House rule, Modifications, Etc...

[afro-slav]

What are some things that you do differently or would like to do differently in your games than the rules as they are written?


I tend to cull rules that bog down play. As I prefer rules light I will probably adopt the 4ed skills system.

What are some of your house rules?

Afro-slav

 

[Clovenhoof]

My house rules involve both crunch and fluff, and some of them are due to us using a homebrew world rather than Howard's. So here's the chant:

Skills are consolidated as follows:
Acrobatics DEX (Balance, Tumble)
Athletics STR (Climb, Jump, Swim)
Stealth DEX (Hide, Move Silently)
Perception WIS (Listen, Spot)

Gear
Some items have been culled entirely, mainly arbalest, crossbow and plate armour because they don't fit in the setting. Others can only be found as relics. Some other items (weapon, armour) have been changed stat-wise.
Most importantly, two-handed weapons damage has been reduced (typically by 1 step, so 2d10 becomes 2d8 and so forth).

Prices have been revised, a typical silber piece weighs about 2 grams, and gold is worth 20 times its weight in silver. (This is mainly to avoid lugging around a half ton of cash)

Combat
* 5' Step does not draw an AoO
* Power Attack: no double damage bonus for two-handed attacks
* Two-Weapon Strike (Hyboria's Fiercest) is a combat manoeuvre, not a feat, and does not have Power Attack as prereq
* Sunder attempts can damage both weapons involved
* Ranged Finesse: _every_ Ranged Attack is handled as Finesse attack, i.e. if the attack roll exceeds DV+DR, DR is completely ignored.
* Massive Damage reduces you to -1HP and dying (not -10, dead)

 

[rabindranath72]

- consolidate skill lists (a la 4e)
- simplified skill system (a la True 20 or 4e)
- consolidate feats (e.g. mounted combat covers ALL the applications of mounted combat. Essentially, I remove feat trees)
- simplify combat (using the C&C combat rules with some d20 Conan tweaks).

 

[Ichabod]

What are some things that you do differently or would like to do differently in your games than the rules as they are written?

Would like? I would like to make massive changes to character creation. The first thing would be changing initial skill ranks so that there's a reason to start out as something besides a thief. Next would be changing the favored class rule so that PCs had all classes as favored classes. Next would be making nobility feat-based. Then, I'd start in on the classes. First up would be soldier who would likely move to 6 skill ranks per level.

I would like to rebalance combat to make non-2H fighting more useful, but that's just a mess. I'd like to replace AoO and grapple rules with some sort of simple modifier to attack rolls.

What are some of your house rules?

The most important house rule we have is that if you do writeups (intended to be of sessions but there's one who writes about stuff no one cares about), bring food, or do some sort of service, the player gets one shot rewards that can be used to improve die rolls. We already had a reroll effect before 2E expanded Fate Points to do that. These rewards have been immensely useful for countering player stupidity.

We used Torn Asunder for a while, recently dropped it to simplify the game. We occasionally have had characters gain crappy feats after sessions; the theory is strong, the application is problematic as we have whiners who try to sneak in feats you might actually want to spend a slot on. There might be some other minor ones, but the group, for whatever reason, prefers using the book as written. Actually, maybe, it's because most of the players don't actually read the book so they don't have an idea how they would want to change the rules.

 

[Krushnak]

I use the same condensed skill list as clovenhoof aswell as this change to sorcery.

Sorcery:
Effective scholar lvl for spell duration and effects is now calculated based off of MAB and CHA bonus. For every point of MAB you get 2 effective scholar lvls and for every point of CHA bonus you get 1 effective scholar lvls. Makes multiclassed scholars more effective with the spells they know while not taking away the power of a pure scholar.

 

[Hervé]

Best house rule used so far: throwing away all my D20 books...

 

[Strom]

Best house rule used so far: throwing away all my D20 books...

:lol:

I'll take 'em Hervé - just send them to my cousin in Stuttgart. :lol:

 

[Majestic7]

Copied from my campaign report... Some of these might have become irrelevant with the Second Edition. I only copied new Defensive Blasts from it and otherwise continue using AE.

1. Defensive blast exhausts the sorcerer.

2. Natural DR can only be halved with successful finesse attacks, not totally ignored.

3. Crossbow damage increased to 2d8 and AP to 6, arbalest upgraded to 2d10 and AP to 10. Makes more sense from historical point of view.

4. Unless wounds are tended with a successful Heal check, they may contract some of the appropriate diseases mentioned in Across the Thunder River.

5. No high living rule enforced. Instead, when rich and in a city, the characters must make variable DC willsaves against falling in to wasting their money. As an incentive to use loot for other purposes than gear, characters earn the same amount of XP as they use silver when they spend the money on luxuries etc. So spending 20 Sp in whores means 20 XP for the character. Take it as a bonus for roleplaying.

6. Rigid HD limits for spells ignored. Instead, every sorcerer can affect beings of equal HD with spells that have a HD limit listed in their description. Magic power attack works as usual.

7. Fate points can be used for a quite broad spectrum of things. In practice, "destiny" use of fate points is useful in many different situations. For example, a player might use a fate point to take natural 20 in a save if he can describe how he survives the effect he is facing through sheer luck. For example, at session three, the two guys who didn't fall asleep spent fate point each to hit their heads against a rock so they could stay awake and run away.

8. Feats from other D&D books are usable if there are no similar feat available in Conan RPG & if the flavor is okay. Ultimately, that is up to my permission.

9. No new languages with each new level. It feels just plain silly. Instead the characters may spend skill points to buy new languages, if they are in a position to learn them.

10. No sorcery failure for wearing armor. It feels silly and too D&D. Nowhere in Howards works it is said that armor would cause sorcery to fail.Instead, the armor check penalty applies to possible skill rolls involved in the casting of some spells.

11. New house rule not listed previously - Hero Points. Characters have one (1) Hero Point per gaming session or per one week of ingame time. It can be used to get one reroll on something thrown on d20 or ignore Terror of the Unknown.

 

[afro-slav]

simplify combat (using the C&C combat rules with some d20 Conan tweaks)

How are the C&C combat rules simpler? I have never had the chance to check the rules out so I don't know how they are.

 

[afro-slav]

I am considering limiting the number of spell style to the number of the scholar's primary attribute.

 

[maladaar]

Skill Focus grants 4 skill points in the designated skill instead of 3 skill points.

To me it makes no sense that a character can Alertness and get a bonus +2 to Listen and Spot checks or any of the other feats that grant a +2/+2 to two "connected" skill effectively a +4 bonus.

Granted Skill Focus gives you ranks vs a bonus, but I still don't like it.

 

[rabindranath72]

simplify combat (using the C&C combat rules with some d20 Conan tweaks)

How are the C&C combat rules simpler? I have never had the chance to check the rules out so I don't know how they are.

You might want to give a look at the C&C Quickstart. They are all more or less there. It has enough tactical options to make combat interesting, but simple enough that you can run it in a breeze.
http://www.trolllord.com/newsite/cnc/ccqs.html

 

[seanbickford]

I've borrowed a lot from Star Wars Saga / 4e.

1) Stole their skills system and consolidated Conan skills into: ACROBATICS, ATHLETICS, ARCANA, DECEPTION, HEAL, HISTORY, INSIGHT, LEGERDEMAIN, LINGUISITICS, NATURE, PERCEPTION, PERSUASION, RELIGION, RIDE, and STEALTH . Now use the 1/2 level +5 if Trained rule.

2) 1st level HP are now Body Points. If these are depleted they take a long time to heal and you suffer negatives to checks while injured.

3) 2nd+ level HP are still HP but they represent luck, skill, and stamina. HP can be recovered with morale boosting activities and rest. At the end of each combat scenario, 1 HP/level + Con modifier are immediately regained. More specfic stuff here as well.

4) I've pretty much had to revise every sorcery spell.

5) I'm totally stealing Majestic7's idea to increase the AP of crossbows. Very historically (and physically) accurate.

6) No extra languages each level.

Besides that, I try and stick with the rulebook. Deviating too much I think can give the players a sense of insecurity and erodes the GM's authority.

 

[Solmyr]

Some items have been culled entirely, mainly arbalest, crossbow and plate armour because they don't fit in the setting.

Aren't both specifically mentioned in Howard's writings? Arus the watchman in God in the Bowl has a crossbow, and IIRC Poitainian knights are described in several stories as wearing plate armor.

I know those items don't fit "historically" since they are an invention of later Middle Ages, but Hyboria is not terribly historical anyway...

 

[Clovenhoof]

some of them are due to us using a homebrew world rather than Howard's.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

Some items have been culled entirely, mainly arbalest, crossbow and plate armour because they don't fit in the setting.

Aren't both specifically mentioned in Howard's writings? Arus the watchman in God in the Bowl has a crossbow, and IIRC Poitainian knights are described in several stories as wearing plate armor.

I know those items don't fit "historically" since they are an invention of later Middle Ages, but Hyboria is not terribly historical anyway...

The crossbow is no invention of the middle ages. It was invented in two different parts of the world nearly a millenia before the medieval age. It is known that the first chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang used a crossbow and he died in 210 BC. The european crossbow was invented by the greek in the third century BC.
Plate armors a also very old. The first ones were used by the Mycenaean in the 14th century BC.
But crossbow and plate armor both did not survive the end of the roman empire and the beginning of the dark ages. The crossbow was rediscovered by the normans who used them in the conquest of England in 1066 and plate armor came in use again in the 12th century.

 

[kintire]

Plate armors a also very old. The first ones were used by the Mycenaean in the 14th century BC.

plate armor came in use again in the 12th century.

Not exactly. The Myceneans had body armour made of bronze plates, but they didn't have the ability to armour joints. Mycenean "plate" armour is essentially a very long back and breast plate with extensions hanging off it down to the knees and shoulder/upper arm guards. Not until the arrival of flexible armour like mail was the 12th century style plate armour possible, and full plate required articulated plate joints, which were a late medieval invention.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

But both are plate armor, and we do not know which type of armor REH meant as he wrote his stories.
Chainmail is also no medieval invention. The romans knew and used it, but the celts invented it in the 3rd century BC. (BTW scale mail was invented in the 16th century BC.)

 

[Clovenhoof]

As far as I know, REH wasn't really a history buff, so I suppose that in his imagination, those Aquilonian knights will have worn nice late-medieval "gothic" plate armour, not some classical period bronze muscle cuirass.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

But latter fits the setting much better.