Best B/X (or RC, AD&D etc) house rules? (1 Viewer)

[Eric_Diaz]

I am 100% sure there must have been a few threads like that here already, but I had no luck finding it.

So, for TSR-D&D: what are your favorite house rules?

This is, specific house rules, not house rules collections. Anything specifically clever, original or awesome?

I'll start with the traditional "Shields shall be splintered", to keep things very classic.

(or just resurrect some other thread if you're a better forum-delver than me! )

 

[My Hero Zero]

Initial NPC reaction check:

Roll 1d20-CHA score (not modifier)

Result	Reaction
10 or more	Hostile
5 to 9	Suspicious
-4 to 4	Neutral
-9 to -5	Friendly
-10 or lower	Helpful

 

[Sleeper]

For warriors that ran around in little armor, like Celts, shields were extremely important. But for knights encased in plate, they mattered less. So I make the shield bonus vary from +1 to +4, depending on your armor:

armor	AC w/o shield	shield bonus	AC w/ shield
none	9	+4	5
leather	7	+3	4
chain	5	+2	3
plate	3	+1	2

 

[El Santo]

I give shields their own armor class values:

Buckler = AC 9
Small shield = AC 7
Medium shield = AC 5
Body shield = AC 3

If armor and shield are used together, I give a -1 bonus to whichever element of the combination has the lower score.

 

[thirdkingdom]

I've always liked the rule, taken from either The Wyzard or Julius Sleazer, that jewelry worn openly does not count towards encumbrance. I also use Shields Shall be Splintered.

 

[quozl]

Initial NPC reaction check:

Roll 1d20-CHA score (not modifier)

Result	Reaction
10 or more	Hostile
5 to 9	Suspicious
-4 to 4	Neutral
-9 to -5	Friendly
-10 or lower	Helpful

Is this the same odds?

Roll 1d20+CHA score (not modifier)

Result	Reaction
16 or less	Hostile
17 to 21	Suspicious
22 to 30	Neutral
31 to 35	Friendly
36 or higher	Helpful

 

[DarkMoc]

Is this the same odds?

Roll 1d20+CHA score (not modifier)

Result	Reaction
16 or less	Hostile
17 to 21	Suspicious
22 to 30	Neutral
31 to 35	Friendly
36 or higher	Helpful

No. Using CHA 11, the first table is Hostile on 21+, Suspicious on 20 to 16, Neutral on 15 to 7, Friendly on 6 to 2, and Helpful on 1. To be a positive table, the numbers need to be 5 points lower than the second table, that is, 11 or less is Hostile, 12 to 16 is Suspicious, 17 to 25 is Neutral, 26 to 30 is Friendly, and 31+ is Helpful.

 

[Eric_Diaz]

Lots of talk of shields and charisma... I like it!

BTW, curiously enough I had been dealing with "the charisma problem" in my own house rules as I felt like starting this thread. I.e., charisma traditionally affects reaction rolls, number of retainers and morale, but this doesn’t fit well with modifiers greater than +2, so in my system there is no direct influence from Charisma to reaction rolls.

I like the proposed solution!

(the reason I'm writing house rules is because I recently went back to literally rewriting B/X one page at a time, but it is difficult to come up with one original/cool new thing for every page. I have nice pages for hazards and movement/encumbrance, though!).

 

[Witness123]

For AD&D 1e:
1. Switch to d10 for initiative
2. Ignore Weapon Speed except to break ties in initiative on same segment
3. Drop Weapon vs Armor Type
4. Drop Psionics
I also know that EGG did the above based upon posts at Dragonsfoot and EnWorld He also dropped the monk class.

5. Halfling and Gnomes receive the Dwarves *defensive* bonuses for size against giant type creatures (When asked on Dragonsfoot why they did not receive this bonus, Gary Gygax stated that it was an oversignt and, since a) he did not play halfling or gnomes as a player; and b) none of his players questioned it, the error was never caught


(Edit: I, actually, have many more for 1e from when i used to run it.)

 

[El Santo]

movement/encumbrance

Speaking of which, I use the old-fashioned English "stone" unit (14 pounds/6-ish kilograms) for calculating encumbrance, rounding down for fractions. It yields smaller, more easily remembered numbers, and I think it more accurately reflects the subjective experience of lugging around a bunch of heavy crap. Beyond that, it lends itself to a simple regime in which a character is unencumbered unless they're carrying more than their strength score in gear and baggage. That is, a character with STR 13 can carry up to 13 stone of stuff without incurring penalties.