Dungeons & Dragons 5.1E — Bard & Cleric

[thoroughlyS]

Index (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?620527-Dungeons-amp-Dragons-5-1E-%97-Houserules-to-Revise-amp-Revamp-the-Game)

I have been playing Dungeons & Dragons for about half of my life, first introduced to the game at the tail end of v3.5. I have been playing 5E since its release, and it is my favorite version of the game. I feel like the rules are simple, elegant, and cohesive... for the most part. But no game is truly perfect, even to an individual, and there are some rules that I feel were suboptimally implemented. Some build options in the game outshine others, leading to an oversaturation in play. Meanwhile, other build options are so underwhelming that they are neglected an are often called for reworks.

In this thread, I present my list of houserules (listed in red) which have the sole purpose of trying to make bad options good, and the best options merely great. In doing so, I hope to allow players at my table a greater breadth of concepts to explore, simply by making everything worth playing. The bard and cleric are already very well designed, and have a strong draw to play them all the way through, but a few features are hard to get any use out of.


Bard (https://drive.google.com/file/d/138aR5qRsgfxnz-YfJ7EXE-fL-xLokPhg/view?usp=sharing)
Cantrips
You know three cantrips of your choice from the bard spell list. You learn additional bard cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Bard table.
I establish a few baselines for spellcasters. The first of which is that full casters get a minimum of 3 cantrips at 1st level.
Song of Rest
Beginning at 2nd level, you can use soothing music or oration to help revitalize your wounded allies during a short rest. If you or any friendly creatures who can hear your performance regain hit points at the end of the short rest by spending one or more Hit Dice, each of those creatures rolls a die equal to your Bardic Inspiration die and regains that many extra hit points.
The official Song of Rest had its own progression, which felt really messy and unnecessary.
Countercharm
At 6th level, you can use your action to recite musical notes or words of power to disrupt mind-influencing effects. If a friendly creature is charmed or frightened by an effect that allows a saving throw to end it, they can immediately make a saving throw against that effect. A creature must be within 60 feet of you and able to hear you to gain this benefit.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (a minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it on a long rest.
The official Countercharm feature was so niche and SO weak. I keep it niche, but make it impactful. Now you can try to free your entire party from something like fear or a vampire's Charm.
Superior Inspiration
At 20th level, you regain one use of Bardic Inspiration when another creature rolls a Bardic Inspiration die they gained from you.
Capstone features should feel impactful, like the Barbarian's or the Druid's. This basically means you can give inspiration to your entire party all day.




Cleric (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1REwnmJhJQ74io9r09nrqIxKEXOlM8wAs/view?usp=sharing)
Divine Strike (Replaces your 8th level Domain feature)
Also at 8th level, you are blessed with divine might in battle. Once on each of your turns, when a creature takes damage from one of your cantrips or weapon attacks, you can cause that creature to take an extra 1d8 radiant or necrotic damage. You choose the type of damage when you gain this feature.
I think that Tasha's is right on track making this a uniform feature, but I let you choose radiant or necrotic.
Divine Intervention
Beginning at 10th level, you can call on your deity to intervene on your behalf when your need is great.
Before taking your action, describe the assistance you seek, and roll percentile dice (no action required). If you roll a number equal to or lower than your cleric level, you can immediately use your action to enact the will of your deity. The GM chooses the nature of the intervention; the effect of any cleric spell or cleric domain spell would be appropriate.
If your deity intervenes, you can’t use this feature again for 7 days. Otherwise, you can use it again after you finish a short or long rest.
At 20th level, your call for intervention succeeds automatically, no roll required. Additionally, you can use it again after you finish a long rest.
This was a good feature, but you never really wanted to use it in combat, which is what most of this game revolved around. I basically let you know whether or not you can use it before you have to spend the action, and let you try it on a short rest. It still has the 7 day cooldown, so you can't really spam it. Until you get to 20th level, where you should feel awesome.

[Catullus64]

Even better! I especially like the common-sense change to Song of Rest, and making Countercharm a bit more widely applicable. Only two suggestions:

I think that the Swords Bard capstone Master's Flourish should serve as a guideline for your proposed Level 20 feature; you can choose not to expend a die to use Bardic Inspiration, but it's a d6 rather than whatever your upgraded die is. Any other features that use your Inspiration Dice pool, like Cutting Words, Mantle of Inspiration, and Psychic Blades, and you still have to spend a die. (A Valor Bard's Combat Inspiration still benefits, because it is explicitly an expansion of the baseline Bardic Inspiration feature). It keeps the general objective you were going for, while doing less damage to Bounded Accuracy, and retaining resource management. I'm also not sure I want Bardic Inspiration to be spammable outside of combat, even at 20; I already have a problem with Guidance.

Definitely on board for merging Potent Spellcasting and Divine Strike into one flexible feature, but I would still like to retain the unique damage types for each Domain. Make it a universal subclass feature, the only difference being the damage type.

[thoroughlyS]

I think that the Swords Bard capstone Master's Flourish should serve as a guideline for your proposed Level 20 feature; you can choose not to expend a die to use Bardic Inspiration, but it's a d6 rather than whatever your upgraded die is. Any other features that use your Inspiration Dice pool, like Cutting Words, Mantle of Inspiration, and Psychic Blades, and you still have to spend a die. (A Valor Bard's Combat Inspiration still benefits, because it is explicitly an expansion of the baseline Bardic Inspiration feature). It keeps the general objective you were going for, while doing less damage to Bounded Accuracy, and retaining resource management. I'm also not sure I want Bardic Inspiration to be spammable outside of combat, even at 20; I already have a problem with Guidance.
Solid suggestion. I'll have to think about it. For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure ability checks at 20th level are a nonissue outside of combat.

Definitely on board for merging Potent Spellcasting and Divine Strike into one flexible feature, but I would still like to retain the unique damage types for each Domain. Make it a universal subclass feature, the only difference being the damage type.
Yeah, I was thinking about having some kind of note for subclasses saying they could choose a different damage type if they wanted. But as it stands now, I think radiant and necrotic cover the "standard" cleric concepts.

[Catullus64]

Solid suggestion. I'll have to think about it. For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure ability checks at 20th level are a nonissue outside of combat.
.

Not in any game I run, they're not! And I think in this case, it's best to err towards assuming that ability checks are still relevant at all levels.

If you're playing in a game where ability checks still matter even at 20, then the feature is balanced around that.

If you're playing in a game where ability checks don't matter, then who cares if there's a restriction outside of combat.

On which subject, I find it interesting that D&D 5e doesn't have a hard-drawn line in its rules between In Combat and Not In Combat. That's generally a good thing; it reinforces that it's all one roleplaying game regardless of whether initiative is rolled or not, rather than being a roleplaying game that pauses every now and then to play a miniatures wargame (looking at you, 4e). But it does make things awkward when the game designers are clearly trying to create features that only work in and out of combat, via soft rules like casting times, short rest recharge (which people too often treat as synonymous with Per-Encounter), and wording like "when you roll initiative." Just an observation on game design trade-offs.

I'm inclined to crib some of these boosts to the Bard's baseline features for my own homebrew, which would reimagine the Bard as a Paladin/Ranger-style half-caster.

[Yakk]

Superior Inspiration
My version required you to cast a leveled bard spell to get back a use.

This at least made it not an infinite fountain of inspiration - like not every round for 24 hours - but it is relatively unlimited.

Cantrips
I would also propose modifying mockery to scale with number of targets, instead of dice of damage, with level.

The +1d4 per tier is a bit ridiculous, and monsters tend to get more multiattack at higher levels, making its one disadvantage less impactful.

[thoroughlyS]

My version required you to cast a leveled bard spell to get back a use.

This at least made it not an infinite fountain of inspiration - like not every round for 24 hours - but it is relatively unlimited.
Oh, I like this. More food for thought.

I would also propose modifying mockery to scale with number of targets, instead of dice of damage, with level.

The +1d4 per tier is a bit ridiculous, and monsters tend to get more multiattack at higher levels, making its one disadvantage less impactful.
I think that would be a little too good for a cantrip in tier 2. If you fight two enemies, you can give them both disadvantage?

[Yakk]

I think that would be a little too good for a cantrip in tier 2. If you fight two enemies, you can give them both disadvantage?

Yes, but only on one attack each, and only if they fail their save.

In tier 1, many enemies have only 1 or 2 attacks. By tier 2, big enemies almost always have 2; and sometimes you fight 2 foes each with 2, or more than 2 foes.

So if you are fighting 2 foes each with 1 attack each, you can attempt to give them both disadvantage.

Note that you wouldn't be allowed to target the same creature twice; so each creature takes 1d4 damage and disadvantage if they fail the one save.

Take an ogre. In tier 1, you'd fight 1. In tier 2, you'd fight 2 or 3; making the only foe have disadvantage on one attack is about as strong as making both foes have disadvantage on one attack.

Because honestly, mockery is fun and flavourful in tier 1, and becomes very situational in T2, and almost always a waste in T3 or higher. Having it deal more damage doesn't feel right, but being able to insult more foes with it... that makes it at least situationally useful.

[thoroughlyS]

Yes, but only on one attack each, and only if they fail their save.

In tier 1, many enemies have only 1 or 2 attacks. By tier 2, big enemies almost always have 2; and sometimes you fight 2 foes each with 2, or more than 2 foes.

So if you are fighting 2 foes each with 1 attack each, you can attempt to give them both disadvantage.

Note that you wouldn't be allowed to target the same creature twice; so each creature takes 1d4 damage and disadvantage if they fail the one save.

Take an ogre. In tier 1, you'd fight 1. In tier 2, you'd fight 2 or 3; making the only foe have disadvantage on one attack is about as strong as making both foes have disadvantage on one attack.

Because honestly, mockery is fun and flavourful in tier 1, and becomes very situational in T2, and almost always a waste in T3 or higher. Having it deal more damage doesn't feel right, but being able to insult more foes with it... that makes it at least situationally useful.
You know, I feel like this is worth a test. I'll be running a few combats progressing through the levels soon. I'll see if this is too much of a stand-out or just a nice bump.