House Rules

[Agent X]

Syberdwarf2 has inspired me by one of his responses on another thread:

What are your house rules? I am sure many of you have typed out a list. I will dig mine out for your perusal soon.

[Supreme]

My #1 house rule is "only play a character you would buy a comic book about." I took it from a good friend of mine.

[Syberdwarf2]

Most of my house rules center around outof character conduct, not game mechanics, but not all. Anyway, here's another good one I tend to follow;

Family Comes First; We are of course, all here to entertain ourselves, and have fun playing a game that we love. However, it is the opinion of the GM that Family responsibilities are paramount to all else. Therefore, if due to family, a player, or the GM himself must cancel, it is to be understood and accepted.
That being said, if continued absenteeism is the norm, the player(or GM) may be asked to leave. No one will bear ill will to said personas they are only doing the right thing. If they do, they will be TOLD to leave.

[zornwil]

My house rules are at http://www.asterick.com/realschluss/...les/index.html

[Lord Liaden]

Really, since the publication of FREd, my house rule list has thinned out dramatically. Most of the modifications I've used are in there at least as options, and with all the mix-and-match modularity of the 5E rules, it's hard not to find something "official" that will work the way I want it to. There are only a few modifications that I've kept:

Double the cost of Strength for heroic level games. I find that this adequately deals with some of the abusive qualities of STR in HERO, while still allowing for superheroic bricks;

Allow Ranged Powers built with the Damage Shield Advantage to take a No Range Limitation. (This is not an advocacy, so please let's not get into another "problem with DS" debate.);

Let characters with Growth use any extra inches of reach that they gain from it as extra inches of Running, with appropriate additional END expense; but those extra Running inches can't be used for extra reach in the same Phase. This eliminates the "shuffling feet" syndrome of very large characters who run in baby steps, and in practice has very little effect on combat;

I use the Stun Multiplier mechanic for Killing Attacks, but to deal with the "stun lotto", I roll 3D6 instead of one, divide the result by 3 (I keep a small chart of the roundings for all the possible results), then subtract 1 to get the Stun multiplier. The bell curve for results is pronounced this way, centering around 2.75, so I consistently get a Killing Attack which does more Body but less Stun than a comparable Normal attack, which is supposed to be the difference between them anyway;

Self-Inflicted Damage: This is a rule adapted from the original (pre-4th Ed.) Golden Age of Champions, with some modifications from advice on the discussion boards (Thanks Alistair). I use it mostly for heroic level games, to simulate a normal person striking a hard, unyielding object with a part of their bodies and injuring themselves if they can't break it. Whenever you strike an object with resistant defenses (including characters), you roll your damage normally; if the Body damage you roll is higher than the resistant defense of the object, you take no damage. However, if you don't roll more Body than the resistant defense, you take the full damage yourself, modified by the multipliers for the Hit Location of the body part you used to strike with.

[Lord Mhoram]

As a note, I am a very "loose" GM- I tend to let lots of stuff in my game that other GMs would go "huh?" to.

ECs- Anything goes in as long as it falls under the "drain one, drain 'em all" criteria.

Pools - A standard -2 limitiation: Active points in pool cannot be greater than the pool reserve. (-2 may be a little much, buy hey- the idea here is just a multipower with infinite slots).

Extra damage classes apply to everyman manuevers not just martial arts.

If you plan on using mutlple power attacks on a frequent basis the secondary attack DC/points cannot be higher than 75% of the primary.

In figuring your defenses compared to campaign numbers reduction is considered 10,20 or 40 pts of defense.

Multiple damage reductions stack.

Using 4th version of damage shield.

[Chris Goodwin]

Mine are at http://home.attbi.com/~archer7/houserules.html. Some highlights:

If any Flash "BODY" at all gets through a target's Flash Defense, the target is Flashed for a minimum of a full Phase. If the segments go on longer than that, then the Flash lasts as long as normal, but if even one segment of Flash gets through it's a full Phase.

I have a Perk I call Best in the West. It lets you be the best at whatever your schtick is. For example, if you're a speedster, and you take Best in the West, you can be the fastest person on the planet. You have to put a lot of points into the schtick, though... you can't just be pretty fast to be the fastest. There's also adders to be the best in the solar system, the galaxy, etc.

One level of Hardened does not ignore one level of Armor Piercing and/or Penetrating. Instead, any defenses that are Hardened are not halved by Armor Piercing. Also, Hardened defenses defend against Penetrating damage, if they are of the appropriate type; Hardened normal PD or ED defend against the Penetrating STUN and BODY from normal Penetrating attacks, while Hardened resistant PD or ED defend against the BODY from Penetrating Killing Attacks. If a character has both Hardened normal and resistant PD or ED, add the Hardened defenses together to find out how much defense the character has against the STUN of a Penetrating Killing Attack.

[Agent X]

I promised mine so here they are:
Campaign Rules
1. Players must be interested in more than simply the game. They must be interested in socializing with the other players.
2. Players must be respectful and considerate to one another.
3. Players must handle victory and defeat with dignity.
4. Players must respect that my games will attempt to balance the game in the areas of role-play, combat, problem solving, and storytelling.
5. Players cannot build characters with the designs of being the best at everything. What does that leave to other players? Ordinarily players should discuss with each other and the GM what role they would like to take. Are they the strongest? The fastest? Etc. In these cases, the player who asks for something first gets “dibs.�
6. Players should be prepared to change the design of characters at my request. I am the only one who is trying or able to pay attention to how everyone and every character is interacting with the known and unknown elements of the milieu. That means I will have a perspective others will lack in my game.
7. I use 5th Edition Rules with House Rules as I find things that need fixing.
8. I will suspend any rule at any given point when it does not make sense or bogs the game down needlessly.
9. If you feel I am in the wrong, tactfully bring it to my attention. If I agree or am in doubt, I will try to redress it.

House Rules
1. Character designs must include descriptions of Background/Origin, Personality/Motivation, a Signature Quotation or Quotations, Powers/Tactics, and Appearance, both in normal identity and super identity when applicable.
2. Character designs should also include a thoughtful description of the character’s routine activities.
3. Regeneration will be handled as it was in 4th Edition but appropriate adders from 5th edition will be used as well.
4. Normal Characteristic Maxima may not be taken as a Disadvantage.
5. Pulling a Punch does not create a DCV penalty. That is inappropriate for a superhero campaign.
6. Elemental Controls may not have any characteristics other than Strength or Physical/Energy Defense included when appropriate.
7. Encumbrance will affect movement as stated on page 250. Other effects are inappropriate for a superhero campaign.
8. Multiple Attacker rules are used so watch out for swarms of ninjas.
9. Weapon Familiarity and Off Hand are not used.
10. Blazing away can be extended into the following segments. The character can fire a maximum of five shots per segment.
11. Impairment and disabling rules on page 278 are used should someone take ½+1 or more body. It shouldn’t come up very often but when it does these rules add detail and make for a better story.
12. Casual Strength may not be used to attack. It’s on page 283 and I only mention it because players have considered using this as an option for attacks that do not count as an action.
13. Pushing requires a Con roll for physical attacks and an Ego roll for mental attacks. A Power Skill roll can be substituted if the character has that skill. The number of character points pushed modifies the roll by this simple formula: -1 penalty for every 10 character points pushed. A failed roll still succeeds but the character suffers penalties as if they had been stunned. A roll failed by more than half costs the character one fourth of their total starting stun. With a roll of 18, the character is stunned, loses half their stun and all their endurance.
14. Characters start the game with Victory Points equal to their intelligence, ego, and presence added together and divided by 5. Victory points can be used to modify rolls, acquire or force re-rolls, or “rewind� on certain occasions. Once spent, Victory Points are gone. Characters can earn 1 to 2 Victory Points in a given adventure.
15. Characters can be allotted certain Social Advantages or Disadvantages based on events in game. In these cases no compensation is given for Social Disadvantages and Social Advantages are paid for in bonus experience.
16. Threatened Hex rules will be used. A Character threatens the hex directly in front of him – meaning that anyone moving through that hex can be attacked in any segment. The two hexes to either side in the character’s forward facing provide the character an opportunity to make a dex contest against the moving character to determine if the character can make an attack. The rear facing hexes are not threatened hexes. To provide for them to be threatened hexes, a character would have to buy a selective damage shield that extends into the adjacent hexes.
The 4th Edition rules for instant change will also be used.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Agent X
13. Pushing requires a Con roll for physical attacks and an Ego roll for mental attacks. A Power Skill roll can be substituted if the character has that skill. The number of character points pushed modifies the roll by this simple formula: -1 penalty for every 10 character points pushed. A failed roll still succeeds but the character suffers penalties as if they had been stunned. A roll failed by more than half costs the character one fourth of their total starting stun. With a roll of 18, the character is stunned, loses half their stun and all their endurance.

I really like this rule, I think I'm going to use it.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
I really like this rule, I think I'm going to use it.

I think it looks more like the comic books.

[Agent X]

Don't like the threatened hex rule?

[Keneton]

Here are my house rules.


They are rather complicated so I warn you ahead of time.

Comments are welcome. You will find these house rules will cover all genres and all power levels.

I reccomend reading The Effectiveness Rating DH#3 and getting the spreadsheet from the free section of this site. It will assist with understanding many of my comments.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Agent X
I think it looks more like the comic books.

ANd keeps the powers seperated into physical and Mental in keeping with most rulings.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Agent X
Don't like the threatened hex rule?

I'm going to examine it. It is (obviously) reminicent of the d20 Attack of Opportunity. I find that this rule can sometimes slow game-play (which is why it is being removed from some d20 games, particularly Superhero ones) and I am not sure that I would be willing to do that in my Champions game. It also ties me more closely to Miniatures rules and I am not always confortable with chaining my Roleplaying to a tactical environment. Sometimes we use the map... sometimes we don't...

In a Heroic level game I'd be much more likely to adopt it.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
I'm going to examine it. It is (obviously) reminicent of the d20 Attack of Opportunity. I find that this rule can sometimes slow game-play (which is why it is being removed from some d20 games, particularly Superhero ones) and I am not sure that I would be willing to do that in my Champions game. It also ties me more closely to Miniatures rules and I am not always confortable with chaining my Roleplaying to a tactical environment. Sometimes we use the map... sometimes we don't...

In a Heroic level game I'd be much more likely to adopt it.

I wouldn't use it without miniatures. I just get annoyed when I see the figs move right by MY hero and I can't do anything about it. That is NOT Comic Book-like. I know Steve Long says it is folly to try to reach for the Comic Book way of doing things but I think we can get closer than FRED to doing that.