House!

[Sean Waters]

Given the monstrous expansion of the 6e thread, I thought I'd just ask this: what do you house rule on?

I'm not so much interested in the specific house rules, although I'm always pleased to chat about such stuff - perhaps on another thread.

What I'm after is an idea of the bits of the existing system that you actually change for the games you run. Personally I change almost nothing*, most of the time. If you change bits of the system for some genres but not others, please indicate that in your post.

Thank you.




*Ironic, huh?

[lemming]

The big changes:
-1/3"
3x Stun Mod
No need to harden Damage Reduction
Penetrating works differently with killing attacks. Still just leaks stun through.
The existence of piercing, though rare.
Old style Regen.

[steamteck]

6 segment turn

Average damage with the base per die being 4 if rolled 5 under and 5 if rolled 10 under.

Damage reduction does not decrease your chance of being stunned

Hit location giving specific DC pluses based on the penalty to attack. -2 to hit gives +1 DC just like skill levels.

Everything else is more campaign guidelines than house rules. This is the least I have EVER house ruled a game system



I just learned about piercing so I may be converting AP attacks to that. As I understand its not a house rule so much as an extra that showed up in 3rd ( the one I missed) and reappeared in Dark Champions.

[nexus]

4th Regen and Instant Change

Ambidexterity 3 points

x3 Stun Multiple

Major characters make a Con roll if they take damage over their con to resist stunning

Sexual/Romantic Seduction can use Comeliness as a base

Some PS based on Com and adopting some of the suggestions from "base on the Com"

Megascale movement can only be used out of combat unless the character actually accelerates up to it in combat time Teleportation is an exception and requires a turn in combat to use.

Negative Comeliness imposes a penalty on Interaction skills (-1 per 2 points below 0) but does not count anything.

For "realistic" games, human characters are DCV 3 vs firearms and other high tech ranged attacks but can Dive for Cover to either drop prone or get behind cover

DFC doesn't automatically make non area attacks miss. It essentially just allows a character to abort to movement and the attack is calculated as if they were in that new position if they're successful. If an HTH attacker has enough movement to close with them they can on a successful dex roll but suffer a -2 OCV for that attack.

Successful use of Acrobatics (-3) can reduced DFC to a 1/2 phase action.

I use Quirks and Hero Points in more cinematic games.

Interaction skills have enforced results, varies between games depending on how "social" I want them to be.

Varying according to lethality, certain amounts of Stun that get through Def cause a point of Body.

There's probably more but that's off the top of my head.

Considering:
Killing will become an Advantage (+1) similar to AVLD. The face value on the dice will be the Body done by the attack and Resistant Defenses will stop the Body and Stun. Stun will be generated either by a x3 stun multi or 1d4.

[steamteck]

4th Regen and Instant Change

Interaction skills have enforced results, varies between games depending on how "social" I want them to be.

Varying according to lethality, certain amounts of Stun that get through Def cause a point of Body.



Forgot about that. I don't really have to enforce the results with my group fortunately.

Forgot about that too. Each 20 points of stun that gets through from a single does 1 body.

[nexus]

Vulnerability: The value of this Disadvantages varies according to how obvious its nature is:

+5 Vulnerability is obvious due to common sense, widely know legend or simple deduction Ex: Fire to Water, Lycanthrope to Silver

+0: Standard level that can be deduced by simple tests, observation or specific knowledge: Demons to holy items, Electricity to Cold based attacks

-5: Vulnerability is strange or seemingly random and can only be deduced via intense testing/research, very specific knowledge or chance. A psionicist that is vulnerable to cold based attacks

Enraged/Berserk can create other emotional effects besides rage such as fear, lust or greed

Distinctive Features: Generally just more available than it seems to be in "official" champions material.

Followers, Multiforms, Summoned Beings and Duplicates have Disadvantages and these do reduce their cost. The minimum is one the max diads are equal to the campaign limits without GM permission

Mental Attacks are not automatically "visible" to their targets, that is they don't reveal the location and identity of the attack. Mental Awareness can reveal some of this information as can certain Ego and Int based skills.

Mental attacks can be targeted through vision enhancements and clairvoyance brought as Targeting.

Powers in EC are considered to be one power for the Purpose of Drain, Suppress and other Adjustment powers.

Considering:

Replacing the current Bleeding rules with something based on Con rolls. No details yet.

Splitting Dex into three different stats as per the Ultimate Speedster

Changing the calculation for Skill rolls and Combat values.

[Sean Waters]

OK, this is interesting stuff. I'm keen to get a bunch of posts and look for common themes. Keep 'em coming!

[Fearghus]

Movement...

I house rule that you can move in one round no farther than twice your non-combat movement. In heroic games I also allow characters to buy as a talent x4 Non-combat movement so that if they have alot of actions (not normally in a heroic game... but still)

I made these changes because during one of the pulp games I was running there was a character who was playing a professional athlete (specifically a runner) so he bought his running speed up to 10. There was another character who spent almost all his points on Dex and extra actions, so he had 4 phases. Well do the math. in a foot chase. the guy who was the professional athlete was SLOWER than the guy with more actions.

[prestidigitator]

EVERYTHING! :eg:

Actually, not that much, and the house rules I use tend to vary a lot from campaign to campaign. I'd say they often center around Skills, actually. Not that I don't like the skill system, but I often see great opportunities for enhancing it (flexible combinations of Characteristics and Skills, more interesting Skill vs. Skill contests and extended actions, etc.). Sometimes I use alternate rules for the Stun Multiplier, Bleeding, etc.

I think that old poll about how much of the rules we change might have good answers to this already. It is kind of hard to differentiate IMO between what optional rules and rule interpretations we use and what our "house rules" are. And I rather like that the "tool kit" adds that blurriness.

[lemming]

DFC doesn't automatically make non area attacks miss. It essentially just allows a character to abort to movement and the attack is calculated as if they were in that new position if they're successful. If an HTH attacker has enough movement to close with them they can on a successful dex roll but suffer a -2 OCV for that attack.

Successful use of Acrobatics (-3) can reduced DFC to a 1/2 phase action.


Forgot about my dive for cover rules.

Dive for cover do not cause an auto-miss with Non-area effect attacks. The character gets a dodge bonus (and whatever levels appropriate) and will move. Further attacks will take under consideration any cover, etc...

Characters that dive for cover can do multiple DFCs at -2 for subsequent ones.

If a character has a held phase, they can "Walk" for cover. They may roll first to see how far they can go. No need to be prone afterwards.

If a HTH haymaker is being performed and the target is moved, the attacker can convert to a non-haymaker immediatly keeping all penalties from haymaker.

Acrobatics can be used with DFC to avoid prone, etc...

[Xotl]

Ego instead of Dex as the stat that determines initiative when using mental powers.

Piercing as a standard rule, with no Armour Piercing allowed for Real Weapons.

No Elemental Controls allowed.

Use of the Ultimate Brick Expanded Strength Table and Ultimate Energy Projector Vulnerability Frequency rules as standard.

And in my new game that's about to start up (again) we've decided eliminate kill attacks as a separate power and go with a unified damage mechanic.

[nexus]

Considering:
Breaking Pre down into smaller components but I'm not entirely sure what they could be.

[steamteck]

Forgot another one Conversation is used for making friends and Seduction is used for...seduction

[steamteck]

Piercing as a standard rule, with no Armour Piercing allowed for Real Weapons.
.

That's my ultimate goal now I know the secret of piercing.

[nexus]

Non End using powers can be included in Elemental including charactertics (subject to intensive GM review).

This thread has shown me one thing. I've slowly accumulated allot of House rules

[Alibear]

I've scrapped end.
4th gen Regen and instant change.
Natural 3 means max damage.
Hero points.
Realistic games mean pd is limited to 4.
In Six I'll be adding that PD doesn't stop stun from killing attacks without resistant pd.
Summon can't summon a beastie with more active points than the character without express GM permission and a bloody good reason. I'm not inclined to grant that permission.

Oh, and I ditched Com last year.

edit: full move dodge doesn't mean attacks automatically miss. You just get 4 extra dcv and get to move if you aren't stunned or knocked back.

[Mr. R]

[QUOTE=Xotl;1851814
And in my new game that's about to start up (again) we've decided eliminate kill attacks as a separate power and go with a unified damage mechanic.

[/QUOTE]

How does this work?

[prestidigitator]

How does this work?

See http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72871 ...if you are brave.

[McCoy]

4th Regen and Instant Change


Non End using powers can be included in Elemental including charactertics (subject to intensive GM review).


Natural 3 means max damage.
More an optional rule than a house rule, PC's and NPC's have the option to speed up combat by "taking the 11" (assuming an 11 rather than any actual 3d6 roll) and/or taking standard damage (3 pips per die, slightly less than average, but usually good enough against Agents or Mooks).

Levels cannot more than double base CV. (ie, you have a base OCV of 3, you may appy up to 3 levels to bring your OCV to 6, cannot apply more without buying up DEX). This applies specifically to levels, not combat maneuvers. Simularly, characteristic-based skills cannot apply more levels than (CHA/5). (Again, applies to levels, skills may be purchased with dedicated points without limits).

"Unpublished" rules (I run my games this way, I try not to call the player's attention to it):

Any attempt to stabilize a dying character is automatically sucessful.

Only "name level" villians get REC's, not Agents or Mooks.

Mooks have DEF on charges, and the third or fourth hit, no matter how light, will put them down. (Can still be put down on the first or second hit if hard enough, but by that fourth hit it's a gimme.) BTW, unless that is a reason to have them resistant/vunerable to a particular Sx, Mooks have DEF (PD=rPD=ED=rED).

[Vondy]

4th Damage Shield and Regen, but the Limbs/Organs and Ressurection adders are available.

I use the hit locations option and thus remove the stun lotto. Barring stray rounds and random shots, I usually assume a hit location of "chest" unless the character is making a called shot.

Grabs are adjudicated as ST vs ST rolls with manuevers and damage classes factoring into the roll - not as entangles. The result is MoS driven.

Presence Attacks are adjudicated as Presence vs. Presence or Ego with results being based on a little MoS chart I use. You can use Resistance with a relevant FX to increase your defense roll.

I use the languages as INT skills option from TUS.

All skills have the same cost structure.

Expert is the only skill enhancer (the current enhancers are all just versions of it at this point).

I don't use megascale. I do, however, allow the "supersonic flight" power from the iteration of hero that shall not be names. This works nicely for "flight multipowers."

I don't really use ECs, and don't approve them very often. Instead, I allow powers to take a common "drain one drain them all" disad if they have a unified concept.

I love VPPs, but players have to work-up a list of pregen powers for me to approve before play. It keeps things moving.

I don't give points for disadvantages. Instead I give more base points. I don't call them disadvantages, either. I call them narrative tropes. I have a hero-point system that goes along with this (and some limits). Also, because of the open ended nature of this, sometimes these things can work in the players favor. As a rule, if it works against them they get a hero point. If they want it to work for them they pay a hero point.

I calculate 1" = 1M.

Allow mentalists to go on their ego rather than dex for mental powers, not physical actions.

No armor piercing. Piercing is available. Also, Find Weakness gives a level of piercing, not AP.

I don't apply penalties to paramedic rolls to stabalize dying people. I do require the roll.

A mook who takes a stunned result is "down for the count."

I add new skills whenever I darned well feel like it. I've also expanded some skills.

I ignore Weapon and Transport familiarities in a lot of games. For transportation I've expanded the driving, riding, and pilot skills to have subcategories, and added diving, parachuting, and boat handling (also with subcategories).

In some games I allow the polygot talent from Shelly's Regency Hero, but with an assoc. INT roll.

Pick Locks is now Open Lock with the subcategories: combination, electronic, and tumbler.

I think Combat Sense is way overpriced, but don't know what to do about it.

I prefer to use high skill rolls, and even tailored skills, to creating super-skills with powers. I generally use the TUS option for this.

Characters don't lose Fake ID points if their cover is blown. It just has to be replaced in game.

There may be more.

[secretID]

Adding damage
PRE
KB

[Xotl]

How does this work?

It's for a game of Mechwarrior converted to Hero, so I only have to worry about Real Weapons rather than power builds. That having been said, we just converted the Kill Attack dice of a weapon into an near-equivalent amount of Energy Blast dice, and only allow Resistant Defences to stop the Body damage from it. Stun damage is handled the same as always.

[bigbywolfe]

Grabs are adjudicated as ST vs ST rolls with manuevers and damage classes factoring into the roll - not as entangles. The result is MoS driven.
Maybe I'm just tired, but how is this different then how grabs are usually handled?

[prestidigitator]

Maybe I'm just tired, but how is this different then how grabs are usually handled?

I suspect the idea is a Str vs. Str roll in the same sense as a normal Contested Skill Roll. In other words, both roll 3d6 rather than the standard method of rolling Str damage dice and using the "Normal Damage Body Count."

[Sean Waters]

I can see a couple of common threads emerging. I'm going to try and make some overall sense of this and see if I can list the common threads so we can see what areas tend to get house ruled most often. I'll post it when I'm done :)

[Sean Waters]

OK, so house and/or optional rules summary.

First off I looked for common themes in different posts, and, unsurprisingly, a fixed stun multiple is one that comes up a lot.

Regeneration is also a quite common theme.

Somewhat to my surprise though there was not really many other common threads, at least not as to specifics. One general common thread though was playing around with damage rules and defences. That is interesting in that it says to me that people have views on how damage ought to work – that’s understandable, and says to me that it would be a good place for lots of optional rules for tuning the game to the way you want it.

As for characteristics, COM and PRE get an honourable mention J as do DEX, INT and even STR but the changes seem relatively minor.

There is very little about the powers and power modifiers: regeneration, instant change, damage shield, the usual suspects, mention of elemental controls, megascale. That says to me that people are generally satisfied with the system, which is good. Not to say, of course that improvements can not be made, but the foundations seem sound.

Apart from that, there are changes to some disadvantages and skills – all of which are interesting but do not seem to be a concern shared, particularly – more a matter of style and presentation.

Hmm. Interesting

[Vondy]

Maybe I'm just tired, but how is this different then how grabs are usually handled?

Currently grabs are adjudicated by having both characters roll STR/5 d6 and comparing the body damage results of their respective rolls. To wit (5ER Page 423):

"If a Grabbed character’s attempt to break out of a Grab does twice as much BODY on his STR as the BODY rolled for the Grabber’s STR Roll, the Grabbed character frees himself and has a Full Phase in which to act."
I've always considered this both counter-intuitive and cumbersome. I prefer to resolve it as an opposed strength contest with maneuvers and apropos modifiers applied. 3d6 vs. 3d6 with straight MoS.

[Sean Waters]

Derail, but an interesting one.

The STR difference between 45 and 50 STR is exactly the same as the STR difference between 5 and 10 STR.

Using STR/5 d6 gives you much more volatility with low numbers, and doesn't really work if someone of STR 5 is wrestling with someone of STR 0.

STR/5+9 is the same odds wherever you pitch it. It makes much more sense that way.

Mind you, neither of them get it right in that if you were twice as strong as someone else, holding them so that escape was virtually impossible would be easy.

[Marcus Impudite]

In the near future, I'm considering running 5th Ed Revised as my engine with the following house rules:

A Comeliness roll is made to determine NPCs' first impressions of you (favorable or otherwise). Appropriate modifiers apply. Result of roll influences the tone of intial interactions with that NPC.

Negative Comeliness DOES NOT grant bonuses to PRE attacks or Interaction Skills based on fear/intimidation (but neither does it cost points). For fear/intimidation effects, buy Limited PRE (possibly with some of the points you got back from selling back your COM).

Several things from Bob's wonderful Based On COM pdf will be incorporated into my games.

4th Ed Instant Change

4th Ed Regeneration with Heal Limbs and Resurrection Adders available.

Mooks and other minor characters get Recoveries during Non-Combat Time only.

Normal Person Doctrine: characters don't have to pay points for normal houses/apartments, cars, cellphones, pets or anything else a normal person can own that doesn't significantly impact combat/adventuring. Weapons, protective gear, combat/adventuring capable Vehicles/Bases/Followers etc. do cost points, though.

Characters may also have regular "supporting cast" NPCs that are neither Followers nor DNPCs at no point cost. Each such NPC shall be written up by the GM with input from the player. Limit five per customer please. None of these may have significant combat/adventuring abilities (buy Followers or Contacts for that).

The Hireling Rules from GURPS shall be adapted and ported over to HERO, mostly for villain campaigns. GM decides both quantity and quality of hirelings available to the PCs. Hirelings, unlike Followers, remain loyal to their employer(s) only so long as they are paid well enough (and may be bribed by enemies where dramatically appropriate).

Shallow, one-time-use Fake Identities shall be conveniences paid for with money, not points. IDs used for longer than one adventure must be purchased as Deep Cover Perks.

[prestidigitator]

Small nit pick:

"Volatility?" The variance of the body count on Nd6 increases with N. The standard deviation is proportional to the square root of N. That means it doesn't increase as fast as the average, but it DOES increase. The chance of rolling a fixed difference from the mean (e.g. being "off by 2 or more") goes up with the number of dice, though the chance of rolling a RELATIVE difference (e.g. being "off by at least 10% of the average") goes down.

The chance that 9d6 beats 10d6 (approximately 27%) is much greater than the chance that 1d6 beats 2d6 (approximately 6%).

So careful about the term, "volatility." It can be misleading.

[Fearghus]

Small nit pick:

"Volatility?" The variance of the body count on Nd6 increases with N. The standard deviation is proportional to the square root of N. That means it doesn't increase as fast as the average, but it DOES increase. The chance of rolling a fixed difference from the mean (e.g. being "off by 2 or more") goes up with the number of dice, though the chance of rolling a RELATIVE difference (e.g. being "off by at least 10% of the average") goes down.

The chance that 9d6 beats 10d6 (approximately 27%) is much greater than the chance that 1d6 beats 2d6 (approximately 6%).

So careful about the term, "volatility." It can be misleading.

:ugly: Math make me head hurt!

[Sean Waters]

Small nit pick:

"Volatility?" The variance of the body count on Nd6 increases with N. The standard deviation is proportional to the square root of N. That means it doesn't increase as fast as the average, but it DOES increase. The chance of rolling a fixed difference from the mean (e.g. being "off by 2 or more") goes up with the number of dice, though the chance of rolling a RELATIVE difference (e.g. being "off by at least 10% of the average") goes down.

The chance that 9d6 beats 10d6 (approximately 27%) is much greater than the chance that 1d6 beats 2d6 (approximately 6%).

So careful about the term, "volatility." It can be misleading.

Dammit Spock, I'm a lawyer, not a statistician!

You're right though - I should chose my words more carefully: point is that the 3d6 roll gives consistent results whatever the inputs, the STR/5d6 doesn't.

[prestidigitator]

Yeah. That's why I fully admitted it was a nit pick. :) I agree there, and that's a very interesting and reasonable argument for switching to 3d6.

[nexus]

If Universal Translator is purchased to 18- no roll is needed. It makes some builds much simpler.