Tuesday May 04, 2004

How Lorenvale Is Different:

House rules…ahh…they are what make one D&D campaign different from another, they are what keep the players on their toes.  The local D&D campaign that didn’t incorporate at least a few house rules would be no better than GenCon, and nobody wants to play in a world that works exactly like the one at a convention.  Many house rules are the design of players, those who are dissatisfied with some aspect of the core rules.  Most house rules, however, stem from the DM’s desire to make things a bit harder, or easier, or just a bit more interesting than the standard rules provide.

House rules are not things to be despised; on the contrary, even the core rules books encourage such meddling with the system.  They provide a few variants in the text (which undoubtedly sprang from someone’s house rules), and the DMG practically says, “Chunk it if you don’t like it.”

I couldn’t begin to tell you who made up all these house rules, except those that I came up with myself.  Certainly not all of them are mine, and so to keep from singling myself out, I’ll leave the source of all the following rules anonymous, unless there’s a copyright issue to deal with, and then I’ll let you know where I got it.  So, without further ado, here they are!

Various Rules:

Inventions & Discoveries

Identifying Magic Items

Perception / Memory Checks

Item Saving Throws

Teleportation

Returning from the Dead

Called Shots

Bludgeoning Non-lethal Damage

Clobbered

Close-quarters Situations

Critical Hits/Misses with Spells

Critical Success/Failure with Skills

Damage to Specific Areas/Specific Injuries

What we have here is a list of short things that guide the daily practice of the campaign and those little things that pop up occasionally that we’re always asking, “Now, how does that work again?”