House Rules

[zammE-]

Wow your House Rules make the game super easy. The only "House Rule" per say we use now is whoever gets the Nightsticks at the start of the game also gets a companion dog. Since we added companion dogs and they are very OP, we added the Zombie dog spawn cards as well. Not sure if this is a House Rule, however we use all the extra Zombies I now own and we never need to do "extra" activations due to not having enough of one type of mini.

Hmm if anything, giving out that many dogs to start with makes the game crazy easy from the start. Zombie dogs should always be in the spawn deck for S2 to make it somewhat challenging in my opinion.
I like the Abomination wall house rule, it really should've been in the core rules to make the cars somewhat weaker then the wheels of destruction they currently are.
Generally I only like the house rules that either makes the game more difficult or adds to the depth of gameplay, like that Car Alarm rule. It's a really cool rule but a bit too complex!

 

[Randdogs]

The 3 house rules my group has are:
1. The shoot into zone where successful hit rolls hit zombies and miss the survivor(s) in the zone. Except that shotguns may not benefit from this rule.

2. In scenarios where food is not part of the objective, you may collect 1 each of water, rice and canned food and cook it in a pan to regain a wound. This is the only thing the survivor may do that turn.

3. Cars may breakdown or run out of gas as you drive. First turn that you drive the car, roll at the end of the drivers turn to see if there is a problem. A roll of 6 indicates the car is no longer in use. Each turn there after add 1 to this roll. Example: 2nd turn on a 5+ it is no longer usable etc... I'm considering adding modifiers in for Abominations and Fatties but haven't decided yet.

Anyway, my two cents.

 

[Telnets]

Hey Guys, Ive had this game for about a month now but first time posting as I browse through to make the game more interesting..

Thought I would share really the only "House rule" change to the regular rules, and that's regarding ranged weapons.

Ranged Weapons > We assume survivors would be able to aim single shot weapons (Pistols, rifles) well enough to avoid hitting friends. However, scatter weapons such as Shotguns and Molotov's DO hit survivors in the space. We feel this rounds out the rule, without eliminating the purpose of it completely from the game.

We have also added these "additions" to make scenarios more interesting/difficult if you care to comment or try them out (which may be repeated from other posts)

Car Alarms - Place an objective token ontop a car indicating it has an alarm. Upon searching the car the first time the alarm goes off attracting EVERY zombie on the board to that space on their next move action only. After this turn, remove the objective token (Disable the alarm) and zombies return to their regular movements. - This seems to add a bit of strategy to using cars as a loot station too early in the game.

Multi-level structures - I have created a "stairs" token that gets placed in a room indicating there is a second floor. We then use a spare tile (Ignore the roads if it has them) set to the side of the main "ground floor" to act as the second floor to the building. We almost always assume the top of the stairs has a "door" and populate the second floor once we go on the stairs (essentially treating it as a separate building we are opening). - To vary the difficulty of the map, we have at times put a blue door at the top of the stairs, which activates a blue spawn we put up there.

** We have tried having some fun with this second floor dynamic and allowed RIFLE (all other guns are deemed too inaccurate) users the ability to "Snipe" from the second floor giving them +1 to their range when they do. However, this is only when we have a spawner up there too in order to prevent "camping".

Healing - On some harder missions, we have created little med kit icons as objectives. If picked up, it can be carried, and remove a wound from a player. Its treated as a regular item, so it can be traded and takes up a slot, ect. We usually put out 1 or 2 max.

Car Damage - We don't go crazy with this, we just limit the car to running over X zombies before its considered "damaged" and un-driveable. The number is usually around 6-8 depending on the map. We use sound markers set to the side of the board to keep track.

Day/Night cycle - (Currently experimenting with) As in I am Legend, we are experimenting with day/night cycles. Every X number of rotations between survivor/zombies, the survivors MUST be INSIDE a building for the next X number of cycles (usually one or 2 max so it doesn't slow down the game or change the dynamics TOO much). This is considered "night" and the streets are too dangerous to be out on. If a survivor is caught outside, it automatically triggers some sort of consequence (All zombies get +2 actions if they are outside at night, or spawn a fatty at the closest location nearest the player stuck outside, that kind of thing)

That's all we got so far

 

[Shoogoo]

Don't you think they put the hitting priority for a reason? What makes you think your rule makes more sense than that of the designers? Have you at least tried playing the normal ranged rules? If yes, did you find it too difficult and decided to tone them down?

I'd recommend sticking to that particular rule for game balance.

Your other house rules look fine and fun to play

 

[Telnets]

Of course they did, and yes we have played with them as well.

It does make it a little easier, but not by much and its really not noticeable. Shotguns, sub MGs, Molotov's are meant to clear out large groups of zombies, (rolling 3 dice for a sub MG for example) and for this reason we keep the "you will hit your friend in the zone" as a rule.

However, we feel the single die (hit) and +4 on a pistol/rifle is already enough of a handicap that hitting a survivor is needless and doesnt add a whole lot. If anything; we found that allowing those specific weapons to not not hit survivors has increased their usefulness. When we played normal rules, 9/10 games we just threw them out as soon as we found shotguns due to the whole "why hit 1 when you could potentially hit 3". At least now, they are almost always kept in a backpack and used to to help save a player in some situations.

We don't think this makes the game too easy no.. like I said, the guns that kill multiple zombies at once are still restricted to the regular hit rules..

 

[IdleHacker]

However, we feel the single die (hit) and +4 on a pistol/rifle is already enough of a handicap that hitting a survivor is needless and doesnt add a whole lot. If anything; we found that allowing those specific weapons to not not hit survivors has increased their usefulness. When we played normal rules, 9/10 games we just threw them out as soon as we found shotguns due to the whole "why hit 1 when you could potentially hit 3". At least now, they are almost always kept in a backpack and used to to help save a player in some situations.

You do realize that the weapons aren't supposed to be balanced, right? Throwing out a pistol when you find a shotgun is normal...that's what you're supposed to do. Why stop there? Why not houserule the pans so that they can be competitive with the chainsaw? (picked the most extreme example on purpose, but you get my point)

 

[Telnets]

We have also played in teams where 3 players were trying to kill 3 other players as a goal.. and games where one person plays the zombies and the "rules" of the zombies are out the window simply moving them wherever they wanted allowing him to setup ambushes if we wern't paying attention to his moves.. These have also been really fun games and we completely threw the rule book out for them.. Or just the other day we played a scenario from I Am Legend where every 5 turns it was considered "night" and any survivor caught outside spawned an abomination and all zombies outside got +2 actions for that round alone...

Our house rules make the game fun for us... it keeps things interesting, adds dynamics, involves more role-playing.. That's kind of the beauty of these sorts of games.. you can change things to suit your own playstyle.. make it harder, make it easier.. add a tank from your kids model collection if you feel like it.. use some imagination. Sometime the ideas work, sometimes they dont.. but if you choose to play solely based on the book, and only the book, then thats up to you..

I just posted what we have tried to give others some ideas if they are coming up with their own, im not sure why that seems to offend you, I dont imply anywhere you need to use them at your games?

 

[IdleHacker]

I just posted what we have tried to give others some ideas if they are coming up with their own, im not sure why that seems to offend you, I dont imply anywhere you need to use them at your games?

It doesn't offend me at all. You're welcome to enjoy the game you paid for however you'd like. I was just trying to figure out why those "underpowered" weapons deserved an upgrade while others don't? If every weapon was as useful as the next, there isn't a point in having different ones

 

[Telnets]

It doesn't offend me at all. You're welcome to enjoy the game you paid for however you'd like. I was just trying to figure out why those "underpowered" weapons deserved an upgrade while others don't? If every weapon was as useful as the next, there isn't a point in having different ones

gotcha. it was just the way I read your reply then..

he reason we like the pistol house rules is not to overpower them its more to give them a purpose in certain situations and make you decide if you want to keep it in your inventory or not. it makes things a bit harder and makes planning encounters harder because there is more inventory shuffling, you cant carry as many objectives or modifiers (like ammo cards) and ups the risk because your miss chance is greater

thats all. we like the roleplay side of the game so sometimes we like adding little things to make the game more immersive

 

[Scorpion0x17]

he reason we like the pistol house rules is not to overpower them its more to give them a purpose in certain situations and make you decide if you want to keep it in your inventory or not. it makes things a bit harder and makes planning encounters harder because there is more inventory shuffling, you cant carry as many objectives or modifiers (like ammo cards) and ups the risk because your miss chance is greater

Do you keep melee weapons, or do you dump them as soon as you get a pistol or other single-shot ranged weapon?

 

[IdleHacker]

Do you keep melee weapons, or do you dump them as soon as you get a pistol or other single-shot ranged weapon?

Yeah, this is what causes me to inventory shuffle...melee vs ranged

 

[Telnets]

Yeah, this is what causes me to inventory shuffle...melee vs ranged

We tried to allow shotguns to open doors (master keys!) but it made the game way to easy.. so we dont do that anymore so yes we keep melee weapons as well for doors, and non range combat. Theres always seems to be a use for them

 

[gitmaster]

Don't you think they put the hitting priority for a reason? What makes you think your rule makes more sense than that of the designers? Have you at least tried playing the normal ranged rules? If yes, did you find it too difficult and decided to tone them down?

I'd recommend sticking to that particular rule for game balance.

Your other house rules look fine and fun to play

my group and i find it too annoying that its absolute
so we have it that any missed shots will hit those survivors, it keeps the idea that ranged attacks are risky without it feeling BS, it also works thematically since we now have survivors who are trained in firearms (raoul,shannon,elsa etc) it would make no sense that they were so bad at shooting that they auto-hit friendlies

 

[gitmaster]

The house rules i made myself for our zombicide campaign, note i do not use all of them at once but you can if youre brave (or foolish)

FattyBomb! - Toxic fatties' Toxic Blood Spray now does 1 wound to all survivors and non special zombies in the same zone as it (this means non special runners and walkers will die, though no extra experience is gained), regardless of who killed it.
Smash! - Abominations can now break through walls and all kinds of door as well as barbed wire. they also do 2 wounds of damage (if you find that too powerful, then change it to wounds inflicted by it ignore the 'Tough' skill)
Fatties can smash through normal doors and barbed wire
Run! - Zombies can now climb over rubble, if they have 2 actions. runners can jump over barbed wire. if youre having multi-storey buildings, then runners and abominations can climb up buildings, 1 floor per action
Food Poisoning - if you take a wound from a toxic zombie you must discard all food items in your inventory, if this is an objective the food is placed back where the objective was
Forgive Me! - a survivor can ethier kill themself or execute a recently killed survivor, preventing them becoming a Zombivor, however this requires all of thier actions (including free) to do so, since this is such a moral dilemma (even for crazy ned). For season 3's upcoming competitive, executing a rival survivor only requires one action.

you might wonder why i had the last one since becoming a zombivor is a good thing
well its because of these 2 house rules (you cant have both since they conflict each other), dont worry they make sense in zombicide's story

Not Strong Enough - whilst a zombivor is resistant enough to retain their sanity, they were weak willed enough to be consumed with rage. they are considered as a rival team, and have the additional objective of killing or zombifying the remaining survivors. the player that has the zombivor can choose to appear 1-3 turns after they were killed by the zombies

No, Im NOT ONE OF THEM!! - even when they are killing the other zombies, zombivors are still considered as zombies by the survivors, and have every right to hunt them down and kill them. the zombivors only have one objective, escape! thier exit is ethier the specified exits or the starting zone if there was none in this mission. they can choose when to appear from 1-5 turns after being zombified

ethier way killing enemy zombivors/survivors with one of these two house rules gives you 5 xp.

 

[Teskal]

Ashley
Eva
Brandi
Belos Bell

When we play, we ignore the zombie splitting rules. I don't like the idea of zombies just appearing randomly because there are uneven groups.

Hi, there are often Zombies lying or sitting in Zombie Movies and doing nothing until something happens. If there is splitting needed, some of these Zombies start to move again.

For the better? Umm, I don't know about better but I have made it far more complex.

I combined pretty much every game into one game. The overall game play is Zombicide, Zpocalypse, Last Night On Earth over D&D Adventure Game backbone.

Using house rules to bridge the gaps and conversions.

I converted all combat to D&D Adventure (D&D Miniatures)

I broke all character abilities into cards. Each character has four abilities listed on their character card. Characters can spend XP to draw randomly for abilities or choose one of the abilities listed on their character card.

I split the items into decks as per Zpocalypse -- Food, Armory (Weapons), Equipment (most items), Scrap, and Survivors. Which deck is drawn from depends on the map or Encounter cards. This way I could avoid, say, food cards if I wanted

I expanded barricades by pulling in all of these sources and some more.

I brought in Zombie types from every source I could find and grouped them under Zombicide spawn card types.

Added event cards from LNOE and Zombies!!! by Twilight Creations and Frag just for the first person shooter feel of Quad Damage and Hacking

It is ongoing and will get playtested come Christmas break.

Do you have these rules in a file and could provide it for download?

Don't you think they put the hitting priority for a reason? What makes you think your rule makes more sense than that of the designers? Have you at least tried playing the normal ranged rules? If yes, did you find it too difficult and decided to tone them down?

I'd recommend sticking to that particular rule for game balance.

Your other house rules look fine and fun to play

The Priority Rules are dump. It is not important for what reason they used it. I don't like it at all. I really hope for optional rules for this, I think there are many possibilities to make a game harder. Putting the survivor on the top of the priority list is something I really hate.

I have no fixed house rule for this, yet. But I think I will use missed hits hit the survivor if the dice rolled a 1.
If this game would be to easy with this rule, I think I will find something to make it harder again. Anyway shooting in the Zombies with Survivors should be avoided.

 

[Sartois]

Hi all,

Sorry for the thread ressing, but having played a few games with a friend we had another variant re. shooting into melee combat. If there's another survivor in the zone you're shooting into, you roll to hit, and then roll to randomise where the hit goes. So, assuming there's been one hit, if there's two zombie and a survivor, Zombie A gets hit on 1 or 2, Zombie B on 3 or 4, and the other survivor on 5 or 6.

It adds an unknown element of risk but nicely takes into account the probabilities involved.

Sartois

 

[Pinky4Life]

I like the rules as they stand in the book so far (I have Seasons 1 and 2 and TCM and have been playing for about 5 months now). The one house rule we have been trying lately and seems ok so far, is to limit camping in an area and just continually searching it over and over again. We feel this strategy becomes boring and reduces the challenge of the game significantly. So, we have been doing only 1 search is allowed per zone, however, you can pick up 3 - 5 cards from the equipment deck (depends on the size of the game board) per search and take 1 item out of it. If there are any zombie spawn cards, you can still take 1 item but have to place whatever number of zombies for Ahhh! cards you find as well. So, in theory, you could search and find 5 zombies, highly unlikely, but possible.

 

[TrueRonin]

In our gaming group, we have found the game as is, too easy. The cooperative level and willingness to lose a survivor in order to win the game, makes it literally impossible for the group to lose the game, unless an Abomination spawns from the get-go, and even then, kiting a group of zombies until weapons capable of handling the Abomination is available. So we have looked at ways to make the game harder, and not easier for the group.

1. Dog companions are only available if the Survivor rolls a six on a d6 at the games beginning. A second d6 may be added to the roll if you hand in a starting equipment card. This can be done as many times as you have starting equipment (most survivors this means a single d6), but no matter the amount of sixes rolled, only 1 dog is added to the survivor.
2. There can never be more than 20 zombies in one tile (abomination counts as 5 and fatties as 2. Any excess models "spill over" into adjacent tiles on a 1 on 1 basis towards the nearest, noisiest survivor first. Use the priority list for determining which models spill over first.
3. The "spill over" from a tile can also be used by the zombies to break down locked doors. But a single Zombie over the limit isn't enough to break down a door, it takes a little more weight than that. As soon as 5 models "spill over" the door breaks down and the tile behind is free to be used by the oncoming horde of undead.
4. A room can only be searched once per game turn (Survivor Ned may always search). If a survivor has a dog, that is able to search it may also search the same room. This prevents us from camping the same room, until we have cycled through enough of the equipment deck to be kitted for zombie death.
5. Abominations deal 2 damage instead of 1.
6. "Foodstuff" cards can be used to gain 1XP or to regain a lost wound by destroying the card and spending two actions. Making them less of a nuissance to pick up when you're actually in need of a weapon.

 

[bolito]

Thanks for all these awesome rules guys. Special <3 for the Zombie spilling, the toxic fatty bomb, the cars with HP, and the "one diced wepaons can shoot in areas with survivors and missing will mean wounds". The abomination stuff (blocking cars, increased damage) was already implemented on our side but we hadn't gone so far as to make it break doors, but now it will be done.

A simple and easy rule to randomize the item to discard when taking a hit :
- Assign a number between 1 and 5 to each of your iventory solt
- Roll a dice
- Discard the item in the slot designated by the dice. If the slot is empty or if the dice shows 6, you choose wich item to discard.

And some movie like, special-case rules :
- we allowed a survivor in the back of the pimp-mobile (opened roof) with a chainsaw to perform one free attack when the drivers goes through a zone with zombies.
- a survivor with cans equipped can throw a can. It's considered a 0-1 weapon, 1 damage, hitting on 6+. The survivor can do this once per turn. If he spends a turn throwing more than 1 can , he discards his card at the end of his turn.

And I just got a thought about different abominations in the same zone having a chance to start fighting each other. May be fun.

 

[green_destiny]

Some house rules that we follow:

1. All missed die will hit a survivor when shooting in a zone with a survivor. (Same with car attacks)

2. Abomination stops cars.

3. Abomination damage is 2.

4. When we need to spawn an abomination and an abomination is already on the map, the existing abomination gets an extra activation (instead of spawning a fatty). Deadly! combined with rule #3 and especially for berserker abomination (which moves two zones).

5. Abominations can smash normal doors.

6. Spend 2 actions when moving out of a abomination zone.

7. No splitting of zombies, instead role a die to get odd or even results to determine the direction of the zombie. (ex: odd for left and even for right direction)

8. Roll a 1d6 die, thats the number of times you can use that car for attacks then its no longer usable.

9. Sometimes switches would need non-red objective/key (placed down and mixed with other red objective tokens) to be activated, the non-red objective/key must be brought to the switch to activate it. If the survivor holding the key died, the key dropped on the zone where he is eliminated. Picking up the key again requires an action.

Ex: Zone 1 has a green switch but requires a green key/objective (faced down) and its hidden among the scattered objective tokens in other marked zones. Once they flipped the objective to reveal the green key, they must bring the green key back to zone 1 to activate the green switch.

10. When opening doors, spawn first in the farthest room.

11. Is not a rule but my players can draw a non-top card of the deck.

All of these so that we can have near 'realistic' rules and from the fact that my players likes to keep the game 'safe' and wants to finish missions up to yellow level only (which i discourage them from doing).