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6 months ago ::
Sep 25, 2009 - 11:25AM
#1
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What are the wierdest, most unplayable, or just downright stupid house rules or homebrew you've ever seen used at the table? Like, you show up for a game of d&d with dice in hand and the DM declares that any time you roll a 1 its a self crit, or that the different types of actions are "too confusing" so you can just do "any 3 things a round" even if they're all standard actions, or that you can be any class you want but you can also play as a predator from the movie predator, which can turn invisible as a free action and coup de gras an at will standard action to represent his sheer badassness etc. etc. Just the wierdest or most illogical rules you've ever seen a dm come up with, for this or any other edition. Note that this is not a thread for stupid characters, plot, or setting--just really, really dumb mechanics, be they invented wholesale or just stupid modifications to existing rules.
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6 months ago ::
Sep 25, 2009 - 11:47AM
#2
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Like, you show up for a game of d&d with dice in hand and the DM declares that any time you roll a 1 its a self crit
My current DM does this. Any rolled 1 lets you roll against your own defense; from there, it seems to be different each time. Sometimes if you hit yourself you take critical damage, sometimes you take normal damage, sometimes both you & your target take both. Sometimes you don't roll against yourself and you just take critical/non-critical damage, and once somebody's weapon broke.
I think he just forgets what he did last.
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6 months ago ::
Sep 25, 2009 - 12:22PM
#3
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We have a total FUBAR game full of dumb housee rules....and the DM doesn't get it... 1) Healing potions don't need healing surges (So at 11th level we each carry like 30-40 healing potions becuse it is easy cheap healing) 2) Extra hp every level by con mod (So our Half elf warlock has the highest hp count...over our fighter, and WAY over my warlord...I have a 12 con, the fighter has a 14...the warlock a 21...) 3) There are no suprise rounds... he has us role itative then on our turns (If we go first) we have nothing to react to... 4) He has +1 magic weapons at level 13+ becuse they have cool riders (Like vorpal) that is balanced becuse of the low plus... 5) He lets people buy 'flaming' enchantments that do 1d6 fire on all attacks... 6) he has yet to let anyone use insight... 7) Perception can tell if someone is lying...
The problem with CharOp is it fails miserably in a lot of cases to take in versatility as a factor. It's just about TEH DPPPPPPRRRRZ. Not durability, dpr, skills etc.
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6 months ago ::
Sep 25, 2009 - 12:23PM
#4
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I turned down a game offer from a group who used a sliding HP chart (without numbers as I recall, it was something like Conditions) since they thought it was metagaming to know how many HP you had left at a given time and to tell somebody else how many you had. Also, any sort of critical fumble rules. In 3.5 I had a DM who would regularly have pages of house rules, but most of them were just unbalanced, not bad; things like you could swap out class feats for other feats (so if I was a Fighter, I could take a particular feat in place of being able to wear heavy armor), and for HP if you rolled below average, you got average, but you could re-roll up to 3 times and re-roll 1s and 2s. His games were actually fun but his house rules were totally crazy.
Wayne M. Formerly known as WayneTheGame"Better that I should wrong the world, than let the world wrong me!" - Cao Cao (Romance of the Three Kingdoms)
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6 months ago ::
Sep 25, 2009 - 12:41PM
#5
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Due to an early misunderstanding of the 3e opportunity attack rules (helpfully clarified in 3.5), two of the GMs in our group held that any movement (both into and out of a threatened square) provoked one, with the result that playing any sort of melee character - especially a barbarian - was a suicidal choice. Fortunately, one of those two has now seen the light and doesn't do this anymore - but the other one is not only abominably stubborn, but also believes that a good encounter is one with a CR four or five levels higher than the PCs. Needless to say, I'm playing a dragonfire adept in that game, so I don't have to go anywhere near the bad guys and I don't have to make attack rolls.
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6 months ago ::
Sep 25, 2009 - 12:45PM
#6
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I had a DM who sent me a list of houserules the day the 3.0 PHB came out. He couldn't possibly have even read it all the way through much less played it but apparently knew enough about how it was broken that it took 4 pages of houserules to fix it. Two examples: 1) He thought it was too easy for characters to wake up if they're attacked at night so he houseruled it. I can't remember the exact mechanic but mathmatically it worked out to an average character NOT waking up 90% of the time even though there was another character shouting at them and a fight going on around them. 2) Ranged characters got less experience than melee characters because the weren't putting themselves in as much risk as the melee characters.
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6 months ago ::
Sep 25, 2009 - 12:52PM
#7
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We have a total FUBAR game full of dumb housee rules....and the DM doesn't get it...
1) Healing potions don't need healing surges (So at 11th level we each carry like 30-40 healing potions becuse it is easy cheap healing)
2) Extra hp every level by con mod (So our Half elf warlock has the highest hp count...over our fighter, and WAY over my warlord...I have a 12 con, the fighter has a 14...the warlock a 21...)
3) There are no suprise rounds... he has us role itative then on our turns (If we go first) we have nothing to react to...
4) He has +1 magic weapons at level 13+ becuse they have cool riders (Like vorpal) that is balanced becuse of the low plus...
5) He lets people buy 'flaming' enchantments that do 1d6 fire on all attacks...
6) he has yet to let anyone use insight...
7) Perception can tell if someone is lying...
um i would have quit this game. do you guys even become bloodied
dumb houserules for me were as stated by another provoking opportunity attacks when entering or leaving a threatened square nd you also got a "retaliatory strike" against opportunity ttacks so basically by making an opportunity attack you provoke another. other rules were in 3.5 my sorcerer wasn't allowed to crit and natural 1's were fumbles
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6 months ago ::
Sep 25, 2009 - 1:05PM
#8
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Actually I haven't had any bad encounters with house rules. There have been ones that just didn't work as well as intended, but they didn't ruin the game. Ironically my worst game experience was when I finally (just before the release of 4e) played a game of 3.5 RAW. That was what actually pushed me to try out the new edition (I wasn't terribly optimistic prior to that).
"I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again."
-Achilles
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6 months ago ::
Sep 25, 2009 - 1:44PM
#9
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My first gaming experience ever, was with a guy that used a homebrew combination of Warhammer and Star Wars, but apparently some D&D as well (since Half-orc was a race option). Character creation took forever. Then the party (four of us) got into a Y-wing and flew to Dagobah, which apparently was quite civilized, with multiple large cities. After some boring swamp-trekking, I feigned exhaustion and left. Also, any fumble rules ever.
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6 months ago ::
Sep 25, 2009 - 2:24PM
#10
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I second 'any fumble rules, ever'. The worst I ever encountered was a DM who was so into LotR that he used mechanical effects to reinforce the racial stereotypes. (3rd Edition, if some of these terms are unfamiliar to you.) Halflings had to make Will saves every so often when away from home, or they would become so homesick that they would immediately run home, and could only pass a save against a fear effect on a natural 20. Dwarves had to make Will saves to not drink themselves unconscious whenever the opportunity presented itself. Elves had no drawbacks, and since they were such a 'wise, elder race', everybody else had to make a will save or believe absolutely anything an elf said to you, even if it violated physical evidence and common sense. If an elf told you the sky was plaid, and you blew the save, that meant you had to think 'wow, there's something wrong with my eyes'.
R.I.P. Nefertiti 12/12/09. Farewell, beloved kitty.
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