House rule advice

[Tenmujiin]

So my group is finally getting back together and I'll be DMing. I was hoping the playground would be willing to give me the benefit of their experience for some house-rules I'll planning to use. Basically I just want some advice on these house-rules.



First is stat generation:

The method I'm currently planning to use is each player takes turns to roll 3d6 and record the number, each player is then allowed to chose any 6 numbers in a row and order them as they like. I'll probably also rule that the numbers have to be below a certain point buy and allow players to just use either the standard point buy or a point buy equal to the lowest point value among the other players if they can't find an array they like.

Its a bit complicated but my group has a history when it comes to rolling for stats which has basically resulted in us using point buy for most of our more recent campaigns (one player tends to roll retardedly high, he is just as lucky at just about everything and i'm confident he doesn't cheat, he is actually the biggest opponent of rolling for stats, while another tends to roll ridiculously low) and I'm hoping this will maintain intra-party balance and allow people to get roughly stats they want while also introducing some randomness.



Second we have stat bonuses:

Dexterity no longer affects initiative, instead you add your proficiency to initiative. Its mostly agreed that dexterity is too powerful and so this will hopefully bring it in line with the other stats.

You can use strength or dexterity for your to-hit and damage bonus with a weapon, so long as you can justify to the DM's satisfaction why you should be able to use the stat, for example
You can use int, wisdom or charisma as your spell casting stat or in place of wisdom as a monk, so long as you can justify to the DM's satisfaction why you should be able to use the stat, this choice is permanent. for example, a paladin that is wise rather than charismatic, a sorcerer that relies on instinct rather than force of personality or a warlock that is studious rather than charming (those are just the easiest refluffs, if a player can come up with a reasonable excuse I'll allow any stat on any class).
If you multi-class into a second spell-casting class or monk, you must use a different stat as your spell-casting modifier for the new class unless your two classes use the same spell-casting stat in the base game, you may revert your first class's spell-casting stat to its default if there is a conflict with your new class.(this is just to stop abusing the rule to multi-class any two spell-casters too easily).



Finally, a change to long range teleportation spells, this is a change focused as much on the game world as curbing the power of scry-and-die type tactics:

Any spell which can teleport the caster or target more than <X distance> will always take them to and then nearest leyline and then along it in the direction of the caster's choosing.

Leylines are lines of power that cross the world, they tend to create and/or follow valleys and island chains and are a barely understood but signifigant part of the homebrew word the game will be set in.

[Pex]

If you limit dice rolling to a point buy value there's no point to rolling. Part of the appeal of rolling is getting an array you can't get with point buy which includes a higher value than what is published suggested. If you were to use point buy you can give a higher value than what's suggested and allow for purchases above 15. If you stick with rolling, 4d6 drop lowest does offset, a little, of bad luck. 5, 4, 3, 2 gives a 12. If 2 was the 4th die, 5, 4, 3 on three dice still gives you 12. However, if the 4th die was 5 for rolling three dice 4, 3, 2 would be a 9.

With bias, I recommend 27-25-23 method which I advocated in other threads. It's a combination of dice rolling and point buy. It inherently evens out high rolls and low rolls so luck is mitigated but not eliminated. If you can't find it on these forums you can google it. There are slight variations to be found but any one of them will work.

Giving everyone proficiency to initiative means no one has a bonus to initiative. Everyone increases by the same amount, so the increase could be eliminated and make no difference. Initiative is just a die roll. Not everyone needs a high Dex. It is a feature that some classes tend to have higher initiative than others. For those classes where Dex is not a priority, it becomes player choice how valuable Dex is to him. That's the game part of the game.

Switching primary ability scores around makes character creation superfluous. With the way 5E works, especially because of saving throws essentially the most optimum build for every character every class is to use Dex for to hit and damage and Wis for spellcasting. Even non-spellcasting classes have abilities requiring a saving throw so they'd want everything based on Dex or Wis. That you feel the need as DM that a player has to justify his choice is itself a warning sign that the idea won't work in practice. The house rule is adding complexity where it wasn't necessary and problems that might come up are already suspected before the game starts. You're allowing players to game the system then suspect they are gaming the system and want the ability to deny them the ability to game system because you don't like their homework essay to explain their gaming the system. If you don't allow the gaming of the system in the first place then all this trouble goes away.

[Tenmujiin]

Giving everyone proficiency to initiative means no one has a bonus to initiative. Everyone increases by the same amount, so the increase could be eliminated and make no difference. Initiative is just a die roll. Not everyone needs a high Dex. It is a feature that some classes tend to have higher initiative than others. For those classes where Dex is not a priority, it becomes player choice how valuable Dex is to him. That's the game part of the game.
The players won't have a bonus relative to each-other but they will have it relative to the enemies they face. The removal of dex bonus from initiative is to balance dex and strength a bit better for the purposes of the flexible primary abilities.


Switching primary ability scores around makes character creation superfluous. With the way 5E works, especially because of saving throws essentially the most optimum build for every character every class is to use Dex for to hit and damage and Wis for spellcasting. Even non-spellcasting classes have abilities requiring a saving throw so they'd want everything based on Dex or Wis. That you feel the need as DM that a player has to justify his choice is itself a warning sign that the idea won't work in practice. The house rule is adding complexity where it wasn't necessary and problems that might come up are already suspected before the game starts. You're allowing players to game the system then suspect they are gaming the system and want the ability to deny them the ability to game system because you don't like their homework essay to explain their gaming the system. If you don't allow the gaming of the system in the first place then all this trouble goes away.

I just strait up disagree with you on this point. In my opinion the only save that is significantly less important is int and MAYBE cha. Strength saves may be less common than dex but they tend to be far more dangerous than just a bit of extra damage.


In addition to that, My group tends to be quite low OP with myself and one other player being the only ones who ever really optimize and even then I optimize sub-par character concepts (essentially placing restrictions on my build based on RP) while the other guy intentionally keeps his power level down to only a bit above the rest of the group now days. My group is also very fluff-as-rules and so I disagree that allowing players to pick their primary ability scores based on their concept rather than their class is unlikely to result in them all going dex/wis based. Sure if you players like to optimize then you should put some more effort into giving each ability score a different and balanced effect to keep them meaningful but my group tends to care more about their concept than the power of it. The reason I feel the need to have players justify the choice is because of one player who will ALWAYS have as ridiculous a character as he is allowed and to stop players from saying "I swing the greataxe with my dexterity, just because I can" again, mostly because of that one guy. This is basically just a rule to say "you can re-fluff your character's abilities" since my group tends to read fluff text as rules.


If you limit dice rolling to a point buy value there's no point to rolling. Part of the appeal of rolling is getting an array you can't get with point buy which includes a higher value than what is published suggested. If you were to use point buy you can give a higher value than what's suggested and allow for purchases above 15. If you stick with rolling, 4d6 drop lowest does offset, a little, of bad luck. 5, 4, 3, 2 gives a 12. If 2 was the 4th die, 5, 4, 3 on three dice still gives you 12. However, if the 4th die was 5 for rolling three dice 4, 3, 2 would be a 9.

With bias, I recommend 27-25-23 method which I advocated in other threads. It's a combination of dice rolling and point buy. It inherently evens out high rolls and low rolls so luck is mitigated but not eliminated. If you can't find it on these forums you can google it. There are slight variations to be found but any one of them will work.

The reason for the cap at a certain point buy value is because it wouldn't surprise me if we ended up with 4-6 18s in a row with the way two of my players roll.

The method I was thinking of would basically exclude certain arrays that would result in everyone taking them i.e. if there was an array with 18/18/18/12/12/12 or 16/16/16/16/16/16. The maximum would be kept high enough that it would be unlikely to even come up.

Basically I'd just be reserving the right to veto an array I thought would reduce variety (by being strictly the best) but codifying it so the players don't feel cheated like they would if I vetoed it without guidelines laid down beforehand. I probably won't include the cap but I figured I'd just throw my ideas at the playground to see what sticks.

[AmbientRaven]

I wouldn't do the initiative change.

Not everyone wants to go first. The cleric in my group actually took a -1 to dex to increase the chance he will go last, allowing him to be more reactionary in his placement for damage (Allows him to see enemies movements, damage ectwhilst still healing damage done or casting any spell required)
Doing your change takes away from this. Also a lightly armored agile character will react and move faster than a plate equipped behemoth.

Also as has been mentioned rolling but staying under point buy is redundant.
4D6 keep 3 is a good way of balancing things.

[Gurka]

On the Initiative note, What we've done with some of our games is offer the higher of either DEX or WIS, since fast reactions have as much to do with situational awareness and a cool head, as reflexes. Ties still go to the higher DEX. I've also allowed proficiency to add to it circumstantially, and for certain characters who are actively aware and prepared. As for folks sometimes wanting to go later, I'm not sure if it's expressly allowed this edition (I've never thought to look for it) but the way we've always played is that anybody who's initiative rolls around can always hold their action for later in the round, you just can't interrupt somebody, like you can with a prepared trigger action.

Example: Bob has the option to go first, but wants to let Steve do his thing before hand, so bob says he's going to wait until after Steve goes. Unfortunately the Ogre goes before Steve, but Bob still can't act before the Ogre, once he sees that it's going next. He can, however change his mind and choose to act before Steve, AFTER the Ogre has gone.

As for Attribute rolls, If you have players that tend to roll way outside the norm, but still WANT to roll, then let them do so, and instead of capping their rolls, just up the point-buy for the folks that don't want to roll, so everybody ends up on a higher footing to start. It will likely make the first few levels a bit easier on them, but should not have too many far-reaching repercussions.

[GiantOctopodes]

On the Initiative note, What we've done with some of our games is offer the higher of either DEX or WIS, since fast reactions have as much to do with situational awareness and a cool head, as reflexes. Ties still go to the higher DEX. I've also allowed proficiency to add to it circumstantially, and for certain characters who are actively aware and prepared. As for folks sometimes wanting to go later, I'm not sure if it's expressly allowed this edition (I've never thought to look for it) but the way we've always played is that anybody who's initiative rolls around can always hold their action for later in the round, you just can't interrupt somebody, like you can with a prepared trigger action.

We allow someone to ready an action like normal of course, or to delay their turn permanently. You want a full turn after Steve has gone? Sounds great, you're now after him for the rest of the encounter. You can of course hold your turn through the bottom of the initiative order and be at the "top" going forward (or wherever you want in the next round), but of course all that turn order manipulation eventually costs you turns outright.

[Kryx]

The players won't have a bonus relative to each-other but they will have it relative to the enemies they face. The removal of dex bonus from initiative is to balance dex and strength a bit better for the purposes of the flexible primary abilities.
Monsters have a proficiency based on cr. Everyone would basically have the same bonus unless you're fighting outside of cr ranges.
Maybe try int instead.

[Tenmujiin]

I wouldn't do the initiative change.

Not everyone wants to go first. The cleric in my group actually took a -1 to dex to increase the chance he will go last, allowing him to be more reactionary in his placement for damage (Allows him to see enemies movements, damage ectwhilst still healing damage done or casting any spell required)
Doing your change takes away from this. Also a lightly armored agile character will react and move faster than a plate equipped behemoth.
We allow someone to ready an action like normal of course, or to delay their turn permanently. You want a full turn after Steve has gone? Sounds great, you're now after him for the rest of the encounter. You can of course hold your turn through the bottom of the initiative order and be at the "top" going forward (or wherever you want in the next round), but of course all that turn order manipulation eventually costs you turns outright.

Basically this. The reason for the initiative change is to bring dex in line with strength so that its not just a matter of everyone plays a dex character.


On the Initiative note, What we've done with some of our games is offer the higher of either DEX or WIS, since fast reactions have as much to do with situational awareness and a cool head, as reflexes. Ties still go to the higher DEX. I've also allowed proficiency to add to it circumstantially, and for certain characters who are actively aware and prepared. As for folks sometimes wanting to go later, I'm not sure if it's expressly allowed this edition (I've never thought to look for it) but the way we've always played is that anybody who's initiative rolls around can always hold their action for later in the round, you just can't interrupt somebody, like you can with a prepared trigger action.

Example: Bob has the option to go first, but wants to let Steve do his thing before hand, so bob says he's going to wait until after Steve goes. Unfortunately the Ogre goes before Steve, but Bob still can't act before the Ogre, once he sees that it's going next. He can, however change his mind and choose to act before Steve, AFTER the Ogre has gone.

As for Attribute rolls, If you have players that tend to roll way outside the norm, but still WANT to roll, then let them do so, and instead of capping their rolls, just up the point-buy for the folks that don't want to roll, so everybody ends up on a higher footing to start. It will likely make the first few levels a bit easier on them, but should not have too many far-reaching repercussions.


Also as has been mentioned rolling but staying under point buy is redundant.
4D6 keep 3 is a good way of balancing things.[/QUOTE]

The cap was just an idea i was throwing out there, since everyone thinks is's a bad idea and is ignoring the actual dice rolling method I listed I'll reiterate:


each player rolls 3d6 x times (depending on the number of players) and all of the results are recorded in order, players can take any 6 consecutive numbers (wrapping at both ends). The idea is that everyone is picking from the same set of numbers so the intra-party balance of point-buy is preserved but everyone gets to roll stats still. (intra-party balance was the reason we stopped using rolled stats since one guy routinely rolled multiple 18s and another rarely had any stats over 14 and usually had multiple negatives. It didn't help that the 2nd guy always tried to roll a pure monk...in 3.5.

Just to make sure I'm being clear, my goal with this rolling method is to preserve intra-party balance (balance between party members). The reason I was considering the cap is because everyone having 3 18s would make my life that much harder as a DM.

[Kryx]

Basically this. The reason for the initiative change is to bring dex in line with strength so that its not just a matter of everyone plays a dex character.
But what you've accomplished is to make the initiative bonus mostly equal for everyone - including monsters. The only time PCs will get bonuses or negatives compared to the monsters is if the monsters are much higher or lower in CR.
Monsters have a proficiency bonus as well.

If you want to even out dex and str then make init based on int (a dump stat) or some other stat. Or get rid of it entirely. Making it based on proficiency effectively is the later option without simplifying bookkeeping.

[Once a Fool]

It's worth noting, too, that changing initiative from a dex check takes away one of the few bonuses the Champion gets over other fighters. And even if you made an exception for the Champion, the full proficiency bonus would supersede the half bonus--unless you let them stack.

[SowZ]

The entire appeal to rolling stats is that you might get an awesome array. The drawback is it might suck. If this risk is being removed, why even bother with a complicated roll mechanic that removes the advantages/disadvantages of a roll system? Is it sentimental attachment to rolling stats, or is there some benefit I'm not getting?

[Takewo]

The entire appeal to rolling stats is that you might get an awesome array. The drawback is it might suck. If this risk is being removed, why even bother with a complicated roll mechanic that removes the advantages/disadvantages of a roll system? Is it sentimental attachment to rolling stats, or is there some benefit I'm not getting?

I think it's rather a middle ground. The proposed system is neither as random as pure rolling nor as controllable as point buy. I reckon that's its purpose.

By the way, I think it a nice idea. Out of the usual at least. I'd give it a go, might be interesting. In fact, I'd be interested in knowing what kind of arrays you got after the characters are created.

[Tenmujiin]

I think it's rather a middle ground. The proposed system is neither as random as pure rolling nor as controllable as point buy. I reckon that's its purpose.

By the way, I think it a nice idea. Out of the usual at least. I'd give it a go, might be interesting. In fact, I'd be interested in knowing what kind of arrays you got after the characters are created.

Yea, you hit it on the head. The main problem my group has had with rolling is the difference in player power levels and I wanted to remove some of the control that comes with point-buy without introducing too much imbalance between players.

[Sindeloke]

I'll take a moment to pitch my group's method again. Every player starts with a 16, a 14, and a 14 that they can put wherever they like, and they must allocate all three before moving to the next step; rolling 6+2d6 three times and distributing those as they please amongst the three remaining stats. It ensures that everyone, SAD or MAD, has good-but-not-absurd and relatively even-across-the-party stats in their important scores, while still adding some randomness and enabling stuff like MENSA barbarians, strongman wizards and charismatic monks that you'd never get with point buy.

You can change the 16/14/14 to taste, we've done 15/15/14 and 16/14/13 too in our search for the sweet spot. Whatever works for you.

(We've had a guy roll for his mainstat instead of taking the 16 exactly once. He ended up with a 13 Cha valor bard, who was very memorable prior to his unfortunate death-by-giant-flytrap.)

[Shining Wrath]

What I did was allow each player to roll a set of stats (4d6b3 method), and then each player can choose one set.

We got:
12, 17, 10, 9, 15, 17
16,13, 13, 13, 14, 15
10, 10, 17, 13, 17,15
14, 3, 18, 14, 13, 12
9, 13, 15, 9, 10, 12
8, 16, 9, 15, 10, 10

Some people actually chose the first array over the third for RP purposes; they wanted to have a "dump stat", usually charisma.

The gal who rolled 4 '1's for a 3 and then an 18 on her next roll is going to live forever in the halls of chaotic dice :smallsmile:

I'm using these same choices for NPCs. Important and powerful NPCs get a good array; comic relief or "yes, I'm supposed to be a buffoon" NPCs might get one of the last two.