Two House Rules

Two house rules crossed my mind recently that I definitely want to put into practice when I get the chance.

The first comes from Talysman over at The Nine and Thirty Kingdoms and it is a very simple rule regarding penalties for wearing armor in D&D. The rule assumes descending armor class, and is so simple and yet totally nifty that I wouldn't want to steal his thunder and re-print it here. Go check it out there.

The second rule comes from Savage Worlds, though I plan on using it in Barbarians of Lemuria and Barbarians of the Aftermath. I wanted to post about it on the Lords of Lemuria forums to get some feedback on it, but again they seem to be broken.

The rule deals with ganging up on an opponent, either rabble ganging up on a PC or the PCs ganging up on a huge monster. For each attacker on a certain target beyond the first, all attackers get a +1 to hit that target. This represents the fact that it gets harder and harder to defend against more and more attackers, and it gives the weaker mob a greater chance against the stronger single opponent.

In the practice combats I've done with PC-types against rabble, three or four rabble are about equal in power to a single PC. This rule is intended to put a bit more of the fear of mobs into them without totally taking away the ability to "wade though" the hordes.

One thing I've noticed in the practice combats is how much better a high defense score is versus a high attack score when confronting several opponents. No matter how easy it is to hit one of several opponents, your attack score is only used against one opponent per round (assuming we aren't talking about a mighty or legendary success) whereas you use your defense score against all of them. Using this gang-up rule, it evens that disparity up a bit.