We started raw from the beginning, so these are a result of the most common issues from all past games for the group.
1) Everyone starts with an 18, a 16 and four 10s. We roll 3d4 (drop lowest) four times and add to the 10s for our other stats. 2) Math fixes are free 3) 1 free weapon or armor proficiency. 4) 1 free weapon, 1 free set of armor and 1 free S.A.K. Buy anything else you want with the starting GP. 5) We don't track non magical ammo, but you must have at least 1 bundel of it to work an ammo based ranged weapon. 6) Nixed weight out. It was always forgotten or a hastle, so we just dropped it.
Past this, it falls into table manners and other such things that have little to do with the game on a mechanical level.
Multiclassing: Power-swap feats can be taken for free at the appropriate levels once you have taken the initial multiclassing feat. This makes multiclassing a bit more attractive.
I like this. I may start adding this in next campaign
... 6) Nixed weight out. It was always forgotten or a hastle, so we just dropped it.
That's one I forgot to mention - I don't worry about encumbrance, unless something silly comes up (that "something silly" has never come up for my group, I figure we'll know it when we see it, though.)
It's another "Dungeons & Accountants" rule. I hate record-keeping and math that don't contribute anything fun to our game
Trying to solve out-of-game problems (like cheating, bad attitudes, or poor sportsmanship) with in-game solutions will almost always result in failure, and will probably make matters worse.
Gun Safety Rule #5: Never point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy. (Never introduce a character, PC, NPC, Villain, or fate of the world into even the possibility of a deadly combat or other dangerous situation, unless you are prepared to destroy it instantly and completely forever.)
Know your group's character sheets, and check them over carefully. You don't want surprises, but, more importantly, they are a gold mine of ideas!
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's a problem if the players aren't having fun and it interferes with a DM's ability to run the game effectively; if it's not a problem, 'fixing' at best does little to help, and at worst causes problems that didn't exist before.
"Hulk Smash" characters are a bad match for open-ended exploration in crowds of civilians; get them out of civilization where they can break things and kill monsters in peace.
Success is not necessarily the same thing as killing an opponent. Failure is not necessarily the same thing as dying.
Failure is always an option. And it's a fine option, too, as long as failure is interesting, entertaining, and fun!
"Broken or not, unbalanced or not, if something seems to be preventing the game from being enjoyable, something has to give: either that thing, or other aspects of the game, or your idea of what's enjoyable." - Centauri
I have a book of house rules for fourth edition, maybe I should send it to WotC for publishing have be called... Extended Rules for Thinkers or something like that :P.
"The Red Dragon is pulverizing your friends..." -Me "Okay so I'm up here?" -Shrui "Yeah..." -Me "Okay I want to triple backflip down from the ceiling while holding my family's katana and drive it through the Dragon's head." -Shrui "Yeah you'll take a -15 because he's moving his head." -Me "Don't care, I try it anyway." -Shrui (Acrobatics Roll Succeeds) (Attack Roll Succeeds) "How much extra damage do I get for this attack?" -Shrui "It dies, you don't need to do an attack roll." -Me
Evil Dungeon Master says, And now young adventurer... you die.
I have a book of house rules for fourth edition, maybe I should send it to WotC for publishing have be called... Extended Rules for Thinkers or something like that :P.
If a house rule doesn't make the game more fun or attempts to add complexity to the game in the pursuit of realism, I would submit that it is not only unnecessary, but bad.
Outside of a stylistic choices which can change from campaign to campaign, house rules are not required in 4e.
No amount of tips, tricks, or gimmicks will ever be better than simply talking directly to your fellow players to resolve your issues. Reduce DM Prep & Increase Player Engagement:Don't Prep the Plot | Structure First, Story Last | Collaborative Roleplay | "Yes, and..." | Prep Tips Games I'm Running on Roll20: Island of the Frog | Vanguard of Dis | Star*Juice | Tesseract | The Crucible | Fimbulvetr | The Delve | Draj, City of the Moon Follow me on Twitter:@is3rith
I have a book of house rules for fourth edition, maybe I should send it to WotC for publishing have be called... Extended Rules for Thinkers or something like that :P.
How about a couple highlights from your most commonly-referenced and popular house rules?
Trying to solve out-of-game problems (like cheating, bad attitudes, or poor sportsmanship) with in-game solutions will almost always result in failure, and will probably make matters worse.
Gun Safety Rule #5: Never point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy. (Never introduce a character, PC, NPC, Villain, or fate of the world into even the possibility of a deadly combat or other dangerous situation, unless you are prepared to destroy it instantly and completely forever.)
Know your group's character sheets, and check them over carefully. You don't want surprises, but, more importantly, they are a gold mine of ideas!
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's a problem if the players aren't having fun and it interferes with a DM's ability to run the game effectively; if it's not a problem, 'fixing' at best does little to help, and at worst causes problems that didn't exist before.
"Hulk Smash" characters are a bad match for open-ended exploration in crowds of civilians; get them out of civilization where they can break things and kill monsters in peace.
Success is not necessarily the same thing as killing an opponent. Failure is not necessarily the same thing as dying.
Failure is always an option. And it's a fine option, too, as long as failure is interesting, entertaining, and fun!
"Broken or not, unbalanced or not, if something seems to be preventing the game from being enjoyable, something has to give: either that thing, or other aspects of the game, or your idea of what's enjoyable." - Centauri
I have a book of house rules for fourth edition, maybe I should send it to WotC for publishing have be called... Extended Rules for Thinkers or something like that :P.
If a house rule doesn't make the game more fun or attempts to add complexity to the game in the pursuit of realism, I would submit that it is not only unnecessary, but bad.
Outside of a stylistic choices which can change from campaign to campaign, house rules are not required in 4e.
I guess that's true, but sometimes I find that fields which handle to many tasks become far too vast in variance, I prefer a level of organization with less of this large zone of variance. Like I said, Leucis could make a history check while aiming for the eye of a dragon to remember his training, but he could also just take a more complex route which could make it more believable.. and hold enough suspension so that if it fails or hits it has major value as to how he is remembered.
"The Red Dragon is pulverizing your friends..." -Me "Okay so I'm up here?" -Shrui "Yeah..." -Me "Okay I want to triple backflip down from the ceiling while holding my family's katana and drive it through the Dragon's head." -Shrui "Yeah you'll take a -15 because he's moving his head." -Me "Don't care, I try it anyway." -Shrui (Acrobatics Roll Succeeds) (Attack Roll Succeeds) "How much extra damage do I get for this attack?" -Shrui "It dies, you don't need to do an attack roll." -Me
Evil Dungeon Master says, And now young adventurer... you die.
I try to keep the house rules to a minimum and stick to what is in the books as much as I can, but I do have a couple of things I do as a house rule.
1) First level adventurers get a free adventurer's kit. This is a holdover from a DM I've played with.
2) Simplified experience. This is suggested as an option in the DMG, where instead of giving out an experience amount, which requires math and experience tables, you simply level characters after a certain number of encounters. After an encounter, combat, roleplaying, or skill challenge, I award players an encounter based on the difficulty of the challenge. I predetermine the level of that encounter so that if it turns out to be easy due to player creativity, it's a reward. The number of encounters required to level at lower levels is set at 8, and as characters progress, the number increases up to 10.
3) RP counters. Going along with the simplified experience idea, I award characters RP counters if they do something creative or interesting during the course of the game. I award these for good roleplaying primarily, but I also sometimes will award them for other reasons. An example of this is asking my players to identify which NPC I had to come up with on the spot in the previous week. The player who answered first and correctly got an RP counter for that. In terms of game mechanics, five RP counters equals a regular combat encounter, so a player who roleplays is going to advance more quickly than a person who sits back and watches. I avoid giving out counters for good combat decisions, though I would reward creativity or flavorful usage of powers that adds to the game.
I guess that's true, but sometimes I find that fields which handle to many tasks become far too vast in variance, I prefer a level of organization with less of this large zone of variance. Like I said, Leucis could make a history check while aiming for the eye of a dragon to remember his training, but he could also just take a more complex route which could make it more believable.. and hold enough suspension so that if it fails or hits it has major value as to how he is remembered.
We're playing a game of magic and dragons and pixies. There's nothing believable about it. And if there's nothing believable about it to begin with, adding complexity, more rolls, modifiers, and other house rules to explain the physics of a sling stone doesn't add to the fun. The players are going to remember stealing the kobold's sling stones using cantrips, not how many rules they overcame to get to succeed at it. They'll remember firing an arrow into the dragon's eye, not whether or not the dragon blinked just in time to avoid being blinded due to some arcane rules you designed for reasons unknown.
Nobody needs their coolness justified by arbitrary legalities. So skip it, reduce your table transactions, and focus on the action, not the minutiae that makes that action somehow more "real."
No amount of tips, tricks, or gimmicks will ever be better than simply talking directly to your fellow players to resolve your issues. Reduce DM Prep & Increase Player Engagement:Don't Prep the Plot | Structure First, Story Last | Collaborative Roleplay | "Yes, and..." | Prep Tips Games I'm Running on Roll20: Island of the Frog | Vanguard of Dis | Star*Juice | Tesseract | The Crucible | Fimbulvetr | The Delve | Draj, City of the Moon Follow me on Twitter:@is3rith
I guess that's true, but sometimes I find that fields which handle to many tasks become far too vast in variance, I prefer a level of organization with less of this large zone of variance. Like I said, Leucis could make a history check while aiming for the eye of a dragon to remember his training, but he could also just take a more complex route which could make it more believable.. and hold enough suspension so that if it fails or hits it has major value as to how he is remembered.
We're playing a game of magic and dragons and pixies. There's nothing believable about it. And if there's nothing believable about it to begin with, adding complexity, more rolls, modifiers, and other house rules to explain the physics of a sling stone doesn't add to the fun. The players are going to remember stealing the kobold's sling stones using cantrips, not how many rules they overcame to get to succeed at it. They'll remember firing an arrow into the dragon's eye, not whether or not the dragon blinked just in time to avoid being blinded due to some arcane rules you designed for reasons unknown.
Nobody needs their coolness justified by arbitrary legalities. So skip it, reduce your table transactions, and focus on the action, not the minutiae that makes that action somehow more "real."
XD Sorry the Dragon blinks, since you didn't time it properly and find the equation of the line on your graph the arrow skims his eyelid. Don't worry I'm not this insane of a DM, maybe I'll mix my rule with yours a little for the eye shot, but to be honest I ended up cutting the slinger thing out entirely after remembering that a stone would have more force, plus more importantly he was too far away to pick up the stones from the side. I'm sorry but everytime I read the Dragon blinking line I can't stop laughing, I might joke about this in the game just for laughs.
"The Red Dragon is pulverizing your friends..." -Me "Okay so I'm up here?" -Shrui "Yeah..." -Me "Okay I want to triple backflip down from the ceiling while holding my family's katana and drive it through the Dragon's head." -Shrui "Yeah you'll take a -15 because he's moving his head." -Me "Don't care, I try it anyway." -Shrui (Acrobatics Roll Succeeds) (Attack Roll Succeeds) "How much extra damage do I get for this attack?" -Shrui "It dies, you don't need to do an attack roll." -Me
Evil Dungeon Master says, And now young adventurer... you die.
I have a book of house rules for fourth edition, maybe I should send it to WotC for publishing have be called... Extended Rules for Thinkers or something like that :P.
The smiley implies you're not being serious, but we're all thinkers here.
[N]o difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions. - L. Tolstoy
