Big Pile of House Rules, Rules Patches, and Errata

[Amanojyaku]

Work to rebalance LN's exaltations can be found here.

Incendiary
When someone is damaged by a weapon with this property, he must make a Dex Test (TN 15) or catch on fire.

Corollary: The Fire property is not a thing that exists, and anything that references it instead uses Incendiary.

[GuardianTempest]

Parrying ranged attacks with shields
Instead of the normal benefits of a Full Defense action, you may instead gain the ability to parry ranged attacks using a Shield weapon (as in the weapon group) until the start of your next turn.

Optional Add-on: You can also do the same thing to non-Shield weapons as long as it has the Defensive special quality.

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Of Fists and Fencing
Bonuses to Weaponry rolls (like the Hatred feat) can apply to Brawl if the subject is using unarmed attacks.

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Spell-like Abilities
"There's no way a Dryad should smell so good that it rains blood."

Spells granted by Exaltation or racial powers can only be cast Unfettered and does not cause Psychic Phenomena.

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Username's idea for Player-like Allies
Allies start with 600 XP when starting out (like player characters), with an extra +1000 for every dot beyond the first. They also receive half the XP their associated player receives after Character Creation to keep them from being useless without getting overpowered. They cannot have Background dots in Allies to avoid recursion. They also cannot take the Enemy hindrance.

Example: The Everyman, an Alchiral Demiurge, has three Allies—two of them are at three dots while one only has a single dot. At Character Creation, the Ally with a single dot (Mary) only has 600 XP to spend while the remaining two (Snuffy and Chairman Jack) has 2600 XP.

After Character Creation, The Everyman gets 200 XP at the end of the session, this means all of his Allies get 100 XP. Several sessions later, he has a total of 2400 XP throughout the campaign and his Allies have accumulated a total of 1200 XP after character creation.

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Heightened Grapple TNs
The TN for slipping free of a grapple is 20, 25 if the attacker has Bear Hug.

This way, slipping free is more considerably difficult for the average shmuck with 2 Dex but not for those who invest more in Dexterity.

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On the off-chance that RAW screws over the Magitek Gunman and Elemental Gearbolt's intended use of shooting with bows multiple times...

A ranged weapon with a clipsize of 1 can be used with the Multiple Attacks action if reloading it is a Free Action.

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To anticipate potential interpretation-based shenanigans...

When combat ends, all currently ongoing effects that rely on structured time (e.g. most things with "until the start of your next turn") also end.

For example: If an effect would give you +2k2 to damage rolls until your next turn, but combat ends before so, then the boost will also end as well.

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Getting smaller at Size 1
If an effect would decrease your Size but you are already at Size 1, add +2 to your Static Defense for each remaining point of reduction instead. This effect lasts as long as the excess in Size reduction does. Consequently, increases to your Size remove the extra boost in Static Defense first before making you bigger.

Example: If you would have -3 to your Size, you gain +2 Static Defense if you're playing as an Elf or +4 if you're playing as a Halfling.

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Free Style Points for Sword Schools and Gun Kata (obtusely tweaked by me)
When you buy a rank in a sword school or gun kata, get X free style points for making Special Attacks/Trick Shots where X is the new rank in the school/kata. Unused style points can be saved up between sessions but cannot be refunded once used.

stellatedHexahedron's Stricter No-Spam Variation:
You must use your free Style Points immediately as you get them.

Martial Re-calibration Variant
Upon raising a martial school level you may change what advantages and restrictions a special attack has as long as you are not reducing the total amount of style points it has.

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Promethean Fueling
A Promethean can gain points of Fatigue but are not affected by its effects (for the sake of using Luminen abilities). Because a Promethean has a powerful generator for a heart, all Fatigue is cleared at the end of the scene.

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Other house rules
A Paragon may treat Danger Sense an an optional feat in account of having Flash.

Withdrawing provides a Full Move instead of a Half Move.

For the purposes of calculating Static Defense with armor, only the Base AP of the Armor is used (so the Paladin's completion bonus doesn't screw you over).

Fatigue adds a cumulative -1 penalty to all tests for each level of Fatigue beyond the first. (this makes the mental math easier)

The Felling special quality treats the target as having -1 Resilience for ease of mental math.

[Traskus]

House Rules

Crit Clause
Critical damage is considered to be negative hit points for purposes of healing spells and abilities. Example: A character at 3 critical damage may be brought up to zero hit points with a cure moderate wounds spell that would heal 3 hit points.

Extra Armor
Mechanics that increase AP on locations while wearing armor only affect the locations covered by said worn armor and do not affect static defense.



Game Options

'Ard Mode
When calculating damage, divide the damage roll by resilience before applying AP and pen.

Conquering Fear
If a character passes a fear check against a variety of creature with the fear trait, that variety of creature's fear trait is ineffective against them from that point on unless the character has a specific phobia for it.

Deny the Witch
You may use Level in place of Arcana when making saving throws.

Hacking Rules

Hacking a machine, promethean, warforged, etc. is mechanically (heh) simple. It qualifies as a social attack using tech use + intelligence, but can be made during normal combat via applicable to-hit rolls with a device capable of hacking and refuted by the target via a tech use + willpower roll. It can drain two Resolve from the target before they become jaded, but this does not count toward normal social combat draining of Resolve.

Hacking non-intelligent machines require a roll with a TN equal to the roll to program it. Such machines have Resolve equal to their programmer's dots in tech use. They do not become jaded unless you fail a hacking roll. If the machine's resolve is reduced to 0, you've hacked the machine. Congrats!

Unluck
Unluck is no longer bullshit. The penalty to rolls only applies on the target's next roll.

Melta Weapons
Melta weapons double their Pen at half range or closer and treat vehicles and buildings' resilience as half for damage purposes at point-blank range. Call this the "melta" property if you wish.

Only So Big
The maximum size a character can become is 30. Any abilities or attempts to surpass size 30 fail and are otherwise ineffective.

Overheating Revision
Overheats activates on a weapon jam, rather than rolling a 9 for damage.

Plasma Weapons
The plasma weapon creation template is (E damage, +4 pen, +1k1 damage, double reload time).

Recharge Revision
Instead of what the book says, Recharge may do what the book says or you set aside one die when attacking with the same weapon on its next attack if not taking a turn to recharge. That die is a 1, no specialties allowed. This effect is cumulative (2 1s at 3 consecutive attacks, 3 1s at 4, etc.). This does not create dice penalties to the roll, merely dictates the result of one of the dice.

Divine Grace
The Divine Grace feat is optional on the Paladin class track.

[username]

Caught With Your Pants Down

If putting on or taking off armor in combat, it takes rounds equal to the AP of the armor, with the exceptions of helmets which take only a round to doff or don.

[Traskus]

Weredrago2

Extra Hit Points
What's that? Your party is made out of porcelain and you need more HP to get through another round of Rocket Tag? In that case, add your Size to the number of wounds your character can take before entering Critical Damage. While this rule only puts a bandage on a much larger problem inherent to this system, it works as a good stopgap until Dungeons: The Dragoning decides to go and fixes itself.


Alternate Damage
After rolling for damage and applying damage reduction from armor or aura as normal, check your weapon's damage against the target's Resilience score. If the damage goes over the target's Resilience, they take a wound. For every raise you get over the target's Resilience on the damage roll, they take an additional wound. Using this rule makes Resilience much less of a factor in determining the number of wounds you take from an attack. While smaller and less resilient characters benefit from this rule, the same can't be said for the bigger and burlier types of characters.


Separate Critical Damage
This is a rule that some people follow anyway, but it's a deviation from core. Simply, it means you track the Critical Damage you gain from every Hit Location separate. It makes characters slightly harder to kill, but damn, will fights get grittier. It also means that Prometheans get less of a benefit out of Superlative Constitution, but they're still very difficult to keep down permanently.

[Lestat]

Grappling: Add Strength to Initiate
When making a Brawl test to initiate a grapple, roll and keep your Strength and add your dots in Brawl as additional rolled dice. Effects that typically only improve the Strength test to maintain a grapple might also improve the test to initiate a grapple, such as an ability that changes the test to maintain to Dexterity.

Grappling: Might vs Agility Resistance
When initiating a grapple the target may oppose the test with a Strength + Brawl test to brush the attempt off, or a dodge or parry test to raise their Static Defense above the TN of the grapple to avoid it.

Strain: Unhindered Spell-like Abilities
Focus Power tests from spells, or spell-like abilities granted by Exaltations, or Races do not suffer a penalty from Strain.

Devotion: Static Devotion Costs
The first six dots of devotion cost 50 XP each, and the last four dots of devotion cost 100 XP each.

[accidentalbystander]

How Do Fist?

Natural weapons and your body (or whatever it is you use for weaponless unarmed attacks) are considered part of the Unarmed weapons group.

Yes, it's an obvious common sense thing. People going by RAW sometimes don't have common sense, so might as well put it in writing.

[username]

Attack Action Equalization
The Called Shot and Fight Defensively Actions may be done as a Half Action instead of a full action, however they may not be done during the same turn as each other or a Standard Attack.

This is a house rule that occurred to me earlier to try and mend some of the less useful attack options. Called Shot and Fight Defensively are interesting options, however since they take up your entire Full Action (and require Concentration, thus are affected by things such as Fear) they are almost always worse than just using a Standard Attack. Fight Defensively is especially odd since it is marked as half action in one place and full in another: It's probably a full action for the same reason as Called Shot: To prevent you from doing it in the same turn as a Standard Attack to completely bypass Two Weapon fighting or Multiple attacks.
Letting them be used as a half action while still not letting them be used together or with a standard attack helps alleviate this. A few other options would be to make them half action modifiers like the Aim Action, where they apply to the next attack. This would still mostly restrict thinks to standard attacks but if you are willing to wait you could called shot on a full auto burst or make defensive multiple attacks or some such.

[Deleted]

Suggestions to make corebook Plasma weapons worthwhile

These are meant to be different suggestions and not to be applied all at once.

DivergentReality: Remove Overheats OR Reduce the Overheats Penalty to inflicting a wound and removing Recharge OR swapping Overheats with Unreliable

Traskus: Improve Pen and Dmg slightly

GuardianTempest: add 2k1 to the damage

Accidental Bystander: Overheats triggers on Jams instead of 9s of damage (to keep consistency with source material)  (Consider adding +1k0 to the damage if using this houserule) (Silly option: "Gets Hot" and "Overheats" makes it work like the old "Overheats)

Suggestion to improve corebook Melta weapons

Traskus: Double the Pen at half range and gains a bonus to damage to the AP of the struck Location when hitting a Vehicle (Alt Mode Warforged do not count)

DivergentReality: Gain Sadistic and Tearing against Vehicles and Buildings (Again, Warforged Alt Modes do not apply)

[username]

HOUSE RULE IDEA:

Grenades are a Hell of a Drug
Grenades, Missiles and other ranged weapons of the Thrown type that are expended (or even exploded) after use may be purchased in Bulk in a similar manner to drugs: Meeting the Wealth acquisition TN gives you 10 of the weapon in question and by increasing the acquisition TN by 5 (decided prior to making the test, as normal) you may acquire 20 instead. When purchased in this manner, you are not purchasing a steady source of the weapon that can be resupplied at a base of operations in a day like normal. Rather, you are acquiring a set of 10 or 20 all at once and when they are used, lost, etc you will need to make additional Wealth Acquisition rolls to acquire more.

SPOILER: Click to show

This is a rule to help address the oddity of things like a Grenade Launcher having 6 ammo but grenades needing to be purchased one at a time. Starting with a Grenade launcher and enough Frag grenades to fill the clip requires at least 4 dots of inheritance all by itself. With this house rule people can instead choose to just purchase a set number of bombs/missiles/grenades all at once, and if they run out they'll just need to find a market and downtime to purchase more.

[Lestat]

Equipment Packages: Point-buy
Instead of taking equipment packages all characters may choose their own equipment as if they had Inheritance 3.

[ScrapyardDragon]

On a steel horse I ride (aka the lance fix)
riding an open topped vehicle counts as being on horseback for the purposes of calculating damage from lances. While you are driving an open-topped vehicle, you may uses lances with one hand.

But what IS a divine bond? (a quick rewrite to the divine bond feat to use book 2's vehicle rules)
Divine Bond: You gain a holy steed that can be summoned at will. This typically takes the form of a warhorse, but depending on the culture of the user, it can form any other appropriate riding animal or small ground vehicle. Create a vehicle with a budget of 100 VP when you purchase this feat to represent your steed. It takes a full action to summon the steed, and it can remain for a full day. If it is lost or destroyed, the character is unable to use this feat for three days while the bonded steed reforms.




yeah, thats actually a thing, the weapon description (not profile) in the book says that lances get a +0k1 damage bonus when on horseback. The second sentence is there because of the realization that you cannot drive a vehicle while using a lance because of the need to commit at least one hand to the controls, while lances are two-handed weapons. This is what happens when two skills and a random weapon property buried in the description instead of its statblock interact with a system that hasn't even been written yet, much like how RAW there's no rules for what stats the divine bond feat's mount actually has. Speaking of!
A common houserule for the divine bond feat is that its just a 100vp vehicle (enough to get your mobility tool but not enough to really break things in the way higher budgets can). Despite being a more popular one I've not actually seen anyone properly define it here on the forum proper, it seems to just be one that people kind of just agreed on and forgot about, so, here ya go, a proper codification that can be pointed to.

[Traskus]

Traskus' "make the game simpler/go faster" rules.

Flamer Hit Locations

Flamers (and similar weapons that skip to-hit rolls) hit the location with the least protection relevant to its damage (AP or aura).

Multi-Target Attacks

Attacks that hit multiple targets simultaneously roll one damage roll per attack (flamer hit, blast, etc.).

Blast Hit

Targets that successfully dodge an attack with a blast radius ignore half the damage of the attack.

Critical Damage Simplification
When dealing critical damage, ignore the results unless they cause the target to lose a body part or die. In those results, treat any test as a failed roll with 0 checks and roll all other rolls normally.

Friendly Fear
A being with the Fear trait does not affect individuals it is on friendly terms with.

[Traskus]

Social Combat/Jaded
A character can use social attacks to drain a number of resolve from a target equal to their fellowship before the target becomes jaded, measured by the character with the highest fellowship that socially attacked them. (If you have 2 fellowship and an ally has 4 fellowship, both of you can drain a total of 4 resolve from a shared social target before they become jaded).

[Magnus]

Ready, Natural Weapons and Unarmed Strikes

It doesn't specify in the books and since RAW is murky I am going to clarify with a house rule
It would weird to ask a Vampire to spend a half action to ready their fangs even if they don't have the Quick Draw feat. Or a Werewolf to ready their claws.
And anyone with enough dots in Brawl to want to use a Natural Weapon or Unarmed Strike can drop into a fighting stance in a fraction of a second. Or throw a decent punch even without being in a stance.
Therefore here is the house rule that I would suggest.
Natural Weapons and Unarmed Strikes always count as readied unless there are extraordinary circumstances that prevent their use. Such as a werewolf's claw being stuck in a block of cement. Or being completely  Immobilized and Restrained to the point of being Helpless. Less than that and you can usually fluff an Unarmed Strike around your restraints at the usual penalty for being Restrained.




Hit Location roll and easier stunting

 I find it easier to stunt when I have a specific target on the enemy's body to stunt against. But the Called Shot action is so bad. 
What if we changed the order of operations on the attack roll. For example Rolling the hit location after you declare Special Attacks and other bonuses but before you stunt and the GM awards you dice.
Allowing for you to incorporate the Hit Location you rolled into your stunt.