How I Play My Games - GFC's House Rules

Major differences from B/X

This is my set of house rules for running my home game. I've nicknamed it HAUBERK.

Justifications in order presented in the image:

4d6 drop lowest, swap two instead of 3d6 down line + modifying stats:

• Player psychology: higher numbers are better than lower numbers. Since I've retooled the bonus range, it doesn't result in much more power.
• Swapping two scores is faster than having players modify stats and takes less space to explain. Since I run open table and sometimes introduce new players to the game, it's helpful to give them a sheet to explain chargen, and the less complex the better.
• This also allows players to "roll up a cleric" & c. while still retaining the "go with what you've got" feel

-1 to +1 instead of -3 to +3

• Since I use 4d6 drop lowest, stats are higher, but bonuses are rarer
• This is similar to how Gygax houseruled his convention games
• The rarer bonuses are, the more special they are. A +3 to to-hit and damage should IMO be because of a powerful magic weapon, not because of a lucky roll at chargen.

(Prime reqs work much the same way as B/X, but I've lowered the +10% threshold to 15)

No thieves

• Simply put, no one wanted to play thieves in my games because they sucked.
• I have misgivings about how traps are usually handled, and thieves feeling obligated to search everything for traps wore on me.
• The way I run games, traps are found through interaction, not search rolls, which further eliminated their design space.
• Every character can do stuff a thief can do, but halflings are better at stealth and dwarves are better with mechanical matters.

Level caps rarely actually matter. Whenever I design things for my games (e.g. Barbarian class), I only balance them up to 9th level anyhow.

HD rework

• Distro (M/Us only getting 1 every other level, no cleric HD on lv. 2 or 5) brings it closer to OD&D HP, less "bloaty"
• No cleric HD on lv. 2 cuts down on odd phenomenon where assuming same XP across party, cleric and not fighter or dwarf will have highest HP in party.
• Re-rolling all HD cuts down on extremely unlucky rolls
• HD matters because I frequently use mass-combat rules, and HD figures in to those calcs rather than class and level. This is why e.g. a level 4 M/U has 2 HD rather than 4.

Weapon restrictions:
HAUBERK weapon list:

•  Weapon restrictions + this weapon list creates a "capped" damage die per class.
• Elves and Fighters can do d8 with a one-hander or d10 with 2h
• Clerics, dwarves, and Halflings can do d6 1h or d8 2h
• M/Us can do d4 1h or d6 2h

Cleave:

• I'm refining my mass-combat rules and looking to make something sort of like "squad combat," where it's not quite worth it to bust out wargaming rules, but have been using ACKS's rules in the meantime.

Player critical hits only (enumerated in the weapons image):

• Makes 2h weapons slightly more valuable (to help them compete with magic shields)
• Doesn't make players too terribly powerful (only adds at most +4.5 dmg 5% of the time, more usually +2.5 5% of the time) so combat isn't super in their favor.
• I don't let monsters crit because players take so many more hits over the course of a campaign.
• "Max damage" keeps combat math extremely speedy. On their equipment  sheet they write e.g. "+1 mace (dmg. 2-7)" so if they crit they don't have to calculate at all, they know they hit for 7 damage.