point (we use white poker chips). This can also be a good way for me to silently hint when someone is on the right track when figuring something out. "Maybe it's actually Tiamat who is behind this. I check with the cleric to see if this makes sense." (DM hands player a chip).

No limit on Action Point spending
In any encounter, players are free to spend as many action points as they like. This means they can use the rewards from above and encourages them to try and earn them. One side effect is that the party is very deadly at the start of many encounters, as they spend multiple action and re-roll points. This just allows me to make the encounters bigger while giving the players the satisfaction of kicking a lot of butt at the start of a combat.

Sudden Minion Syndrome
Battles can sometimes take a long time in 4th, even when you've reached the point where it is obvious the players are going to win. If we reach this point during combat - or if the players start to look fatigued - I will have my monsters start to die on the next hit, essentially turning them into minions for the rest of the battle.

[Sipex]

I would like to double the amount of utility powers that players get, encouraging them to get non-combat powers.

This is actually a house rule I use in one of my games. It allows the party to choose a second utility power but the power must not primarily be combat focused (although having combat applications can't be helped). They have to check with me when doing this so I check their selection to ensure they haven't taken anything blatantly combat focused (Healing HP, increasing attack/damage/defenses mostly). Works out really well.