So I'm curious: how many house rules do you feel like 4e almost needs to run smoothly?
Most house rules are about a DM or group disagreeing with a new rule element or update. So, banning or giving away for free feats that are deemed to be 'taxes' or cutting off the rule set at some point in time.
Semantics aside, I agree with Tony. It is a smooth system.
What I do like is that big book of skills that is out there. It has 100 skills. Our DM allows us to select 3 additional skills from that book and 1 additional skill at every 5th level. It is not overpowering by any means, but just adds a little flavor and personality to our characters.
Well, since mandatory means "must have," my answer is none.
Notice the qualifier I've repeatedly used before 'mandatory.'
I think we can all agree that no house rule is actually mandatory. I'm asking which ones are almost mandatory. Which ones are more than "Oh, that's a nice tweak"?
Normalized skills.
No fighter and barbarian (shackled with primary stats that don't map well to skills already) with three skills chosen from a tiny list while rogues wander around with 6, and artificers and bards sit on 5 skill choices and free rituals to take the place of skills they don't have. Unacceptable.
Aside from this? Nothing I'd call mandatory. I do have a lot of tweaks and have started testing them with various games, and there are a few things I consider to have been really helpful to the enjoyment at the table, but it's not like we never had fun without those tweaks or even that we spend anywhere near as much time being frustrated as a we do with other systems when we play completely by the book.
Specifically Feat Taxes (more specifically making them everyone or no one gets them), and "Cut monster hp by like a third-ish or combat will take 8 years" are core system almost mandatory house rules. The second got incorperated into erratta, and so now its "cut monster hp by like 1/5th-ish".
There are a bunch that make some classes playable, but I guess you could go and just not play that class. A shaped classes vs Y shaped, is a really big one.
Also skill challenges haven't ever worked, so everyone has some sort of house rule for them. (Or they ignore them).
4e does a pretty good job of finding super common house rules and updating the core rules to reflect that.
As I said in the other thread though, outside the few almost mandated ones, the system really doesn't need or benefit from many.
Specifically Feat Taxes (more specifically making them everyone or no one gets them), and "Cut monster hp by like a third-ish or combat will take 8 years" are core system almost mandatory house rules. The second got incorperated into erratta, and so now its "cut monster hp by like 1/5th-ish".
I played one game where I gave out Expertise, and I occasionally pass out fullblade proficiency because greatswords are very poorply designed... but that's pretty much it. Neither of which I'd call "almost mandatory." As for cutting monster HP, I have never needed to, nor do I know anyone else who does so on anything but a very occasional basis.
There are a bunch that make some classes playable, but I guess you could go and just not play that class. A shaped classes vs Y shaped, is a really big one
Varies by design. Either way, they're plenty playable without modifications, as long as you're not insisting on hyper-optimized play.
Also skill challenges haven't ever worked, so everyone has some sort of house rule for them. (Or they ignore them).
"Here's some guidelines, there are no real rules, so kinda do it how it works for you."
"YOUR RULES DON'T WORK THEY NEVAR WURKD HAET HAET HAET U OMFG ANYOORIZM *squik*"
Actually I find they work very, very well with zero modification. They work even better with some varied modifications by circumstance, as noted in the official material discussing them, but I suppose, that just means the rules are broken because they don't hold your hand and ship Mr. Perkins to your door every time you want one so he can run it for you.
Other then that the system basically just works. You can fine-tune it, but that's a very personal endeavour; you're unlikely to run into game breaking issues if you don't houserule anything but you can always make it better. But that's basically up to you.
Well, since mandatory means "must have," my answer is none.
Notice the qualifier I've repeatedly used before 'mandatory.'
I think we can all agree that no house rule is actually mandatory. I'm asking which ones are almost mandatory. Which ones are more than "Oh, that's a nice tweak"?
Sorry, but "almost" and "mandatory" are quite contradictory, so you will pardon my lack of acknowledgement on your using them together. Regardless, I addressed the semantics of my opening paragraph, so thank you for not recognizing that.
My answer does not change, however.
Also skill challenges haven't ever worked, so everyone has some sort of house rule for them. (Or they ignore them).
Skill challenges are awesome and have always worked from my perspective. The DMG is meant to be used as a guide for running them, not as a "hard-coded" method. Just as everything else in the game, it's seasoned to taste.
Also skill challenges haven't ever worked, so everyone has some sort of house rule for them. (Or they ignore them).
"Here's some guidelines, there are no real rules, so kinda do it how it works for you."
"YOUR RULES DON'T WORK THEY NEVAR WURKD HAET HAET HAET U OMFG ANYOORIZM *squik*"
Actually I find they work very, very well with zero modification. They work even better with some varied modifications by circumstance, as noted in the official material discussing them, but I suppose, that just means the rules are broken because they don't hold your hand and ship Mr. Perkins to your door every time you want one so he can run it for you.
Yeah... I like skill challanges, but I've seen them run HORRIBLY, and each tiem I see it I think, "that's not at all how the rules suggest using it..."
In Dark Sun games I change the rate of healing. When in the desert/inhospitable environment, you only heal back 3 surges a day.
Once or twice I've just generally changed the rate of healing over all.
Otherwise, no houserules that I can think of ever showed up at my 4e table. Many custom game elements, but not a "houserule."
I know I'm probably one of the few who do it, (as it's a held over sacred cow that many people are very used to now) but in as many games as is practical--especially in RP/story heavy games where we don't spend a lot of time in combat:
Normalized skills.
I agree there's no good reason for some classes to have twice the skills that another has, even if I've never met a DM who thought it's worth a house rule.
Specifically Feat Taxes (more specifically making them everyone or no one gets them), and "Cut monster hp by like a third-ish or combat will take 8 years" are core system almost mandatory house rules. The second got incorperated into erratta, and so now its "cut monster hp by like 1/5th-ish".
If there ever was an almost-mandatory house rule, some kind of feat tax fix is it.
I run a paragon game, and I keep expecting my players to complain about hit point bloat. (I've made comments about it.) But they never do.
Also skill challenges haven't ever worked, so everyone has some sort of house rule for them. (Or they ignore them).
SC house rules may or may not be near-mandatory, but I have to admit that I've never played one that made me think "Wow, that was awesome!"
Well, since mandatory means "must have," my answer is none.
Notice the qualifier I've repeatedly used before 'mandatory.'
I think we can all agree that no house rule is actually mandatory. I'm asking which ones are almostmandatory. Which ones are more than "Oh, that's a nice tweak"?
Sorry, but "almost" and "mandatory" are quite contradictory, so you will pardon my lack of acknowledgement on your using them together. Regardless, I addressed the semantics of my opening paragraph, so thank you for not recognizing that.
My answer does not change, however.
That's because you're using my thread to answer the question "Are house rules mandatory?" But I didn't ask that question, so consider your answer ignored.
That's because you're using my thread to answer the question "Are house rules mandatory?" But I didn't ask that question, so consider your answer ignored.
Your loss. It is still an appropriate answer no matter how arrogant you may or may not chose to be.
So we soon discovered that we didn't care for skill challenges because it pretty much was inevitable that the party would lose because they tended to land on skills they had no training in thus sucked at and would fail.
Eventually though I took a more thorough look at the rules, because obviously I read them wrong before and figured out the right way to handle a skill challenge. And honestly, I'm far from impressed with them no offense to those that like them. I mean, they just never really feel like anything different. I mean they list a skill challenge for talking to a king and convincing him to give your group aid. That's all well and good but if the group was going to ask for aid from a king they would just go up to him and ask, talk to him, and maybe eventually convince him. There's no need for this skill challenge business of successes/failures in my book since skill challenges aren't anything special to just normal roleplaying really.
But aside from thinking them useless and more often than not centered around characters with Athletics and Acrobatics, we use them from time to time as the rules dictate and I guess in and of themselves they work by their rules. I think the only thing I'd change as a houserule is modify the success/failure ratio, which I think is kinda bogus. One we did was 12 successes before 4 failures, and it was only because the DM made it so we didn't just completely fail when we hit 4 that we made it through eventually.
> I mean they list a skill challenge for talking to a king and convincing him to
> give your group aid.
If you mean a duke, then that sounds like the DMG1, and if you're complaining about those, you're right. The DMG1's skill challenge examples were HORRIBLE. If there was one chapter in that book that was botched, the skill challenge chapter was it.
There was a subsequent article series, which later became part of the DMG2, that explored the workings of skill challenges. Ironic as it is, none of the DMG1 examples would make the grade according to the standards laid out in the DMG2.
The DMG2 also has much better examples of skill challenges done well, "War by Other Means" and "Navigating Sunderham" in particular. (The latter was originally printed as part of the magazine columns; I don't remember whether the former also appeared there.)
I'll have to take another look through the DMG 2. We have it in our group and I thought I remember looking through the skill challenges but maybe I'll take a more thorough look.
Also check out Critical Hits section on Skill Challenges. They have a ton of great information, with tips and tricks, and sample skill challenges. IMHO, it is one of the best resources that I am aware of.
"Alignment shall be purged with fire and brimstone,
and then the fire and brimstone shall be purged with fire and brimstone,
then the whole thing shall be tac-nuked from high orbit,
then the planet shall be hit by a Death Star,
and then the remains of all that shall be simultaneously
roundhouse-kicked by Chuck Norris and pitied by Mr. T."
I mean, if I could bring it any closer to total-existence failure, I would.
My Houserule #1
"Alignment shall be purged with fire and brimstone,
and then the fire and brimstone shall be purged with fire and brimstone,
then the whole thing shall be tac-nuked from high orbit,
then the planet shall be hit by a Death Star,
and then the remains of all that shall be simultaneously
roundhouse-kicked by Chuck Norris and pitied by Mr. T."
I mean, if I could bring it any closer to total-existence failure, I would.
Why is that a houserule? I'm just curious because alignment has...nothing to do with the game mechanically except for I think the essentials pally. So it really doesn't matter aside from if you don't want people to be evil in your game then they just need to watch what they do.
Jharii-
Interesting link, read through a lot of that stuff on the skill challenges. But they still don't stand out to me as anything more than just roleplaying with some flimsy rule structure that really makes no sense. I mean in none of the examples that were in the text on that link did anything jump out at me as to why skill challenges exist. I think one of his examples was making it through an evil forest full of necrotic energy and all. Of course players are going to do nature checks to find their way, and most likely if not before then after they start feeling the draining effects of the necrotic energy they'll work on arcana checks or something to prevent it. To me there's no reason to say, 6 successes before 3 failures. If they screw up things happen and it may just take them longer to get through, or they run into some troubling enemies, etc.
But eh, with that being said I'm going to be running a sort of skill combat challenge I'm working on in an upcoming game of mine. Something I want to try out where instead of having a skill challenge in a combat, it's all just kinda put together. Like they can make attack rolls but instead of worrying about damage and all enemies will take 1-3 hits or something to defeat. So if they make an atk roll and succeed then that's one hit to the enemy. But they can also expend an encounter power that'll make it two hits instead of one, but if they fail then it counts as two failures and on a failure the enemy makes a counter attack against the player.
Then someone can choose to make a heal check on an ally to remove one failure that resulted from a failed combat roll, or if an ally drops to 0 HP or reaches max failures(12 successes before 6 failures), it'll revive them and reduce their successes and failures by half. Some other stuff, but mainly the rest follows along the norm for skill challenges. The challenge is that they have to get to the top of this skyscraper(roughly) sized colossus that's full of rickety staircases, platforms, loose cables and all while fighting off mechanical guards and a few traps.
Jharii-
Interesting link, read through a lot of that stuff on the skill challenges. But they still don't stand out to me as anything more than just roleplaying with some flimsy rule structure that really makes no sense. I mean in none of the examples that were in the text on that link did anything jump out at me as to why skill challenges exist.
Skill challenges pretty much have always existed. I think everyone is in agreement that the DMG isn't the best representation of what can be accomplished with them. All 4E has done is put a name to it and a loose foundation around it. With that foundation, they have introduced something that promotes out-of-combat encounters and role-playing. It is completely up to the DM how to strengthen that foundation and build upon it.
I think one of his examples was making it through an evil forest full of necrotic energy and all. Of course players are going to do nature checks to find their way, and most likely if not before then after they start feeling the draining effects of the necrotic energy they'll work on arcana checks or something to prevent it. To me there's no reason to say, 6 successes before 3 failures. If they screw up things happen and it may just take them longer to get through, or they run into some troubling enemies, etc.
But eh, with that being said I'm going to be running a sort of skill combat challenge I'm working on in an upcoming game of mine. Something I want to try out where instead of having a skill challenge in a combat, it's all just kinda put together. Like they can make attack rolls but instead of worrying about damage and all enemies will take 1-3 hits or something to defeat. So if they make an atk roll and succeed then that's one hit to the enemy. But they can also expend an encounter power that'll make it two hits instead of one, but if they fail then it counts as two failures and on a failure the enemy makes a counter attack against the player.
Then someone can choose to make a heal check on an ally to remove one failure that resulted from a failed combat roll, or if an ally drops to 0 HP or reaches max failures(12 successes before 6 failures), it'll revive them and reduce their successes and failures by half. Some other stuff, but mainly the rest follows along the norm for skill challenges. The challenge is that they have to get to the top of this skyscraper(roughly) sized colossus that's full of rickety staircases, platforms, loose cables and all while fighting off mechanical guards and a few traps.
Sounds like an interesting encounter and you have got the idea. Skill challenges allow you to be as flexible as you want, just like you are describing here.
The way I run them, they are much more organic than as described in the DMG. For my campaigns, the story drives the mechanics, not the other way around. If I hadn't told my players what a skill challenge was, they likely would not have even known anything about skill challenges. They still don't recognize when they are even in a skill challenge until they are two or three checks into it.
One of the nice things about skill challenges is that you can introduce scenarios and events that the party is not otherwise equipped to handle. For instance, you can set up a future combat encounter by introducing an ancient dragon that is attacking the local town. The party is not ready to fight the dragon, but it most certainly can bolster the defenses to thwart the attack and defend the town.
Skill challenges just really open up options and imagination. Brainstorming, you can come up with all sorts of creative ideas and mechanics to be used for the sole purpose of skill challenges. There really are no limitation; the possibilities are endless.
Why is that a houserule? I'm just curious because alignment has...nothing to do with the game mechanically except for I think the essentials pally. So it really doesn't matter aside from if you don't want people to be evil in your game then they just need to watch what they do.
Not just the essentials pally, but the other paladin and the invoker as well.
Want to gain an additional oomph to damage while wielding two weapons? No problem. Take Two-Weapon-Fighting and call it a day. It's not like you have to be from this certain area of the world or be a member of this specific organization to do so. The feat represents a thing you can learn, and since there's not (in a setting-neutral game like 4E, there can't be) just one way to learn a thing, the feat can't be tied to something specific like that.
Sure, in one interpretation of the Points of Light setting, the Ranger Guild of the Nentir Vale may be the only ones in all the world to know how to fight with two weapons in that manner (and so, you could only take TWF if you were a member of that guild), but since not all settings are going to be PoL (and not all interpretations of PoL are going to work like above), tying TWF to such an organization is a bad idea.
But good luck trying to take a Channel Divinity feat for a deity without matching its alignment.
I'm playing an invoker. I like the benefit of the Bahamut's Radiance feat (or whatever the name of the Channel Divinity feat associated with Bahamut is). However, I never wanted to play an LG character. And why should I? Other feats get to be available to characters independent of fluff concerns, so why do the Channel Divinity feats operate differently?
As a matter of fact, the "Disciples" feats of the Essentials books work much better for this. Is the Disciple of Death feat clearly inspired by the benefit gleaned from an adherent of the Raven Queen? Sure. Do you have to worship the Raven Queen to get that feat (or worship any deity at all, for that matter)? No.
To be fair, to completely address this issue, I had to also introduce a forced separation between selecting a deity to worship (mechanically speaking, for the purpose of feats and such) and your character selecting a deity to worship in the narrative along with getting rid of alignment entirely, but getting rid of alignment is still number one on my list.
For instance, by RAW, it is completely impossible to have a combination (by means of multiclassing or hybridizing) of Warlord and Wizard that had the Platinum Warlord paragon path (which requires you to be LG and maybe G as well (away from book)) and the Lord of Fates epic destiny (which requires you to be U). Why?
Just little things like that that never should have cropped up in the first place and won't be resolved to my satisfaction until alignment (continually touted as a means of character behavior/goal/allegiance/motivation) has no more (and I mean, not one single shred more) influence than whether my character has brown hair as opposed to black.
Why is that a houserule? I'm just curious because alignment has...nothing to do with the game mechanically except for I think the essentials pally. So it really doesn't matter aside from if you don't want people to be evil in your game then they just need to watch what they do.
Not just the essentials pally, but the other paladin and the invoker as well.
Unless your DM has house rules that take your powers away for being the wrong alignment, there's nothing stopping you from playing a neutral paladin of Bahamut or whatever. Just write "LG" on your sheet and role play however you want.
Or if I'm your DM, don't even bother writing an alignment because it doesn't matter, just like the points in Whose Line is it Anyway?
You know, while I've never had any use for the channel divinity feats I've never had issue when I've fooled around with the feats, of selecting feats that didn't correlate to the god I had listed for my pally or cleric. Not sure if that's something with the online builder or not, but strange you have that issue.
more a throw back from before they adjusted the saves situatin, but i know many of my group favor a custom rule of Nat20 always saves and Nat1 always fails to save. It wouldn't be popular or mandatory elsewhere, but for us it has come up several times.
more a throw back from before they adjusted the saves situatin, but i know many of my group favor a custom rule of Nat20 always saves and Nat1 always fails to save. It wouldn't be popular or mandatory elsewhere, but for us it has come up several times.
Well, that doesn't really seem like a houserule, just how the rules are. Unless your talking about something in an earlier edition that is. But I mean to make a saving throw you have to roll 10 or above(minusing any bonuses/penalties). So if you rolled a 20 you would definitely make the save of course, and if you rolled a 1(unless you had a +9 to saving throws), you'd definitely fail. So unless I'm not understanding what your meaning, this wouldn't really be an issue for anyone since it's the rules. Unless your someone who hates saving throws as they are in 4th ed.
Many of those now only apply to the first save, but the house rule is a copy of the attack rules for 1/20, regardless of situation a 1 fails and a 20 hits. So fo saves, regardless of bonuses a 1 will always fail and a 20 will always succeed under this style, regardless os bonuses.