DCC House Rules

I'm falling in love with Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. My first impressions of actual play can be found here.

Originally, I had planned on running DCC as is - for a couple of sessions, at least -, but I just can't help myself, so here's my first batch of house rules (to be expanded).

Luck pp. 18-19

Luck can only be used for active rolls, i.e. not for saving throws.

My reasoning? Luck that can be used for saving throws is often saved for just these occasions. Acts of derring-do fall by the wayside and Luck ends up as little more than a second pool of hit points.

 

Damage and Death p. 93

PCs die at 0 hp. Period. 

More precisely, PCs are fatally wounded at 0 hp.

A PC who is not yet at -10 hp may continue fighting for a number of rounds equal to his level. He is considered to be fatally wounded. Neither medical attention nor mortal magic can save him. When his time is up, he dies.

I prefer this over DCC's 'Bleeding Out' rules that allow fallen PCs to be saved after all. I elaborate on this in my post on Death, Dying and TPKs.

Mighty Deeds of Arms pp. 42-43 and pp. 88-92

Anybody can attempt a mighty deed of arms.

The standard deed die is a d2 and the standard difficulty is 2, not 3. The warrior just gets a better deed die.

A PC attempting a mighty deed foregoes all regular damage. Critical hits and the deed die do normal damage.

The tables for the various deeds are not used. Deeds are adjudicated by the DM.

I love DCC's concept of Mighty Deeds of Arms, but I think the execution is flawed. The rules imply that only warriors can disarm, push back or trip enemies and - Joseph Goodman's explicit advice not withstanding - that there is a limited number of deeds which can and should be looked up in the rules. The problem is that DCC says "make up your own" and then presents us with four pages worth of tables which might inadvertently stifle creativity.

My advice? Use your own experience (e.g. with D&D 3e or 4e) as a baseline or try to wing it and trust in learning by doing.