Interesting Play Variants

[Regitnui]

Before You Read Any Further
Many members on this forum have made their positions on house rules abundantly clear in various other topics. I'd like to emphasize this is not a topic for debating the system or for telling people how they should play. I would like this thread to be more of an unofficial UA of variants and house rules the Playgrounders have come up with during play. Please be respectful of others and their various house rules. Thanks.

Apologies if that sounds like vigilante modding.


So, what sort of variant rules have you guys come up with? I heard someone in another thread using advantage/disadvantage stacks, and a number of patches on the Beastmaster's beast being treated more intuitively. I'd like to know, since my current game is a little hamstrung by a player being seven hours away from everyone else.

[Eldamar]

In my games, I changed the rules for a druid's wild shape to make a bit more sense as I see it. The artificial restrictions on CR and movement abilities doesn't seem reasonable. So I removed them. Here's a direct quote from my homebrew rules doc.


At level 2, you obtain a number of wild shape forms equal to your Wisdom modifier, with a minimum of 1 form. The CR for these forms can be 1 or lower, no other restrictions.
You gain additional forms by spending one hour studying a living animal and making a DC 15 + CR Wisdom Check. Pass and you learn to wild shape into this animal. Fail and you take force damage equal to the animal’s CR in d8s. (Ex. An owlbear is CR 2. DC 17 to transform into one. Failure means 2d8 force damage.) If you fail a check, you may not attempt the check again for 7 days. No feature, bonus, or ability can be used to aid this check. (Ex. Bardic Inspiration, Inspiration, Guidance, etc.)

Here's my rules for casting enchantments and illusions or similar effects. Spells like Charm and the like seem not very useful to me as written, and I don't want charms and illusions to seem like a worse option than damage spells when it comes to dealing with encounters.


Enchantments and Illusions – When you cast a charm or illusion spell on a creature that can be affected by the spell, it makes a Wisdom check against your Spell DC. A pass means it knows it was charmed, a fail means it doesn’t. If the creature passes the first check, it can make a second Perception or Investigation to determine who charmed them contested by a Deception check from you. A creature as advantage on these checks if you or an apparent ally have been attacking/threatening them.

I'm sure the language in my rules could be tighter.

[Cespenar]

-You don't fully heal on a long rest, you heal with hit dice as if in short rest. You still get half of your hit dice back on a long rest, though.

[Kellendros95]

Lucky geat doesn't exist, but each player have one "lucky point" per session and inspiration works like "lucky point" too.
And this:

-You don't fully heal on a long rest, you heal with hit dice as if in short rest. You still get half of your hit dice back on a long rest, though.

[uraniumrooster]

I allow characters to gain additional Concentration "slots", unlocked when they gain the ability to cast 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th level spells. It does come with a trade-off, however. For each spell in addition to the first, the Concentration save DC increases by 1, and the character temporarily gains one level of exhaustion for as long as their concentration lasts. If a caster fails a Concentration save, they lose concentration on one of the spells, chosen randomly, and if they critically fail they lose concentration on all spells.

I also added a feat that allows casters to ignore the exhaustion effect from concentrating on multiple spells, treat a critical failure as a normal failure, and select which spell to drop when they fail.

[Mjolnirbear]

Eleanor, your second one may not be necessary. Under Targets in the PHB, it's says subtle effects may mean the character does not know it was the target of a spell.

Unless you mean the rules for spells such as Friends where it explicitly says otherwise.

I steal a great deal of house Rules. Not because I think they might be necessary but because I thing they make more sense or are more fun. One example is Popcorn Initiative: the initial Initiative roll determines who goes first. That first person determines who goes after them. And so on. Enemies are included, and characters love letting enemies go right away because the last person to go in a round can pick themselves for the next round, making get two turns in a row. Credit to the Angry DM for this one. It helps my players focus on the battle since no one knows who is going next. They concentrate instead of playing on their phones.

Also from the Angry DM; Inspiration changes. Everyone starts each day with Inspiration. You can spend inspiration to get advantage or impose disadvantage for an enemy on a roll, but only if the roll is directly tied to your personality traits, bonds, flaws or ideals. Even if your plays type ignores role-playing, you still get one inspiration per session.

If you have no Inspiration, you can claim a setback. You gain disadvantage, or impose advantage for an enemy, on a roll. Again, it must be tied to your flaws, bond, ideals or personality traits. Also you can set back the party, such as stubbornly refusing the elf's valuable information because you don't trust elves... Now the game is a bit harder. If you claim a setback, you gain inspiration.

[Discord]

One of the house rules my friends / and my D&D group online use when we play.

Critical's: 1st you maximize all damage on the dice you would normally roll. Then the dice you additionally roll is rolled as normal and added to the total. (The reason we did this, because nothing is more heartbreaking then rolling a crit on your greataxe, then rolling two 1's for damage, the drawback of this is, that enemies also follow the same crit rules, so crits can be pretty devastating)

When we roll for HP as well, we either take the average of the dice or what ever is rolled, whichever is higher, so that way you are gaining at least half your hit dice per a level up.

[uraniumrooster]

One example is Popcorn Initiative: the initial Initiative roll determines who goes first. That first person determines who goes after them. And so on. Enemies are included, and characters love letting enemies go right away because the last person to go in a round can pick themselves for the next round, making get two turns in a row. Credit to the Angry DM for this one. It helps my players focus on the battle since no one knows who is going next. They concentrate instead of playing on their phones.

I really like this idea. Might have to steal it!

[YCombinator]

Death saving throws are rolled only when a character is checked when another character uses the stabilize dying action on them.

When a character goes down in combat, they make death saving throws to see if they bleed out. Three successes means you are stable but not conscious. Three failures means you are dead. If a fellow combatant goes down in combat, realistically, there should be a lot of drama to that situation along with an immediate reaction to go see if he or she is okay. When you can watch your ally roll their death saving throws and go tend to them immediately after their second fail, this takes all of the mystery and suspense out of the situation, it encourages meta gaming, and it causes some players to sit out rounds of combat because other players selfishly decide not to waste their action giving another player several future actions. So at my table, if you wait three rounds to go check on a fallen comrade, they then, and only then, roll three death saving throws and find out if they are dead or alive.

[Regitnui]

Also from the Angry DM; Inspiration changes. Everyone starts each day with Inspiration. You can spend inspiration to get advantage or impose disadvantage for an enemy on a roll, but only if the roll is directly tied to your personality traits, bonds, flaws or ideals. Even if your plays type ignores role-playing, you still get one inspiration per session.

If you have no Inspiration, you can claim a setback. You gain disadvantage, or impose advantage for an enemy, on a roll. Again, it must be tied to your flaws, bond, ideals or personality traits. Also you can set back the party, such as stubbornly refusing the elf's valuable information because you don't trust elves... Now the game is a bit harder. If you claim a setback, you gain inspiration.

Sounds a bit like the Fate System/DFRPG's Invokes/Compels; The DM can compel your character's Aspects at the cost of giving the player Fate Points, and the player can spend Fate Points to get a bonus on rolls by Invoking an Aspect. The Aspects here match up to the Backgrounds' Traits, Bond, Ideals, and Flaws of 5e, with inspiration being the currency.


Death saving throws are rolled only when a character is checked when another character uses the stabilize dying action on them.

When a character goes down in combat, they make death saving throws to see if they bleed out. Three successes means you are stable but not conscious. Three failures means you are dead. If a fellow combatant goes down in combat, realistically, there should be a lot of drama to that situation along with an immediate reaction to go see if he or she is okay. When you can watch your ally roll their death saving throws and go tend to them immediately after their second fail, this takes all of the mystery and suspense out of the situation, it encourages meta gaming, and it causes some players to sit out rounds of combat because other players selfishly decide not to waste their action giving another player several future actions. So at my table, if you wait three rounds to go check on a fallen comrade, they then, and only then, roll three death saving throws and find out if they are dead or alive.

Hmm... Can I clarify? The downed PC rolls these three Death Saves all at once? So if the others take more than three rounds to check on the downed PC, does the PC die by default?

[Knaight]

Hmm... Can I clarify? The downed PC rolls these three Death Saves all at once? So if the others take more than three rounds to check on the downed PC, does the PC die by default?

If it's been more than three rounds, you make more than three saves. As long as failed saves doesn't go over three, all's well. It's just that after three rounds the PC isn't guaranteed to be safe, whereas if you roll them as they come up and they succeed the first three, you know you have another 2 rounds of leeway guaranteed.

[YCombinator]

If it's been more than three rounds, you make more than three saves. As long as failed saves doesn't go over three, all's well. It's just that after three rounds the PC isn't guaranteed to be safe, whereas if you roll them as they come up and they succeed the first three, you know you have another 2 rounds of leeway guaranteed.

Yep exactly. It doesn't change the way a player rolls when they are at zero hit points. It just changes when the players get the information. You could imagine a very similar house rule which is that the player rolls death saving throws as normal but is not allowed to tell anyone what the outcome was. Mine is equivalent without requiring the player to keep a secret.

Every time you would roll a death saving throw, you mark down how many you need to make. When someone goes over to stabilize or check on you, you roll all saves that you would have rolled immediately to see what's been going on for the last few rounds.

[Regitnui]

Yep exactly. It doesn't change the way a player rolls when they are at zero hit points. It just changes when the players get the information. You could imagine a very similar house rule which is that the player rolls death saving throws as normal but is not allowed to tell anyone what the outcome was. Mine is equivalent without requiring the player to keep a secret.

Every time you would roll a death saving throw, you mark down how many you need to make. When someone goes over to stabilize or check on you, you roll all saves that you would have rolled immediately to see what's been going on for the last few rounds.

That makes sense. I'll borrow that, if you don't mind. Though don't you make death saving throws once per round? I'll have to check the rules when I'm back at my book.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Death saving throws are rolled only when a character is checked when another character uses the stabilize dying action on them.

When a character goes down in combat, they make death saving throws to see if they bleed out. Three successes means you are stable but not conscious. Three failures means you are dead. If a fellow combatant goes down in combat, realistically, there should be a lot of drama to that situation along with an immediate reaction to go see if he or she is okay. When you can watch your ally roll their death saving throws and go tend to them immediately after their second fail, this takes all of the mystery and suspense out of the situation, it encourages meta gaming, and it causes some players to sit out rounds of combat because other players selfishly decide not to waste their action giving another player several future actions. So at my table, if you wait three rounds to go check on a fallen comrade, they then, and only then, roll three death saving throws and find out if they are dead or alive.

I've seen this one a lot, and as far as I can see they always ignore the problem of rolling a 20 (and thus regaining 1hp and re-entering the fight). It also fails to confront the larger problems that a downed character is certain to be alive with at least either 1 round or 1 attack of grace, and can be returned to combat with 100% effectiveness and minimal risk fairly easily.

[Renvir]

My group has 3 different games that are ongoing based on who is able to show up on a given night so we may not use all of these rules simultaneously. I also realized afterword that I got very wordy so I'll put spoiler tags in.

The player rolls in a concealed manner so that only the GM sees the actual roll. Other players can make Medical checks to get a sense of how that player is doing. I run the game that uses this rule and my players trust me to set varying DC's for the check based on factors like distance, lighting, wound type, etc. There's no waiting around knowing that the player succeeded on their first two saves.

As a group we decided to stick with the normal encumbrance rules but also decided that certain armor types should have extra penalties besides the normal stealth disadvantage and/or strength requirements. We made this decision because it felt crazy how much people could carry but people continually flouted the variant encumbrance rules for numerous reasons. We came up with Light Armor = disadvantage on swim checks, Medium Armor = disadvantage on swim checks, stealth checks (only on ones that already had the penalty), and strength requirements (10-12 based on weight), Heavy Armor = disadvantage on swim checks, climb checks, stealth checks, and strength requirements (12-15 based on weight).

I am not knowledgeable about actual armor use or how plausible this rule variant is so bear with me. Heavy and Medium armors can be worn as lesser armors. I don't have the specific rules around me right now but plate mail could be worn as just a breastplate, chain mail could be a chain shirt, etc. Not all of them could do this but most did. We use this in conjunction with the Armor Penalties rule above.

Same as Discord's critical hit rule above:
First, determine what a maximum damage roll would be for a normal hit then roll make a normal damage roll and add the maximum on top. This guarantees all critical hits are better than normal hits.

This rule was borrowed and tweaked from Monte Cook's Numenera game and not used in conjunction with the rule above. When you successfully hit (no bonus on misses) and roll a 17 you add 1 to your damage roll, 18 adds 3, 19 adds 5, and 20 adds 7. (In the case of Champions and similar increased critical range effects we did 16 adds 1, 17 adds 3, 18 adds 5, 19 adds 7, and 20 adds 7. I assume you can figure it out for larger increases).

Fighting Spirit a.k.a. Grit is another rule that was borrowed and tweaked, this time from The Angry GM (If you like lots of words on D&D, he has them). This rule is meant to differentiate day to day wear and tear vs real injuries. Players have two pools of "health": Hit Points and Grit (we didn't like the name Fighting Spirit as much so we changed it but the idea is the same). At first level you start with the same number of HP and Grit as you would normally. For example a cleric with a Con Mod of +2 starts with 10 Hit points AND 10 Grit. When you level up you add the new "health" to Grit. Taking the average for our cleric you get 7 more Grit (5+2). So our level 2 cleric has 10 HP and 17 Grit. At levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19 your added "health" goes to your HP instead of your Grit. Without any boosts to our Con Mod the cleric would have 17 HP and 24 Grit at level 4, 24 HP and 45 Grit at level 8, etc.

During a fight damage comes out of your Grit first. As long as you have at least 1 point of Grit you act normally. When your Grit hits zero you suffer disadvantage on attack rolls, enemies have advantage on saving throws against your attacks, spells, or abilities, and you suffer one level of exhaustion. Effectively, you suck at stuff when you're out of Grit and either need to heal, run away, or push on. Any healing that gives you even 1 point of Grit ends these effects immediately. When you are being healed you must choose whether to recover HP or Grit. You can't regain both from the same healing source and there is no spill over. If you are out of HP you make death saving throws but die on your first failure.

One quirk is that damage does not spill over between Grit and HP. You may think this creates a situation that players could abuse but in a few trial runs we found that multi-attacking monsters, selective healing, and tougher death saving rules meant abusing that rule was risky. Certain environmental effects also directly target HP. So far we've decided that fall damage, suffocation, and natural lava bypass Grit. When in doubt, we go with Grit though. This avoids the weirdness where players with over 120 hit points could jump off a 200 foot cliff knowing they cannot die from the fall and can continue doing about their business as usual. It also incentivized more tactical play so far. Knowing my group that might wear off after a while but only time will tell.

I suggest reading The Angry GM's article on this and adopting it as you see fit.

[YCombinator]

I've seen this one a lot, and as far as I can see they always ignore the problem of rolling a 20 (and thus regaining 1hp and re-entering the fight). It also fails to confront the larger problems that a downed character is certain to be alive with at least either 1 round or 1 attack of grace, and can be returned to combat with 100% effectiveness and minimal risk fairly easily.

Yes, it does fail to give the 20 and regain benefit. I don't know what this bigger problem you're referring to is though. What is it?

[Knaight]

Yes, it does fail to give the 20 and regain benefit. I don't know what this bigger problem you're referring to is though. What is it?

It's that there's always two safe rounds. Whether or not this is a problem is debatable, particularly because those that see it as a problem can modify NPC tactics to counter it (via killing the wounded preferentially against foes that keep bringing them back into the fight), but you do always have that.

[DanyBallon]

We use few houserules but a bit more homebrew stuff, mostly class subtype and races and classes restriction (i.e. no Tiefling, no Warlock, no Dragonborn, etc.)

The major houserule we use is that you don't get back to full HP after a long rest. You can only spend HD to get HP back. HD spent in a long rest can't be gained back until the next long rest.

In an upcoming campaign I want to start, rest will be different for adventuring and travelling. When adventuring, the will follow the same houserule as above, and in addition you'll need to spend a use of a med kit. When travelling, short rest and long rest will last 8h, but you can only take one long rest per week. In this case, a long rest restore you to full HP and you don't need any med kit uses to spend HD on a short rest. The differentiation between adventuring and travelling is because we found out that in games where there was a lot of travelling, even with random encounter, we only had only 2-3 max encounter a day, so we could go nova without too much consequence.

An other houserule I want to try, is to tie Initiative to Intelligence, to see how it turns out.

[Sigreid]

We decided that it is perfectly reasonable for an EK to choose 2 different spell schools as their primary. A warrior can easily find a good use for illusion, conjuration or divination magic, for example.

[Mjolnirbear]

I've changed some feats:

Pole arm Master can be used with all pole arms. The second attack requires both hands.

Great weapon Master and Sharpshooter can only use their - 5/+10 ability once per turn (like Sneak Attack, can be used on other turns such as attacks of opportunity)

Dual Weiler and Duellist are merged. You get the draw two weapons part, the ability mod to damage on the bonus action attack, and the parry ability.

Healer is part of the medicine skill

Charger is gone. All characters get the charge action, minus the additional damage.

Thrown Weapon Master: draw thrown weapons as part of the action on throwing them; bonus action attack; once per short rest you can Flurry of Knives and throw two daggers for every attack you have this round.

Whip Master: use dex: acrobatics instead of Strength: athletics to shove (prone only) disarm or grapple if you do it with the Whip. The Whip is a tool for cool whip-related actions. On a critical you can elect to do no damage and the one you hit begins to Suffocate. Begin a grapple with advantage.



My goal with the bonus-attack feats was to give each something cool and unique, partly to make each set of weapons unique. I am fine if they are a bit OP though I'm not really sure they are.

[Zman]

Here is a big list of mine. Zman's 5e Tweaks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?482259-Zman-s-5e-Tweaks)

Here are he main house rules.

House Rules/Varient Rules


Add "Upon reaching 11th level, if your have the Extra Attack class feature you may make two attacks with your bonus action when attacking with a different light weapon in your other hand.




Dropping to 0 Hit Points
Add "Regaining Hit Points: When a character that has been dropped to 0 Hit Points and regains hit points that character gains 1 level of exhaustion."

Add "Breather: A Breather is a period of brief downtime, at least 30 seconds long. A character can spend one Hit Dice. A character cannot benefit from another Breather until they've finished a Short or Long Rest."
Short Rest: *No Change
Long Rest: Remove "At the end of a long rest, a character regains all lost hit points."




Flanking: Change grants Advantage to a +1 Bonus o hit for each ally flanking the enemy to a maximum of +5.

Threatened Space: Moving through a threatened space costs double movement.

Ranged Attacks into Close Combat: A creature engaged in melee is granted half cover against ranged attacks.

[DanyBallon]

One additional houserule we use, is not an houserule in itself, but a very specific interpretation of the rules in that you can't wield a weapon two-handed and cast a spell for the duration of the round (action, bonus action and reaction). This gives versatile weapons a boost as if you cast a spell you still can use your weapon one-handed. It's a bit trickier with reaction, and to be honest, we forget to enforce this rule on reaction about 50% of the time, but it always apply on your turn.

[Mjolnirbear]

I've changed my skills: all active checks remain the same. But any check involving knowledge is a passive check. Some knowledge is too obscure to know unless you have training (by which I mean: proficiency, background, class, or race that conceivably offers insight).

Example: Thim the Barbarian (outlander) wants to disarm a rune trap. He can attempt the Arcana roll. He wants to know how to stop a spellcaster: his passive Arcana score is enough to tell him about spell components. He wants to know why some spells are Lines: he can't, because nothing about him qualifies him as trained and so he doesn't know about Mordenkainen's Aether Line that permits line spells. A sage background might permit this if his passive score is enough, even if he's not trained in Arcana.

Example 2: Milena the Paladin (folk hero) is considered trained on religion checks and local History checks. Thim presents her with a Delzoun weapon. If she is from an area where the Delzoun are part of local history, she might identify it. If she is a dwarf she almost certainly will.

Logic: you either know something, or you dont: hence passive checks.

I put in the Trained part because some knowledge is obscure. But because it is exclusionary, I let your background, race and class count for purposes of being Trained.

Let's take mythals. They're family famous, but for most people, they're just spells. An elf, someone proficient in Arcana, a historian, an Arcane caster or a citizen of a place that has or had mythals (Myth Drannor or the netherese) might all count as trained for the purposes of knowing about mythals. Thim the barbarian is actually netherese. He can't tell you about the Aether Line, but he can tell you about the mythal.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I've got a thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?485818-Grod-s-5e-Revisions-Structual) up now about revising the game to emphasize Abilities much, much less.

I also really want to change Bladesinger so it's less of an enormous tanky ability and more of an agility/mobility thing like the fluff implies. And I'm toying with the idea of eliminating temporary HP from shapeshifting.

I like the idea of popcorn initiative and Inspiration-as-Fate-Points. They already came pretty close to having Aspects; might as well go the rest of the way.

[RedMage125]

I stick pretty close to RAW, but I do have some "table rules" that affect the way gameplay works.

First off, I try to discourage discussion of hit point totals during combat. There's no actual penalty for breaking this rule, other than a Stern Look Of DM Disapproval. However, I do, conversationally, bring back the 4e "bloodied" condition. I've always (going back to 3.xe) gone with the idea that-narratively- when a creature is above 1/2 hp, it is unharmed. At 1/2 hp they are "bloodied", which narratively means they have taken a few hits to their armor, maybe have some scrapes or are bleeding slightly. The exception to this is that a critical is always narratively a solid hit. But anyway, if players are wounded in combat or if the healer asks if people need healing, I try to keep conversation limited to "I'm bloodied" or "not even bloodied", things like that. "I won't be able to take another hit" is fine, and so on. Out of combat, I don't care if they discuss hp numbers. I will also let them know when a creature is "bloodied", because I don't share hp totals of monsters with players.

Rolling a 1 on an attack is a potential critical miss. I've done this in every edition since 3.0. When a 1 is rolled, the player re-rolls the attack, using the same modifiers, if that "confirmation roll" would have hit, then their "nat 1" is just a regular miss. If they miss with the confirmation roll, they get a critical miss, and something bad happens (drop weapon, bowstring snaps, overextend yourself and end up prone, etc). Enemies use the same rules. However, I rule that critical failures do not occur with natural weapons (in this instance, that includes unarmed strikes).

Things that I guess count as houserules:
I allowed my players the ability to make the improved potions of healing when they got to higher levels. I don't have that notebook with me, so I can't provide the numbers I used to calculate costs, though.

Low-Level Lycanthropy "cure" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?395281-Low-level-Lycanthropy-quot-cure-quot)Harkening back to older editions, I allowed the party to track down a supply of Belladonna, Wolfsbane, and Powdered Silver (25gp worth). They hired an NPC apothecary to make a Wolfsbane potion. Now, cure or not, Belladonna is poisonous, and I ruled that ingesting it requires a CON save or take 2d10 Poison damage and be afflicted with the Poisoned Condition for 24 hours. In order for the potion to take effect, one must voluntarily fail their save against the poison. The potion is not as effective as a Remove Curse spell, however, and all it does is give the player a new chance to roll the CON save (which I, the DM, make in secret).

Before PotA came out, I made my own Genasi Homebrew Race (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?385993-Genasi-race-for-5e-Homebrew). I was working on one for Githzerai, but haven't found a way to make them balanced.

As always, my policy on cherry-picking or poaching wholesale from my ideas is "Plagarism Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery".

EDIT: Almost forgot! I made a Lesser Deck of Many Things! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?472631-Lesser-Decks-of-Many-Things)

[CoggieRagabash]

Low-Level Lycanthropy "cure" (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?395281-Low-level-Lycanthropy-quot-cure-quot)Harkening back to older editions, I allowed the party to track down a supply of Belladonna, Wolfsbane, and Powdered Silver (25gp worth). They hired an NPC apothecary to make a Wolfsbane potion. Now, cure or not, Belladonna is poisonous, and I ruled that ingesting it requires a CON save or take 2d10 Poison damage and be afflicted with the Poisoned Condition for 24 hours. In order for the potion to take effect, one must voluntarily fail their save against the poison. The potion is not as effective as a Remove Curse spell, however, and all it does is give the player a new chance to roll the CON save (which I, the DM, make in secret).

Belladonna isn't the only crucially toxic part of that concoction. Wolfsbane is called that for a reason - it was used to poison wolves and other predators. Dosing would be incredibly precarious, especially with another toxin in the mix.

But I guess that's what's compelling about this - submitting to this potion is taking a chance on a real cure, or the very real chance of a more permanent 'cure'. I'd certainly find it more interesting from a narrative perspective than someone using a spell slot.

[MaxWilson]

So, what sort of variant rules have you guys come up with? I heard someone in another thread using advantage/disadvantage stacks, and a number of patches on the Beastmaster's beast being treated more intuitively. I'd like to know, since my current game is a little hamstrung by a player being seven hours away from everyone else.

I use a different initiative system based on Speed Factor/AD&D initiative. The gist of it is that everyone declares their actions (in order from lowest Int to highest) and then everyone acts, in order of initiative. This represents that smarter creatures have more time to make decisions, but quicker creatures are faster to implement those decisions.

In practice it's usually unnecessary to hold strictly to that ordering. For example, most rounds, nobody bothers to roll initiative because it doesn't matter. If it becomes important to know whether Whumpf got his Fireball off before the Shadow Demon dropped him, then you roll an initiative contest to see who was first; but if neither Whump nor the Shadow Demon is doing any fancy movement this round and neither one is dropped by damage, it doesn't matter what came first. Likewise, instead of forcing players of high-Int PCs to wait to declare their action, I just let them declare and then change their minds if a lower-Int PC or monster is doing something that affects their decision.

A couple of notes:

* Since every turn in the round now happens simultaneously, spell and ability durations wind up having to be adjusted, and most of them wind up somewhat longer. E.g. Shield lasts for the rest of the current turn/round, not into the next one; but Stunning Strike stuns monsters until the end of the next turn/round, so the monster could potentially miss out on two attacks instead of one if the monk beat its initiative on the first round. (I consider that a better outcome than making it last only for the current turn/round, which would make it useless unless you beat the enemy's initiative.) As I recall, this is how spell durations worked in AD&D also.

* For someone who wants to play a straightforward bruiser and always hit things with his axe, Int won't matter, but if you want to engage tactically with the enemy's choices in a complicated way you need to have a higher Int than he does.

* This hasn't come up much but I would allow someone to fake someone out into believing the wrong thing about their planned decisions, if you won a Deception vs. Insight contest.

* Some actions beat all initiatives. For example, Dodging is an activity that affects all attacks that round, no matter how high the initiative of the monster who is attacking the Dodging guy.

* Anyone with the Alert feat gets to declare actions last.

* You can Delay explicitly on purpose or implicitly (by just failing to declare an action, e.g. because we forgot and accidentally skipped you, or because your PC wasn't ready to commit to an action yet/was busy eating soup/skinning leopards/cleaning his toenails). Delaying means you automatically lose initiative, but you also get to declare your action after seeing the results of everyone else's actions. In effect, there's a secondary declare/resolve cycle for everyone who Delayed after the main cycle, and so on for as long as someone keeps Delaying--but if everyone Delays instead of acting then the round ends. (It's a Mexican standoff.) This is how you get lulls in combat as the combatants size each other up, neither one wanting to be the first one to act. (E.g. because the first guy to act is going to have to Dash instead of attacking.)

* Delay also covers most surprise-related dilemmas. I reserve genuine surprise, where the attacker can potentially get two full turns in a row before the defender can respond, for situations where the defender was fully in Code White (not ready for threats) and takes a minute to reset, like if you were attacked by werewolves while browsing at the library. If on the other hand a mage-assassin decloaks from behind Greater Invisibility and attacks your fighter while you are dungeon crawling, that's not surprise, that's just an implicit Delay on the part of your fighter, so the assassin goes first but then you get to respond on the same turn instead of losing your turn per PHB rules.

Perhaps as a side effect of this initiative variant, Int is not a dump stat at my table--in fact it seems more popular to boost Int than Con at my table. E.g. there was a Shadow Monk who by 12th level had boosted his Dex from 18 to 20 and his Int from 9 to 12. That wasn't a deliberate design goal on my part but I really like the effect anyway.

[uraniumrooster]

I use a different initiative system based on Speed Factor/AD&D initiative.

That sounds like a cool system. I've been looking for a better way to handle initiative, I'm not a big fan of just treating it like an ability check and then going in order. It feels a little too stale and turn-based gamey. I experimented briefly with trying to implement a Hackmaster-style count-up initiative into 5th ed, but it would have required overhauling the whole action economy and just wasn't something I wanted to tackle (and my players would have grumbled about having to basically learn a new game, more or less). This seems like it'd be more user friendly, I might have to borrow it and take it for a spin. Thanks!

[mer.c]

Agreed on that. Speed Factor is a really cool system if your players are down with it. Declaring in ascending Int order is a great touch, too; I hadn't heard of that before (or I did and I forgot).

Angry DM has an article on it if you want to read more about how it works in practice.

[Pope Scarface]

House rules I plan to use for 5E:

Skills:

1. Tool proficiencies are removed, and replaced with Focused Skill proficiencies. Focused Skills can include proficiency with specific tools, but also opens up taking something like Climbing, Swimming, Tumbling, Jumping, Balance, etc. Classes and backgrounds still give their specific tool proficiencies, but some exceptions could be made, such as taking Singing instead of an instrument.

2. Whenever your proficiency bonus increases (5th, 9th, 13th, 17th), you gain an additional Focused Skill proficiency. All characters gain an additional Focused Skill proficiency at level 1 as well.

3. If you have 3 Focused Skill Proficiencies that would fall under the same Skill that you are not proficient with, you can upgrade them to proficiency with that skill. If you have 3 Focused Skill Proficiencies that would fall under the same Skill that you are proficient with, you can upgrade them to Expertise with that skill.

Hit Dice:

1. Hit Dice can be spent to reduce the damage from an attack, to a minimum of 1. This does not use an action, but you have to be aware of the attack.

2. Unspent Hit Dice are rolled as healing with a short rest.

3. All Hit Dice are recovered with a short rest.

Spellcasting:

1. You can concentrate on a number of spells equal to your proficiency bonus. If you fail a constitution save for concentration and are concentrating on more than 1 spell, you take a level of exhaustion.

2. If your are able to cast a spell as a bonus action, you are not limited to 1 spell and 1 cantrip. Instead, you are limited to a total number of spell levels cast in one turn equal to the highest level spell slot you can cast.

[Grod_The_Giant]

2. If your are able to cast a spell as a bonus action, you are not limited to 1 spell and 1 cantrip. Instead, you are limited to a total number of spell levels cast in one turn equal to the highest level spell slot you can cast.
Wouldn't you be more (and more gracefully) limited by the action economy? One action to cast, one bonus action to cast, and that's it.

[Pope Scarface]

Wouldn't you be more (and more gracefully) limited by the action economy? One action to cast, one bonus action to cast, and that's it.

Not sure what you mean. By the base rules, if you cast a spell as a bonus action, you can't cast another spell that turn except for cantrips. With my house rule, you could cast two actual spells, if one was quickened or naturally a bonus spell (but not two high level spells).

[Grod_The_Giant]

Not sure what you mean. By the base rules, if you cast a spell as a bonus action, you can't cast another spell that turn except for cantrips. With my house rule, you could cast two actual spells, if one was quickened or naturally a bonus spell (but not two high level spells).
I know that's the default rule. I think I misread your houserule; I thought you were limiting the total number of spells, not their combined level.

[MaxWilson]

Agreed on that. Speed Factor is a really cool system if your players are down with it. Declaring in ascending Int order is a great touch, too; I hadn't heard of that before (or I did and I forgot).

Angry DM has an article on it if you want to read more about how it works in practice.

Do note that Angry's article focuses on an entirely different angle than I do. For example, the actual weapon speeds are central to why Angry is using Speed Factor initiative, whereas in my variant they are unimportant and in fact ignored. (I love speed factors, don't get me wrong--especially for spells. They add a lot of flavor and tactical interest. But I don't use them in any game that I've run so far in 5E, partly because as I mentioned, actual initiative rolls are somewhat rare and I don't see the need to complicate them.)

[mer.c]

Do note that Angry's article focuses on an entirely different angle than I do. For example, the actual weapon speeds are central to why Angry is using Speed Factor initiative, whereas in my variant they are unimportant and in fact ignored. (I love speed factors, don't get me wrong--especially for spells. They add a lot of flavor and tactical interest. But I don't use them in any game that I've run so far in 5E, partly because as I mentioned, actual initiative rolls are somewhat rare and I don't see the need to complicate them.)

Ah, my mistake! I misunderstood you. I thought you had people declare their action in ascending Int order, and then resolved them in descending Speed Factor Initiative order as described by Angry GM.

[Daishain]

Some of the rules I've decided to use:

-Characters do not auto heal upon taking a long rest. They can however spend hit dice they would have regained during the same.

-The Healer feat no longer exists. However, any character can spend a charge on a healer's Kit to reproduce either of its effects. This requires passing a DC 15 medicine check or the charge is wasted

-All mundane equipment and simple alchemical items found in 3.5E are also available somewhere in the 5e 'verse. Some specific effects are subject to change, and the immediate availability of many items is far from guaranteed.

-All PCs start off with one choice of what I've taken to calling flavor feats. The list includes every feat that has a +1 stat attached (except resilient, which is not an option), but said +1 has been removed. I expanded the list with a few homebrew items of my own. The idea is to give L1 characters a little more variety while giving more attention to normally suboptimal choices.

-A character can substitute advantage on an attack for disadvantage and the ability to call their shot. Exact effect of a called shot vary based on the specific target but is typically substantial.

-A character that does not have disadvantage can also make a called shot without further penalty if they did not move the previous turn, and spent the previous turn's action aiming at the called target in question

-A character cannot benefit from a long rest while wearing medium or heavy armor. Yes, this does make securing one's campsite a priority.

-If firing into melee, a ranged character has two options. Either take disadvantage on the shot, or risk a 10% chance of hitting their allies instead (represented by rolling a 1 or 2)

-Single use magic tomes are available, if in short supply. Upon studying them for 1 hour, they impart enough knowledge to speak one language or use a specific skill before disintegrating. Studying a tome for a language or skill that is already known has no impact.

[Pope Scarface]

I know that's the default rule. I think I misread your houserule; I thought you were limiting the total number of spells, not their combined level.

Fair enough. I should work on improving the wording of it then.

[Regitnui]

I've seen a lot of people allowing the 'stacking' of concentration spells. Wasn't that the very problem that lead to CoDzilla in the first place?

[mer.c]

I've seen a lot of people allowing the 'stacking' of concentration spells. Wasn't that the very problem that lead to CoDzilla in the first place?

While I think there's room for houseruling some concentration-stacking, I agree that you need to be very careful with it. If I allow it, it will be very specific and with drawbacks (although the exhaustion one is a great idea I hadn't thought of!).

My current idea allows casters, with some investment, to suppress their concentration spells, losing all of them if they fail a concentration roll. So a Warlock can take an invocation that lets them suppress Hex, so they can, say, Hold Person someone without ending Hex (it's just switched off for the duration). Or a Sorcerer can take a Metamagic that allows suppression of a spell at the cost of SP.

I've also brewed some feats to support having multiple concentration effects active at the same time with penalties to the caster, but I'm hesitant to try them out. I just don't really see the need to allow that kind of power creep. But it's possible I'm being overly timid.

[Zman]

I've seen a lot of people allowing the 'stacking' of concentration spells. Wasn't that the very problem that lead to CoDzilla in the first place?

I agree. I feel the concentration mechanic as well as the Cantrip+Bonus Action Spell restriction were crucial aspects of balance for spellcasters, and with bounded accuracy I would be concerned how that stacking would play out.

[Pope Scarface]

I feel the risk of exhaustion is a sufficient counterbalance for concentration, as it takes a 5th level spell or a long rest to remove 1 level of exhaustion, and the drawbacks for exhaustion are severe. That risk, and the significantly reduced number of spells per day that spellcasters get, should prevent the 'CoDzilla' problem.

The change to quickened spells is something that might not necessarily fit for the standard assumptions of the kind of encounters PCs are expected to fight between rests, but my games lean towards the harder side, so it helps compensate for that.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Even without Concentration limits, there are plenty of checks on caster power-- Concentration checks, fewer spells/day, the basically-total removal of metamagic, reduced duration, individually weaker spells... I think you could safely allow some multi-concentration. Say that the combined spell level must be less than the highest level spell slot you have. That and the increased spell slot waste ought to help.

[MaxWilson]

Even without Concentration limits, there are plenty of checks on caster power-- Concentration checks, fewer spells/day, the basically-total removal of metamagic, reduced duration, individually weaker spells... I think you could safely allow some multi-concentration. Say that the combined spell level must be less than the highest level spell slot you have. That and the increased spell slot waste ought to help.

I think you are undervaluing the game effect of concentration. Most of those things don't affect nova capability, whereas concentration does. If you remove concentration but leave everything else intact you'll wind up with spellcasters who are less powerful but even more prone to the Five Minute Work-Day.

Allowing multi-concentration would also weaken stealth relative to spellcasting. Currently stealth is one of the best counters to concentration spells, because the spellcaster has to hold an action to catch the stealthy guy... which occupies his concentration.

[uraniumrooster]

I've seen a lot of people allowing the 'stacking' of concentration spells. Wasn't that the very problem that lead to CoDzilla in the first place?


I agree. I feel the concentration mechanic as well as the Cantrip+Bonus Action Spell restriction were crucial aspects of balance for spellcasters, and with bounded accuracy I would be concerned how that stacking would play out.

It hasn't significantly unbalanced things in my game. Under my rules, extra concentration slots unlock very slowly, only becoming available on odd spell-levels. For pure-casters, this coincides with proficiency bonus increases, but it's slower for 1/2 and 1/3 casters or multi-class characters. The penalties for concentrating on more than one spell (exhaustion, higher concentration DC, burning through spell slots faster) have prevented the players from abusing the mechanic so far, and they tend to conserve their concentration for moments when it's really needed. There is a feat to help mitigate the drawbacks somewhat, but it's overall less valuable compared to other uses of your ASI (by design), and so far only the cleric is planning on taking it, and probably not until level 16 (if we get that high).

I can see why they introduced the concentration mechanic to the game, and I think it was a needed mechanic, but I think they took it a bit too far and made it overly restrictive. I've found that opening it up a little bit as characters advance, but keeping some restrictions and drawbacks in place, maintains the spirit of the rule while giving players a little more freedom in their tactics and spell selection. Most importantly, it's been a lot of fun - the players love it, and I can have my NPCs use it against them, which has been fun for me. :smallbiggrin:

I'm sure it could certainly be abused, so I'm not going to say it's a good idea for every table, but it's worked well at mine.

[Pope Scarface]

Allowing multi-concentration would also weaken stealth relative to spellcasting. Currently stealth is one of the best counters to concentration spells, because the spellcaster has to hold an action to catch the stealthy guy... which occupies his concentration.

I don't think that works that well against stealth. Unless you make your perception check, you would get stabbed before you could cast your spell, and unless you made your constitution save, you'd lose the spell before you could cast it. If it is a rogue doing the stabbing, the constitution save could be a tad difficult depending on what level we are talking about.

[Estrillian]

Many of the ones I use have been mentioned here before

1. Short rests can be taken whenever there is a clear lull in the action, so they could be a 10 minute breather if that makes sense. There is no limit to the number per day if it makes narrative sense for them.

2. Long rests can only happen when there is a period of significant downtime that allows actual relaxation. An 8 hour rest in a hostile wilderness or a scummy Inn might not be enough. Therefore a Long rest every day is not automatic. If an overnight rest doesn't count as a Long rest it counts as a Short rest.

3. Long rests don't restore all HP, you can spend Hit Dice to regain Hit Points, and get half your Hit Dice back on each Long Rest

4. Being reduced to 0 by a critical hit, or other massive trauma, means a roll on the Long Term injury table in the DMG. I tried it on a failed Death Save as the DMG suggests, but it is too frequent, and it doesn't make much sense for your arms to fall off spontaneously while lying on the ground.

5. Tool Proficiencies are more like professions. If you have proficiency with carpenter's tools, for example, you are a carpenter and can try to repair doors, spot wooden traps, guess the age of woodwork, and so on. You can add proficiency to anything related to your profession, whether you actually use your tools or not. The same applies to backgrounds.

6. Some skill checks (usually for knowledge, but not always) require proficiency. You are not allowed to attempt them if you don't have it.

7. You can have Henchmen, using a set of rules rather like those in BECMI, which you get to play as subordinate characters. The number of Henchmen is limited by your Charisma Bonus, and they have a loyalty score based on your Charisma (and the hiring deal). When they suffer setbacks (e.g. significant injury, insults from other party members) they make a Loyalty check and may leave. When they experience triumphs (big battle wins, treasure shares) their Loyalty can increase. There is a feat to get more and better Henchmen. Note: our first Henchmen had actual class levels, which I think was a mistake, better would be ones using the Bandit, Thug, Bandit Captain, Spy, Noble stat blocks from the DMG.

You can also have any number of Hirelings, but they don't fight (or they only fight off-stage against other things that are off-stage, so your 10 spearmen might fight 10 gnolls in a rearguard, but they don't factor into your own encounters), they just man camps, lead horses, carry gear, etc.



But anyway, if players are wounded in combat or if the healer asks if people need healing, I try to keep conversation limited to "I'm bloodied" or "not even bloodied", things like that. "I won't be able to take another hit" is fine, and so on. Out of combat, I don't care if they discuss hp numbers. I will also let them know when a creature is "bloodied", because I don't share hp totals of monsters with players.

I like the idea of this, but there are these annoying Cleric powers that only heal up to half hit points, and which can only be used rarely. I don't want to penalise players blowing a short rest power only to find that it doesn't actually heal anyone significantly.