House Rules

[Uncle Servo]

Well, one biggie is that no matter what the power description under Animal Metamorphosis says, player characters are NOT allowed to change into normal-sized insects. I haven't made up my mind on giant-sized ones yet.

The only other one I can think of right now is that a mage can cast spells equal to or below his/her current level of experience and only take up one melee action. Casting higher ones take up an additional action per level of difference between the two -- so a 3rd level mage would take up 4 actions casting a 6th level spell (the 1 action plus the 3 for level difference).

[Iczer]

I have a rule that causes characters to make saving throws when they run out of SDC or pass out from shock and pain. It's a conditional rule, based on the character at the time of course. I also use a covering rule that allows people to 'get the drop' on others.

Batts

[Sybercid]

Rule 1: Standard Character Creation is Not an Option. In my HU games I have the character design the hero from the ground up. They right a background story and I feel the gaps. I also pick their powers and alter them to better suit each character. For Example - I have a PC who has Karmic Power. He does not get any of the bonuses from the ability and instead we can make a situational role to see if his karma can turn a bad situation good. This may sound very out of whacked but it has made for a very intersting game. The first time he used his power was in court. He was in court because he ex wife wanted more money out of him. He pleaded for a miracle and the courtroom window shattered. A gail like wind swept through and caught hold of some documents. Lucky for him those documents contained evidence against him. When his wife's lawyer went ot get copies it turned out they had been shredded by mistake. Another example would Invulnerablity. I make the player keep track of damage taken. even though he really doesn't take physical damage its a record of how pain he has sustained. I know that techincally he wouldn't feel pain but I designthe power around the mind's belief. If he reaches 0 SDC he has to rest for an hour before he will be able to take any further damage. If he continues to take damage he can slip into a coma. Those are just some small examples of our "house" rules.

[Iczer]

Do you use the Injury tables? Our Rifts group actually keeps the Heroes Unlimited book around just in case we run out of SDC or hit points, simply to have those tables there. Our ace pilot managed to blow his back out in a fight against a full conversion 'borg. Took the whole leave for him to heal up.

As to the cover, what are the details? How are your house rules different from the traditional sneak attack rules?

I only realy use the injury tables when characters have been truly beaten. 1/2 HP or less. Most times this happens at the stereotypical 'endo of level bad guy' so they end up healing or recovering in their 'down time' between games, so it is not so much of an issue except when the super soldier needs to heal a broken collar bone.


the covering rule is fairly basic. You make a strike roll against an unaware opponent, or a zone an opponent is likely to stumble into. The strike roll is at -2, but if successful, there is no damage. Rather, the attacker yells 'freeze' or words to such effect to let the victim know what's going on. From that point onwards, until the attacker drops his gurad, relinquishes the cover or is distracted or surprised in turn, the hit remains. at any time, even before initiative gets rolled, the attacker can simply roll the damage, and becuase it's set up for an unaware target it's usually a critical.

So how does one escape a cover? He can dodge, but frankly when he tenses to do so the trigger gets pulled (metaphoric trigger..you can cover with a knife, an energy blast, a firm grip to the neck) but the dodge is penalised by circumstance (IE GM call) and frankly lows the target's first attack for the next melee round of initiative. He can lanch a surprise attack, basically this means he gets to roll initiative agisnt his attacker. He can wait for the attacker to drop his guard. taunting is useful here, as is waiting for a teammate to distract him.

What he can't do is easy. any action that the attacker can see happen, and decides he doesn't want to happen results in applying damage.

Batts

[Sentinel]

Here are a couple of our "house rules":
1) a 1-4 is an automatic miss/failure/etc. Do not add any bonuses, you've missed. That has tended to put the possibility of failure back into a game where it seemed everyones' bonuses prevented them from missing.
2) In combat, any form of instant healing takes 1 action: you want to recover damage, fine, but it uses 1 action. A good way to keep Healing Factor from getting out of control, also applicable to Nightbane characters.
3) No player can use any character or equipment from any Book the GM does not own/have instant regular access to. If I can't research and study it before game play, then you can't spring it on me.
Since I own over 2/3 of the Palladium books product line, then this isn't terribly unfair. So, no buying the latest worldbook, and rolling up a character and expecting me to pass it until I buy the book. IF I plan on buying the book at all...