Homebrew Rules. Everyone has a few. What are some of yours?

[Bearfoot_Adam]

I've never really house ruled, I will however use variants from time to time.

[Chrisg]

for a nat 1, we had more dire consequences happen than just miss.

If nat 20 gives you something cool, nat 1 should give you something uncool.

In 1e, we rolled 1d6. No matter the roll, the opponent got a free atk on you. On a 1-2, you fumbled your weapon, but recover. On a 3-4, you threw your weapon in a random direction. On a 5-6, you hit yourself, roll d20 to see if you hit AC, then roll dam if hit AC.

In 4e, trying something similar with my new group, but it only provokes an opportunity atk on a 5-6, if not using a weapon 3-4 dazes you until end of you next turn, and a 1-2 you lose a healing surge (analogous to hitting one's self).

This was one of our long standing house rules too, 3rd ed.
--- Merged from Double Post ---

I have just one, which is a system of quirks/flaws. Players pick 3 character flaws that help define the character's personality and behavior. For every one they can use to create entertainment in game I award bonus XP. This is not just "Ok I farted in public, hand me those XPs." so players are well served to come up with clever ones.

I realized a long time ago that I tend to like games to progress a bit faster than usual but instead of just handing them extra experience I decided to give them a simple way to earn it.

We had this rule too in all of our campaigns and it really is a lot of fun to role play them out.

[nijineko]

I stick with the Light Side being a use of the Force that is in harmony with life - ie. uses that do not harm others or other life forms, while the Dark Side is a use of the Force that is out of harmony with life - ie. using the Force to harm others, either directly (as with Force Lightning, Forec Slam, Force Grip, and so forth) or indirectly (as Palpatine did by manipulating and twisting Anakin). It's a flavor thing, and one that I know not many agree with.

but in our current order, death is in harmony with life. the growth of trees kills off undergrowth, and breaks the rocks underneath. The water supports lives by the trillions, but also breaks rocks and kills with deadly storms and floods. you kill insects almost every time you step into grass. the jedi temple being built destroyed the homes of some animals, not to mention the city it was in. trees will shun and lean away from a tree that is sick. animals eat each other. in the end, the plants and maggots eat everything else. all of this could be considered harm from a point of view. but it is all in harmony with life as a whole. life forms give way to other life forms. your flavor seems to be ignoring some aspects of harmony. on the other hand, our current order is not the only way to live, either.

it is possible that the force might find it more harmonious to prevent, or even destroy, a few individuals who would otherwise destroy thousands of lives, than to allow the thousands of lives to perish.

for the record, i do not disagree with your core idea of the clear black/white line... more that i disagree with some of your definitions, and possibly where that line is being drawn. i too happen to believe that in real life good and evil is as clearly defined as black and white. humans are not always able to see it clearly. too close, or too far in many cases.

[tesral]

for the record, i do not disagree with your core idea of the clear black/white line... more that i disagree with some of your definitions, and possibly where that line is being drawn. i too happen to believe that in real life good and evil is as clearly defined as black and white. humans are not always able to see it clearly. too close, or too far in many cases.

Be it harm none....

[berginyon]

Helm's in my game gives you a +1 to yo9ur armor class.

[DMMike]

Helm's in my game gives you a +1 to yo9ur armor class.

I find that lack of a helm gives me, as DM, a good excuse for critical hits to land on the noggin.
I'd like to say that lack of a helm increases an enemy's threat range by 1, but some ACs aren't calculated with helms anyway, so that would be too complicated.

[Norvilion]

I GM'ed for the first time last spring, and as one who usually played in the other end I knew that rolling initial stats could be a pain, and usually ended up with some people significantly more powerful than others. I decided to create a modified point buy system

Basically modifies had to add up to +8, or 38 attribute points total. You could only go up to a +4 in any one stat before racial modifiers and could only gain a maximum of +2 extra points for taking negative. main build I used for Villans of the Week (tm) was 18,18,14,10,8,8

Seems a bit powerful in hindsight, but much better than campaign before that were our characters ranged between +6 and +15

[AnotherShadow]

I have a home made karma system for dnd 3.0 and 3.5, as well as i have a custom magic system for call of cthulhu (6th) for people who use magic outside of the mythos, as well as 4.0 grapple rules for 3.5 dnd thats all that i can think off the top of my head.

[cplmac]

Of course this is using 2E for my games. When it comes to the use of spells, I do like to have the magic users have to relearn the spell after it is used. Now there are some 1st level spells that I give them to know all the time, as a benefit of the time they have spent in learning their craft. As for the clerics, and those that use cleric spells, I don't limit them to having to relearn a spell after it is used. My reason is that the spells that they know are granted to them by the diety that they follow. However, if they use the same spell several times during the same encounter, there is an increasing chance of the adversary being able to make saving throws against that particular spell. If they would by chance do something that is in opposition to their particular diety, they find that they can't use the spell(s) and now have to make ammends to the diety in order to regain the ability. Currently, I have not had the people that are playing cleric using spells characters run into this problem. Then again, one never knows what is going to happen during any given game session.

[tesral]

At this point I pretty much have a home brew game.

Skills. I give a lot more. 5 per level, every class. Rogue abilities are class features again. I restructured the skills themselves to better reflect my world.

[Ishcumbeebeeda]

There just aren't any rules that I am aware of that give you a bonus of completely avoiding combat and being as defensive as possible. The fighting defensively assumes you are still going to make an attack. What about if you are just interested in saving your own hide and forgoing any attacks? That's why I introduced it.

TOTAL DEFENSE
You can simply defend your self as a standard action. You get a +4 dodge bonus to your AC for 1 round. Your AC improves at the start of this action, so it helps you against any attacks of opportunity you provoke during the round. You can’t combine total defense with fighting defensively or with the benefit of the Combat Expertise feat, since using either of these tactics requires you to declare an attack or full attack. You can’t make attacks of opportunity while using total defense. If you have 5 or more ranks in Tumble, you gain a +6 dodge bonus to AC when using total defense.

That's right out of the D&D 3.5 Rules Compendium. I'm a bit of a rules lawyer, but I guess I'm a CN version cuz I only care if it affects me, lol.
--- Merged from Double Post ---
Kept reading after I posted before and realized I shouldn't have let my eagerness to share knowledge overrule me... Someone already posted about total defense. Sorry.

[Azar]

In my 3.5 game I use disable device instead of open lock to well,open locks its easier.Also I make my players roll 4d6 three times and each one must have at least a 15 and a total ability modifier of +3 or they reroll that set again.

[outrider]

house rules- hp at 1st level is your con + con modifier. Con 15 +2 mod =17 hp.

non class skills only cost one but are still limited as to level.

Training for feats and new spell levels. I have always done that for any type of training. It allows the pcs to meet new npcs, interact and interject potiential plot hooks.

I still limit races for character types.

[Dytrrnikl]

...For instance, say a character is level 15 and Strong in the Force. Spending ONE Force point (and by then you'd have about a dozen or so) has the potential to earn you bonus of 24 (3d8) which even at that level is phenomenal. The Force has the power to change the narrative as is, because a 24 bonus could turn even the most inevitable failure into a potential success...

Ummm, not to nitpick, but this seem to be a bit of a throw back to how FPs were handled with WotC's first two incarnations of Star Wars. We've been running FPs where when you roll multiple die, you pick the best of the rolled die. I don't recall seeing that the die were totalled from the core rulebook.


Of course, I houseruled that when FPs are spent in a round you choose between applying it to all defenses for one round or all task resolution rolls for the round.

[MortonStromgal]

Shadowrun 1-3e We always only went against the hardest of the systems in the matrix runs. If you beat that you could do anything you wanted. Rather than testing against subsystems or nodes