House Rules - Realism, tweaks and time.

[KyleG]

After scouring the internet and seen some actions in play i am leaning towards some tweaks going into my first Homebrew campaign. Some will be controversial. Some seem like no brainers (prone to standing), others probably still need tweaks. I am curious what the community thinks of these. Which you think i should not include? What tweaks to fine tune them? How will they act with others or with RAW?
While some are purely mechanical changes to improve on what i have seen in play or in theorycrafting, others are my attempts at some realism. I know thats an impossible dream but i like the system and think it could still function with slight changes.
It should be noted too that i think we will be running 2 nights SR, 3rd night LR. That is still somewhat up in the air. I want to stretch the time between levels, AND not be forced to have dungeon crawl type adventuring days. Some days its all on. some days its not.
Without further delay....

RACES
Darkvision: only for Undergrounders, Replace Darkvision with low-light vision for all races that don’t live underground (or deep underwater). Creatures with low-light vision can see in areas of Dim light as if it were Bright light, and then 10' past areas of Dim light as if they were in Dim Light.

Dragonborn:
Breath weapon - BA
Dragon Hide feat without ASI

Human:
Languages: Common and one other of choice
Standard ASI +2/+1
+1 Skill Proficiency
+1 Skill Expertise
+1 Tool proficiency
Resourceful: Before you roll an attack, ability check or saving throw you can choose to gain advantage on the roll. Once you use this feature you cannot do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

CLASSES
Warlock: Can be an intelligence castor.
Barbarian: Rage lasts a full minute.
Monk: Darts are considered a monk weapon/usually throwing stars.
Druid: Level 20 Archdruid instead now lets you use Wild Shape an unlimited number of times for creatures CR 1 and below??
Sorcerer: Uses Spellpoints not slots. And Metamagic options at 7th and 14th level.

FEATS:
Sentinel - can only affect enemies up to 1 size larger
Sharpshooter - Choose from one of the these for each attack: Range, Cover, or Power
Lucky is unable to be played.
Sharpshooter and Great Weapon master are Elite feats not available until level 8.

COMBAT
Combat Talking: Relaying information in combat should be brief, 8 words or less. Infractions may have consequences.

Prone: Standing up from the prone condition only costs 15ft movement., not half movement (RAW) and triggers opportunity attack which you can negate by using your action (dodge).

Flanking: +1 Modifier if target engaged with someone else.
or
Outnumbered:
For each enemy threatening a creature besides the first, the creature is outnumbered and takes a cumulative -2 penalty to AC. For every ally the creature has who has the creature in their threatened area, the penalty is reduced by 2 points. If the penalty is reduced to zero, the creature is not outnumbered.
Sneak Attack and similar abilities work against any creature who is outnumbered.

Criticals:
Melee: Roll as per normal + max weapon damage die added.
Or disadvantage until the end of next turn as they recover from the massive hit.
Spell Damage: Double dice or roll twice
Saving Throws:
Damage - Success zero damage.
Effect - Success is immunity to effect for x rounds?
Initiative: Advantage/Disadvantage on the first round.

Unconscious: When reduced to 0 HP you gain one level of exhaustion when you come back to consciousness - recovered after 8hrs of rest.
and Death Saves dont reset until SR/LR
Death Saves are rolled at the start of your turn.

Swimming: When in Medium or Heavy Armor Athletics checks to swim in medium or heavy armor are made with disadvantage.Otherwise, I mean, come on.

Falling: Falling damage is a cumulative 1d6 for every 10ft, meaning for a fall of 10ft, 20ft, and 30ft, the damage is 1d6, 3d6, 6d6.

Healing: You cannot begin to heal naturally (Hit Die) until your wounds are treated with a Healers Kit = 1 Hit Die. A successful medicine check by someone proficient ontop of this allows you to use multiple available Hit Die. ½ max Hit Die are recovered at the end of a long rest. ????

Rest: Con not added to HP each level. But CON*LVL added each night as extra HP depending on sleep conditions. ????

Last Stand: When an allied player character (or an NPC the characters care about) dies in battle, all allies who can see them when they die get advantage on the next attack roll, saving throw, or ability check they make before the end of their next turn. Adds some "NOOOOO!" compensation for having a player die.

Leveling Up: When gaining hit points for rising in level, you can choose to take the listed flat value after you have rolled.

Potions: Full strength if consumed as action

Identifying a Magic Item: This can only be done with magic (including attunement) or by researching with information you have.

Skills Checks:
Skill checks during combat are free to attempt, but may require your action or bonus action at the DM's discretion, should you succeed
PC: I want to push this bookcase over on to the enemy on the other side.
DM: Okay, make a Strength check. If you succeed, it'll cost your action to push it over, a failure and your item interaction is used up.
PC: .... 4.
DM: You quickly realise this is not going to be possible

Medicine will primarily be recognised as an Intelligence Check. Although proficiency in Herbalism will allow it to be made as a Wisdom Check.

Group Checks: In the situation where a single check will determine success or failure a single die roll is made by the person with the highest modifier (success) or lowest modifier (failure). Bonuses, penalties, Advantage, and Disadvantage are applied normally to the character rolling the check.

[Avonar]

RACES
Darkvision: only for Undergrounders, Replace Darkvision with low-light vision for all races that don’t live underground (or deep underwater). Creatures with low-light vision can see in areas of Dim light as if it were Bright light, and then 10' past areas of Dim light as if they were in Dim Light.

I don't mind this, I always think that darkness is something that you can't use much due to the abundance of darkvision.


Dragonborn:
Breath weapon - CON modifier uses per day
Once per round, when you would make one or more weapon attacks, you can instead use the opportunity to exhale destructive energy. Your Draconic ancestry determines the size, shape, and damage type of the exhalation.
When you use your breath weapon, each creature in the area of the exhalation must make a saving throw, the type of which is determined by your Draconic ancestry. The DC for this saving throw equals 8 + your Constitution modifier + your Proficiency Bonus. A creature takes 1d6 damage on a failed save, and half as much damage on a successful one. The damage increases to 2d6 at 5th level, 3d6 at 11th level, and 4d6 at 17th level.

This seems a little weird, a racial feature that is explicitly aimed at martial characters? If you want to make it used more, maybe make it a bonus action instead. With this set up, and especially with the nerfed damage, a caster or single attack class would never use this.


Human:
Languages: Common and one other of choice
Standard ASI +2/+1
+1 Skill Proficiency
+1 Skill Expertise
+1 Tool proficiency
Resourceful: Before you roll an attack, ability check or saving throw you can choose to gain advantage on the roll. Once you use this feature you cannot do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

I don't mind replacing the free feat as it draws many people to V. Human for entirely gamey reasons. Resourceful is alright I suppose, if generic.


CLASSES
Warlock: Can be an intelligence castor.
Barbarian: Rage lasts a full minute.
Monk: Darts are considered a monk weapon/usually throwing stars.
Druid: Level 20 Archdruid instead now lets you use Wild Shape an unlimited number of times for creatures CR 1 and below??
Sorcerer: Uses Spellpoints not slots. And Metamagic options at 7th and 14th level.

Warlock: Not sure why warlock would be intelligence, out of all the Charisma casters it seems like it would be the most personality-driven.
Barbarian Rage: What is this looking to accomplish? Are you just removing the 'Rage drops if there's no damage/attack' clause? Could lead to weird moments like a barbarian raging while waiting in ambush.
Monk: No problem with that. You might not get to use the bonus action attack but monks have tons of bonus action things they can do.
Druid: Pretty reasonable. I played a level 20 druid and I felt basically unkillable.
Sorcerer: Can't really comment since I haven't used spell points before.


FEATS:
Sentinel - can only affect enemies up to 1 size larger
Sharpshooter - Choose from one of the these for each attack: Range, Cover, or Power
Lucky is unable to be played.
Sharpshooter and Great Weapon master are Elite feats not available until level 8.

Sentinel: I can understand that. Perhaps though clarify that it's just for the movement 0 part? The extra opportunity attacks don't make sense to be affected by size as they are entirely based on you.
Sharpshooter: You have made this pretty worthless. If you don't like sharpshooter then just ban it, don't just nerf it into irrelevance. No one would take a feat just to ignore cover.
Lucky: Can't fault you there, it's a powerful and extremely boring feat.
GWM: I don't really see the point in delaying them? Taking them early before you have a dececnt to hit is a big risk.


COMBAT
Combat Talking: Relaying information in combat should be brief, 8 words or less. Infractions may have consequences.

'Infractions may have consequences' is too vague for me to be able to comment on. What consequences are we talking?


Prone: Standing up from the prone condition only costs 15ft movement., not half movement (RAW) and triggers opportunity attack which you can negate by using your action (dodge).

Might take out the Dodge part, since Disengage would do this anyway.


Flanking: +1 Modifier if target engaged with someone else.
or
Outnumbered:
For each enemy threatening a creature besides the first, the creature is outnumbered and takes a cumulative -2 penalty to AC. For every ally the creature has who has the creature in their threatened area, the penalty is reduced by 2 points. If the penalty is reduced to zero, the creature is not outnumbered.
Sneak Attack and similar abilities work against any creature who is outnumbered.

Not a fan of this. One of my favourite things about 5e is that it avoids a bunch of modifiers all coming from different paces. Plus Sneak Attack is easy enough to trigger, it doesn't need this.


Criticals:
Melee: Roll as per normal + max weapon damage die added.
Or disadvantage until the end of next turn as they recover from the massive hit.
Spell Damage: Double dice or roll twice
Saving Throws:
Damage - Success zero damage.
Effect - Success is immunity to effect for x rounds?
Initiative: Advantage/Disadvantage on the first round.

Melee: stick to the damage there. I can see this, it stops a crit from feeling flat if you roll low.
Saves: I mean this wouldn't come up much, but flinging a fireball at something only for it to do nothing probably feels bad. The immunity is kinda pointless I think, since the spell failed anyway.
Initiative: I don't think this is needed. There are already classes who get advantage from going first (assassin rogue).


Unconscious: When reduced to 0 HP you gain one level of exhaustion when you come back to consciousness - recovered after 8hrs of rest.
and Death Saves dont reset until SR/LR
Death Saves are rolled at the start of your turn.

Death Saves are already rolled at the start of turn, right?
I think you've gone a little overboard here on unconscious punishments. Choose one or the other, you don't need persistent saves and exhaustion. And just know that based on the combat you throw them against, those persistent saves could make your campaign more lethal. Persistent successes do not do enough to counteract persistent failures.


Swimming: When in Medium or Heavy Armor Athletics checks to swim in medium or heavy armor are made with disadvantage.Otherwise, I mean, come on.

I mean, fine? I generally assume that the STR requirement for armour includes the strength required for swimming/climbing in it too. But then I rarely make swim checks other than in very specific situations.


Falling: Falling damage is a cumulative 1d6 for every 10ft, meaning for a fall of 10ft, 20ft, and 30ft, the damage is 1d6, 3d6, 6d6.

Sure. You control the distances that they can fall, so it's fine.


Healing: You cannot begin to heal naturally (Hit Die) until your wounds are treated with a Healers Kit = 1 Hit Die. A successful medicine check by someone proficient ontop of this allows you to use multiple available Hit Die. ½ max Hit Die are recovered at the end of a long rest. ????

Pretty brutal there, especially if you are making rests take longer. One thing to point out that gets forgotten a lot is that loss of HP does not equal damage to the body. It's you getting worn down. The PHB says that generally you only start actually getting hurt around 1/2 HP. I'd say no to this one, seems like a lot of work for little value.


Rest: Con not added to HP each level. But CON*LVL added each night as extra HP depending on sleep conditions. ????

So no one is going to take CON other than barbarians then. And everyone will take the Tough feat. Not a fan of this, I don't see what it achieves unless you just want your PCs to die easier. All that I see happening here is everyone boosting Dex as high as possible for AC instead.


Last Stand: When an allied player character (or an NPC the characters care about) dies in battle, all allies who can see them when they die get advantage on the next attack roll, saving throw, or ability check they make before the end of their next turn. Adds some "NOOOOO!" compensation for having a player die.

Seems like you're definitely planning on having this be a pretty lethal campaign then? If you're going to put in something for a PC dying, this seems like a pretty weak boon? At least give them a full round of advantage, it's a big deal.



Leveling Up: When gaining hit points for rising in level, you can choose to take the listed flat value after you have rolled.

No problem with this.


Potions: Full strength if consumed as action

Confused here. Are you saying you could bonus action drink a healing potion and roll for it then action drink for max?


Identifying a Magic Item: This can only be done with magic (including attunement) or by researching with information you have.

No problems here.


Skills Checks:
Skill checks during combat are free to attempt, but may require your action or bonus action at the DM's discretion, should you succeed
PC: I want to push this bookcase over on to the enemy on the other side.
DM: Okay, make a Strength check. If you succeed, it'll cost your action to push it over, a failure and your item interaction is used up.
PC: .... 4.
DM: You quickly realise this is not going to be possible

I don't mind. I often handwave certain checks to not be actions during combat, it encourages skill use by not penalising the character's fighting potential to do them.


Medicine will primarily be recognised as an Intelligence Check. Although proficiency in Herbalism will allow it to be made as a Wisdom Check.

This does mean that clerics and druids are natually less skilled at medicine, but sure?


Group Checks: In the situation where a single check will determine success or failure a single die roll is made by the person with the highest modifier (success) or lowest modifier (failure). Bonuses, penalties, Advantage, and Disadvantage are applied normally to the character rolling the check.

This needs some work, the wording is very washy and vague. Take a stealth check. Would the best person roll, because you're looking to succeed at staying hidden, or the worst person because you are trying not to fail at going unnoticed.

[KyleG]

This seems a little weird, a racial feature that is explicitly aimed at martial characters? If you want to make it used more, maybe make it a bonus action instead. With this set up, and especially with the nerfed damage, a caster or single attack class would never use this.
It was nerfed so it could be used martially but i hadnt taken into the effect on a caster. Maybe BA is the way to go but in the original form.


Barbarian Rage: What is this looking to accomplish? Are you just removing the 'Rage drops if there's no damage/attack' clause? Could lead to weird moments like a barbarian raging while waiting in ambush.

Yes that is the clause i was looking at. Ive always thought of Rage as more like an enhanced adrenaline.


Sharpshooter: You have made this pretty worthless. If you don't like sharpshooter then just ban it, don't just nerf it into irrelevance. No one would take a feat just to ignore cover.
....
GWM: I don't really see the point in delaying them? Taking them early before you have a decent to hit is a big risk.

There is a character drive here being that you have trained for these as you level up. As to SS...it is too OP as RAW especially with Xbow Expert. Might revisit this thou...you might be right.


'Infractions may have consequences' is too vague for me to be able to comment on. What consequences are we talking?

A dice pool that i can add to on the table and take from to aid my roles...hehe...actually i have no idea. Jut an idea to make battle conversation succinct.


Not a fan of this. One of my favourite things about 5e is that it avoids a bunch of modifiers all coming from different paces. Plus Sneak Attack is easy enough to trigger, it doesn't need this.

I hate the strength of flanking as written, but i like the tactics of it. This was my attempt to tweak.


Saves: I mean this wouldn't come up much, but flinging a fireball at something only for it to do nothing probably feels bad. The immunity is kinda pointless I think, since the spell failed anyway.

Yeah, hmmm, back to the drawing board on that one. Gotta make those Nat 20s count....they get the most excitement at the table.


Initiative: I don't think this is needed. There are already classes who get advantage from going first (assassin rogue).

But this Nat 20s feel wasted.


Death Saves are already rolled at the start of turn, right?

Wow...missed that one.


I think you've gone a little overboard here on unconscious punishments. Choose one or the other, you don't need persistent saves and exhaustion. And just know that based on the combat you throw them against, those persistent saves could make your campaign more lethal. Persistent successes do not do enough to counteract persistent failures.

I can see that.



Pretty brutal there, especially if you are making rests take longer. One thing to point out that gets forgotten a lot is that loss of HP does not equal damage to the body. It's you getting worn down. The PHB says that generally you only start actually getting hurt around 1/2 HP. I'd say no to this one, seems like a lot of work for little value.

There were two ideas here. 1. to put some reason behind having healers kits, and to play into the healing mechanic. All the healing changes were made with the idea that i wouldnt be running 6-8 encounters per DAY. In the games ive played we tend to fight a few times each day (and likely SR between those) then rest up at night and we are back good to go the next day. So between that and my desire to length the ingame timeline between levels it felt slightly better.


So no one is going to take CON other than barbarians then. And everyone will take the Tough feat. Not a fan of this, I don't see what it achieves unless you just want your PCs to die easier. All that I see happening here is everyone boosting Dex as high as possible for AC instead.

The idea was/is that they can have that full HP...they just need a decent rest....but yeah, might rethink adding this one.


Confused here. Are you saying you could bonus action drink a healing potion and roll for it then action drink for max?

BA Potion rolls as per normal, or Use action and get max instead.


This does mean that clerics and druids are natually less skilled at medicine, but sure?

Which is why i added the herbalism kit. I guess this is because a medicine check i feel is about true medicine vs magic medicine.


This needs some work, the wording is very washy and vague. Take a stealth check. Would the best person roll, because you're looking to succeed at staying hidden, or the worst person because you are trying not to fail at going unnoticed.

Worst person - to ensure you stay hidden.

[KyleG]

I want to say thank you also...getting the feedback certainly allows me to rethink things and there are things i clearly need to rethink. So Cheers.

[MoiMagnus]

Sorcerer: Uses Spellpoints not slots. And Metamagic options at 7th and 14th level.

Works well, in fact better than RAW, for Tier 1 and Tier 2.
You might want to keep the spell slots for spells of LV6 to LV9.
(possibly reintroducing spell points for LV6 spells at level 19, and spell points for LV7 spells at level 20)

[KyleG]

Works well, in fact better than RAW, for Tier 1 and Tier 2.
You might want to keep the spell slots for spells of LV6 to LV9.
(possibly reintroducing spell points for LV6 spells at level 19, and spell points for LV7 spells at level 20)

Why is that? And do you explain that ingame?
I think the spellpoint RAW does something like that but it seems odd to use both paths.

[Kane0]

Spell points limit you to one 6th/7th/8th/9th level spell per long rest.
I think the idea was to separate those like how warlocks have pact magic separate from mystic arcanum. Presumably so you can’t use the higher number of spell points from those slots on spamming 3rd and 5th level spells.

[KyleG]

Spell points limit you to one 6th/7th/8th/9th level spell per long rest.
I think the idea was to separate those like how warlocks have pact magic separate from mystic arcanum. Presumably so you can’t use the higher number of spell points from those slots on spamming 3rd and 5th level spells.

Fair enough.

[KyleG]

I have reverted to normal damage for the dragonborn breath weapon as a BA and given them the dragon Hide feat. That actually feels better to me.


Dragonborn:
Breath weapon - BA
Dragon Hide feat without ASI

[Pex]

Exhaustion at 0 hit points is tempting but not a good idea. Requiring an 8 hour rest to get rid of it means as soon as one PC goes down in a fight that's the end of the adventuring day. Disadvantage on all ability checks for the rest of the day is too high a price for the unfortunate circumtance of dropping in a fight, so the player will want to rest. It gets worse if the downed PC is healed accepting the exhaustion but then dropped again and now has two levels of exhaustion upon recovery. Forget any adventuring for a long while. You're adding insult to literal injury, punishing the player for the audacity of losing a fight. Learn to live with pop-up healing if that's such a bother for you. Players don't want to drop in combat already. It's a loss of actions and turns for the player whose character dropped and another player who has to take the time to do the healing. Even using Healing Word denies the PC the ability to cast a level spell, only allowing for a Cantrip.

[Theodoxus]

Exhaustion at 0 hit points is tempting but not a good idea. Requiring an 8 hour rest to get rid of it means as soon as one PC goes down in a fight that's the end of the adventuring day. Disadvantage on all ability checks for the rest of the day is too high a price for the unfortunate circumstance of dropping in a fight, so the player will want to rest. It gets worse if the downed PC is healed accepting the exhaustion but then dropped again and now has two levels of exhaustion upon recovery. Forget any adventuring for a long while. You're adding insult to literal injury, punishing the player for the audacity of losing a fight. Learn to live with pop-up healing if that's such a bother for you. Players don't want to drop in combat already. It's a loss of actions and turns for the player whose character dropped and another player who has to take the time to do the healing. Even using Healing Word denies the PC the ability to cast a level spell, only allowing for a Cantrip.

This. All of this.

The only caveat I would say is you could keep the exhaustion if the character is brought back up without magic. That includes rolling a 20 on a death save, or having someone use a healer's kit, and of course waiting the 1d4 hours to wake up. It doesn't stop the whack-a-mole nature of HW/HS, but it is a decent compromise between what you want and Pex's warning.

I used the exhaustion rule pretty much as you layed out, and my players balked. I modified it per my suggestion and now the team tries hard to make sure someone has a potion or a spare healing spell 'just in case'. And they get real nervous when magical resources start running low.

[stoutstien]

This. All of this.

The only caveat I would say is you could keep the exhaustion if the character is brought back up without magic. That includes rolling a 20 on a death save, or having someone use a healer's kit, and of course waiting the 1d4 hours to wake up. It doesn't stop the whack-a-mole nature of HW/HS, but it is a decent compromise between what you want and Pex's warning.

I used the exhaustion rule pretty much as you layed out, and my players balked. I modified it per my suggestion and now the team tries hard to make sure someone has a potion or a spare healing spell 'just in case'. And they get real nervous when magical resources start running low.

Easiest solution is just reintroducing negative HP. it prevents corpse tanking without making falling to zero more deadly. Basically if you receive any healing you stabilize at zero but are still unconscious unless the the negative HP debt is paid.

I also added a feature for the wisdom (medicine) check to be able to reduce negative HP equal to 2x the value of the roll. Using a charge of the healing kit adds 10 to the total.

[Doug Lampert]

Pet peeve time: We've got another believer that Cliff Divers are either impossible or have many hundreds of HP each and that the five or more people who've lived through falling out of an airplane at altitude were all level 9,999,999,999,...,999 uber-super-unbelievable-more powerful than that-deities.

Who knew that WW II gunners and Brazilian stewardesses were actually multimillion HP deities?

For that matter, cats and squirrels are also so tough that when one falls from a great height it accidently destroys the planet, but the cat or squirrel is fine. Just say no. Falling energy goes up linearly with distance till you get noticeable air resistance which reduces it even further. And terminal velocity happens at speeds where survival is unlikely but quite possible.

Don't add "realism" rules that make the game GROSSELY less realistic. People can get lucky and live through an exceedingly long fall depending on how they land and what they hit. HP include luck. High level characters are superhuman. Someone who can use a heavy crossbow to make 8 attacks in 6 seconds is fine, but someone who can survive something that is quite clearly survivable in the real world is unrealistic?

Just say no.

[sophontteks]

Tripping procs opportunity attacks?

Let the trip spam cheese commence!

[stoutstien]

Fall damage is hard. No real way to make it feel good with punishing someone for just having more or less hp.

Personal fix is 1d6 per 5 ft over 20ft minus 1d6 x con modifier. Still have the dex check to prevent prone on any fall over 10 ft.

[Willie the Duck]

COMBAT
Combat Talking: Relaying information in combat should be brief, 8 words or less. Infractions may have consequences.

I foresee problems with this. People (especially during exciting moments in a game - be it D&D or parcheesi) have all sorts of things to say about what they think person whose turn it is should do. Acting like they are doing something wrong in this is not going to sell well. I would instead focus on the implausibility of a communication if it is an in character one -- "Joe, your character could not have said that, they didn't have enough time to do so in a six second round. Shelly, Joe's character did not communicate that desire or piece of advice, what would your character have done, given this state of affairs?"


Fall damage is hard. No real way to make it feel good with punishing someone for just having more or less hp.
Personal fix is 1d6 per 5 ft over 20ft minus 1d6 x con modifier. Still have the dex check to prevent prone on any fall over 10 ft.
Ah yes, the source of a bazillion gamer think pieces. I don't mind the cumulative damage (1d6 for 10', 1+2=3d6 for 20', etc.), I just add a caveat like "falling from over a certain height is not represented in the hit point mechanics, and instead should be a discussion about what mitigating factors are involved in the fall."


Tripping procs opportunity attacks?

Let the trip spam cheese commence!
This is the one which brings me the most concern. Reach Weapon tripping may become the new order of the day or something like that.

[stoutstien]

Table talk is something that doesn't need rules past individual table culture. Can't really make a standard rule for meta communication. Better off having a set time limit for decoration of action that is inversely related to the experience of that player. the big exception is a player asking for verification of in-game conditions that the character would obviously have but the DM forgot to mention it or didn't format the information properly.

[MrStabby]

After scouring the internet and seen some actions in play i am leaning towards some tweaks going into my first Homebrew campaign. Some will be controversial. Some seem like no brainers (prone to standing), others probably still need tweaks. I am curious what the community thinks of these. Which you think i should not include? What tweaks to fine tune them? How will they act with others or with RAW?
While some are purely mechanical changes to improve on what i have seen in play or in theorycrafting, others are my attempts at some realism. I know thats an impossible dream but i like the system and think it could still function with slight changes.
It should be noted too that i think we will be running 2 nights SR, 3rd night LR. That is still somewhat up in the air. I want to stretch the time between levels, AND not be forced to have dungeon crawl type adventuring days. Some days its all on. some days its not.
Without further delay....

RACES
Darkvision: only for Undergrounders, Replace Darkvision with low-light vision for all races that don’t live underground (or deep underwater). Creatures with low-light vision can see in areas of Dim light as if it were Bright light, and then 10' past areas of Dim light as if they were in Dim Light.


So no problem with this, but just note that they can then see better in dim light than those with darkvision.





Dragonborn:
Breath weapon - BA
Dragon Hide feat without ASI


Seems reasonable enough. Frankly I never found the breath weapon that exciting. I would say to not use this if you are using Tasha's rules for racial stat bonuses as it will disproportionately benefit casters who will not have as many frequent good uses for their bonus action.




Human:
Languages: Common and one other of choice
Standard ASI +2/+1
+1 Skill Proficiency
+1 Skill Expertise
+1 Tool proficiency
Resourceful: Before you roll an attack, ability check or saving throw you can choose to gain advantage on the roll. Once you use this feature you cannot do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Seems fine - personally I don't have a problem with human, but it is another reasonably well balanced option.






CLASSES
Warlock: Can be an intelligence castor.
Barbarian: Rage lasts a full minute.
Monk: Darts are considered a monk weapon/usually throwing stars.
Druid: Level 20 Archdruid instead now lets you use Wild Shape an unlimited number of times for creatures CR 1 and below??
Sorcerer: Uses Spellpoints not slots. And Metamagic options at 7th and 14th level.


Warlock - cool
Barbarian - mixed views. Managing rage is part of playing the class, but it is annoying sometimes when it ends for reasons beyond your control... and barbarian is one of the weaker classes. Maybe a Con save to stop it ending?
Monk - fine
Druid - yeah, no issues
Sorcerer - spellpoints are generally more powerful than slots and the sorcerer is a very, very powerful class. Avoid: hard nope . If you want to use spell points to ease classes that are otherwise too clunky, use them on the warlock instead.





FEATS:
Sentinel - can only affect enemies up to 1 size larger
Sharpshooter - Choose from one of the these for each attack: Range, Cover, or Power
Lucky is unable to be played.
Sharpshooter and Great Weapon master are Elite feats not available until level 8.


Sentinel - sure. Also if this feat is a problem in your games consider halving movement speed rather than setting it to zero
Sharpshooter - not a fix I have seen before but I really like it
Lucky - OK
Elite feats - Not sure I like this as feats can be a big part of the flavour of a character. Playing a game to level 10and your barbarian can only start to cleave through people at level 8 kinds sucks. I get why you want to do this, but I wonder if there is a better way?





COMBAT
Combat Talking: Relaying information in combat should be brief, 8 words or less. Infractions may have consequences.

Beware of unintended consequences - that 5 min break whilst someone sits down to craft the perfect 8 word phrase... creation of efficient codes that slow things down through both coding and decoding.





Prone: Standing up from the prone condition only costs 15ft movement., not half movement (RAW) and triggers opportunity attack which you can negate by using your action (dodge).

The different cost... I don't get why this is, but its probably not that big a deal. Attack when standing up is a really big deal though - with two attacks it becomes better to hit them once, shove them prone and recoup the second attack as an opportunity attack later with the added advantage of them being prone in the interim. Might turn every character into someone shoving people about.

Also to the last part - they could use dodge anyway and secure disadvantage on all attacks including the opportunity one so it seems a bit of an empty rule.






Flanking: +1 Modifier if target engaged with someone else.
or
Outnumbered:
For each enemy threatening a creature besides the first, the creature is outnumbered and takes a cumulative -2 penalty to AC. For every ally the creature has who has the creature in their threatened area, the penalty is reduced by 2 points. If the penalty is reduced to zero, the creature is not outnumbered.
Sneak Attack and similar abilities work against any creature who is outnumbered.


Seriously screws the balance of summoners and provides a mechanical incentive to flood the battlefield with creatures bogging down the game. Also opens up questions on how you rule illusions here.




Criticals:
Melee: Roll as per normal + max weapon damage die added.
Or disadvantage until the end of next turn as they recover from the massive hit.
Spell Damage: Double dice or roll twice
Saving Throws:
Damage - Success zero damage.
Effect - Success is immunity to effect for x rounds?
Initiative: Advantage/Disadvantage on the first round.

Fine, but beware frustration from spending your highest level spell slot and doing nothing - those that invest in save or suck spells kind of sign up to it but people play evokers to avoid this ind of thing.





Unconscious: When reduced to 0 HP you gain one level of exhaustion when you come back to consciousness - recovered after 8hrs of rest.
and Death Saves dont reset until SR/LR
Death Saves are rolled at the start of your turn.

Is this as in failed death saves don't reset?

I have used an applied penalty of number of death saves you are carying around before. Mixed results.





Swimming: When in Medium or Heavy Armor Athletics checks to swim in medium or heavy armor are made with disadvantage.Otherwise, I mean, come on.


Personally I would go further and just say you sink. It helps keep the martial caster balance as casters are also pretty screwed underwater if they cannot vocalise spells.






Falling: Falling damage is a cumulative 1d6 for every 10ft, meaning for a fall of 10ft, 20ft, and 30ft, the damage is 1d6, 3d6, 6d6.


Not unrealistic in terms of danger, but might be a bit much in practice. Might I suggest incrementing the die size instead. d4, 2d6, 3d8, 4d10, 5d12, 6d12, 7d12... Just a little more modest.





Healing: You cannot begin to heal naturally (Hit Die) until your wounds are treated with a Healers Kit = 1 Hit Die. A successful medicine check by someone proficient ontop of this allows you to use multiple available Hit Die. ½ max Hit Die are recovered at the end of a long rest. ????

Had to judge if this is good without knowing what problem this is trying to fix.



Rest: Con not added to HP each level. But CON*LVL added each night as extra HP depending on sleep conditions. ????

As in your max HP is a lot more modest? This could be very dangerous - could be fun. Really pushes the HD size to the front, which is cool. If I were to do this I might consider instead of dX+con to do 2dX.

And then HP recovery uses con but not HD? It could work but would need careful consideration of monser damage and adjustment of a lot of enemies.




Last Stand: When an allied player character (or an NPC the characters care about) dies in battle, all allies who can see them when they die get advantage on the next attack roll, saving throw, or ability check they make before the end of their next turn. Adds some "NOOOOO!" compensation for having a player die.


Heh, cool. For clarity - dies? or goes to 0 HP?




Leveling Up: When gaining hit points for rising in level, you can choose to take the listed flat value after you have rolled.


Meh,no big deal.





Potions: Full strength if consumed as action


I would specify each on the potion - as DM it gives more scope for changing as you go. Set player expectations though.




Identifying a Magic Item: This can only be done with magic (including attunement) or by researching with information you have.

OK





Skills Checks:
Skill checks during combat are free to attempt, but may require your action or bonus action at the DM's discretion, should you succeed
PC: I want to push this bookcase over on to the enemy on the other side.
DM: Okay, make a Strength check. If you succeed, it'll cost your action to push it over, a failure and your item interaction is used up.
PC: .... 4.
DM: You quickly realise this is not going to be possible

Fine.





Medicine will primarily be recognised as an Intelligence Check. Although proficiency in Herbalism will allow it to be made as a Wisdom Check.

Makes sense.





Group Checks: In the situation where a single check will determine success or failure a single die roll is made by the person with the highest modifier (success) or lowest modifier (failure). Bonuses, penalties, Advantage, and Disadvantage are applied normally to the character rolling the check.

Beware of the Odd Things that can happen here. If you have a loud party then they can be made more stealth by adding a quiet NPC to drown them out etc..

Also, I have a problem with single roll group checks as it can exclude a lot of players who invested in a skill but just happen to have the second highest stat bonus. Really punishes people for having rolled poorly a character creation.

[Contrast]

Also, I have a problem with single roll group checks as it can exclude a lot of players who invested in a skill but just happen to have the second highest stat bonus. Really punishes people for having rolled poorly a character creation.

A thing I've tried to do a couple of times is rule that in group situations where they can help each other like this is no advantage to the roll from helping but everyone proficient can roll using the modifier of whoever has the highest, highest roll wins.

The idea being akin to the best person rolling with advantage but everyone who has invested gets to roll.

Its generally gone down poorly as I'll get a chorus of 'wait I already rolled with advantage' 'so I don't get to add my skill bonus? or am I adding that on top of this other modifier' 'I'm not proficient, do I take something away from the number I rolled?' and it takes longer to sort out than just doing it normally would.

So I've mostly given up, but I still think its a reasonable idea in principle! :smallbiggrin:

[PhantomSoul]

Also, I have a problem with single roll group checks as it can exclude a lot of players who invested in a skill but just happen to have the second highest stat bonus. Really punishes people for having rolled poorly a character creation.

Or quickly punishes the people playing with a rogue/bard even if they have a 20 in the relevant ability score and proficiency...

(That said, having everyone roll doesn't always fit, of course.)

[Dienekes]

Exhaustion at 0 hit points is tempting but not a good idea. Requiring an 8 hour rest to get rid of it means as soon as one PC goes down in a fight that's the end of the adventuring day. Disadvantage on all ability checks for the rest of the day is too high a price for the unfortunate circumtance of dropping in a fight, so the player will want to rest. It gets worse if the downed PC is healed accepting the exhaustion but then dropped again and now has two levels of exhaustion upon recovery. Forget any adventuring for a long while. You're adding insult to literal injury, punishing the player for the audacity of losing a fight. Learn to live with pop-up healing if that's such a bother for you. Players don't want to drop in combat already. It's a loss of actions and turns for the player whose character dropped and another player who has to take the time to do the healing. Even using Healing Word denies the PC the ability to cast a level spell, only allowing for a Cantrip.

Eh. I use the point of Exhaustion on drop rule and so far it's primary result is that the players are more willing to disengage from fights that are going bad, take more time to scout/plan how to handle upcoming encounters, and heal in combat to keep people positive rather than letting them fall and pop back up.

Since those were all the goals I was trying to make happen with the change I thought it worked very well.

But if you're players are a kick the door down style and don't want to do all the above then yeah, don't implement it. It probably won't be seen as fun.

[DigestPantheon]

Group Checks: In the situation where a single check will determine success or failure a single die roll is made by the person with the highest modifier (success) or lowest modifier (failure). Bonuses, penalties, Advantage, and Disadvantage are applied normally to the character rolling the check.

A different way I've seen this done in games with three levels of results (miss, hit, big hit) is to have the whole group roll, and have big hits cancel out misses. So if three players roll to sneak past the guards and get a big hit, a hit, and a miss, that counts as a hit.

For D&D you could do something similar, and for odd numbers of players it would work fine. So for a DC15 sneak if three players roll a 17, 16, and a 7, that counts as the whole group rolling a 16.

For odd players you'd either have to have a default result, or pick a player's roll to act as the tiebreaker, or have them reroll on a neutral roll. So before the roll you nominate a player (probably whoever is acting like they're leading) as the leader. If two people pass and two people fail, then you go with the leader's result.

[PhantomSoul]

Unconscious: When reduced to 0 HP you gain one level of exhaustion when you come back to consciousness - recovered after 8hrs of rest.
and Death Saves dont reset until SR/LR
Death Saves are rolled at the start of your turn.


Quick thought leaving aside the discussion of longer-lasting saves (which might have the secondary risk of making someone immortal until the reset is they get three successes depending on how that's played?*) is that a slight phrasing tweak might be desirable even though it's mostly just clarification for what "when you come back to consciousness" implies. As written, druids and polymorphed creatures might suffer exhaustion when the form is "popped" (rather than dropped). Having the rule be something like this could help:

If you fall unconscious as a result of being reduced to 0 HP, you gain one level of exhaustion when the condition ends.

That also keeps that you need to go down a fourth time, rather than a third, for it to affect your death saving throws. Arguably you could potentially cheese being unconscious from two sources and only one ending, so maybe a slight tweak would be useful (e.g. "You gain one level of exhaustion when you cease to be unconscious as a result of being reduced to 0 HP.").


____
* That thought only came to mind because curses/effects like vampirism and lichdom use death saving throw failures and exhaustion as part of the process in my drafted (terrible old?) mechanics, and so it's specifically playing on the "survive death" idea.

[Amdy_vill]

RACES
Darkvision: only for Undergrounders, Replace Darkvision with low-light vision for all races that don’t live underground (or deep underwater). Creatures with low-light vision can see in areas of Dim light as if it were Bright light, and then 10' past areas of Dim light as if they were in Dim Light.

Honestly not worth it. vision is just not a fun mechanic as seen by the many editions that heavy focus on it. reducing it to just dark vision is really the best game design option unless your willing to rebuild the vision system from the ground up around it because vision ties into a lot of other systems and rules. while it feels more realistic it's really not, humans and most mammals can dilate their eyes and adjust to near lightless environments. while the vision of mammals not adapted to low light environments is bad it's still useable. see the many cave paintings and signs of human activities found miles into cave systems with little or no signs for artificial light. it's just such an ingrained system to change and while your solution is easy to implement its lack of design space to use would make it honestly useless just like flipping a switch from dark vision to no special vision it really would not have a good impact on the game without massive changes and additions to support it. if your willing to make those massive changes you can but I would suggest against it. if you don't like the prevalence of dark vision just heavily remove it or massive expand it.



Dragonborn:
Breath weapon - BA
Dragon Hide feat without ASI
General, I am a fan of horizontal design in-game and I honestly think the best way to fix the breath weapon is to just make it an attack so it can combo with an extra attack.




Human:
Languages: Common and one other of choice
Standard ASI +2/+1
+1 Skill Proficiency
+1 Skill Expertise
+1 Tool proficiency
Resourceful: Before you roll an attack, ability check or saving throw you can choose to gain advantage on the roll. Once you use this feature you cannot do so again until you finish a short or long rest.
I would expand this to have or than one use and remove the expertise. expertise is more of a gated feature in 5e requiring investment and it should probably stay that way.




CLASSES
Warlock: Can be an intelligence castor.
Barbarian: Rage lasts a full minute.
Monk: Darts are considered a monk weapon/usually throwing stars.
Druid: Level 20 Archdruid instead now lets you use Wild Shape an unlimited number of times for creatures CR 1 and below??
Sorcerer: Uses Spellpoints not slots. And Metamagic options at 7th and 14th level.
General, I am a fan of letting every class pick their casting stat as it let players flavor their character more and have little to no impact on balance. the only real impact is multiclassing but given most caster use cha in 5e and the few non-cha chasting classes struggle with multiclassing it's really a nonproblem from a balance point of view.

rage just lasting a minute is just a better design. the removal of forced flavor in a game that lacks heavy flavor-related machines is generally the way to go. if 5e was 2e and there were major systems build around flavor it makes more sense but 5e doesn't have anything like that.

this is just reverting to older designs, most other editions give monks darts and it has no real impact on gameplay.

I don't really understand this, I think it's a nerf to moon druids but I would stay way from nerfing druids, most druid sub choices are really bad and the three goods don't need nerfing the rest just need buffing.

yeah, this just should have been sorcerer from the start, I would suggest just letting them use spell points as sorcerer points it cleans things up a bit.


FEATS:
Sentinel - can only affect enemies up to 1 size larger
Sharpshooter - Choose from one of the these for each attack: Range, Cover, or Power
Lucky is unable to be played.
Sharpshooter and Great Weapon master are Elite feats not available until level 8.
I don't understand the want to restrict one of the only forms of movement control for huge and larger creatures. It's a design space the is heavily restricted and even removed from the playstyles that could really abuse it. It's also one of the only ways for melee characters to contribute to combating after tier 1, as tier 2 is where pure melee characters start to fall behind and they only really have 3 options for combat control outside of dedicating themselves to the battle master. while it is powerful it is restrictive enough and locked into options the prevent massive abouse. it's a cornerstone of balance in 5e allowing a massive amount of classes to keep up after tier 1. if you are going to "fix" it, you should focus on diversifying the design space not removing it. add other similarly restrictive options and make Sentianl or situational depend, like require the creature to have attacked you on your last turn or something.

I don't really understand what you are saying with sharpshooter.

While luck does seem powerful on paper it is satistical negligible. it's an after-the-fact advantage and advantage only gives your a 55% chance to pass. the system is build to help but not be so powerful as to unbalance your rolls. a +2 is strictly more powerful. if you want to nerf lucky just require it to be declared before the roll. it does not change the satistical chance but does require more active thought.

I would avoid Adding design elements not featured in 5e unless your willing to change a lot more than 2 feats. there are over 60 feats in the game if you're going to add a whole new gatekeeping system like this I would aim for at least 10 feats having it. I would stay away from adding something like this 5e design has moved away from level requirements for a reason most player happens bellow the level 7 mark so gatekeeping like this just locks of content.


COMBAT
Combat Talking: Relaying information in combat should be brief, 8 words or less. Infractions may have consequences.

Just no, restrictions like this only bread animosity between dm and players, rules like this were remove for a reason, all it does is change the game to an us vs them dm mentality. outside of the really bad game design here it also prevents cool story moments like monologs and interrupting monologs. it both bad your dm player relation ship and your story avoid things the bread animosity from your players like the plague.

Prone: Standing up from the prone condition only costs 15ft movement., not half movement (RAW) and triggers opportunity attack which you can negate by using your action (dodge).

The timing on these rules doesn't work, outside of that, it's ok. I use the 5ft rules for other systems and earlier editions. given that dnd massively underestimates human movement in a 3-second time span it makes more sense. un fit humans can easily make 60-70 ft runs in 3 seconds and adventures are definitely not unfit.

Flanking: +1 Modifier if target engaged with someone else.
or
Outnumbered:
For each enemy threatening a creature besides the first, the creature is outnumbered and takes a cumulative -2 penalty to AC. For every ally the creature has who has the creature in their threatened area, the penalty is reduced by 2 points. If the penalty is reduced to zero, the creature is not outnumbered.
Sneak Attack and similar abilities work against any creature who is outnumbered.

so the first one has the same effect as advantage statistically the second one scales way father and is honestly something I would avoid. 5e uses the Advantage disadvantage system for a reason it lets them give small noticeable buffs without the headache of math and the problems that come with scaling like this. while advantage and disadvantage feel massive at the table their really just the same as satistical as adding a +1. now because it is still random it can often feel more substantial but it's really not. and given the +1 would be a constant and not an additional variable the +1 would more commonly affect the roll compared to advantage. the +1 would overcome thresholds more than the random chance of rolling better but they level out after you look at the odd.

Criticals:
Melee: Roll as per normal + max weapon damage die added.
Or disadvantage until the end of next turn as they recover from the massive hit.
Spell Damage: Double dice or roll twice
Saving Throws:
Damage - Success zero damage.
Effect - Success is immunity to effect for x rounds?
Initiative: Advantage/Disadvantage on the first round.

All of these are ok they really don't affect the game much. I try to stay away from changes that have not real impact. but there's nothing wrong with them.

Unconscious: When reduced to 0 HP you gain one level of exhaustion when you come back to consciousness - recovered after 8hrs of rest.
and Death Saves dont reset until SR/LR
Death Saves are rolled at the start of your turn.

I like the use of exhaustion, if you going to make death throws more deadly keeping them is not the way to go. instead, just give more points of exhaustion for fails throws. also only have the level added after combat, because players will death spiral quickly if you add them in combat. rolling at the start is good as it would let you do stuff if you got back up. remember death is a low-hanging obstacle in 5e for a reason. you should not aim to kill you players but challenge them.

Swimming: When in Medium or Heavy Armor Athletics checks to swim in medium or heavy armor are made with disadvantage.Otherwise, I mean, come on.

as a person who has gone swimming in full plate, I can tell you it's only as hard as swimming in a shirt. armor was designed to be wear for days or weeks without coming off. people sleep in the stuff. armor is build to be lived in. swimming in armor isn't hard for untrained people it should not be hard for people who are trained.

Falling: Falling damage is a cumulative 1d6 for every 10ft, meaning for a fall of 10ft, 20ft, and 30ft, the damage is 1d6, 3d6, 6d6.

I would avoid exponential math it's hard to do in your head quickly and would become deadly too fast. remember humans can consistently survive falls off for over 100 ft but not falls between 60ft-90ft most people will survive a 60ft footfall but not a 70 then 100ft falls are quite survivable. if your going for realism make a damage table but i would avoid making rules like this as it gos against 5e more simplifies math design

Healing: You cannot begin to heal naturally (Hit Die) until your wounds are treated with a Healers Kit = 1 Hit Die. A successful medicine check by someone proficient ontop of this allows you to use multiple available Hit Die. ½ max Hit Die are recovered at the end of a long rest. ????

I am going to point out the HP is not just your ability to take damage, it includes your luck and avoiding damage, physical resistance, near hits, and a lot more. now even then the human body is amazing at healing. i mean you can live a perfectly normal life after breaking a bone and never getting it set. you walk a little funning but humans are really good at recovering fast from nonlethal damage. yes, you probably need medical attention if you got a cut deep enough to see muscle but a cut like that would most likely be a killing blow. the damage a player is picking up in fights is not life-threatening. damage that drops them to 0 or kills them would be. you are not going to be able to fight with a life-threatening injury, you're going to be bleeding out or dropping dead from blood loss.

Rest: Con not added to HP each level. But CON*LVL added each night as extra HP depending on sleep conditions. ????

cons addition to hp is mean to level out the hp range. high HP is not a problem but low HP is so con prevent s unfair and unfun one-shots because you rolled low on hp.

Last Stand: When an allied player character (or an NPC the characters care about) dies in battle, all allies who can see them when they die get advantage on the next attack roll, saving throw, or ability check they make before the end of their next turn. Adds some "NOOOOO!" compensation for having a player die.

It's ok, a nice rule.

Leveling Up: When gaining hit points for rising in level, you can choose to take the listed flat value after you have rolled.

all this is doing is removing a problem created by your con rule without addressing underlying problems of hp spread. if you going to fix hp by removing modifies your best bet is to scale up most classes hit dice by 1.

Potions: Full strength if consumed as action

Identifying a Magic Item: This can only be done with magic (including attunement) or by researching with information you have.

this is just how I currently work.

[thoroughlyS]

Before diving in, I would like to note that anything I don't comment on has my support.


Darkvision: only for Undergrounders, Replace Darkvision with low-light vision for all races that don’t live underground (or deep underwater). Creatures with low-light vision can see in areas of Dim light as if it were Bright light, and then 10' past areas of Dim light as if they were in Dim Light.
The 10 ft effect can be a headache to keep track of. I say drop that line, and just accept that low-light vision is a really weak darkvision. Also, consider allowing it for nocturnal races as well (e.g. goblins, elves). The PHB notes that night time is full-on darkness.

Dragonborn:
Breath weapon - BA
Dragon Hide feat without ASI
The bonus action breath has been debated on this forum a lot. I can understand using it, but I would recommend making it an action until 3rd level, because being able to add 7 damage to an attack once per short rest can make quick work of early game "bosses".

Human:
Languages: Common and one other of choice
Standard ASI +2/+1
+1 Skill Proficiency
+1 Skill Expertise
+1 Tool proficiency
Resourceful: Before you roll an attack, ability check or saving throw you can choose to gain advantage on the roll. Once you use this feature you cannot do so again until you finish a short or long rest.
Resourceful is fine, but kind of boring. I prefer to make it that they can ignore disadvantage on a roll once per short rest. This makes it unique, and have some uses that just granting advantage doesn't (e.g. if a rogue already has advantage and disadvantage, they can cancel the disadvantage to get a sneak attack with advantage).

Warlock: Can be an intelligence castor.
I would lock it down to one or the other, not both. I personally prefer Intelligence, because it fits the lore given in the PHB better.

Sentinel - can only affect enemies up to 1 size larger
Sharpshooter - Choose from one of the these for each attack: Range, Cover, or Power
Lucky is unable to be played.
Sharpshooter and Great Weapon master are Elite feats not available until level 8.
What exactly do you mean for Sentinel? I can't really offer advice until I get a clearer picture. Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master are both reasonable with one minor change, just make the penalty and damage bonus scale with proficiency instead of a flat -5/+10.

Combat Talking: Relaying information in combat should be brief, 8 words or less. Infractions may have consequences.
As other players have said, this should be a table policy that you discuss with your players, as opposed to a rule with mechanical implications.

Prone: Standing up from the prone condition only costs 15ft movement., not half movement (RAW) and triggers opportunity attack which you can negate by using your action (dodge).
This unbalances knocking prone. I would leave the rules for standing from prone how they are.

Flanking: +1 Modifier if target engaged with someone else.
or
Outnumbered:
For each enemy threatening a creature besides the first, the creature is outnumbered and takes a cumulative -2 penalty to AC. For every ally the creature has who has the creature in their threatened area, the penalty is reduced by 2 points. If the penalty is reduced to zero, the creature is not outnumbered.
Sneak Attack and similar abilities work against any creature who is outnumbered.
Your proposed flanking bonus is fine, but drop the rules for being outnumbered.

Criticals:
Melee: Roll as per normal + max weapon damage die added.
Or disadvantage until the end of next turn as they recover from the massive hit.
Spell Damage: Double dice or roll twice
Saving Throws:
Damage - Success zero damage.
Effect - Success is immunity to effect for x rounds?
Initiative: Advantage/Disadvantage on the first round.
Making crits add max dice damage instead of rolling double dice is fine, but keep it across the board and drop the choice for disadvantage. We have the Crusher feat for that now if your players want it. The "critical save" for damage is fine, but drop the immunity clause. I understand you want to make natural 20s feel special, but they already have the benefit of being the best result on the die, and usually providing a mechanical edge because of that. For initiative, maybe just say that you go first unless someone else also rolls a 20?

Unconscious: When reduced to 0 HP you gain one level of exhaustion when you come back to consciousness - recovered after 8hrs of rest.
and Death Saves dont reset until SR/LR
Death Saves are rolled at the start of your turn.
I will echo other posters and say drop the exhaustion, but keep the persistent death save failures. This sufficiently discourages whack-a-mole healing.

Falling: Falling damage is a cumulative 1d6 for every 10ft, meaning for a fall of 10ft, 20ft, and 30ft, the damage is 1d6, 3d6, 6d6.
Keep the old falling damage. As explained above, this makes thing less realistic, not more.

Last Stand: When an allied player character (or an NPC the characters care about) dies in battle, all allies who can see them when they die get advantage on the next attack roll, saving throw, or ability check they make before the end of their next turn. Adds some "NOOOOO!" compensation for having a player die.
I would drop this. If the time comes, and a PC dies, I would expect the other players to react to that. If they do, they I would give Inspiration for good roleplaying. I wouldn't just make this a given.

Healing: You cannot begin to heal naturally (Hit Die) until your wounds are treated with a Healers Kit = 1 Hit Die. A successful medicine check by someone proficient ontop of this allows you to use multiple available Hit Die. ½ max Hit Die are recovered at the end of a long rest. ????

Rest: Con not added to HP each level. But CON*LVL added each night as extra HP depending on sleep conditions. ????

...

Leveling Up: When gaining hit points for rising in level, you can choose to take the listed flat value after you have rolled.

Potions: Full strength if consumed as action
It confuses me that you want to include all of these, as some reduce the PC hp, and others increase it. Do you want this to be a struggle for survival or not?
I would ditch all of this and just use the Healer's Kit Dependency and Slow Natural Healing variants (DMG p.266).
Side Note: the rules say that it already takes an action to drink a healing potion. If you want this to be a gritty fight for survival, I would keep it that way.

Identifying a Magic Item: This can only be done with magic (including attunement) or by researching with information you have.
I'm confused as to what this is supposed to accomplish? As far as I can tell, these are the normal rules?

Group Checks: In the situation where a single check will determine success or failure a single die roll is made by the person with the highest modifier (success) or lowest modifier (failure). Bonuses, penalties, Advantage, and Disadvantage are applied normally to the character rolling the check.
Yeah, I'm confused by this too. What is this meant to accomplish?

[kaervaak]

Identifying a Magic Item: This can only be done with magic (including attunement) or by researching with information you have.



These are the rules I'm using and I've found they work quite well:

When you spend a short rest to identify a magic item, you may learn any passive abilities (any abilities that do not require any active input from the user) of the item. Simple activations such as pulling the hood up on a cloak of elvenkind can also be discovered during this exploratory period. At the end of the short rest you may choose to attune to the item.

When you spend a short rest to identify a magic item (specifically consumable items such as potions, scrolls, etc), you may make an arcana check to identify the item. The DC of this check is determined by the rarity of the item. This check is made with advantage if you have examined the object with Detect Magic. This check passes automatically if you cast identify.
DC 0: Potions of healing (any rarity)
DC 8: common
DC 10: uncommon
DC 12: rare
DC 15: very rare
DC 20: legendary

The identify spell works as written. It also reveals any command words or activation requirements for using the item. If the item has locked properties, the presence of the magical seal and information about the nature of the seal are revealed.

Artifacts may only be identified with a high level spell such as Legend Lore or through experimentation.

[Kane0]

Darkvision: Does Low-Light vision stack with Darkvision?
Dragonborn: Fine, perhaps allow a PC with extra attack to replace one attack with the Breath Weapon (bonus actions can get very crowded depending on character build)
Human: Fine
Warlock: Fine
Barbarian: Fine
Monk: Fine
Druid: Do you expect to get to level 20? It's already twice per short rest, maybe just double wildshape uses instead?
Sorcerer: Fine, however be aware that a savvy player can potentially spam their favourite spell(s) even more than a warlock. Consider removing the sorcerery point pool (with some sort of minor recovery on a short rest) to compensate.
Sentinel: Applies to which bullet point?
Sharpshooter: Fine
Lucky: Fine
SS/GWM: I don't think this is the right approach. If you think they're OP then nerf rather than delay them.
Combat Talking: Probably won't work in play. I suggest a miniature hourglass or some other timer to ensure players act fast
Prone: Beware PCs that can stack prone effects onto their regular attack routine (Battlemasters, Monks, Bladelocks, Shield Masters), especially if paired with a Rogue
Flanking: Go with the +1, it's simple enough and better than DMG flanking.
Outnumbered: No thanks, just go with flanking
Criticals: Max damage + roll is good, drop the rest. DM can ad-hoc critical success/fail saving throws if you want, I suggest against it for spells.
Initiative: Unnecessary, there are already things in place to simulate this
Unconscious: Exhaustion at 0 is a common houserule, I recommend pairing this with short rests reducing exhaustion by 1 step. Recommend against persistent death saves
Swimming: OK, but make sure to incentivise STR elsewhere to compensate. Dex is already the preferred stat to Str you don't want to make it worse.
Falling: Sure, I guess? Are people ignoring fall damage common in your game?
Healing: Simpler suggestion: In order to expend Hit Dice when resting you need to use a Healing Kit.
Rest: What? You mean you don't add Con mod to Hit Die rolls when resting? And what are good as opposed to poor conditions? I don't see the need for this
Last stand: PI suggest making use of DM inspiration instead
Levelling up: Fine
Potions: They use an action by default. I assume you mean you're making them a bonus action?
Identifying magic items: Fine
Skill checks: Does this apply to all checks? Dexterity (Stealth)? Intelligence (History)? Wisdom (Medicine)? Charisma (Intimidate)? Or just STR/DEX to do interesting things other than 'I attack' in a fight.
Medicine: Fine, that's already in the DMG anyways
Group checks: Then it isn't a group check then is it? Also, other PCs can always Help. For a group check you supposedly want everyone to participate, so everyone should be doing something (like rolling). Take the average or count successes/failures vs the DC and go with the majority.

[KyleG]

Thank you all, this is great feedback.

Just a couple of points.
1. The idea behind delayed feats was to give another point of growth to the characters. The archer who becomes a sharpshooter specialist, the GWM now able to make better attacks. These are the feats that across many forums and my own observations feel the most OP and without removing them this feels more progressive. And i may add to this list.
2. Both the flanking rule vs Outnumbered, and Melee Crit damage or disadvantage were not intended to be player choices, but rather decisions i had not yet made. The latter im leaning to the Crit damage rule and the former i havent yet decided. I really like the IDEA of outnumbered so its not about positioning so much but i can see the point about summons.
3. There was some confusion of my potion thoughts. This is intended to be the difference between the houserule of BA to drink potion (which i intend to use) and to give players the option of getting the full benefit of the potion by using it as an action.
4. The Group check rule seemed appropriate for many situations. You are only as stealthy as your weakest link. And Perception checks, or trap finding or trap disabling the reverse. Where the situation calls for it i am not removing individual checks (bob wants to search left side of room fred the right) but rather its a case of when failure is the result of one misstep then what is the point of all rolling. How does ones own stealth roll cover for anothers.
5. Darkvision has also been mentioned alot and whilst i am myself not sold on the idea presented I wanted to make Darkvision more racially appropriate than "lets give Darkvision to 80% of the races". Any suggestions?
6. Combat talking isnt about time in the real world but rather about the amount of words a CHARACTER should be able to say. 8 may not be the right number but detailed plans, or instructions to summons i want to discourage.
7. I think there was also some confusion over my movement rule...they are 2 separate ideas. Firstly to making standing a fixed movement (15ft) so as not to negatively impact on those that get more. And secondly to make that process of getting up from prone whilst infront of an enemy impactful. The opportunity attack may not be the way to go but the first part Im fairly sold on.

Overall this is going well. I have made further tweaks, removed some ideas, and it has given me pause for thought on a number of others. Keep them coming, offer your own up. Ive read many of your signatures in getting to this point so some of the ideas present are from your own.

[MrStabby]

Thank you all, this is great feedback.

Just a couple of points.
1. The idea behind delayed feats was to give another point of growth to the characters. The archer who becomes a sharpshooter specialist, the GWM now able to make better attacks. These are the feats that across many forums and my own observations feel the most OP and without removing them this feels more progressive. And i may add to this list.
2. Both the flanking rule vs Outnumbered, and Melee Crit damage or disadvantage were not intended to be player choices, but rather decisions i had not yet made. The latter im leaning to the Crit damage rule and the former i havent yet decided. I really like the IDEA of outnumbered so its not about positioning so much but i can see the point about summons.
3. There was some confusion of my potion thoughts. This is intended to be the difference between the houserule of BA to drink potion (which i intend to use) and to give players the option of getting the full benefit of the potion by using it as an action.
4. The Group check rule seemed appropriate for many situations. You are only as stealthy as your weakest link. And Perception checks, or trap finding or trap disabling the reverse. Where the situation calls for it i am not removing individual checks (bob wants to search left side of room fred the right) but rather its a case of when failure is the result of one misstep then what is the point of all rolling. How does ones own stealth roll cover for anothers.
5. Darkvision has also been mentioned alot and whilst i am myself not sold on the idea presented I wanted to make Darkvision more racially appropriate than "lets give Darkvision to 80% of the races". Any suggestions?
6. Combat talking isnt about time in the real world but rather about the amount of words a CHARACTER should be able to say. 8 may not be the right number but detailed plans, or instructions to summons i want to discourage.
7. I think there was also some confusion over my movement rule...they are 2 separate ideas. Firstly to making standing a fixed movement (15ft) so as not to negatively impact on those that get more. And secondly to make that process of getting up from prone whilst infront of an enemy impactful. The opportunity attack may not be the way to go but the first part Im fairly sold on.

Overall this is going well. I have made further tweaks, removed some ideas, and it has given me pause for thought on a number of others. Keep them coming, offer your own up. Ive read many of your signatures in getting to this point so some of the ideas present are from your own.

OK, this group check thing seems fine - basically if you want to be stealthy you do it by yourself.

I agree with the sentiment of darkvision - it is so frequent that it feels like a penalty to not have it, then if on eperson doesn't have it the party takes a light source and it is like no one has it. I don't think there are any perfect answers here.

The standing up bits... I think I actually prefer the base rules. Being knocked over really does slow you down and picking yourself up can take time. There is a really big difference in outcome: if you kno over a low centere of gravity PC like a dwarf or a halfling they move 10ft after standing; if you knock over something like a wood elf they have double the remaining movement.

And the opportunity attack - its a bit much I think, but wouldn't need a lot to fix. Maybe you make an attack but like an attack with an offhand weapon you don't get to add your stat modifier to the result?

[KyleG]

The standing up bits... I think I actually prefer the base rules. Being knocked over really does slow you down and picking yourself up can take time. There is a really big difference in outcome: if you kno over a low centere of gravity PC like a dwarf or a halfling they move 10ft after standing; if you knock over something like a wood elf they have double the remaining movement.


So my monk is now 6th level with +15 movement to my wood elf has 50ft of movement but it takes him 25ft to stand up...seems off to me.

[MrStabby]

So my monk is now 6th level with +15 movement to my wood elf has 50ft of movement but it takes him 25ft to stand up...seems off to me.

Seems about right to me. Don't count the movement lost, count how far they can move after standing up. Being knocked on your ass then still being able to move 25ft - is that not enough for you?

[KyleG]

Seems about right to me. Don't count the movement lost, count how far they can move after standing up. Being knocked on your ass then still being able to move 25ft - is that not enough for you?
that is an interesting way to look at it...i shall consider that overnight. Cheers

[Kane0]

Thank you all, this is great feedback.

Just a couple of points.
1. The idea behind delayed feats was to give another point of growth to the characters. The archer who becomes a sharpshooter specialist, the GWM now able to make better attacks. These are the feats that across many forums and my own observations feel the most OP and without removing them this feels more progressive. And i may add to this list.
2. Both the flanking rule vs Outnumbered, and Melee Crit damage or disadvantage were not intended to be player choices, but rather decisions i had not yet made. The latter im leaning to the Crit damage rule and the former i havent yet decided. I really like the IDEA of outnumbered so its not about positioning so much but i can see the point about summons.
3. There was some confusion of my potion thoughts. This is intended to be the difference between the houserule of BA to drink potion (which i intend to use) and to give players the option of getting the full benefit of the potion by using it as an action.
4. The Group check rule seemed appropriate for many situations. You are only as stealthy as your weakest link. And Perception checks, or trap finding or trap disabling the reverse. Where the situation calls for it i am not removing individual checks (bob wants to search left side of room fred the right) but rather its a case of when failure is the result of one misstep then what is the point of all rolling. How does ones own stealth roll cover for anothers.
5. Darkvision has also been mentioned alot and whilst i am myself not sold on the idea presented I wanted to make Darkvision more racially appropriate than "lets give Darkvision to 80% of the races". Any suggestions?
6. Combat talking isnt about time in the real world but rather about the amount of words a CHARACTER should be able to say. 8 may not be the right number but detailed plans, or instructions to summons i want to discourage.
7. I think there was also some confusion over my movement rule...they are 2 separate ideas. Firstly to making standing a fixed movement (15ft) so as not to negatively impact on those that get more. And secondly to make that process of getting up from prone whilst infront of an enemy impactful. The opportunity attack may not be the way to go but the first part Im fairly sold on.

Overall this is going well. I have made further tweaks, removed some ideas, and it has given me pause for thought on a number of others. Keep them coming, offer your own up. Ive read many of your signatures in getting to this point so some of the ideas present are from your own.

1. If you feel some feats are blatantly stronger than others to an unbalancing degree, delaying them won't change that. They're still too strong at level 12 as they are at level 1, you're just delaying when you have to deal with it. Better to adjust the feats themselves to be in a more tolerable range (in my opinion)
2. In that case I vote +1 Flanking and Max + roll crits
3. Fair, although this conflicts with the Warlock invocation that also maxxes healing (that said they can always get max benefit from bonus action potion so still fine)
4. This will influence party decisions, like being stealthy at all. If you know that just one failed roll is the same as everyone failing, then the best course of action it to plan around always being caught, because chances are you will be. It's the worst possible scenario of binary outcomes when group rolls are supposed to take away some of that binary-ness. If this is regarding stealth specifically, I suggest this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgUEm6_yXCs) as a starting point.
5. Distinguish between those that can see in color and those that can't with their Darkvision
6. Sure, but expect a lot more telepathy to get around this if players really want to communicate during combat. This is more a gentleman's agreement thing than a rule thing.
7. Either way is fine. Many still houserule that casting in melee provokes (from older editions), standing isn't that farfetched.

[KyleG]

4. This will influence party decisions, like being stealthy at all. If you know that just one failed roll is the same as everyone failing, then the best course of action it to plan around always being caught, because chances are you will be. It's the worst possible scenario of binary outcomes when group rolls are supposed to take away some of that binary-ness. If this is regarding stealth specifically, I suggest this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgUEm6_yXCs) as a starting point.

Not just stealth. But it gets around all the "oh they rolled a four, can i roll to check the desk for traps?" "They rolled an 8 to search the body, well i check to", "oh me to" , "and yeah ill look beside the body"

Id say that some situations are BINARY. If the party said, "we are going to all walk around party member, "clumsy" so they dont fall. Id say sweet. They can now roll at advantage. They only need to roll where there is a chance of failure anyway, and coming up with some rp decision to help is great. And that rp moment could continue. Guard hears something goes to investigate. What do you do? Stealthy character sneaks thru the shadows to get behind them. "Roll your stealth". I duck down behind the barrel. "Sure roll stealth". I stand behind the post. "thin post. roll stealth at disadvantage". i just stand there looking around. "roll deception to see how convincing you are that you were just walking around in the dark."

[Kane0]

Not just stealth. But it gets around all the "oh they rolled a four, can i roll to check the desk for traps?" "They rolled an 8 to search the body, well i check to", "oh me to" , "and yeah ill look beside the body"


Oh right. If you want to dossuade that sort of thing rule that the party picks who rolls, if anyone is helping, no second attempts of the same thing.

[MoiMagnus]

6. Combat talking isnt about time in the real world but rather about the amount of words a CHARACTER should be able to say. 8 may not be the right number but detailed plans, or instructions to summons i want to discourage.

The compromise we've found with our DM is the following:
+ Combat talking does not represent what character actually say during the combat. It represents the fact that our character had countless battles together and
(1) Have probably taken hours of talking about battle tactics weekly. Especially if the battle was initiated by our team, then we would have gone through some of the reasonable events that could occur.
(2) Are reasonably able to communicate complex ideas with just staring at each other and saying single words
+ It follows that battle tactics cannot involve allied NPCs that tag along for the quest, as they are not used to our tactics.
+ It also follows that during the first few battles of the campaign, we're not suppose to talk too much. But that's low level battles anyway so there is not much to say.
+ The DM has full power to cut our discussion in situations that are judged "too unpredictable", and restrict ourselves to simple sentences like "be prudent" or "go for the kill" (or nothing if we can't see/hear each others).

[Pex]

It's also rather unfair to deny players talking to each other about tactics in combat. All of the bad guys have perfect telepathic communication with each other at the speed of DM thought. A DM has to specifically go out of his way to have dumb bad guys by means of rolling a die to randomize who they attack or blatantly do something stupid or only attack whomever is next to them. Even then the DM only does it for obvious unintelligent monsters like minor undead, oozes, and the occasional goblin. As soon as the bad guys have any sense of competence, including orcs, telepathic communication exists. If it's a planned encounter the tactics can be set up before combat even begins. Player B suggesting to Player A do a thing in combat is hardly players trying to get away with something.

[thoroughlyS]

1. The idea behind delayed feats was to give another point of growth to the characters. The archer who becomes a sharpshooter specialist, the GWM now able to make better attacks. These are the feats that across many forums and my own observations feel the most OP and without removing them this feels more progressive. And i may add to this list.
While I can respect the intent, this system just didn't include this as a rule, and the only thing that can be done would be to arbitrarily level gate certain feats. If you level gate GWM/SS, are you going to gate War Caster? Sentinel? I still suggest simply making GWM/SS scale so that they aren't as out of place at low levels.

2. Both the flanking rule vs Outnumbered, and Melee Crit damage or disadvantage were not intended to be player choices, but rather decisions i had not yet made. The latter im leaning to the Crit damage rule and the former i havent yet decided. I really like the IDEA of outnumbered so its not about positioning so much but i can see the point about summons.
Oh, in that case let's talk about the two different sets of choices again.
I like the toned down flanking. Focusing fire is already the best strategy in D&D, so the outnumbering rule will only add to that.
I still suggest only tying crits to more (or less) damage. Anything outside of that might have unintended consequences, including against the party.

3. There was some confusion of my potion thoughts. This is intended to be the difference between the houserule of BA to drink potion (which i intend to use) and to give players the option of getting the full benefit of the potion by using it as an action.
Bonus action potion use is a popular houserule, although I'm not a fan. That said, it seems like you want hp to be a valuable resource, so I suggest sticking with an action to consume (so that hp is precious in combat), and not having the max hp trick (so hp is precious outside of combat).

4. The Group check rule seemed appropriate for many situations. You are only as stealthy as your weakest link. And Perception checks, or trap finding or trap disabling the reverse. Where the situation calls for it i am not removing individual checks (bob wants to search left side of room fred the right) but rather its a case of when failure is the result of one misstep then what is the point of all rolling. How does ones own stealth roll cover for anothers.
These are solid intentions. I can agree with this approach so that you have less outlier rolls messing with results. Do remember that other players can take the Help action to grant advantage. This cuts down on the chance for outlier rolls, and still allows other party members to contribute.

6. Combat talking isnt about time in the real world but rather about the amount of words a CHARACTER should be able to say. 8 may not be the right number but detailed plans, or instructions to summons i want to discourage.
This is not something you should make a rule for. This is something you should discuss with your table during Session 0.

7. I think there was also some confusion over my movement rule...they are 2 separate ideas. Firstly to making standing a fixed movement (15ft) so as not to negatively impact on those that get more. And secondly to make that process of getting up from prone whilst infront of an enemy impactful. The opportunity attack may not be the way to go but the first part Im fairly sold on.
I still recommend sticking to the official rules. They work well.

[KyleG]

It's also rather unfair to deny players talking to each other about tactics in combat. All of the bad guys have perfect telepathic communication with each other at the speed of DM thought. A DM has to specifically go out of his way to have dumb bad guys by means of rolling a die to randomize who they attack or blatantly do something stupid or only attack whomever is next to them. Even then the DM only does it for obvious unintelligent monsters like minor undead, oozes, and the occasional goblin. As soon as the bad guys have any sense of competence, including orcs, telepathic communication exists. If it's a planned encounter the tactics can be set up before combat even begins. Player B suggesting to Player A do a thing in combat is hardly players trying to get away with something.

That is a really good point and i have changed my position from a ruling to more a discussion with the players at the get go. Cheers

[Jon talks a lot]

To be honest, I wouldn't play in a campaign with these rules.

[KyleG]

To be honest, I wouldn't play in a campaign with these rules.

Thats fair. Im playing amongst friends anyway.