Favorite House Rule

[Arcacius]

I know the people on here love 4e, but I also know it had a few stumbling blocks. Like most people (I assume) I put in a couple of house rules for making the game fit what we like just a little bit more.

While I know that preventing repeating short rests, and general monster hp changes to make the game more exciting, allowing players to pick 2 extra skills outside their class list for more customisation was my favorite.

So I ask the question: What was/is your favorite house rule?

[masteraleph]

Free Defense/Expertise is nice just from not feeling sucked into the same old feats.

Along the same lines as what you were saying- I think that a house rule to allow extra Skill related feats would be fun.

[Kurald Galain]

No rituals, no skill challenges. Because man those subsystems sucked.

[ve4grm]

No rituals, no skill challenges. Because man those subsystems sucked.

Yeah, both were theoretically great ideas, with mediocre or poor implementation/explanation.

4e was the only D&D system I ran almost-as-written. My house rules were minimal to non-existent when I did. If I was to run another game of 4e, I'd implement:

- 3/4 HP, 1.5x damage for all monsters
- Steal 13th Age's ritual system (expend a power, rather than gold, to power freeform rituals)
- Possibly implement a version of 13th Age's full heal-up system as well (Full heals come after X fights, rather than by sleeping, thus encouraging players to keep pushing just that little more when they are weakened, rather than retreat and nap. Retreating to sleep works, too, but comes with a "campaign loss" - the enemy gains an advantage, you lose an advantage, etc.)

[NomGarret]

I have a few smaller-scale changes I use regularly.

Ossassin gets normal striker HP and surges. They also get Hidden Insight for free.

When Humans and Half-elves gain a psionic at-will, it no longer loses the augmentable keyword.

The Seeker's Elemental Spirits power only damages adjacent enemies, not all adjacent creatures.

[Yakk]

YdX powers become (2Y-1)dX and Y[W] powers become (2Y-1)[W] powers.

(in my experience, the dice portion of powers becomes a tiny contribution to damage past early Heroic; this beefs up powers that act like they hit hard to actually hit hard.)

[Deathtongue]

Skill challenges:
A) Use the pre-errata DCs. Skill bonus inflation is a lot higher now than it was when the game started, right now the DCs are at 'you win all of the time'.
B) Instead of limited by failures, instead give everyone a floor of successes and everyone has something like 2 or 3 attempts.
C) You using the same skill in a skill challenge after a successful use adds another d20 per attempt and an escalating -2. So if you used Arcana twice successfully in the same skill challenge the third time you'd use it would be LOWEST(3d20) minus 4.

Rituals:
Rituals can be used in 1d4+2 rounds if you pay the component cost. They (except for Enchant Magic Item of course) can be used for free if you spend ten times as long (max 1 hour) casting them.

[Diffan]

1. Free Expertise feat at 1st level, free Improved Defenses at 4th.

2. I feely allow swapping of powers (spells, prayers, exploits, etc) on a daily basis if the player wants. If a Fighter finds an awesome polearm but doesn't have decent exploits to use it, practice for an hour or so before the day then swap some out.

3. Heavily emphasize using their powers in unique ways. Like Cleave to cut thru wooden supports, Lance of Faith to light a hallway, twin strike to snuff out candles, scorching burst to melt ice covering a doorway, etc.

4. I gave Two-Weapon Fighting a feat power too in addition to the +1 to damage rolls...

Melee - at will
Minor Action
Requirement: must be wielding a weapon with the off-hand property
Target: One creature
Attack: Str -2 or Dex -2 vs AC (off-hand weapon)
11th level: Str -1 or Dex -1 vs AC (off-hand weapon)
21st level: Str or Dex vs AC (off-hand weapon)
Hit: 1[W] damage.
At 21st level, increase the damage to 2[W]

Does it exacerbate the Twin-Strike problem? Probably, but that was never going to change anyways. But at least it's not locked behind class powers that people fight a way around to get.

[Jesara]

All movement related powers also apply to any mount you are riding. So you can use those shift and attack type powers while mounted.

"Death From Above", if you jump or fall intentionally from above to a space adjacent to an enemy (or the space of a medium or small creature), you can intentionally use the fall to amplify a strike, if you do you take the falling damage then make a melee attack (still costs normal actions), if it hits you do not fall prone and the falling damage is added as bonus damage to the damage roll, if the creature is medium or smaller it also falls prone.

AOE vs larger creatures, +1 cumulative attack bonus at various numbers of additional squares being targeted redundantly by an AoE power. (example, large creature, +1 for an additional square, another +1 fr the remaining 2 squares, for a max +2 for targeting all 4 squares.)

[Yakk]

4. I gave Two-Weapon Fighting a feat power too in addition to the +1 to damage rolls...

Melee - at will
Minor Action
Requirement: must be wielding a weapon with the off-hand property
Target: One creature
Attack: Str -2 or Dex -2 vs AC (off-hand weapon)
11th level: Str -1 or Dex -1 vs AC (off-hand weapon)
21st level: Str or Dex vs AC (off-hand weapon)
Hit: 1[W] damage.
At 21st level, increase the damage to 2[W]

Does it exacerbate the Twin-Strike problem? Probably, but that was never going to change anyways. But at least it's not locked behind class powers that people fight a way around to get.

Kill the -2 and require that the main hand attack hit? That is reasonably similar in hits/round, removes extra to-hit math, and mimics the Scout class power.

Two-Weapon Fighting: When wielding an off-hand weapon in your off-hand, you gain a +1 bonus to weapon damage rolls. In addition, you gain this power:

Two-Weapon Fighting + Martial Exploit Weapon
Melee - At-Will, at most once/turn
Minor Action
Trigger: You hit a creature with a weapon while wielding weapons in both hands.
Requirement: This attack must be made with an off-hand weapon using a hand you have not attacked with yet this turn.
Attack: Str or Dex vs AC
Damage: 1[W]. If the target is different than the triggering attack, add Str or Dex to the damage.

(note: two-blade ranger feature makes the off-hand requirement go away on this power automatically due to how it is worded)

The "not attacked with yet this turn" makes it not stack with twin strike, intentionally.

[Excession]

The "not attacked with yet this turn" makes it not stack with twin strike, intentionally.

That could be read such that combined it with Quickdraw you could twin-strike with two 1h weapons, drop one, draw an off-hand weapon and attack with it. With a Monk multiclass you might even be able to do that with an empty fist rather than dropping a weapon.

I think it would need to be tied to the hand rather than the weapon to fix that.

The dual wielding option for Barbarians might be able to abuse it as well, because there you never actually attack with the off-hand, you jut get the damage die from it.

[Yakk]

That could be read such that combined it with Quickdraw you could twin-strike with two 1h weapons, drop one, draw an off-hand weapon and attack with it. With a Monk multiclass you might even be able to do that with an empty fist rather than dropping a weapon.

Good catch, fixed.

I think it would need to be tied to the hand rather than the weapon to fix that.

The dual wielding option for Barbarians might be able to abuse it as well, because there you never actually attack with the off-hand, you jut get the damage die from it.

Sure, but it is about taps more than damage dice.

Regardless, I'd argue that if the properties of a weapon in that hand are used in an attack, that hand was "attacked with". But I'd be ok with either interpretation really.