Forum Fridays: House Rules
By Nick - October 23, 2009
This is just a compilation of house rules I found on a thread called “What are your house rules?” where people listed short and sweet summaries of what kind of stuff they do in their D&D campaigns. Here, I’m going to break down why I think some are pretty nifty, pretty mediocre, or pretty stupid
Paragon Defenses and Robust Defenses do not exist. Everyone gets +1 all NADs at level 11 and +2 at level 21. These count as feat bonuses.
Grade: Stupid
Why?: The defense bonus feats are actually very interesting. Sure, there are the boring ones that just add to all defenses or add a big chunk at epic, but the ones that players will pick give a bonus to a defense and some extra effect as well. This house rule is just extra buffing up to players where they don’t need it.
Expertise feats do not exist. Everyone gets +1 to-hit at level 5, +2 at 15, and +3 at 25.
Grade: Curious
Why?: I feel weird about this. My brother dislikes the weapon focus feats that just increase damage rolls or attack rolls because they lack flavor that most other feats have. If only these feats were included the same bonuses to attack and damage rolls but also included bonuses unique to that weapon, like Maces causing greater push effects along with their attack roll bonuses.
Everyone gets 3 stat boosts (instead of 2) at levels 4, 8, 14, 18, 24, 28.
Grade: Mediocre
Why?: Might be too good. I like the idea of getting some extra beefiness added to the character, but this essential lets everyone have all of their primary and secondary stats up so their eligible for any build, which kind of loses the point of the whole class specialization thing.
Daily Powers have become Milestone Powers. Upon reaching a Milestone, pick a spent daily power that power recharges.
Grade: Nifty
Why?: I hate how it feels like players have to wait to use their daily powers before they get to the big boss of the adventure. With this rule, they can always use one daily power every other encounter and be okay. Milestones are broader than just every other encounter, so it could even be every encounter if the adventure is paced just right. I will probably use this house rule.
Penalties can’t stack and they can’t be unnamed penatlie sources. Ergo, a penalty from an item can’t be combined with another penalty from an item and there’s no such thing as an unnamed/untyped penalty.
Grade: Mediocre
Why?: Part of what makes D&D fun is some of the ridiculous things you can do if the party is clever. I understand this is to prevent penalties from stacking and getting ridiculous. This puts it more in line with how bonuses are more specific and don’t stack infinitely. This might make the game more balanced, but it just wouldn’t be as interesting to me.
The Elven races have been folded into one race. You pick the ability score bonuses you want, and whatever “racial package” suits your character best.
Grade: Stupid
Why?: Hey! Instead of making these elven races just as distinct as the Drow, lets fold them all together to make them less interesting instead of more. This is a terrible idea. I like the Eladrin.
Magic Missile does 3d4 damage. Make an attack roll for each d4, and you can strike up to 3 targets with it.
Grade: Stupid.
Why?: This is an at-will power. An at-will power should never deal more damage than what a weapon can deal, especially not more than a two hander and ESPECIALLY not when the power is ranged. I realize they’re trying to bring back the pretty cool effect of being able to divide up magic missiles between as few or as many targets as you want like back in 3rd Edition, but here it’s just wrong. Make an encounter power that is a boosted version of Magic Missile or something.
No Dragon Magazines or Power Books allowed.
Grade: Stupid
Why?: I love these books.
You only roll once to hit with area powers.
Grade: Nifty
Why?: I’ve already been using this for awhile. I find it odd that these area effect powers have a much greater chance of getting a critical hit just because there are tons of attack rolls. I prefer keeping a Controller’s critical hit rate down a little and it speeds up combat a lot having them only roll once. Problem is, if they miss all of the enemies, it can kind of suck. I should probably make all of these area nuking powers also Reliable as well (meaning that if you miss, you don’t expend the power) if they don’t have an effect on a miss.
Casting a Ritual from a Ritual Scroll costs no components
Grade: Nifty
Why?: Components bore me to tears. That stuff should only matter for making equipment.
A roll of natural 1-4 is an automatic failure to any savings throw. Natural 17-20 a success.
Grade: Weird
Why?: Makes life easier on the DM, but makes numerical bonuses matter a lot less.
Wizards Orb of Imposition applies to only one roll (placing it on par with the other powers IMO)
Grade: Boring but understandable
Why?: Orb of Imposition can causes some ridiculous stuff to happen if you don’t do some proper DMing to prevent it from destroying really tough encounters. This just means the DM needs to prep better. I actually like the exploit. Puts the Wizard on the map again.
No milestones: get an AP every encounter. You can forgo regaining an action point after an encounter to gain the other effects of a normal milestone.
Grade: Mediocre
Why?: I actually give my players 1 AP every encounter, but milestones are important for a lot of abilities so I don’t get why you would put such a detriment on the player.
The raise dead ritul cost 1/5 the cost in the book but it also brings you into the presence of a representative of the Raven Queen, perhaps one of her archangels where you engage in a skill challenge to negotiate for the return of your friend’s soul.
Grade: Nifty
Why?: How flavorful! Put some roleplaying into it! This makes it not like an videogame at all. I might just use this one.
Gain a bonus language and trained skill at level 11 and 21. The skill must be a class skill. Multiclass characters can pick skills from either class. If there are no class skills remaining pick any skill to be trained in.
Grade: Nifty
Why?: It’s very simple. It also makes a lot of sense to me for a character to gain an extra skill or two over the course of their career. Also, in a multi-lingual world that is most likely a D&D setting, I don’t find it too hard to believe for even a Barbarian to pick up an extra language or two.
PC’s gain an additional bonus language known for each point of their int mod.
Grade: Nifty
Why?: Languages shouldn’t be too hard to work for. This makes it a lot easier and I like this giving a bit of a perk to Intelligence. It needs this since it no longer adds to the number of skills known.
A character can take as many multiclass feats as they desire, provided they are all for the same class.
Grade: Nifty
Why?: Picking up a single multiclass feat is almost essential to be eligible for really clever character builds. Beyond that first multiclass feat, using up a Paragon Path to gain another class’s powers or wasting feats to replace powers just sucks. I HEAVILY alter multiclassing in my campaign, so it’s good to know someone else is aware of the problem as well.
Channel Divinity-Every second channel divinity feat taken grants an additional use per encounter of the channel divinity class feature. Powers can still only be used once per encounter.
Grade: Nifty
Why?: It might be a little convoluted, but I think this is needed. It’s hard for a player to feel justified in picking up Channel Divinity feats considering they usually start with two. There are also some Epic Destinies and feats that help already, so this seems like a pretty natural fit for lower tier options.
No one is allowed to drink more alcohol than the DM, during a game.
Grade: Quite fair
Why?: Drunks have a short attention span when it comes to D&D.
Intimidate skill can be based off of Strength or Charisma, depending on how you use it.
Grade: Mediocre
Why?: Something like this should be a feat, not built into the skill. I do get the logic of a big bruiser being just a scary as someone who uses their force of personality.
Elites automatically save against any ’save ends’ effect on a (natural) 19 or 20. Solos automatically save against any save ends effect on a (natural) 16 to 20. This is my nerf for Orblocking wizards.
Grade: Mediocre
Why?: It’s not very interesting, but I can get behind anything that makes the DM’s boss-like encounters tougher.
I’m thinking that one scores an automatic miss on a natural 1, in Heroic tier. In Paragon, you have to confirm the automatic miss with another d20 roll, and only confirming on a natural 1. At Epic tier, you need to confirm twice. I feel this is appropriate because I don’t think Demigods, Avatars, and Eternal types are going to utterly miss like buffoons one twentieth of the time. One in eight thousand sounds about right to me for Demigods and Avatars and the like. Haven’t implemented the idea yet — I’ll see who likes it, though.
Grade: Nifty
Why?: He defends his house rule quite well. I love fumbles, so I would never want to remove them from my game but I do agree that a 5% fumble chance is too high for an epic level character.
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