What Alternative and house rules do y'all use. [Archive]

Throne12

2017-10-29, 10:00 AM

I was thinking about house rules I use and some I have heard other people use. I was just wandering what other rules people use and why do they use them.

One rule I used in my last session was the party spent all day walking through a magical fog that took them to the feywilds then found a little cottage with a giant fea snake Disguise as a sweet young lady. I soon found out what she was and were in a fight with her. They kill her then noped out of there with out taking a rest and walked and walked they went for another 24 hours then I asked for a con save the ones that failed had a level of Exhaustion. Then every 2 hours I asked the ones that passed the first time to make another con save they failed and they got a level of Exhaustion . Then my rules Dictator of the table said "what why do I have to make the save again and if I pass do I still have to make them." I said yes you will every few hours untell y'all take a long rest of gain a level of Exhaustion. Then when you start another 24 hour time Period you will all start making then again gaining another level. He Rebuttal " I can stay up 2 days with out any problems why should are characters gain a level for not resting for 2 days. The rest of the table just told him don't worry about it and we are going to take a long rest.

Now I Search the DMG for rules about this but I couldn't find them if they are in the book.

Naanomi

2017-10-29, 10:21 AM

-No aracockra, no winged tieflings
-Revised ranger is available, but no other UA
-Otherwise all officially published material available in any combination

-No being can have more than one Similacrum of themselves in existence at a time
-Simulacrums that cast wish risk ‘burning out’ the wish capability of the spellcaster that created them
-Simulacrum that are created by a caster who has ‘burned out’ their wish cannot cast wish
-A PC true-polymorphed into something permanently becomes an NPC; and although it maintains the alignment and basic personality of the PC they will otherwise act like the creature they have become; increasingly so as time passes
-If I find something exploitive or disruptive about your abilities or tactics during a game; after that session I may make adjustments to prevent it from occurring again... you and I can work together on adjustments to the character that may need to be done to modify (or abandon) the disruptive actions
-quarterstaves cannot be used with one hand; but has a special property that you can switch between one hand and two handed grip when not attacking with it without using an item interaction
-tavern brawler and grappler are combined into one feat; without the +1 Stat
-*new with the most recently started game*: with a few exceptions: no more than three short rests between long rests; no more than one long rest per 24 hours

Avonar

2017-10-29, 11:28 AM

I only really have one main house rule, and that is for everyone's favourite Heat Metal spell...

RAW, if the target takes damage and does not drop the item they have disadvantage. I say that if they succeed the save, no disadvantage. Hopefully stop it being such a ridiculous spell, I don't think I've ever seen a game without it (assuming they're at the right level).

Overall I'm pretty ok with the rules in general, though in most campaigns I ignore the EXP system. It can work in some contexts but I much prefer giving the players their level ups at meaningful times instead. I also prefer to state no verbal spellcasting underwater. It's never made sense to me that you can happily say these complex arcane words that need to be precise in order to cast magic when you're trying to speak through water.

Slipperychicken

2017-10-29, 04:43 PM

Rules for going without a long rest were mentioned in the Xanathar's Guide teaser. I'm hoping they'll be comprehensive. In the meantime, I think the forced march rules (PHB 181) would be most appropriate for OP's situation.

My group's rules:
-Spell points. We've recently started using the DMG variant, deciding it scaled better than our previous system (which was spell point = spell level in all cases).
-Spellcasters cannot complete somatic components while grappled or restrained.
-Interrupting a spell with an attack or damaging effect (such as a readied action or mage slayer attack) provokes a concentration check
-PHB races only, spells from PHB and EE. No unearthed arcana content.
-The free object-interaction allows you to "swap out" one item for another (i.e sheathe one weapon and pull out another at the same time)
-Characters can use their actions to help a prone character to his or her feet. This does not cost the prone character's movement. I think we've sometimes used bonus actions for this?
-When frightened and prone, you cannot stand up if doing so would bring your head closer to the source of your fear (I see his logic, but I despise this rule and think my GM is an idiot for making it)

I'm planning to propose a houserule for gaining exhaustion levels upon being reduced to zero hit points.

Marvnmartian

2017-10-29, 06:24 PM

my list so far.

--adding "when wielded with two hands" to the feat Polearm mastery to shunt out that quarterstaff shield cheese
--using the scavenging rules from the wilderness survival guide
--using the Stronghold rules from Fortresses, Temples and Strongholds.
--allowing Short rests to be 30 minutes instead of an hour. (mostly to allow rope trick to actually be viable since 1 hour short rest would have the party popped out before they finish their short rest)
--Allowing Most UA Classes as long as they are single classed besides lore master.. cause no just no..
--Giving a Feat at level 1 to all as long as they arn't Lucky, Sharpshooter, GWM, or War caster (I haven't noticed a huge amount of abuse from giving them a feat and it allows the players to feel more powerful at tier 1 and allows me to get more varied races then 3 variant humans and an elf for most parties...)
--Moving Boots of Flying and Broom of flying up 1 level into Rare Magic item category.. cause yeah flying for 500g all the time is a little broken
--Allowing Players to craft a Weapon/Wand/Staff that they use more then any other type at half the time of the crafting rules as they are more versed in that weapon this equates too +1 armor/weapon takes 80 hours to craft +2 800 hours to craft and +3 8000 hours to craft. I have only had one person craft a +2 and none attempt a +3 but it still allows them the option if i give enough downtime
--True Polymorph Object into Creature- Once the spell becomes permanent the beast (Usually young silver dragon the times ive had this spell used) becomes an npc and will be positive towards the party but will have its own will and i will roll on the personality, bonds, flaws tables to flesh out the newly formed dragon at the table to be fair.

True Polymorph was a fun exception where the party had just killed the BBEG and was doing their epilogues and the bard... its always the bard isnt it.. decided he wanted to start a brood of dragons so he made a new young silver/bronze/brass/copper dragon every day for 50 days on an island in the southern hemisphere that was uninhabited then asked all of the party members if they would want to transition into dragons as well and of course they said yes since the game was over, they all chose their metallic choices some choosing to go straight into being ancient brasses but a few wanting to be gold or silver and choosing to be adults. Now they are 3 ancient brass dragons 1 adult gold and 1 adult silver with a mix of 50 young dragons of varying metallic races. thus bringing literal world peace because their was a dragon or 3 in every country that communicated with 55 dragons around the world to stomp out all forms of necromancy/undead ran it as a fun one shot with the group later and you haven't had fun until you have 5 ancient dragons with 10 adult dragons fighting tiamat and his horde

Emay Ecks

2017-10-29, 06:34 PM

My table actually has a list I keep of all my houserules. That's probably a bad sign, but here are some of my favorites at my table:

-If you roll a natural one during an attack roll, you provoke an attack of opportunity from your target if you are within melee range
-The two weapon fighting style lets you make the additional attack as part of your attack action instead of as a bonus action (in addition to it's normal effect).
-If you grapple an opponent, you do automatically hit with melee spell attacks (since your hand is already in contact with them, and if you can perform somatic components while carrying a focus/shield you can perform them while carrying a person)
-You may give your secondary racial stat bonus (+1) to any stat, the primary (+2) cannot be changed
-Sneak attacks can be done with any weapon that deals 1d8 damage or less (because why strength rapier when you can just strength Morningstar?)

Eric Diaz

2017-10-29, 06:46 PM

I might have a dozen... Let me see:

- Gritty realism rules for resting in the wild;

- Fixed food/water/falling (http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/2015/09/the-rule-of-three-easy-outdoor-survival.html) damage to work with exhaustion an saving throws;

Characters who spend more than three days without food, one day without water, one hour under extreme weather (heat or cold) without adequate clothing, or one minute without air suffer the effects of exhaustion (see appendix A). After each of these periods, she suffers two levels of exhaustion (but a DC 15 Constitution saving throw will halve this effect).
Exhaustion caused by lack of food or water can’t be removed until the character spends a day eating (or drinking) the full required amount.

- Flanking = facing (http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/2017/03/5e-quick-fix-flanking-and-facing.html): "If a character gets surrounded by two or more creatures (or vice-versa), the creatures can divide themselves in two groups in order to flank/back-stab the character. The character chooses which group to face. The other group has advantage when attacking the character. The number of creatures that can attack a character at once is limited by their size, position (no backstabbing people who have their backs to a wall), and the length of their weapons."

- Death saving throws means disabled/unconscious/dying in a random order.

- Stacking advantage/disadvantage;

- Margin of success (but I use 10 or more).

I like ideas such as using 2d10 for skills and anything that deals with penalties for having 0 HP (for example, healing is halved, get one level of Exhaustion, etc), etc., but I haven't used them much.

I usually allow extensive re-fluffing. I allow expertise feats for everybody but also doesn't come up often.

Demonslayer666

2017-10-30, 03:44 PM

One house rule we use, which I came across on these boards and really liked, was that you don't make death saves when you start your turn at zero HP. Instead, note the number of rounds you have been down. When someone checks on you, you make your appropriate number of saves. This helps prevent the current condition from being public knowledge.

Tanarii

2017-10-30, 03:55 PM

He Rebuttal " I can stay up 2 days with out any problems why should are characters gain a level for not resting for 2 days.
He's wrong about the "with out any problems" part. He may think that's the case, but it's well documented that staying up for that long results in reduced functionality.

Unless ... maybe he's not a human? :smallamused:

Danielqueue1

2017-10-30, 05:29 PM

-flanking (it's an optional rule)
-natural ones on ability checks give you a -5 to your total. (no automatic failures, but it's quite probable)
-natural twenties on ability checks give you a +5 to your total. (no automatic success, but close enough)
-getting knocked out more than once in the same combat leads to consequences. (got a table that you roll on when you wake up with stacking -5 penalties for every time you get knocked out before a short rest instant death requires a -25 roll)
-way of the long death monk cannot use the fall to 1 hp instead of 0 feature more than 3 times in a single combat encounter. (stories)
-picking up dropped weapons while a hostile creature is in melee range requires an action or it provokes an oportunity attack. from all hostile creatures in melee range.
-critical fail tables (always fun times)
-critical fail check (not all critical failures roll on the table)
-players can ask for an NPC to make death saves instead of instant death as long as they do so before knocking it down to 0 hp
-food still spoils in a bag of holding. (stories)
-Leomund's tiny hut doesn't protect you from underneath. (there was an argument of what 'hemisphere' meant DM resolved it with a houserule)
-your next character may not be the same class as the one that just died. (rare exceptions for clerics.)
-animals from the bag of tricks stop following your orders if you have too many active. (stories)
-Simulacrums cannot cast simulacrum
-wish spell still requires the casting time for spells of 7th level or greater.
-only rolls on the table count.
-only rolls using the DM approved electronic die roller while the DM is there count. (you know who you are.)
-AE spells that will hit an enemy, but not an ally within 5 feet of that enemy will also include a die roll to see if you land it exactly where you want it.

jaappleton

2017-10-30, 05:35 PM

JackPhoenix

2017-10-30, 07:38 PM

He's wrong about the "with out any problems" part. He may think that's the case, but it's well documented that staying up for that long results in reduced functionality.

Unless ... maybe he's not a human? :smallamused:

He got lucky with the Con saves, duh

I use many house rules, some not already mentioned in this thread:

Disadvantage when using weapon with Heavy property while mounted
Can't use two-handed weapons while grappled, disadvantage when using non-light weapons while grappled or grappling, concentration check required to cast S component spells while grappled
Racial spellcasting (except high elf's) is innate spellcasting thatdoesn't require S, V, or non-costly M components.

And some comments on other people's houserules:

-natural ones on ability checks give you a -5 to your total. (no automatic failures, but it's quite probable)
-natural twenties on ability checks give you a +5 to your total. (no automatic success, but close enough)
Why are you rolling? If even nat 1 isn't failure, there's no chance of failure at all. If even nat 20 isn't success, there isn't any chance of success at all.

-If you roll a natural one during an attack roll, you provoke an attack of opportunity from your target if you are within melee range
Isn't that unnecessary punishment for fighters and characters with more attacks? The better you are=the more attack=the higher chance to be counterattacked

-If you grapple an opponent, you do automatically hit with melee spell attacks (since your hand is already in contact with them, and if you can perform somatic components while carrying a focus/shield you can perform them while carrying a person)
If you autohit with melee spell attacks because you're already in contanct with the opponent, shouldn't, by the same logic, the spell also automatically discharge into whatever you're holding in your hand (including material components, if appliable?)

Naanomi

2017-10-30, 07:52 PM

Character Creation:

+2 to any stat you want
+1 to any stat you want

Regardless of Race.

Makes for more interesting characters. Gnome Fighters, Dragonborn Druids, Eladrin Barbarians, Aasimar Rogues, etc.
How do you handle races with nonstandard stat spreads? Humans, Half-Elves, Tritons, Mountain Dwarves, Orcs, Kobolds...

Eragon123

2017-10-30, 08:37 PM

I sometimes DM or my friend does. We talk rules a lot this is our list.

General Rules
-Feats are ok
-No multi classing (if there is a concept a player feels can only be achieved though multi classing see if there is a way to get the flavor of the concept in vanilla rules, if that is impossible use light home-brew, if that is still impossible, then the concept doesn't fit in at our table. NOTE: haven't had any players complain about this and we have fun but I am willing to talk about this if you feel I'm screwing over my players just please be respectful.)
-Some flexibility on floating attributes.
-No negative attributes (Seriously the Orc and Kobold classes aren't even that good in 99% of cases why punish the player that want's to be an orc wizard?)

Sorcerers
-Use Spell point variant with combined pools.
-Wild magic has a defined system for regular casting, though tides of chaos is DM dependent though. (Any surge refuels tides though) [If desired I'll go into detail on this but the system is currently being refined right now)
-Been tinkering with idea of adding spells equal to proficiency that can be any non-healing & non-personal named spell. Kinda like bards magic secrets but more restricted. (not implemented)
-Storm Sorcercers can also spend a spell point to activate the 10 ft flying speed not only a bonus action.

Warlocks
-New Invocation "Pact Master's Mantel"
Prerequistite: LV4 Pact of the Blade
When you summon your sword you may also summon armor. This armor can be any armor on the equipment page in the players handbook except for shield. You are considered proficient in this armor if you meet the other prerequisites for the armor.
-New Invocation "Of Two Minds"
Prerequisite LV9 pact of the Chain
You may use a bonus action on your turn to transfer concentration of a spell to your familiar. If the familiar takes damage it makes the concentration save. While the familiar is concentrating on a spell you are free to cast another spell with concentration.
-Edited Invocation "Thirsting Blade"
Prerequisite: LV6 Pact of the Blade
You may make an extra attack with your pact weapon on your turn when you take the Attack action. Alternatively, if you cast a spell you may use a bonus action to make a melee attack. (Kinda strong but its been working out ok for us and doesn't seem TOO strong. At first we had it at just cantrips but the DM changed it to spells to make up for the lack of spells Warlocks have.)
-Hunger of Hadar: Higher level scales both damages and the radius. Its a freaking warlock exclusive why doesn't it scale?!

Monk
-We use the popular revision for 4 elements monk
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/35yn4u/way_of_the_four_elements_remastered_a/

Barbarians
Path of the Berserker
-Method to the Madness
You learn to push past the pain when you frenzy.
Lv 4: While raging you do not feel the effects of exhaustion.
-Hardened Warrior
You are so used to pushing your body to the edge and recovering that you are especially adept at doing so.
Lv 5: When you spend a hit die on a short rest, it also recovers 1 level of exhaustion.

Bards
-Magical secrets (not implemented still under debate): You may steal a spell from any spell list that an equal level character of that class can cast. (Prevent paladin and ranger spell sniping)

Ranger
-We use Revised Ranger with some flexibility on animal companion.

I think that's all of them. Except for spell scalings but my friend has that list (except for the aforementioned Hunger of Hadar). Basically if a warlock has access to a spell, it has scaling unless it literally can't (or is a ritual but whatever).

Kane0

2017-10-30, 08:44 PM

It's all in the sig.

Eragon123

2017-10-30, 08:49 PM

It's all in the sig.

I actually let Great Weapon Master feat keep the -5/+10 but remove it for sharpshooter.

I love a lot of your other changes and may steal some of them unless they contradict with mine.

Kane0

2017-10-30, 08:50 PM

By all means. More than a few are adopted from others on the forums, good ideas all round!

EvilAnagram

2017-10-30, 09:29 PM

Dragonborn breath is a bonus action.

You can draw a light throwing weapon as part of your attack with it.

You can take a health potion as a bonus action. This one is a result of the level of deadliness I like to run a campaign at.

Wish is not a spell that you can take, regardless of class. It exists as a boon some extraplanar creatures can give.

If you tell a good joke as the vocal component of Tasha's Hideous Laughter, the target rolls with disadvantage.

If you try to play a kender, I will draw a whip of cords and chase you from my home, overturning the table and spilling the dice and shouting, "Bring you this to my Father's house?"

Multiclassing must make in-character sense, and you must discuss it with me.

I hand out inspiration if you make a pun.

Slipperychicken

2017-10-30, 09:51 PM

He's wrong about the "with out any problems" part. He may think that's the case, but it's well documented that staying up for that long results in reduced functionality.

Unless ... maybe he's not a human? :smallamused:

People can and do stay up for 48 hours... while sitting down in front of a screen, with the aid of stimulants and a modern cornucopia of excess food, possibly doing something important like supporting a software deployment. They slowly lose focus, their work needs to be re-done because of how many mistakes they make, they might even doze off a few times. And then they have problems focusing for the next few days because of how exhausted they are.

Marching through a potentially-hostile area in armor, with camping equipment and all the panoply of adventuring on one's back, after having fought for one's very life, while being fueled on nothing but water and a single pound of the cheapest dry rations on the market? That is a completely different story, one for which 5e's rules for forced marching and exhaustion are quite adequate.

Kane0

2017-10-30, 09:58 PM

Marching through a potentially-hostile area in armor, with camping equipment and all the panoply of adventuring on one's back, after having fought for one's very life, while being fueled on nothing but water and a single pound of the cheapest dry rations on the market? That is a completely different story, one for which 5e's rules for forced marching and exhaustion are quite adequate.

You forgot the horrible smell and/or constant whining of [insert party member here].

Jerrykhor

2017-10-30, 10:12 PM

For every failed death save, you gain one level of exhaustion. This exhaustion can be removed by short rest (one short rest per level of exhaustion).

Dudewithknives

2017-10-30, 10:24 PM

I added back a few old school items

Ring of Resplendance: uncommon

As long as you wear this ring you are always clean and are scented with your choice of smells. If you spend 400 more fold you can get a version that also relieves you of the need to eat or drink.

I will type up more tomorrow.

Potato_Priest

2017-10-30, 11:53 PM

Tanarii

2017-10-31, 12:18 AM

Group stealth is based off the person with the worst stealth, rather than making everybody roll. This avoids both the too-easy mechanics of a group check and the too-hard mechanics of 5 PCs having a 25% chance of nat 1 (yes I know the rogue might still succeed that, but most people won't)
I avoid that by counting Pcs 30ft away from each other (underground) count as separate groups. Since I start any attempted ambush situation (successful or failure) at 30ft, that means the clunky armor dudes are only 60ft away when the skirmishers either pull of or bungle the ambush.

The PHB says separate groups are separate for stealth, but doesn't specify how separate. I chose 30ft for the distance, because 60ft (total) is the range at which I set combat as a DC 10 check to hear, so even clunky armor guys don't need to make a stealth check if they're not yelling at that range.

So that's two rules of my house I guess:
1) combat is heard at DC 10 at 60ft, +/-5 for each double or half of that distance. Distracted creatures get -5 to their passive, creatures totally focused on a task (equivalent in focus to mapping or navigating or foraging) don't get to use passive at all.
2) front scouts can make stealth checks while back group doesn't need to when attempting to ambush an enemy, provided they're separated by 30ft.

Edit: the ambush rule also assumes Light spells or Torches etc don't give away the party to the enemy.

jaappleton

2017-10-31, 06:51 AM

How do you handle races with nonstandard stat spreads? Humans, Half-Elves, Tritons, Mountain Dwarves, Orcs, Kobolds...

Honestly hasn’t come up much, but we agreed to go with ‘what’s obvious’. Which... In retrospect, doesn’t provide much clarity. XD

In that sense, Half Elves get an additional +1 to any stat

Tritons would be the same. Yes, it means they actually get another +1 overall. But we don’t see that as much of an issue since the race itself doesn’t really get anything amazing.

Mountain Dwarves would get their +2 to any two.

VHumans are +2, +1 and a Feat.

Etc.

DeTess

2017-10-31, 07:01 AM

WrittenInBlood

2017-10-31, 07:30 AM

- Lingering injuries (DMG 272), triggered on losing half current HP from an attack roll. To heal it, you need to regain that many HP at once, how many damage caused injury.

- Death saving throws records are kept until a long rest.

- Falling damage: Tiny creatures have resistance, Large and larger - vulnerability.

- Lightfoot Halfling "Naturally stealthy" feature: you can attempt to Hide behind 3/4 cover.

KorvinStarmast

2017-10-31, 01:23 PM

Wish is not a spell that you can take, regardless of class. It exists as a boon some extraplanar creatures can give.

If you tell a good joke as the vocal component of Tasha's Hideous Laughter, the target rolls with disadvantage.

If you try to play a kender, I will draw a whip of cords and chase you from my home, overturning the table and spilling the dice and shouting, "Bring you this to my Father's house?"

I hand out inspiration if you make a pun. We need to consider adapting these to our table, with the following mod. Must be a good pun.
Our tables use encumbrance. (Easy to manage, roll20 char sheets do the math for you).

- No tiefling PC's on a couple of our tables
- As with Evil Anagram, kender, or even the suggestion of one, is to be dealt with via summary judgment.

Eragon123

2017-10-31, 01:25 PM

We need to consider adapting these to our table, with the following mod. Must be a good pun.

So you're not adapting the last rule then?

EvilAnagram

2017-10-31, 01:41 PM

We need to consider adapting these to our table, with the following mod. Must be a good pun.
Oh, definitely. The pun must elicit either general laughter or general groaning to earn the inspiration.

Tanarii

2017-10-31, 01:57 PM

So you're not adapting the last rule then?

Oh, definitely. The pun must elicit either general laughter or general groaning to earn the inspiration.
Since only twisted individuals laugh at puns, itd make more sense to hand out uninspiration to players that make them and those that laugh. At any time, the DM or another player can claim revenge is theirs, and impose disadvantage on the be-damned punner or those sick individuals that encourage them.

AshLake

2017-10-31, 01:59 PM

Errevos

2017-10-31, 08:50 PM

Avonar

2017-10-31, 08:56 PM

well...

1 No extra attack (only fighter gets one at 11 lvl)
2 Prof bonus to attack bonus is cut in half round down
3 all magical weapon with +2 or +3 to hit now gain only +1 or +2 (for excample a sun blade has +1 to hit and +2 dmg)
3 A list of spells are band but we use a few homebrew (banned familiar,arcane eye, and similar spells to "map a dungeon" and wish)
4 Teleportation has a casting time of 10m
5 Everyone has advantage to hit a prone character in both melee and range and if you are prone you have dissadvantage on dex saves
6 The paladin auras are no auras but passive self applied buffs only

We are currently at 14 lvl.

Out of curiosity, what are the reason for some of these? No extra attack is incredibly damaging to certain classes to the point where I'd imagine they become comparatively ineffective compared to a spellcaster. Paladins especially seem to have lost half of what makes them decent here.

EvilAnagram

2017-10-31, 08:58 PM

Since only twisted individuals laugh at puns, itd make more sense to hand out uninspiration to players that make them and those that laugh. At any time, the DM or another player can claim revenge is theirs, and impose disadvantage on the be-damned punner or those sick individuals that encourage them.

You hate on puns now, but let's see hiw you ferl after a few sessions of Pavlovian inspiration.

Jerrykhor

2017-10-31, 09:05 PM

Errevos

2017-10-31, 09:07 PM

Out of curiosity, what are the reason for some of these? No extra attack is incredibly damaging to certain classes to the point where I'd imagine they become comparatively ineffective compared to a spellcaster. Paladins especially seem to have lost half of what makes them decent here.

Well the after lvl 7 ( we are a team of 5) i think the nova damage of our group was so high that our encounters became too easy. Moreover in our campaign most npcs have high saves and magic resistance so as melees find it harder to to pull out the damage so casters (me a wizard and a Bard) cant easily make a creature "eat it" for excample by a hold monster and that was even before we faced creatures with legendary resistance.As far as the attack bonus goes well +10 to hit at 14 lvl with no magic item and very few creatures having AC higher than 20 made almost every attack insta hit. Ah and actually the paladin does just fine.

EvilAnagram

2017-10-31, 09:10 PM

My guess is either a DM who wants to run a low power campaign where the heroes are about as strong as commoners with pitchforks, or a DM who screams OP at anything that grant even the slightest bit of power.
I'm just surprised he didn't ban feats. But yeah, the martials would be very weak in his game.

Yeah, that's a pretty horrible and arbitrary list of alterations. It basically cuts the damage of martials in half and kills any chance they could be useful. It also means quite a lot of dead levels. I would definitely not play that game.

Errevos

2017-10-31, 09:13 PM

My guess is either a DM who wants to run a low power campaign where the heroes are about as strong as commoners with pitchforks, or a DM who screams OP at anything that grant even the slightest bit of power.
I'm just surprised he didn't ban feats. But yeah, the martials would be very weak in his game.

Actually we thought of most of the changes (extra attack) and its no low power lvl campaing.As for the feats they are enabled but no variant humans.Personally i think 5e is good up to 10 lvl after that the things go off ballance.And trully i prefer hard combats were almost always some1 goes bellow 0hp rather than easy wins.

Slipperychicken

2017-10-31, 09:13 PM

My guess is either a DM who wants to run a low power campaign where the heroes are about as strong as commoners with pitchforks, or a DM who screams OP at anything that grant even the slightest bit of power.
I'm just surprised he didn't ban feats. But yeah, the martials would be very weak in his game.

I'm agreeing with your "screams OP at anything that grants the slightest bit of power" diagnosis, but mixed in with a heavy dose of "that guy in the gym" fallacy.

The prone rule also seems to indicate a DM who doesn't really get how ranged combat works. He's probably just struggling with the idea of players having big numbers or being able to do things he doesn't expect, and is leaning heavily on his nerf-bat in an effort to mitigate those concerns.

EvilAnagram

2017-10-31, 09:19 PM

I'm agreeing with your "screams OP at anything that grants the slightest bit of power" diagnosis, but mixed in with a heavy dose of "that guy in the gym" fallacy.

The prone rule also seems to indicate a DM who doesn't really get how ranged combat works. He's probably just struggling with the idea of players having big numbers or being able to do things he doesn't expect, and is leaning heavily on his nerf-bat in an effort to mitigate those concerns.

His nerfs are pretty uniformly targeted at melee martials, too, so he seems to just be encouraging his favorite play style. Even the prone mechanic favors casters.

Errevos

2017-10-31, 09:19 PM

I'm agreeing with your "screams OP at anything that grants the slightest bit of power" diagnosis, but mixed in with a heavy dose of "that guy in the gym" fallacy.

The prone rule also seems to indicate a DM who doesn't really get how ranged combat works. He's probably just struggling with the idea of players having big numbers or being able to do things he doesn't expect, and is leaning heavily on his nerf-bat in an effort to mitigate those concerns.

Out of curiosity have you played a high lvl campaign in 5e?Ah and dont worry Casters are nerfed too through the spell list.No win spells like Forcecage.

Jerrykhor

2017-10-31, 09:20 PM

Actually we thought of most of the changes (extra attack) and its no low power lvl campaing.As for the feats they are enabled but no variant humans.Personally i think 5e is good up to 10 lvl after that the things go off ballance.And trully i prefer hard combats were almost always some1 goes bellow 0hp rather than easy wins.

You mean the players asked for these changes? Wow. Are you all a bunch of masochists or something?

There are many ways to make combat harder without these arbitrary and ridiculous changes. Difficulty is not just about numbers, situation and context matters.

EvilAnagram

2017-10-31, 09:23 PM

Out of curiosity have you played a high lvl campaign in 5e?

I run a high-level campaign in 5e, and I completely agree with their assessment. Your house rules favor a particular type of play and severely nerf martials and melee PCs. It honestly seems like the DM just stopped trying to balance encounters around the power of the party and made sure no one could have badwrongfun.

Errevos

2017-10-31, 09:23 PM

You mean the players asked for these changes? Wow. Are you all a bunch of masochists or something?

There are many ways to make combat harder without these arbitrary and ridiculous changes. Difficulty is not just about numbers, situation and context matters.

I would prefer calling are try harders.And its a campaign running for 3 years so we are pretty much sattisfied by the changes.

Jerrykhor

2017-10-31, 09:35 PM

I would prefer calling are try harders.And its a campaign running for 3 years so we are pretty much sattisfied by the changes.

Good to know you all are having fun, that's all that matters and I won't judge. I just really don't like the concept of self-nerfing for the sake of making things challenging/increasing difficulty. Because at what point does that become too silly? When you start fighting ancient dragons with bare hands?

I'm just really curious on the spells that are banned.

Thisguy_

2017-10-31, 09:39 PM

One of my tables uses "You must beat AC" instead of "AC is a DC," and another gives you a +1 to your roll when both dice match numbers (and it's Roll20, so you always roll twice, even if you don't have to).

All my tables like to grant advantage for flanking in 5e. And we generally don't play Aasimar. It's less of a house rule and more of a general consensus that the fluff behind them makes them special snowflakes, and nobody wants to out special snowflake anyone else.

Tanarii

2017-10-31, 10:49 PM

All my tables like to grant advantage for flanking in 5e.
What's your thoughts and feelings on that? Interested in your personal opinion/feedback, given how much that optional DMG rule is hated on by various forums.

Errevos

2017-11-01, 01:55 PM

Good to know you all are having fun, that's all that matters and I won't judge. I just really don't like the concept of self-nerfing for the sake of making things challenging/increasing difficulty. Because at what point does that become too silly? When you start fighting ancient dragons with bare hands?

I'm just really curious on the spells that are banned.

Well we have banned all the UA things and as far as the spells go we have banned Forcecage,gave the teleportation a 10m casting time,Arcane eye cause it ruins dungeons, find familiar for the same reason,we dont really use summoning spells but thats not a banned thing,legend lore and speak with the dead cause the kill any investigation aspect of the game ( how you are supposed to find the murderer and play a session about something like this when u can simply ask the victim???) Shapechange and True polymorph cause they are simply broken ( i dont think some1 will dissagree with that) and also Sending and Telepathy (fantasy worlds with phones is something i think doesnt stick right) and of course Wish.

Because some people said our DM favours casters i assure you that this couldnt be more wrong.Almost everything we face have Spell resistance and high saves (+10 in wis plus advantage on the save for excample) and hoard battles are not quiet common in our campaign.

Avonar

2017-11-01, 02:23 PM

Well we have banned all the UA things and as far as the spells go we have banned Forcecage,gave the teleportation a 10m casting time,Arcane eye cause it ruins dungeons, find familiar for the same reason,we dont really use summoning spells but thats not a banned thing,legend lore and speak with the dead cause the kill any investigation aspect of the game ( how you are supposed to find the murderer and play a session about something like this when u can simply ask the victim???) Shapechange and True polymorph cause they are simply broken ( i dont think some1 will dissagree with that) and also Sending and Telepathy (fantasy worlds with phones is something i think doesnt stick right) and of course Wish.

Because some people said our DM favours casters i assure you that this couldnt be more wrong.Almost everything we face have Spell resistance and high saves (+10 in wis plus advantage on the save for excample) and hoard battles are not quiet common in our campaign.

So...basically you just make everyone less powerful. I mean I'm glad you enjoy it but I'll never see the temptation of making everyone worse, and removing spells that could be used for out of combat purposes.

9th level spells are the most powerful spells a person can cast. Why is Shapechange not ok but True Resurrection is? Or Tsunami?

Honestly these seem arbitrary and it sounds like encounters now all have to have magic resist BECAUSE martial characters are worse. You're bending the mechanics even further to make up for poor balance.

EvilAnagram

2017-11-01, 02:27 PM

So...basically you just make everyone less powerful. I mean I'm glad you enjoy it but I'll never see the temptation of making everyone worse, and removing spells that could be used for out of combat purposes.

9th level spells are the most powerful spells a person can cast. Why is Shapechange not ok but True Resurrection is? Or Tsunami?

Honestly these seem arbitrary and it sounds like encounters now all have to have magic resist BECAUSE martial characters are worse. You're bending the mechanics even further to make up for poor balance.
I don't want to keep yucking his yum, but this is pretty much the case. If anything, they should stick to low level campaigns since that's apparently the level at which they're most comfortable.

Potato_Priest

2017-11-01, 02:29 PM

I once had a ranger player who kept asking if he could dodge attacks and was never satisfied by my explanation that his AC already accounted for that. If I could go back in time I would've used the alternative rule where he makes a dodge roll vs 11+attacker's to-hit bonus, using whatever his AC was -10.

Eric Diaz

2017-11-01, 02:35 PM

I'm just surprised he didn't ban feats. But yeah, the martials would be very weak in his game.

Yeah, I agree with you that the changes are bad, and the martial do not need nerfing.

Just as a nitpick, I'd like to point out feats are optional, though; they didn't need to be "banned".

Eragon123

2017-11-01, 03:29 PM

Yeah, I agree with you that the changes are bad, and the martial do not need nerfing.

Just as a nitpick, I'd like to point out feats are optional, though; they didn't need to be "banned".

Only changes to feats I make is.
Sharpshooter +1 Dex rather than -5/+10 (leave that for those brave enough to enter melee)

Heavy Armor Mastery now scales with proficiency.

Danielqueue1

2017-11-01, 10:58 PM

Why are you rolling? If even nat 1 isn't failure, there's no chance of failure at all. If even nat 20 isn't success, there isn't any chance of success at all.

contests.
if one character with the higher mod rolls a 19 under normal rules the other cannot win. under mine the guy who gets a twenty still has a chance. but if the guy has expertise in sleight of hand and the gloves of theivery he might still beat a nat 20.

tiered success. on a 15 you get x on a 20 you get y on a 25 you get z. etc. especially usefull for knowledge checks.

Mackatrin

2017-11-01, 11:10 PM

I have a USB with all my homebrew rules, this is probably my favorite

When using tools that a person is proficient in, they are to use their proficiency bonus, with no other alterations of the stats. A person using the tools without being proficient, take a -10 pentaly.

When crafting items DC level will be based on rarity, Natural 20s will not apply in an automatic success, but will simply effect the quality of the work. The Material components will cost half of the items lowest value (I.E. Very Rare is 5000 so the material components will cost 2500) and you will need the formula or recipe (As stated in the DMG, which is double the lowest value, I.E. Very Rare = 5000 so the recipe/formula = 10000)

Common = DC 10
Uncommon = DC 15
Rare = DC 20
Very Rare = DC 25
Legendary = DC 30

Reason I have the DC system as it is, is due to the fact, unless you have TRUELY spent time in the trade, you won't be able to make the best gear.

Tetrasodium

2017-11-01, 11:32 PM

Long rests take a few days, short rests a matter of hours. A commonly available potion can turn a short rest can be turned into a long rest with a little bit of risk.
Gryphon's wings(common:25gp): Another dirty potion not containing any substance derived from its namesake. Often taken by young apprentices hoping to squeeze in a few hours of extra study instead of sleeping. Drinking this sweet smelling brew grants benefits of a long rest in the time normally needed for a short rest, but any saving throws are made at disadvantage until the next long rest. After the short rest is completed roll a d20, on a roll of 9-20 there are no furthera side effects; however a roll of 1-8 will result in the die used for saving throws to drop one step each time (d20>2d8>d12>d8>d6>d4). This effect can be rolled back 1 step with a lesser restoration followed by a long rest. The smell is indeed sweet, but the taste is often compared to rotten carrion.

Masterwork weapons & armor cost 10x normal. Masterwork weapons are +1 damage (no bonus to hit). Masterwork medium armor has a dex cap of 3 (so basically medium armor master but verry expensive). masterwork heavy armor has a dex cap of +1. masterwork light armor is just +1 ac over the base.

undead have blanket resistance to all spells and weapons not cast from a flametouched iron focus item or made with a flametouched iron weapon. Daelkyr & their servants/creations (ie beholder/mind flayer/dolgrim/dolgaunt/etc)have the same but with byeshk.
armor can be made out of those two metals but costs more (sometimes a lot more) depending on the type of armor. weapons made from it will likewise vary depending on the type of weapon.

[B]Flame touched Iron Weapons: Weapons made from this
metal deal damage normally, but against Fiends, Undead, &
creatures specifically vulnerable to it they deal radiant
damage. Like Byeshk weapons, when combined with
warcaster or similar class features allowing a spell to be
channeled through a weapon this will overcome the special
resistance of suitable creatures
 Simple & Light weapons, +100gp
 Ammunition +100gp/5 arows/darts/etc
 Heavy Weapons +350gp
 All other Martial Weapons +250gp
o Flame Touched Iron Holy Symbol or casting Focus
+350gp Like Flame touched Iron weapons, these are
required for spells to overcome the corrupted protections
granted to undead, fiends & creatures explicitly vulnerable
to radiant damage. Casting a spell with these will not change
the damage type or overcome specific resistance/immunities
(ie fireball vrs fire resistant/immune). If you have enough levels
in a class that grants channel divinity, a flametouched iron focus
item makes your channel divinity count as if you were one level higher
o Flame touched Iron Armor: Grants advantage on saves
against the undead, fiends, & many creatures explicitly
vulnerable to radiant damage when armor is made
predominantly or entirely from flame touched iron.
 Studded Leather with plates & studs made from
Flame Touched Iron costs an extra 250gp
 Medium & heavy armor up to 14 ac (chain shirt,
scale mail, chain shirt, ring mail)
 All others, +750gp
 Padded, leather, & hide armor contain no metal &
cannot be made from Flame Touched Iron as a result
Byeshk Weapons: A Byeshk weapon is able to overcome
the chaotic influences Xoriat has left on the Daelkyr & their
servants. When combined with warcaster or a class feature
that allows a character to channel a spell through a weapon (or
similar) this will allow the spell to overcome that same
resistance, but not any special resistances like fire or poison
immunity. A weapon made from Byeshk weighs twice the
normal weight. A bludgeoning weapon made from byeshk
deals an additional +2 on damage rolls; but the +2 does not
stack with Magical enhancements.
 Simple & Light weapons, +100gp
 Ammunition +100gp/5 arows/darts/etc
 Heavy Weapons +350gp
 All other Martial Weapons +250gp
o Byeshk Holy Symbol or Focus Item: +350gp Like Byeshk
weapons, these are required for spells to overcome Xoriat's
chaotic influence on the daelkyr & their servants.
Byeshk Armor: Grants advantage on saves against the
Daelkyr & their servants when armor is made predominantly
or entirely from byeshk. Weight is double the normal weight
of the armor
 Studded Leather with plates & studs made from
byeshk costs an extra 250gp
 Medium & heavy armor up to 14 ac (chain shirt,
scale mail, chain shirt, ring mail)
 All others, +750gp
 Padded, leather, & hide armor contain no metal &
cannot be made from Byeshk as a result

I probably have some more that I'm not thinking of

Dudewithknives

2017-11-02, 09:07 AM

Some house rules I use when DMing.

1. Mage Slayer Feat's attack goes off BEFORE the spell does, like all the caster based interrupts.

2. Flanking allows sneak attack without advantage, but that is all.

3. Surprise is individually based and happens when the attacker first attacks not just when combat begins.
Ex. If the group of PC's are fighting a group of NPC's, and one of the NPC's remains hidden and does nothing for 3 rounds while waiting for the right time to shoot, it is still a surprise round for him when he does attack because he was not noticed.

4. Curative magic harms undead and inflict type spells cure them.

5. For druids, there are non-metal equivalent of all armor types, at the same prices. Full plate made of chitin or scale mail from scales, ect.

6. Drawing a weapon is just part of making an attack and does not use your object interaction, this way people could actually play a thrower other than a rogue.

7. Invisibility gives advantage on stealth checks and disadvantage to enemy perception checks, unless it is within 5 feet, then there is no disadvantage, but if you are more than 120 feet away, they get no check at all.

8. Added back Low Light vision: Makes low light same as daylight but darkness is light obscured, dark vision makes even darkness same as daylight.

9. Dragonborn get low light vision.

10. Two short rests per long rest is completely mandatory, and can be taken individually in 1 min, but can only be done twice per long rest no matter how many breaks you take.

11. There are no alignments. Gone completely. Instead pick your defining virtue and defining vice. Does not have to be the classic 7 of each. If you role play your virtue well you get an inspiration point, if you give in to a vice something bad will happen RP wise, but you get a vice point which lets you bank a roll of 18 to use later kind of like divination.
Ex. You might play a Paladin whose defining virtue might be charity, but his vice might be xenophobic. If he spends some down time going to feed the homeless he gets a inspiration point, but if he later accuses some random half-orc of committing a crime he has almost no evidence in simply because he "knows Orcs can't be trusted" then he gets a vice point, but he will look bad to the populace for a while.

12. No racial restrictions on any classes or subclasses. If you want to play a dwarf blade singer, feel free. Want to play a halfling battlerager, go for it.

13. The bonus from magic arrows and magic bows do not stack.

14. Sharpshooter and GWM do not have the -5 hit for +5 damage property, they give +1 dex and +1 str.

15. A spear can be used for all effects of pole arm master, I honestly have no idea why this was not included in the first place.

16. Casters do not need to have a free hand to use a focus if it is a gem/necklace/ring/holy symbol etc, they just have to touch it or move it accordingly.

17. Paladins and rangers can use certain cantrips. Paladins get certain ones from the cleric list and rangers get certain ones from the druid list.

18. A monk can choose to use a monk weapon for their attacks with martial arts or flurry of blows as long as their unarmed damage is equal to or greater than the damage of the weapon.
ex. A monk with a dagger can use the dagger for all 3 attacks on a round with martial arts, or all 4 if using flurry of blows, but would have to wait to use a quarterstaff for all of them until their unarmed damage was a d6 or d8 if used 2 handed.

19. A rogue can use any type of weapon to sneak attack with if they have advantage on the target or an ally within 5 ft, not just finesse or ranged.
Ex. If a rogue sneak up on you with a longsword, he can sneak attack you with it.

20. This is the big one: Warlocks are not casters, I rewrote the entire class to be more like they were in 3.5. Eldritch Blast is not a spell at all it is now a class ability that scales like sneak attack, and invocations add abilities that can mimic spells. There is a 32 page write up I use for redoing the class as non-casters.

Naanomi

2017-11-02, 09:44 AM

masterwork heavy armor has a dex cap of +1

undead have blanket resistance to all spells and weapons not cast from a flametouched iron focus item or made with a flametouched iron weapon.
So people with 9 or less DEX are punished for wearing high-quality Armor?

Also, do you find the changes to Undead make PC Necromancers significantly stronger?

11. There are no alignments. Gone completely.

15. A spear can be used for all effects of pole arm master, I honestly have no idea why this was not included in the first place.

19. A rogue can use any type of weapon to sneak attack with if they have advantage on the target or an ally within 5 ft, not just finesse or ranged.
Ex. If a rogue sneak up on you with a longsword, he can sneak attack you with it.
How do you handle the times when alignment interacts with mechanics (like a Sprite familiar’s ability to sense alignment)?

Do you have a lot of players using spears and shields for ‘silly visuals’ in the same way people dislike quarterstaff+shield visuals?

Have you struggled with multiclass characters using Great Weapon Style to reroll large piles of sneak attack dice?

Tetrasodium

2017-11-02, 10:46 AM

So people with 9 or less DEX are punished for wearing high-quality Armor?

Also, do you find the changes to Undead make PC Necromancers significantly stronger?

Not really, my players tend to have a set of flametouched iron & a nicer set of regular. I frequently put elite npc's like zombies who could have been leftover from karrnath or are definately from karrnath (ie most of them fall into one or the other) into stuff like masterwork ringmail(530gp) or splint at higher levels (700 gp) even though the group might only be level 2 at the time. a set of masterwork flsametouched iron ringmail or flametouched iron splint would cost 5,300gp & 7,000gp respectively. Usually by somewhere in tier2 they have a set of good mundane armor like mithral chain mail for sneaky types or say a suit of plate that has a nice magical enchantment giving an SLA of some form plus sets of cheap light/medium/crap end of heavy made with each of the two metals.

The changes don't really do much to necromancers because anything intelligent & capable of being a threat carries a flametouched iron weapon (a dagger if nothing else). running in eberron most of my threats are either left over from the last war or have experience from that war.

The biggest changes are:

I can give out very magical weapons & my pc's flip back to their lightweight dagger or whatever nonmagic flametouched iron weapons even though it might just be a couple zombies
when they face a powerful undead like a beholder zombie or banshee (both have a save or die ability), the players have probably used scry/augry/etc type spells to see if undead/daelkyr(aberrations mainly)/other is most likely to appear & made the decision to bring the armor giving them the best protection (high ac or advantage on the Saves) allowing for a more dramatic fight with move moving parts (like 1 ogre zombie & a couple regular zombies with the beholder zombie after quite a bit of "dungeon crawl" without accidentally tpk'ing things)
a necromancer just changes things up & allows me to do stuff like throw out a revenant with a couple ogre zombies instead of regular zombies for example
casters get to feel powerful with their scry/augry type spells, I don't have to worry too much if a magic weapon/armor I make up on the spot will be too powerful since by not being euther metal it has a situation where it can trigger "erk.... this is a really cool toy... but... butbut". It's kind of like 3.5's golf bag of weapons for different situations, but instead of a golf bag it's more like one good one plus one of the two metals that was free or good enough
Most dramatically, at very low levels I can use a nonfatal number of zombies or low tier daelkyr like dolgrim (http://eberron.wikia.com/wiki/Dolgrim) to really challenge the group with a moderate/hard//maybe even near deadly fight without accidentally causing a tpk since the players are going to be dealing half damage till they find weapons that deal full damage.
I frequently do some normal stupid zombies plus a karrnathi elite zombie (http://klubbsaga2015.wikidot.com/karrnathi-zombie) that uses stats very slightly better than a zombie with a better weapon, cheap armor like studded/ringmail/scalemail/chainmail or maybe even straight up plate/halfplate for tier2+ who's main thing is an int & wis above 10 & the ability to command the near mindless zombies with it to fight intelligently without the threat of a necromancer instakilling tier1/low tier2 players. Unexpectedly, my players started calling them all with terms like "bad ass eberron zombies" when it was important to call them out compared to regular FR zombies

edit:
these spells (https://www.dropbox.com/s/r1qdrithi6j14gx/war%20rituals%20v0.1.pdf?dl=0) also exist
Players can all choose an origin from this (https://www.dropbox.com/s/8o6zpjbjueblatr/origins_full_0.9.1.pdf?dl=0) on top of their race/class/background. It's kind of like a free feat (sometimes exactly like, slmetimes better than) that channels inner munchkins towards concepts that really fit the various regions of the world while encouraging it to dig into the lore a bit.

UrielAwakened

2017-11-02, 10:54 AM

We use item creation rules from UA with vastly sped-up timetables so you don't spend years crafting items.

We're talking about adding to all healing spells the ability to spend a number of hit die equal to the spell level in addition to the healing the spell provides.

So a level 2 cure light wounds would let you spend 2 hit dice as well as the healing the spell already offers.

If I was the sole DM we would use only three saves: Fort, Ref, and Will, and allow the greater of the two stats (Str/Con, Int/Dex, Wis/Cha) to contribute to it 4e style. I plan to use that one when I inevitably host a solo 5e campaign.

Dudewithknives

2017-11-02, 10:57 AM

So people with 9 or less DEX are punished for wearing high-quality Armor?

Also, do you find the changes to Undead make PC Necromancers significantly stronger?

How do you handle the times when alignment interacts with mechanics (like a Sprite familiar’s ability to sense alignment)?

Do you have a lot of players using spears and shields for ‘silly visuals’ in the same way people dislike quarterstaff+shield visuals?

Have you struggled with multiclass characters using Great Weapon Style to reroll large piles of sneak attack dice?

1. With so very few things in the game that interact win an alignment it has never come up.

2. No, it is more the fact that the spear is the most common and widely used pole arm in history around the world but for some reason you can not use it with pole arm master. There is no reason at all that a quarterstaff can be used for both abilities but a spear can't. I know that the designers want to make the quarterstaff this edition's spiked chain and all but why kick spear under the rug to do it.

3. No, because sneak attack dice doe not get rerolled with great weapon fighting, they are not weapon dice. As per the errata, only weapon dice get the preroll effect. Although many power gamers try to ignore that rule.

Capt Spanner

2017-11-02, 11:01 AM

Some of these are more for the campaign I'm running:

I play with:

Popcorn initiative - because I don't like tracking initiative orders. I know this one is controversial, but it works for us.

Wild Magic Surge - happens on 11+, instead of a 20 on the magic surge roll.

"Gritty realism" long rest rules when in the wilderness (24 hours for a long rest, 8 hours for a short rest), regular rules for town. - This means the players can cover a greater distance, without it feeling like the fights are bunching up. This is great for Out of the Abyss, where otherwise every fight would have the party fully rested. Also, whenever they party long rests the pursuit counter increases by one. I was expecting this to be unpopular, but the "adventuring day" of 6-8 encounters per long rest, and 2-3 per short rest is actually flowing pretty naturally

No multiclassing until you've reached 3rd level - this is more because most of the players in the game are novices, and I didn't want them to get bogged down thinking about multiclassing until they'd progressed a bit. With a slightly more experienced group I wouldn't play this rule.

Narrative levelling - because tracking XP is boring.

No PvP - This is any hostile action, and includes stealing, refusing to share loot equitably (where it is reasonable to do so - a magic sword can't be split between the party). GM's discretion here.

Unearthed Arcana - It is up to interested players to research options, and ask about them. I reserve the right to disallow anything non-PHB, but won't do so unreasonably.

Tanarii

2017-11-02, 11:05 AM

Wild Magic Surge - happens on 11+, instead of a 20 on the magic surge roll.Do you make Tides auto-trigger a surge on next spell 100% of the time, or close to it? (Which IMO is the way to do it as a DM, unless you're gonna house rule it's players choice.) If so you'd be getting 1.5 surges per spell, on average, since players will usually try to use Tides before every spell they cast. Unless they cannot afford to, such as trying to be generally sneaky (since most surges will give you away).

Estrillian

2017-11-02, 11:10 AM

Mine are here: Custom Rules (https://www.teuton.org/~stranger/index.php?action=cms.POA%20Custom%20Rules)

Summarised

Gritty Rests (short 30m-8hr, long 24 hours in a safe place)
No Full heal on long rests
Lingering Injuries from crits that take you to 0
Use Backgrounds like Proficiencies
All shields must be broken
All spears must be broken
Concentration checks to maintain force spells
Certain spells (Wish, True Poly, True Res, etc.) become special one time only grand rituals
A few individual spell changes

We are also considering some variant on the Exhaustion on 0 rule, but it is more likely to be "Lose a Hit Dice on 0, gain Exhaustion if you have no Hit Dice"

Naanomi

2017-11-02, 11:11 AM

1. With so very few things in the game that interact win an alignment it has never come up.
If it does come up, just going to ignore it? Wing it in the fly?

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?516989-When-Alignment-Matters-Mechanically

Dudewithknives

2017-11-02, 11:14 AM

If it does come up, just going to ignore it? Wing it in the fly?

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?516989-When-Alignment-Matters-Mechanically

Honestly, probably just ignore it.

GimsonVanReich

2017-11-02, 12:22 PM

EvilAnagram

2017-11-02, 12:36 PM

This seems fair to me, tbh heat metal is super OP, I had to change the armor my enemies were wearing because our 2 clerics were dominating the field with heat metal on everything..:smallfurious:

My players love that spell, until I give it to an enemy caster...

snickersnax

2017-11-02, 01:02 PM

Epic 6 5e.

Hit point, multi-attack, spell progression, and proficiency bonus end at level 6. Post 6 class feats are still available, no ASIs post 6 (must choose a feat instead)

1st level characters start with an extra hit die of hit points (maxed of course).

Modified Slow Natural Healing hit point recovery: no hit points on a short rest, 1hp/level plus con bonus on a long rest.

No scaling cantrips.

Level 1 and 2: +1 proficiency bonus
Level 3 and 4: +2 proficiency bonus
Level 5 and 6: +3 proficiency bonus

Submortimer

2017-11-02, 01:59 PM

Aside from all the MFoV stuff (obviously), the two most consistent houserules are:

1. At first level, a character can take a -2 to a single stat to gain a bonus feat.

2. A critical hit deals Max damage + an additional roll of the damage dice. For example, a fighter with Str 16 normally deals 1d8+3 with a longsword. on a crit, he would deal 8 + 1d8 + 3, instead of 2d8+3. This ensures that a critical hit will always do more damage.

mephnick

2017-11-02, 08:34 PM

.

2. A critical hit deals Max damage + an additional roll of the damage dice. For example, a fighter with Str 16 normally deals 1d8+3 with a longsword. on a crit, he would deal 8 + 1d8 + 3, instead of 2d8+3. This ensures that a critical hit will always do more damage.

Been using this for years. So much better than double dice.

Malifice

2017-11-02, 09:32 PM

Well the after lvl 7 ( we are a team of 5) i think the nova damage of our group was so high that our encounters became too easy. Moreover in our campaign most npcs have high saves and magic resistance so as melees find it harder to to pull out the damage so casters (me a wizard and a Bard) cant easily make a creature "eat it" for excample by a hold monster and that was even before we faced creatures with legendary resistance.As far as the attack bonus goes well +10 to hit at 14 lvl with no magic item and very few creatures having AC higher than 20 made almost every attack insta hit. Ah and actually the paladin does just fine.

Firstly; thanks for your input mate. I dont want any of what follows to be taken out of context. As long as your group is having fun, go nuts!

That said, your DM needs a kick up the backside. He's arbitrarily nerfing everything due to a lack of rules knowledge.

Instead of nerfing everything like this, he should be policing the adventuring day. This makes Nova strikes not only often wasteful (you blow your wad on encounter 1 of the adventuring day, leaving you no petrol in the tank for encounters 2-7) but often a poor choice.

He's also banning spells instead of factoring them into his games. Banning Speak with Dead to maintain suspense with a murder mystery is one glaring example. The dead in that spell speak in riddles and can only relay what they saw or did. Instead of rage banning the spell, he should be both planning for and rewarding its use:

'The spirit moans that the murderer was wearing a mask... but his arm bore a tattoo in the shape of two snakes over a black sun...'

Same deal with banning spells like forcecage. Yes sometimes it provides an autowin (or at least auto-defence) against a solo Large or smaller single creature. In a day featuring 6-8 encounters per long rest this is no big deal, and certainly many monsters encountered at the level forcecage comes online are immune to the spell (size), can counterspell it, or can teleport/ misty step/ plane shift out of it.

Many cant, and they get trapped for an hour. The player burns a (rare and finite and potent) resource and the adventuring day goes on.

You mention the game breaks down at high levels. Im running a campaign at present where the PCs are all 19th level, have 3 magic items each, a bonus feat and are very wealthy. The game is working just fine.

Your DM simply lacks the skill to do his job properly, and is banning everything he lacks the imagination and rules knoweldge to deal with. This isnt uncommon sadly.

Malifice

2017-11-02, 09:35 PM

I once had a ranger player who kept asking if he could dodge attacks and was never satisfied by my explanation that his AC already accounted for that.

There is the Dodge action.

If he takes 2 levels of Fighter he can [action surge] attack and dodge 1/ short rest.

Kane0

2017-11-02, 09:39 PM

Your DM simply lacks the skill to do his job properly, and is banning everything he lacks the imagination and rules knoweldge to deal with. This isnt uncommon sadly.

Reminds me of the horror story a friend of mine told me. The DM banned all sorts of spells that didn't fit a classes 'theme' in his mind, but also bundles of 'OP' spells. Revivify on the life cleric was the one that got mentioned the most.

Malifice

2017-11-02, 09:40 PM

Here are my current House rules for my second campaign.

These are designed to make the game slightly more challenging (while expanding player options), smooth out some nova options, and give a more OSR feel to the game:

http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/B1ufjiBCl
(http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/B1ufjiBCl)
Im going to need to work a a v.2.0 once XG comes out.

Malifice

2017-11-02, 09:59 PM

3. Surprise is individually based and happens when the attacker first attacks not just when combat begins.
Ex. If the group of PC's are fighting a group of NPC's, and one of the NPC's remains hidden and does nothing for 3 rounds while waiting for the right time to shoot, it is still a surprise round for him when he does attack because he was not noticed.

How does this work?

There are no surprise rounds in 5E. A creature is surprised (it cant take actions or move and cant take reactions till its 1st turn ends) or it isnt.

What advantage does this creature in your example get?

mephnick

2017-11-02, 10:14 PM

Revivify on the life cleric was the one that got mentioned the most.

To be fair..I also hate Revivify. It's one of the main things that killed the fear of death in 5e. Resurrection at level 5? Are you kidding me?

I actually refuse to take it as a player and remove it as a DM.

Malifice

2017-11-02, 10:15 PM

Reminds me of the horror story a friend of mine told me. The DM banned all sorts of spells that didn't fit a classes 'theme' in his mind, but also bundles of 'OP' spells. Revivify on the life cleric was the one that got mentioned the most.

Its a common DM failing. I see it occur in two instances:

1) Nova strikes by PCs.

The bad DM reacts by upping encounter difficulty and/or banning anything used to nova.

Increasing difficulty is a terrible choice because you've made the game more swingy and increased the chances of TPK, and in fact mandated nova strikes (PCs have to nova to survive). The game rapidly becomes a game of highly lethal (and swingy) rocket tag where everyone is just mashing buttons.

The correct response by the DM is to police the adventuring day (either time limits on quests, a discussion with your players, mechanical options like gritty realism, or hard solutions like mandating 'no long rests till X'). 6-8 encounters between long rests. Doing this makes nova strikes a bad idea (blowing your wad on a single encounter leaves you vulnerable and sucking badly for the other half dozen encounters), pushes players to conserve resources, and rewards (and highlights) ability use. When your players do reach for that (rage/ smite/ spell slot/ action surge) its much more meaningful.

2) PCs using spells and abilities to overcome challenges in ways not forseen by the DM.

The bad DM bans those abilities (usually after stonewalling the usage in the first place). He also usually rage-quits the campaign shortly afterwards, and restarts at lower levels (where he is more comfortable and knowledgable about the rules).

This phenomenon is due to DMs having no experience with mid to high level play. Once high level shennanigans come online, DMs (who have no experience with these abilities, and thus havent turned their minds to them during prep time) start to lose control over the adventure. They generally quit the campaign at this time.

Again; just like dialing up difficulty above, this is only entrenching the problem further. If you quit campaigns at high level, you'll never gain the experience of DMing high level play. You wont have the tools or experience in running high level games, or challenging high level PCs.

The correct DM lets the PCs ability work and them win, but with a twist. Example is the infamous 'Speak with dead' to win a murder mystery and find out who done it, when the DM hasnt planned for this outcome.

The Bad DM tells the player it 'doest work' (stonewalls) and then bans the spell. The good DM lets the spell work to give a vital clue, but doesnt let the spell auto win. ('The spirit tells you it was dark and he didnt get a good look at his killers face... but he was sure he was speaking in elven, with a distinct High elf accent...').

Say yes (dont stonewall the ability) and learn from it. Thats how you grow as a DM.

Next time when planning high level adventures, you'll have a good idea of what the PCs are capable of, and be able to factor in things like teleport, speak with dead, zone of truth, disintegrate etc into your planning and adventure.

Malifice

2017-11-02, 10:19 PM

To be fair..I also hate Revivify. It's one of the main things that killed the fear of death in 5e. Resurrection at level 5? Are you kidding me?

I actually refuse to take it as a player and remove it as a DM.

I increased the material component cost (diamonds etc) of all 'raise dead' spells by a factor of 10.

I also brought back Ressurection survival (DC 5 Con ability check or permadeath - keeps it roughly in line with AD&D's % chance) and you cop a -2 Con score on ressurection (barring True Ressurection).

Death from massive damage happens when you are at 0 HP and there is damage remaining =to (Con score) or (1/4 max HP) whichever is greater.

I have experience players though, so they're OK with this.

Jerrykhor

2017-11-02, 11:00 PM

Kane0

2017-11-02, 11:03 PM

You guys must be rolling in the Diamond (dust), I've never experienced a problem with it.

Especially said horror story, considering it was OotA.

UrielAwakened

2017-11-03, 08:51 AM

Been using this for years. So much better than double dice.

Aka a 4e crit.

DizzyWood

2017-11-03, 09:04 AM

Every one gets a bag of holding that can carry 200 lbs of stuff in it. Also we play fast and loose with rules regarding sheathing and drawing various weapons. This is for a few reason we once spent an entire hour trading inventory around so that we could keep the best stuff and we tend to RP fights very dramatically and neither of our DMS liked penalizing something so cool with fiddly weapon switching rules.

mephnick

2017-11-03, 09:29 AM

neither of our DMS liked penalizing something so cool with fiddly weapon switching rules.

Fair enough, but disregarding the "fiddly" object interactions is basically giving all casters the main benefit of Warcaster while providing martials with nothing. The divide grows...

kivzirrum

2017-11-03, 10:17 AM

Wish is not a spell that you can take, regardless of class. It exists as a boon some extraplanar creatures can give.

If you tell a good joke as the vocal component of Tasha's Hideous Laughter, the target rolls with disadvantage.

I gotta steal these for my game, they are genius.

I hand out inspiration if you make a pun.

Also genius, but sadly not one I can steal. One of my pals is a champion punster and she will dominate the entire game if I do this.

People can and do stay up for 48 hours... while sitting down in front of a screen, with the aid of stimulants and a modern cornucopia of excess food, possibly doing something important like supporting a software deployment. They slowly lose focus, their work needs to be re-done because of how many mistakes they make, they might even doze off a few times. And then they have problems focusing for the next few days because of how exhausted they are.

Yeesh, not this people. I've always been in awe of how anyone can do this.

mephnick

2017-11-03, 10:26 AM

He's wrong about the "with out any problems" part. He may think that's the case, but it's well documented that staying up for that long results in reduced functionality.

Unless ... maybe he's not a human? :smallamused:

As someone in an industrial setting with long night shifts, the company isn't allow to keep us any longer than 16 hours even if we're willing because that's the point people start getting dangerously tired. Especially on a swing shift. If we do happen to work a 16 hour night shift we aren't allowed to drive ourselves home. Staying up for over 24 hours and driving makes you culpable for impaired driving in some places, as physically there is little difference between that and being drunk.

Anyone who says they can stay up for over 24 hours "with no problems" is probably an idiot who's never tried to actually do anything physical after staying up for 24 hours.

JAL_1138

2017-11-03, 10:47 AM

Yeesh, not this people. I've always been in awe of how anyone can do this.

Back in undergrad, writing my senior thesis for my philosophy BA and doing term papers and finals for other classes, I went 48 hours on, 4 hours of sleep, 48 hours on, 4 hours sleep, rinse and repeat, for a couple of days more than a week. I pretty much lived on energy drinks, coffee, caffeine pills, and cigarettes. I only stopped working to eat, shower, sleep those 4 hours at a time, study, and go to class to pick up or turn in papers or take finals.

I was hallucinating pretty badly by the end of it. Not seeing or hearing things that weren't there at all, but seeing images distort like lensing effects or twisting and stretching and moving (closest I can describe would be like looking at things just below the surface of moving water, but not exactly), and experiencing strong synesthesia (I could taste colors, smell sounds, etc.). Afterwards I was kinda wrecked for a solid week—uncoordinated, slowed reaction time, trouble focusing on tasks, memory problems, fatigue, trouble finding the right words when talking, etc. But hey, A's on all those papers and finals, so, I dunno, worth it?

48 hours is manageable once. Repeatedly...not so much.

However, as a counterexample, I do know a guy wired for practically no sleep. He pulls about two to three all-nighters a week, and only gets between 4-5 hours of sleep when he does sleep, without any of those effects, as an attorney whose hobbies are amateur MMA sparring and amateur tournament arm-wrestling. The guy's like a machine. He doesn't drink much coffee, either. It's not an effort to stay awake on his part, just how he's wired—and there's some medical evidence that certain people just simply don't need as much sleep as the rest of us.

Potato_Priest

2017-11-03, 10:48 AM

Fair enough, but disregarding the "fiddly" object interactions is basically giving all casters the main benefit of Warcaster while providing martials with nothing. The divide grows...

I really don't think that's the case. The only casters that really benefit are the caster-martial hybrid classes like clerics and valor bards, and your martials gain the benefit of being able to sheathe their sword and draw their bow on the same round or vice versa, which is pretty darned helpful as a fighter or barbarian IMO.

mephnick

2017-11-03, 10:51 AM

I really don't think that's the case. The only casters that really benefit are the caster-martial hybrid classes like clerics and valor bards, and your martials gain the benefit of being able to sheathe their sword and draw their bow on the same round or vice versa, which is pretty darned helpful as a fighter or barbarian IMO.

True, I wasn't thinking of the switch hitters out there...which is odd as it's my favourite martial build to play. Fair enough.

kivzirrum

2017-11-03, 11:29 AM

Back in undergrad, writing my senior thesis for my philosophy BA and doing term papers and finals for other classes, I went 48 hours on, 4 hours of sleep, 48 hours on, 4 hours sleep, rinse and repeat, for a couple of days more than a week. I pretty much lived on energy drinks, coffee, caffeine pills, and cigarettes. I only stopped working to eat, shower, sleep those 4 hours at a time, study, and go to class to pick up or turn in papers or take finals.

I was hallucinating pretty badly by the end of it. Not seeing or hearing things that weren't there at all, but seeing images distort like lensing effects or twisting and stretching and moving (closest I can describe would be like looking at things just below the surface of moving water, but not exactly), and experiencing strong synesthesia (I could taste colors, smell sounds, etc.). Afterwards I was kinda wrecked for a solid week—uncoordinated, slowed reaction time, trouble focusing on tasks, memory problems, fatigue, trouble finding the right words when talking, etc. But hey, A's on all those papers and finals, so, I dunno, worth it?

48 hours is manageable once. Repeatedly...not so much.

However, as a counterexample, I do know a guy wired for practically no sleep. He pulls about two to three all-nighters a week, and only gets between 4-5 hours of sleep when he does sleep, without any of those effects, as an attorney whose hobbies are amateur MMA sparring and amateur tournament arm-wrestling. The guy's like a machine. He doesn't drink much coffee, either. It's not an effort to stay awake on his part, just how he's wired—and there's some medical evidence that certain people just simply don't need as much sleep as the rest of us.

I've always wished I was one of the people wired in such a way... I'd be so much more productive if I didn't have to waste 6-7 hours a night with sleep! I've gone 30 hours without sleep twice in my life--both were extenuating circumstances, and by the end of both I was a useless lump of exhaustion.

More on topic, I'm not comfortable enough as a DM to make many house rules... I'm always afraid tugging on that one thread will have consequences down the line with some mechanic I never even foresaw as a possibility. Even with a small change, I'm afraid of screwing things up so much that the game becomes totally broken :smalleek:

Tanarii

2017-11-03, 11:38 AM

You guys must be rolling in the Diamond (dust), I've never experienced a problem with it.Horde value is approx 3900 / level in Tier 2, and you're 'expected' to gain 3 of them per 2.4 adventuring days. So the part as a whole can afford up to 3 revivifies per adventuring day (using level 3 slots) for just the one Cleric, and still expect to have 3900 gp left over for living expenses, consumables, saving for property investment in towers and castles, and whatever else they can think up.

Again, that's per adventuring day.

Anyone who says they can stay up for over 24 hours "with no problems" is probably an idiot who's never tried to actually do anything physical after staying up for 24 hours.Yup. It impairs mental things too though.

I spent 18 months mostly on a 48-72 hours awake and 12 hours asleep cycle for reasons I won't get into. But the effect on my mental state was profound.

EvilAnagram

2017-11-03, 11:43 AM

My players actually talked it over and asked me to forbid all resurrection spells. They liked how dangerous everything felt, and they didn't want ways out if they died.

Tanarii

2017-11-03, 12:02 PM

My players actually talked it over and asked me to forbid all resurrection spells. They liked how dangerous everything felt, and they didn't want ways out if they died.
Some people want a way to "save" the game, at least from immediate accidents, after they've invested 20-25 hrs or so of (fairly fast) play time to get to level 5, and get their first treasure horde.

Other people might only want it readily readily available at level 9 via the Raise Dead and travel (ie no cleric in party, but DM makes it available via NPC within 10 days at level 9). Which is an additional 30-40 hrs or so of fairly fast play time.

Other people don't want it at all.

2D8HP

2017-11-03, 12:10 PM

I was thinking about house rules I use and some I have heard other people use. I was just wandering what other rules people use and why do they use them....

My house rules?

Well if we're playing at my house my PC's sheet has:

Race: Decline to state.
Don't stereotype me!

Background: Has sword.

Alignment: Wants loot.

I also try to get the DM to stop asking me

"What are you going to roll?",

and

"What rule are you using?",

and instead ask me

"What do you do?",

and to just tell me what my PC see's and hears.

Or do you mean if I'm the DM?

Um...

Only allow the players access to the free online Players Basic Rules (http://dnd.wizards.com/node/4896) not the PHB!
Use the "Slow Natural Healing", and "Gritty Realism" variants from page 267 of the DMG.
Remember Warlocks, Dragonborn and Tieflings are NPC's only!
If they whine make them roll 3d6 in order for their stats. No takebacks!
All the PC's "backgrounds" are: "Loot hungry murder-hobo"...
PC "Trait", "Ideal", "Bond", and "Flaw" all should be "meets like minded individuals at tavern, to go on noble quest to steal loot from Dungeon dwellers".

And I can go on how I'd like 5e to be more like TSR B/X D&D and less like Pathfinder (or just make B/X more like 5e), but..... no rules changes are as good as having actual other people to who will play the game!

I may be tempted to steal some rules for building and maintaining strongholds/manors from old D&D, or Pendragon, but otherwise I don't perceive any lack of rules.

Anyway, the "rules" are up to each individual table:

Dungeons and Dragons, The Underground and Wilderness Adventures, p. 36: "... everything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it that way."

AD&D 1e, DMG, p. 9: "The game is the thing, and certain rules can be distorted or disregarded altogether in favor of play."

AD&D 2E, DMG, p. 3: "At conventions, in letters, and over the phone, I'm often asked for the instant answer to a fine point of the game rules. More often than not, I come back with a question -- what do you feel is right? And the people asking the question discover that not only can they create an answer, but that their answer is as good as anyone else's. The rules are only guidelines."

D&D 3.5 DMG, p. 6: "Good players will always realize that you have ultimate authority over the game mechanics, even superseding something in a rulebook."

D&D 5e DMG, p. 263:: "As the Dungeon Master, You aren't limited by the rules in the Player's Handbook, the guidelines in this book, or the selection of monsters in the Monster Manual"

Unlike Space Invaders or Chess, changing default assumptions is allowed, but is nice to give players a heads-up that you are going to change assumptions, for example; in my games when I'm the DM, I only allow humans and half-humans as PC's, and the assumptions are:

Most anything that is not a human dirt farmer is monstrous (and they are as well, when the Druids tell them the harvest demands a sacrifice):

https://resizing.flixster.com/V6duubU8VhV-GcC9bJSLCxmIRcg=/300x300/v1.aDsxMDY2NzQ7ajsxNzUwNjsxMjAwOzM3ODA7MjgzNQ

https://resizing.flixster.com/nnf-f5Ji_-PFTY8WcUqkcTm09FY=/300x300/v1.aDsxMDY2NzU7ajsxNzUwNjsxMjAwOzM0NTI7MjMzMA

Dwarves are underground dwellers who make cursed items (The Ring des Nibelungen (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Ring_des_Nibelungen)),

Elves are child stealing near demons ( the "Fair Folk" (https://www.tor.com/2015/10/21/five-reasons-not-to-piss-off-the-fair-folk/)).
"Elves are terrific, they bring terror"

When in doubt, just assume that they're going to torture and kill you.

(Basicy all Elves are pasty Drow/Fey)

Goblins?

Steal your cattle, and poison your wells in the night.

Kings?

Take your crops, and maybe your children for their wars.

Gods/Goddesses?

Out of spite they turn you into spider or a tree, and make you suffer eternally.

Best to stay in the fields you know, keep your head low and escape "the high ones" notice.

Failing that?

Grab some iron, and cut the bastards!

I tell my players that:

"Your PC's don't know what's in any D&D book, they know the Fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers, Greek and Norse myths, and to cross themselves and touch iron when the speak of 'the kindly ones'"

That's just how I roll (yes I "Keeper'ed a lot of Call of Cthullu "in the day").

:amused:

I'm going to study the rules for a "Tabaxi Bladesinger"?

As if!

Your race is human, or close to one, with a background of "has sword wants loot".

Now past some tree roots blocking it you see an opening that's leading underground....

mephnick

2017-11-03, 01:53 PM

Yup. It impairs mental things too though.

True. My wife and kids know not to bother me too much after my last night shift. I'm kind of weird for at least a day.

Jama7301

2017-11-03, 02:14 PM

During Downtime for a game I ran recently, I had a player who was more invested in learning about the world than the other players, and liked the concept of communal world building. Because he spent time researching, as he wasn't from this country, I ended up stealing parts of Dungeon World's Spout Lore move for him. Felt like it was a decent way to reflect his studies and what he learned, and let him fill out a few spaces of the map.

Laurefindel

2017-11-03, 06:07 PM

- Starting a campaign with a PHB beastmaster ranger. Ruling that once given a task, the animal companion continues on subsequent rounds until "completed" (enemy is down, no longer needs to dodge etc) or commanded otherwise.

- Going to 0hp, receiving a critical hit or failing a save (from a situation causing damage) with a result of 1 causes an injury (hp lose is otherwise accumulated fatigue from escaping deadly hits). Injuries cause 1 level of exhaustion that cannot be removed until victim is back to full hp (meant to be played with gritty realism or slow healing variants).

- Rolling a 1 on an ability check is always a failure. If there wasn't a chance of failure, I wouldn't ask you for a check in the first place.

- I always forget to reward inspiration, so I'm taking a cue from The One Ring. Party has a fellowship pool = number of characters that refreshes every game. Characters can draw from the fellowship pool to gain advantage on a roll. Now fiddling with ideas refreshing/adding to the fellowship pool (characters trained in performance or cooking increase fellowship pool, bard may take from/give to the fellowship pool with inspiration dice etc).

Kane0

2017-11-03, 06:27 PM

Horde value is approx 3900 / level in Tier 2, and you're 'expected' to gain 3 of them per 2.4 adventuring days. So the part as a whole can afford up to 3 revivifies per adventuring day (using level 3 slots) for just the one Cleric, and still expect to have 3900 gp left over for living expenses, consumables, saving for property investment in towers and castles, and whatever else they can think up.

Again, that's per adventuring day.

Yes, but you aren’t using coins and random valuables to cast Revivify, you’re using diamond dust specifically. Instead of scrubbing the spell why not just make diamonds rare and hard to get?

mephnick

2017-11-03, 11:20 PM

Tanarii

2017-11-04, 12:13 AM

Yes, but you aren’t using coins and random valuables to cast Revivify, you’re using diamond dust specifically. Instead of scrubbing the spell why not just make diamonds rare and hard to get?Thats your prerogative as a DM, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. But the ability to afford it is there, if the DM uses the default treasure awards per the DMG. Your comment implied to me that isn't the case, generally.

Potato_Priest

2017-11-04, 02:24 PM

Naanomi

2017-11-04, 02:40 PM

If a costly spell component is consumed by a spell and not integral to the spell's functioning (like with magic jar for instance) I'll let people use gold coins instead of "diamond dust" or "rare oils" or whatever. It seems like an unnecessary hoop to jump through and one that I really don't want to waste time RPing.
That used to be one of the special abilities of the specialty priests of Waukeen (to use coin instead of expensive componants)

PhoenixPhyre

2017-11-04, 03:19 PM

Horde value is approx 3900 / level in Tier 2, and you're 'expected' to gain 3 of them per 2.4 adventuring days.

Where are you getting this expectation from? I find no such thing in the DMG.

Edit: I recognize the 2.4 days as the average adventure days per level, it's the 3 horde per level piece I'm not finding.

Second Edit: It seems the relevant cite is DMG 133 and I retract my question.

Over the course of a typical campaign, a party finds treasure hoards amounting to ... eighteen rolls on the Challenge 5-10 table...

Which does work out roughly to 3 / 2.4 adventuring days. That's a lot more than I ever award, but...hmm. Never noticed that before.

Third edit: I agree that the problem by RAW should be acquiring the diamond dust. Most small towns wouldn't have such a thing, and diamonds don't come in hoards until Tier 4. Whether I'd enforce that...not sure personally.

Tanarii

2017-11-04, 03:33 PM

Second Edit: It seems the relevant cite is DMG 133 and I retract my question.

Which does work out roughly to 3 / 2.4 adventuring days. That's a lot more than I ever award, but...hmm. Never noticed that before.
I generally have a roughly estimated level of difficulty for specific adventuring sites (ie this dungeon / adventuring site is built for 4x level 3 characters, that one for 5x level 4, etc) even if players never see that. It makes things easier when designing encounters. That means I can spread out my treasure hordes across 1 adventuring day of encounters each, roughly, even if there's no expectation that any given party will face the exact 'adventuring day'. That's less than the expected amount.

Of course, it's not that precise, because it doesn't need to be. But since I have no clue what levels will be in the party (just what Tier they will be), nor exactly how many members will be in the party before they enter an area (typically 2-6 PCs+ 0-3 henchmen), I wanted a way to give roughly expected treasure by the guidelines anyway. I didn't have to do that, I just wanted to.

mephnick

2017-11-05, 04:19 PM

.
Spellcasting that requires skillful execution requires skill checks. For example, 'throw a fireball into combat so it hits *that* monster, but not my Rogue buddy that's in melee with it' have to make Arcana DC check to succeed.
[/LIST]

One of the best class features in the game for a simple Arcana check? I know what I'm rolling at your table.

Tanarii

2017-11-05, 04:48 PM

One of the best class features in the game for a simple Arcana check? I know what I'm rolling at your table.
He's talking about placing a fireball on a grid so that blast radius includes an enemy but not the creature in melee combat with it. Ie precision placement.

Kane0

2017-11-05, 05:37 PM

Yeah that's what I read it as too.

mephnick

2017-11-05, 07:23 PM

Ooooh ok. *puts torch away*

JackPhoenix

2017-11-06, 02:15 AM

Here's another house rule that I use, potentially relevant to the diamond dust discussion.

If a costly spell component is consumed by a spell and not integral to the spell's functioning (like with magic jar for instance) I'll let people use gold coins instead of "diamond dust" or "rare oils" or whatever. It seems like an unnecessary hoop to jump through and one that I really don't want to waste time RPing.

In Eberron games, I allow dragonshard dust as universal material component which can replace any other components of equal value. But it isn't too common, because dragonshards have many better uses than being crushed and consumed by spells. But it's an use for 'shards that are either too small or poor quality to use for magic items.

Kane0

2017-11-06, 05:00 AM

Oh yeah my table stole 4e's residuum to do the same thing, made from breaking down magic items. It's pretty rare, not much incentive to destroy magic items in 5e which I like.

Dudewithknives

2017-11-06, 10:40 AM

How does this work?

There are no surprise rounds in 5E. A creature is surprised (it cant take actions or move and cant take reactions till its 1st turn ends) or it isnt.

What advantage does this creature in your example get?

I missworded that, what I meant was that if a PC/NPC has an ability that requires the target to be surprised, they can still get the benefit even if combat has started as long as nobody has detected them.

Ex.

Assassin is sitting back to see who the biggest threat is, hidden and undetected. 3 rounds into combat he figures out that the "X" is the leader, then he can still get his benefit from surprise attack as long as nobody has detected him.

Joe the Rat

2017-11-06, 11:14 AM

My Game:
No tieflings (does not fit world lore), dragonborn, or orcs/half-orcs (aren't local)
Bunch of racial variants, alternative subclasses.
True elves have low light vision (30') and sonar (dim light equivalent vision) 60'. They also have an ultrasonic "secret" langauge.
A Wand of Wonder has two settings: standard (d100) and insane (d10,000) effects.
Ask a stupid question: If you ask about some outlandish, unlikely, or ridiculously stupid thing, I roll a d30. On a 30, it happens. On a 1, it happens in a bad way. Best example of this was the rogue walking up to a random tree and started talking to it like it had a dryad. [30] - it did.

The game I'm in now:
A natural 1 on attack and ability rolls ends in mishap - dropping or breaking something is what I've seen thus far.
Taking a knee: If a single attack does more than 50% of your hit points (total, I believe, but it may be from current), you "take a knee," and the next attack against you is at Advantage.

mephnick

2017-11-06, 11:54 AM

Oh god, yeah, that was really poorly written.

Yeah - it's about precision placement of a 15' radius thing in the middle of pitched combat. Putting it *exactly* 15' behind the target.

Not so easy.

Yeah I can see the idea behind that, seems fair enough. In my defence I see people letting characters steal class features all the time (like Subtle spell for a simple Deception check) so I glanced at it and switched to "Nope" mode.

Kane0

2017-11-06, 08:28 PM

like Subtle spell for a simple Deception check

Our table has a whole in-joke about that. Nobody can use Detect Thoughts without a good laugh.

Tanarii

2017-11-07, 10:25 AM

I'm fighting that specific one in my group. A bard wants to cast Suggestion in plain sight, within normal conversation, by beginning a sentence with 'Wouldn't it be a good idea to'. Ugh.Not that anyone uses it, but Trike Strike also implies the component (S-only) is sorta innocuous. Extend your arm and point at them.

Vicious Word (V-only) has obvious effects to the target (damage), but the component may be interpreted to the the insults themselves.

Was there ever an SA on the Suggestion thing?
Edit: ah, yes there is and it's an official one not just a tweet:
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-september-2016
http://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf
Is the sentence of suggestion in the suggestion spell the verbal component, or is the verbal component separate? Verbal components are mystic words (PH, 203), not normal speech. The spell’s suggestion is an intelligible utterance that is separate from the verbal component.