[House Rules] Roll “to Damage vs AAC” or Gonzo-lite Damage Rule

One thing that has never sat well with me in D&D is rolling “to hit” vs armour class, rather than the more commonplace (and dare I say “logical”) armour points or damage soak deducted from damage. I also like the idea of making the “to hit” roll in D&D a bit more meaningful and to [...]

[House Rules] Hordes & Heroes (or putting some TnT into DnD)

As things stand in OD&D and AD&D Fighters get the number of attacks per round vs. opponents 1HD or less or with less than 1HD, respectively, equal to their level per round. But this ability is lost if there is even one opponent whose HD exceeds this ceiling. Obviously this rule concurs with limiting all [...]

[House Rules] Class and Combat

One of my problems with most RPGs is the emphasis they seem to put on the hardware. The net result of everything from Cyberpunk’s armoury of prophetic death-mongery to D&D’s endless catalogues of strangely prosaic magical items seem to be reduce a character’s innate abilities to irrelevant background colour. As the campaign wears on (and on) those thief’s skills and weapon proficiencies look decidedly underpowered compared to Cloak [...]