Member House Rules

[Nyarl]

The only real house rule we run is when we play Cowthulhu if you turn over the Cultist card while kicking down a door, you become a cultist.

[Boragon]

When playing Epic Munchkin; When you are levels 10-14, all monsters have a +5 bonus; and levels 15-19 (or 15-22 if the 'Goes to 11' cards is used) all monsters have a +10 bonus. Now the reason is game balance, since you've been killing and getting lots of items to buff you up, it is quite rare to be to small to deal with most monsters two at a time.
Also with Epic, when you turn over your two door cards, if one or both is a Wandering Monster. Another player may play a monster from there hand.

P.S. I started a new post on house rules before seeing the sticky, oops...

[Puuka]

Originally Posted by Humorme

Chicken on your head: If you get the chicken on your head, you must actually place a chicken on your head until the curse is removed (coincidentally, I have a funny-looking, bean-stuffed chicken that works perfect for this... and it even looks kinda of munchkinly)

I'm surprised marketing hasn't made an official hat for this. Makes you dig through the deck and take the card to start the game with (Like the Cthulhu Tshirt and Cultist), but you also get a opening draw bonus like the shirts or are immune to other curses after (and extra stuff if signed by creators). Could still be lost or removed like the regular card though.
You can even buy them on Ebay (just look up "Chicken hat")
http://biggerbids.com/members/images...02_26-2620.jpg

[Zio]

Okay, lately me and my two friends have been revising and writing up our house rules, as we have tried to not only make gameplay more in tune to our style, but also play more smoothly in our group. Sorry if the text seems formal at times; we typed them up and printed out a few copies, so everyone can read them.

First, we have this:
Missing Persons Rule – if a player is absent from the table (to get food, bathroom, or whatever) start their turn as if they were there, open their face up door (or doors if Epic). If said thing is a trap or a monster, await their return. If it is Good Stuff, put it face down in their pile, and draw a face down door for them and move on. If this exceeds the number of Cards in their hand, they don’t have to discard until their next turn.

Epic Munchkin Changes:
There are some changes to how Epic games are dealt with. One still gets their epic powers, and one still knocks down two doors, but the following has been done to make it harder for a player to win.
When a munchkin reaches Epic, and knocks down two doors, apply the following to the monsters that may be lurking behind the door. These combat bonuses are permanent and cannot be removed:

When a Munchkin reaches:
Level 10: add 1d10 to lower level monster
Level 15: add 1d20 to lower level monster
Level 18: add 1d20 to each monster’s level, or 2d20 if only one monster present.
If the game has been lengthened (Mine goes to eleven card)
Level 20: add 3d20 to monsters (one to each, and the other to lowest level monster).
For every ten extra levels added to monster, add one treasure.

This is still being fine tuned, we haven't actually gotten Mine Goes to Eleven in any epic games we've played since instituting these rules, but we're hopeful. As you can see, we've decided to make it much harder for an Epic Munchkin to win, which was the point... not burning all our enhancers to stop an epic 18 from squishing two level one monsters, only to have the next player win because we had nothing left.

The next issue we decided to conquer was Blending decks. Mixing them all together became too much of a hassle, and sometimes meant REALLY Long games... so we kept each deck separated and had several door and treasure piles... this worked, except people usually stuck to one or two decks, and we came to a new solution.

Each player has their own unique deck, someone has Munchkin, someone has star, someone has Bites, etc. This opened up a lot of possibilities, so, again this is gonna sound very formal, and that's because its from an instruction sheet that we typed up to clarify the rules to new players or players new to our style.

You need at least as many decks of Munchkin as you have people playing, though rules can be bent to allow multiple people to use one deck.
- All Decks are kept separated, but they share common discard piles. (One for doors and one for treasures, I don’t care if you don’t want to mix them together, too bad)
- For reference: A foreign deck is any deck that is in play but is not your specific theme. (If you are Star Munchkin, then every deck that is not Star Munchkin, is considered Foreign.) The exception is Blender, see below.

Deck rules:
Each person has their own unique deck (One person with Star, one person with Bites, etc.) and must stay within their own theme.
Except:

If a player helps another play defeat a monster, he would collect his share of treasure from that player’s deck.
Example: If a person from Star Munchkin helps defeats a monster from Super Munchkin for treasure, he/she will collect that treasure from Super Munchkin’s deck.

If a player has a foreign card that allows them to draw door or treasure cards, then they are drawn from that specific deck
Example: If a person from Munchkin has a Yakuza class, and defeats (or helps defeat) a monster, they draw the face down door from Munchkin Fu.

If you are forced to fight a foreign monster, you collect your treasures from that monster’s local deck.
A Munchkin Bites fights Great Cthulhu, they collect treasures from Cthulhu’s deck.

A player can obtain cards from different decks through discards, trades, gifts, or pillaging.

A player can obtain cards from different decks by pillaging the discard pile.

Blender Rules:
If Blender is available, it should be placed in the center of the table. The availability of Blender cards depends on whether a player is Epic or not.

Pre-Epic:
For a Munchkin of level 9 or below, to draw from the Blender deck, they must have at least one foreign card in play and/or in their hand. (Note, if the only foreign card you have is a Munchkin Blender card, you are not eligible for Blender.)
Defeating a Blender Monster will allow the player to choose the treasure from any foreign deck.

Post-Epic:
For a Munchkin of level 10 or higher, they must have at least one card from each of the foreign decks in play and/or in your hand. We’re not making this easier for you just because you’re epic.

And, lastly, we saw one other area that we could make fit our style:
Dice Rules:
When playing with Munchkin Dice’s gambling rules, extend the numbers to 12, and use a twelve sided dice.

Numbers 1 thru 9 remain the same.
10: Draw a face down door from any deck of your choice.
11: Draw a face down treasure from any deck of your choice
12: Player can choose any of the above (basically what number 10 originally was)

We are currently just calling it Munchkin Crossbreed, and we're open to suggestions or criticism

[StaticHamster]

I find that the Ranger class can be weak compared to the other classes.

Yes you can tame a monster and make him a steed, but at the price of levels and treasures and you can only do this for one monster at a time.

And Ranged Support? Most people forget about it, but really it only helps your fellow Munchkins. Lame!

So I've decided that Ranged Support is replaced by:

Mounted Combat: +2 Bonus to combat for any Steed you are riding.

[Mylon]

A few of the classes need a little bit of love. Anyone have some house rules to help balance some of the classes?

My suggestions:

Warrior: +2 for each discarded card. +1 isn't much, +2 even feels a little weak, but at least you can do it 3 times.

Gadgeteer (Space Munchkin): In addition to other abilites, a gadgeteer may jury rig one item and equip it even if he does not have the class or race normally required to use it. He still requires hands/slots as normal.

Thief: Cannot steal if level 1. Being able to steal someone's +6 laser and make it your own +6 laser is 10x worse than any other ability/card, with the exception of a card combo to force someone to run away from a deadly monster and then using something to make escape more difficult/impossible. A smart thief would steal everyone else's stuff and happily take their discards to steal more stuff (being level lowest level), then sell all of the junk to rocket up in levels and then stomp and eat Cthulhu. And it's mate.

Cultist: Gets a permanent +1 for each appearance of Cthulhu, retroactive if gained later. I'll have to think on a better bonus for this in blended games where it's not as likely to appear.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

[MunchkinMan]

Originally Posted by Mylon

Thief: Cannot steal if level 1. Being able to steal someone's +6 laser and make it your own +6 laser is 10x worse than any other ability/card, with the exception of a card combo to force someone to run away from a deadly monster and then using something to make escape more difficult/impossible. A smart thief would steal everyone else's stuff and happily take their discards to steal more stuff (being level lowest level), then sell all of the junk to rocket up in levels and then stomp and eat Cthulhu. And it's mate.

Stealing stuff does come with a cost, but bear in mind, Thieves steal Items. Each portion of a Laser is still an Item, so they can't steal the whole array.

Other than that, I will argue that balance is good where it is. The cards aren't just created and left unchanged through round after round after round of playtesting.

[Mylon]

Originally Posted by MunchkinMan

Stealing stuff does come with a cost, but bear in mind, Thieves steal Items. Each portion of a Laser is still an Item, so they can't steal the whole array.

Other than that, I will argue that balance is good where it is. The cards aren't just created and left unchanged through round after round after round of playtesting.

Well, we had a situation where one player was a thief and he stole pretty much everything from everyone else (everyone else tolerated it at first because he limited his targets), and being the lowest level due to his failed thefts, everyone had to give them their discards. Being able to turn everyone into only their base level, enhance his own character with the items, and then sell all of the extras to get his levels back is a little, well... Munchkiny. I'm not aware of any other class or race or item or anything else that gives a player that kind of power.

[MunchkinMan]

Originally Posted by Mylon

Well, we had a situation where one player was a thief and he stole pretty much everything from everyone else (everyone else tolerated it at first because he limited his targets), and being the lowest level due to his failed thefts, everyone had to give them their discards. Being able to turn everyone into only their base level, enhance his own character with the items, and then sell all of the extras to get his levels back is a little, well... Munchkiny. I'm not aware of any other class or race or item or anything else that gives a player that kind of power.

Well, in 7 years of play, I've seen everyone try to abuse every option available to them. I don't think the Thief is terribly unbalanced, and at the cost of a card, a thief can run out of ways to steal. If you're giving up cards as charity instead of finding ways to get rid of them, or not using them to hurt the Thief and make him lose his class, it's your own fault. I know, I know, we're not supposed to blame the victim, but an insurance company won't pay you for your stolen car if you leave the doors unlocked, the windows down and the keys in the car, even if you do have theft insurance. My advice to you: Make sure you're not giving up cards you don't have to, especially to a Level 1 Thief.

[Mylon]

Originally Posted by MunchkinMan

Well, in 7 years of play, I've seen everyone try to abuse every option available to them. I don't think the Thief is terribly unbalanced, and at the cost of a card, a thief can run out of ways to steal. If you're giving up cards as charity instead of finding ways to get rid of them, or not using them to hurt the Thief and make him lose his class, it's your own fault. I know, I know, we're not supposed to blame the victim, but an insurance company won't pay you for your stolen car if you leave the doors unlocked, the windows down and the keys in the car, even if you do have theft insurance. My advice to you: Make sure you're not giving up cards you don't have to, especially to a Level 1 Thief.

I never gave any cards to that thief. But the other 4 players were more than happy to see me taken down. Then he started going for them.