The house rule horror story thread


Homebrew and House Rules

151 to 186 of 186 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>

But if they're in the same book and designed to be taken together it makes no difference. Plus you need a ton of books if your feats and spells are spread out, and the rogue is going to struggle to ever be as complex as a core druid.
Limiting available books would seem to solve the problem much better if people really can't cope.

I don't really see the problem with the GM not knowing everyone's abilities. It's good to have an idea, sure, but I don't know what my party can do. The barbarian hits things, the magus has spell combat, shocking grasp and colour spray, the bard sings and casts Invisibility and Unnatural Lust and the ninja is the spy from team fortress 2, if he was a frog with a 10' tongue. That's the limit of what I can remember off the top of my head.

As for the beastmorph vivisectionist, it was meant to be. If it's too good, ban it. Don't ban all other builds that happen to combine archetypes. That's a textbook example of trying to stop something without bothering to understand it first. Somewhere, a Ki Mystic of the Lotus is crying.


bookrat wrote:
9) If you couldn't figure out what your character was going to do within a minute, your character lost his turn that round. Now, this is an old 1e rule that our GM house-ruled into 2e. It's not that bad for most players, but for the guy playing the cleric it was horrible. Since the cleric didn't have to prepare spells, it made the entire cleric spell list available to him (at mid level ranges, this is literally hundreds of spells). That meant that the player often had to pour through multiple books to find a spell that would be useful, and if the player couldn't do it in a minute or so (including getting the rule right, or even trying to find a spell that he remembered what it did but couldn't remember the name), he lost his turn. Our cleric player ended up using up as much time as possible before it was too late, and then made a last second decision to just melee attack the nearest monster. He attacked much more often than he cast.

What was the cleric doing while other people were having their turns? What about between combats? Between games?

I like rules like this, because they highlight which players give some thought to their characters' tactics and strategies, not just at the moment when the DM says "ok, your turn, cleric".

When I play a caster with access to their full spell list, I make a list of the effective spells, note which are effective for what sorts of situations, make some notes on tactics... and as a DM, I get pretty annoyed when players sit there, twiddling their thumbs (or doing something else) during other people's turns, and then when their turn comes up, go "Whahuh...? Oh, my turn... uhh... I guess I... uhh... <frantic skim of character sheet> ... I, uhh... <frantic flip through book> ... I, uh... I cast..." and so forth.

Just because you have a bunch of options doesn't mean, a) that all of them are potentially combat-applicable, and b) that you actually need to consider every single one of those options the moment the DM calls on you. If you haven't drawn up some sort of contingency plan beforehand, then just pick something that looks reasonable and go with it.


Because the circumstances of combat can't change in the rounds leading up to the Cleric's turn, potentially causing him to need to change his strategy at the last moment.


Katz wrote:
Because the circumstances of combat can't change in the rounds leading up to the Cleric's turn, potentially causing him to need to change his strategy at the last moment.

Sure. That's why you have contingency plans.

In any case, you should still only need to look through your short list of "spells that might be useful in combat", not flip through multiple sourcebooks; and even this, surely, shouldn't be happening all the time.

I mean, I've played spellcasters many times. This isn't actually an issue if you're prepared.

What I think happens, in addition to the aforementioned lack-of-attention issue, is that some people get fixated on wanting to take the ideal action, when a reasonably suitable action would almost certainly do just fine.


Azaelas Fayth wrote:

I guess I need to look into White Wolf a bit more... Though I didn't really like what I seen... What is a good starting book if you want to get into White Wolf Games?

Also is there any good Zombie games besides All Flesh?

Having read and compared the older to newer stuff, I would say that Dark Ages Vampire is easily the best. This newer Requiem stuff is horrible (what the other guy was citing, involving buying a World of Darkness book). It improves the mechanics in general, but the story, politics, character definitions, you name it, has gone even more vague than you can shake a proverbial stick at.

I don't know much about "zombie" games. I have a lot of the Zombies!!! game, but to be honest it is a mindless slog through zombies that replicate faster than anyone could possibly keep up with. You never actually get to the helicopter to escape, so you try to get your 25 zombie quota and have done with it. It's a lot more fun with lots of people playing.


Mortuum wrote:

Yeah, its the 2004 one. Looks like this.

It has the rules for being normal humans and the basic system.

The expansions that turn it into an RPG about monster PCs are:

Vampire the Requiem (the standard world of darkness experience. It's gothic horror, the horror of becoming a monster and finding yourself doing terrible things.)

Just don't. Don't do this to the poor guy. I've read through a good chunk of the Requiem stuff, and it sucks. Hands down. It takes some of the fundamental flaws of the older VTM, and exacerbates them, while improving on the game mechanics via World of Darkness.

Seriously man, just read the Dark Ages Vampire book. Not the purple one, the black cover. Apparently the above guy forgot about it. I've been gaming for a long time now, and have seen editions come and go. Requiem in comparison to DAV blows chunks.


Mortuum wrote:

Having played scion for quite a while, I have to say that those three mental attributes did not play well. Appearance was nearly useless, powers seemed to be assigned to each attribute using the dartboard and blindfold method and at least two attributes seemed applicable to any given roll.

Such a mess.

Scion basically needed game mechanics work. But it was not in any sense "old World of Darkness". Think of it as the transition between the old and newer stuff.


Let's see...

1. The GM decided that you could only sneak attack once in a round (He knew that this was Backstab from earlier D&D editions, he just didn't like players doing massive precision damage like our two-weapon rogue), unless you took a long string of unrelated feats that magically grant you more sneak attacks.

2. Paladin with high Charisma and Divine Grace in the group? Crank up ALL THE DC'S! (Our GM decided to punish everyone else in the group because we had a paladin with good saves thanks to Divine Grace. Tiny pit trap? DC 30 now.)

3. You only have ten "lives", after that, "your soul is too frail and frayed from the journey from the afterlife to make it back to your body." (A failed attempt at making death "scarier", the GM was also very sadistic and got his rocks off by killing PCs.)


Piccolo, let's not have an edition war about world of darkness.

He asked for horror, and to me, the new world of darkness is horror. It doesn't have a huge, detailed fantasy world, its characters are much more vulnerable and the whole thing has a different, more horror orientated tone.

Also, he asked for a good place to start, not the best version of the game. The cheaper, easier to find, mechanically simpler version of the game that doesn't have all those fluff details to learn would seem like the obvious place.

And yeah, scion isn't old world of darkness be any stretch of the imagination, but it's way closer to old than new. It had OWoD's Abilities (skills, for those unfamiliar with the system) and Attributes.

Ashram, I have always believed introducing new things to cancel out PC abilities is a sure sign of a bad DM. You just can't make a habit of that while staying in the spirit of the game.


Mortuum wrote:


He asked for horror, and to me, the new world of darkness is horror. It doesn't have a huge, detailed fantasy world, its characters are much more vulnerable and the whole thing has a different, more horror orientated tone.

Also, he asked for a good place to start, not the best version of the game. The cheaper, easier to find, mechanically simpler version of the game that doesn't have all those fluff details to learn would seem like the obvious place.

And yeah, scion isn't old world of darkness be any stretch of the imagination, but it's way closer to old than new. It had OWoD's Abilities (skills, for those unfamiliar with the system) and Attributes.

Ashram, I have always believed introducing new things to cancel out PC abilities is a sure sign of a bad DM. You just can't make a habit of that while staying in the spirit of the game.

After examining all the versions of the game, from the softcover VTM to the Requiem version, I had to say that easily it was DAV that topped them all out, even if we only restrict the games to their core books. In terms of horror, the system you cite simply didn't have anything scary. Everything contradicted everything else, settings were vague and ill defined, characters had less personality, etc. I had less reason to give a damn about whatever was happening.

As for mechanically simpler, you haven't obviously read DAV. It defined the main powers more, yet kept the numbers needed down. Meanwhile, Requiem actually increased the numbers dramatically, yet had once again poorly defined powers.

Scion was simply the intermediate step between VTM Revised and nWoD, but that little transition didn't take into account DAV in the slightest. I've been through more game systems than I can count, played so many that I can't even recall all their names. DAV was the best written, hands down. Yes, the weapons/armor system needed the patches that were in Spoils of War, yes, it needed the high and low clans books, but it worked well, it was internally consistent from start to finish. In fact, up until Pathfinder, it did that consistency better than any game I'd ever encountered. I am still ambivalent about certain aspects/books in Pathfinder, but not of DAV. To someone as critical as I am consistently about every game I encounter, it STILL has them beat.


Ashram wrote:
3. You only have ten "lives", after that...

This actually doesn't sound that bad, GM tendency of often killing PC's notwithstanding.

Ashram wrote:

1. The GM decided that you could only sneak attack once in a round...

2. Paladin with high Charisma and Divine Grace in the group? Crank up ALL THE DC'S! ....

These both sound absolutely horrible though :/


My games usually carry a "You will die at least once." warning...

@Piccolo: Where can I find DAV? I can't find any source for it.


This was an on-the-spot house r ule that sucked at the time, but has become a sort of running joke with me and the GM.

Out group was in Rise of the Runelords...

RotRL spoiler:
during the Giant's raid on Sandpoint, and I, the fire-loving dire bat riding halfling druid, was the only one capable of fighting Longtooth(a red dragon for those of you who haven't played but are reading this spoiler anyway) that was flying around and breathing fire on the town.

After a nasty series of attacks killed my dire bat(poor Freefall), I turned into a regular bat and started to run/fly away. Then I had an idea, and flew after the dragon. When it was my turn and I was close enough.

Me: I flew up to get above the dragon and wildshape into an elephant."

DM "Okay, you said you were flying up, so you've reached your apogee and won't fall until your next."

That would have been the coolest thing one of my characters has ever done, and the dang dragon flew out from under me on it's next turn. I gave up, used my last wildshape to turn into a flying fish, and headed to the water to wait things out.


Not to force you to read the spoiler, but I would have said, "I didn't wildshape into Dumbo! A full grown elephant is not going to hang in midair till my next turn." Maybe you should have added, "I look down, so I fall." Like when a subcompact car tries to fight with a bus, a science teacher somewhere is crying.
Let's just say applying the one turn wait for summoning, to wildshape or reversing shrink object destroys immersion and ruins the game for everyone.


Goth Guru wrote:

Not to force you to read the spoiler, but I would have said, "I didn't wildshape into Dumbo! A full grown elephant is not going to hang in midair till my next turn." Maybe you should have added, "I look down, so I fall." Like when a subcompact car tries to fight with a bus, a science teacher somewhere is crying.

Let's just say applying the one turn wait for summoning, to wildshape or reversing shrink object destroys immersion and ruins the game for everyone.

I don't think he was waiting a round to wildshape, it was an arbitrary stop point in the movement. Like when you are running for more than a round, in between rounds you are still running, but wherever you are when your turn ends is where you "are"....if you follow me.


Except you don't fall like that. You start falling the instant you stop whatever was making you not fall.


That noob GM is gonna be sorry when a rules lawyer steps on a trap door and insists it cannot make him fall till it's next turn. That must be why you have time to cast feather fall.
He opened Pandora's box, I'm just supplying the curses.


That's the thing, he wasn't a nood GM.


Azaelas Fayth wrote:

My games usually carry a "You will die at least once." warning...

@Piccolo: Where can I find DAV? I can't find any source for it.

You can find it either on ebay in the original format, or you can likely find it cheaper on drivethrurpg.com in electronic format.


bookrat wrote:
6) Not really a house rule, but "no math or physics" was periodically mentioned. Especially when we tried to use physics or math to show that an ability would work or something an enemy did wouldn't work.

This is really a pretty necessary rule. You think rules arguments are bad given the set of Pathfinder rules, arguments that devolve into looking up physics concepts on Wikipedia? NEVER. ENDING.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
firefly the great wrote:
This is really a pretty necessary rule. You think rules arguments are bad given the set of Pathfinder rules, arguments that devolve into looking up physics concepts on Wikipedia? NEVER. ENDING.

Hey, those are fun. :P


bookrat wrote:


7) All arcane spells had somatic components. If a spell did not normally have a somatic component, the GM would design a somatic component for the spell. The player had to actually perform the somatic component with their hands in order to cast the spell. Yes, that's the player, not the character. If the player messed up, their character did not cast the spell.

Wow. This is perhaps one of the most ridiculous rules I've ever heard.

Quote:


8) Divine spells did not have to be prepared at the beginning of the day. So long as the cleric made his daily prayer session, he got his spell slots, but there were no prepared spells for the cleric. This may seem like a good idea, but see the next entry for why it was bad:

We used a similar rule in 2nd Ed and never had the problem you described. Though we did have one player who had a bad habit of only reading the first paragraph of the spell description and missing the limitations listed further on. But he had the same problem when playing a wizard, so it wasn't a "Any spell in the book" problem.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
firefly the great wrote:
bookrat wrote:
6) Not really a house rule, but "no math or physics" was periodically mentioned. Especially when we tried to use physics or math to show that an ability would work or something an enemy did wouldn't work.
This is really a pretty necessary rule. You think rules arguments are bad given the set of Pathfinder rules, arguments that devolve into looking up physics concepts on Wikipedia? NEVER. ENDING.

I agree. I (the GM) am a mathematics student, and my players consist of a biology student and two geology students. Needless to say, creating a believable world for them is a bit more difficult. "No, no. That country wouldn't be a desert. The easterly winds blowing over that ocean would carry precipitation to the region." I usually to fall back to the classic response: "Magic!"


An antediluvian, blue dragon sleeps beneath the dessert sands. That's what's keeping out the rain.
I haven't made goofy mistakes like that since I tried to play the box set solitaire.
With summoning, the monster doesn't arrive till the summoners next initiative. It then attacks, falls, or whatever. If it cannot fly, it cannot hang in midair. Science doesn't make gravity. It just tries to explain it.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
JDCAce wrote:
firefly the great wrote:
bookrat wrote:
6) Not really a house rule, but "no math or physics" was periodically mentioned. Especially when we tried to use physics or math to show that an ability would work or something an enemy did wouldn't work.
This is really a pretty necessary rule. You think rules arguments are bad given the set of Pathfinder rules, arguments that devolve into looking up physics concepts on Wikipedia? NEVER. ENDING.
I agree. I (the GM) am a mathematics student, and my players consist of a biology student and two geology students. Needless to say, creating a believable world for them is a bit more difficult. "No, no. That country wouldn't be a desert. The easterly winds blowing over that ocean would carry precipitation to the region." I usually to fall back to the classic response: "Magic!"

I think I would be a bit more mysterious. "And yet it is a desert." If the character does not share the player's expertise, add "Your character has no way to know that something may be amiss here -- that is just the way things are to him." If the character does potentially know something about how weather is supposed to work, add "Perhaps one day you can solve this mystery."

Then in my later free time I would get to work figuring out why an area that should be getting plenty of rain is nevertheless a desert.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
JDCAce wrote:
I (the GM) am a mathematics student, and my players consist of a biology student and two geology students. Needless to say, creating a believable world for them is a bit more difficult. "No, no. That country wouldn't be a desert. The easterly winds blowing over that ocean would carry precipitation to the region."

YES!!! As a geologist who used to DM predominantly for other geologists, drawing a map for a campaign setting was a time-intensive ordeal -- first I'd start with tectonic plates, add continents, mentally shift the plates until enough collisions and movement over hot spots occured to form different types of mountains. Raise or lower sea level, keeping in mind higher levels would correspond to warmer temperatures and less ice cap. Check where the land masses ended up, latitude-wise, and set prevailing winds based on coriolis (balancing the size of the planet vs. the length of the day). Draw in some ocean current loops. Estimate precipitation. All this together gives a pretty good idea of what the climate in each area would be like. Add rivers based on topography and precipitation (more rivers flowing from areas with more recharge), and you're good to go.


Okay, here's one that was from my own houserules that'll be used if I ever run a game offline.

I was going to allow Vital Strike with Spirited Charge, completely forgetting that SC and lances deal more damage dice on a charge.


I allow Vital Strike with a LOT of things and roll it into a single feat. I see it used a lot more and it tends to make Martial Characters a bit more flexible.


Our DM doesn't multiply strength on Crits. Kinda sucks for the barbarians and fighter types.

He doesn't care for casters so most the time we face these types, so it is a boon as well as a nerf if we are playing melee types.

Also, he doesn't allow resurrection type magic. I remember on my druid, I got 4th level spells and joked about reincarnating people and he basically said "not in my game.".

I can live with both though. Though he does use the Critical hit deck. But this also means he uses the Fumble deck.


Oh and another DM we had screwed the Rogue over hardcore. It was 3.5, so he already couldn't sneak attack undead and etc.

He basically let the rogue only get a sneak attack if the enemy wasn't aware of his presence. Flanking? Didn't matter. He knew you were there so he magically was able to defend his vitals while still trying to dodge hits from your buddy.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Pezmerga wrote:

Our DM doesn't multiply strength on Crits. Kinda sucks for the barbarians and fighter types.

He doesn't care for casters so most the time we face these types, so it is a boon as well as a nerf if we are playing melee types.

Also, he doesn't allow resurrection type magic. I remember on my druid, I got 4th level spells and joked about reincarnating people and he basically said "not in my game.".

I can live with both though. Though he does use the Critical hit deck. But this also means he uses the Fumble deck.

I actually kinda like the Crit and Fumble decks. I use them in my game, and I play in 2 games that use them. In my Tuesday game that I play in, we were level 4 and were fighting a marsh giant (CR 8). The thing fumbled, and the DM drew a card that made the giant helpless, so we coup de graced it. I don't know what everyone's hatred for them is about.

And I have noticed the "no rez magic" rule being fairly common.

The Exchange

Thankfully I've managed to repress many of the house-rule stupidities I've had to endure over the years.

I was among those who played at a table where falling damage was increased; my only concession was for my rogue - even if he were just falling one or two feet - to scream "I regret nothing!", just in case this was the fall that ended up doing him in. (Sure enough, one eventually did.)

I have a vague recollection of "realistic" language rules that reduced the majority of the party to grunting and pointing; "realistic" coinage-exchange laws that saw the party lose an easy 10% of their cash on hand to scamming moneychangers; and - may the gods defend you from this - a dungeon that could only be completed by drawing a special 'Key' card from a 'modified' deck of many things. This is quite aside from the day-to-day stuff like arbitrarily changing the height of a decapitation trap to allow for the fact that the halfling was in the lead or being restrained by mysterious forces from yanking out the spleen of the Chaotic Neutral party member who was oh-so-blatantly stealing from the group...


From my experiences with house rules, as a player, here are two examples. The first one, was in a D&D 3.5 Dragonlance campaign:

The Ever-Changing Rules:
In that game, we had as a custom (more than a house rule) that every critical threat must be confirmed instantly before rolling the next attack in a full attack action.

It's also of notice that plenty of legendary 14+ level NPCs roams the land... doing NOTHING.

Then, our GM decided to implement a very harsh rule: A 1 in a attack roll will be a fumble threat that must be confirmed, like a critical threat... except that, if the confirmation was another 1... you are dead. Period.

In any case, the group decided to give it a try.

So, enter our lv 7 party.

Short after leaving The Great Desolation, and encounter a full-on 14+ lv adventuring party. After a brief talk and receiving some healing, the veteran ranger invited my dwarf fighter to a sparring battle... only that it will use real weapons, since they have a divine caster and even "if you die, she will raise you".

My PC won the initiative. Knowing the combat prowess of the adversary (he was legendary, after all), he fight defensively, and missed. The ranger moved and hit hard, leaving in range for a full-attack. Then, he broke his defensive stance and went full attack: the first hit succeed (for the honor!) and the second was a fumble that was not confirmed (a 12 or so). The ranger took the AoO, and hit. The dwarf was below half his HPs...

GM:"So, he smiles and, taking his bastard sword with both hands, decides to end the battle quickly, taking advantage of your slump."
*rolls a 1*
Me:"Come on... Come on... fumble..."
*rolls a 1, again*
Me:"Yeah! He's dead! Level up!!!"
GM:"No, that was the second attack's roll..."
Me:"What?"
*rolls a 1, AGAIN*
...
Me:"So, he's dead now?"
...
GM:"I have decided to not use the fumble confirmation rule. There's one attack left."

Long story short, the next attack landed, resolved BEFORE my AoO and killed my PC.

and the other one was in a D&D 3.5 homebrew campaign I'm currently playing:

The Precog Tumbling:
In this campaign, the GM decided to "tweak" the rules of Tumble to make it an opposed check vs the creature's attack roll... but a 1 always mean a failure.
What's odd is that, if the tumbler is beaten in the contested roll, he knows that the enemy will take the AoO and will hit.
It's not so grievous, since you could choose not to move (but lose your move action) and do not receive the attack, but it was awkward... and try to roleplay that when you try to get past 2+ enemies!

DISCLAIMER: I admit that both examples (specially the first one) would be too long, and many of you won't like to read walls of text. Hence, they are enclosed in spoilers.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

So many of these rules aren't rules at all so much as a dude throwing his weight around. "house rule horror stories" seem to be "gm horror stories" much more often than badly thought out rules.

The fumble rule you mention is terrible, being neither fair nor sensible, but the horror part is that some guy was changing the rules as he went along.


I once played in a game with new and improved two weapon fighting. Everyone else had been doing it wrong, and this group was convinced that they had it right. Essentially, for every twf feat you take you get an extra attack with your off hand per primary. This means you get 12 attacks at 11 BAB if you use two weapon fighting. The DM claimed it was more realistic because this was like a shiv in real life. The DM also gave everyone pounce for free, because that's also how it was supposed to be done. I couldn't convince them otherwise on any rule, despite being invited specifically because I knew the rules. The twf rangers turn took forever.

That game was a mess.


Mortuum wrote:

So many of these rules aren't rules at all so much as a dude throwing his weight around. "house rule horror stories" seem to be "gm horror stories" much more often than badly thought out rules.

The fumble rule you mention is terrible, being neither fair nor sensible, but the horror part is that some guy was changing the rules as he went along.

I have to agree with you in this one. Maybe I didn't fully understand the "horror" part in the thread's title, but I wanted to share some experience here (something very common around these boards). So far, the best example of "house rule horror" was the "full attack as a standard action" one.

151 to 186 of 186 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Homebrew and House Rules / The house rule horror story thread All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Homebrew and House Rules