Your all-time top-3 house rules

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by phiwum

You've a lot more experience with TFT than me, but I just don't see the need for an over-strength rule. I guess I don't see it as a terribly bad rule, but so far it seems like needlessly complicating.

Perhaps I'll see the reason for it some day.

I have a similar rule, although my version grants +1 damage for every 3 points of ST over the minimum. The reason for it is pretty simple... it keeps lighter weapons viable as the character progresses. As designed, TFT is an escalating arms race with characters constantly upgrading to larger weapons. That's fine unless you are trying to stick with a particular archetype, like a fencer or master knife fighter.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

I have a similar rule, although my version grants +1 damage for every 3 points of ST over the minimum. The reason for it is pretty simple... it keeps lighter weapons viable as the character progresses. As designed, TFT is an escalating arms race with characters constantly upgrading to larger weapons. That's fine unless you are trying to stick with a particular archetype, like a fencer or master knife fighter.

I always thought that part of the balance for fencers was the low damage the weapon does. Of course, +1 per 3 ST doesn't change that a whole lot.

[larsdangly]

Re. the excess ST bonus to damage, my house rule stipulates that weapons that have no ST requirement do not benefit from this bonus.

The overall importance of this rule was greater when I first introduced it to my game back when I played 'classic edition' because lots of characters reached high ST scores. Now it only crops up as a +1 or maybe +2 damage bonus for special cases, like a strong warrior fighting with a mace or short sword.

However, there are still some special instances where it feels pretty important. I've adapted the Supers rules from the Companion to create really powerful fantasy characters (think demi-gods, suspected Mnoren, 1000 year old sorcerers, etc.). With these rules it is not challenging to come up with characters who have ST scores of 30 or more.

In fact, I just recently created a 'comic-book' sort of version of Conan using these rules and he ended up with a ST of 30. Such a character would never fight with a broadsword if damage were limited to 2d and, under RAW would always fight with some weird combination of bizarre weapon choices. That strikes me as absurd, and so I'm glad in this case that this sort of Conan can hew a foe with a broadsword and do an appropriate seeming 4d damage.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

Re. the excess ST bonus to damage, my house rule stipulates that weapons that have no ST requirement do not benefit from this bonus.

The overall importance of this rule was greater when I first introduced it to my game back when I played 'classic edition' because lots of characters reached high ST scores. Now it only crops up as a +1 or maybe +2 damage bonus for special cases, like a strong warrior fighting with a mace or short sword.

However, there are still some special instances where it feels pretty important. I've adapted the Supers rules from the Companion to create really powerful fantasy characters (think demi-gods, suspected Mnoren, 1000 year old sorcerers, etc.). With these rules it is not challenging to come up with characters who have ST scores of 30 or more.

In fact, I just recently created a 'comic-book' sort of version of Conan using these rules and he ended up with a ST of 30. Such a character would never fight with a broadsword if damage were limited to 2d and, under RAW would always fight with some weird combination of bizarre weapon choices. That strikes me as absurd, and so I'm glad in this case that this sort of Conan can hew a foe with a broadsword and do an appropriate seeming 4d damage.

Ah, okay, I can see why this matters more thematically. If you picture priests carrying maces, forcing a strong priest to do very little damage would matter.

I get the point better now.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

I like this one; it resembles a house rule I use and would include in a 'top 10' list, but that doesn't make my top 3 simply because players don't take advantage of it enough for me to feel it is really important. Your other two are too radical for me!

I usually play a Wizard and I felt this gave Wizards a lot more flexibility. Legacy has it’s newer Staff spells but I haven’t had a chance to use these yet.

[larsdangly]

Totally agreed; I created a generally similar house rule to give wizards this extra flexibility but to bring with it a substantial cost that would give them pause, so it wouldn't just be a case of 'wizard grade inflation':

The ST expenditures associated with spell casting may be paid for in any of the three following ways:
— The normal specified exchange of 1 point of exhaustion (i.e., temporary ST reduction) per point of ST required by the spell.
— 1 point of normal damage (i.e., as a physical injury) per 5 points of ST required by the spell. This damage saps the wizard's vitality in ways that cannot be healed by a physicker or standard healing potion.
— 1 point of permanent ST reduction per 20 points of ST required by the spell. This reduction does not recover with rest, natural healing or magical healing — it may only be re-gained by normal experience expenditure on attribute increases, or by the normal use of a Wish to raise an attribute (including all constraints on Wishes).

I'm a little surprised that my PC wizards don't want to take advantage of these options, but they are scared off by the costs of damage that is slow to heal or stat losses that could take months of adventuring to ever recover. But they are fun things to have a weird, evil foe do in a fight!

[tomc]

For long dungeon crawls, I like a house rule I picked up this forum:

Track each wound separately, and let each wound be treated by a physicker individually after combat. So wounds of 2 or less have no long term consequence (as long as you survive the combat), but major injuries still do.

[larsdangly]

I've done that in the past and it's a pretty good rule; it obviously facilitates longer adventures, it radically increases the value to a party of a physicker, which draws players into the skill-based rather than murder-based model of character design, and it substantially increases the value of armor, which I think is a great thing for upping the versimilitude of TFT. I stopped doing it when I focused on playing legacy edition RAW, but I could see going back to playing this way.

[Steve Plambeck]

Actually used in my old group:

1) A Wizardry Talent to be a wizard, cost 5 memory points, mainly to enable charging the same cost for all other talents to wizards and non-wizards.

2) Spells and Talents became separate memory tracks. An IQ 11 wizard could have 11 points worth of talents (net 6 points because 5 had to be dedicated to the Wizardry Talent, and the same wizard could still learn 11 spells.

3) An additional option to Parry that could be chosen instead of Attack or Defend. To succeed the defender had to make a 3 vs DX roll with their ready weapon immediately after the attacker made a "to hit" roll, but before the attacker rolled for damage. If the roll to Parry succeeded the incoming attack was completely deflected.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

Actually used in my old group:

3) An additional option to Parry that could be chosen instead of Attack or Defend. To succeed the defender had to make a 3 vs DX roll with their ready weapon immediately after the attacker made a "to hit" roll, but before the attacker rolled for damage. If the roll to Parry succeeded the incoming attack was completely deflected.

I’m not sure about this. It seems to me that it will be almost impossible to hit higher DX figures using this rule. It also seems unrealistic that this could be used against giant weapons, huge monsters etc. How can you “parry” a giant club?