Favorite House Rules.


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Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Oddly enough, the favorite houserule in my group is allowing Clerics and Druids to pray for an hour to reassign spells in their remaining slots.

Sovereign Court

I think my favorite is consolidating combat maneuvers into only a few feats. I like having lots of options for combat maneuvers.

Improved / Greater Wrestling Maneuvers - applies to trip and grapple
Improved / Greater Weapon Maneuvers - applies to sunder and disarm
Improved / Greater Movement Maneuvers - applies to bull rush and overrun. Added "Check" to allow a CMB check to stop an enemy's movement (replaces "Stand Still" feat)

Feint was left alone because it is so useful for rogues.

Haven't looked at the new maneuvers at all, really, but Dirty Trick and Steal thematically fit together well.

The Exchange

Here are some of mine (many of which have been stolen from other forum members' suggestions!):

Characters:
• Fast XP progression 1st to 2nd level; Medium thereafter
• 1 skill point per level in “impractical” Knowledge/Profession/Craft/Perform (e.g., Bards can't take it in Perform, Wizards can't take Knowledge(Arcana), but could take Knowledge(Lepidoptery))

Magic:
• No Raise Dead/Resurrection (True Resurrection is the only option), negative Total HP = death
• Divine spellcasters are spontaneous casters
• No clerical scrolls
• Many Divine potions are at least aligned; some are deity-specific
• Potions, wondrous items and some scrolls are only magic items commonly available for sale- most everything else is custom work (can still be bought, but there's usually RP required)
• Alchemy doesn’t work reliably (no alchemists, limited alchemical items)

Combat
• Two-handed weapon = -1 Initiative; Light Weapon = +1 Initiative
• Readied crossbow moves you to the top of initiative order after surprise round (if any)


Got quite a few. Among my favorites:

Gang-up (enemies get bonus to attack in proportion to their number)

Overland Action (the adventuring day is treated like a round; the Overland Round)

Iterative Attacks dropped altogether in favour of a new action system

'findel

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Combat Manoeuvres only provoke Attacks of Opportunity on a failed Manoeuvre. This means there's a risk, but not an immediate punishment for attempting something different.

Prepared spellcasters may expend their spells in any combination. (Essentially you only need to prepare magic missile once, not three times to cast it three times in one day. While it's true that this favours prepared casters over spontaneous casters, some folks still don't like the idea of being a research or pious caster so it worked in my games).

Ability scores are: 17, 15, 13, 11, 10, 8. Characters range from exceptional to poor in their ability scores and thus are forced to find balance among their party members. My players like this array, and I like it because it puts everyone on equal footing.

I always end up using some variation of Action Points (but they are always incentivises to encourage certain play styles. For example in my Kingmaker game PCs gain Action Points for getting questions about their fellow party members correct in Campfire tales or completing quests in the Greenbelt).

One Minute Turn - Essentially make a decision within one minute or you are delaying until initiative count zero. Still fail to make a decision and you lose your turn this round due to indecision.

"Dead To Rights" - If you have a weapon trained on an enemy and say some variation of "freeze or I'll ventilate ya", if they don't freeze then you get a free "coup-de-grace" attack against the target. It allows villains and PCs alike the opportunity to talk, take hostages and all that jazz. (RAW - You catch a bugbear off-guard and point an arrow at him, if you say "freeze" then he becomes aware of you. Initiative gets rolled and assuming you win, it's a normal attack and thus probably won't kill him. Without threat there's no incentive to "freeze").

There are others but I can't think of any at the moment.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

The Edge: When your BAB is higher than your opponents BAB, you do not provoke AoOs for using a combat maneuver without the appropriate feat.


I use strict RAW, with the following exception:

When rolling hp, reroll 1s, and every PC gets 1 reroll in their career (usually best to use on a bad roll at lower levels).

In the past, we have used the dice rule from Epic Handbook where if you roll a 20, you roll again and add the second result to the first result, and if you roll a 1, you roll again and subtract 20 from the first result, which was more satisfying in some ways to the players, and removed the rule of 20 is always a hit and 1 is always a miss. I later abandoned it in favor of simplicity.

Liberty's Edge

'Rixx wrote:

My favorite houserule:

Initiative is rolled with a d10 minus half your initiative modifier at the top of every round. Lower results go first.

It really speeds up the initiative aspect of combat and keeps things hectic and interesting. The GM doesn't have to record everyone's initiative - he just has to start counting up from negatives up to 10, and the players call out when their turn comes. (Ties are settled the normal way - comparing DEX scores / init modifiers.)

You also can never be sure that you're going to get a turn before someone else, so combat becomes more unpredictable. Delaying and readying become more useful. Having a high initiative modifier becomes much, much more useful (as you will consistently go first in combat, rather than having a slightly higher chance of going first at the beginning).

Another favorite: Inquisitors are proficient with whips.

I think I'll work those into my bag of tricks. Very nice work on making initiative less of a headache for me.


One of the house rules I use is for scoring critical hits. If you score a crit (already confirmed) with a longsword and a strength bonus of +2 you can eventually do between 6 - 20 (1D8+2 and another roll of 1D8+2). If you make a regular attack and just hit you can roll between 3-10 (1D8+2). This shows you that you can crit and do 8 points of damage and your counterpatr could just do a normal hit and do more damage then your crit.
What I have done is that on a confirmed crit you do normal max damage and then add your second die (and other bonuses if you have them). So in the above example on a crit you would do 14 - 20 points of damage (10 is max with the sword - 1D8+2- and then your roll of 1D8+2). By doing this you are always gauranteed that you will do at least 1 point more then a normal maxed out roll. Makes the crits feel better.

One other one that I use is, If you roll a natural 1 then you forfiet your attacks (if any) for the rest of your attack for the round. This obviously only works if you have multiple attacks per round. I have also thought of giving an AoO to those who are activley engaged with the person/creature that fumbled (natural 1 on D20), but have not implemented yet.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Mage, the critical hit damage rule is similar to what I have been thinking of doing. I think the only difference is that I'm thinking an unconfirmed crit should deal max damage. So you roll the confirmation to see if you roll damage or take max.


Grimcleaver wrote:
Try it sometime.

I will a couple questions though, how do you deal with monsters with your system? do they take a hit to health, stay the same? etc.

And they get a bonus to their DR each level? or is the AC=DR only for the armor bonus of the armor they wear?

Thanks for you reply! I've been wanting to try a more visceral playing style and this sound pretty good (may make a few tweaks myself)


Gravefiller613 wrote:
'Rixx wrote:

My favorite houserule:

Initiative is rolled with a d10 minus half your initiative modifier at the top of every round. Lower results go first.

It really speeds up the initiative aspect of combat and keeps things hectic and interesting. The GM doesn't have to record everyone's initiative - he just has to start counting up from negatives up to 10, and the players call out when their turn comes. (Ties are settled the normal way - comparing DEX scores / init modifiers.)

You also can never be sure that you're going to get a turn before someone else, so combat becomes more unpredictable. Delaying and readying become more useful. Having a high initiative modifier becomes much, much more useful (as you will consistently go first in combat, rather than having a slightly higher chance of going first at the beginning).

Another favorite: Inquisitors are proficient with whips.

I think I'll work those into my bag of tricks. Very nice work on making initiative less of a headache for me.

Thanks! I cribbed the idea off a second edition D&D game I played in. My DM and I have been using it ever since; it turns initiative rolls from a beginning of combat chore to a dynamic and dramatic part of the fight.

"Man, if I don't get to go before the lich this round, I'm done for... YES!"


I have to be physically restrained from writing reams of house rules, so in our new homebrew setting I'm really, really trying to be good.

So far, I think the only ones we've put in are:

1) Hurled weapons get a bonus to distance based on STR modifiers
2) A paladin can give up spells for a bonus feats at the levels where spell levels would normally be granted.
3) Chases are resolved by dividing base speed by 5 to give simple numbers that can be used as modifiers to opposed rolls between opponents. Quick and easy.


A natural 20 is an automatic hit and instantly becomes a critical success. No confirmation needed.

We used to have lots of situational ones, but since found the RAW is infinitely better.

A DM who used to be in our group had lots of weird, wacky ones, like:

You always lose a con point when raised, no matter what the spell description says.

Saltwater multiplied electric damage considerably. So did metal armor.

Torture lowered Charisma scores. As a result several sorcs and bards got retired after one specific session.

Disintegrate, instead of doing the listed effect, instantly destroyed on a failed save and did 2d6 per caster level on a successful save, so either way you were pretty much screwed.

Yeh...I'm happy he no longer DMs. Better for the human race and my sanity that way.

Liberty's Edge

No Sundering.

As a DM and rare player, I sympathize with a character getting an awesome item/weapon/armor/magical whatever and having it destroyed by an NPC. This might not have happened a lot but it did on occasion. I know Pathfinder has done a lot to make it less likely but its still possible. As none of my players have ever really liked going down the sunder path, it was always a rule that only seemed to work against them and never for them.

As such, we just ditched it and they didn't have to worry about their cool stuff going away from a packing barbarian ever again.

... course, unknownst to them, this rule has also lead to at least 1 player death as the option to sunder goes away, just straight up attacking is the viable option for melee opponents.


Ugh my first dnd campaign I was playing a wizard, and the stupid dungeon master... whenever I gained a level he would roll to determine which spells I learned!!!!!! I was so pissed off!

Later then I talked to another player, which turns out he was the DM of the DM mentioned above and that he applied that too!, but only to sorcerers!


Nemitri wrote:

Ugh my first dnd campaign I was playing a wizard, and the stupid dungeon master... whenever I gained a level he would roll to determine which spells I learned!!!!!! I was so pissed off!

Later then I talked to another player, which turns out he was the DM of the DM mentioned above and that he applied that too!, but only to sorcerers!

Wow...just...wow.


Nemitri wrote:

Ugh my first dnd campaign I was playing a wizard, and the stupid dungeon master... whenever I gained a level he would roll to determine which spells I learned!!!!!! I was so pissed off!

Later then I talked to another player, which turns out he was the DM of the DM mentioned above and that he applied that too!, but only to sorcerers!

I think its a rule from the days of 1/2ed. and yeah, it can lead to interestings results. Like "pyrotechnics" being the most powerful 2level spell in the spellbook:(


I can't believe I didn't think of this one earlier, this is actually one of mine: If an AOE spell (fireball, for example) is cast in a room too small to contain all the squares it normally hits, it finds the nearest exit port and goes out, traveling until it uses up all the squares. A fireball cast in the end of a 5x5x10 in a one-way hallway would take up the two squares st the origin and then 38 more. Hope that makes sense.


juanpsantiagoXIV wrote:
I can't believe I didn't think of this one earlier, this is actually one of mine: If an AOE spell (fireball, for example) is cast in a room too small to contain all the squares it normally hits, it finds the nearest exit port and goes out, traveling until it uses up all the squares. A fireball cast in the end of a 5x5x10 in a one-way hallway would take up the two squares st the origin and then 38 more. Hope that makes sense.

So you could burn yourself with backdraft if not careful? Cool!


Our houserules:

- When rolling for HP during level-up, player rolls once, GM rolls once, and you take the better roll.

- Critical hit and critical fumble decks, if you confirm a critical, you can opt to take a "token" to negate a future fumble.

- No 3.X materials, strictly core.

- Only one "weird" race (planetouched and such) in a party.

- Teleportation spells makes a loud pop, a flash of energy, and disorients the teleporters for 1 round. (So the wizard can't just scry on the enemy and teleport in at night and assassinate them).


Stat rolls: two d6 add six, reroll ones.

HP: reroll ones.

Absolutely NO gender benders. If you are a male player you play a male character, female player=female character. No exceptions.

If your healer can heal you back to 0 before the end of the round you "died" in you can be stabilized at 0.

If you partake in pizza you chip in $ for said pizza, end of story.

DM is partial to Dove Caramel Chocolates and White Cheddar Popcorn ;)


Michael Johnson 66 wrote:


So you could burn yourself with backdraft if not careful? Cool!

Yep, pretty much.


"need a 13 strength to weild dwarven war axe. A player led DM mistake now house rule."

I do that with using a falchion one handed-

also, a spear may be wielded one-handed with a shield as a MARTIAL weapon.


parry: everyone can declare a parry in place of an attack of oppurtunity. it must be declared before the damage die is rolled.

3 nat 20 is instant kill

created/modified a crit hits/fumbles chart for more damage and viciousness. in my campaign, i got a crit hit from a bite attack and it did so much damage that i declared that i had bit the PCs head off.

Magic missles have a chance (cumulative 7%) to nullify any force effect spell and equipment, ie bracers of armor, shield, wall of force.
Magical items have a chance of canceling each other out. a monk with bracers of armor +5 has a 30+ dmg done % to nullify another users bracers of armor. If doubles are rolled, both items are canceled.


parry: everyone can declare a parry in place of an attack of oppurtunity. it must be declared before the damage die is rolled.

3 nat 20 is instant kill

created/modified a crit hits/fumbles chart for more damage and viciousness. in my campaign, i got a crit hit from a bite attack and it did so much damage that i declared that i had bit the PCs head off.

Magic missles have a chance (cumulative 7%) to nullify any force effect spell and equipment, ie bracers of armor, shield, wall of force.
Magical items have a chance of canceling each other out. a monk with bracers of armor +5 has a 30+ dmg done % to nullify another users bracers of armor. If doubles are rolled, both items are canceled.


We use the following a lot.
1. 3 natural 20's is a kill on anything. Represents the wonce in a life time, OMG i just stabbed that dude through the eye and frickasseed his brain kinda roll. Like the time where it was my job to release the doves at the end of the peace negotiations between the harpys and this city. so we get to the end and I mistakenly say to ill toss the doves towards the harpy leader. The dm says really? Ok touch attack. I wasnt paying attention and rolled 3 natural 20's and appearently shishkabobed him through the head with it.
Didnt help the the guy next to my character yelled " BOOM HEADSHOT "

2. Max Hp every level. Your doing to need it to survive the meat grinder.

3. If your name is chris you will die a horrible...horrible death. Have a back up character. My friend chris dies in every session. Its not his fault mostly but its a universal trueth. A random explosion, a tower collapsing on him or some assassin vines giving what the rest of the group described as " one bad@$$ hug ".

4. If you just utterly failed at something but it was really funny you can have another chance. With me as dm my PCs where trapped on the second floor of a burning inn. Chris , see above , tryed to put out the fire in the room with the party with a wooden and straw broom. It caught on fire so he panicked and threw it out the window. It landed on the thatch roof of the alchemsit shop which is now on fire and set to explode. The rest of the party yelled F' this and ran out into the hall and jumped out the window. I ruled that its a good sized window and you only need a 5 athletics to make it. Everyone rolls and makes it....but chris. A natural 1 sends him diving into the wall next to it with a flaming cloak on. It was really funny so we ruled he stumbles to his feet and out the window taking falling damage.

5. Some how... some where you will run into El Pollo Diablo and that will be a dark day. So my PCs where in this small town besieged by bandits. It was one of the few time ive allowed gun powder explosives in game. Dont remember how it happened exactly but one of then got tared and feathered and the bandits started laughing at him calling him a chicken man. So he got mad and yelled " YOU WILL FEAR EL POLLO DIABLO!!!" and pointed at them with a stick he picked up off the ground. At the same time a fight was rapping up in a building behind the bandits when the pcs in the fight desided they had enough of these guys hitting and running to they blew up the entire thing with explosives. It went off right as " the chicken man " pointed at the bandits making it seem like el pollo diablo made that building explode with his awesome power. The bandits pee them selves and run. So begins the legend of the chicken devil and his awesome stick of random destruction.

6. "If pollymorphed into a chicken yes you can fire eggs at the bad guys.... just stop asking." Some times my PCs are wierd.


i have a fair few hous rules in the campaign i am running at the moment.

first. i'm using a free form class system where every time someone levels up we discuss what they have done to figure out what they gain. it has ended up with some realy odd yet cool combinations.

second. i'm using a critical hits and fumbles system from dragon magazine from way back but the injuries sustained last until properly healed.

third. multipul natural 20 on attack rolls increase the critical multiplyer of the weapon. for example if someone uses a longsword and get 3 natural 20s followed by a hit he would deal 4 times damage.

fourth. using the class based defence bonus system.

fifth. armor is DR, converting all the AC bonus over. the armor check penalty of any armor worn counts against the warers AC. if the base magical bonus of a weapon either beats or equals that of the armor then it bypasses it's DR.

sixth. sorcerers use a spell point system for casting. they can overcast but it causes them to go insain.

seventh. i dont tell my players exactly how many hit points they have left. i tell them how they are feeling. i will tell them their hit point totals if they make a DC15 heal check.

there are more but i cant bring them to mind at the moment.
i know it's allot but i have been working with this same group to try out several aspects of a new system for a while.


I also use spell points for my casters as well (all of them) to make it a bit more diverse.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Newest house rule: When you roll a 20, one damage die is automatically maxed.

So on a natural twenty, your damage is maxed if you do not confirm the crit.
On a confirmed crit, if you roll one twenty, you max one roll and roll the other normally.
On a confirmed crit, if you roll two twenties, your damage is maxed.


Great Green God wrote:

Knowledge checks for monsters: The player gets to see the Monster Manual entry for one second for each factor of five by which s/he beats the DC. I add a second for page flips and generally describe where the monster is on a page before I start the countdown.

This defeats the argument that they don't get anything useful when I tell them about the creatures diet, organization or mating habits, but also allows them to overlook things like DR 15/cold iron, nasty spell-like abilities, or the fact that the creature's diet might actually be important this time around.

GGG

Goddamn, I love this. Probably end up using it.


juanpsantiagoXIV wrote:
I can't believe I didn't think of this one earlier, this is actually one of mine: If an AOE spell (fireball, for example) is cast in a room too small to contain all the squares it normally hits, it finds the nearest exit port and goes out, traveling until it uses up all the squares. A fireball cast in the end of a 5x5x10 in a one-way hallway would take up the two squares st the origin and then 38 more. Hope that makes sense.

I'm stealing this.


Kelsey MacAilbert wrote:
juanpsantiagoXIV wrote:
I can't believe I didn't think of this one earlier, this is actually one of mine: If an AOE spell (fireball, for example) is cast in a room too small to contain all the squares it normally hits, it finds the nearest exit port and goes out, traveling until it uses up all the squares. A fireball cast in the end of a 5x5x10 in a one-way hallway would take up the two squares st the origin and then 38 more. Hope that makes sense.
I'm stealing this.

Be careful. A fireball is not a flat disc. It's a sphere. Where do those extra squares go? With large spells you can easily fill entire dungeons if the corridors are narrow enough.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

That's more math than I care to do. :)

Besides, it has no volume. It is a blast of flame that expands from one point thirty feet outward in all directions and stops.


My favorite that's developed recently is that if I, as the GM, make a pun or cheesy joke in or about the game, I get a piece of candy thrown at me. If it's a bad joke, I get it thrown at me hard.


juanpsantiagoXIV wrote:
I can't believe I didn't think of this one earlier, this is actually one of mine: If an AOE spell (fireball, for example) is cast in a room too small to contain all the squares it normally hits, it finds the nearest exit port and goes out, traveling until it uses up all the squares. A fireball cast in the end of a 5x5x10 in a one-way hallway would take up the two squares st the origin and then 38 more. Hope that makes sense.

I don't consider this a house rule. It's classic AD&D.

Maybe many of you would consider this a house rule, but I always use the following:

If the 3.5/Pathfinder rules are unclear on anything, I turn to the AD&D DMG/PHB as the ultimate authorities. Previous rules preempt later rules, unless it's a Clarification/Errata thing within an edition. The simpler the better is my campaign motto.

EDIT: Exceptions to the above:

The initiative system (what was Gygax smoking?)

Pummeling/Grappling (Oh. My. God.)


Older is not always simpler. Simpler is not always better.

Shadow Lodge

Jerry Wright 307 wrote:
If the 3.5/Pathfinder rules are unclear on anything, I turn to the AD&D DMG/PHB as the ultimate authorities. Previous rules preempt later rules, unless it's a Clarification/Errata thing within an edition. The simpler the better is my campaign motto.

Yeah. maybe we should go back to the old HP values so fireball is actually a good spell again!


Only the high priest of a faith (or Druid of its territory) can raise the dead. Also, the first person to roll a fumble must drink the mystery beer.


TriOmegaZero wrote:

That's more math than I care to do. :)

Besides, it has no volume. It is a blast of flame that expands from one point thirty feet outward in all directions and stops.

That's how it is described, but the area is actually a spread. Which brings me to my houserule: fireball is a burst.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Fascinating. However, it still only spreads 20 feet from point of origin.
Not sure why I thought it was 30 feet. Faulty memory.

Sovereign Court

Yeah the difference is that a spread goes around corners and a burst doesn't...plus it's magic...and it's a brief flash of extreme heat not an actual ball of fire, like a napalm explosion.

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