I was sitting here this morning, drinking a cup of coffee and editing a page of campaign information on Obsidian Portal, when I realized that this particular page might make a good post for the blog. A quick check of the schedule tells me that today is open to posting, so I thought I would write something. Spontaneous posts always seem to be my best, so… This particular post is about a few house rules that I have implemented in my home-brew 4e D&D gameworld, Ruboryn. These house rules aren’t the most crunchy and they rely a great deal upon the ability and willingness of the players to be creative with their PCs.
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Artifacts
Artifacts in Ruboryn are special. In this world they are more than just sentient items, they are timeless. What does that mean? It means that an artifact in this world has not only a memory of the past but also of the future. It is not bound by the laws of time, so it can “remember” things that technically haven’t happened yet (at least, the PCs probably think of it that way). This means that if you wield/use/bond to an artifact, you may get glimpses of the past, present, and/or future of Ruboryn. You may or may not know which it is at the time.
From the DMing perspective, this is possible for 3 reasons.
1) I have run 4 different groups though campaigns in this world that occurred at different time periods from each other
2) I take extensive notes regarding things that happen in-game
3) I allow my players to add to the history of the world (see the last house-rule below)
These 3 things add up to a rich world with history and lots of character, and anyone that gets their hands on an artifact is likely to learn much more than they thought!
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Rituals
I like to encourage ritual use in this world because I think rituals can add a lot to a campaign. Unfortunately, the 4e rules don’t do very much to encourage their use. I try to encourage it by house-ruling an important way to use rituals in a much more flexible way. Here is a step by step explanation about how this works:
1. After an extended rest, anyone with the ritual caster feat can decide to “prepare” a ritual for later use.
2. This “preparation” takes the same amount of time it takes to cast the ritual in full and costs a healing surge.
3. The ritual energy must be bound to an object and the object must be consumed during the final release of the energy. For example: you might carve some symbols into a stick, thereby imbuing the stick with the “energy” of the ritual, and when you go to finish the casting later you break the stick and release the full power of the ritual.
4. Finishing the the ritual is a minor action and can be used during combat, skill challenges, or any other time the player chooses, as long as the PC still has the object that was imbued with ritual energy.
5. During an extended rest, the imbued energy seeps out of the item such that there is no longer enough to finish the casting to full effect (making the item useless for casting the ritual). This ensures that PCs don’t stack up on prepared rituals. The item that was subject to seepage is not destroyed and maintains all of its natural properties; if the player wishes, they can attempt to imbue the item again.
This means that you can prepare rituals ahead of time and use them in the time it takes to use a minor action. Hopefully it encourages more creative (and more frequent) use of rituals. This way of looking at rituals was inspired by ThadeousC over at MyDnDGame.net.
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Lighting
There are no sunrods in Ruboryn. If you spent money purchasing them, return the money to your PC sheet, or spend it on torches instead. The adventurer’s standard kit comes with 2 torches instead of 2 sunrods. This is a relatively new house-rule that I have decided to implement, thanks to the awesome article about why you should use a torch written by Mike over at Mike’s D&D Blog.
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Skill Use During Combat
I know that many people see the reduction of skills in 4e as a big disadvantage to the system, but I find that it can actually bolster the amount of role-playing and skill use in-game. Having a smaller list of skills to consider provides the opportunity for the player to apply creativity to the skill category and try new things. In order to encourage this, I allow for the ample use of skills during combat. Rather than needing to spend a standard action on using a skill, I try to make it more enticing by allowing a player to use a skill in conjunction with
1) a good idea
2) a creative action
3) a standard power
When doing this it only costs the player a minor action. The cost exists based on how much effort would have to be put into the action/use of the skill. So when your fighter wants to use his acrobatics skill to combine his move with his cleave power, allowing him to shift in the middle of the cleave and hit the bad guy that becomes adjacent to him because of the shift? Let him try it! Require an easy DC acrobatics check, the use of a standard (for the att power) and minor (for the skill use) action, and a description of the awesome, creative move the PC just performed. The caveat here is to not let them keep doing the same move in every battle – then it just becomes a “new power” and the point of this is to be creative, not attempt the same things over and over or creative new class powers.
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The Power of Suggestion
This is sort of a corollary to the above skill use house rule, but is not limited to combat. I am a very open DM and I try to encourage players to think of creative ways to solve problems and use powers. As such, I tend to give a lot of leeway in allowing the execution of those creative endeavors. That means that, just as I allow skill use in combat, I allow power use out-of-combat. If a player is in a non-combat situation in which he/she finds a use for a combat skill, I heartily encourage him/her to attempt the action! I try to cultivate an atmosphere in which the players do not hesitate to ask me about using a power/skill/feat/action in a new and interesting way – in most cases I will not refuse, especially if there is a good argument for why the PC would be attempting to perform said action.
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The History of the World
The world is a dynamic place. I encourage players to embrace that dynamic nature and add things to the world themselves. By this I mean to say that they should feel free to say things when role-playing that will lend credence to their PC’s words, and that I consider the world to be owned by my players as much as by myself. So, if a PC is speaking to an NPC and is asked who trained the PC in the arcane arts (and the PC hasn’t been previously informed of the name/location of the arcane mentor), the player should make it up. They can say whatever they want… add a name, title, and location to the world. Just like that? Yes, just like that.
Here’s an example: Perimene the wizard is sitting in the tavern talking to a contact. This is the first time he has met Lodot (the contact) and they are trying to establish some trust. Lodot asks Perimene where he was trained, and by whom. The player running Perimene did not discuss this with me beforehand, but I gave him the okay to answer in whichever way he felt fit the PC. He answered: “I was trained in Kelson, by Fresdon the Red, just before the orcs raided the Tower of Three and destroyed the town.” My response: “Excellent! Let me write this down so that I can add it to the history file.” So, when you play in a game with me… do that.
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I hope this was an informative and interesting read. What house rules do you implement?
Until next time, I wish you good gaming.
~DM Samuel
Sword image subject to creative commons attribution, was taken off of Flickr on 7/29/2010 and is property of Mattsip
I had a big post regarding rituals and some suggested/possible houserules for them as well over on my blog if you want to take a look at them there. http://phelanar.blogspot.com/2010/06/working-with-rituals.html
Awesome (how did I miss this?) – thanks! I’ll check it out right now.
I apologize for the length. Here goes:
Let me start out by saying I don’t like 4E’s economy at all. Do YOU go around carrying thousands of dollars in cash in your wallet? Does it make sense to have a less technologically advanced society than us minting vast quantities of standardized coinage? And seriously, what’s up with this 20% return rate? This is one of the big worldbuilding issues I considered when preparing for my current campaign and one day, an idea struck me. It was so simple, elegant and complete (at least to me, y’all can judge it for yourself of course) that I can’t imagine running 4E without it ever again. I cut the PCs actual gold earnings to about 20% normal and then put the balance in a sort of virtual “bank” in two separate “accounts” – one called Fame and the other called Karma or Luck.
Karma or Luck is earned for performing actions that help restore the natural “correctness” of the world. Noble deeds, delivering justice, killing undead, pretty much anything stereotypically “Good” earns Karma. It can be spent like normal GP in stores representing the odds that the location actually has what the characters want. It can also be spent while adventuring to have certain events occur. For instance, spending 50 Luck in a dungeon can give you a Healing Potion as treasure in the next encounter or chest. Spending 20 Luck can ensure that a water source you find is pure (as the Clearwater Solution). As a general expectation, the cost of an event is equal to an item that causes the event.
Fame is earned for performing deeds that will be talked about by others. It can be spent like normal GP in stores representing the shopkeeper’s willingness to sell the characters rare or dangerous items. It can also be spent while adventuring to have certain events occur. For instance, you can use Fame to “bribe” someone into letting you into an area they shouldn’t. It can purchase room and board in foreign towns when you lack the on-hand gold. (“Hey, we’ve heard about you guys? Tell us about your travels! A place to stay? Sure, it’s on the house.”) PCs might also spend Fame to receive gifts and favors from NPCs that they meet. As a general expectation, the cost of an event is equal to an item that causes the event, though this isn’t quite as sturdy an expectation for Fame as it is Luck.
When a PC goes to buy something, he or she is only required to have 20-40% of the cost in currency. The rest is paid in Luck or Fame. Thus when he or she tries to resell it, only the currency is returned and the 20% number makes more sense in-game. It also eliminates the problem of a single +2 weapon costing as much gold as a small army. The army only needs gold. The weapon requires Fame and Luck, which most NPCs do not have. I’ve found, as a side effect, that the system additionally tends to (though not completely) keep the party moving on the straight and narrow since they know the sorts of things that will earn them full wealth – big, heroic deeds. It would be just as simple to change Fame to Infamy if I was running an Evil campaign or Karma to Honor if the players were of a culture where that sort of thing is important. Having intangible wealth in a quantified, measurable way can really set the tone for the game. You could even use this system as a sort of compromise between the ‘wish list’ and ‘whatever the DM puts there’ methods of treasure placement. I like mechanics that facilitate bargaining between the DM and players on the meta level in an agreed-upon manner that also have a believable in-game expression; Fame and Luck banks totally do this for me in a way that nothing else does.
Great post man! I am known as a tinkerer and I love houseruling. It makes the game more personal.
Two rules you wrote about that I think I’ll be implementing quickly are stored rituals and skill use in combat.
I like the skill use during combat rule suggestions.