Oh god those games. They'd be a goldmine of horrible house rules.
"Hey guys, I was playing this awesome game and I've decided that from now on, when a character polymorphed into an egg-laying creature sits down, they'll lay an egg and anyone who eats it might get sick and die! Oh, and shopkeepers are level 20 and random level 1 gnome experts have wands of Finger of Death! This is gonna be the best session EVER!"
Imagine why I'm so thoroughly confused when people think it's a good idea to have more randomness at their table.
My best guess is that it's most poorly-remembered nostalgia combined with a pitiful understanding of game design. There's a reason game design today is not at all like it was in the '80s. Besides, those old editions didn't just go poof. If ya like it so much, just go play 2e. You don't have to play PF or whatever just because it's newer. =P
I never liked negative AC. You had to use charts, because the math was so confusing.
Aunt Tony, I'm going to give you a free solid and assume you were being sarcastic.
I meant about wanting people to go back to second/advanced edition.
I've heard a lot of horror stories about Tomb of Horrors, of course.
I meant about wanting people to go back to second/advanced edition.
I've heard a lot of horror stories about Tomb of Horrors, of course.
You really can't hold Tomb of Horrors up as the usual 2E game; that thing was designed to be a meat grinder and it made no pretenses that it was anything but.
Worst house rule I have ever been subjected to by a DM as a player: Armor counts as HP FF tactics style. The way he had it ALMOST sounded like it could be playable. Not really sure what he was trying to accomplish with this house rule to be honest but we gave it an honest try. After 3 sessions we pretty much scrapped the entire thing as incompatible with the d20 system without major overhauls.
Worst house rule I have ever subjected my players too as a DM: In a setting where the ground was a hellish wasteland (basically a high level place) and people lived in floating settlements in the sky I gave everyone flight for free. Yeah, yeah. I know you're thinking that's not THAT bad really, but that turned out to be the worst campaign I ever ran. Having free flight for everyone trivialized the fact that they were in the sky, and also made creating level appropriate encounters (given the environments) a b!$!&). Since then I have run another sky based campaign. Instead of free flight I opted to steal the rules for airships and for flight in a manifest zone of Syriana from Eberron and spread it through out the setting. Everything went much smoother the second time around.
A DM once ruled that in his world(I honestly don't know if it was his world or some weird campaign world I'd never heard of) that there was this group of people that were unaffected(is that right?..I have trouple with the effect/affect useage)by magic. Note that they were not immune to magic just unaffected by it due to the simple fact that they did not believe in it.
This meant that magic weapons were useless, summoned creatures useless, if you used magic to cause a chain of events it wouldn't intereact with them. Every player in the group argued with him until he said f*ck it and got up and left.
Someone else took over and we played for the rest of the night with no arguements.
Oh and even constructs wouldn't hurt them.
He refused to say they were immune as a matter of fact he argued that they were not immune but simply did not believe in magic and thus forth it didn't interact with them.
Every player in the group argued with him until he said f*ck it and got up and left.
A narrow escape for you, then. Some of us are much less fortunate.
oh crap forgot another "rule" he had in places...unlimited AOOs
LOl. Actually Arbane, that's mostly what our argument was. I was playing a cleric so when he suggested that I use a cure spell on one of the npc's I said no and reasoned that there was no way I was risking wasting a spell on an npc that might not get healed by it.
I don't really use house rules and if I do then it is run by my Co-DM(as I've said in another thread my world is actually co-created and run by another player). We work out any changes we want to make and usually it's just to fix stuff that doesn't make sense to us.
I never liked negative AC. You had to use charts, because the math was so confusing.
Aunt Tony, I'm going to give you a free solid and assume you were being sarcastic.
Between Serpent Skull and Kingmaker... I have seen TWO players create spreadsheets just to keep the math straight for Pathfinder. One to keep her barbarian/Ranger on track for bonuses against various seperate situations... (Power attack, favored enemy, Rage, etc. etc.) And now we have a new one for keeping the kingdom bonuses accurate. ;)
I've already commented that I think a system that inspires people to create excel spreadsheets JUST to play it... is a failing on the systems part.
The math here is a LOT more complicated then we ever had with THAC0 :)
As for worst house rules??
Hard to say, we had a LOT of house rules in 2E. One DM used 'training' rules that we had to stop for XXXXX number of days and focus on training... or we couldn't level. That stopped the momentum of the quests SEVERLY and was quite unpopular. There were way to many times the Paladin had to choose to 'rescue the hostages'... or take 3 days off to get the level they already earned.
Another one we're playing right now, has Armor as DR. Based kind of off the Game of Thrones system a few years back.. and actually mirrored a bit in the UC.
We still like the idea of Armor being a difference in 'did it Hit' and 'did it hurt'... but we didn't change the Thac0 enough to compensate for the easier ACs, and it's kind of a mess. Everyone, everywhere hits ALL the time... It needed a more ground up rewrite than what we did.
It seems that if DR is going to work as Armor... then the combat system has to be centered COMPLETLY around the concept... and not added in later. Also, Game of thrones didn't have magic, so there's that too O.o
Mark it down as a 'looked good on paper' experience :)
A couple of GMs I played under used the 3 nat 20s and you are dead homebrew rule (nat 20 to hit, nat 20 to confirm, and then if you roll another nat 20...). So, one Kingmaker session I was running, my dice were particularly hot and I was was wailing on one of my players when I rolled two nat 20s in a row. I rolled another nat 20 right after (just to see) and the player just looked at me like "Oh, crap"(he had also played under the 3 nat 20 rule). I let the tension hang for a moment before informing him that I would never use that rule.
Wow, some of these are wild.
I played with a GM who ruled that spellcasters got their ability-based bonus spells at first level. Meaning, if your wizard had an 18 Int, he got a bonus 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level spell at first level.
A while back, my GM started to use the "massive damage" rule. Incorrectly.
For those unfamiliar, the rule is that if you take "massive damage" from one single blow, you have to make a Fort save or die. The rule existed in 3.X too, but PF changed what qualifies as "massive damage".
In 3.X, it was 50 or more damage from a single blow. In PF, it's half your total HP, rounded up, minimum 50. In both rule sets, nothing under 50 damage counts as "massive", but Pathfinder added the "half your health" part.
Somehow, my GM got confused and decided that in Pathfinder, it was JUST the "half your health" part. He claims that this was a house rule from 3.X games he had played in before he learned to GM.
If this doesn't sound so bad, remember that at level 1, your total HP is 6-12, plus CON. And an average enemy attack deals 1d6 or 1d8, plus STR.
Fortunately he abandoned this rule once we looked up the actual rule and showed it to him. Shortly thereafter, we actually managed to live to see level 2.
Guilty of using this in my games were a massive blow was when ever you took half your current HP. DC was a static 15 but I ditched the rule with my newest group.
Also, and I still use this one when I GM, I change rounding down for rounding up. Everyone I game with usually loves it, even use it themselves but I had one guy who flipped and dropped any plans of gaming with us when he heard the rule. Is it really that horrible?
I played with a GM who ruled that spellcasters got their ability-based bonus spells at first level. Meaning, if your wizard had an 18 Int, he got a bonus 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level spell at first level.
Sup, charm monster!
Is it really that horrible?
Yessir~
Wow, some of these are wild.
I played with a GM who ruled that spellcasters got their ability-based bonus spells at first level. Meaning, if your wizard had an 18 Int, he got a bonus 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level spell at first level.
...That one is wilder! What's next, fighters automatically get their maximum dex bonus and three extra attacks at -5, -10 and -15? That guy's crazy.
I played with a GM who ruled that spellcasters got their ability-based bonus spells at first level. Meaning, if your wizard had an 18 Int, he got a bonus 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level spell at first level.
When I first started playing, I actually thought this was correct, with the stipulation obviously that you wouldn't know spells of that level. But I figured you could metamagic things up or something to make use of them.
I learned otherwise fairly fast, but yeah, so... <_<
...That one is wilder! What's next, fighters automatically get their maximum dex bonus and three extra attacks at -5, -10 and -15? That guy's crazy.Wow, some of these are wild.
I played with a GM who ruled that spellcasters got their ability-based bonus spells at first level. Meaning, if your wizard had an 18 Int, he got a bonus 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level spell at first level.
He was an odd guy. Fighters got a homebrew feat that let them deal max damage with one type of weapon, and they were never encumbered by armor.
That whole group was bananas. Only played two sessions with them.
...That one is wilder! What's next, fighters automatically get their maximum dex bonus and three extra attacks at -5, -10 and -15? That guy's crazy.Wow, some of these are wild.
I played with a GM who ruled that spellcasters got their ability-based bonus spells at first level. Meaning, if your wizard had an 18 Int, he got a bonus 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level spell at first level.
I'm not actually sure what you mean by "maximum DEX bonus" (I'm presuming to AC, ala ignoring maximum DEX for armor), but I don't see any problem with either the bonus spells being accessible spell-slots (meaning that while you may actually theoretically have a 4th level spell slot (which helps extend the fifteen minute adventuring day into at least a thirty minute one), it can only be used with first level spells) or fighters automatically gaining the option to make additional attacks in a round (which allows them to attempt something cool, if they want, even at early levels).
The Iterative Attack Bonus as it currently stands is a bit goofy and doesn't really work well at higher levels. It's one of the reasons I was thinking about my revised action economy (though currently I'm thinking of removing saves from a limited array of actions, or making them limited in some way other than consuming immediate actions).
The idea of having a single feat that you get automatically that grants maximum damage is... out there, I've got to admit. If it was at the end of a long feat chain, well, I could see that (though it'd still be extremely powerful), but not on its own. My guess is that the guy didn't play with minmaxers, or if he did, it didn't bother him because he was just as good as they were.
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He refused to say they were immune as a matter of fact he argued that they were not immune but simply did not believe in magic and thus forth it didn't interact with them.And none of you made characters who 'didn't believe' in Doors, Fire, Gravity, or Income Tax? And you call yourselves gamers.... :D
I don't believe in reality, but it still affects me. It's not fair!
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A couple of GMs I played under used the 3 nat 20s and you are dead homebrew rule (nat 20 to hit, nat 20 to confirm, and then if you roll another nat 20...). So, one Kingmaker session I was running, my dice were particularly hot and I was was wailing on one of my players when I rolled two nat 20s in a row. I rolled another nat 20 right after (just to see) and the player just looked at me like "Oh, crap"(he had also played under the 3 nat 20 rule). I let the tension hang for a moment before informing him that I would never use that rule.
Funny story, but the only triple 20 I ever rolled as a DM was one of my greatest triumphs. A hill giant was taking a club to the face of my own DMPC that I was using to help round out the party. We did use the triple 20 = death rule, but in this particular case, it didn't matter since normal crit damage would probably have finished them off. The cool part was the tension. All of the players were upset that their favorite support character had just bought the farm. Watching the players reap vengence for a fallen DMPC was possible one of my best DMing moments.
I don't see any NPCs using Diplomacy on the PCs to make them helpful. So while that may be a useful guideline for some rules, it's clearly not universal.
Isn't that one of the basic things in the gamemaster guide, the rules should apply equally to NPC's and PC's
Actually, almost all of the Charisma related skills are meant for dealing with NPC's, exclusively. It's to compensate for players who might not have the attributes etc that their characters do. Personally, I agree with the old White Wolf system, in that social influence is a slippery and very powerful effect on the game, thus it was effectively split into 3 different attributes (Charisma, Manipulation, Appearance).
I like how this is a horror story thread and we're considering incorporating them into our games.
Yes. You guys should start reading Knights of the Dinner Table strips. You'd feel right at home.
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.
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?
A good book to start with the the world of darkness core rulebook. It gives you the more simple, more recent version of their main rules systems, it's not huge and it introduces you to one of the two versions of the world of darkness. It's a horror game, not a modern fantasy game.
If you want more than the basics, you get the supernatural creature books. Essentially, these expand a vaguely described setting and a simple set of rules into big, deep, interlocking roleplaying games. They also add new themes and change the tone.
Basically just pick the kind of monster you want to run a game about. Personally I think changeling is a beautiful game, but I haven't been lucky enough to actually use my book yet.
As far as the other games go:
Old World of Darkness is known for it's good and expansive fluff. It's a much higher powered dark modern fantasy game, not a horror game. Many criticise the rules, but some love them.
Scion is awesome but broken. It's a game about the children of gods kicking ass and saving the world, but you'll probably need to fix a few things and you'll long to slap the editors.
Exalted has a new edition coming out. Wait for it.
Aberrant is apparently good? Not an expert. Time travel is supposedly broken though.
Similarly, I own a ton of N-WoD books (and haven't got to use a single one). I like the system, but agree that some stats are more relevant than others.
I can get access to a WoD Core Book from 2004 is that the recent one?
Are Changeling, Scion, Exalted, and Aberrant separate games or part of the WoD set?
I know they are Horror. Trust me I kinda wanna get away from the Fantasy for a bit.
Sorry for the questions and slightly Derailing...
My "World of Darkness - Storytelling System Rulebook" was printed in 2004, but I'm not sure if that's the most recent printing. I'd assume it is (I bought it maybe 2 years ago).
I thought that was Anima: Beyond Fantasy?
Thanks for your answers.
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.)
Werewolf the Forsaken (Spiritual, territorial balance keepers. This is less horror, more ass-kicking.)
Mage the Awakening (Most powerful by a long way. It's a game about power and hubris. Plenty of potential for horror, but the players will hardly be helpless.)
Promethean the Created (Frankenstiens monster/flesh golems. This is more sad than scary. You're a badass, but people are hurt and will hate you wherever you go and you want to become a human.)
Changeling the Lost (People who have been kidnapped by the fae, changed into fae creatures and escaped to find they'd been replaced by dopplegangers. It's about being lost, finding a place, hiding from your terrible Keeper and STAYING ON THE DAMN PATH.)
Geist the Sin Eaters (people returned from the dead with underwold powers. Happier than most, because it's about getting a second chance.)
Aaaaaand Hunter the Reckoning (More badass mortal monster hunters. Stare not into the abyss etc.)
There's also Genius the Transgression which is a really cool fan-made PDF book for playing mad scientists. (Goofy pulp scifi mixed with horror and bitter disappointment. Lots of opportunity to go mad.)
The reason I said it was horror is the old edition of the game is not really horror at all, it's a very grim urban fantasy.
Exalted is a stand alone rpg. It's anime inspired epic adventures about demigods in a really screwed up high fantasy world. It's a blend of east and west, with ridiculous Japan-inspired attack names, comic book art and flawed superhuman protagonists. It has vast amounts of fluff and some unwieldy mechanics.
Scion is another stand alone. It's about the children of mythological deities living on modern earth, fighting the monstrous spawn of the recently escaped titans. It's a extremely high power system and truly awesome and outrageous stuff happens all the time. However, it was rushed and it shows. The fluff and the rules both get weird and contradict themselves, so be prepared to put some effort into making it work.
I really want a lot of those Game Books...
Any chance someone would be willing to run a N-WoD Campaign? I believe I can get Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage Sourcebooks.
I own all but the Hunter book. I don't know what got into me, I just had to have 'em. Not a very good investment at this point, though (seeing as I've never played the game).
Every creature has a unique way of getting it back, usually involving a roll to harvest it. You get points equal to the successes on the check. Vampires are the biggest exception, because you catch people and drain their health to get power. Every normal person contains seven delicious points.
I'm far from an expert on Mage, so I can't really advise you about the mechanics of rote spells.
I have Vampire, Mage, Changeling and a ton of assorted PDFs. I don't have any particular plans for a game right now, but I might be up for one. I can let you guys know if something comes up.
This thread has gone gloriously off topic.
Here's another horrible house rule, not crazy by any stretch, but really annoying: Characters are limited to one archetype.
Why do this? Some of them are obviously designed to go together, I have never heard of combining them causing a problem and I've never seen a justification that makes sense.
I've seen one guy claim that you couldn't focus on that many things at once, but that sounds like an excuse and archetypes don't make you focus on more things.
It strikes me as an arbitrary limit on player choice put in place by people who don't understand the purpose of archetypes.
I agree. WoD-talk hacked this thread XD
I use plenty of house rules, many of which I'm sure tons of people would object to. Fortunately, my players don't seem to mind.
Usually the justification on the 1 Archetype is the Beastmorph Vivisectionist Alchemist.
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huh the the wod stuff really did make this a "horror" thread
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Dun Dun Tish.
On topic: I misunderstood the rules and treated squares occupied by friendly creatures as difficult terrain. That made the halfling in the back very unhappy in five-foot corridors.
Off topic: My second favorite RPG being discussed on a forum devoted to my favorite RPG? What a happy coincidence! If you by chance get an Internet game going, let me know.
I had a rule that allowed anyone who roll a 30 init or higher to get a surprise round, and this was in 3.5. Never again...
Bad house rules? Lets see here...
1) Nat 1 meant you rolled on the critical miss table. You could do anything from attack the wrong enemy, attack an ally, throw your weapon, break a limb, fall down prone, get your weapon stuck in the ceiling (I lost my character's only magical weapon this way, at level 6, in a campaign which required a magical weapon to even hit the enemy, and I didn't get a new magic weapon for about 6 months in real time playing every weekend), and more.
2) Low magic campaign where the world thought the gods abandoned them. One player had a cleric. All divine spells required us to pass a saving throw to see if they worked, including all cure spells. It was ruled that if we failed, we didn't believe the magic worked, therefore it didn't. EDIT: This rule didn't apply to spells cast at our opponents, and our cleric was the only one casting divine spells, so it's not like we had to save against enemy divine spells.
3) 2nd edition game. Thief's abilities were based on percentiles, and there's no counter to them (this is RAW). If you made your hide in shadows roll, that was that - you were hidden (given reasonable circumstances). For the NPCs, if they rolled their hide in shadows, we could never find them. For my thief when I rolled it, all bad guys had a percent chance to "detect" me. This house rule was inserted because my GM got tired of not being able to have monsters find my thief.
4) 2nd edition. Backstab has the word "stab" in it, so you can only use weapons that deal piercing damage.
5) Any spell or ability that the players used in a clever way and continued to use to the character's advantage repeatedly was deemed "overpowered" and was no longer allowed in the game. Elven archers were banned for this reason. Various spells were also banned for this reason.
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. If we insisted on it, the GM would throw a tantrum and say something along the lines of, "Ok, fine. You win. You save the world. Game over. Everyone goes home. Happy?"
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.
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:
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.
I have more, but I think that's enough for now.
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Here's another horrible house rule, not crazy by any stretch, but really annoying: Characters are limited to one archetype.Why do this? Some of them are obviously designed to go together, I have never heard of combining them causing a problem and I've never seen a justification that makes sense.
I've seen one guy claim that you couldn't focus on that many things at once, but that sounds like an excuse and archetypes don't make you focus on more things.
It could be to minimize the amount of rules necessary to build one character. Or possibly to minimize the number of books you need to cross-reference every time you level up just to keep track of which class abilities you have and don't have.
I remember once playing as an Arcane Duelist Bard, occasionally my GM would prompt me when an opportunity for Countersong came up and I'd have to remind him that I traded out Countersong for Rallying Cry. He was always kind of amazed that I couldn't take 10 on Knowledge checks or make them untrained, even though I had never claimed to be a skill-focused bard. He knew I was using an archetype, but he could never keep track of what I had that a normal bard didn't, or vice versa. It didn't help that I was still "the bard", Inspiring Courage, handy with the Diplomacy, and mixing it up with a longsword and an illusion.
If there are people in the group still getting used to the concept of archetypes, then applying two or more to the same character isn't going to help.
