Our Pathfinder group has a rule that can be bad, but is actually a rule i like! You can say 10 words per combat round, + 10 in exchange for your action and +5 for your movement! It makes you think about what you say in a combat round! It also makes sense for a 6 second round, unlike the 1 minute rounds of AD&D!
DM I played with used the "Nat 1 makes you hit an adjacent ally" but with a twist: If you Nat 1, you roll again to see if you hit the ally or adjacent creature. I remember this once lead to a character rolling a Nat 1, missing their target, rolling another Nat 1 to miss their adjacent ally, which then lead into a roll that hit the original target. So hilarious spin attack that missed the target, near-missed the ally, and then actually hit the original target
I had a group catastrophically implode after I pointed out that nat 1 on a skill check in original pathfinder wasn’t an automatic failure in the rules as written. DM kinda seemed like she didn’t like me and I should’ve bounced long before, but she had a complete meltdown at the idea that I might know RAW that she didn’t. She also forced me to retire my level 9 fighter and since I had a better grasp of the rules and zero remaining patience for feats, I rolled a an elf wizard. She hated elves. She had a homebrew overpowered race but forbade my husband and I from using that race. She was a bad DM and I hope her book never sees the light of day
Sounds like she just wasn't open to any rules or concepts that weren't her own, really. It's up to her which rules to include, but being angry after just talking about it is kinda ridiculous
What the issue I have with critical fumbles on ability checks is when they have some unrealistic and often very forced negative consiquenses, like getting frightened by the thing you tried to investigate (probably need to specify that it wasn't a horror game). The best strategy in this case is just not doing anything, and it's kinda not fun. Also, both this and always acting in turns is kind RAW in ICRPG. I have a conversation yesterday with a person who insisted that I'm just not experienced enough as a GM to make it fun; I mean, I am not, but does it mean I can't dislike anything about the system?
I definitely agree, unless the attempted roll would realistically have really bad consequences, then a Nat 1 shouldn't be Too bad. A broken tool or something is one thing, but breaking someone's arm because they failed a lockpicking check is excessive.
When it comes to crit fails I sort of just play it by ear. If the party's doing well and it probably won't make them really worse off I might have someone hit the person next to them, or trip and fall prone, even had an archer snap a bow string once (but let her know she had spares in her bag). But if they're already struggling or just having a not so great day I might add some flavorful description of how they fail but not do any mechanical consequences. I mostly just do what feels funny or thematic for the moment. I've not had anyone complain about this and it usually gets incorporated into the roleplay, like later pranking the person who hit you in combat. It even inspired the archer to make her own bowstrings out of scavenged materials and I gave her bonuses for certain rare/magical materials. And this inspired the whole party to do some Monster Hunter style butchering and using the remains of defeated (non-humanoid) enemies.
I worry that swapping back and forth could lead to a "but LAST time you said nothing happened!" moment. But with a reasonable group, it could just be a fun way to add spice every now and then.
@@twistedpinttavern Yeah, it's definitely something to discuss at a session zero. my friends and I tend to be of the opinion that bad things happening on Nat1's adds to the excitement of rolling, but I also don't wanna TPK them because of it cause that's no fun for any of us, so that's the balance we found.
As they said in the Guardians of the Flame series; "It's a health potion! The only way you could hurt him with it is to beat him with the bottle." Those racial changes rules sound like they would only make sense in a world where the Gods are judging you and ruthlessly enforcing stereotypes.
@@twistedpinttavern it might be interesting if your race is defined not by who you were born from but from what god favourites you the most, which tends to change (probably similar to Reincarnation spell) over time depending on your important choices. But It's definitely something to discuss before the game, and I'm not even sure it really may work in actual game.
Tbf, the hypochondriac one kinda makes sense given the medieval(ish) inspiration for D&D. People died of all sorts of things that today we'd be like "how the actual fuck did you unironically die from that?!?!"
My understanding is that in some of the very early games (like the pre-D&D blackmoor game, and potentially the earliest versions of original D&D) the referee would roll nearly all of the dice for the players. I imagine this comes from the earliest war games, where players would state their orders to the referee who would interpret those orders, move the game pieces based on that interpretation, and narrate the results back to the players. The idea wasn't that you didn't trust the players though: it was that the player doesn't need to know the referee's mechanics. Instead a player should only be concerned with assessing the battlefield, ordering their troops, and managing the result of those orders. How the outcome was determined by the referee was irrelevant. If the DM rolls everything, they players can be sucked directly into the narrative and have to intently listen to the DMs descriptions and they have to rely on their guile and wits. I think something like that could be a lot of fun! But it would require a lot of trust on both sides of the screen, and also would require some serious expectation set-up beforehand. Neither of which that person had. Also, yeah, the player record sheet is for the players to keep, so screw that guy!
the elf rule is legit, in a nation game had a player play a nation of elves but then he made them be obsessed with smithing and making technological trinkets and refuse to use magic so we called them gnomes
@@twistedpinttavern well it's not D&D it's a nation roleplay game. Each player plays a whole nation. It was not really punishment he called them still elves and mechanically they were that it was more a joke that they were gnokmes because they were not in the slightest elfy
I use lockpicks regularly in real life and unless you are dealing with some kind of crazy puzzle lock you will NEVER break your pick. These things are made out of seel and are rigid enough to be used as a weapon. Not indestructable but it's not like you apply any serious force when picking. It's another question when working with a supposedly magical lock or under crazy conditions but even the most complex locks in banks are designed to break themselves instead of picks. Simply because the thief will have spares.
I mentioned the lock breaking as well, which I agree is more likely, but also, lockpicks and locks are a lot different now than they were back in medieval days. Though I do imagine breaking a pick would be difficult, still
Had a DM decide that you cannot raise a creature to be any other alignment than they are on their statblock. My character found 3 red dragon eggs (Re: Killed the mom before realizing she had eggs) and then raised them as a fairly peaceful trio, but DM said it was physically impossible to change their alignments to reflect the upbringiing. Same DM forced an alignment shift on the same character in a later thing, then got upset when I didn't want to play my CG character as LE because... Some fey messed with her.
That only makes sense for things that are made up of elemental alignment, like outsiders. Also now that I think about it, if you can't change a creature's alignment from the racial norms, would that mean all the PCs had to be their race's default Alignment? *gasp*
As a DM I get not wanting to allow a red dragon pet lol, however I think you should absolutely be able to have things differ in alignment, because some of the most intriguing characters are ones who break that alignment mold
This I agree with. Things that are sort of governed by forces outside of how they were raised would be more likely to stay even. Elementals, illithids, etc would be harder to stray from evil.
I guess fiends and celestials can't change alignment because it will change a creature type or a plane of origin in their case (or something of a sort, I have never had to deal with it), but for virtually anybody else it's weird.
@@nabra97 Not necessarily the case. Succubi (and Incubi, though that's really just a Succubi that's in a male form at the time) originate from the Abyss, which should make them inherently Chaotic Evil, but they actually can be found throughout all of the lower planes and are generally Neutral Evil. So at the very least, some fiends don't actually have an inherent tie to their plane of origin or its alignment.
I'm actually not familiar with an edition where a nat 1 is automatically a failure for skills. The closest I'm aware of is 2nd edition where a nat 20 is automatically a failure. I gotta say I am not fond of consequence less rolls as the GM in that example appeared to be illustrating. If there is no chance at failure, and the degree of success doesnt actually matter, then all you are doing is shaking your dice. I think one of the best rules that got thrown out with the bathwater is the take 10 action... although its still kinda around in passive perception.
That's what I mean when I say a Nat 1 failure is technically the Nat 20 failure, since AD&D still checks were swapped. Taking 10 or taking 20 aren't my favorite because they tend to lead to consequencless rolls, but overall I agree, consequences make things dramatic and make succeeding fun
These are all 5s on the bad scale for me. Bad homebrew can have a lot of negative effects on the game, and it adds up fast. It can slow things down, build up resentment with an adversarial relationship, and just not add anything meaningful to the game. Ask before you homebrew or set expectations ahead of time.
Time for some opinions. 1, terrible idea and leans too much into real life logic and not acknowledging that it's straight up a *magic* potion. 2, even worse. Movement speed exists. Most people can go 6 squares, some go fewer, few go more. There's no reason to randomly restrict everyone to using the same randomiser for their movement speed. 3, once again, movement speed and dash actions exist however I can see where they're coming from to use dice rolls to vary movement speeds. If it was for something like an added dash without taking the dash action then I'd see the logic behind it. 4, worst one of the video so far and is basically horror story worthy. Taking away racial features for roleplay is a terrible idea. Bad roleplay should at most only be met with having slightly more hostile or weird interactions in character but generally isn't actually an issue. Also, what does acting Elven even mean? Does the same logic follow that if you play as a Tabaxi without purring then you can't use Feline Agility? Regardless of roleplay, racial abilities are a core part of character building so the DM should not interfere for personal gripes. 5, I actually sort of get that. It doesn't make sense in social situations or some explorations situations but it is a decent way to make sure that the entire party gets a say during a puzzle or making things easier to manage in a stealth section. Initiative doesn't just have to be used for combat but everything is a bit much. 6, bro is playing on singleplayer with an audience. The idea of the DM rolling for the player and hiding those rolls sounds like a good gimmick for some mystery one-shot but is unsustainable longer than a couple hours. 7, could be funny on occasion if the player has a really low CON but the DC shouldn't be any more than 3 in most of those examples. It definitely sounds like a situation of rolling way too much. 8, lateness should be discouraged but not by financial means. Sounds like the DM wants to get paid without anyone firmly agreeing to it. 9, crit fumbles should only occur if there is no modifier or a negative one because regardless of any other context, getting a 0 as your total on a roll is hilarious. I get the argument of random circumstance but when someone has a +15, no level of random circumstance is getting in their way. They'll have learnt ways to account for that by the +5 range. The whole meaning of the modifier is how well you can deal with a situation. Someone with a +7 can manage a 1/20 quality situation in the same way that a commoner would deal with an 8/20 scenario. The modifier is the ability to make the most out of a bad thing and someone with a +15 can make a great outcome out of a terrible situation. It's a weird way of explaining it but from any other perspective, it slowly makes the modifiers more and more meaningless. 10, that's the whole point of darkvision, to adjust quicker. The DM has basically looked at darkvision and thought "But I can't do that" on a character who can shoot pure fire at will. 11, just no. It can be contextually justified with crit fumble rules but cannot be a blanket rule because it won't make coherent sense in a lot of situations. 12, haven't read it at all but I'm assuming it's terrible as most homebrew is. Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk.
What are the worst house rules you've had to experience? Let me know here in the comments!
Our Pathfinder group has a rule that can be bad, but is actually a rule i like! You can say 10 words per combat round, + 10 in exchange for your action and +5 for your movement! It makes you think about what you say in a combat round! It also makes sense for a 6 second round, unlike the 1 minute rounds of AD&D!
I could see this being disliked by some, but also keeping combat a bit more streamlined. Definitely depends on the table I think.
DM I played with used the "Nat 1 makes you hit an adjacent ally" but with a twist:
If you Nat 1, you roll again to see if you hit the ally or adjacent creature. I remember this once lead to a character rolling a Nat 1, missing their target, rolling another Nat 1 to miss their adjacent ally, which then lead into a roll that hit the original target. So hilarious spin attack that missed the target, near-missed the ally, and then actually hit the original target
I had a group catastrophically implode after I pointed out that nat 1 on a skill check in original pathfinder wasn’t an automatic failure in the rules as written. DM kinda seemed like she didn’t like me and I should’ve bounced long before, but she had a complete meltdown at the idea that I might know RAW that she didn’t.
She also forced me to retire my level 9 fighter and since I had a better grasp of the rules and zero remaining patience for feats, I rolled a an elf wizard. She hated elves.
She had a homebrew overpowered race but forbade my husband and I from using that race.
She was a bad DM and I hope her book never sees the light of day
Sounds like she just wasn't open to any rules or concepts that weren't her own, really. It's up to her which rules to include, but being angry after just talking about it is kinda ridiculous
What the issue I have with critical fumbles on ability checks is when they have some unrealistic and often very forced negative consiquenses, like getting frightened by the thing you tried to investigate (probably need to specify that it wasn't a horror game). The best strategy in this case is just not doing anything, and it's kinda not fun.
Also, both this and always acting in turns is kind RAW in ICRPG. I have a conversation yesterday with a person who insisted that I'm just not experienced enough as a GM to make it fun; I mean, I am not, but does it mean I can't dislike anything about the system?
I definitely agree, unless the attempted roll would realistically have really bad consequences, then a Nat 1 shouldn't be Too bad. A broken tool or something is one thing, but breaking someone's arm because they failed a lockpicking check is excessive.
When it comes to crit fails I sort of just play it by ear. If the party's doing well and it probably won't make them really worse off I might have someone hit the person next to them, or trip and fall prone, even had an archer snap a bow string once (but let her know she had spares in her bag). But if they're already struggling or just having a not so great day I might add some flavorful description of how they fail but not do any mechanical consequences. I mostly just do what feels funny or thematic for the moment.
I've not had anyone complain about this and it usually gets incorporated into the roleplay, like later pranking the person who hit you in combat. It even inspired the archer to make her own bowstrings out of scavenged materials and I gave her bonuses for certain rare/magical materials. And this inspired the whole party to do some Monster Hunter style butchering and using the remains of defeated (non-humanoid) enemies.
I worry that swapping back and forth could lead to a "but LAST time you said nothing happened!" moment. But with a reasonable group, it could just be a fun way to add spice every now and then.
@@twistedpinttavern Yeah, it's definitely something to discuss at a session zero. my friends and I tend to be of the opinion that bad things happening on Nat1's adds to the excitement of rolling, but I also don't wanna TPK them because of it cause that's no fun for any of us, so that's the balance we found.
2:42 half human and half [Removed]
"Yeah my mom and dad were elves but I'm a [REDACTED]."
As they said in the Guardians of the Flame series; "It's a health potion! The only way you could hurt him with it is to beat him with the bottle."
Those racial changes rules sound like they would only make sense in a world where the Gods are judging you and ruthlessly enforcing stereotypes.
I'm all for the tropes that come with playing certain races, but "gods enforcing stereotypes" just sounds like a bad time tbh
@@twistedpinttavern Well yeah, but it was the only way I could think of that making any sense, in universe.
Oh yeah, it's one of the only ways to legit enforce it. I was just saying even with that is still an odd thing to really push on the players
@@twistedpinttavern it might be interesting if your race is defined not by who you were born from but from what god favourites you the most, which tends to change (probably similar to Reincarnation spell) over time depending on your important choices. But It's definitely something to discuss before the game, and I'm not even sure it really may work in actual game.
Tbf, the hypochondriac one kinda makes sense given the medieval(ish) inspiration for D&D. People died of all sorts of things that today we'd be like "how the actual fuck did you unironically die from that?!?!"
That is fair lol. I think in a game where you're playing what are pretty much super heroes it's excessive, but it does have some realism
My understanding is that in some of the very early games (like the pre-D&D blackmoor game, and potentially the earliest versions of original D&D) the referee would roll nearly all of the dice for the players.
I imagine this comes from the earliest war games, where players would state their orders to the referee who would interpret those orders, move the game pieces based on that interpretation, and narrate the results back to the players.
The idea wasn't that you didn't trust the players though: it was that the player doesn't need to know the referee's mechanics. Instead a player should only be concerned with assessing the battlefield, ordering their troops, and managing the result of those orders. How the outcome was determined by the referee was irrelevant. If the DM rolls everything, they players can be sucked directly into the narrative and have to intently listen to the DMs descriptions and they have to rely on their guile and wits.
I think something like that could be a lot of fun! But it would require a lot of trust on both sides of the screen, and also would require some serious expectation set-up beforehand. Neither of which that person had. Also, yeah, the player record sheet is for the players to keep, so screw that guy!
the elf rule is legit, in a nation game had a player play a nation of elves but then he made them be obsessed with smithing and making technological trinkets and refuse to use magic so we called them gnomes
Changing an entire nation would be problematic, yeah, but the one off player character just playing what they want shouldn't be punished
@@twistedpinttavern well it's not D&D it's a nation roleplay game. Each player plays a whole nation.
It was not really punishment he called them still elves and mechanically they were that it was more a joke that they were gnokmes because they were not in the slightest elfy
@viorp5267 ahhhhh I see, I misunderstood lol
I use lockpicks regularly in real life and unless you are dealing with some kind of crazy puzzle lock you will NEVER break your pick. These things are made out of seel and are rigid enough to be used as a weapon. Not indestructable but it's not like you apply any serious force when picking. It's another question when working with a supposedly magical lock or under crazy conditions but even the most complex locks in banks are designed to break themselves instead of picks. Simply because the thief will have spares.
I mentioned the lock breaking as well, which I agree is more likely, but also, lockpicks and locks are a lot different now than they were back in medieval days. Though I do imagine breaking a pick would be difficult, still
Had a DM decide that you cannot raise a creature to be any other alignment than they are on their statblock.
My character found 3 red dragon eggs (Re: Killed the mom before realizing she had eggs) and then raised them as a fairly peaceful trio, but DM said it was physically impossible to change their alignments to reflect the upbringiing.
Same DM forced an alignment shift on the same character in a later thing, then got upset when I didn't want to play my CG character as LE because... Some fey messed with her.
That only makes sense for things that are made up of elemental alignment, like outsiders.
Also now that I think about it, if you can't change a creature's alignment from the racial norms, would that mean all the PCs had to be their race's default Alignment? *gasp*
As a DM I get not wanting to allow a red dragon pet lol, however I think you should absolutely be able to have things differ in alignment, because some of the most intriguing characters are ones who break that alignment mold
This I agree with. Things that are sort of governed by forces outside of how they were raised would be more likely to stay even. Elementals, illithids, etc would be harder to stray from evil.
I guess fiends and celestials can't change alignment because it will change a creature type or a plane of origin in their case (or something of a sort, I have never had to deal with it), but for virtually anybody else it's weird.
@@nabra97
Not necessarily the case. Succubi (and Incubi, though that's really just a Succubi that's in a male form at the time) originate from the Abyss, which should make them inherently Chaotic Evil, but they actually can be found throughout all of the lower planes and are generally Neutral Evil. So at the very least, some fiends don't actually have an inherent tie to their plane of origin or its alignment.
The worst house rules are those that make your characters seem like brain-dead invalids. Like, what kind of person can't run or drink?
I'm actually not familiar with an edition where a nat 1 is automatically a failure for skills. The closest I'm aware of is 2nd edition where a nat 20 is automatically a failure.
I gotta say I am not fond of consequence less rolls as the GM in that example appeared to be illustrating. If there is no chance at failure, and the degree of success doesnt actually matter, then all you are doing is shaking your dice. I think one of the best rules that got thrown out with the bathwater is the take 10 action... although its still kinda around in passive perception.
That's what I mean when I say a Nat 1 failure is technically the Nat 20 failure, since AD&D still checks were swapped. Taking 10 or taking 20 aren't my favorite because they tend to lead to consequencless rolls, but overall I agree, consequences make things dramatic and make succeeding fun
@@twistedpinttavern I'm kinda confused why a mechanic which makes you roll fewer checks would lead to an increase in consequenceless rolls?
These are all 5s on the bad scale for me. Bad homebrew can have a lot of negative effects on the game, and it adds up fast. It can slow things down, build up resentment with an adversarial relationship, and just not add anything meaningful to the game. Ask before you homebrew or set expectations ahead of time.
"Ask before you homebrew or set expectations ahead of time" is honestly the best advice here. And be open to player input.
@@twistedpinttavern Yep! Dialogues are important to build trust. :3
Time for some opinions.
1, terrible idea and leans too much into real life logic and not acknowledging that it's straight up a *magic* potion.
2, even worse. Movement speed exists. Most people can go 6 squares, some go fewer, few go more. There's no reason to randomly restrict everyone to using the same randomiser for their movement speed.
3, once again, movement speed and dash actions exist however I can see where they're coming from to use dice rolls to vary movement speeds. If it was for something like an added dash without taking the dash action then I'd see the logic behind it.
4, worst one of the video so far and is basically horror story worthy. Taking away racial features for roleplay is a terrible idea. Bad roleplay should at most only be met with having slightly more hostile or weird interactions in character but generally isn't actually an issue. Also, what does acting Elven even mean? Does the same logic follow that if you play as a Tabaxi without purring then you can't use Feline Agility? Regardless of roleplay, racial abilities are a core part of character building so the DM should not interfere for personal gripes.
5, I actually sort of get that. It doesn't make sense in social situations or some explorations situations but it is a decent way to make sure that the entire party gets a say during a puzzle or making things easier to manage in a stealth section. Initiative doesn't just have to be used for combat but everything is a bit much.
6, bro is playing on singleplayer with an audience. The idea of the DM rolling for the player and hiding those rolls sounds like a good gimmick for some mystery one-shot but is unsustainable longer than a couple hours.
7, could be funny on occasion if the player has a really low CON but the DC shouldn't be any more than 3 in most of those examples. It definitely sounds like a situation of rolling way too much.
8, lateness should be discouraged but not by financial means. Sounds like the DM wants to get paid without anyone firmly agreeing to it.
9, crit fumbles should only occur if there is no modifier or a negative one because regardless of any other context, getting a 0 as your total on a roll is hilarious. I get the argument of random circumstance but when someone has a +15, no level of random circumstance is getting in their way. They'll have learnt ways to account for that by the +5 range. The whole meaning of the modifier is how well you can deal with a situation. Someone with a +7 can manage a 1/20 quality situation in the same way that a commoner would deal with an 8/20 scenario. The modifier is the ability to make the most out of a bad thing and someone with a +15 can make a great outcome out of a terrible situation. It's a weird way of explaining it but from any other perspective, it slowly makes the modifiers more and more meaningless.
10, that's the whole point of darkvision, to adjust quicker. The DM has basically looked at darkvision and thought "But I can't do that" on a character who can shoot pure fire at will.
11, just no. It can be contextually justified with crit fumble rules but cannot be a blanket rule because it won't make coherent sense in a lot of situations.
12, haven't read it at all but I'm assuming it's terrible as most homebrew is.
Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk.