I'm being asked to run a 4th Edition game--House Rules?

[ggroy]

[TheWorid]

I find that at heroic tier, the "cut monster HP in half, drop monster level by 1" houserule greatly reduces the padded sumo effect and lets PC's big attacks and critical hits do meaningful damage. "You bloody him" is a lot more exciting to my players than "he looks somewhat more hurt, two more hits and he might be bloodied"

The really lazy way to do this, is to make all the generic monsters into "super-minions" which die after 2 or 3 hits. (A critical hit does 2 hits). At low enough levels, the players wouldn't know the difference from equivalent generic monsters.

The problem with doing that is that it makes all of your choices that led up to how much damage you deal completely meaningless. Granted, the tiny +1s here and there adding up is pretty stupid, but it just makes them more of a waste of time to not even use them.

[ggroy]

[ggroy]

[Username17]

If my DM ever pulled that shit on me I would finish the battle as quickly as I could, say my farewells, and walk. No question.

How would you be able to figure out that your DM was doing something like that?

When it took the Ranger 1 round to drop the same type of enemy that took the Rogue 3 rounds. That would make me get up and walk too.

-Username17

[ggroy]

[Lago PARANOIA]

Only times I remember seeing something like that happen, is when the DM actually bothered to roll the monster hit dice individually for each monster of the same type (in older editions) where the ranger just happened to kill the monster with a low number of hit points, while the rogue was unlucky to have chosen the monster (of the same type) which had a high number of hit points.

I hope you're just being hypothetical here and wouldn't actually try to do this to someone. If you haven't actually done this and you're just blowing smoke up my anus, let me bring you back to earth before you make a huge fuck-up.

DMing strategies that rely on players being ignorant of the rules are, well, let's not mince words here. It's deceptive, petty, and selfish. One of your hats is referee and if you're not being fair to the players by not informing them of changes to the rules then you don't deserve to be a DM.

It's one thing to tell players 'it doesn't matter what you pick, monsters go down in X hits' ahead of time. It makes you a huge prick, much in the same way that telling soccer players that they can't hit the ball with their head or knees anymore, but at least it doesn't make you a lying prick. I've played games with DMs who suck at the storytelling and game balance parts and I probably will again, but I'll never EVER play with a DM who abuses their referee hat.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Don't get me wrong, a DM who makes their plot a cliche storm ripped off of Lord of the Rings or tries to get us to suck the cocks of the Mary Sue or even tries to pull a Chrono Cross on us or introduces some stupid and pointless rule or bans monks while boosting clerics or has an interpretation of a rule that's flat out wrong is oftentimes a dealbreaker for if I play again (and I've had all of these things happen), but I don't consider these things unforgivable. Intentionally deceiving players about rules is unforgivable.

[ggroy]

[ggroy]

[Lago PARANOIA]

But you didn't answer my original question. How do you figure out the DM is playing fast and loose in an obfuscating manner?

Because the players have access to the rules and are expected to read them or at least be familiar with them. Frank gave a really easy example. How did you not see that?

This is how this particular DM did things, and the players were willing to go along with it.

Using basic probability, Schroedinger's Gun, or even making up rules for situations not covered in the rules is not cheating or deceiving if you tell players ahead of time that you're going to be using these tropes.

If the players were under the impression that monster hit points followed what was in the rules but the DM arbitrarily changed that, that makes the DM a lying prick.

[ggroy]

[ggroy]

[Username17]

Your counter example is not an example. Monsters in 4e don't have random hit points. There are people like Wizards and Rangers who hit many times. There are people like Rogues and Barbarians who hit really hard. If the multiattackers start pulling ahead in even multiples of the giant attackers, it will be bloody fucking obvious. Just like it's bloody fucking obvious when you're dealing with minions and Rangers and Wizards rack up many more kills than other characters can and do.

The Minion rules are fucked up. And if I find that the DM is jerking me around substituting Minion rules for actual content, I'll be super pissed.

[ggroy]

[ggroy]

[Lago PARANOIA]

This was the sort of detailed reply I was originally looking for from Lago.

Oh, fuck you. I just thought you were smart enough that I didn't have to paint the incredibly simple portrait of 'some players do more damage than others, so if monsters go down in the same hits regardless of damage the players do, players will find out something's amiss'.

[ggroy]

[ggroy]

[Kaelik]

When it comes to tabletop rpgs, I've never considered myself smart.

Nor has anyone else.

[ggroy]

[angelfromanotherpin]

Intentionally deceiving players about rules is unforgivable.

I actually did this recently, but only so I could steal an awesome scene from Matt Wagner's Mage. I had a player playing as a Tome Soulborn, but I had rewritten the class feature so that the Soulblade was an actual physical weapon that lit up, like the Paladin sword from Quest For Glory, passed down by his now-dead mentor.

Then, at level 3, he wound up in a duel with a Soldier who used Looting Strike to take his blade away from him, and he was in real trouble. That's when he had a vision of his mentor's blue ghost who told him that the power was in him all along, and then he conjured his new lightsaber out of thin air and critted his opponent to death.

That player forgave me, incidentally.

[Orion]

New House Rule:

In addition to the printed stat mods:

Dragonborn +2 CON
Dwarves +2 STR
Elves +2 STR
Eladrin +2 CHA
Half-Elves +2 ANY
Halflings +2 WIS
Humans +2 ANY
Tieflings +2 CON

[Username17]

New House Rule:

In addition to the printed stat mods:

Dragonborn +2 CON
Dwarves +2 STR
Elves +2 STR
Eladrin +2 CHA
Half-Elves +2 ANY
Halflings +2 WIS
Humans +2 ANY
Tieflings +2 CON

That honestly seems like a step in the wrong direction. If you're going to make all the Races give a +2 bonus to half the stats, you might as well just not even have stats.

I really think that by far the most elegant solution is to allow every class to use either stat listed for any power that lists two stats. Dual Attribute Dependency really is the beginning and end of most of the problems with racial determinism and railroading. Go back to SAD, and more than half of the game's conceptual staightjacketing problems just evaporate.

-Username17

[Orion]

I'd agree with you, except that most of my players are new to gaming, I don't want to introduce a rule which requires them to remember a different way to read power entries. I'd much rather change the numbers of their sheet then change the interpretive hermeneutic.

I don't even have to care if the system only allows 12 unique PCs because only 6 of them will get played. I mostly wanted to shore up the obvious trap options (tiefling fiendlock, elf swordsman, halfling archer, etc.)