What house rules do you use?

[Richard S.]

It's been several years since I actually got to GM, but iirc we didn't bother with any rolls for spellcasting unless it was for overcoming resistances.

And not really a houserule, but the one time we went into the otherworld we just used runes and passions in place of any skills or attributes, though that experience was much more narrative than rolly anyways.

[SDLeary]

19 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

We are considering limiting stackable spells.  Protection 6, Bladesharp 7, and Shield 6 are becoming pretty common (as we get higher level) and make the game difficult to GM.  One idea is that most spells top out at 4, with exceptions for certain cults get a "cult special": Humakti can go higher in Bladesharp, Eurmali higher in Shimmer (perhaps?) etc...

Has anybody tried this and have feedback?  Thanks.

Haven't tried it, but what about basing it on POW itself? Say POW /3 or /4? This would NOT apply to Shaman's, Priests, or Sorcerers who know the cheat codes.

SDLeary

[svensson]

First off @Mordante welcome to the board!

I have to preface this by saying that I have experience with medieval combat [the SCA the largest medieval reenactment group in the world], so my view of combat is very much different than most game systems. Let me also note that the system for BRP /RQG was designed by people who'd been in the SCA in the early years of the group, so the differences are not all that much.

1. I simplify head protection. A heavy cloth cap/hat is 1 AP, a leather or fur cap is 2 AP, a nasal or skullcap open helm is 4 AP, a helm with cheek plates [the classic Roman legionary helm or the Sutton Hoo] is 6 AP and a full helm with neck protection [the classic hoplite helm, a barbute, or great helm] is 8 AP

2. I pay attention to facing. While I don't go full d20 'sneak attack damage' with it, I do pay attention to what is happening. If a combatant is fully engaged to their front and someone gets around behind them, it'll be MUCH harder for them to Dodge. This is a situational adjustment to their skill.

3. Also regarding facing, a shield may only block adjacent hit locations. You can't block your head, chest, and left leg with a small shield, for example. I ask the player if they're blocking 'high' or 'low'. The number of shielded locations depends on the size of the shield, just like in the rules. For example, Medium Shield blocks the shield arm and two other locations. If the character is blocking 'low' with a medium shield they block the shield arm, abdomen, and legs. If they block 'high' it's the shield arm, head and chest.

[Beoferret]

Haven't actually applied any house rules yet for the current campaign I'm running, though one is pending. Here's what I've personally been thinking of:

1) [About to be put into effect]: Automatic experience checks for new languages and customs, if a character has spent at least a season in a foreign land and has actually been interacting with the locals on a regular basis. After going through two of the three Starter Set adventures and spending awhile (incl. Sacred Time) in Clearwine, Aranda of Nochet and Vishi Dunn should be improving their Heortling and getting a very basic feel for Sartarite culture.

2) Weapon skills by category (e.g., 1-h sword), instead of individual weapon. OR weapon skills by category with "specialization," e.g. one-handed sword (broadsword), meaning that every other weapon within the category is at a minor penalty (let's say -10%). Enough to justify having a favorite type of weapon, without undercutting a PC's ability to use other, very closely related ones.

3) Close combat. Allowing an opposed DEX check for a PC to stay in close on an opponent, nullifying their ability to use large weapons and providing daggers, shortswords, etc with an SR advantage.

4) Applying the Two-Weapon fighting rules a little more broadly, allowing combinations of weapon strikes and Knockback attempts (seems like an actual historic fighting technique, so why not allow it?) 

 

[EpicureanDM]

Mythras (with some RQG-ish house rules).

[Barak Shathur]

I've only been a player in RQG, but if I was to GM I would do the following:

Remove double damage for slashing special damage. The reason why: slashing weapons are simply much better than piercing and crushing weapons as it is now. Double damage with no drawback is just too powerful (4d8 greatsword specials anyone?). The chance to incapacitate foes when reducing a hit location to 0 HP is powerful enough. This would come close to the wonderful weapon balancing that RQ3 achieved (for my money, the best BRP weapon implementation). Crushing weapons would suddenly become a valid choice. Spears would become useful. It would also be more realistic, swords aren't superweapons.

Do something to improve the usefulness of shields. Either allow the passive armour rule (half shield HP as AP for covered locations) to apply even when parrying actively with the shield, or apply the -20% penalty to a weapon that both attacks and parries in the same round (so an attack counts as a parry in terms of incurring the penalty for extra actions). The reason why: shields are too weak in RAW, they serve no function beyond missile screens.

Change standard dwarf SIZ to 1d6+6. The reason why: A SIZ 2 dwarf should be a different kind of creature, like a nilmerg, it shouldn't have, like, STR 4d6. Maybe reduce DEX to compensate (2d6+2 maybe).

Oh and I would reduce the bonus for successful use of passions to +10%, and the penalty for failure to -10%.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Barak Shathur

[Joerg]

10 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

Remove double damage for slashing special damage. The reason why: slashing weapons are simply much better than piercing and crushing weapons as it is now. Double damage with no drawback is just too powerful (4d8 greatsword specials anyone?).

In my games this hasn't been a problem yet. One easy way to amend Slashing lethality would be to double only the damage after deducting armor. Still hard on unarmored opponents.

 

 

[Kloster]

14 hours ago, Beoferret said:

Automatic experience checks for new languages and customs, if a character has spent at least a season in a foreign land and has actually been interacting with the locals on a regular basis. After going through two of the three Starter Set adventures and spending awhile (incl. Sacred Time) in Clearwine, Aranda of Nochet and Vishi Dunn should be improving their Heortling and getting a very basic feel for Sartarite culture.

This, I like and will steal immediately.

[AlexS]

14 hours ago, Beoferret said:

Automatic experience checks for new languages and customs, if a character has spent at least a season in a foreign land and has actually been interacting with the locals on a regular basis. After going through two of the three Starter Set adventures and spending awhile (incl. Sacred Time) in Clearwine, Aranda of Nochet and Vishi Dunn should be improving their Heortling and getting a very basic feel for Sartarite culture.

I agree with @Kloster that this is a great addition. 

We have developed a load of HRs for learning cultural skills (languages, lores, Customs) out of our campaign, which has taken a party of Esrolian adventurers to Sartar. We're currently writing these up for possible JC publication of an RQG game aid focusing on cultural skills. The current draft includes the following suggestions (with worked examples using episodes from the campaign):

Learning additional languages

If their personal journey or Family Background leads to an adventurer or NPC spending more than a season living with another community and using the local language every day, they can acquire it at the base level of 5%. If they stay for two years, their skill increases to 25%. If they already have some familiarity with the language through equivalency with their own first or second language, they can instead gain an increase of 10% in their level of proficiency per full year of day-to-day use, up to a maximum of 50%. 

[...]

Knowledge of other Customs from Family History and in-game travel

An adventurer’s personal journey or Family History may also lead them to acquire either a bonus to their existing Customs skills or a new Customs skill for interacting with specific other groups, as follows:

• where the skill is new (because they had no prior knowledge of that social group) it is acquired at a base value of 10% after they have spent at least one season living in the group’s territory;
• a bonus of 10% is applied to this base value (or to an existing base value that they may have due to shared membership of a Culture Group, Culture or Cultural Tradition) if they have formed a strong bond (usually via marriage) with someone from that community.
• a further bonus of 10% is added to their base skill for the Customs of any social group with which an adventurer or NPC has lived for two years or more.

A stay of less than one season is not sufficient to gain either a base skill or a bonus in the Customs of the host community.

[...]

Learning the Lore of other Homelands during gameplay

A stay of one Season or less is not sufficient to acquire a skill level in the Lore of another Homeland – except in game, where the GM may agree to grant a base of 10% if a sequence of adventures has exposed a character to multiple opportunities to learn about a Homeland’s history, people, geography and important places over the course of a few weeks. In game, a full season dedicated exclusively to exploring a Homeland with a knowledgeable local guide can also function as Homeland Lore skill training, granting the base level of 10% and an additional 1D6-1 points of skill (or the player may simply choose to add +2% for a base of 12% at the end of the season, as per the Training rules – see RQG p.416).

As you can see from the example, we also use the HR that Homeland Lore is scalable along a range from locality (clan lands or similar scale) to territory (tribal lands or similar scale) to region (tribal confederation lands or similar scale) to homeland level, in line with the RQG rulebook suggestion that 'the smaller the region, the more detailed the knowledge' (p. 179). 

All feedback welcome!

[Barak Shathur]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

In my games this hasn't been a problem yet. One easy way to amend Slashing lethality would be to double only the damage after deducting armor. Still hard on unarmored opponents.

 

 

Do you have any players who use crushing weapons? What has their experience been?

In the campaign I've been playing, almost everyone uses swords, so the issue doesn't come up. I think there's one PC who uses a spear, and AFAIC, that spear has not gotten stuck anywhere so I think the GM has either forgotten, or simply ignored, the rule for piercing specials. 

The problem is that looking objectively at the three categories of special damage, slashing weapons are simply 'better' than the others. I find that irksome since a) there's no game-balancing reason for it, and b) it doesn't correspond to reality. Two factors which for me are the biggest selling points of BRP.

[QuestingAce]

When a character gets inside the reach of their opponents weapon, flip weapon strike ranks until the character on the inside fails an attack/defense roll or takes damage.

[g33k]

I really need to formalize my HR's into a share'able doc... something outside my skull.
I'm gonna take this thread as an opportunity to do so; so, TYVM to the OP!
 

XP/checks:

• On a successful skill-check, roll 2d4 for %skill gained.  It averages to 5% gain (+/- up to 3%, on a bell curve), and I like the variability.
• Fumbles are learning experiences too!  Gain a skill-check.
• Track Crits/Fumbles (vs normal success) on skill-ticks ("/" normal & "X" crit, or tick = normal  & circled box = crit, or etc); gain an extra 1d4% if Crit/Fumble checks are successful.
• Occasionally as a "Special Reward" (good roleplay, awful/good joke, excellent plan, etc) I grant insta-XP "Roll 2d4 now, gain that % onto your <insert relevant skill> now."
• As others above, I grant automatic checks for language and/or culture when immersed in new social settings (n.b. this could also be "prince&pauper" situations, with a gutter-rat learning how nobles live & act, while a pampered noble can gain some street-lore, all in the same city)
• Extra skill checks -- every seasonal advance, players may roll checks for any 3 un-checked skills they choose to.  At Sacred Time, they can roll for 4 skills.

Combat:

0 HP's in a location is a special, dramatic state.  Roll each round, to see if you can still operate.  Typically, this is a DEX% roll to stay upright & mobile (half speed) with a 0-HP leg, CON% with a 0-HP chest, gut, or arm, and POW% with a knocked noggin.  I am considering amending this to be an easy %roll (Stat x5) the first round, decreasing the multiplier 1 per round (more drama as the likelihood of failing goes up & up).

Called Shots:  Because the hit-location rules don't represent "flailing wildly, hitting randomly" but an opportunistic "hit where the foe's guard is flawed," I allow (instead of "called shots") for the character to take a SR delay on their strike, modifying the rolled hit-location by up to +/- 2 points of the d20-hit-location roll per SR of delay.  You may "call a shot" specifically on an unaware target, where the foe has no "guard" up (and you aren't taking what opportunities the chaos of combat affords you).

This was IIRC an old HR from RQ2 (I think formalized in RQ3 (which I only ever played once)):  when closing to combat-range, compare weapon-lengths (SR's).  A character with a much shorter weapon (a weapon with at least a 2-SR disadvantage) needs to "close the range" before they can attack "for effect."  This means a succesful, un-parried attack-roll:  it does no damage, but gets that character "inside" the reach of the longer weapon.  Once "inside," the situations are reversed:  the character with the longer weapon needs to roll to "open the range" (a successful, unparried attack (but it does no damage)) allows them to get their weapon back in play (they may also attempt to use it not-as-designed at very-short range, but generally take both a skill-penalty, and do lower damage).

I've been experimenting with "specialization" vs "similar weapon" rules; I like @Beoferret's rule, above:  weapon skills by category with "specialization," e.g. one-handed sword (broadsword), meaning that every other weapon within the category is at a minor penalty (let's say -10%).  If I implement this, I'll probably go with a fraction-of-skill rule, rather than a flat-% penalty; e.g. 4/5 skill.  So someone with a beginners' 20% skill is at 16% (rather than 10%) with a non-specialized weapon, while a 100% Master is at 80% (rather than 90%) outside their specialty.  I guess this one doesn't count for the OP, as the "rule" is fluid rather than settled at my table.

In general, I look for non-combat situations to apply "combat" mechanics, so I'm likely to formulate those "specialization" rules in a general way, to include non-combat skills & situations.

Not a "House Rule" but a habit:  I use index cards for combat order.  Once I have everyone's SOI's & SR's, I put the SOI cards in order with the lowest SR's on top.  Bad-guys are interleaved with good guys in SR order.  When a new SR comes up (say it's for player Alex), the first thing I do is look at the next card down (say it's for player Barb), and announce "Alex, you are up, your SOI was <X>; Barb, you're up next (with Barb's SOI) so get all your relevant dice ready!" (Alex should already be ready from the prior SR).

Also not a HR, but part of how I teach the game to new players:  roll all the dice for the round in one handfull, and narrate the result as a sentence:
  "12% is a Special to the 10-abdomen, doing 5 points of damage, plus my spear Impales!"

 

Rune Magic:

I often permit a bit of  "you are channeling the Divine here, boo... of course you get <X>!"   For example, a CA healer recently encountered a chaos wound resistant to "Cure Chaos Wound," but they got a "sense" that there was something else -- some item, object, person, etc -- whose presence was needed for the spell to work.

 

Edited January 6, 2023 by g33k
habits, not HR's

[g33k]

On 1/2/2023 at 5:06 PM, radmonger said:

• common rune magic is added to the list of spells taught by most cults, rather than being inherently castable without learning it.

I don't care for this one:  there are so many high-use / high-value  "basic utility"  spells in the "common" list that IMHO it's a solid demotivator for players to ever choose the interesting per-deity spells.

On 1/2/2023 at 5:06 PM, radmonger said:

• pow vs pow spells don't require an additional roll to cast.

OTOH I do very, very much like this one!

Edited January 4, 2023 by g33k

[g33k]

On 1/2/2023 at 2:56 PM, Rodney Dangerduck said:

We are considering limiting stackable spells.  Protection 6, Bladesharp 7, and Shield 6 are becoming pretty common (as we get higher level) and make the game difficult to GM.  One idea is that most spells top out at 4...

I limit these by rarity.  Most temples & shamans can teach up to 4, and the more-powerful ones up to 6.

Higher than that gets extremely hard to find... basically, it's a story-event.

[French Desperate WindChild]

20 hours ago, Beoferret said:

1) [About to be put into effect]: Automatic experience checks for new languages and customs, if a character has spent at least a season in a foreign land and has actually been interacting with the locals on a regular basis. After going through two of the three Starter Set adventures and spending awhile (incl. Sacred Time) in Clearwine, Aranda of Nochet and Vishi Dunn should be improving their Heortling and getting a very basic feel for Sartarite culture.

I do something a little bit different : it is not an automatic experience check but more an option among the 5 between adventures checks. In fact i propose to choose among the "homeland" skills where are the adventures (like you, if they are here for a a season, with possible interaction) and not their own homeland.

So a player may choose between her pc's occupation (or the occupation of this season, not the previous one : a farmer who is bodygard for a season should learn warrior skills not farmer skills) , cult skills and local homeland skills.

but nothing automatic: if a pc doesn't want to communicate with the locals, there is no reason to learn anything from them.

 

for the original post, I have a different creation process (no dices) , you can find them by searching "hombak", like this one

in addition to the previous experience check, I allow knowledge checks between adventures (aka from cult skills, occupation skills, ...)  but not during adventure (that is not because you remember the name of XXX that you now know more than yesterday but because you have worked a lot on a topic)

 

I m looking to "accelerate" the fight process but I have not yet good answers so thanks for this thread 🙂 I hope finding interesting things

 

[Joerg]

3 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

Do you have any players who use crushing weapons? What has their experience been?

Not really - theme is the Pavis Royal Guard, player characters are mounted archers, the main fighter is an impala Yelmalian with a spear gift.

 

3 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

The problem is that looking objectively at the three categories of special damage, slashing weapons are simply 'better' than the others. I find that irksome since a) there's no game-balancing reason for it, and b) it doesn't correspond to reality. Two factors which for me are the biggest selling points of BRP.

The "stuck impale" can have advantages, too. Most happened to arrows, where it is advantageous.

[Barak Shathur]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

4 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

Do you have any players who use crushing weapons? What has their experience been?

Not really - theme is the Pavis Royal Guard, player characters are mounted archers, the main fighter is an impala Yelmalian with a spear gift.

For some reason, I have yet to see a PC with a crushing weapon in RQG. Maybe it's because they only become a meaningful choice if you have at least 2d6 damage bonus. I'd be curious to find out otherwise!

 

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

The "stuck impale" can have advantages, too. Most happened to arrows, where it is advantageous.

Yes, arrows are just fine, they are not the issue. And sure, having your spear stuck in your opponent's body or shield can be advantageous, but you do lose your (usually) primary weapon. If you have several opponents, it's a great disadvantage (as one of my players in a BRP game found out, he died while trying to pull his spear out).

[Rodney Dangerduck]

Special hits all doing slightly different things, some of which are scattered over different pages, are a freaking nightmare and waste of time paging through the rules at the game table.  Luckily, most of our players use swords so there is less to remember.  Though we always forget the "shock" rules.

 

(added) The rules bias towards slashing weapons is an expression of the general rules bias towards Humakt and Orlanth.

Edited January 4, 2023 by Rodney Dangerduck

[Beoferret]

10 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Special hits all doing slightly different things, some of which are scattered over different pages, are a freaking nightmare and waste of time paging through the rules at the game table.  Luckily, most of our players use swords so there is less to remember.  Though we always forget the "shock" rules.

(added) The rules bias towards slashing weapons is an expression of the general rules bias towards Humakt and Orlanth.

I like the idea though that different types of weapons, yielding different types of damage, have their own set of pros and cons. Maybe it's better to make these general attributes. What I mean is something like giving every bludgeoning weapon a chance at causing stun on any head strike or like giving thrusting weapons (esp. spears) 1 step better Strike Rank than RAW.

 

[Barak Shathur]

1 hour ago, Beoferret said:

I like the idea though that different types of weapons, yielding different types of damage, have their own set of pros and cons. Maybe it's better to make these general attributes. What I mean is something like giving every bludgeoning weapon a chance at causing stun on any head strike or like giving thrusting weapons (esp. spears) 1 step better Strike Rank than RAW.

 

Exactly! Crushing special does max db damage, piercing does double damage but gets stuck…these two seem balanced. Slashing weapons already tend to have higher damage dice, so the ability to incapacitate by itself seems balanced with the above. But double damage without drawbacks just knocks the others out of the water. 

[Scotty]

Please keep this topic to What house rules do you use? If you want to discuss the intricacies of specials, etc., please Start a new topic.

[Barak Shathur]

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Please keep this topic to What house rules do you use? If you want to discuss the intricacies of specials, etc., please Start a new topic.

Ok. But I was arguing for the sake of justifying my house rule. 

[Soccercalle]

I let the players use their seasonal experience checks in skills that normally only can be increased by study, example a Lore. That is just a small variant on the rules on p416. I think that it is realistic that they may learn something from their cult or other teachers. I also let them check for experience (off-season) for two Passions and or Runes that they have less than 80 in. Two Passions rolls can be translated to a new Passion (if they can give a good explanation). 

[PhilHibbs]

7 hours ago, Soccercalle said:

I let the players use their seasonal experience checks in skills that normally only can be increased by study, example a Lore.

Me too.

[Beoferret]

On 1/5/2023 at 9:35 AM, Soccercalle said:

I let the players use their seasonal experience checks in skills that normally only can be increased by study, example a Lore. [...] I think that it is realistic that they may learn something from their cult or other teachers. 

Or life experience, potentially. I might adopt a version of this. Personally, with these kinds of skills, I'd assess on a case by case basis, and maybe even rule that a normally non-checkable skill (like the Lore skills, you mention) can only increase by 1-3% without formal teaching. Not great, but but if you include any skill category modifier, it'd be an easy way to jump from 0% to upwards of 17-22% at first. Example: Vago the Not-Quite-So-Fierce has an unfortunate encounter with poison ivy while relieving himself in the woods (he's a city-boy and has Plant Lore 0%). It's just one experience, but dang it's a big one. Vago is now very aware of what poison ivy looks (and feels) like and has also become much more aware of the differences between plants, etc., and that some should be avoided. That should be good enough for a tiny boost to his Plant Lore, providing a basis for future study (since he still can't accurately identify what greenery has healing or fertility-boosting properties.)