Do you like running with House Rules???

I am just curious, Do you all like running with house rules? If so, what are some of your favorite?

New Equipment? Guns? Races? Vehicles?

rules about die rolls?

I want to know how you would make Shadowrun better with your own house rules as well. Let's discuss this topic...

I remember playing with the house rule that you get free contact points equal to charisma*3, which I really liked.

You mean the Clout house rule? Yeah, I miss that too. I believe it was Charisma x 2 though. It's actually an option on the SR4 chargen excel sheet thingy.

Then there was the rule of one. It was where 1's countered sucesses. for instance you roll 8 dice, get two 5's and one 6 two 4's and three 1's you had NO sucesses. It also makes it easier to have a minor glitch...

That is a house rule that I still use on my runners here (my in person team).

Yeah, we use the Rule of 1 in our Table-Top games as well; we also use the Free Contacts = Charisma x 2 one.

I have to say though, my favorite current house rule is bringing back the "Rule of 6" as a permentant affect... if the Rule of 1 exists, the Rule of 6 should as well, as a built-in counter to it.

I also like house rules for races. I will be posting one back on Shadorun Survival Guide as soon as the internet is stable enough for me to post it. I am putting the doppleganger back up. It is a true shape shifter.

I followed the 4th ed buildings... and have come up with a way to run it. There is a major overhall from the rules that were posted, those were mostly from 2nd and 3rd ed..., and will be up soon.

I also have some new guns to post from a little company my runners started here. The company is 5R corp, and they excell in new weapons design. I will be posting the new weapons there as well...

Then there is Ou!!! he played a mage recently and came up with some new spells and some new magical items that work well. Those will be posted as well. Unfortinatly my internet here won't let me post new pages at the moment... hopefully soon.

I would love to see more house rules... give me ideas people.... I do have another site to fill up. ;-)

Um, well, we had a lot of house rules in our previous game. There are a lot of nuances in Shadowrun that don't make much sense if you examine them. For instance, one was:

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The armor upgrade for vehicles is now cumulative with previously present armor, although the maximum armor restrictions remain in place. Also price has been adjusted to Body x Rating x 20 for normal armor, Body x Rating x 100 for concealed armor, and Body x Rating x 200 for smart armor.

It didn't make sense that armor upgrade for a small drone cost the same as upgrading the armor for a navy destroyer...


There were a bunch others but here are some of my favorites:

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The rules for Response reduction due to running programs don't make much sense; they treat every program as equal in terms of tying down system resources. A Rating 1 (simple; minesweeper) program causes as much lag as a Rating 6 (cutting edge; AutoCAD) program. I've got a simple fix. Instead of reducing Response by 1 for every (System) programs you have running, reduce Response by 1 for every (System * System, i.e. System squared) program rating points. Same limitation style applies to Ergonomic programs, and program options/unrated programs count as 1 rating point for Response reduction purposes.

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According to the book, commlinks should be able to handle certain (legal) functions on their own, but the original rules don't reflect this. For this purpose, commlinks now have a Pilot rating equal to System divided by 2 (round down). This Pilot rating works just like the Pilot for drones/agents: it represents mental attributes and (legal) skills. A commlink can perform any operation that doesn't require continuous user input (like Edit does). This includes (but is not limited to) Analyze, Track, Transfer Data, Data Search, Scanning for specific wireless nodes (hidden or otherwise), and Encrypting files. For Extended Tests, It takes less time to let the commlink do the operation; the user just has to start the task and then the commlink will handle the rest (commlinks get 3 IPs per turn, same Initiative Score as the user). But for illegal tasks or if the user wants it done quicker, he will have to do the task himself. Commlink tasks count as one program for the purpose of Response reduction, regardless of whether or not it is using a program.

Quote :

The Called Shot to avoid armor (p. 149-150, SR4 Core), receives a negative dice pool modifier equal to the target's armor divided by 2 (round up), rather than equal to the target's armor.

In the original rules, a called shot to increase damage trades one attack die for one point of damage. A shot to bypass armor trades one attack die for one/third (statistically) of a point of damage. This makes called shots to bypass armor utterly pointless, and no one uses them.

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The rules for grenade use are rather confusing and counter-intuitive. Why should the presence of a person near where the thrower wants the grenade to land affect the final position of the grenade? Instead, treat every grenade throw as a success test (ranged attack modifiers that depend on the attacker apply). Hits reduce the scatter, and once scatter is down to 0, any additional hits increase the DV of the blast by 1.

Anyone who will be caught in the grenade's blast and is unable to act before the grenade explodes (either because it is set to motion sensor and will explode when it lands in the same turn, or because the character has already used all available actions before the grenade will explode) may make a defense test as usual (Reaction unless on full defense, then Reaction + Dodge). If the defender scores more hits than the attacker did, the defender may use his next available free action as an immediate interrupt to either dive away from the grenade (making a jumping test as appropriate, either standing or running depending on most recent movement type) or to drop prone. If not, the defender still manages to cover his face, turn his back to the grenade, or otherwise take steps to decrease the amount of damage received. If the defender fails to get more hits than the attacker, the defender cannot act but the additional DV of the blast due to hits on the attacker's part are reduced by 1 for every hit on the defender's roll, to a minimum of the grenade's original DV. When calculating damage, the DV of the grenade is affected by ranged combat modifiers that depend on the target (i.e. a target that is prone or has good cover between it and the grenade has to resist 4 less damage).

Some house rules make sense, others don't.

SR4's base rules are just setup to keep things simple and fast moving, though I've found it's often hard to find a good balance between keeping things moving, and realistic detail. Mind you, in Play by Post games you have plenty of time generally speaking to use custom rules.

Now and then I like games that let players get to play with the big toys. Milspec armor, panther assault cannons and all the rest. Technically speaking you don't even have to bump up the starting BP. You can just raise the availability threshold for starting gear and increase the cash multiplier for starting money. Generally speaking though you kind of need to offer increased BP so starting magic users etc can dump more BP into magic etc so that cybered characters don't just leave them in the dust. That said even if you don't it just means the magically oriented types can do things like say.. start with a few bound foci, or more high end gear than some one who dumps a ton into cybernetics.

I'll see how things turn out with the game I'm running now, as I'm still pretty new to SR4's rule set. If it all goes well, or if too many players flake I may take a stab at running a higher end game that starts people off working for a corp or something.

To counter the BP, I have also allowed cyber to get B or D grade depending on his/her backstory. The same goes with mages, I have been known to allow an "Artifact" that is bound to a character if the backstory explains how he/she got it. For me it is funner to have full characters playing than a sheet with numbers on it.

That is part of the reason I started a house rules site back in 2001. Shadowrun Survival Guide was that site where I posted house rules and new/interesting races, things, weapons, spells, ect... I think most "House Rules" get started because GM's and Players want to have fuller back stories or more interesting characters. Or in the case of the rule of 1, a better chance for somthing interesting to happen.

Of corse one of my favorite characters I have played had no known backstory. I told the GM that I wanted to try a character with total amnisia... He handed me a blank character sheet. I had to figure everything out from my attributes, to skills... it was fun.

back to house rules....