What sources/rules/variants do your DMs allow?

[MinMaxMunchking]

I have a hunch about this, but to avoid arguments which are not based on real data, I'd like to know what "toys" the wider community out there is allowed to play with. Now, I AM going to (shamelessly?) plug my YT channel here, but I posted a poll on my YT Community tab already. So, in order to get closer to a statistically significant number of participants, as well as prevent skewed results based on the generally narrow (controversial? triggering? immature? :D) angle of my channel, I'd be thrilled to have your vote on it as well :)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpScX_SSuGzqZxHUefh1GbA/community

I'll be basically copy/pasting this on several places online, so I apologize in advance if this blatantly breaks any self-promotion/spam rules. Let me know if it does and I'll remove the post.

[Garresh]

Well I can tell you straight up that nobody allows dandwiki.

For what I've seen, Mercer's gunslinger goes well. I've played the Middle Finger of Vecna binder and had an absolute blast without being OP. I strongly endorse their binder. Sadly their new one(exclusively on patreon atm) is unbalanced, so stick with the free version. It's better at the moment.

[MinMaxMunchking]

Well I can tell you straight up that nobody allows dandwiki.

For what I've seen, Mercer's gunslinger goes well. I've played the Middle Finger of Vecna binder and had an absolute blast without being OP. I strongly endorse their binder. Sadly their new one(exclusively on patreon atm) is unbalanced, so stick with the free version. It's better at the moment.

The only thing I played so far outside of core books is Mercer's Bloodhunter. I've allowed Revised Ranger and Bruter Fighter in my home campaign, I had a few home/house rules as well, but my groups are mostly sticking to core ruleset + multiclassing, feats & a few more variants from DMG.

But you know, that's just me, so I'm interested in what other people around the world are doing in their games :smallsmile:

[Keravath]

Official content including feats and multiclassing but I usually play AL these days. Outside AL, this still seems to be the most common.

However, I wasn't able to participate in your poll without using my Google/Youtube account to comment publicly.

[MinMaxMunchking]

Official content including feats and multiclassing but I usually play AL these days. Outside AL, this still seems to be the most common.

However, I wasn't able to participate in your poll without using my Google/Youtube account to comment publicly.

Right, I guess I should've phrased it "Core rules" instead of "Core books". Oh well, too late now, I can't edit the already published post.

You don't have to leave a comment or even subscribe - as long as you check one of the options, YT automatically counts it. Check it out yourself, you'll see the percentages automatically readjusting based on what option you check.

It is a bit confusing though because as soon as you do that, the comment writing thingy pops up, so I get what you're saying :smallsmile:

[strangebloke]

Blood Hunter and Gunslinger are fine. I've had 1 blood hunter and it was fine.

I allow all UA except for Lore Wizard and whatever that one obscene ranger subclass. If there's an official version of the UA they have to use that. I've had player try out the brute but that's it.

[stoutstien]

Everything within reason but it's a game by game call. I all players to make up there own rules even if everybody agrees and will make the game better. This includes classes and subclasses and more obscure things like spell component harvesting.

[Dessunri]

Pretty much all resources that are officially from WoTC are allowed in all of our games. If we're interested in an unearthed arcana subclass that's usually allowed too. If anything, its the players in our group who put restrictions on ourselves. If we know it's going to be a shorter campaign and we may want to take the character to AL we'll restrict ourselves to AL rules. But with the recent AL changes it seems so easy to level up in AL none of us are too concerned about powering up in a home campaign. Most recently I've tried out the newest sorcerer subclass in a short adventure we've been running just to see what it's like.

[Protolisk]

All official material, most UA. Exclusions of Alternate and Revised Ranger, unless they really want to play Beast Master (I feel bad for Beast Master). No one has played Ranger in my games though so I don't if this has changed anything. If there is a newer version (like the various Artificers), the newest version. I also exclude Lore Wizard. No one has even tried Mystic yet in my games.

I allow any third party, if they show it to me. No one has yet, though, except for a Homebrew Necromancer on DanDwiki. I looked over that class VERY carefully before I allowed it though. Was basically a very niche Sorcerer, so I allowed it. Most of DanDwiki is right awful.

Edit: multiclassing and feats allowed. Feats are often taken, multiclassing only 1 did.

[Daphne]

PHB and XGE are allowed, but not optional rules (multiclassing and feats).

[Trandir]

The current one uses so much homebrew of his own that would allow anything if he thinks that would be cool and balanced, including players' homebrew

[Ortho]

Oh boy.
I'm a DM in my college's D&D club, and we've got about 70 players and 12 DMs in a single shared world, so we've got a bunch of rules - both house and variant - that vary between "Ok, that makes sense" and "WTF were you thinking?"


All official, published materials are allowed. No UA, except for Revised Ranger.
Aaracokra have a flying speed of 40ft, and can wear medium and heavy armor.
Everyone starts with a free feat at 1st level, and Variant Humans are banned. Also, feats are allowed.
Bugbears and Yuan-ti are banned.
Multiclassing requirements have been removed.
We buffed monks: the dice they use for unarmed strikes has been increased by one size.
The GGtR backgrounds are not allowed.
We use the Variant Encumbrance rules. We also halved the weight of all armors.


Last campaign was even worse: we completely reworked Monks (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K-OkjtFdV2upqW-pUYPZ0uwfvFoeNPASdwLBdKfkMso/edit?usp=sharing) and allowed spellcasters to casts leveled spells as both an action and a bonus action for some reason.

We also had this stupidly broken system for downtime: you could create magic items or learn a proficiency. So after a few weeks, we had wizards running around in the +3 magical heavy armor they'd just gained proficiency in. This was around level 5 or so.

[FilthyLucre]

I have a hunch about this, but to avoid arguments which are not based on real data, I'd like to know what "toys" the wider community out there is allowed to play with. Now, I AM going to (shamelessly?) plug my YT channel here, but I posted a poll on my YT Community tab already. So, in order to get closer to a statistically significant number of participants, as well as prevent skewed results based on the generally narrow (controversial? triggering? immature? :D) angle of my channel, I'd be thrilled to have your vote on it as well :)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpScX_SSuGzqZxHUefh1GbA/community

I'll be basically copy/pasting this on several places online, so I apologize in advance if this blatantly breaks any self-promotion/spam rules. Let me know if it does and I'll remove the post.

I don't allow anything that isn't printed in an official WotC release, (which excludes Unearthed Arcana).

I also don't allow multiclassing.

However, I do allow PCs to pick a feat AND bump their stats whenever they get an ASI - however to compensate for this no feats grant ability core improvements.

[Expected]

Personally, I prefer DM's that follow strict RAW>RAI using every sourcebook, including Unearthed Arcana, and referring to the Sage Advice Compendium if there is a question. Homebrew is fine, but I find that many creators either make their homebrew overpowered/underpowered. I am a fan of Critical Role and Matt Mercer, but his classes are more for flavor than mechanics. Gunslinger is inferior to Battle Master Fighter with Crossbow Expert. Blood Hunter, and it's role as a damage dealer, has low DPR compared to PAM/GWM builds and some of its features can get you killed.

[MinMaxMunchking]

Interesting replies, the range of different rulesets and playstyles out there is wider than I though. I liked that idea of getting both ability bump AND the feat, but with no multiclassing, even though I personally think that select few feats break the game much more and more often than multiclassing, bar a few known class combos that do offer an overall power increase.

Thanks for taking the time and voting! :smallwink:

[Grod_The_Giant]

Pretty much anything. If it's not from an official book or my homebrew I'll take a look, but I usually say yes.