Comments on: New 4e House Rules (Part 1)

By: Month in Review: April 2009 — Dungeon's Master

Month in Review: April 2009 — Dungeon's Master — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:10:59 +0000

[...] We asked for your feedback on New 4e House Rules. [...]

By: Tobias Pelzester

Tobias Pelzester — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:41:46 +0000

A favourite with my group is the +1 chip (I have a bunch of poker chips I use for this purpose). If you complete your turn in an efficient way, you get a chip. People also occasionally get a ‘pity chip’ for things like failing their third (fourth fifth) attack in a row, getting critical hit for huge amounts of damage, etc. A chip can be used at any time to add +1 to an attack or damage roll. Multiple chips stack, and anyone can contribute chips (which will often lead to someone missing by 2-3 and asking for chip contributions to make their attack), but once you’ve committed a chip you can’t have it back.

Chips are given fairly freely so it’s common for there to be 4-5 given out in a single encounter, but any chips unused at the end of the session are removed and the next session starts with none.

As for you ideas, I like the idea of the Reverse Failure particularly, not so sure about the automatic success but I do like the idea of the DM getting to reroll for a change . I’ll probably temporarily institute one or the other in my next game to see how it goes.

By: Bog97th

Bog97th — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:24:10 +0000

House rules can be the best thing in your game or the devil! I suggest trying all of them and if you have to vote on them within your group for total group use. You don’t want on DM to not use those so you can avoid confusion.
Also, if you do adopt rules write them up in rule book format and amend them as necessary. It’s almost like writing a whole new game some times. Those house rules have to be play tested too.

By: 100 Great Things About Dungeons and Dragons — Dungeon's Master

100 Great Things About Dungeons and Dragons — Dungeon's Master — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:23:07 +0000

[...] House rules [...]

By: Bartoneus

Bartoneus — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:58:20 +0000

@Wyatt: Didn’t I say that already?

By: Wyatt

Wyatt — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:55:12 +0000

I think the house rule is fine and not unbalanced even if the DM doesn’t get a freebie reroll, because he can always have a freebie reroll whenever he wants anyway. That is my position on this. Does there really need to be a downside? The game is already pretty skewed in certain ways, especially when it comes to trying to hit monsters (see: the Mastery feats for WotC’s good-intentioned but badly-thought-out attempt to fix that). My stance is: just add the rule and forget about giving it a downside, especially if the downside is silly or entirely uneven (people who have more use for surges won’t use it, Wizards with little use of surges will throw it around more, action points are better spent on extra actions than this, and the DM doesn’t need freebies.)

By: Ameron

Ameron — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:45:46 +0000

@Dungeon
I think that rolling a 1 in combat should be a fail, after all if the PCs have no fear of a bad roll then why play at all. But I think giving them the occasional “out” could be interesting. Of course, if you feel comfortable giving them a possible out every time, that’s up to you and your group.

@Suddry
Good point. I think you’re correct in assuming that if a PC is in a position where one roll can have that big an impact to the game he’s either made “questionable” choices or he’s got a really mean DM (no offense).

@Liack
I think we’ve all been the guys with bad dice. I agree that if you’ve saved a big power for a critical or important moment and then you flub the roll, it really sucks. I agree that there is room for a mechanism to let you try again. Spending action points or healing surges is a good way to keep it from getting out of hand.

By: Liack

Liack — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:16:58 +0000

Wow…just saw the plot coupon rull… Nice!

By: Liack

Liack — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:15:41 +0000

Being both a player and a DM, there are some evenings where I would have gladly have paid action points or healing surges for a success of some sort. Botching all your daily and encounter powers in a big fight with a stream of bad luck…is part of D&D, but it still would have been to have some sort of comeback (à la FateSpinner) of some sort, and the paid success (maybe in the form of healing surge for encounter, and action point for daily) will probably make its entrance on the next game I’ll DM…and maybe that other DM will allow my character to still be efficient in combat (nothing like an evening stuck with rolls between 2 and 9)

By: Suddry

Suddry — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 01:23:56 +0000

Of course… if you are trying to avoid the whole “One bad roll” thing you are really leaving out a part of D&D that adds suspense. Besides… ONE roll should never be a disaster. I would surmise that before you got to the point where that ONE roll mattered that much there were already a series of rolls that got you there in the first place. Or a series of nimrod PC choices! *looks around with an evil grin*