Monday, February 22, 2010

Mutant Houserules

I think it is about time for a little spring cleaning roundup of house rules that I use in my ongoing Mutant Future campaign.  Some of these have already been posted, while some have never seen the light of blog.

Character Creation:

Stats are rolled 3d6 down the line, but any one set of stats may be switched.

If a player feels that the stat rolls are "hopeless", all rolls may be rerolled (but the player is more than welcome to keep the stats as is, and I would look kindly upon such an endeavor).

Androids, Synthetics and any other Robotic characters have a base AC of 7

If a player rolls more negative than beneficial mutations, the player can choose to reroll all mutations.

Combat:

Initiative is rolled once per combat.  All participants in the combat roll d20 + Dex modifier to determine their place in the combat order.

Mutants that are more than double man sized (roughly) have natural weapons that do double the amount listed under natural weapons (2d4, 2d6 or 2d8 depending on the d6 roll at character creation).

Called shots to the head are at a -4 penalty to hit but do double damage if the target has a brain.  The called shot penalty will increase to a minimum of -6 if the target is wearing a helmet or other device that protects the head.

Any single attack that does 50% or more of the target's total HP requires a save vs. Death or the target dies from system shock.

A natural 20 (or higher, see the Order of the d30 below) on any attack roll is an automatic hit and results in the attack doing double damage.  This means that twice the normal amount of damage dice are thrown, then the regular modifiers from strength or mutations are added.

A natural 1 on any attack roll is an automatic miss and may result (at the Mutant Lord's discretion) in Bad Things happening...

Mutations:

Planeshift:  The portal opens perpendicular to the ground.

Teleport:  Teleporting is strenuous activity akin to sprinting and can be engaged in for a number of rounds equal to Constitution before the mutant must stop to catch her breath (Teleport cannot be used again until 2d4 rounds have passed).

Precognition:  This has been the trickiest mutation to rule on during play.  Seeing the future is, of course, always a little problematic.  During a precog, the mutant can consult with other characters that will be present in the future; the players of those characters can answer as if they were being asked that question in the future.  The mutant must state what action(s) will be attempted, then start the precog - the mutant may not modify his course of action during the precog based on the knowledge that it is a precog.  For all intents and purposes, the mutant is watching a video feed of his future actions, not actually acting in the future with the knowledge that it is only a precog.  If something happens to the body of the mutant in the present during the precog, the precog ends and the mutant can respond normally to the stimulus. 

Order of the d30:

As a proud member of the Order of the d30, each of my players gets to roll the d30 once per session in place of any other single die roll.  For this use, a percentile throw counts as a single die (d100) rather than two d10, so a d30 may be thrown to generate a result of 1% - 30% (great for those roll-low tech throws!).  An attack roll made with the d30 that results in a number between 20 and 29 does double damage as explained above in the combat houserules.  An attack roll that results in a natural 30 does triple normal damage!

In the spirit of fair play, the Mutant Lord gets one roll of the d30 for every whole increment of 3 players present at the session (e.g. two d30 rolls per session if there are eight players present, but three d30 rolls if there are nine players present).

1 comment:

  1. Neat stuff, I like the d30 rule and know that others in my group would love it. The rules lawyers wouldn't like it though. Come to think of it, I need to make some standard house rules too.

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