Zapp's house rules collection
Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2019 3:21 am
Crude Handweapons
A new weapon category containing simple clubs, short or dented swords, hand axes, ... add any less good handweapon to this category: unwieldy, unbalanced, poorly maintained or simply worthless handweapons.
Crude handweapon
Price: 1/-
Damage: +SB+3
(This allows you to equip riff-raff with handweapons without the party immediately getting rich for defeating them. Just lower the damage listing of any foe by 1 (or just don't bother, maybe riff-raff are slightly stronger than other folks...?) that doesn't appear rich enough to have a "proper" handweapon. This also cuts back on the nonsense where starting characters immediately raid the garden sheds or rob travellers for weapons when the players find out they can't afford to buy any.)
Cappin' Advantage
a) you can only gain one advantage per combat round (net as opposed to gross)
...meaning if you started the previous combat round with 3 Advantage, you can only begin this combat round with 3+1=4 Advantage, full stop. Whether you simply got one more... or lost all of them but then got four new ones doesn't matter (maybe you got hit by a stray arrow, and then successfully parried all three Snotlings attacking you, plus successfully attacking yourself)
b) the maximum is 6 advantage (so you can use a d6).
(The unrestricted Advantage rules simply overwhelmed all other considerations. We did not want our combats to change into the advantage-collecting tactical mini-game optimal play suggests)
Dexterity in Combat
I'm opening up the possibility of getting by with Dex if you can settle for small, quick, concealable weapons: daggers, throwing knives, darts, cudgels and short swords (the latter two counts as +3 "crude" hand weapons). Add any similar weapons the GM and player agrees should qualify.
That is:
a) you may use Dexterity in place of Weapon Skill for Melee (Basic) skill tests with certain weapons (such as the Knife)
b) you may use Dexterity in place of Ballistic Skill for Ranged (Throwing) skill tests with certain weapons (such as the Throwing Knife)
For any other weapon, you still need WS/BS as normal. For any other Melee or Ranged skill, you still need WS/BS as normal.
(When Agility was split into Ag, I and Dex, the latter Characteristic ended up simply worth less. Careers that depend on it (thieves, tradesmen, engineers...?) effectively have a "Characteristics tax" if they too want to partake in adventures - read combat - while everyone can safely dump Dex. Now you can play a Cat Burglar character that puts her XP into Dex and Agility instead of WS and BS! After all, a high skill is MUCH more important that high damage in this edition, so asking a character to get on by with "only" a dagger is much less of an ask than it would have been in v1/v2)
Falling Damage
Effective falling height is reduced by Agility Bonus.
Example: you have Agility 39. You fall four yards. You suffer 1d10 + (4-3)x3 Wounds. That is, 1d10+3 Wounds instead of 1d10+12 Wounds.
(Hint: if you want your game to encourage exciting roof-top chases don't make your heroes avoid heights in general.)
Bleeding
Bandages: A character unskilled in Heal can still attempt to use one (set of) Bandages to reduce Bleeding. Spend your action to make an Intelligence Test. Success means Bleeding is reduced by -1. The Bandages is used up. You cannot apply more than one Bandages per injury, meaning that you can staunch Bleeding 1, but not Bleeding 2 or more.
The difficulty is Average (+20) when bandaging someone else in relative safety. The difficulty is Challenging (+0) in combat and/or if you attempt to bandage yourself.
(The official rules for Bleeding were hastily patched during playtest, and C7 clumsily left all the characters traveling without armor or a skilled healer out in the cold.)
A new weapon category containing simple clubs, short or dented swords, hand axes, ... add any less good handweapon to this category: unwieldy, unbalanced, poorly maintained or simply worthless handweapons.
Crude handweapon
Price: 1/-
Damage: +SB+3
(This allows you to equip riff-raff with handweapons without the party immediately getting rich for defeating them. Just lower the damage listing of any foe by 1 (or just don't bother, maybe riff-raff are slightly stronger than other folks...?) that doesn't appear rich enough to have a "proper" handweapon. This also cuts back on the nonsense where starting characters immediately raid the garden sheds or rob travellers for weapons when the players find out they can't afford to buy any.)
Cappin' Advantage
a) you can only gain one advantage per combat round (net as opposed to gross)
...meaning if you started the previous combat round with 3 Advantage, you can only begin this combat round with 3+1=4 Advantage, full stop. Whether you simply got one more... or lost all of them but then got four new ones doesn't matter (maybe you got hit by a stray arrow, and then successfully parried all three Snotlings attacking you, plus successfully attacking yourself)
b) the maximum is 6 advantage (so you can use a d6).
(The unrestricted Advantage rules simply overwhelmed all other considerations. We did not want our combats to change into the advantage-collecting tactical mini-game optimal play suggests)
Dexterity in Combat
I'm opening up the possibility of getting by with Dex if you can settle for small, quick, concealable weapons: daggers, throwing knives, darts, cudgels and short swords (the latter two counts as +3 "crude" hand weapons). Add any similar weapons the GM and player agrees should qualify.
That is:
a) you may use Dexterity in place of Weapon Skill for Melee (Basic) skill tests with certain weapons (such as the Knife)
b) you may use Dexterity in place of Ballistic Skill for Ranged (Throwing) skill tests with certain weapons (such as the Throwing Knife)
For any other weapon, you still need WS/BS as normal. For any other Melee or Ranged skill, you still need WS/BS as normal.
(When Agility was split into Ag, I and Dex, the latter Characteristic ended up simply worth less. Careers that depend on it (thieves, tradesmen, engineers...?) effectively have a "Characteristics tax" if they too want to partake in adventures - read combat - while everyone can safely dump Dex. Now you can play a Cat Burglar character that puts her XP into Dex and Agility instead of WS and BS! After all, a high skill is MUCH more important that high damage in this edition, so asking a character to get on by with "only" a dagger is much less of an ask than it would have been in v1/v2)
Falling Damage
Effective falling height is reduced by Agility Bonus.
Example: you have Agility 39. You fall four yards. You suffer 1d10 + (4-3)x3 Wounds. That is, 1d10+3 Wounds instead of 1d10+12 Wounds.
(Hint: if you want your game to encourage exciting roof-top chases don't make your heroes avoid heights in general.)
Bleeding
Bandages: A character unskilled in Heal can still attempt to use one (set of) Bandages to reduce Bleeding. Spend your action to make an Intelligence Test. Success means Bleeding is reduced by -1. The Bandages is used up. You cannot apply more than one Bandages per injury, meaning that you can staunch Bleeding 1, but not Bleeding 2 or more.
The difficulty is Average (+20) when bandaging someone else in relative safety. The difficulty is Challenging (+0) in combat and/or if you attempt to bandage yourself.
(The official rules for Bleeding were hastily patched during playtest, and C7 clumsily left all the characters traveling without armor or a skilled healer out in the cold.)