House rules

[scurv]

I'm am wondering what other house rules that people use. And why they use them. Keep it civil please. As a note these are disclosed to the players before hand. And Most of them have drama behind them.
<<<Edit>>>2nd edition with skills and power <<<edit>>>

Char Generation
1> If you need to fudge a stat to play a class, That is acceptable, But my price is you need a background story to explain it.
1A> But thou shall not fudge a stat to enable a munchkin/powergaming builds. (A fine line I know) Unless it is that type of campaign.

2> If you wish to play a cool race/class. Provide me with the source material.
2A> After providing the source material I will need a background story

3>Classes with alignment restrictions, Codes of conduct need to be approved by the DM before the first session.
3A> Said players get to have a one on one session just to make sure the DM does not need to defrock a paladin later for blatant stupidity. ((As a note Seldom has it been an issue worthy of a flamethread))

4A> Having more then one char is a privilege, Not a right As of recently heal bots are banned And if you do have two chars unless they are twins or special in some way they are not linked at the mind. And They will not just loan stuff to each other

5> Party balance is the party's responsibility. I am not fond of DMPC's. I dislike DMPC clerics, I loath DMPC rogues and warriors and I detest DMPC's as in having to play more then one
5A> DMPC has the same loot rights as the rest of the PC's Keep that in mind when class planing

6> Background storys not provided when requested is a blank signed check for the DM to have fun with



Before we begin

1> Keep the meta gaming on the down-low please.
2> If you are asked at this point to make some rolls for a roll bank, Please understand that DM is still in DM prep time.
3> Be ready to make copies of your char sheets if the dm asks (We have a small photo copier)
4> Know what you are taking for char traits feats and the like. And I encourage you to take flaws that I can and will use as a plot hook.(Again provide background story)
5> There will be a sheet with what is for sale in town if the group is there. Now would be a good time to do your shopping. Listed price is the listed price. And do your shopping with out bothering the DM or wasting party action/rp time.

While playing

1> Alignment is a guide, As as long as you remain internally consistent with how you play your char, For how you see them aligned Things will most likely be good.
1A> Alignments tend to have two parts. A lawful/neutral/chaos axis, And a Good/neutral/evil. It is on the players to keep those in mind
1B> Chaos is not evil. Cold blooded murder is evil. Being chaotic is not an excuse.
1c> If you are lawful good, and the laws in the land are evil. Then be advised that following an evil law is not protection from the alignment impact of performing an evil act. Paladins be warned.
1d> As a note for paladins, Cha is a prime stat for paladins for a reason. The reason is for them to lead by example. Do so.

2> The players from time to time will be given sheets of papers with written descriptions of what they see, If you loose it, you forgot it.

3> Players have the right to plot behind the DM's back, But on this note, Monsters and npcs are played intelligently.

4> In char conflict stays at the table

5> Unless you can fight nicely, Real life conflict stays out of the game ( I play with siblings so it adds a whole layer of dynamic sometimes to the roleplay)
5A> If your real life persona does not differ from your in-game persona Then saying you are role-playing is not an excuse for being a D-bag.

6> Be attentive to the game
6A> If you can not be attentive, do not be a distraction
6B> Share the spot light sometimes.

7> Karma (in the western contest of the word)exists in this game world, Keep that in mind before passive aggressiveness that leads to the death of another PC

8> Mind controlling spells ( Charm anyone )and abilities are Banned from the PC's and the DM does not wish to deal with them ether.

9>exotic races will face exotic challenges and reactions.

10> The party is no longer permitted to loot their fallen comrades unless it is a cutthroat evil campaign. (Recent needed change)

11> Just because the encounter is there, that does not mean you are able to take it, A gather information check can find you a dragon to slay at level 1.
11a> EXP can be awarded for avoiding a challenge
11b> Scout and appraise before attacking.

12> I personally detest social rolls, My npc's will not use them to influence player actions (Roleplay is used for that) Players are advised to return the favor. As a note the same standards to declare what the social roll is for, Is about on par for the standards of communication needed for effective roleplay to influence said npc ( This can be graded on a very generous curb if need be The player need not be good at it. simply try)

Post Session

1> DM tallys exp, And a player tallys exp. Tallys are compared then distributed.
2> Players are on their own to give exp for use of skills. (100 exp per skill used)
3> Leveling up mid dungeon is permitted,
4> Keep old char sheets, They come in handy for level draining encounters.
5>If session ends in a situation with downtime such as waiting for a ship. This is an ideal time to write down on your char sheet what your char is doing to pass the downtime.

[Velaryon]

These are all for D&D 3.5, since that's the only thing I've run in the last several years. Some of them probably wouldn't work well if I had players that tried to exploit them to their fullest.

-I disallow "cleric of a cause," and require all clerics to worship a deity. If no canon deity exists that matches the player's character concept, we will work together to create one. The same goes for Favored Souls. This hasn't actually come up in practice though, because I'm the only one in our group who ever plays clerics.

-The Duelist or Invisible Blade's Int-to-AC abilities, or anything else that adds one point per class level to AC, advances at twice the normal rate so that it becomes relevant that much sooner.

-Alternate class features, racial substitution levels, and all Dragon magazine or third-party material (including Pathfinder) must be approved by me on a case-by-case basis. This is largely because I'm not familiar with a lot of it, and I want to be careful what I let into the game.

-Instead of a flat percentage chance to stabilize, we use a Fort save, DC = 10 + the character's negative hit points (so DC 11 at -1 hp up to DC 19 at -9).

-Characters trained in Tumble can make an opposed roll vs. other characters Tumbling through threatened squares. If they win the roll, they can still make an Attack of Opportunity. I think I got this variant from a 3.0 book long ago.

-If you have a glove/gauntlet slot item that only takes up one hand (gauntlet of rust, glove of storing, etc.), you can wear another one-handed magical glove or gauntlet on the other hand and gain the benefit of both with DM approval. I would probably disallow this with custom items, but it's never come up.

-Mage Armor and related spells can be learned as Abjuration or Conjuration, at the individual caster's discretion. Primarily to throw a bone to the Abjurant Champion class so that it's ability works as I believe it was intended.

-Spontaneous casters don't need to spend a full-round action to use metamagic feats. I think Sorcerers are penalized enough by reaching new spell levels later than prepared casters, and it's never come up with a Bard in my games.

-All characters get 4 bonus skill points at 1st level that can be spent only on Craft, Knowledge, Perform, or Profession skills, and are always spent as class skills.


Also, I REALLY hate permanent level loss, so I've been experimenting with ways to get rid of them without cheapening death even more. When it comes to monsters that inflict negative levels, I just threw out the rule about permanently losing a level if you fail the save, and changed it so that if you fail your save to remove the negative level, you're stuck with it for another day.

But for negative levels caused by coming back from the dead, I found it a little tougher to come up with a solution that suits me. My current house rule for this is that when you're brought back to life and would normally lose a level, instead you come back with negative levels equal to 1/2 your Hit Dice, rounded up. These cannot be removed by any magical means, only by the normal process of daily Fortitude saves to remove negative levels. To avoid screwing low-Fortitude characters too badly, any remaining negative levels are healed after a week.

It hasn't come up often enough yet for me to get a feel for whether I like it or not, but in theory I think it represents the difficult and taxing nature of passing back into the mortal world, without permanently causing a character to fall behind the rest of the party.

[Rhynn]

Some of mine (not gonna name the system, in the spirit of the OP ):

Group initiative. Roll each round, winners declare second but resolve first (meaning they can void or prevent the losers' plans). On a tie, both sides resolve all actions (so a monster that gets killed that round still makes all its attacks).

Missile weapon specialization gives +1 to hit, +2 damage, and increases rate of fire. Same for all missile weapons.

Training costs (100 gp per level of trainer per week, roll each week to go up a level).

XP for GP, 1:1. (Rogues don't get it twice!)

XP for travelling. (1-5 XP per mile depending on danger.)

Henchmen get a half-share of XP and a full share of treasure.

Warrior classes fighting opponents with less than 2 HD can make a number of attacks equal to their level (if higher than their usual number).

250 coins to a pound.

Carousing!

You can break your shield to negate an attack or automatically save against an effect that can sensibly be blocked by a shield.

And a bunch of other little tweaks too numerous to sensible list here.

[Seharvepernfan]

Mine are in my sig.

I use them because I feel it makes my games more balanced/realistic/gritty, and for me at least, more sense.

[Jay R]

They change from game to game, to fit the specific goals of that world.

[For an OD&D campaign]

Points for clever remarks that make the DM laugh – 10+ points unless the campaign gets too silly. (Points for stupid remarks that make the DM laugh – zero.)
Points for quoting Monty Python. None. Not any. Zero. Zilch. Maybe negative points.

A warning about meta-knowledge. In a game in which stone gargoyles can fly and people can cast magic spells, modern rules of physics and chemistry simply don’t apply. There aren’t 92 natural elements, lightning is not caused by an imbalance of electrical potential, and stars are not gigantic gaseous bodies undergoing nuclear fusion. Cute stunts involving clever use of the laws of thermodynamics simply won’t work. Note that cute stunts involving the gross effects thereof very likely will work. Roll a stone down a mountain, and you could cause an avalanche. But in a world with teleportation, levitation, and fireball spells, Newton’s three laws of motion do not apply, and energy and momentum are not conserved. Accordingly, modern scientific meta-knowledge will do you more harm than good. On the other hand, knowledge of Aristotle, Ptolemy, medieval alchemy, or medieval and classical legends might be useful occasionally.

The available character races are human, elf, dwarf, hobbit, or half-elf. It’s assumed that most will be human. If you want another class or race, come talk to me and tell me why. You’ll need to convince me that it will neither be an unbalanced character nor mess up the feel of the campaign. (“I want to play a hill giant so I’ll have more strength than anyone else” won’t work, for the first reason. “I want to be a Vulcan” won’t work for the second reason. “I want to play a Kryptonian” won’t work for both reasons.)

I reserve the right to tell you about some legend your people have, for the purposes of planning an adventure.

[For a Fantasy Hero game]

Your character is just barely adult – 14 years old. You all know each other, having grown up in the same tiny village. Everyone in this village grows their own food, and it’s rare to see anybody from outside the village, or anything not made in the village. There is a smith, a village priest, but very few other specialists.

The world is basically early medieval. You all speak a single language for which you (reasonably) have no name. If you pay knowledge points, or pay for another language, you’ll know more about what that means.

You have heard many mutually conflicting tales of all kinds of marvelous beasts. If you want any knowledge of which stories are real, you will need to buy a knowledge skill.

I will answer any reasonable questions about the village and its denizens. If you want to know *anything* else, you will have to buy knowledge skills. (And yes, that’s why you’ve grown up semi-isolated.)

Exceptions to these rules are allowed, within certain bounds. I won’t necessarily explain the bounds to you. (If I plan to have you carried off by Vikings, I won’t tell you why your character can’t speak Old Norse, for instance.) Ask for exceptions. Your character should be an exception to the general rules in some way. I want you to have a character you will enjoy, but who won’t mess up my plans or overshadow the other characters.

In general, if you want something I won’t allow, ask me if you can pay for it now and wait. If I can see how to get it soon, I’ll let you do that, and then arrange for you to learn or develop it fairly soon.

Your disadvantages cannot include Rivalry (except with another party member), Hunted, Watched, or Reputation – you will soon leave the village, and be dealing with folks who have never heard of you before. Any DNPC must be taken at the “almost always” level, and will be an NPC who travels with you. This is not a follower like in D&D – this is a dependent, who will cause you difficulties. No more than 25 points in any one category (Psych Lim., Phys. Lim., etc.)

All knowledge skills must be learnable in an isolated village, or from travelers’ tales. If you want an exception, come up with a justification. I respect good rationalizations. (Obvious examples include learning Latin from the village priest, astrology from a traveler, or herbalism from the witch.)

There is a new knowledge skill – World Background. If you have one point in this skill, I will hand you a one-page background sheet. At two points, you will get a longer sheet, and can also ask five reasonable questions before the game starts, and I will roll to see if you get answers. (I don’t promise that a given fact is available – that’s why you won’t see the roll.). At three points or more, it becomes an INT-based skill, and you may roll for additional knowledge throughout the campaign. (I strongly urge at least one player to take this at the 3-point level or higher.)

If you want to play games with the rules, learn the rules. There are reasonable ways to design to get an offbeat character, but if I design your character, it will be a mainstream medieval character

-----------------------------

[Selein]

3.5

1) Toughness grants 1 extra HP a level beginning from the level you take it. It makes Toughness a lot more useful at higher levels if you take it when low level.

2) Quick Draw is a skill trick.

[Scow2]

Also, I REALLY hate permanent level loss, so I've been experimenting with ways to get rid of them without cheapening death even more. When it comes to monsters that inflict negative levels, I just threw out the rule about permanently losing a level if you fail the save, and changed it so that if you fail your save to remove the negative level, you're stuck with it for another day.

But for negative levels caused by coming back from the dead, I found it a little tougher to come up with a solution that suits me. My current house rule for this is that when you're brought back to life and would normally lose a level, instead you come back with negative levels equal to 1/2 your Hit Dice, rounded up. These cannot be removed by any magical means, only by the normal process of daily Fortitude saves to remove negative levels. To avoid screwing low-Fortitude characters too badly, any remaining negative levels are healed after a week.

It hasn't come up often enough yet for me to get a feel for whether I like it or not, but in theory I think it represents the difficult and taxing nature of passing back into the mortal world, without permanently causing a character to fall behind the rest of the party.

Have you tried Pathfinder's handling of negative levels? It still has "Permanent" negative levels, but they can be removed with restoration (1/week). No actual level loss, though.

[Water_Bear]

In D&D and clones, I always get rid of Common. If there are a bunch of demi-human races running about, then all Humans get one racial language; otherwise I make a bunch of regional ones. My experience is that actually thinking about what languages they and the NPCs around them speak puts the Players in a more roleplay-friendly mindset, whereas otherwise things tend towards the wargame-y. Bleeding a few skill points / Proficiencies never hurt anyone anyway.

Outside of D&D I rarely encounter a problem which needs houseruling. I guess that says something. I did make a custom Tau race for Dark Heresy a few years back, but it was kind of awful.

[CoffeeIncluded]

Retraining is allowed, but only upon level-up.

I get to take a look at spells, poisons, ToB maneuvers, etc for approval, though I'll probably accept it unless it's broken. And really, it's either that or giving me the ability to use Dust of Sneezing and Choking on you, and I don't think you want that.

Half-elves and half-orcs kinda got shafted, didn't they? To fix this, anyone playing a half-elf or half-orc also gets, as a racial ability, either a level 1 bonus feat or one extra skill point with each level. They can only pick one, and unlike retraining, this cannot be changed (though the feat chosen or the skills that the points are allotted to can be.)

If you have excellent roleplaying or a brilliant battle tactic, you've earned the bonus exp. If you do something jaw-droppingly brilliant, the crowning moment of awesome that will be retold for years, I might level you up on the spot.

No race is universally good or universally evil. Racial alignments are thrown out the window. To reiterate: No race is universally good or universally evil.

[Piedmon_Sama]

I've thrown in a lot of houserules to my 3.5 games that fundamentally change a lot of assumptions about D&D combat. First, I generally don't even factor in magic as a balance assumption at all. Magic should be unbalancing, game-changing and very scary to face. Two of my players don't care about balance at all, and the third one seems happy as long as he gets 45-60 1HD mooks or one giant monster per session to massacre. I wouldn't insist on any of these rules if I was playing with strangers.

I want instant death to be a possibility (not necessarily a likely one, but at least a possibility) even at high level. I want combat to be fluid and tactical, with terrain, elevation and position all being important. I hate combat that feels like it's simply taking place on a featureless grid, and I really hate combat that's just a slugfest between two tanks standing there and bonking each other with their greatswords.

Basically I'd love for a combat between two high-level fighters (well, one fighter, one barbarian/fighter/rogue in this case I believe) to look like this. Notice how both characters jockey for position, trying to tumble into the other's rear-flank. One constantly uses cover and mobility/spring attack to compensate for his low AC, the other is less bouncy but fights defensively. At one point I think I even see one make a jump check for a Leap Attack charge and probably momentarily gains an attack bonus for elevation.

The problem is, the D&D rules just don't reward this kind of fighting at all. We all know the ultimate fighter is the boring guy with Shock Trooper, Combat Brute and the biggest greatsword he can find just charging and hacking and charging and hacking. I use Combat Facing to allow characters flank bonuses to attack without needing a tag team partner, as long as they can maneuver into their enemy's side/rear squares. I use Class Defense Bonus (though over time I've tweaked the bonuses classes receive), stacked with Armor as DR value, to make fighting unarmored viable while giving armor a unique advantage (providing DR).

Essentially this was inspired by that scene in The 13th Warrior when the warriors take off their armor in order to swim through an underwater passage---I feel there should be times when armor is a help, and when it's a hindrance, and despite check penalties I felt D&D was leaning way too heavily in the direction of "armor is always always necessary."

There's one other scene that was a huge influence on me. In the big gunbattle scene in Open Range, the evil cattle baron and his posse form up to confront the outnumbered and outgunned heroes in the middle of the street. Among them is a guy who's supposed to be an infamous badass--a professional gunhand, who already shot down someone close to the heroes. What follows is probably the one moment from that movie everybody remembers.

The idea that this professional badass--a dude who's probably "high level," in gaming parlance--could just get shot in the face, no warning, no chance to do anything, and then it didn't matter what his HD was, influenced my whole line of thinking. And I was extremely frustrated that this moment would simply be impossible to recreate in D&D past low-level, unless you were a Wizard and just SoD'd an opponent. So you're Baron Badass, Wielder of the Sword of Doom, Slayer of Angels and yadda yadda---what if I just hide across the street with a crossbow and point it right between your eyes while you're unaware? 1d8-1d10 damage simply can't do anything to a high level character, even on a Coup de Grace if their fortitude save is jacked enough. Also until an embarrassingly recent date I simply didn't know that characters are flat footed before their initiative on the first round of combat, so I thought D&D was even worse at portraying this kind of scene than it is. Nevertheless the invulnerability of high-HP characters has been my personal bugbear for years.

Ultimately I developed a rule that ranged weapons are considered an automatic critical if they hit a flat-footed opponent. It is simply far easier to hit a man-sized target somewhere important---head, bowels, shoulder, hip-groin---with a ranged weapon than it is to strike an aware opponent in close combat. Secondly I beefed up the damage die of every ranged weapon by one degree (thus longbows do 1d12, shortbows 1d8, crossbows 1d10, heavy crossbows 1d12), trying to further tilt things in the balance of ranged, which was grossly enfeebled compared to melee juggernauts. I did change drawing from a free to a swift action (meaning you can do it once a round)---in my mind Legolas 1-second knocking-and-firing should be the result of a specific build and not merely something any archer can do after 6th level. I also reintroduced called shots: at a severe penalty, with a miss within 4 being considered an ordinary hit (and a miss within 8 having a 50% chance to hit someone in an adjacent square). A hit on a called shot is an automatic crit with a chance to inflict some kind of injury depending on the target (reduced to 1/2 speed if shot in the legs, for example).

Wow, this post ended up being a lot longer than I intended, and I basically only covered my houserules on combat. I didn't mean to produce a manifesto but I thought it would be more interesting if people saw where I was coming from and what my reasoning was rather than a flat list of houserules. Obviously this type of game wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but my players and I have been gaming together a long time and our understanding pretty much works for us (the inevitable occasional snag notwithstanding). I've heard a lot of stuff like "that's not D&D," and "just play GURPS" when I've talked about my houserules in the past. Everybody's welcome to their opinion, but I'm of the mind that 3.5 is one of the best rulesets essentially because you can tweak it so radically. By lowering or raising Massive Damage, for example, you can drastically alter the game's feel from Survival-Horror to Dragonball Z.

[scurv]

House rules are always weird, And they tend to be made to augment and offset player/dm dynamic.
I kinda like the ones for archery and a flat footed opponent. Right now I am trying to work in fuse fired single shot guns into my campaign in such a way that it is worth it to have them. Yet in such a way that it is still realistic and I might take some of that into consideration.

[Piedmon_Sama]

The sad thing is I've never had my players try to take advantage of these rules. It's like they hear what I say, and they say "okay, you want guys with different weapons and fighting styles to be as viable as the guy with the giant sword. I get that. I still just want to be the guy with the giant sword." :v

[Seharvepernfan]

The sad thing is I've never had my players try to take advantage of these rules.

I hear that. I have a whole thread dedicated to my houserules, and link to it frequently on our facebook group, but my group still has never heard of a rule until I bring it up in-game.

[Sith_Happens]

Combat Facing

The problem with the Combat Facing variant is that it screws over rogues. HARD. Sure, they can tumble into an enemy's rear area to get a sneak attack without a flanking buddy. But even with a flanking buddy they have to do that every round, because who do you think an enemy is going to face given the choice, the fighter or the rogue? Which means no full attack sneak attacks. Ever.

Conversely, the choice of which of two fighters to face barely matters at all and is painfully simplistic when it does (hint: the one who hits harder).

And of course the rule still does nothing to encourage movement (except for those poor, poor rogues), since even a +4 flanking bonus will almost never outweigh a full attack.

Ultimately I developed a rule that ranged weapons are considered an automatic critical if they hit a flat-footed opponent. It is simply far easier to hit a man-sized target somewhere important---head, bowels, shoulder, hip-groin---with a ranged weapon than it is to strike an aware opponent in close combat.

A ranged critical still isn't going to one-shot anything past low levels, with the possible exception of a sneak attacker with Craven. A full attack of all critical hits does stand a decent chance of bringing down most things, but that's not quite what you're going for.

Changing it from a regular critical to a coup-de-gras would be much more effective, but there will still eventually come a level at which things can survive being shot in the face more often than not.

Secondly I beefed up the damage die of every ranged weapon by one degree (thus longbows do 1d12, shortbows 1d8, crossbows 1d10, heavy crossbows 1d12), trying to further tilt things in the balance of ranged, which was grossly enfeebled compared to melee juggernauts.

The difference between 1d8 and 1d12 is 2.5 damage on average, max 4, which is practically unnoticeable past the first few levels. The whole reason that melee does high damage so much easier is that most of its damage comes from sources besides the weapon's damage die.

Still, ranged needs all the buffs it can get, so if you want to give it even a tiny one than more power to you...

I did change drawing from a free to a swift action (meaning you can do it once a round)---in my mind Legolas 1-second knocking-and-firing should be the result of a specific build and not merely something any archer can do after 6th level.

...Except that then you murder ranged and throw its body in a muddy ditch by requiring what I assume is yet another feat just to make a full attack. Congratulations.

[Seharvepernfan]

This needs to be known by more people around here. Legolas is actually a bit on the slow side.

[Piedmon_Sama]

You're right, Sith Happens. For all my changes the fighter with the giant weapon who just charges and power attacks is still the supreme champion of melee. (I hate that guy.) That's probably the real reason my players never take me up on my offers to even use flanking. I would love to dethrone that build, except one of my players has been using it forever and probably wouldn't appreciate any 11th-hour rule changes gimping him in our five-years-and-going campaign.

[Sith_Happens]

This needs to be known by more people around here. Legolas is actually a bit on the slow side.

Is that video narrated by a text-to-voice program?

[Seharvepernfan]

Is that video narrated by a text-to-voice program?

Nope, just a dane.

[Seharvepernfan]

You're right, Sith Happens. For all my changes the fighter with the giant weapon who just charges and power attacks is still the supreme champion of melee. (I hate that guy.) That's probably the real reason my players never take me up on my offers to even use flanking. I would love to dethrone that build, except one of my players has been using it forever and probably wouldn't appreciate any 11th-hour rule changes gimping him in our five-years-and-going campaign.

I think that, in the end, when it comes to killing your opponents, this really should be the "best" style. A sword-n-board defender guy is best at defending his allies (theoretically), twf is the best for rangers and rogues who get tons of precision damage dice, and archery can always attack from where they are regardless of where their enemies are (with exceptions), but the big ol' two-hander should be the best at all-around killing.

[Togath]

not exactly house rules, but I do always state that I'm going by RAW with regards to natural twenties/ones, and that clerics don't need a deity.

For actual ones, I usually remove alignment, and change spells that would normally have an alignment effect to have their negative effect on anything the character(NPC or PC) sees as a foe to his cause, and beneficial to any he/she sees as an ally of his/her cause(since it allows me to have a brutal NPC who goes around killing villages in the name of purging any traces of evil, or an evil cultist who tends to abandoned children and heals the sick, albeit using morally grey means[such as sacrificing livestock or treasures to empower their cures])

[Angel Bob]

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

[Jay R]

Came up with a new one yesterday, in the middle of battle. In a battle against 30 or so goblins:

DM: Ok, these two guys near you are attacking you.
1st level wizard, in his first melee: What are those guys over there (20 yards off) doing?
DM: These two guys are attacking you. If you choose to spend your round looking around, I'll give you details about the rest of the field. Otherwise, you can fight back.

Henceforth, I'll give complete descriptions of what's immediately in front of the PC. They can see roughly where everyone else in front of them is, from the position of the miniatures, but not details about actions, unless they stop to pay attention. (In fact, there were allies they didn't know about.)

Does anybody have any suggestions about how much more melee awareness a fighter should get, or how it should grow as the characters level up? (I know from SCA experience that people in their first melee can't pay attention to anything except their immediate front. But I also know that I can notice a lot more now than I could then, because I can cast a quick glance and understand it better now.)

[AttilaTheGeek]

Came up with a new one yesterday, in the middle of battle. In a battle against 30 or so goblins:

DM: Ok, these two guys near you are attacking you.
1st level wizard, in his first melee: What are those guys over there (20 yards off) doing?
DM: These two guys are attacking you. If you choose to spend your round looking around, I'll give you details about the rest of the field. Otherwise, you can fight back.

Wow. That's an excellent idea. I would make looking around a move action at 3rd, then a swift action at 9th, then free at 10th. By then, characters are pretty experienced in combat.

[Roclat]

The only House Rule I have is we only use books I own. It's not a massive library, but it's good sized. Keeps them from sneaking broken stuff in, and lets me keep control of what's allowed. I've always felt it's reasonable.

[Wardog]

This needs to be known by more people around here. Legolas is actually a bit on the slow side.

I assumed that would be a link to this:

[Piedmon_Sama]

I got so long-winded in my last post that I deigned not to include something. This is another rule I use to establish large numbers of "mere" mooks as a threat (albeit a limited one).

Volley Shots: (honestly I don't even remember if this is my own invention or I got it from Heroes of battle). To perform a volly fire, a group of archers must stand shoulder to shoulder, or roughly four in the space of one square. This denies the archers any Dexterity (or Class Defense) bonus to AC. For every 5 archers in the group, add +1 to the Volley attack roll, plus the lowest ranged attack of any archer in the group. For example, a group of 45 archers who are +2 to hit with their longbows, led by a Captain of 5th level, add +9 from their number to the attack roll of +2, for a total of +11. The volley attack roll of 1d20+11 becomes the DC for a reflex save of all creatures within the area of the attack. The area of effect is one square per 5 archers (so again using our example group of 45, the attack effects 9 squares).

If a creature within the area fails its save, it is hit by a number of arrows equal to the difference between their save and the DC. So if, for example, the archers roll an attack of 21 and Jet Li makes a reflex save of 15, Jet Li is hit by 6 arrows. Cover adds a bonus to the Reflex save as appropriate.

[Wraith]

This rule is actually from a LARP system that I used to play in, but it translates just as well into Table Top:

# There are a lot of things that the Players can do. They can have ridiculous amount of attacks, they can stack spells upon skills upon feats and end worlds. They can one-shot the BBEG with their secret splatbook abilities whenever they want. That's fine. It's all good.

The Players, however, hold the keys to opening the floodgates. If they don't want it done to them, they shouldn't do it first.

Go ahead - hit the King with a Paralyzing Strike and decapitate him in front of the entire Royal Court. But in doing so, you're opening Pandora's Box and your own Will Save can only get so high.....

I've genuinely played in some very fun games where this rule has been thoroughly explained at the beginning. A surprising number of people can act very responsibly when handed the freedom to do whatever they want, and usually when they then choose to overstep the mark they take their 'medicine' in good humour and make the most of it.

[Tvtyrant]

I reserve the right to dump anything I want into the setting. If I want mechs and aliens, by Pelor there is going to be mechs and aliens. No you cannot be an alien or have a mech until they have been introduced into the setting. Once the invasion has begun, you're free to buy a mech for exorbitant prices and shoot up the cosmos with it.

[Sith_Happens]

Volley Shots:

Yeah, this is the Heroes of Battle rule, or at least very close to it.

[Jay R]

In Champions or Fantasy Hero, I often give a set of restrictive rules, with the explicit proviso that each player may break one rule. So these aren't things they can't do; they are things only one of them can do. The purpose is to help make each PC unique. For example, in a Silver Age comics game:

You may break a maximum of one of these rules, and only with my permission. Only one of you may break any given rule. (So one of you may have magic, and another may be an alien, but there will be no magic alien, and only one magician and one alien.) For that reason, you must tell us all which rule you wish to be the exception to. If nobody else claims it in two days (and if it’s an exception I’ll allow at all) then you may have it. Some rule-exceptions I will not allow at all, and some I will impose restrictions on. Tell me what you want to do, and I will help you find the best way. But when we’re done, the character will be less powerful than you’re used to, and with greater weaknesses.

1. The character will have 100 base points, and up to 125 more balanced by character disadvantages. YOU CANNOT ALLOCATE THE POWER POINTS UNTIL YOU HAVE SET THE DISADVANTAGES.

2. The character must have at least one DNPC, worth at least 20 points.

3. No magic.

4. No aliens.

5. No gods (No exceptions.)

6. No god-related powers or origins. (The one exception may have a mythological artifact, or have powers from gods like Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel, but may not be a god or demi-god like Thor or Hercules. I have to approve the pantheon, and will decide some things about them that you will not be told.)

7. No super-advanced tech, as determined by the standards of early sixties comics. You can be Iron Man or Batman, but not Brainiac, Kang, or Booster Gold.

8. Each hero has a theme, and all powers must fit within the basic theme of the character. A flame-based character could have a fireball, flame-based PD and ED, a flame cage entangle and flight, but not super-strength. A hero with Spider-based powers can stick to walls and have high proportionate strength, but he will not have a danger sense. A brick may have high strength, invulnerability, etc., but will not have heat vision. I will allow a certain amount of “stretching” of the theme, but I reserve the right to determine what is outside the theme of the character. (If this rule is your exception, I still have to approve the power mix.)

9. No power pools. Each power will be explicitly defined in advance. (If you choose this rule as an exception, the basics of your powers must still be acceptable to me. Cosmic Power Pools probably aren’t. Only somebody who knows the rules well enough may take this rule as an exception.)

10. I reserve the right to put limitations on the following powers, to prevent game-warping effects: N-Ray Vision, Clairsentience, Desolidification, Extra-Dimensional Movement, Faster than Light Travel. (No exceptions to this rule.)

11. The character must have at least one reasonably common weakness – a Vulnerability or Susceptibility, or a conditional PD and ED. I must have a way that I can take the character out quickly, for plot purposes. He or she might take double damage from fire like J’onn J’onzz, or be vulnerable to Kryptonite like Superman, or his defenses might be in a shield that doesn’t block everything like Captain America. (No exceptions to this rule allowed.)

12. A sidekick must either be a normal, or have the same flavor as the main character. An archer may have a young archer, or a Superman may have a super-dog, but an energy projector may not have a ninja monkey. Anybody can have a sidekick who’s a 100 point photographer, detective or reporter, though.

13. The hero will have the 15-point Silver Age Code: “With great power comes great responsibility. These powers aren't for self-aggrandizement, but for a higher purpose. The most important priority is to rescue people, and to not endanger them. Second priority is to stop crimes & capture criminals. Save the children first. (The adults are assumed to be trying to help, with all the skills they have.) The greatest heroes of all are the policemen, firemen, rescue workers and others who risk their lives daily with no powers -- just naked courage. We owe them our highest level of respect.” (If you take this rule as your exception, you must still have a code that I accept.)

14. I will add a –1/4 limitation of my own choice to any power of 60 or more active points. I will add a –1/2 limitation to any power of 80 or more active points. I will add limitations adding up to at least –3/4 to any power of 105 or more active points. I will decide on a case-by-case basis how much Limitation I will give any powers much above that level. These limitations will be chosen specifically to keep them fun and valuable, while limiting their ability to screw up my plans, so I will not tell you why I chose them. You may or may not know what this limitation is at the start of play. Limitations I choose are likely to include side effects, gestures, restrainable, Reduced by Range or Reduced Penetration, Gradual Effect, Extra Time, or something else that gives me as GM an opportunity to prevent their use at specific moments for story purposes. (If this rule is your exception, only one power is an exception to it.)

15. No power may have over 45 Real Points (how much it costs after adjustments for Advantages and Limitations). For instance, you may have a 100 Active Cost power, but you will need to give it Limitations totaling –3/4, so that after it gets my –1/2 Limitation, it will only cost 44 points. Powers in an Elemental Control or Multipower will be treated as stand-alone powers for purposes of this rule. Note that this is separate from the above rule, so you cannot have an exception to both. If you choose rule 14 as your exception, then you still must get every power down to 45 real points. If you choose this rule as your exception, only one power may exceed 45 real points.

(When we played this game, I fully expected somebody to ask for a rule 1 exception, since that one was the limits on powers. If that had happened, I would have said, "Yes, you may have up to 275 points, but everything above the normal limit of 225 will be offset by twice as many Disadvantages, and I will assign half of them."

But not one player noticed that I had specifically said they could have an exception to the overall power limit.)