The Fox's House Rules
Published 12/6/20
Updated 12/26/22
Not Quite by the Book
As many of my players are fully aware, I am no where close to a rules lawyer. I have read the dungeon masters/keepers guide books and players handbooks from cover to cover, know a majority of the rules for the systems I run. Quite frequently have cheat sheets up behind my screen to help remind me of things that I may have forgotten or want to remember for upcoming adventures. It is my opinion that no matter what system you run it is important to be familiar with the rules and recourses available for running the game. With each setting I have found unique situations that have made me question rules as written or after discussing with my players I have modified some of the rules that we play with. This blog post I consider "active," and will continue to be updated as more rules come up to be tweaked. In the columns you will find the different systems in which I have made different rulings in.
In General
-Hit points: When rolling for hit points while leveling, if you roll less than half your hit die (example rolling a 2 on a d8) you may reward yourself half your hit die instead + con modifier.
- Critical hits: when you score a critical hit, instead of rolling your damage as written x2/x3....
First: you roll for damage normally
Then: determine the max damage you can roll with your attack bonus before applying modifiers.
Combine the maximum result with the rolled damage and then add modifiers to create your critical hit damage.
Example: Petrov crits with his Warhammer (1d8 +1). First he rolls a 3. The max possible in rolled dice is 8. He has a plus one modifier. 3+8+1= 12 points of bludgeoning damage.
- Healing Potions: when using a healing potion to regain health you will always get the full amount of healing
-In regards to Nat 20’s and Nat 1’s, the results are dependent on the situation. Such as if you roll a nat 1 on something you have proficiency, and you have a lot of ranks it may not be a complete failure. Nat 20’s can mean an automatic success as long as your character can do the thing. As your DM I reserve the right to help judge these situations (are you under pressure, in combat, would your character be able/not in a million years be able to do the thing).
-We do not use the encumbrance rules, instead it is up to the DM's discretion how much anyone can carry.
Fifth Edition
-Disarm: If you are using two- weapon fighting and you are disarmed/only have one weapon, you can attack using an unarmed strike as your second weapon.
-For mounted combat you may do a movement and action combination and may also break up the movements (meaning your horse doesn’t need to stop at partial movement once you have hit your first enemy).
- I allow my pen and paper players to level their stats to above 20.
- When drinking potions not in combat the player is able to get max health back (concentrating and making sure they are not spilling anything). Also you are paying for quality potions; expect that they are going to do well.
Call of Cthulhu
-when making a character the player gets to add credit rating equal to half of their EDU for free (not against their skill points)
- A player gets to roll 1d10 to regain luck at the end of a scenario
-When creating a character I allow players to decide whether they want to take the age based banes.
-Medicine checks can do 1d3 hitpoints back to a player. Asprin/other meds can also do that once per day.
Pathfinder First Edition
-I do not use the age category rules or special effects that alter a person's age such as spells might. Players are still expected to pick an age within the normal life span of the race but I don't want them to take penalties for something that is role-play appropriate.
-Confirming Critical Dice Rolls: With how rare it is to roll a critical in table top gaming I do not make my players confirm critical dice rolls because there is nothing more frustrating than rolling an natural 20 for something amazing to happen and then not get that when you fail your confirm roll.
- Material Components: I do not make my players worry as much about material components, rather the gold pieces. The player must spend the gp cost to cast the spell but unless they want to rp buying or foraging for the supplies we assume they have all the needed materials.
-Surprise round: When my players are doing something sneaky/preplanned/well...surprising I allow them to have a surprise round before initiative order to prevent them from loosing their well earned advantages.