So, we’ve been playing 4e regularly since September 2008, and like most groups have found some things that work for us, and others that don’t.

In 4e, however, there are a lot fewer things that we don’t use as written thus far.  Up until now, I’ve only found need to house rule three things.

1. Daily Magic Item Uses – As suggested by Wyatt:
   

   Unlimited Item Power:  You can use any item’s daily power once per day but have no restrictions on your own uses, so you can have 10 different items and use all of their powers. Once an item’s daily power is used once it is spent – you can’t give it to another character for a go, for example.

   And if anyone decides to abuse the system by hoarding multiple cheap items, you smack them with the rulebook and take the privilege away.  They don’t get nice things.

2. Skill Challenges – I haven’t quite figured out what to do with these, but had my first really good one at the MM2 Game Day.  They are not run by the book, however, and are affected by #3.
3. Skill Check DCs – The errata’d DCs are too low, and make Skill Challenges a cakewalk.  The original ones (with the +5 for being skill checks) were too high, and made Skill Challenges too hard.  I use the new Skill Challenge system (X/3), as the old one didn’t scale properly, and the original DCs (sans the +5 for being skill checks).  It seems to give the difficulty I want.

And of course the minor per-character house rules, such as reflavouring powers or making a Wizard into a Druid.

But recently, I’ve been thinking over another house rule, which I want to present to you here (and to the players on Sunday).

Let me start with a question.

Outside of the Grab and Bull Rush combat maneuvers, where would you use an Ability Check instead of a skill check?

I can’t think of a single case that isn’t better represented by either a skill check or an attack against the player.  On top of that, there is a lot of confusion about when to add the 1/2 level or not, with some people never remembering to add it for ability checks, and some adding it for even damage rolls.

So I am putting forth the following hypothesis:

All Ability checks can be better represented by a Skill check.

Strength -> Athletics

Dexterity -> Acrobatics/Stealth/Thievery

Constitution -> Endurance

Int/Wis -> the various Knowledge skills

Charisma -> the social skills

I even propose that Grab and Bull Rush are just athletics moves, taken from wrestling and football (and many other sports) respectively.

Can any of you, dear readers, come up with a situation that is better represented by an ability check than anything else?  Please, I’d like to hear it.

Well, I can’t, so I put forth this house rule:

Grab and Bull Rush are now Athletics checks.  Ability Checks don’t exist until I am shown that they have some merit.

Doesn’t that make Grab and Bull Rush too powerful, you ask?  I say no!  The PHB2 already brings forward the Improved feats for both of them (which gives a +4/+6/+8 bonus), indicating that they needed a boost.

Corrollaries:

The Improved Grab and Improved Bull Rush feats no longer exist.  Skill Training (Athletics) is sufficient.  Skill Focus (Athletics) can bring it up to the full +8 bonus that the Improved Feats do.

And other abilities that affect the maneuvers still apply, such as the Goliath getting a +2 bonus and being able to roll twice.

As an added benefit, before, it was far easier to escape a grab than establish one.  This fixes that.

These maneuvers are now not only viable alternatives, but they are potentially superior alternatives in some cases.  And they don’t require a feat to become viable, if your class gets Athletics as a class skill.

With 4e’s emphasis on maneuverability and tactics, I can’t see that as a bad thing.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Uses for Ability checks that I missed?

It’s been written about a number of times in the world of DMing blogs, and is one of my principles as a DM. It guides my play style, and (as you will see below) it guides my house rules.

The guidelines behind perpetrating this rule, however, are not laid out above, though people come out with new ways to do so every day.

Rather, the method for creating an atmosphere of cool was defined years ago, completely outside of the gaming arena. Three simple rules were laid out by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker magazine. Since then, they have been applied heavily in the marketing world, to explain why products succeed and fail. But they are useful in gaming as well.

The three rules are as follows, and are effective guidelines to use while attempting to “awesome up” your games.

• 1) The act of discovering cool causes cool to move on.

Cool is a self-propagating phenomenon. The more often these Cool moments happen, the more often they will continue to happen. In addition, as Cool becomes prominent with one player, it will spread to other players in the group. This can be clearly seen in my own group, where the antics of Nonnie’s player tend to inspire others to take similar chances. See my last writeup, where Nox decided to use the Runewell to take out the little Quasit bitch.

Conversely, Cool is constantly in flux. What’s cool in one session, once done, won’t seem as cool any more (except in retrospect). As such, Cool will draw others in, but once everyone is doing something it can stop being Cool. Only by constantly adapting your own definition of Cool (to fit with that of your players) can you keep Cool in the game. Additionally, repetition of a single “cool” act makes each instance (even in retrospect) seem that much less Cool.

• 2) It cannot be manufactured, only observed, and then by those who are themselves cool.

This one is twofold.

First, in order to create Cool, you need to be willing to inspire that Cool. This can be through your NPCs, through your characters if you are also a player, or even just through tiny subliminal suggestions to try the Cool options.

Second, there is no way to add a Cool situation to a game. As a DM, the best you can do is add the opportunity for Cool to exist. This can be done through various tropes of the genre, but usually just consists of encouraging and working with the “crazy” ideas that your players naturally come up with. Doing this freely will naturally lead into rule 1.

• 3) You have to be cool to know cool.

This is important.

None of this works unless both you and your players are willing to try it.

You need to be willing to work with situations that the rules don’t cover

Your players need to be willing to suggest those situations.

I’m somewhat lucky, in that I have some players that do this naturally. Some others, however, are hesitant, though rule 1 helps to take care of that (and Rule of Cool lends itself well to a group where all the players have a bit of Butt-Kicker in them). But if your players are all conservative, hesitant, and unwilling to put themselves in mechanical danger for flavourful cool, then the Rule of Cool will have difficulty surfacing.

Which brings me to my first point. (Yes, this post will have points.)

Anyone who plays D&D and enjoys the Rule of Cool style of play, really needs to keep an eye on 4e. Even if you don’t play D&D, and have no intention of switching, it looks like it will be worth looking at for ideas alone.

In any case, go read that article. The next D&D edition seems to be going out of its way to support Rule of Cool style play, by removing mechanical and psychological barriers from play.

The catch is that the GMs and players are going to need to be willing to throw away preconceptions, as evidenced by the Dragonborn in that mine cart. Get past that, and you’ll see why this is a perfect example of why I’m looking forward to 4e.

But that’s in the future.

As for right now, I’m working on creating Cool situations in 3.5e, and unfortunately, those mechanical barriers are still there.

And that’s why we have house rules. So I’m going to give you a peek at what modifications I’m using right now, from character creation to character death.

Skills

It always sucks when you can’t play the character you want due to having to take the “necessary” abilities for the party. As such, we have combined some skills, to make it easier for players to have the necessities, while still having some freedom. Now, we didn’t do too much at this point, but we combined a few of the more similar skills (as well as those that are never taken separately), as well as folding a few of the flavourful but less useful skills into others.

• Hide and Move Silently have been combined to form Stealth
• Spot, Listen, and Sense Motive have been combined into Perception
• Open Lock is now a part of Disable Device
• and Tumble, Balance, and Escape Artist have been merged into Acrobatics

Some of these were inspired by d20 Modern, some by the new Star Wars SAGA edition, but all were done in the name of making it easier to attain Cool.

Save or Die

Save or Die effects have either been changed or completely removed.

Phatasmal Killer, for instance, drops the target’s Int and Cha scores to zero, paralysing him and removing him from the fight.

Some death effects now just drop the target to -1 hp and start them dying, instead of -10 and death.

Wail of the Banshee puts everyone into a Confusion state.

Things like that.

Save or Useless effects, like Flesh to Stone, however, are largely still there, but unused. Removal of said effects, on the other hand, is much easier in most cases. Some previously permanent effects, for instance, may allow a saving throw every 10 minutes, or may wear off in an hour, or something. Most of this is decided on the fly, and effects like this are avoided anyways.

Swordsage

The Swordsage refreshes her maneuvers by taking a full-round action to re-ready a single one.

This means that after she runs out, in an extended combat, she will only be taking actions every second round.

This sucks.

Especially compared to the other classes. A Warblade’s maneuvers are no less powerful than a Swordsage’s, yet he needs only to spend a swift+standard action to refresh. And he can attack with that standard action. The only difference is that he gets a few less maneuvers each combat, so he needs to do it less often.

Add to that the feat Adaptive Style, which lets you re-ready and re-choose all of your maneuvers as a full-round action.

This feat, especially for a swordsage, is way overpowered, and is one of those “necessity” items that prevent you from taking something more fitting and flavourful.

So we needed something in the middle. More restrictive than the Warblade (as it doesn’t need to be done as often), but not by a lot (since neither class will usually need to refresh in combat anyways).

So we decided to stick with a full round action, but refresh all readied maneuvers instead of just one.

So far, it hasn’t even been used, which lets me believe that it wont’s be a problem. The class is designed to be able to use a maneuver every round. This will only continue that assumption.

Turn Undead

Turn Undead is one of those rules that slows down the game. It’s used so rarely in most games that everyone sighs and breaks out their rulebooks as soon as it’s mentioned. It’s also one of the few rules that I don’t know off by heart (and I can even run grapple quickly).

As such, we have adopted one of WotC’s official variants. Turn Undead deals 1d6 damage per cleric level to all undead within a 60 foot radius (Will for half).

I’m considering letting it do half that (1d6/2 levels) to evil outsiders as well. We’ll see if I bring that in.

Sorcerer

For this I took a page from Greywulf’s Save or Die ezine. Though, as with everything I do, I’ve heavily modified to our personal style.

Sorcerers (and Wizards, if we get one) get the following ability.

As a spell-like ability (standard action, somatic component) that is not subject to SR, a Sorcerer may fire off a magical/physical arrow from his hands. This arrow deals piercing damage, and is subject to DR, though it counts as an attack from a magical weapon for the purpose of bypassing DR. It has a range increment of 60 feet, as a shortbow. Make an ranged attack roll (not a ranged touch attack) using your primary casting stat (Int or Cha) in place of your Dex score. If it hits, this attack deals 1d6 + 1/2 your caster level piercing damage. The arrow threatens a critical hit on a 20, and deals 2x damage if it crits.

This attack is better than whipping out a nonmagical shortbow. It is about equivalent to a level-appropriate magical shortbow (lower to-hit, possibly slightly higher damage).

At the current level, it is almost equal to a 0-level attack spell. Ray of Frost only deals 1d3 damage, but isn’t subject to DR and is a touch attack. This isn’t subject to SR, but needs to hit full AC. Either is better in certain situations, though this is better overall.

It isn’t as good as a level 1 attack spell. Even at level 20, doing 1d6+10 damage, it will be tricky to decide between this and a 5d4 magic missile that can’t miss, though neither will be used very often.

So this basically gives the Sorc unlimited level 1/2 attack spells, about equivalent to the crossbow or shortbow that he’d otherwise reach for. But it means that he will never again need to reach for said crossbow.

As it should be.

And that’s what we’re at so far. All of the above have been created or selected so as to increase the chance for awesomeness from each player, and to reduce the amount of “Anticool” (a term I just created) that can seep into games.

But there are three more things to take note of.

First, I’ve been toying with introducing the new Death and Dying rules put out by WotC. I’m going to wait on that, however, and may not do so, unless it becomes an issue later.

Second, I considered (and rejected) another of Greywulf’s proposed house rules: using Reflex Save as Initiative.

While is seems to solve some issues at first (the Rogue usually goes first, as he should), it brings in some other ones down the road. Since saves are based on Hit Dice in 3e, the big, tough, lumbering creatures have massive HD, and thus massive saves. The Tarrasque, for instance, has a +7 initiative, matchable by any rogue who takes Improved Initiative, though he will still often go first.

His Reflex save however, due to his 48 hit dice, is +29, making his Initiative (with the Improved feat) +33. Not even a 20th-level Rogue has a chance at matching that.

Third, I am in need of one more house rule. Clerics, especially at this level, tend to spend all of their spells (and thus many of their combat actions) on healing. As such, it can get quite boring playing one.

I am considering a number of options to alleviate this.

• allowing Turning attempts to be converted to healing
• allowing spontaneous cure spells to be a swift action, leaving the cleric still able to act that round
• allowing Turning attempts to be expended to power spells in general, or to create Inflict-style effects, thus leaving the spell slots available for healing
• granting Clerics aura-style effects, which might grant fast healing or something
• introducing a “Second Wind”-style ability, to allow all characters some self-healing ability a few times per day

Does anyone have anything they’ve used that they would suggest?

Really?

Are you sure?

Care to place a wager…”

- Andy Collins, RPG System Design & Development Manager, Wizards of the Coast R&D

A while back, I got into a discussion over on Andy Collins’ message boards regarding alignment. It was called Redefining Lawfulness, and was created because the Law/Chaos axis of the D&D alignment system is not nearly as well-defined as the Good/Evil side.

Despite the focus on Law/Chaos, I felt the Good/Evil definitions were also very vague, and far too wordy. So pretty early on in the discussion, I proposed a new set of simple, yet complete, definitions for all four axes. I’ll be using these as my own guidelines when alignment questions come up in my new game that’s starting soon, and I’m going to share them with you now.

So, I may as well just quote from my original post, first. The conversation quickly included a Spock quote (“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”) to try to help define Law. I took that general structure for my definition, though the terms changed a fair amount.

But perhaps we need to change the classic Spock quote around a bit, in order for it to match the alignments.

Good — The needs of others outweigh the needs of yourself.

Evil — The needs of yourself outweigh the needs of others.

Law — The needs of society outweigh the needs of the individual.

Chaos — The needs of the individual outweigh the needs of society.

… I think this covers it quite well, actually. Let’s break it down into the corner alignments, as well.

Lawful Good — Upholding society or organization to fulfill the needs of others, even if it means sacrificing your own needs.

Chaotic Good — The needs of other individuals take top priority (even if that means all of the people in a kingdom, it’s still their individual needs), even if it means sacrificing your own needs.

Lawful Evil — Creating an efficient society/organization so as to best fulfill your personal needs.

Chaotic Evil — Personal, individual needs take priority over all others.

Keep in mind that in order to uphold a society or organization (or to keep an efficient society running for your own benefit), there needs to be certain codes in place. This, therefore, covers honour and all that as well. This was from my early post, and no longer applies. Codes, laws, and honour are not solely the area of Lawful in this new definition, though Lawful people are still more likely to follow codes of honour.

Remember as well that there are different strengths to these beliefs. A Good person, for instance, may be passively Good (attempts to not let others come to harm through his actions) or actively Good (actively seeks to help others). An Evil person, similarly, may actively harm others in order to accomplish his goals, but they also may just ignore the consequences to others as a result of their actions.

The neutral alignments in this definition structure are rather vague, still. A neutral on the Good/Evil axis may tolerate the suffering of others, may help others as long as it doesn’t inconvenience them greatly or it benefits them as well, may hurt others so long as the benefits from it outweigh the damage caused. The reluctant hero and the thief with a conscience all fall under Neutral.

On the Law/Chaos side, there are similar levels of Lawfulness or Chaosness… Chaoticness… Chaositude. Law, for instance, may range from “respects the hierarchy and works within it happily” to “believes that only a well-structured, well-ordered society can possibly provide for the needs of its citizens”, even if that means that some of its citizens get executed, remain poor and hungry, etc. Chaos, on the other hand, can be anywhere between “free-spirited hippy who doesn’t like to see individual rights stepped on” to “No laws will ever respect individual rights! Abolish government, and let the people resolve conflicts personally on their own terms! Anarchy! Anarchy! Anarchy!!!!!”

The neutral aspect of Law/Chaos is somewhere in between, of course. They may not like the hierarchy, though they contentedly live within it. They may not like laws that diminish individual rights, though they see the use of them. (Neutral Evil would only have a problem with laws that diminish their own personal rights, of course, but the point still stands.) Democracy, for instance, is a Law/Chaos Neutral (likely Neutral Good) construct, where the individual desires and societal needs come together in order to govern. (LG and CG do, of course, use democracy to further L or C, but it is still an inherently N concept.)

We went through many discussions, and many examples. If you feel like it, you can read them all here. (I go by ShadoStahker in the conversation.)

I think this would make a nice, clear, concise alignment chapter, don’t you?

One of the more fun and flavourful enchantments for a weapon in D&D is the ability to take a normal weapon and make it a throwing weapon. Battleaxes, Longswords, hell even Greatswords. There is little scarier than a huge piece of metal flying at you.

But while it’s fun, it’s ultimately not that useful, and doesn’t increase the effectiveness of a weapon by a whole lot. It doesn’t alleviate the need for a bow, as the range on Throwing weapons sucks. Usually, it just means you don’t need to reach for a dagger to hit a flying enemy.

Add to that the fact that the Throwing property is almost never used on its own, and we have ourselves a small set of rules that need a rewrite.

So first off, is Returning even worth the +1 bonus?

Is it worth it to spend 10,000 gold to add returning to a +1 Flaming dagger? Heck no. I can enchant a +1 Flaming shortbow for only 8000, and use that instead. The bow will be more universally useful than the dagger, as well, which is only more useful when you don’t have the move action to spare to draw the bow.

As you get to higher enhancements, the effective cost actually goes down (enchanting a +3 weapon costs 18,000, +4 costs 32,000, so you can’t get a +3 ranged weapon for the difference) but I believe the point still stands. Returning isn’t really worth the +1 bonus.

Add to that the fact that Throwing is pointless to have on its own (non-throwing weapons are too large to carry many of, so a non-returning Throwing greatsword just ends up disarming you), and we need to find a solution.

First off, I propose we combine the abilities.

Throwing/Returning

A melee weapon crafted with this ability gains a range increment of 10 feet and can be thrown by a wielder proficient in its normal use. If the weapon already has a range increment, it increases by 10 feet.

Once the throwing attack is resolved, a throwing/returning weapon flies through the air back to the creature that threw it. It returns to the thrower just before the creature’s next turn (and is therefore ready to use again in that turn).

Catching a throwing/returning weapon when it comes back is a free action. If the character can’t catch it, or if the character has moved since throwing it, the weapon drops to the ground in the square from which it was thrown.

That’s better.

Now, is this new ability worth a +1 bonus?

Well, it’s probably worth it at some levels, but not at others. I’m going to take a page from the new Magic Item Compendium (great, great book), and give it a set value instead.

Hmm… Not nearly as useful as Prismatic Burst (hits target with Prismatic Spray, +30,000 gold), definitely more useful than Sizing (adjusts size to wielder, +5000 gold), maybe not as useful as Vanishing (1/day Dimension Door after a successful hit, +8000 gold).

How’s +7000 gold sound?

Throwing/Returning

Price: +7000 gold
Property: Melee weapon
Caster Level: 7th
Aura: Moderate; (DC 20) transmutation
Activation: –

A melee weapon crafted with this ability gains a range increment of 10 feet and can be thrown by a wielder proficient in its normal use. If the weapon already has a range increment, it increases by 10 feet.

Once the throwing attack is resolved, a throwing/returning weapon flies through the air back to the creature that threw it. It returns to the thrower just before the creature’s next turn (and is therefore ready to use again in that turn).

Catching a throwing/returning weapon when it comes back is a free action. If the character can’t catch it, or if the character has moved since throwing it, the weapon drops to the ground in the square from which it was thrown.

Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armour, telekinesis.

Cost to Create: 3500 gp, 280 XP, 7 days

Dave: the Game commented on it

See??? Even DMs who know the rules forwards and backwards forget this rule. Cast thee out, I say! Critical Hits for all!

and I began a mini-rant, which I shall continue here.

The way I figure it, plants, oozes and constructs are a minority of what we fight in D&D. The only crit-immunes that are very common are undead.

But most undead, IMHO, should be crittable anyways. Has nobody seen the lucky headshot in a zombie movie? Or the stake to the heart in a Buffy episode? With the possible exception of skeletons and incorporeal undead, most undead are shown as having more damaging areas.

So why not allow crits for everything?

And don’t say to balance rogues. A rogue’s job is to get in, strike quick, and do good damage. Crit-immunes don’t balance rogues, they nerf rogues for that encounter. Same as a golem’s magic immunity does to casters.

Now, being useless for an encounter is no fun.

Similarly, scoring a natural 20 (ankle bite or not), and not being able to use it, is also no fun.

Yet for some reason, some people don’t want to throw out crit-immune creatures altogether. So it seems a house-rule compromise is necessary.

Well the compromise between crit-immune and nothing is crit-resistant. But we have no mechanic for crit resistance, so that’s what we’re going to need to devise.

Anatomy of a critical hit:

1. Attack roll
2. Critical threat range
3. Confirmation
4. Damage
5. Damage multiplier

Any one of these stages can be where the resistance comes in. Now to tackle them completely out of order.

Stage 1: Attack roll

Probably not the best location. This stage doesn’t make them harder to crit, specifically, though hitting less does mean critting less. No to this one.

Stage 2: Critical threat range

Not bad. One option is to reduce the crit range by 1 against crit-resistant creatures. Think of it as an inverse Keen. This will reduce the chance that a hit is a crit by 5%, and for most weapons will halve the amount of crits achieved. One major problem arises, however, with axes, hammers, bows, and many simple weapons with crit ranges of 20, eliminating the possibility of crits altogether. And when a scythe can’t crit a zombie, something’s wrong.

Stage 5: Damage multiplier

Similar to threat range, reduce by 1. Similar problem as well, where a greatsword’s crit multiplier becomes x1. Nope.

Stage 4: Damage

This one is a possibility. Reduce crit damage, similar to DR. But the number needs to be chosen carefully. Too small, and it’s negligible. Too large and a crit may do less damage than a non-crit from the same weapon. Too tricky for my tastes.

Stage 3: Confirmation

Now this is where we want to be. Confirmation is what decides how difficult it is to crit someone, while never eliminating the possibility of a crit, or changing the likelihood of hitting them.

So how do we do it, though? We could give crit-resistant creatures a bonus to AC vs crit confirmations. +4/+5 might be good. Perhaps the bonus should scale based on the level/CR of the creature? No, the creature’s AC (and thus the required confirmation roll) already scales with its level. And more to the point, what sort of scaling is best? CR? HD? 1/2 CR? 1/3 HD? I have no idea.

No, for this house rule I’m going to take a page from the Star Wars: SAGA edition RPG. Modifiers are extra math and new AC values require an extra space in a stat block. Thus I propose the following:

Crit-Resistant Creatures:

When confirming a critical hit against a crit-resistant creature, roll your attack roll twice, and take the lower of the two rolls.

This makes these creatures more difficult to crit against. The exact difficulty of scoring a crit will scale with their AC (and thus their CR).

Now what about Rogues? Are they allowed to sneak attack with impunity?

Well, I believe that anything that can be caught unaware (denied dex) should be sneakattackable. But for those who want to represent these creatures’ crit-resistances, I would propose this house rule:

Sneak Attack and Crit-Resistant Creatures:

Sneak Attack (and Skirmish, Sudden Strike, or any other precision-based damage bonuses) add only half the bonus they normally would, rounded down, against crit-resistant creatures.

I’ll leave this up to the individual GM to decide whether that means half the damage dice (+7d6 becomes +3d6) or half the damage (more math, +7d6 becomes +((7d6)/2)). Straight bonuses (+5 damage) would be halved and rounded down (+2 damage).

What do you think?