Your House Rules

[Kheldar]

What houserules have you implemented, if any?

I've split SKILL into Power and Agility and renamed Magic as Mind

[d6&d6]

Not a big one for me but I dont give the potion when a character is created. The idea is ok for the gamebooks but I just dont see why the PC's should all end up with that at the start of their rpg career.

I also inspire mouvements in combat roughly from D&D 3e. You know 5 foot steps and what kind of move is free or not.

[MountainPeak11]

I play around with which House Rules I use depending on the game. Sometimes I do my own turn-based style combat just to regulate things a little better. If I'm doing that I also roll 'Initiative'. I calculate this by adding up the number of Special Skills people have that could be considered dexterous, such as Dodge. The total becomes each person's initiative bonus. They roll 2d6 and add this bonus, and that's their score in the turn-queue. It proved very useful for my Escape from Hammerfall adventure.

[Nuvole!]

I experimented a lot with house rules, but one that for sure passed all the tests is having both parties dealing damage when the attack strengths are equal, instead of having no damage done on both sides.

[Nuvole!]

Depending on the setting, I sometimes played a lot with Talents and Special Skills, using sometimes Talents as if they were "classes"... I hope it's clear enough...

[torus]

I've split SKILL into Power and Agility and renamed Magic as Mind

Here's a summary of my house rules (all posted previously, and mostly relating to combat):

I have done the same as you, splitting SKILL into STRENGTH and AGILITY. Both starting at 4 in chargen, and I allow 10 points to share in total between all five stats (but with no more than 3 added to each of STRENGTH and AGILITY, as in the standard rules). I also rename MAGIC to INTELLIGENCE.

Base stats for special skills are as follows:

• All Movement and Stealth skills: AGILITY
• All Knowledge skills: INTELLIGENCE
• Bows: AGILITY
• Mounted Combat: AGILITY
• Strength: STRENGTH (obviously!)
• Thrown: AGILITY
• All other Combat skills: the Hero decides during chargen whether to use STRENGTH or AGILITY as the base stat (in a sense this is a choice of fighting style), although the Director may overrule this for certain weapons or in certain situations (e.g. require STRENGTH for two-handed weapons or AGILITY for rapiers).

I play with a slight modification to the missile combat rule, in that I require missile attack strength to equal or exceed a target number of 15 (as well as beating the opponent's roll) to hit. This means shots fired at passive, inert or unaware targets can still miss - such targets simply don't make an opposed roll.

I sometimes - but not always - use the following two critical hit tables inspired by Rolemaster: one for melee attacks and one for missile attacks. When you score a critical hit (i.e. an attack roll of double 6), roll 3d6 on the appropriate table instead of rolling for damage. If you are also the winner of the attack, add 3 to the roll. (This means the attacker with higher skill is more likely to score an instant kill.)

Melee attack

• 3–6 Minor limb injury. 2 damage.
  7-8 Wound to side. 3 damage and clothing torn.
  9 Glancing blow to jaw knocks out a tooth. 3 damage.
  10 Shield arm hit. Shield broken, 2 damage. If no shield, 4 damage and arm unusable (-2 SKILL) for 1d6 days.
  11 Direct hit to face rearranges nose. 3 damage, and appearance worsened. -1 SKILL for 3 rounds due to blood in eyes.
  12 Strike to throat. 4 damage, -1 SKILL for 3 rounds and can only croak for 2d6 hours.
  13 Blow to chest breaks ribs, knocks opponent back 5 feet. 4 damage, -1 SKILL for 3 rounds.
  14 Hit to lower leg causes fracture. 4 damage, -1 SKILL until healed.
  15 Blow to temple. If helmet: 3 damage and -1 SKILL for 4 rounds. If no helmet: severe eye injury and knocked unconscious for 3d6+10 minutes: 5 damage and -2 SKILL until eye healed.
  16 Deep gash in side. 6 damage. Bleeding causes further 2 damage per round until stopped. -1 SKILL.
  17 Weapon hand severed; weapon (and hand) lands 2d6 feet away. 4 damage, -3 SKILL.
  18 Neck slashed, severing artery. Blood everywhere. Foe stumbles backwards 6 feet and dies clutching throat.
  19 Massive strike to chest crushes lungs. Foe collapses and dies from internal bleeding in 3 rounds.
  20 Amazing blow cleaves skull. IQ dramatically reduced and dies instantly. Terrible sight shocks nearby opponents to -1 SKILL for 1 round.
  21 Clean strike through torso severs spine. Opponent drops to the floor, dead. You pivot smoothly and gain a +4 attack on next foe.

Missile attack

• 3–6 Glancing hit. 2 damage.
  7-8 Missile hits leg. 3 damage and a limping for 1d6 days.
  9 Strike to thigh. If leg armour: 2 damage, otherwise 3 damage and -1 SKILL for 3 rounds.
  10 Buttock hit. 3 damage and cannot sit down for 1 day.
  11 Forearm hit. Weapon dropped. 3 damage.
  12 Shot deflected and hits foot. 3 damage, -1 SKILL for 3 rounds (hopping).
  13 Missile hits side. 4 damage. -1 SKILL for 3 rounds.
  14 Strike to shoulder fractures bone. 4 damage, -1 SKILL.
  15 Shot to chest. If armour, winded: 3 damage, -1 SKILL for 3 rounds. If no armour, punctures lung: 5 damage, -2 SKILL until healed.
  16 Direct hit shatters knee and severs tendons. Knocked down. 4 damage, -3 SKILL.
  17 Shot hits groin. Victim collapses in pain. 6 damage, -3 SKILL. Onlookers wince.
  18 Direct hit through eye. Instant death.
  19 Missile passes through lungs and hits spine. Severe pins and needles for 1 round (-4 SKILL), followed by death.
  20 Shot in throat hits artery and severs windpipe. Victim dies gurgling.
  21 Missile passes straight through heart, causing instant death, and hits object/combatant behind (roll for damage). Gain 2 LUCK.

[Kheldar]

Very interesting

AFF2 lends itself well to house ruling

Thanks all

[Mr Nibbs]

Criticals, I love 'em! I thought the severed spine was a bit OTT, as not many players will appreciate their favourite character being cut in half by a lucky goblin who then gets to do an elegant pirouette.

[joesmith]

The House rulings we use include getting rid of a single Skill and instead having a list of Skills. Now you buy each skill separately (we have a nice skill list which includes intelligence style skills, strength and dexterity style so these take the place of characteristics). When you buy your skills it costs 1 point to gain a Skill at 7, so people don't feel so terrible about having to buy each skill; some skills can be used untrained in which case they start at 6. We use the variant skill rolls so that everything is a high roll for consistency. We also use Fear which we use in the same manner as Luck instead of how it was in House of Fear, so you start with 7 Fear Points (which can be increased through Character Generation) and then every time you have a fright it drops.

We've added a ton of new rules and equipment though as we play in either a Pulp era or a gritty science-fiction era, so we have vehicle rules, spaceship rules, martial arts, guns and blah blah blah. However, as it's all simple, it doesn't get in the way, which is how it should be.

[torus]

Criticals, I love 'em! I thought the severed spine was a bit OTT, as not many players will appreciate their favourite character being cut in half by a lucky goblin who then gets to do an elegant pirouette.

I tend to use the crit tables only for Heroes and significant enemies/NPCs. Criticals are supposed to make combat more unpredictable - and more lethal! And that goblin deserves a celebration, since the chance of that occurring is about 1 in 8000.

[Kheldar]

What do you think of this? It was used to counter the possibility of characters' abilities getting too high too quickly, and outstripping dice rolls (a natural 12 being an auto fail not withstanding):

Atrophy & Neglect
Once every 2 months of game time, unless you pay 10 xp to simulate keeping yourself physically and mentally fit, roll 2d6 on the following table, to determine which statistic drops a point from neglect:

(02) MIND
(03-04) POWER
(05-06) AGILITY
(07-10) STAMINA
(11-12) Random Special Skill

[torus]

I would certainly incline towards making it hard for the Heroes' stats to increase - probably even harder than in the core rules. In my character advancement should come via special skill improvement (and magic).

[drbargle]

I would certainly incline towards making it hard for the Heroes' stats to increase - probably even harder than in the core rules. In my character advancement should come via special skill improvement (and magic).

GMing our group through Crown of Kings, it is clear that it is quite possible for PC to become demi-gods in short order. I've been toying with the notion that, if I were to run a proper campaign (rather than just an extended adventure) I'd have the PCs start out with 'fixed' SKILL - somewhere between 6 and 8, depending on the power level I'm going for - with variation between PCs dependent on Special Skills - and I'd happily let a PC start with 4 or so points in their specialities. Not only would this create competent, even exceptional (in a limited area) PCs, while avoiding the march to PCs capable of casually murdering Demon Lords, but it would also avoid the situation we had in a game last night, where the player of the Sorcerer PC, with SKILL 5, realised that his character was worse at using his using his Religion Lore (3) Special Skill that the unscholarly PC with SKILL 8, Religion Lore (1).

And, while I'm happy to have NPCs operate completely outside the game rules, it would be nice if, say, a SAGE NPC with a bunch of knowledge skills at 4 or 5 was far an away better than a PC with a couple of SKILL increases under their belts.

In fact, I'd be happy if the game had Traveller-like character advancement, i.e. none. Except in terms of power, wealth, followers, reputation, and magic items.

[torus]

And, while I'm happy to have NPCs operate completely outside the game rules, it would be nice if, say, a SAGE NPC with a bunch of knowledge skills at 4 or 5 was far an away better than a PC with a couple of SKILL increases under their belts.

In fact, I'd be happy if the game had Traveller-like character advancement, i.e. none. Except in terms of power, wealth, followers, reputation, and magic items.

That's essentially my view also.

[Mr Nibbs]

I tend to use the crit tables only for Heroes and significant enemies/NPCs. Criticals are supposed to make combat more unpredictable - and more lethal! And that goblin deserves a celebration, since the chance of that occurring is about 1 in 8000.

I like the idea that if the dice scores a natural minimum or maximum, a critical will occur, regardless of the situation.