House Rules?

[Havard]

Hello again,
its been a year since my last confession...err posting.

Does anyone have any house rules for In Nomine (non-GURPS version)?

Here are a few that I have been using:

* Vessels use level as charisma bonus. You dont have to buy charisma separately.

* All starting characters must have a Role. I dont bother with levels for Roles, only status.

* Initiative is determined by rolling 1d6 at the beginning of combat. On his turn, a character performs all his actions regardless of type.

* Hits recovery is multiplied by relevant forces.

* Untrained skills can be used at -2. Not all skills can be used untrained.

* Stun rules (25% loss) are ignored.

Any thoughts on these? Or do you have others?

Havard

[ladyarcana55]

Originally Posted by Havard

* Stun rules (25% loss) are ignored.

I don't know about this. I have a character that really isn't high on Strength but can dodge like crazy. I know she would have had her rear handed to her without stun.

[Havard]

Originally Posted by ladyarcana55

I don't know about this. I have a character that really isn't high on Strength but can dodge like crazy. I know she would have had her rear handed to her without stun.

Thanks for the quick response! The stun thing is the one I was most hesitant to post actually. So far I have been ignoring it, but it has been more a case of forgetting about it rather than a concious decision not to use it.

This is exactly the kind of feedback I am looking for. I picked up In Nomine when it first came out, but I only get to play it every once in a while, so I still consider myself a newbie to this game :)

Havard

[ladyarcana55]

Originally Posted by Havard

Thanks for the quick response! The stun thing is the one I was most hesitant to post actually. So far I have been ignoring it, but it has been more a case of forgetting about it rather than a concious decision not to use it.

This is exactly the kind of feedback I am looking for. I picked up In Nomine when it first came out, but I only get to play it every once in a while, so I still consider myself a newbie to this game :)

Havard

LOL

Seriously, there are others who will have tons more helpful things to say. It's just that for me, my characters ten to rely on stuns.

LOL

[Rocket Man]

Welcome back!

If you're curious about house rules, this thread had quite a discussion going for a while: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=13919

[Havard]

Wow, so much feedback. Excellent! It's going to take me a while to go through it all, but there are some excellent suggestions there! Thanks alot everyone :)

Originally Posted by Rocket Man

Welcome back!

Thanks! I dont get to game that often and In Nomine has been a tough sell on my players, but now that we have gotten through a few sessions, I think they feel differently about it :)

If you're curious about house rules, this thread had quite a discussion going for a while: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=13919

Excellent! This will give me alot of ideas :)

Havard

[rknop]

Originally Posted by Havard

* Vessels use level as charisma bonus. You dont have to buy charisma separately.

The problem with this is that it rules out having a very durable but off-putting vessel-- which you can imagine that (say) some Calabim would love to have.

* Initiative is determined by rolling 1d6 at the beginning of combat. On his turn, a character performs all his actions regardless of type.

I like that. I have to admit to not being fully satisfied with the IN combat system, but I hesitate to tweak because I just know I'll end up turning it into GURPS :) I might base it on the best of (agility, precision, perception), or some such, to give quick characters an advantage.

I only use a couple of house rules; the most important one is that I modify Disturbance to not be *quite* so sensitive to the perception and Celestial Forces of listeners, and to have a smoother drop-off in terms of how easy it is to hear something at different distances. One place I have these house rules listed is:

http://www.sonic.net/~rknop/php/Omar...php#houserules

[tHEhERETIC]

I have a few house rules, most of them specific to the current PbP. The one that isn't, however, goes right to the heart of the kewl powerzzz mentality.

In my IN games, all choir and Superior resonances are restricted. All of them. If Michael wants a guy who is fireproof, he'll have to borrow him from Gabriel...and then the poor angelic schlub has to answer to two masters, the higher of which is insane. And hope they don't get into an argument over him. It also keeps the powers firmly tied to the celestial cultures that spawn them.

[JCD]

Hmm

I am playing with several

One thing I am tending toward is to determine soul hits in a new way.

Instead of having to hit someone for 162 points of damage, each "Force" has as many Soul Points as the total Forces for the character.

So a 9 Force Angel would be killed in 81 Soul Hits, a 12 Force Demon in 144 etc. This makes Celestial combat much easier and dangerous. To offset this, I also rule no recalcs on anything...at least for the first three Forces. Then -1 on everything. Otherwise it loses all fearsomeness.

Girl characters get free +2 charisma unless they specifically don't want it. The Girl PLAYERS like to have pretty characters. So, it seems, do the boys...

[Acolyte]

My most significant changes are to CPs at creation and streamlining the little annoying rules.

In addition to all the points given in the rules as they are based, I give X CPs that must be used on Songs and X CPs that must be used on Skills (where X is the number of Forces of the character). That ensures that all starting angels are at least competent with a few supernatural abilities and a few basic earthly survival techniques. It also offers PCs who want to pay for potent Vessels, cool Attunements, or more than 1 or 2 Songs the leeway to do so. I am not one of those people who say that the CP total as is are too weak for a good angel...but having just a bit more power is more fun for the players and the overall power difference isn't too big, since players tend to go for fun stuff with the extra points.

I also cut the Essence cost of switching Vessels and going celestial, and the Disturbance of the former. These are annoying things that just get in the way of the fun and character interaction. The use of Will rolls to switch Realms is also annoying, but I haven't cut it because otherwise escape would be too easy and no one would ever die in celestial combat.

Additionally, I let angels and demons perform minor miracles with a tiny amount of disturbance for 1 Essence--lots of minor nonspecific powers all weaker than any Song (or even weaker than Ethereals' Affinities). I mean. They're angels. They shouldn't have to worry about losing their car keys. [note: having them stolen by passing Servitors of the Wind or Theft is of course fair game and probably a decent adventure!]

I also reduced the Disturbance rules to some basic categories (minute, mild, significant, strong, catastrophic, epic) with modifiers for each and some distance modifiers. Makes calculating on the fly so much easier--when I bother to do it at all. Generally I just pick a gut modifier.

Oh, and I don't allow characters to obtain an extra Force for 10 XPs or for 12 (by raising attributes). Angels get new Forces only when their AAs allow. In fact, I think the XP system advances characters too fast in general.

Regarding the above proposed...

Vessel and Charisma I like as separate, and same with Status and Level (I really like how Level lets you get away with disturbance-causing).

I don't see why Roles are necessary--lots of drifter angels can probably get away without one, and it would be much easier for them.

I like speedier Hits regeneration. I'll probably use that. Same for bringing all the untrained penalties to the same level--save time looking stuff up. I've never used the stun rules ever...so I agree with ignoring them. IN isn't about that.

Initiative sounds weird as written, but I was surprised by how well it worked in play. I was going to change it...but I like it as is. Actually, I thought combat would be pretty terrible until I ran a few, and it all worked remarkably well. Its fluidity and looseness has allowed my PCs to get away with crazy things (including holding a Calabite down while a Soldier ran over his head with a car and drop-kicking a Shedite-possessed Sorcerer into a Tether locus/pit to Hell), and we've all had a lot of fun.

Heretic-- That's a compelling suggestion. I haven't been using it...but I can see how that would alter things in a really interesting way. I'll have to mull over that.