House rules

[Tavis]

I think one of the design secrets of 3E is that they adopted a bunch of house rules that lots of people were already using, so they were playtested, had proven acceptance, etc.

What are the old-school house rules that folks like to use?

Telecanter recently put out a PDF of his favorites. I really like combat manuevers: you say what you want to achieve (pushing someone off a cliff) and roll to hit. If you hit, the target decides whether they want to let that happen, or take damage instead. I'm using that next session for sure, and will try the shield wall idea. I've used splintered shields and dropped it, but it's popular and a good way to make a fighter unique. I also use carousing, which gets a honorable mention in Telecanter's compilation; I talked about that in the XP thread.

I only roll hit points when you're hurt, and have each plus of magic armor give you a saving throw instead of adjusting your armor class. This last one is really useful if you use a matrix that compares against AC, because it avoids the AD&D problem where sometimes AC 2 is heavy metal and sometimes it's magic robes and nimbleness.

I like Delta's exposure rules, and since I like the effects of the AD&D indoor=feet, outdoor=yards scale where fighting outside the dungeon becomes much more grand tactical, his adjusted missile ballistics ranges do a great job of defending this idea.

I think everyone would be glad to have you adopt these ideas; that's why I put them out there, certainly.

[goodmangames]

Cool ideas...I'll check out the links. I agree that it's fun to have optional rules and house rules. One of the charms of OD&D, in my mind, was sufficient "white space" in the rules that they were almost necessary.

[Tavis]

I agree that it's fun to have optional rules and house rules.

For sure, and I would like to see optional rules plus discussion of why you'd use them and how they'll affect the game. My point about 3E, though, was that they took things that had been popular house rules in 2E and made them part of the "official" rules.

One of the charms of OD&D, in my mind, was sufficient "white space" in the rules that they were almost necessary.

Yep, everything since has been more or less filling in those gaps or making house rules!

[goodmangames]

I really like the rule that you can destroy your shield to negate the effect of one hit. That's by far my favorite. VERY cool.