Worst REAL house rules you've used

[hotflungwok]

A recent DM let me try to shoot between an ally's legs (My character was a forest gnome who was down on one knee, the other character was Medium and standing). I rolled an 11 and so missed my target, but apparently in those circumstances missing at all was a fumble. Admittedly, I shouldn't have tried it anyway since its not really rules legal, but I figured it looked cool and the DM allowed it. Anyways, that's how I nearly killed the party Ranger in out first combat.

I had a DM in 2nd ed rule that anytime the ranger rolled a 1 with his bow he hit one of us if we were in front of him. We didn't even have to be next to his target, just in his front 90 degrees. Since my character was the main fighter I took lots of damage from him. Once he was able to milk poison from a dead monster, and started poisoning his arrows. The first time my character got poisoned by him (like 20 min later IIRC) I took it off of him and smashed the vial on the ground.

[Kardwill]

Also from the same DM: warlock patron rules. You could legit lose all access to your powers if you pissed off your patron. I was an archfey warlock with a treant patron, burned up some bushes, and lost my powers for three days.

Oooh, I got one!

In D&D 3, I once perpetrated ruled that divine spellcasters had to get access to their "patron's" domain to renew their spells. So a Druid had to meditate in a natural place, a paladin prayed holding his sword, etc...

I had Story Reasons (tm) for it, too, but yup, it went about as well as you can expect. The Sun god cleric was hosed HARD when the party got trapped in the underdark for several weeks. Killed the campaign faster than a marauding tarrasque.

[Kardwill]

It wasn't really malicious, but I found it annoying since if I allowed in one of my games, I would have treated it as a normal miss.

Discovering the stakes of a roll AFTER the roll is a common DM mistake, but it's kinda irritating. In your case, ruling that a failed roll hits your friend might be a fair/fun ruling, but only if the DM makes it known, so that the gnome can make an informed choice and decide if he's willing to take the risk.
Announcing it after the fact is something I may have done when I was younger (hell, I did far worse, see my previous post), but nowadays, I find this kind of "gotcha!" GMing irritating.

[Rater202]

I kind of liekt he critical Fumble Rules that Chris Zito uses at TFS at the Table.

Natural One and he roles a d20 and then a d% to determine how big a fumble it is, with the higher the results equally a less severe fumble

He also apl;ies it equally to PCs and NPCs--most notbaly the Downfall of "Johnny Dark Souls," a Vampire Paladin who wielded a giant cross he was nailed to as a club(and it was on fire due to a PC missing with a scorching ray while fighting another vampire), fought in the hold of a ship in the middle of the ocean.

The rogue throws ball bearings, GM rolls a nat 1 to avoid tripping, a Nat one on the second d20, nat one on the percentile.. trips, falls, throws the giant cross into the air, which lands on bhim, breaks the floorboards, causing him to fall through the ship into the ocean, where his full plate mail makes him sink.

Meanwhile the worst that's happened to the PCs with a fumble is a Crossbow getting jammed while an exploding bolt was in the thing and already lit, causing some mild fire damage to the PC and an nearby ally.

[JNAProductions]

That's a big thing-it's gotta get applied equally to even have a chance of being fun.

[Quertus]

That's a big thing-it's gotta get applied equally to even have a chance of being fun.

And, if it can cause permanent injury, it's got to have clearly been applied to the NPCs in the past, for the worldbuilding to be sensical. In the land of the blind warriors, the one-eyed peasant is king!

[Luccan]

I kind of liekt he critical Fumble Rules that Chris Zito uses at TFS at the Table.

Natural One and he roles a d20 and then a d% to determine how big a fumble it is, with the higher the results equally a less severe fumble

He also apl;ies it equally to PCs and NPCs--most notbaly the Downfall of "Johnny Dark Souls," a Vampire Paladin who wielded a giant cross he was nailed to as a club(and it was on fire due to a PC missing with a scorching ray while fighting another vampire), fought in the hold of a ship in the middle of the ocean.

The rogue throws ball bearings, GM rolls a nat 1 to avoid tripping, a Nat one on the second d20, nat one on the percentile.. trips, falls, throws the giant cross into the air, which lands on bhim, breaks the floorboards, causing him to fall through the ship into the ocean, where his full plate mail makes him sink.

Meanwhile the worst that's happened to the PCs with a fumble is a Crossbow getting jammed while an exploding bolt was in the thing and already lit, causing some mild fire damage to the PC and an nearby ally.

Honestly, I like TFS at the Table, but Zito's fumble rules always come off as emanating from the south side of a bull. Like, he has a somewhat consistent ruling base (low on the % is bad), but I'm pretty sure all his fumbles are made up on the spot. Which is the problem with fumble rules in most games: you can't account for what the PCs/NPCs might mess up with a bad roll. If you roll a 1 on a check to keep your balance walking on a rope, do you just fall? Do you also somehow cut the rope? Does it impact your chance to avoid damage when you hit the ground and if so is that impacted by height? What if you're only a foot out on the rope, can you fall backwards onto a stable platform?

[The Random NPC]

I had a DM in 2nd ed rule that anytime the ranger rolled a 1 with his bow he hit one of us if we were in front of him. We didn't even have to be next to his target, just in his front 90 degrees. Since my character was the main fighter I took lots of damage from him. Once he was able to milk poison from a dead monster, and started poisoning his arrows. The first time my character got poisoned by him (like 20 min later IIRC) I took it off of him and smashed the vial on the ground.

I had a GM who did the same thing! Meanwhile, anyone who played an elf got all sorts of freebies. Because it doesn't make sense that a long lived elf can't X, where X is anything from playing a prohibited class to breaking level restrictions.

[Anonymouswizard]

Killed the campaign faster than a marauding tarrasque.

Homebrewed Tarrasque I assume, or did it stop the campaign for a single combat round?

That's a big thing-it's gotta get applied equally to even have a chance of being fun.

Yep, and has to not be too damaging because it'll tend to hit the PCs harder.

And, if it can cause permanent injury, it's got to have clearly been applied to the NPCs in the past, for the worldbuilding to be sensical. In the land of the blind warriors, the one-eyed peasant is king!

It should also reflect the severity. If losing a limb requires a fumble/crit and them a 00 on a d% roll then the majority of major characters should be intact with a few missing hands or legs. If it happens every other time you roll a 1 then most of the cast should be missing bits.

The core idea of fumbles isn't bad, but the way they tend to be implemented is way off. If a roll of 00 in your percentile system is a critical fail then that's true whenever. This is why I roll openly when GMing, it helps with the urge to cheat fumbles.

[GreatWyrmGold]

That's a big thing-it's gotta get applied equally to even have a chance of being fun.

I'd argue it should be slanted in the PC's favor. (Like with what Zito did—the worst that happens to PCs is fire damage, the worst that happens to NPCs is drowning.) After all, any given PC will probably roll more fumbles over the course of a campaign than any given villain, or even some villainous organizations. (Also, players are going to be way grumpier about losing their character to one horrendous roll than they would be if the villain offs himself through sheer misfortune.)

Honestly, I like TFS at the Table, but Zito's fumble rules always come off as emanating from the south side of a bull.

I probably wouldn't want that kind of rule at my table, but it works great for its intended purpose. The needs of a DM running a game for his players are different than the needs of a DM running a game for a live audience. (That show gets livestreamed, right?) It's improv comedy, and given the viewcounts, it apparently works.

And, if it can cause permanent injury, it's got to have clearly been applied to the NPCs in the past, for the worldbuilding to be sensical. In the land of the blind warriors, the one-eyed peasant is king!

Read about King Charles II and tell me that physical ability outweighs bloodline for inheritance.

Meanwhile, anyone who played an elf got all sorts of freebies. Because it doesn't make sense that a long lived elf can't X, where X is anything from playing a prohibited class to breaking level restrictions.

Ugh. I'm not sure if I should complain about the elf fanboyism or the fact that fluff shouldn't distort rules like that. (Fluff should have some effect on the rules, but only insofar as it resonates with themes or improves immersion, and even then it needs to be built into the system or carefully added.)

[Khay]

I once had this GM who had a weirdly intense dislike for anything he saw as downtime. Among other things, he ruled this: "Anything that's technically listed in the sourcebook as having a price can always be bought or sold for exactly that price, as long as we're in between adventures or you're in a civilised area." This might not sound so bad, but this was a sci-fi game system, and a lot of the stuff that was technically in the sourcebook really wasn't intended to ever be used. Like WMDs. Add a slightly wonky pricing system and you end up with some very silly games.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Reminds me of how when me and my little brother would play RPGs together, if he was DMing, I'd always take advantage of the fact that he didn't bother double-checking much of anything. Sometimes I'd fudge the attribute rolls, other times I'd forget to ask for GM permission before buying light artillery.
...I'm pretty sure that's not the only reason he wasn't good at running long-term games. Probably the worst example I can remember (playing a pixie, which my brother didn't realize was permanently invisible) was also the longest-running campaign I remember him running.

[AtS]

1d20x6 for ability score generation. This was back in middle school before we fully understood the rules, though.

[weet555]

1d20x6 for ability score generation. This was back in middle school before we fully understood the rules, though.

While it probably wasn't fun in most campaigns, I can see it being interesting in the right campaign or session.

Although I should say I have run gestalt and tristalt campaigns with 5d6 drop the lowest two or 42 point buy.

[noob]

So if you got 1 on the twenty sided dice the character had 1 int and so was as dumb as an insect?

[Luccan]

So if you got 1 on the twenty sided dice the character had 1 int and so was as dumb as an insect?

1d20*6. 1*6 is 6.

[noob]

1d20*6. 1*6 is 6.

I believed you rolled for the total stat points and with that rule it would have meant you had 6 points to spend in the 6 stats and so exactly one point in each stat(because a 0 makes your character unable to act or dead).

[Ravens_cry]

A critical failure and success mechanic for skill checks in Pathfinder. Now, it was still 'only' a -10, +10, but it was still highly irritating when playing a skill monkey character, especially a Rogue or Ninja, where you make a lot of successive rolls.

[GreatWyrmGold]

While it probably wasn't fun in most campaigns, I can see it being interesting in the right campaign or session.

Ideally along with some kind of random race/class selection, some tools to help you rapidly generate characters on the fly, and villains on the level of Team Rocket.

[Pelle]

I believed you rolled for the total stat points and with that rule it would have meant you had 6 points to spend in the 6 stats and so exactly one point in each stat(because a 0 makes your character unable to act or dead).

I'm guessing it's 6x 1d20, i.e. roll 1d20 6 times to generate your 6 ability scores. If so, 1 Int is then possible, hence WORST houserule...

[Bacon Elemental]

An annoying one I've recently encountered is that your movement must all be used in one go, before your other actions, X-COM style. This sort of nullifies the point of the rogue ability which is specifically to let you run in, stab the enemy, then Disengage and run back out of their reach

[Anonymouswizard]

1d20x6 for ability score generation. This was back in middle school before we fully understood the rules, though.

Sounds even worse than what I once had to do (7d20, reroll any score below 8, assign the highest six as desired). I requested being allowed to just use 4d6b3 and was denied. The idea was to have more varied characters without them being bad, but in reality...

An 8, 10, 13, 14, 14, 16 in the same party with a 14, 16, 18, 18, 20, 20 and a 14, 16, 20, 20, 20, 20 (I kid you not, this was me and I only had this many 20s because I was forced to reroll my 7 and take the best six).

An annoying one I've recently encountered is that your movement must all be used in one go, before your other actions, X-COM style. This sort of nullifies the point of the rogue ability which is specifically to let you run in, stab the enemy, then Disengage and run back out of their reach

Ah, once had to use that rule in a game of Mutants & Masterminds. It would have made Move-by-Action somewhat useful even without investment in movement based powers, except Move-by-Action was nerfed into allowing you to take half your move action before your action and half after it.

How did we discover it? My Toughness 0 flier wanted to use their relatively short ranged attack and then retreat to the top of the massive room, out of the movement range of the GM's melee-based flier*. The GM insisted that this was the way Mutants & Masterminds worked, even after I pointed out the statement to the contrary in his own book. Next session I'd spent a PP on Move-by-Action (I'd passed it up as my character wasn't trained enough to reposition for tactical dive ins and the like), allowing me to move three miles after my action.

* He had a 60ft/turn movement speed, I could hit 1km/s, it shouldn't have been a contest.

[AtS]

I'm guessing it's 6x 1d20, i.e. roll 1d20 6 times to generate your 6 ability scores. If so, 1 Int is then possible, hence WORST houserule...

Yeah, this is what I meant by 1d20x6, roll 1d20, 6 times, assign the 6 rolled numbers to your ability scores.

Sounds even worse than what I once had to do (7d20, reroll any score below 8, assign the highest six as desired). I requested being allowed to just use 4d6b3 and was denied. The idea was to have more varied characters without them being bad, but in reality...

An 8, 10, 13, 14, 14, 16 in the same party with a 14, 16, 18, 18, 20, 20 and a 14, 16, 20, 20, 20, 20 (I kid you not, this was me and I only had this many 20s because I was forced to reroll my 7 and take the best six).

Yeah, we ended up with a similar spread, predictably. My Half-Elf Bard didn't have a single Ability score above a 15, while my friend's Dragonborn Half-Dragon (Dragonborn didn't exist back then!) Paladin had 20 STR and 20 CHA. Also, we didn't understand how LA worked, so we just ignored it.

I still had fun, it was my first time playing D&D 3.0 and I barely had a grasp on the rules, let alone how unbalanced the party was. My character ended up the party sidekick because he really couldn't accomplish anything on his own. Everyone in that group eventually learned the rules for real, but it's just funny to look back and laugh at how wrong we played, fifteen years ago.

[Resileaf]

Yeah, this is what I meant by 1d20x6, roll 1d20, 6 times, assign the 6 rolled numbers to your ability scores.

I kind of want to try it out, just to see what kind of crazy stats this could give.

[Quertus]

I had a group that rolled, if I've got the notation correct, 3d20b1 for each stat. And it came as no surprise to us when one of the players requested a reroll - and no surprise that it was because he had a 1 for Intelligence. He was allowed a reroll, and happily took his 3 Intelligence. His dice really hated him that much.

An 8, 10, 13, 14, 14, 16 in the same party with a 14, 16, 18, 18, 20, 20 and a 14, 16, 20, 20, 20, 20 (I kid you not, this was me and I only had this many 20s because I was forced to reroll my 7 and take the best six).

Nice spread! I don't recall anyone having that many 20's even in the 3d20b1 group.

However, I intentionally played a sentient potted plant in a group with a divine entity (a figurative Thor), so, comparitively, what's a little thing like different stats?

[Pelle]

I requested being allowed to just use 4d6b3 and was denied. The idea was to have more varied characters without them being bad, but in reality...

Also for 4d6b3 rolling of stats, you can expect great inter-party difference in power level. Less chance sure, but still possible. You should accept being weaker than the rest of the party if you want to roll your stats, otherwise find alternative methods.

[Rater202]

Personally, if I were Gming in d20 I'd just give everyone 1 18, 2 16s, 1 14, 1 12, and a 10 and let them pick which stat gets which score.

[Anonymouswizard]

Nice spread! I don't recall anyone having that many 20's even in the 3d20b1 group.

However, I intentionally played a sentient potted plant in a group with a divine entity (a figurative Thor), so, comparitively, what's a little thing like different stats?

This was after racial and feat adjustments, but yes, it was a stupidly good spread. To the point that the character lasted one session, I retired to stop overshadowing the party by having more HP than the tank, more firepower than the sorceress, and more stealth than the rogue.

Also for 4d6b3 rolling of stats, you can expect great inter-party difference in power level. Less chance sure, but still possible. You should accept being weaker than the rest of the party if you want to roll your stats, otherwise find alternative methods.

I mean, what I like about 4d6b3 is that it reduces the chance of low stats without eliminating it entirely. Although I do alter that stat generation rules based on the games I run.

In Lamentations of the Flame Princess I just do good old 3d6 straight down, but allow the swapping of two stats. It lets people play what they want, but you might have to deal with being a fighter with 6 CON, and the game's lethal enough that all 3s and all 18s doesn't make that much difference in lifespan.

If I ever run 5e again I'll be doing 4d6b3, reroll if you have no stat of 14+. It allows terrible arrays, but allows everybody to at the very least be good at something. Or I'd just do point-buy if the group is okay with it.

In Fantasy AGE I'll do the 'roll and assign' method (3d6, compare to table for value) or 12 point point-buy (only the latter if online).

In almost every other game I do point-buy only.

'But point buy leads to cookie cutter characters' I hear the roll-fans cry. I tend to find that that's more a result of having few points relative to your cap, with higher points buy values leading to more intelligent Fighters or strong Wizards, but I do understand that you'll almost never get a low-int Wizard or low-wis Cleric under point buy. Plus it's not like I haven't seen any cookie-cuttering with rolled characters, if a character has 12STR, 10DEX, 13CON, and 15INT they'll always be a wizard instead of a Fighter (mostly, I have met some players you'll assign the same class for every stat, or roll in order and then randomly determine their class).


Oh, the worst houserule I ever ran was enforced random race/class allocation. Nobody was happy with their class, although the random race selection worked a lot better (and led to fewer elves than normal).

[GreatWyrmGold]

An annoying one I've recently encountered is that your movement must all be used in one go, before your other actions, X-COM style. This sort of nullifies the point of the rogue ability which is specifically to let you run in, stab the enemy, then Disengage and run back out of their reach

It works that way by intent in some games (e.g, basically any version of D&D before 5). But games where that isn't the intent tend to be designed with interruptible movement in mind...

Oh, the worst houserule I ever ran was enforced random race/class allocation. Nobody was happy with their class, although the random race selection worked a lot better (and led to fewer elves than normal).

Great houserule for silly one-shots, not much good for anything else.

[Anonymouswizard]

Great houserule for silly one-shots, not much good for anything else.

I thought it would reflect the oppressive nature of the 40k universe