4E house rules by Gr1lled Cheese.

[Gr1lledcheese]

Ok so I was reading a lot today about the different problems people are having with 4E rules as they currently stand. I highlighted the most common arguments and added my take on how they should be done. I may in fact use these for when I DM my 4E campaign. All critique is appretiated, if I missed errata somewhere that fixes an issue I posted about please let me know.

Healing surges: Healing surges are now only usable by powers. A leader can use their healing class feature outside of combat without expending it's charge, effectively letting them heal the entire group to full in seconds. Second Winds will remain as normal.

Push or Pull as Control: Pushing and pulling is a good use of control because it sends the mob in the direction you want them to go. Pushing and pulling is a poor use of control because...all it does is send the mobs where you want them to go. Pushing and pulling becomes more attractive when opportunity attacks can be made because of them. Did you push the target to the left, making him stumble defenselessly past the rogue? Pushing, pulling and sliding is no longer considered shifting and now provokes attacks of opportunity as normal from anyone other than the pusher/puller/slider. If an ally uses a power that can pull/push/or slide you, you are aware of it and prepare defenses accordingly. When forced to move by an ally, you do no provoke attacks of opportunity. If more than one ally can make an attack of opportunity due to your use of a push/pull or slide power, only one of them (your choice) gets to make it. Note that AoO are still limited to one opportunity attack on each ally's turn.

[archangel.arcanis]

while not overly familiar with 4e. on the at wills how will that be handled with warlocks as they don't really pick. they auto get 1 and the other is determined by their pact.

[Gr1lledcheese]

Warlocks who get their at will picked for them, and shaman will pick their at will as normal.

Humans also will still get their bonus at will.

[yellerSumner]

At-Wills: Only getting one at-will leaves a bad taste in my mouth. How are you sure it won't lead to "There's only one good option, so why waste my time?" for some builds?

By limiting characters to one at-will, you're not simply forcing a tough decision at first level, but are taking away tactical options in combat. Some classes offer the perk of being able to attack more than one defense with their at-wills - they lose that perk if they only get one power.


Healing Surges: I'm not sure how much this would effect play but it doesn't send me screaming.


Skill Challenges: I don't see the point in adding randomness to skill challenges. That you used 15 as the "rolled" number for all your examples doesn't show how a random DC would make things any different. What's wrong with page 42?


Random Loot Table: Um... 4e doesn't use randomly generated treasure in the first place. And it wouldn't be weird for a Wizard to drop +3 plate if he was wearing it - a PC may have to blow a lot of feats on it, but there's nothing that prevents or significantly hinders Wizards from casting in armor in 4e.


Push/Pull/Slide: If a power lets you Push/Pull/Slide an ally, will they also provoke OAs?

[Kari]

While I don't have the rules right in front of me... I thought that ONLY shifting prevented Opprtunity Attacks (and therefore, pulls/pushes/slides do provoke them, unless the power otherwise states)?

[yellerSumner]

I thought it was the other way around - don't provoke unless it says it does.

I'll actually open the book to check though.

Page 285

"Whether you're pulling, pushing, or sliding a target, certain rules govern all forced movement."

Forced Movement box, fourth bullet:

"No Opportunity Attacks: Forced movement does not provoke opportunity attacks or other opportunity actions."

[Ice9]

At-Wills: Sorry, but this one is terrible.  In many combats - especially against Solos, or tough types like Soldiers, there will come a time when the encounter and daily powers are used, and most people are reduced to using at-wills.  This change would literally make that part of the battle (which could be 50% or more, if you're unlucky) half as interesting.  If you want to increase the At-Will selection, consider letting people take an At-Will from another class of the same role, altered to use their classes stats/implements.

Healing Surges: Clerics have been able to heal people outside of combat in every single version of D&D.  Why are people suddenly taking issue with this?  Mainly, the issue with this one is it gets rid of 4E's intentional "ready to keep going, at close to full strength" method of eliminating the 15-minute workday.  With this rule, it would be quite likely (and logical) for the party to take an extended rest after any non-trivial battle.

Aid Another: Aid Another already works that way - the roll to aid someone does not count as one of the rolls for a skill challenge, and has no negative effects if failed - which it will rarely be, because it's very easy.  If you want to make it automatic, go ahead though.

Parcel System: Even if using the system strictly by the book, it never says that monsters would drop gear they weren't using.  As you mentioned, parcels that don't fit the monster should be found in a cache or on the corpse of a would-be whatever-slayer.

Push/Pull: This would certainly make push/pull a hell of a lot more effective.  Too effective?  It depends on the campaign.  If you generally fight battles with no terrain hazards, then push/pull don't do as much and could use a boost.  If the battles already have pits/lava/fires/spikes/whatever in them, then push/pull can do plenty as is.

[Gr1lledcheese]

At-Wills: Sorry, but this one is terrible.  In many combats - especially against Solos, or tough types like Soldiers, there will come a time when the encounter and daily powers are used, and most people are reduced to using at-wills.  This change would literally make that part of the battle (which could be 50% or more, if you're unlucky) half as interesting.  If you want to increase the At-Will selection, consider letting people take an At-Will from another class of the same role, altered to use their classes stats/implements.

After a little revision, I decided to omit this one. A few people have told me the tactical reasons having only one at will would hinder the party and to top it off it will make encounters slower when there are no more resources left. Thanks for the input on this one guys.

Healing Surges: Clerics have been able to heal people outside of combat in every single version of D&D.  Why are people suddenly taking issue with this?  Mainly, the issue with this one is it gets rid of 4E's intentional "ready to keep going, at close to full strength" method of eliminating the 15-minute workday.  With this rule, it would be quite likely (and logical) for the party to take an extended rest after any non-trivial battle.

I'm not taking issue with the Cleric's ability to heal outside of combat. Quite the opposite actually, Im taking issue with classes that AREN'T healer types being able to heal. The healing surge system works in a wonky way in my oppinion by allowing everyone to heal themselves, regardless of class. It doesn't make sense, in my oppinion, to take an entire class feature of Leaders and give it to everyone.

Aid Another: Aid Another already works that way - the roll to aid someone does not count as one of the rolls for a skill challenge, and has no negative effects if failed - which it will rarely be, because it's very easy.  If you want to make it automatic, go ahead though.

Aid another's failure to help rolls don't count against the total number of failures in a skill challenge then? From what I was reading in people's complaints it seemed like they did.

Parcel System: Even if using the system strictly by the book, it never says that monsters would drop gear they weren't using.  As you mentioned, parcels that don't fit the monster should be found in a cache or on the corpse of a would-be whatever-slayer.

Removed.

Push/Pull: This would certainly make push/pull a hell of a lot more effective.  Too effective?  It depends on the campaign.  If you generally fight battles with no terrain hazards, then push/pull don't do as much and could use a boost.  If the battles already have pits/lava/fires/spikes/whatever in them, then push/pull can do plenty as is.

I like the idea of it. Warlords get a lot of those powers, rogues get a few, fighters get some, I think it would add a lot, especially for a melee heavy group. You can still only make one opportunity attack per round though, so I don't think it would be pushing it to the level of over powered.

[Bozwevial]

On push/pull: That also depends on whether you have someone taking advantage of it via Blood Mage and the like. YMMV.

[Gr1lledcheese]

Updated with that in mind.

[anomalousman]

Personally, I'd work on fixing the things that are actually broken.  Then the overpowered stuff.  The house rules you've noted are basically just personal preferences.

Broken: 
Demigod level 30 ability.
Punisher of the Gods level 21 ability.
The 'infinite move action combo'.

Overpowered:
Damage of powers with multiple attacks.
(other, lesser issues)

...that'd pretty much do it.  And you could leave the OP stuff without qualm.  Everyone still gets to play, which is more than I can say for any other system I've read.

[Gr1lledcheese]

Personally, I'd work on fixing the things that are actually broken.  Then the overpowered stuff.  The house rules you've noted are basically just personal preferences.

Broken: 
Demigod level 30 ability.
Punisher of the Gods level 21 ability.
The 'infinite move action combo'.

Overpowered:
Damage of powers with multiple attacks.
(other, lesser issues)

...that'd pretty much do it.  And you could leave the OP stuff without qualm.  Everyone still gets to play, which is more than I can say for any other system I've read.

I encourage players to find the broken within their characters. I enjoy watching them research their build to make it the best it can be. If they went through the trouble to make something broken, then they deserve to have it stay just as broken as it is. I love broken. 

[Ieniemienie]

Your 'fix' of push and pull made the Warlord's opening shove completely useless. The 'problems' you have highlighted are just a restriction on gameplay forcing you to make tactical decisions and not run around like a headless chicken.. and it's not like combat are all that difficult without the fixes...

[Eepop]

HP & Healing Surges are not just about physical health, they also represent things like will to fight on, etc.  The rule doesn't particularly break anything in half, so feel free to do it, but I'm still not sure what it adds to the game.  As a DM, I love it when players want to just spend surges while resting instead of having the cleric do it.  Clerics can double the value of a character's surge for a good portion of the game, and every less surge they are expending is one step less towards the primary attrition mechanic.   If it really strains credibility for you that much, my not just come up with a flavor explanation? Like the cleric using a wand of healing on them, or slow acting healing potions that take 5 minutes to take effect.  Changing the mechanics behind it only seems to make balancing encounters harder for the DM, and works against the primary attrition mechanic.


Also, completely unrelated, you can make one opportunity action on each other character's turn. The only similar thing limited to once per round are immediate actions.  Opportunity attacks and immediate actions are different things.

[Gr1lledcheese]

Your 'fix' of push and pull made the Warlord's opening shove completely useless. The 'problems' you have highlighted are just a restriction on gameplay forcing you to make tactical decisions and not run around like a headless chicken.. and it's not like combat are all that difficult without the fixes...

How about you go and read the god damn post.

[Gr1lledcheese]

HP & Healing Surges are not just about physical health, they also represent things like will to fight on, etc.  The rule doesn't particularly break anything in half, so feel free to do it, but I'm still not sure what it adds to the game.  As a DM, I love it when players want to just spend surges while resting instead of having the cleric do it.  Clerics can double the value of a character's surge for a good portion of the game, and every less surge they are expending is one step less towards the primary attrition mechanic.   If it really strains credibility for you that much, my not just come up with a flavor explanation? Like the cleric using a wand of healing on them, or slow acting healing potions that take 5 minutes to take effect.  Changing the mechanics behind it only seems to make balancing encounters harder for the DM, and works against the primary attrition mechanic.

It's a reality thing that I and a lot of others are having trouble with. Second winds make sense because that can happen in real life. I don't know about you, but after I get into a fist fight, I can't spend 5 minutes shitting my pants and suddenly have my hands stop hurting. 

Your idea to make healing surges be like a cleric using a wand on them was good, and I considered it. But I rethought the process out a bit. Originally I wanted to limit healing surge usage because it takes away from the usefulness of a leader type. I mean honestly, if I were to leave healing surges alone, I'd have to let everyone wear plate, get sneak attack damage, and be able to cast all wizard daily powers related to BFC. It wouldn't be fair to just spread one classes abilities.

My solution to this is to let the cleric use healing word outside of combat without the power expending. This adds an extra bit of useful to the class, and helps the reality of the situation along here. I agree that healing surges is their will to fight on, which is why they can't use them. A leader's job is to inspire courage and strength in the party so they can press on. It makes a hell of a lotta sense to me.

Also, completely unrelated, you can make one opportunity action on each other character's turn. The only similar thing limited to once per round are immediate actions.  Opportunity attacks and immediate actions are different things.

Well played, sir. Well played.

[Eepop]

Fair enough.  It just seems like mostly a flavor distinction of who is making the surges be spent unless you are having problems with people not playing leaders in your games.

I've played 6 different leaders (death and different campaigns), and I can tell you, people being able to recover some of their HP after a fight has never cramped my style.  There is PLENTY of need for a leader's talents in combat. Once we got out of combat, we would all assess how we're doing.  Those that were just one-ish surge down were just a bit tired, and needed a few minutes to catch their breath.  Those that were 2-3 surges down were actually injured and we took multiple rests so that I could use my healing powers on them.  Rest for 5 minutes, and everyone that needs to spends a surge for the "catch a breath" part.  Leader gets their encounter heals back, and heals anyone that is still wounded.  Rest again so that the Leader has their heals ready for the next battle.

Also, to keep in mind, you compare a D&D combat to a fist fight.  Because d&d combat is much more lethal it generally takes much less time.  All the fist fights I have been in lasted 5-15 minutes.  A 10 round D&D combat lasts one minute, and 10 round combats are a good bit longer than the norm in my experience.

[jamestguy]

/snip

I've played 6 different leaders (death and different campaigns), and I can tell you, people being able to recover some of their HP after a fight has never cramped my style.  There is PLENTY of need for a leader's talents in combat.

This. If a Leader's primary role was healing, they would be called Healers. Buffing, tactical movement, attack granting, and in-combat healing are the most important parts of a Leader (pretty much in that order imo).

[Gr1lledcheese]

/snip

I've played 6 different leaders (death and different campaigns), and I can tell you, people being able to recover some of their HP after a fight has never cramped my style.  There is PLENTY of need for a leader's talents in combat.

This. If a Leader's primary role was healing, they would be called Healers. Buffing, tactical movement, attack granting, and in-combat healing are the most important parts of a Leader (pretty much in that order imo).

And I do nothing to stop any of that. I just don't like homogenizing abilities to classes that shouldn't realistically get to use them.

[Gr1lledcheese]

Also, to keep in mind, you compare a D&D combat to a fist fight.  Because d&d combat is much more lethal it generally takes much less time.  All the fist fights I have been in lasted 5-15 minutes.  A 10 round D&D combat lasts one minute, and 10 round combats are a good bit longer than the norm in my experience.

This is a mighty valid point. One which I never considered.

Like I posted above, I just don't like the homogenizing of abilites to classes the shouldn't realistically get to use them. A cleric of Pelor doesn't get sneak attack, because that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. Rogues and Warlocks and stuff shouldn't get to heal themselves.

Again, this is all in my oppinion.