Out of curiosity - which is your most used house rule, the one you think works best and you could not do without?

For the purpouse of this thread let's focus only on rules concerning "in-play" as opposed to character creation (I imagine that almost everyone quickly make do without the randomised careers for instance).

bladerunner_35 said:

Quite a few. I don't think I'd be able to pick a single one. My house rules in the signature for the rest of them.

Here's a few of our house rules that I really like:

Critical wounds and infections
If you get one or more chaos stars when recovering from a critical wound you must make a disease check. The difficulty is based on the wound and other circumstances. If you fail this check you draw a random disease and put it in one of your talent slots.

Rest & recovery
If you get assistance to your recovery check from someone with first aid trained, you add one fortune die to the recovery roll pool for each rank they have trained in first aid. If you get assistance from someone with medicine trained you may add one expertise die to your recovery check dice pool, and if the assisting player has 3 ranks trained in medicine you may add one additional expertise die. This means no more rolling for first aid when recovering. Just roll the recovery check with the bonus dice. You still roll for first aid in combat or a rally step.

Blunderbuss mechanic
A player can fire the blunderbuss at a 0d difficulty. The blunderbuss always uses the basic ranged shot action card and no other action cards can be used with the blunderbuss. You cannot add expertise dice to a blunderbuss attack dice pool. Everyone in the engagement is hit as per RAW rules.

Living expenses per day
• below 1s = 2 misfortune dice to all checks.
• 1s = Nothing.
• 2s = 1 fortune die to all disease checks.
• 5s = 2 fortune dice to all disease and 1 fortune die to all wound recovery checks.
• 10s = As with 5s plus the character gains one additional fortune point (perhaps temporarily exceeding his max of 3)

Fortune favors the brutal
A character killing a NPC with a critical effect gains a personal fortune point.

NPCs and Severe Injuries
The severe effect always hits NPCs right away (some NPCs may function like players). Severe injuries also inflict a number of wounds equal to their severity rating against NPCs.

Random Combat Conditions
Whenever an action card gives a condition to an opponent you may either select the condition printed on the card or pick a random condition from the stack of combat conditions. For every success over the highest success line (or 3+) you may pick one extra random condition (up to your relevant skill level) and pick one to apply. This option does not replace the increased damage of having extra successes.

Prone / knocked down
When you get knocked down you have to use the lowest possible initiative token for your next action. you will have two misfortune dice on your next attack even if you use a maneuver to get up before you attack.

Snap shot Reaction Card
Snaps shot is now a reaction card with the following requirements: This attack may be played when you or an ally within close range is declared the target of a melee attack. This attack resolves before that attack takes place. Black powder weapon equipped, target within close range, no other action cards recharging.

Sudden knife reaction card
Sudden knife is now a reaction card with the following requirements: This attack may be played when an enemy moves to engage you. Not engaged with an enemy, target within close range. The recharge rating of sudden knife is one scene, meaning it recharges at the end of combat.

NPC morale
NPCs have to make a morale check when:
• A leader is killed.
• One third of the NPCs in the encounter has been killed.
• Half the NPCs in the encounter has been killed.
• Two thirds of the NPCs have been killed
• A particular powerful attack by the players.
• The NPCs are in a very disadvantageous position.
• Any other situation that makes sense.
Morale checks starts at simple (0d) and increase one level for each morale check until daunting (4d). Players can influence morale checks by using social/support action cards. This can add misfortune dice to the next morale check. Some NPCs do not flee at all and never make morale checks.

OPPOSED CHECK : instead of the rulebook unbalanced rule, roll a number of Challenge dice equal to to opponent's active characteristic -2. Two equal character then always have around 50% chance to succeed.

bladerunner_35 said:

Each character (player and non-player) must act on the initiative count they rolled.

Also, when using a ranged weapon to attack henchmen, you may only kill as many henchmen with a single attack as the number of rounds of ammunition you can expend. If your weapon requires you to spend maneuvers to reload, you may only kill a single henchman with the attack unless you are dual wielding two loaded weapons (in which case you can expend both their rounds of loaded ammunition). The exception to the rule is the Hochland long rifle, which may kill up to two henchmen with a single shot (by literally shooting through the first target).

Those are really the only two house rules I use. Though, after reading this thread, I think I might steal the opposed check house rule, the living expenses house rule, and the disease checks on chaos stars rolled when recovering from wounds house rule.

New Zombie said:

I imagine that the randomized aspect might be fun. However, my only (rather anecdotal) experience with randomized careers comes from the current (and first) WFRPG 3e campaign I am running. I gave every player the choice of giving me a character concept and choosing a career, or picking randomly using the RAW. Not one single player chose the random method...

i didn't give my players the choice. i wanted to get as far from the sour taste of other mainstream rpgs as i could. a couple of them were unsure of the approach, but they embraced it when they saw the diversity of the careers. i recommend you try it for the next campaign. they can always transition to a new career through the RAW, it's fun seeing their creativity as they establish why/how their career led to the life of a hero

New Zombie said:

I agree.

The other thing that the randomized chargen does is reinforce the tone of the setting. If left to their own devices, most people new to the game (and many veterans) will move towards the more traditional, fantasy, butt-kicking adventurer roles (iron breaker, waywatcher, apprentice wizard, initiate, pit fighter, etc).

It's a big transition coming from most fantasy games in which your career is solely based on how you kill baddies. It takes a little experience that a group consisting of a scholar, messenger, bailiff, and dockworker is just as good of an experience as having a fighter, magic-user, priest, and rogue. It's definitely more flavorful.