Whats your best houserule ?

Mine is : Fate points do not prevent characters to become a toad !

Oh I like that one. I'd like to extend that for Reaper rolls. Nothing worse than seeing an enemy roll a 1 and pop off a fate token.

I don't have any of my own house rules yet. Though there are a few that I test out.

Original Raiders text on Raiders !

Fate points cannot be used on any roll but one for an action taken by the character. Prime examples are a combat roll, praying or invoking, rolls against/under ones own Strength and Craft, etc. This also includes the action of casting a Spell. Take Randomize for instance, which as a spell being cast is thereby the action of the caster. The caster rolls the die, and if it wishes, can use a Fate point to re-roll... though it might be a stupid way to use a scarce Fate point.

Actions take by a character do not include any roll for the reaction of a stranger or a persona listed on a board space. Thereby the character may not use a Fate point to alter those rolls.

wow i did not know that. Though I didn't read the upgrade rules when I got them. I used fate the way the others used it.

I guess they were using a house rule LOL.

Had quite alot of house rules for 3rd ed but have reduced them for 4th, heres what we currently use....

1. Any test against Strength or Craft fails on an unmodified roll of 6. When testing using 2 or 3 dice the test is failed on a double or triple respectively.

2. A player cannot use movement bonuses such as from `Riding Horses’ and `Magic Carpet’ when travelling through the dungeon, including the turn when the character enters or leaves.

3. A character automatically loses a Battle or Physic Combat on an unmodified roll of 1 and their opponent rolls an unmodified 6.

4. Following a Battle there is a chance that a player’s weapon will break if the roll was an unmodified 1. If Armour was used then there is also a chance of breakage if the saving throw was an unmodified roll of 1. Roll a further d6:
1-3: Weapon or Armour breaks. 4-6: Weapon or Armour survives the Battle.

If the item was magical
1: Magic Weapon or Magic Armour breaks. 2-6: Magic Weapon or Magic Armour survives the Battle.

5. To complete a Warlocks Quest the instruction has to be completed twice.

6. A player must discard a Talisman when entering the Valley of Fire.

7. A character falls 3d6 spaces into the Dungeon when falling down a Pit Trap or Borrow Worm.

8. A player must roll under their current Strength/Craft on a d6 or miss a turn when encountering the Maze and
Swamp.
This replaces the instructions written on the card.

Our most popular houserule would be that the pit fiends are Craft and not Strength, rounding off the whole concept of a Strength route and a Craft route to the middle.

tjedgar said:

Doesn't that make them even more obsolete than when they have Str? At Mines, you're looking for Craft 9+, so having Pit Fiends at Craft 4 AFTER already passing Mines seems very pointless. Unless you've boosted them in terms of Craft.

I have change some cards to the third edition texts.

Trap Door: You may attempt to avoid the trap by rolling under your craft on 2 dice. If you fail to make the roll, or not to try, then you land on the first vault space in the dungeon

Burrow wurm. If you lose, then you fall through his hole on the first vault space in the dungeon

Giant spider ability: Before fighting the spider, you must roll a number less than your craft on one die, to avoid being tangled in its web. If you fail, you must substract two from your score in the batlle.

Snow drifts: All characters in this region must miss their next turn. in addition, each character in the region who fails to roll under their craft on one die must lose a life

Tumbling boulder: (if you draw the boulder) A huge boulder comes crashing down. Roll a die for yourself and each follower. Your character will lose a life on a roll of 1-2 while a follower is crushed by the boulder and must be discarded on a roll of 1-2. After this happens, move the boulder 6 spaces counter clockwise. For each space the boulder moves onto, any characters there lose 1 life and any cards there are discarded

Earth Elemental: If you are defeated in addition to losing 1 life, you are dragged down to the first vault space in the dungeon.

Rule one: For Spell regeneration characters you only regenerate your spells at the start of your turn. No constantly casting spells til you get the ones you want.

Rule Two: Treasure!

Sort out all the "5" cards (Followers and Items) from the remaining cards. This deck is called the Treasure Deck. whenever you encounter an enemy it may have some treasure.

Animals do not have treasure.

Enemies with Strength / Craft <= 6 have 1 treasure. Enemies with Strength / Craft >6 have two treasures. Enemies with Craft and Strength values (e.g. Chinese Dragon) always have at least two treasures. End of game bosses (e.g. Ice Queen) have four treasures!

Monsters are always smart enough to use their treasures to the best possible effect, so a Giant with a Ring gets +1 Str. Dragons will employ goblin servants to his Sword (and thus get +1 Str), etc.

For one shot items, (e.g. Potion of Strength) presume that that the item has one charge / dose left after the enemy has been defeated. Prior to that the item / follower will recharge every time. Hence the enemy will always benefit from the Potion of Strength, but the victorious character will only be able to use it once.

Enemies have made a deal with the Powers of Darkness and are unaffected by the negative effects of any items. Thus if a roll of a 1 would cause them to lose a life, they do not lose a life. This deal is so powerful that evil enemies can use "Good" items. In addition, they seem to have an endless supply of gold, should a follower / item require gold to function (e.g. Mercenary) (Of course they will have spent their last bag when the player defeats them)

Enemies with items that give them spells will use these spells against the first player that attacks or is attacked by them, using them in the manner which would reap the worst benefit fro the player in question (e.g. A Spectre with a Genie follower might use Mesmerism to steal the Maiden from a character attacking it. that way the Spectre gets +2 Craft and the player loses 2 Craft)

Optionally, Craft enemies (such as Spirits) have spells equal to their Craft / 4, fully rounding down all fractions (0-3, no spells, 4-7 1 spell, 8-11, two spells, 12+ three spells)

Mind Robber said:

We've occassionally used a variation on this that takes into account the type of armour card. This issue of breakage is more about whether in damage or failure it is still usable.

• If a natural 1 is rolled during Battle, roll another die to see if the weapon breaks. You may add the weapons highest battle bonus to this roll. If the total is less than 4, the weapon breaks. (NOTE: what happens after that depends on whether we use house rules for "repairing" via the Blacksmith for normal weapons or the Enchantress for magical ones.)
• If a natural 1 is rolled in using Armour to save a Life, roll another die to see if the Armour is destroyed. If the second roll would have saved a Life, the Armour is not destroyed but the Life is still lost for rolling the initial 1. (NOTE: consideration of magic armour being repair is as for weapons; magical armour if and when it comes up is already tougher by its save numbers and thereby doesn't need a bonus to its roll.)

My house rule is that in a case of disagreement over rule interpretation "The Rules are the Rules" and the most literal translation is used.

Also, when someone is about to Toad themselves, everyone must chant "TOAD, TOAD, TOAD, TOAD!!!"

Last but not least, don't be a jerk.

Hey, Velhart. I like your suggested changes on some of those cards. Very sensible, fair, and still challenging. I may even recreate those cards to match your instructions.

Dam said:

I can see both of your points. Let's face it... those routes were never that hard to beat, and in 4ER even more so since we have seen some extraordinary build up at times for the amount of Craft and Strength on characters going in. There are some nights were Talisman starts feeling a bit like Munchkins instead, and the Inner Region becomes a tedious cakewalk.

For us the Pit Fiends and the Werewolf are more akin to extra delays in turns to getting to the end, The actual challenges are Mines/Crypt & Death/Vampire

I have a text file on my desktop atm trying to rework the Pit Fiends / Werewolf, I am probably going to make them the same except one being craft and the other strength.

My house rules are nothing too major but here they are:

Joining Late / Leaving Early
Extra players can join in the game at any time unless the game has reached the point when players would be unable to draw a new character if they were killed. The new player must determine their seating position randomly if there are any disputes.

If a player decides to leave play before the end of the game, their character remains in place as if they were missing each of their turns.

If a player either joins in the game or has to draw a new character because their previous character died, they may elect to take over a character left behind by a player who has left the game.

Main Rules
P2 – The number of player rules are not used.
P9 – Ignore the paragraph in 2nd column beginning “ If a character ditches…”
P15 – The limited resources rules are not used.

Reaper
If you are using multiple dice for your movement (eg when using a Riding Horse) one of your dice should be designated as The Reaper die. The Reaper will move if you roll a “1” on The Reaper die.

If the Reaper is on an expansion board at the start of a players turn and there are no players on that board then move the Reaper to the Portal of Power

Dungeon
You may not take Riding Horses, Horse & Cart or any card used as a mount into the Dungeon

Hidden Variant 2 setup

Using this setup allows you to randomly any of the cards, even including those with a Revealed Icon
Before players determine their characters, shuffle all of the Alternative Endings and a card at random. If the card has the Revealed Icon, the card is placed face up on the Crown of Command. If the card does not have the Revealed Icon, all cards with the Revealed Icon are removed from the deck and the normal Hidden Variant rules are used instead

Cidervampire said:

Ah... a man after my own heart! Though I see you did not rule out Mules... which are now have a capacity no better than a porter in 4ER.

Do you play any alternatives for when a load-bearing follower or baggage are lost? Or do you stick with the magical "it drops everything" no matter what? We play that if the follower is obviously "killed" on the spot, or taken live by another character, its burdens are dropped. Otherwise burdens are lost with the Follower (such as in the Chasm or when dragged off by an Enemy / creature, etc.).

I considered playing like that and its hard to get out of the mindset that your followers must be carrying objects x,y &z etc. We currently play as the rules are written though I'm not sure why!

I generally stick to the rules unless they make me shake my fist too much. I guess if you start thinking too much along the lines of followers carrying particular items then you start wondering how you can make use of your Shield that is in a Porters backpack etc and then worry about more house rules I suppose.

Geoff

I considered playing like that and its hard to get out of the mindset that your followers must be carrying objects x,y &z etc. We currently play as the rules are written though I'm not sure why!

I generally stick to the rules unless they make me shake my fist too much. I guess if you start thinking too much along the lines of followers carrying particular items then you start wondering how you can make use of your Shield that is in a Porters backpack etc and then worry about more house rules I suppose.

Geoff

i like to read your proposals. i hoe some more will join here. i give you more of my houserules here. would be nice if you give some comments on them

1. starting locations

a character can miss a turn at his starting location to regenerate all fate or heal all life.next round he moves normally.

2.prestige classes

a character can discard a talisman to get a new character card. he can discard 2 more talismans to get another new character card. 2 new cards is the maximum. new cards cannot have opposite alignments.. the new cards will be placed above or under the old one, keeping sight of the skills. the skills of both cards can be used. everything else will be taken from the old character to the new one.

3. spell limit

the amount of allowed spells is growing every craft ( 8craft =4 spells, 10craft =5 spells, etc)

4 learning spells

characters who start with one or more spells can lear that number of spells. to learn it, the card is placed open in front of the player. if it is used, it will be turned over. it can be flipped over again and used again instead of drawing a new spell. objects, followers ans skills, that allow to draw a new spell can not reactivate deactivated learned spells. deactivated spells do not count to the limit of spells.

5. experience points

10 trophies are necessary to raise str / cra for 1. trophies can only be taken from enemies which are equal or higher str / cra then the characters values. objects and followers do not count here.

6. blessings

blessings are the light side of the fate points. they can bé earned instead of taking a fate point, but not at gamestart or when regenerating fate. only 1 blessing can be used per turn. after a roll it can be used to add or subtract 1 from the die roll.

7. black knight

hes attackingeveryone who is trying to open the portal of power. 10 life, 10 str, 10cra. black armour, shield and helmet, runesword.

8. spirits

all spirits can attacked with strenght if the charactrer uses a magic weapon.

9. fairy , phantom

give 2 different wishes in the middle region

10. devil, angel

do 2 damage in middle region

11. giants, dragon

do 2 damage and have 2 life in middle region or 2nd floor of addons on 3rd floor they have 3 life.

12, addons

in dungeon and highland all enemies have +1 str / cra per level.#

there are3 much more houserules in that stile, but these here are easiest to understand and strong in effect. i hope you play a game with them and enjoy it ! fffg takee a look of them, i can send you much more ( better then placing the palace of the ice queen in the dessert oh john notgoodenough !)

black kight has 4 lifes, not 2. sorry

Cidervampire said:

Ah, the dreaded Hoarder and Gauder syndromes. Gauders are the ones using objects that would never be compatible, like a Crown worn with a Helmet. Hoarders are the ones who use a Mule or Horse & Cart as if they were a bag of carrying... and by the games standard rules, THEY ARE, since there's nothing to distinguish them in what a character can whip out when it gets jumped by something nasty. Welcome back to MUNCHKINS land.

Overall, we have a simple rule; if an Object or Magic Object isn't carried by the character when it is attacked in any fashion, it doesn't get to use it. If per se, a character is going after something already in play, like that tasty Dragon worth a Strength all on its own, it had better ready.

"Oh, just one moment, Mr. Dragon... I know I've got that Holy Lance somewhere on one of my mules."

We actually only use one houserule. It is that no character can gain more than 7 extra strength or craft counters. This would give a "standard" human with strength 3 and craft 3 a maximum strength and craft of 10. Of course you can use equipment on top of this. Fighting Dragon Kings, Daemons and things like that should never ever be an automatical win...

Pirrekurr said:

I like that one, but then again I am tempted to try something similar, once you have doubled your starting stat, it costs 14 points of trophies for increases.

We play it that the tropy cost to raise strength or craft is equal to your current strength.craft including permanent bonuses from items and followers.

So if your craft is 6 and you have solomons crown (+2 craft) it costs 8 points to raise to 9