Gameplay Standards Variations


Homebrew and House Rules


While browsing the homebrew threads, I notice a lot of things that seem like subjects the vast majority of play-groups hold in absolute contempt. The odd thing, is most of these are concepts that are the total norm for my play-group (we have about 15 players that rotate in and out, 6 of which take turns DMing, average campaign including probably 5 players, plus the occasional rando).

The main concepts that jump out at me were:
1. Permanent death. In over 8 years of gaming with this group, we have barely every rezzed anyone. Pretty much every GM in the group makes it a massive and expensive ordeal, and bringing a dead character back to life can be a mini-campaign all by itself. People on the threads seem to think it will breed detachment from characters, but everyone in our group still builds fully fleshed out and role-played characters, even though the chance of permanent death is very strong.

2. Dungeons: Maybe, like 30% of campaigns we've played focus on a dungeon. Most of them have a dungeon or two, but cities and wilderness take up equal if not greater screen time. It had seemed to me that actual dungeon-diving was passing out of popularity pre-3.0. After browsing here it seems like many groups are still very dungeon focused, however.

3. Non-standard Combat Actions via Skills: The number of GMs I've seen on here to shoot down such concepts is high, but it is fairly common in one of our campaigns for a player to say "Hey, can I do X action?" and the GM to say "Sure, roll X, X, and X skill checks. If you succeed on all three you get X bonus on your attack roll. If you fail you fall flat on your face." and such situations allow great cinematic moments as players utilize the environment to create amazing (or traumatic) situations.

What is everyone's thoughts on things? How are your groups unique and what house rules do you have that you think stand out?


1. I've never seen anyone resurrected via spell. I've seen someone die but because last session they ate necromancer goo they came back as an undead but that's it.

2. Any interior space that has a lot of fighting is a dungeon to me so it never has bothered me.

3. I generally see "if it makes sense ask the GM and s/he'll make up something on the spot. There is a fear that some ruling will be exploited because it makes sense at the time but not anymore, but it hasn't come up yet. This usually applies to things that there are no rules for so its never a huge bonus or involve any truly relevant modifiers.


I think the negative reactions are less against the use of those subjects (most of which are, after all, just tools that can be used well or poorly), but by their most vocal proponents: the snobbish, old-guard grognards who can't look at the Armor Class column without busting out a "Back in my day, the AC went backwards, and you had to use charts and math and THAC0 to figure out if you'd even hit!"

And so on. I doubt anyone would really tell you you're doing it wrong, though, if you do those things. The whole point of the game, after all, is to enjoy it, and if they make a more enjoyable game, then who's to complain? After all, the reason we get unhappy with the snobs is that they're convinced that their way of enjoying the game is the only "correct" way of doing it, and everyone else is *doing it wrong*. Be pretty hypocritical of use to say *you're* not doing it right.


DungeonmasterCal wrote:
What is everyone's thoughts on things? How are your groups unique and what house rules do you have that you think stand out?
Sounds like you and I would really game well together.


1. Depends on levels. At mid-to-higher levels... yeah, death is cheap. Raise Dead is a 5th level Cleric spell, so it's available at level 9. Scrolls of it cost 6,125 gp (including its material cost), which means the odds are good that any Large City has the scroll laying around, and any Large Town has a Cleric to cast it if you can get the corpse back in time. With Qualities it's possible for a Village to have the right Cleric even-- so the spell isn't really hard to procure. And after that, it's just a matter of getting that same Cleric to cast a few Restorations.

Now, that's the book approach. Whether or not that stands up in a game is, of course, a different question-- and at low-levels, barring GM intervention a dead character is pretty much just dead. But that's GM-specific stuff on both sides, so see #3.

2. A lot of this probably has to do with PFS and APs. Runelords, one of the higher-held APs, has a couple classic dungeons in it, and dungeons are a PFS staple because they're quick and easy to run. And beyond that... what is a "dungeon", exactly? If we're cleaning out goblins from an abandoned factory, is that a dungeon crawl or no?

3. The main problem here is that GMs vary wildly. So it's hard for us to say "yeah, you can bicycle-kick that table into the guy's face, make an Acrobatics check and then an attack roll with X bonus depending on your check". That's not something that we can really account for. So when giving advice or discussing a rule or considering a new option, it's generally wise to take the conservative, strict-rules approach that makes it a glaring pain to use any skill in combat that isn't Spellcraft, a Knowledge, or Intimidate. Unless of course a rule along those lines is the focus of the discussion... but those don't tend to be codified.


The first one hasn't come up. Most of the time they want a new character in my groups. (Usually the deaths went to the stupid characters)

The second one...
... eh. I like dungeon crawls. Some of my party mates don't. Depends who is GMing.

The third is what makes pathfinder fun compared to video games. The ability to break free from predesignated actions. (Ever tried alchemists fire as a melee weapon?)


3. If it makes the scene awesome-looking in my head, and it fits with the theme of your character, then I may either force a skill roll - or even just describe it happening in the way I envision it.

I also give bonuses like this for really good one-liners.


@Kestral: Typically I define a dungeon as any long-term subterranean/indoor 'quest' with a focus on killing monsters or supernatural baddies; I'm not sure how that lines up with the general populace and their definition.

@Broadhand: One of the GMs in our group ran a campaign with a bonus for well delivered one-liners. It was hysterical, everyone had a good time with it.

What kinds off atypical house rules do you guys like to use? There are sets of rules that seem to circulate and are more standard and high usage, but what ones do you have that you think if you brought it up to a new crowd, you'd get weird looks?

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