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As title, I would just like to see some opinions on house rules that you feel enhance the game, either as flavor, or you feel are a mechanical improvement.
I'll start:
1) Wis to AC for monk dips: at one time the gaming group I led had 4 out of 6 characters dip 1 or 2 levels in Monk because they had Wis as a main stat. I discussed with them a limiting factor and we decided that it should be tied to the number of monk levels such as the Duelist prestige class limits int to AC: a 1 to 1 basis. So, want +2 to AC? Need 2 levels monk.
2) For the Stonelord Paladin for dwarves, I calculate Lay on Hands off of the Con stat, yes I understand it is a bump in their power, but I don't feel it is overpowered and it fits thematically in my mind as they draw their power from the earth.
So, what are some house rules you use, and why do you feel they improve the game?
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Everyone with Str 13 or higher gets Power Attack for free.
Weapon Finesse is how light weapons (and other finesse-able weapons) function by default; taking the feat itself grants Dex to damage with finesse-able weapons.
Combat Expertise no longer exists as a feat prereq, nor do Int requirements for combat feats.
Point-Blank Shot and Precise Shot are a single feat granting the benefit of both. As are Dodge and Mobility. Combat maneuvers no longer provoke AoOs, and Improved combat maneuver feats (Improved Grapple, etc.) automatically upgrade to grant you the Greater version when your BAB is sufficient.
Vital Strike and Devastating Strike are not feat chains, but a pair of scaling feats. Vital Strike works with any standard or full-round action wherein you make only a single weapon attack (charges, Spring Attack, et cetera).
Those are some of the ones we use at my table.
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+1 To all saving throws if you buy the GM pizza.
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No negative levels for a character raised from the dead. The cost is high already.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Bastard Spears: Spears (not longspears) can be used 1-handed as a martial weapon.
Critical Successes and Failures: For skill and ability checks, a roll of 20 is not an automatic success and a roll of 1 is not an automatic failure. If you roll a natural 20, it counts as if you had rolled a 30 on the d20. If you roll a natural 1, it counts as if you had rolled a -10.
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Critical Successes and Failures: For skill and ability checks, a roll of 20 is not an automatic success and a roll of 1 is not an automatic failure. If you roll a natural 20, it counts as if you had rolled a 30 on the d20. If you roll a natural 1, it counts as if you had rolled a -10.
You don't even really have to say the first line, as it's already not the case. "Automatic Failures and Success" is only listed in Attacks and Saving Throws, and doesn't apply to Skill and Ability score checks anyways.
If you wanted to boost skill and ability score checks, then you could have the 20=30 and 1=-10, but it's better than what's already in place.
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I like the one-handed spear though! Seen that in multiple media (books, shows, etc).
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Flank as a condition, and it still counts as flanking with opposite diagonal positioning. 4 way flanked also adds staggered condition as it is hard to move around.
Everyone gets improved Dirty Trick as a free feat and it can do things besides apply conditions (e.g. bag guy's flail misses and he losses grip but has a lock gauntlet, PC uses a Dirty trick to step on top of the flail's chain, bad guy has to win an opposed STR check to regrab his flail.)
Hero points are not used for preventing death, now players don't hoard their points.
AoO stop the provoker's action on a hit for damage, save for spells which require a damage based concentration check.
TWF is a single feat that unlocks its better versions for free as the PC becomes eligible for them.
Rogues don't trigger magical traps if they have found them (unless they intentionally trigger them).
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Low-level characters are too easily killed. Given the amount of time it takes to generate characters we decided that this is a bad thing. So we instituted the following house rule, which our group has been using for several years:
Everything gets additional hit points equal to ½ (Strength + Constitution), +2 if Small, +5 if Medium, +10 if Large, +5 per size category above Large.
Consequently low-level characters are lot tougher because the typical 1st level character starts with an extra 15 to 20 hit points.
Of course giving everything else more hit points means that combat tends to last a bit longer (a lot longer at low levels).
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Critical Successes and Failures: For skill and ability checks, a roll of 20 is not an automatic success and a roll of 1 is not an automatic failure. If you roll a natural 20, it counts as if you had rolled a 30 on the d20. If you roll a natural 1, it counts as if you had rolled a -10.You don't even really have to say the first line, as it's already not the case. "Automatic Failures and Success" is only listed in Attacks and Saving Throws, and doesn't apply to Skill and Ability score checks anyways.
If you wanted to boost skill and ability score checks, then you could have the 20=30 and 1=-10, but it's better than what's already in place.
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I like the one-handed spear though! Seen that in multiple media (books, shows, etc).
Yeah, but so many people get confused about 20s and 1s on skill checks, I like to spell it out in house rules even though it's actually a book rule.
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- If your deity would grant you proficiency with a simple weapon and you already have proficiency with it, you instead gain Weapon Focus with that weapon.
- Fractional saves and BAB (I had it before unchained)
- Classes that aren't intbased casters with 2 skills per level have 4 skills per level (pre int mod, racials, etc).
- No XP. You usually level after 4-5 sessions, less at low levels, more at high levels, much less if you don't do anything worth a "session".
Edit:
- feats as a quest reward on occasion (example: you saved a martial artist's dojo from being destroyed by a rival dojo, he offers to teach you a thing or two about unarmed fighting, or you can get some petty gold).
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These are all fun ideas! I already use the no XP rule in our games, and have for so long I didn't even think to include it in the original post, lol.
Only recently have 2 of my players started to get into the minion master style of play, I like the index card idea! It has slowed our games down quite a bit, and that might fix things.
^_^
Keep 'em coming everyone! This is my kind of thread!
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Combat Maneuvers Only provoke on a failed check.
Hit Points Maximum until Level 5. Average thereafter.
HP has always been a sore spot in running games, I really don't like the mechanic of rolling for HP every level, as my heroes are the focus of stories. I've got a slightly more complex rule, but it allows me to calculate my players HP on the fly, as I'm so used to it:
Level 1: max
Level 2+: 75% of the die+con/toughness/etc.
Example: A level 8 Wizard with a Con of 12 and no toughness will have:
49 HP (7+(6*7))
d12 gets 9 per level after 1st
d10 gets 8 per level after 1st
d8 gets 6 per level after 1st
d6 gets 5 per level after 1st
It's not perfect, as it's a little weighted for the not exactly divisible by 4 hit dice (rounding up to their benefit), but it works fairly well, and none of my players ever complain, it makes leveling up a matter of math instead of having to roll dice in front of me, so as soon as a level is earned, they get to work.
My group used to do "Max HP levels 1-5, then roll after that (min. = average), but since decided to just to Max HP's all the way through. Allows them to be more heroic. (But I also give monsters better HP's as well!)
I like the "Combat Maneuvers only provoke on a failed check."
Skill points is still a topic of debate - and which system (standard or Unchained versions) to use with them.
I give everyone Power Attack and Combat Expertise for free if they meet the reqs for them. Saves a Feat slot, but still retains some qualifiers.
I'm also giving a martial only character (Fighter, basically) Martial Flexibility. It lets them use more situational Feats that aren't worth the slot, but can be handy in the right circumstance.
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* Divine casters spontaneously cast their domain spells instead of healing/inflicting.
* Arriving on time will grant you some minor boon in game such as doing max damage on your first hit that night, winning initiative in the first combat, auto confirm your first threaten, etc.
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Critical hit damage: For each natural 20 you roll when determining if you crit, you maximize one weapon damage roll. For example, if you roll two natural 20s with a 2d4/x3 weapon, you would roll 2d4 and add 16 before adding the static bonuses three times. This ensures that crit damage rarely rolls lower than a normal damage roll.
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HP: Roll 1d4, add the difference (2 for d6 classes, 4 for d8, 6 for d10, 8 for barbarians).
Spontaneous full casters such as Sorcerer and Oracle progress their spells at the same rate as prepared casters, rather than being delayed a level behind. So basically they treat their spells known and spells per day as if they're a level higher than they actually are. We also don't use the stupid "metamagic makes your spells take a full round to cast" rule.
Skills: Everyone gets 2 more than listed.
Gear: We have a homebrew "Heroic Distinctions" system that grants a scaling Deflection AC, Natural AC, and Saves boost and bonuses the characters can choose starting at level 5, from things like +2 to a stat, a bonus to magical damage, bonuses with weapons or armor, boosts to a skill, and so forth. These are considered magical effects (go away in an antimagic field, etc.) and don't stack with equipment, so it reduces the reliance on the Big Six a little.
No XP. Level up as the adventure says, or when the DM says if we're running homebrew.
Stats: Everyone rolls arrays at creation, the DM collects them all up, discards any s/he doesn't like, and lets the players pick between the rest.
There's more but these are the basic ones.
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* When rolling for HP, re-roll any die that is equal to or less than your CON modifier.
For HP, we use average (round up).
So D6 gets 4 pts, D8 gets 5, and so on.
We NEVER roll for stats/HP.
Abandoned XP several versions ago (AD&D)-no regrets.
Use Spellcraft assuming that spellCASTING must be witnessed to counterspell (no visible effects on spells unless it describes them in book, like fireball etc).
Loose alignment monitoring (pretty much just care about good/evil)
Any player arguing about how their character is allowed by the rules (and is also noticeably overpowered) will have a very very close examination of their character. The more abusive the build, the stricter the reading of the rules in adjudicating the build.
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* When rolling for HP, re-roll any die that is equal to or less than your CON modifier.
Better watch out for those high con wizards causing infinite loops :P
+1 To all saving throws if you buy the GM pizza.
Sometimes cash in hand is better, particularly if you want some auto-crits or your GM is gluten or lactose intolerant.
Extra trait during character creation for any one of the following: decent sketch of the party, one page back story, provide the party's minis, agree to do party mapping for the campaign, keep party journal/ swag list, other as bargained with gm.
Here are a few of my basic ones.
- At 1st level each character gets to select 2 skills and one feat as background for their character. These represent what the character has done before/outside of adventuring.
- Training - During downtime a character can gain XP by spending time and money training with an NPC. The NPC must be of the same class and of higher level than the PC and the PC must spend 1 week/character level and 100GP/character level for the training. At the end of the training the PC receives XP equal to a CR of the PCs current level. This can be used once per level.
- The armor table gets re-written. Armor Check Penalty and Speed penalties get removed as they are factored in by encumbrance. Arcane Spell Failure changes from a percentage to a Spellcraft check. The number of armors gets reduced to three per category and start with an AC bonus of 2 and go up to 10.
- Pretty much all exotic weapons are removed.
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Just a tad ;)
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This is awesome! Wow, Kirth Gersen and Metal Sonic have made me realize that if I'm going to be using house rules so much I really need to make the time to put them all down on a document for my players to read at their leisure.
The showing up on time rules are something I never thought of either, but would be of great benefit, as I have a couple that always show up about 15-20 minutes late each week we play... lol.
For charging, I count it if all movement is toward the target. difficult terrain reduces move as normal but doesn't stop a charge.
Charge is also a standard action that only grants your normal movement. You can of course take a move action beforehand to extend this.
If you don't like your HP roll, you get a reroll and must take the second roll.
* Arriving on time will grant you some minor boon in game such as doing max damage on your first hit that night, winning initiative in the first combat, auto confirm your first threaten, etc.
I do need to start this. One player in specific is a major problem.
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This is awesome! Wow, Kirth Gersen and Metal Sonic have made me realize that if I'm going to be using house rules so much I really need to make the time to put them all down on a document for my players to read at their leisure.
The showing up on time rules are something I never thought of either, but would be of great benefit, as I have a couple that always show up about 15-20 minutes late each week we play... lol.
Protips for House ruling:
Keep a centralized doc that players can comment on. I use Google Drive.
Get players to opt in on every rule change. Listen to their feedback.
For every house rule, include a clear statement of the perceived problem, and explain how the rule will address that problem. I cannot stress this enough. You will often find your new rule idea is addressing "and also..." problems. This severely compromises the stability of the game, so you need committed players to handle it.
Audit your rules regularly. Eliminate rules that aren't working or simply aren't being used. Put them in a graveyard document somewhere so they don't clutter up your business.
House rules exist in addition to the already immense rulebook. Never forget that you are making your players remember even more with every ruling.
Too many house rules and you may be better off writing a new game. That's fine, but you need to commit to it, like Kirth. :) Don't hide behind the discrepancies of a huge rulebook with a huge houserule doc.
Watch out for the "footprint" of your rules in the game! Some rules will expose blind spots in your understanding of the rules... I can't tell you how many damage penalty rules I've seen that fail to penalize spellcasters but go on and on about to-hit penalties while injured.
Again, state the perceived problem! Avoid creating rules to "fix" things that weren't broken. Pathfinder is profoundly unrealistic, so if you ever find yourself penning a rule to enhance "realism" you are wasting your own time, and that of your players. Only house rule to enhance gameplay.
You can only perceive gameplay problems by playing the game! If something looks wrong while you're simply reading the rules, go ahead and try it out first before changing it. Maybe it's that way for a good reason.
Yup, those are my coffee-fueled house rule thoughts. Enjoy!
I might have one or two minor house rules...
Is this a complete ruleset? Because if you have that much to change you might as well just write your own full ruleset. It would certainly be easier for anyone to learn to play with these rules than to try and drape them over the existing rules.
I might have one or two minor house rules...Is this a complete ruleset? Because if you have that much to change you might as well just write your own full ruleset. It would certainly be easier for anyone to learn to play with these rules than to try and drape them over the existing rules.
It pretty much is a complete rewrite, yes.
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Lvl hp's equals Max plus 1/2 Con score + con modifier
Hp's are then rolled using a D4.
Fighter d4+6
Cleric d4+4
etc...
Our cure spells are much, much different. CLW for example is d6 plus d6 per level, max of 4d6 plus 1 point per HD (max of +20).
Magic Missle is d4/lvl max of 10d4
Fireball is 20d6 max
Weapon Specialization is 1 point for every 2 levels
These are a few of the changes our group has made. Most everything has been rewritten to some extent.
Change to the Adopted trait:
Requirements: a good backstory.
You were adopted by another race which you choose when taking this talent. When gaining a level in a favored class, you can use the favored class bonus of your parent's race. You qualify for any feats, traits, prestige class or archetypes available to your parent's race as long as you have the proper anatomy.
In addition, choose one of the following:
A 1-2 RP trait available to your parent's race that doesn't require special anatomy.
1 racial trait available to your parent's race.
Choose one of your +2 or -2 racial ability score adjustments, swap it for an adjustment of the same value that is granted by your parent's race. This does not allow you to get a +4 to a score, but this can allow score adjustments to cancel out. For example: a Gnome raised by Dwarfs could have -2 str, +2 con, +2 wis; or -2 str, +2 wis, +2 cha; or just +2 con.
* Divine casters spontaneously cast their domain spells instead of healing/inflicting.
* Arriving on time will grant you some minor boon in game such as doing max damage on your first hit that night, winning initiative in the first combat, auto confirm your first threaten, etc.
Is allowing the Domain spells instead of heal/inflict at the choice of the player? Or is it any cleric, and if you want the heal spells, you need the Heal Domain?
I'm asking because it may be something I put forward to my gaming group, and was wondering if its 'must be selected at character creation' type of thing.
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I use a homebrew method to resolve chases. I divide a creature/character's speed by 5 to get a modifier to add to a d20 roll. Chases then become opposed rolls.
Example: Movement 30 would be +6 added to 1d20.
I also allow extra language slots for high INT to be used for adding additional class skills instead of languages.
Combat Maneuvers Only provoke on a failed check.
Hit Points Maximum until Level 5. Average thereafter.
I definitely agree with the ruling on Combat Maneuvers- I have been using those rules since day one.
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One that I've used, and gotten other people to use, is a slight change to ability checks. The DCs are usually quite high and often nigh impossible for people with above average stats. Someone with an 18 Strength should never have a problem breaking things like wooden door, but the DC ends up being 20. I changed the check to be d20 + ability score (not modifier) - 10.
Wouldn't the math be easier to instead take ability score and add d10?
One that I've used, and gotten other people to use, is a slight change to ability checks. The DCs are usually quite high and often nigh impossible for people with above average stats. Someone with an 18 Strength should never have a problem breaking things like wooden door, but the DC ends up being 20. I changed the check to be d20 + ability score (not modifier) - 10.Wouldn't the math be easier to instead take ability score and add d10?
No, the odds are different, especially if you aren't using real dice, and it makes a 11 str the same relative 12, which is not what he wanted.
A few I use:
Set HP gain at each level, I use a chart that just tells you what your level/class gets
Confirming a critical with a Natural 20 is a supercritical, which deals max damage that the crit can deal. (Crits happen often enough even for casual players, but nothing is more heartbreaking than watching your crit do less that your last normal hit)
Flanking is a condition - OR - generous flanking positioning requirements, I let the players choose.
No XP, and I hand out re-roll (and other types of) tokens as in game rewards for awesomeness
Wands come with less charges overall - usually 20-25
Sneak attacks can re-roll one "1" on a d6
No one is flat-footed before they act on the first round. But rogues still treat everyone as if they are.
Druids can spontaneous swap in a cure (whatever) wounds the way a cleric can (and can still do it with Summon Nature's Ally spells as normal)
No shenanigans with action manipulation. Characters do not know what "standard actions" and "move actions" are. Nothing players choose to do can be based off of an opponents action mechanics.
A part of you have already written we use, since 3.5:
1.- Spells DC = 10 + 1/2 Caster level + Spell level
2.- Aditional spells know for spontaneous casters based on his caster stat and still have extra spells per day (yes, we are using the same table for both things).
And this is one we are using since we started playing pathfinder:
3.- Most of the barbarian "rage powers" can be used without rage (we are lazy enought to not read unchained version...)