Worst REAL house rules you've used

[Knaight]

well sneak attack is weakened but at least in 3rd edition most of a martial damage comes from modifiers not the die roll. I mean it is a slight nerf and all.

That's not really the case in 2e. The dice were generally pretty comparable to 3e, the modifiers usually far smaller.

[Khedrac]

Playing Avalon Hill RuneQuest (and it seemed a good idea at the time):

Instead of being able to get one skill gain check per skill per adventure (each check giving one chance to get 1d6 or 3 skill points) you got half Int checks per skill, each check giving a chance to get 1 skill point.

The problem is that Int is already probably the most important statistic in the game, and this rule just penalised low Int characters more.

No, it wasn't my idea, but it was when I was going to run and planned to use the same rule that I realised the drawback.

[Quertus]

How about "metamagics are free" as my contribution to bad house rules I've seen?

And, of course, a lot of players call ''any'' house rule ''bad''.

Well, every house rule is bad. And every house rule is good.

That is, every house rule is that much head space required to remember it. And that much of a barrier to playing at another table.

But every house rule is also the opportunity to play something different, that you wouldn't or couldn't at a "normal" table.

[awa]

That's not really the case in 2e. The dice were generally pretty comparable to 3e, the modifiers usually far smaller.

didn't read carefully enough missed the second edition so yeah that's a bad rule

[Capt Spanner]

Reading some of these horror stories makes me wonder.

Why do people stay with such horrible DMs after even one session? Are the crappy houserules and creepy behavior not visible at that point?

I can understand staying with a game that's generally fun but has an annoying house rule (finding out that you were using variant encumbrance in 5e a month after you started playing was obnoxious), but ones where the DM is on a mad power trip or is creepy like a clown?

I know one guy who's mostly a great DM. He has a gift for characterisation and worldbuilding and improvisation that means the world we inhabit and the characters we meet feel real, and full of life.

He knows how to craft plots, and quests, and if you play one of his games you always have some goal and something to engage you.

BUT: he never really grokked combat, and particularly combat rules. And so he houserules some bits of it to make it easier for him, even though it kind of makes the combat unengaging for us. Fortunately his games aren't combat heavy, and his skill at everything else more than makes up for it.

[RandomNPC]

First time I ever actually sat down to play D&D, 3e was new and the DM handed me a sheet of paper, here's some examples.

You showed up! 100xp.
Used a skill (5 times per skill) that's 5xp
dealt damage with a weapon, here's a formula! xp=damage
used perishables (scroll/wand/potion/limited number of use items) 50xp
Used daily spell slot: level of spell X 15

it was things like that down the entire sheet. He figured out what class got the least average XP and awarded extra to those classes, but he had some minmaxers at the table and didn't adjust for that.

[Quertus]

Used daily spell slot: level of spell X 15

Another week of downtime, and I'll go epic!

[awa]

First time I ever actually sat down to play D&D, 3e was new and the DM handed me a sheet of paper, here's some examples.

You showed up! 100xp.
Used a skill (5 times per skill) that's 5xp
dealt damage with a weapon, here's a formula! xp=damage
used perishables (scroll/wand/potion/limited number of use items) 50xp
Used daily spell slot: level of spell X 15

it was things like that down the entire sheet. He figured out what class got the least average XP and awarded extra to those classes, but he had some minmaxers at the table and didn't adjust for that.

Ive seen something like this for 2nd edition. but 3rd edition has way to many moving parts to ever make that work even without minmaxers

[stack]

Just make sure you are jumping as you cast those spells for maximum efficiency.

It's like playing Morrowind again.

[Anonymouswizard]

First time I ever actually sat down to play D&D, 3e was new and the DM handed me a sheet of paper, here's some examples.

You showed up! 100xp.
Used a skill (5 times per skill) that's 5xp
dealt damage with a weapon, here's a formula! xp=damage
used perishables (scroll/wand/potion/limited number of use items) 50xp
Used daily spell slot: level of spell X 15

it was things like that down the entire sheet. He figured out what class got the least average XP and awarded extra to those classes, but he had some minmaxers at the table and didn't adjust for that.

Ah, 2e's individual XP awards. Which I'm about 60% certain most groups ignored back in 2e beyond 'you did warrior/priest/rogue/wizard stuff, have what seems reasonable'.

Isn't reall a houserule, but I once played in a homebrew system where there was no floor on damage. My character had a one in six chance of restoring hp when he hit somebody with a knife (I was so minmaxed it was untrue, because it was presented as a playtest). It took something like three sessions to notice this, as my character also had a crippling fear of sharp objects, and a scratch damage rule was implemented.

[GreatWyrmGold]

• If two very attractive people come across one another, they must do opposed Charisma checks. The one who loses the check falls madly in love with the other.

In a sufficiently silly campaign, with other silly houserules driving people to do silly things as the main driver of the plot, that could work. I don't think many people play like that.

Another week of downtime, and I'll go epic!

Now I want to figure out how quickly one could go epic like that. Thanks for nerd-sniping me...

[awa]

actually a war-forged fighter might be able to go epic much fast by becoming a lumber jack. He can power attack trees far more often then the wizard can cast spells because the wizard still needs to rest to get his new higher levels spells.

[noob]

Do not forget that with craft wondrous item you can make thaumathurgy pearls which allows to cast even more spells.
level 1 thaumathurgy pearls costs 1000 po and one day of crafting and 5 xp but provide 15 xp per day.
If casting a spell with a wand or a scroll counts then you can craft wands of magic missile and empty them in the air for getting 750 xp per wand(and they cost way less xp).
If more cheeze is allowed you can at the right amount of gold buy a scroll of energy transformation field of mage lucubration and then at that moment gain approximately 75 xp per turn if you have 5 paladin servitors(so leadership + enough gold means epic levels fast).

[GreatWyrmGold]

Nerd-snipedness finished.

According to my data, it would take just over one year, three months for a wizard with no bonus spell slots (somehow) to reach epic levels. It would take nearly two years at 10 XP/spell level, more than three and nine months at 5 XP, and close to 19 years at 1 XP each.

On the other hand...it would take less than a year at 20 XP/spell level, about 280 days at 25 each, six months at 40 XP, 100 days even at 75 XP, 77 days at 100 XP, 53 at 150, 41 at 200, 35 at 250, 32 at 300, 27 at 400, 24 at 500, 23 at 600, 22 at 750, and (finally) 20 days at 1000 XP/spell level.
Towards the end, most levels took only a single day to achieve, but you only have a couple of spells per day at the earliest levels. Available spell levels increase much more quickly than XP requirements.

[noob]

Nerd-snipedness finished.

According to my data, it would take just over one year, three months for a wizard with no bonus spell slots (somehow) to reach epic levels. It would take nearly two years at 10 XP/spell level, more than three and nine months at 5 XP, and close to 19 years at 1 XP each.

On the other hand...it would take less than a year at 20 XP/spell level, about 280 days at 25 each, six months at 40 XP, 100 days even at 75 XP, 77 days at 100 XP, 53 at 150, 41 at 200, 35 at 250, 32 at 300, 27 at 400, 24 at 500, 23 at 600, 22 at 750, and (finally) 20 days at 1000 XP/spell level.
Towards the end, most levels took only a single day to achieve, but you only have a couple of spells per day at the earliest levels. Available spell levels increase much more quickly than XP requirements.

But at low levels you can do a bunch of quests easily by hiring a swarm of mercenaries with the starting gold and the spellcasting service and so gain the first few levels very fast.
Alternatively buy slaves and then manage to have a slave revolt and beat the slaves with paid mercenaries if somehow quests does not exists in your world.
Or even buy traps with the gold from spellcasting service and then get in the traps to gain xp.

If wands allows to gain xp since it is still casting the spell then with the gold you get by selling spellcasting service and scrolls you can buy wands and speed up considerably your exp gain in early levels.
also did you take in account the int modifier?

Oh sorry did not see you calculated for older versions of dnd.
I assumed you did it with dnd 3e because it was what the poster mentioned
in 3e wizards starts with 3 level 1 spells per day(usually 4 because I have not yet met wizards with less than 12 int)

So your calculations are for which edition?

[Arbane]

• If two very attractive people come across one another, they must do opposed Charisma checks. The one who loses the check falls madly in love with the other.

That IS a terrible houserule.

They should each have to roll a Will save against a DC set by the other one's Charisma, so they can BOTH fall in love against all reason!

[Rater202]

I once played a Warshaper after my character got bit by a wererat in D&D 3.5.

the GM made the judgment call that I got one natural weapon per appendage. That uh...

considering that Warshaper has a middling BAB progression, that severely limits the advantage of producing natural weapons. Bite/Claw/Claw at 1 damage size higher or changing my claws to slams isn't worth the lowered BAB in comparison to Bite+1/Gore/Probiscus/Claw+1/Claw+1/Rake/Rake/Slam/Slam/Tentacle/Tentacle/Tentacle/Tentacle/Wing Buffet/Wing Buffet/Tail Slap/Sting.

Okay, that's a bit excessive, but the point of Warshapder is to make Druid Gish Builds better and to let MArtials compete with casters in terms of damage dealing, depending on how you enter it. The Nerf made that less effective.

[GreatWyrmGold]

But at low levels you can do a bunch of quests easily by hiring a swarm of mercenaries with the starting gold and the spellcasting service and so gain the first few levels very fast.

I was assuming only casting spells.

Oh sorry did not see you calculated for older versions of dnd.
I assumed you did it with dnd 3e because it was what the poster mentioned
in 3e wizards starts with 3 level 1 spells per day(usually 4 because I have not yet met wizards with less than 12 int)

So your calculations are for which edition?

3.5, because that's what I could quickly find. Three 0-level spells and one 1st-level spell at 1st level.

That IS a terrible houserule.
They should each have to roll a Will save against a DC set by the other one's Charisma, so they can BOTH fall in love against all reason!

But then you have people who share mutual romantic interest getting into healthy, stable relationships. Where's the drama in that?

[The Glyphstone]

That IS a terrible houserule.

They should each have to roll a Will save against a DC set by the other one's Charisma, so they can BOTH fall in love against all reason!

Nah, you have to have every character roll against each other character with a higher Charisma. Nothing creates drama like multi-sided unrequited love polyhedrons.

[Knaight]

But then you have people who share mutual romantic interest getting into healthy, stable relationships. Where's the drama in that?

This would be a mutual romantic interest between two total strangers who know nothing about each other other than that the other one is smoking hot, with plenty of room for literally every other incompatibility.

I'm sure the drama can find a way.

[GreatWyrmGold]

This would be a mutual romantic interest between two total strangers who know nothing about each other other than that the other one is smoking hot, with plenty of room for literally every other incompatibility.
I'm sure the drama can find a way.

I kinda wish more stories would take this perspective on things, especially sequels to stories with a mediocre romance subplot. I mean, they kinda do, but it's almost always a "temporary setback followed by returning the hero's romantic prize," not "coming to the realization that they're just not right for each other followed by staying friends". The one exception I can think of is from The Legend of Korra.

[Akisa]

I honestly understand On Time XP bonus. We hd a player who, in the last two years, never showed up less than half an hour late. At that point, the pre-game chatter and catching up was definitely done and it was annoying. No reason for it either. He lived nearby and it was on the weekends.

Try having someone who 30 min late when they live in same dorm/apartment building.

[AshfireMage]

Try having someone who 30 min late when they live in same dorm/apartment building.

I've played with people who did that, and it's the worst. These people literally lived in the same building we played in, heck, one of them was the GM's roommate, yet they were still consistently 20+ minutes late, and for stupid reasons. "Oh, I had to make dinner." Apparently making a sandwich, filling a bowl of cereal, sticking something in the microwave, or having a snack and getting more later were not options. Nor was starting dinner earlier than 5 minutes before we played.


On-topic, I once had a VtM ST who ruled that all clans got access to physical disciplines (Potence, Celerity, and Fortitude) without a teacher, and at a much lower XP cost than a standard OOC discipline. It might have been a houserule, might have been a port from a different edition, but I think the idea was that it shouldn't take a specific clan to figure out that you can make yourself tougher by using blood. In practice, not only did it forget that blood buffing already allowed you to do that to some extent, but it created all kinds of balance issues by de-incentivising players from playing clans that got those as in-clan because it was so comparatively easy to pick them up elsewhere.

I had a different ST who was in the process of attempting to houserule out Thaumaturgy requiring BP costs. Yes, you read that right. Blood magic no longer required blood to use. Why he felt the need to drastically increase the power level of one of the best disciplines in the game already, I have no idea

[Anonymouswizard]

Try having someone who 30 min late when they live in same dorm/apartment building.

Once was in a group with a player who was routinely ten minutes late when we were playing in his kitchen. Part of this was because most of the time we'd all arrive at the Hall( of Residence) on time, his girlfriend would get or message, come down and connect us, we'd all be at the table in five minutes, then his gf would have to go and let him know we'd arrive so that he could stop his online games.

When we played in a different room on campus he and his girlfriend were always half an hour late, which was actually significantly less annoying.

[Stuebi]

On my neverending quest to prove what a terrible person I actually am, why not post here? And yes, at some point the genius that is me thought these were actually good rules.


Rogue Trader:

- Most Techpriests I ever see in Lore are often mostly machine. So it made sense to me that the Explorator class should start with a few levels of "the Flesh is weak" as opposed to just the one you get at creation. (For the uninitiated: "The Flesh is weak" gives you a point of armour per level) Cue the Explorator having twice as much Armour as everybody else.

- Thinking that stats seemed generally way too low in RT after character creation, I adjusted the provided formula, and basically allowed player to swap their individual stats around as they pleased for creation. This led to many of them having statlines more in line with a Space Marine, than more "normal" people.

- Tying into the above, I had to massively boost a lot of enemies to even pose half a challenge for the party. Being unexperienced I did not take into Account that some of them had quite a few talents and traits, which would not scale the same way. This led to embarassing moments where the GM realizes the moment he makes the first roll, that whatever he just put on screen was basically murder made manifest.


CoC:

- In the same vein as above, the basic statline of investigators struck me as way too small, so I inflated a lot of the proposed rolls. This meant that a lot of the campaign turned from

"It's Shub-Niggurath! Run!"

to

"It's Shub-Niggurath! I climb the top rope and roll for flying knee!"

- A lot of the Monsters had some way around not just being shot to death (For obvious reasons), inexperienced-me thought having unkillable stuff in your campaign is boring, so I frequently just gave them a bunch of health. This led to a lot of Shoggoths being killed by the equivalent of "stutter-step" from Starcraft 2.

- There was always a weird abundance of guns too. For some reason while preparing session, most maps I designed had one or multiple firearms lying around. A thing I only noticed once my players stopped reloading and just throwing down their empty piece, Reaper-Style.



Before any of you lynch me, all of these were corrected after much feedback and mandy apologies, early in my DM career. I just had this phase where I felt like I knew BETTER than the people who actually design games for a living.

[noob]

On my neverending quest to prove what a terrible person I actually am, why not post here? And yes, at some point the genius that is me thought these were actually good rules.


Rogue Trader:

- Most Techpriests I ever see in Lore are often mostly machine. So it made sense to me that the Explorator class should start with a few levels of "the Flesh is weak" as opposed to just the one you get at creation. (For the uninitiated: "The Flesh is weak" gives you a point of armour per level) Cue the Explorator having twice as much Armour as everybody else.

- Thinking that stats seemed generally way too low in RT after character creation, I adjusted the provided formula, and basically allowed player to swap their individual stats around as they pleased for creation. This led to many of them having statlines more in line with a Space Marine, than more "normal" people.

- Tying into the above, I had to massively boost a lot of enemies to even pose half a challenge for the party. Being unexperienced I did not take into Account that some of them had quite a few talents and traits, which would not scale the same way. This led to embarassing moments where the GM realizes the moment he makes the first roll, that whatever he just put on screen was basically murder made manifest.


CoC:

- In the same vein as above, the basic statline of investigators struck me as way too small, so I inflated a lot of the proposed rolls. This meant that a lot of the campaign turned from

"It's Shub-Niggurath! Run!"

to

"It's Shub-Niggurath! I climb the top rope and roll for flying knee!"

- A lot of the Monsters had some way around not just being shot to death (For obvious reasons), inexperienced-me thought having unkillable stuff in your campaign is boring, so I frequently just gave them a bunch of health. This led to a lot of Shoggoths being killed by the equivalent of "stutter-step" from Starcraft 2.

- There was always a weird abundance of guns too. For some reason while preparing session, most maps I designed had one or multiple firearms lying around. A thing I only noticed once my players stopped reloading and just throwing down their empty piece, Reaper-Style.



Before any of you lynch me, all of these were corrected after much feedback and mandy apologies, early in my DM career. I just had this phase where I felt like I knew BETTER than the people who actually design games for a living.

Your coc campaign looks awesome when described.
When there is insane cultists that are ready to kill everything that is coming it is only normal those cultists would wear 3 guns each and have some back up guns but the guns on the ground are a bit weird on the other hand it is common in videogames so I do not see that as a big problem.

[Anonymouswizard]

CoC:

- In the same vein as above, the basic statline of investigators struck me as way too small, so I inflated a lot of the proposed rolls. This meant that a lot of the campaign turned from

"It's Shub-Niggurath! Run!"

to

"It's Shub-Niggurath! I climb the top rope and roll for flying knee!"

- A lot of the Monsters had some way around not just being shot to death (For obvious reasons), inexperienced-me thought having unkillable stuff in your campaign is boring, so I frequently just gave them a bunch of health. This led to a lot of Shoggoths being killed by the equivalent of "stutter-step" from Starcraft 2.

- There was always a weird abundance of guns too. For some reason while preparing session, most maps I designed had one or multiple firearms lying around. A thing I only noticed once my players stopped reloading and just throwing down their empty piece, Reaper-Style.

I'm giggling, because that's exactly what my current group is going to try to do with any monsters I throw into my Unknown Armies game, and they don't even have decent combat stats (I think only one of them has Struggle at over 30%, and nobody has an Identity to substitute better than their Struggle). No guns though, only one character can do more than just spray shots randomly and that player has stated they don't carry the weapon they own because it's illegal, and so far I only have one NPC who owns one, and not for actual use in combat (it's an emergency Charge-generation method for when they're low on magic and need it now).

Then again, this is a setting where supernatural stuff is generally either killable, or affects you indirectly. Significantly less killable without guns, because your damage has been cut to less than a third what it probably was, but still killable enough that you only have to drag a couple of people to the hospital. We are playing the anti-CoC.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Your coc campaign looks awesome when described.

Seconded. It's like Aliens crossed with The Matrix, marinated in Warhammer.

[Resileaf]

Your coc campaign looks awesome when described.
When there is insane cultists that are ready to kill everything that is coming it is only normal those cultists would wear 3 guns each and have some back up guns but the guns on the ground are a bit weird on the other hand it is common in videogames so I do not see that as a big problem.

Let's be honest here, the only thing cooler than running away from the cosmic horrors of the universe is punching them in the face.

[The Glyphstone]

- Most Techpriests I ever see in Lore are often mostly machine. So it made sense to me that the Explorator class should start with a few levels of "the Flesh is weak" as opposed to just the one you get at creation. (For the uninitiated: "The Flesh is weak" gives you a point of armour per level) Cue the Explorator having twice as much Armour as everybody else.

A lot of people make this mistake, leading to the reputation that tech-priests are invincible ubertanks. Our RT game didn't even give bonus levels of FIW and the GM needed anti-tank weaponry to hurt the Explorator. One thing a lot of people forget is that Machine armor does not stack with worn armor. It overlaps, except against Fire damage.

- Thinking that stats seemed generally way too low in RT after character creation, I adjusted the provided formula, and basically allowed player to swap their individual stats around as they pleased for creation. This led to many of them having statlines more in line with a Space Marine, than more "normal" people.

This...on the other hand. I've played in games where going dead-by-the-book for stat generation was used, and I would call not houseruling it the way you did the worst decision. With the high variance of 2d10 and the massive degree that characters depend on their 'prime stat' to do their rules-forced niche protection role, it's practically a way of using RNG to determine what career you are allowed to play this game, and I'm pretty sure 'our DM made us roll randomly to see what class we could play' would definitely earn a spot in a Worse Houserules list.