Your tiniest houserules

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Every active spell reduces your actual spell skill for any subsequent casting.

How is this different from RAW?

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Fast-Draw is a skill-specific perk. Roll against the underlying skill.

My only quibble with taking this 9which I might do for DF style games), is in the really real world, I'm very proficient with opening and closing balsong knives (which is a fancy Fast-Draw flourish)... I am not at all skill with Knife combat.


Mine is to reduce Eidetic and Photographic Memory to a leveled Perk. It actually sees use that way.

[Jinumon]

Unless they are severe (like, -8 or worse) I don't assess penalties to attacks for darkness. Not only do I not want to have to constantly be aware of the light level, I don't want to turn combat into a whiff-fest, and I figure so long as you can clearly see a target's silhouette you aren't breaking realism too much. At least not "action movie realism," which is generally the level of grit I like employ.

Jinumon

[SimonAce]

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

If you make your to hit roll by exactly zero, it’s a glancing blow and does half damage.

If you make your defense roll by exactly zero, it’s a nearly-failed defense, and does half damage.

These stack, so if they both occur, the defender takes 1/4 damage.

I use mostly the same rule though I use failed defense by one. I saw it on T-Bones Diner

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

How is this different from RAW?

.

It means that there's a limit to the number of spells you can maintain before you are paying full maintenance price. Under the RAW only the initial casting roll is penalized

[ericthered]

Common sense can't be purchased, but I the GM will tell you if I think you're doing something stupid because I probably explained something poorly. Please don't clutter up your sheet with the advantage.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Fast-Draw is a skill-specific perk. Roll against the underlying skill.

I like the concept of making Fast-Draw into a skill-specific Technique. Haven't decided if it defaults to Skill+0 and can be bought up to Skill+4 or if it should default to a penalized skill and can be bought up to Skill+0 (with the option to buy it higher with Technique Mastery, although that would typically only be done by someone who cares more about fast-draw competitions and the like than combat).

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Buying attributes down only counts against a disad limit if doing so brings them below the racial template's base level.

Yeah, this is a good one. It does open the gate to characters getting the so-called DX! (DX without Basic Speed, for [15]) and IQ! (IQ without Per and Will, for [10]), without the normal "goes against Disad limit" drawback to dissuade them, however.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Common sense can't be purchased, but I the GM will tell you if I think you're doing something stupid because I probably explained something poorly. Please don't clutter up your sheet with the advantage.

I personally favor the idea of basically doing away with Common Sense and having the player roll - either against IQ or a relevant skill (floated to IQ if necessary) - anytime he/she opts to do something the character would likely know better than to do. Success gives the player the chance to change their mind.


For my own entry, an idea I've been considering recently is to allow one to go All Out retroactively, but perhaps at a penalty. Maybe your first attack was an extremely-effective Feint or Beat, so you want to give up your defenses to get a second attack. Maybe you just barely missed, so you want to give up your defenses for a bonus (or the target just barely defended, so you want to do the same, but turn that bonus into a Deceptive Attack). I'm thinking half effect - retroactively going Double makes the second attack be at -4 (-3 if you have TbaM/WM; truly halving it would be -3/-2, but I opted to shift it up a bit to account for the initial attack not suffering a penalty), Determined is only a +2 to hit, Strong is +1 per 2d (minimum +1) to damage.

[Boge]

If you step on your turn, you cannot step on your defense. This keeps players from constantly retreating during defense.

Unarmed damage will heal half after the fight is over. This makes brawls less detrimental.



Aside from that, we get 3rd and 4th edition rules mixed up way too much and it makes it hard to play the game accurately.

[corwyn]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

My only real house rule is what I call "Condensed Specialties", which is basically reverse-engineered from Optional Specialties.

Take a skill that has a lot of required specialties (f'rex: Mechanic, Engineer, Electronics Operation/Repair, Games, Piloting, etc.), but not one with a mere handful (e.g. not Beam Weapons, nor Guns when using the Alternate Guns article). To be omniproficient in that skill, increase the difficulty by one step - IQ/A with a bunch of specialties becomes IQ/H for all specialties.

(I could never get a Pyramid article written to enshrine this in any Alternate GURPS issue; the best I could get was a sidebox, but no article to go with it.)

My gadgeteer would love this tweak for Engineering. I am toying with an alternative house rule for the same issue - all skill defaults are techniques to buy up to the master skill. That would be significantly more expensive if you want more than 2 specialties. I may like yours better.

Why not allow it on narrower skills? It's actually less efficient on it and they are less likely to be used at the same time if that's a balance issue (like, say Engineer).

[Pbuckley]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Common sense can't be purchased, but I the GM will tell you if I think you're doing something stupid because I probably explained something poorly. Please don't clutter up your sheet with the advantage.

This is a good rule. I do the same. Though only if it makes sense for the character to know, or realize that the idea is dumb, or unreasonable.

I also tend to make players make an IQ roll (Or an appropriate skill roll, based on IQ) whenever they are about to do something dumb, that might not be readily apparent to their characters. (Essentially giving them a save vs. otherwise unavoidable injury or death) Or they are doing something that is smart, but that their character might not have reason to think is a good idea. (They take a penalty, if the idea would seem stupid to the character). Though it occurs to me just now, that in most cases it might be better for this to be based on Perception...

After all the character is likely to be more privvy to the nuances of the world they live in than the player, while the player is likely more privvy to the broad strokes of the world than the character is.This allows for a level of metagaming to be sure, however it helps to allow PC's to have those "Gut Feeling" moments that happen so often in fiction, and even real life on occasion.

[corwyn]

I believe our campaigns have an unwritten house rule where we ignore the reaction modifier on Overconfident treating it as more just a roleplaying disad like Impulsive.