TSR-ish 5E: Max Wilson's house rules doc

[MaxWilson]

A parenthetical comment on a Combat Challenge post (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsing...8&postcount=38) prompted a request for my house rules:

Unusually for me, I used PHB initiative rules (IGO-UGO) instead of my normal WEGO rules, in order to keep the results more relatable to other people. For the same reason I also used spell slots instead of spell points, and Legendary Resistance instead of TSR-style magic resistance.

Can you post the entirety of your house rules in this thread or another thread? They sound fascinating.

Why a house rule document?

So that players can know what rule changes might affect them up front. Player-facing rules go in this document, which gets given out to new players so they know what rules in the PHB don't apply. There are some DM-facing rules which don't go in this doc, including changes to monsters and procedures for running mysteries and dungeon crawls, and of course ad hoc rulings for a unique situation which don't get written down anywhere although I will try to be consistent if the unique situation recurs. This document exists so that players can make good decisions about things the characters would logically already know from experience.

House rules for my campaign


Simple changes

1.) On ability checks only, an odd score gives an extra +1. So Str 19 means you have +4 to Strength-based attacks and saves, but +5 to Strength checks.

2.) You can use both your move and your action in a Readied action, and can maintain a readied action from round to round.

3.) Class tweaks:

For Champion:

Improved Critical: you crit on a 19-20. Furthermore, when you inflict a critical hit, roll damage once and then double the total damage (including any bonuses from Strength/magic weapons/etc.), instead of just rolling twice the normal number of dice.

Furthermore, Remarkable Athlete now stacks with proficiency. So a Str 18 Champion 9 with Athletics proficiency would have +4+4+2=+10 to Strength (Athletics) checks, not just +8.

For Arcane Archer:

You have three shots per short rest instead of two.

For Battlemaster:

You can temporarily regain expended superiority dice, up to your normal maximum, by studying enemies for weaknesses. For every Attack you forgo during the Attack action, you regain one expended superiority die, which is usable only against creatures you can see at the time you regain the die. This temporary die expires after one minute if it has not already been used, as do any temp HP gained from Rally with it.

For Berserker:

When you end a Frenzy rage, if you pass a DC 15 Con save you do not suffer any exhaustion.

4.) Everyone uses spell points instead of spell slots. A player can opt for DMG spell points or use the rules here: http://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/...iant-rule.html. Must decide when spellcasting is first learned; cannot change.

5.) An attacker unseen by his target has advantage only on melee attack rolls, not ranged attack rolls; however, he does qualify for sneak attack damage at range if unseen despite not having advantage.

6.) Anyone with any weapon can attack vital areas at -5 to-hit for +5 to damage. GWM and Sharpshooter feats merely increase the bonus when you are using those weapons.

7.) Casting a non-bonus-action/non-reaction spell triggers an opportunity attack from any enemies in melee range, unless you have the Warcaster feat. (This replaces the third benefit of Warcaster, about reaction spellcasting.) This attack occurs after the spell is cast but before it takes effect (e.g. can still hit someone Dimension Dooring away, can disrupt a concentrations spell and prevent it from taking effect). If the attacker is a Mage Slayer, they can force a concentration save to potentially disrupt even non-concentration spells.

8.) Casting a non-bonus-action/non-reaction spell while moving at more than half speed, riding a horse or on a moving ship forces a concentration save every round even if it's not a concentration spell (Fireball) or it fizzles. Fizzling does not cost spell points but does waste your action to no effect.

9.) There is no Disengage. Opportunity attacks occur when you move at full speed away from an enemy (turning your back), or whenever you are paralyzed/unconscious. You can back away at half speed without turning your back. Creatures like beholders and black puddings have no backs to turn and can move at full speed in any direction without provoking opportunity attacks.

Remark: Dashing while moving backwards replaces and is equivalent to Disengage. You move half speed ('15), but you do it twice because you Dashed, so you move 30' without provoking opportunity attacks--that's why Disengage does not exist, because it's redundant.

10.) Falling damage doubles for every size category over Medium, and halves for every size category under Small. For example, an Ogre falling 100' would take 20d6 HP of damage, not 10d6, because it is Large; and a Fire Giant falling the same distance would take 40d6 damage because it is Huge; but a housecat would take only 5d6 because it is Tiny, and a rat would take 2d6 because it is Tiny II.

11.) Abilities which recharge on "rolling initiative" instead recharge after five minutes. Specifically the following:

I. Relentless [Battlemaster 15th IIRC]: five minutes after you expend your last superiority die, you regain one die.
II. Perfect Self [Monk 20]: whenever you've had less than four ki for five minutes and haven't spent ki during that time, you regain enough ki to have four ki remaining.
III. Superior Inspiration [Bard 20]: five minutes after you expend your last use of Bardic Inspiration, you regain one use of Bardic Inspiration.

12.) While you are incapacitated/stunned/paralyzed/unconscious (but not grappled/restrained), your Dex is 0. Won't affect PCs in heavy armor, but that swashbuckling rogue is in deep trouble if he ever gets paralyzed by a monster or put to sleep, even briefly.

13.) You do not heal to full health automatically on a long rest. Hit Dice can normally only be gained or spent on a long rest, instead of a short rest, and on any given rest you can spend HD or regain half of your HD but not both. However, Bardic Song of Healing now also allows you to spend one HD during a short rest.

14.) You can go below zero HP. Instead of the normal rules on death saves and stabilization, you die whenever you reach negative (max HP). E.g. if you have 40 max HP normally, you die at -40 HP. When you are at zero HP or below, you are either stunned or unconscious. (If you choose to make a DC 15 Con save and succeed you can be stunned, but if you fail the save or choose not to try, you are unconscious from shock.) When you are below zero HP and are not already stable, you must make a death save at the start of every round. If you succeed, you are stable unless/until you take damage again. If you fail, you take 20% of your max HP in damage, rounded UP, not down. You can be stabilized by another character's actions as usual, through the use of a healer's kit or the Wisdom (Medicine) skill or a Spare the Dying cantrip, and any amount of healing also stabilizes you, even 1 HP.

Example: if you have 40 HP normally, and you get hit twice by an Iron Golem for a total of 50 HP of damage, you're now at -10 HP (and likely unconscious, unless you made the DC 15 Con save). Since you're at -10 HP, not zero HP, you can't be restored to full activity by a simple 1 HP Word of Healing as you would under PHB rules--it takes 11 HP of healing to get you conscious again. At the start of every round, you make a death save (as usual, it is DC 10 and no attribute modifiers apply). If you succeed you stabilize at your current HP, otherwise you lose another 8 HP and must save again next round. If you ever reach -40 HP you die.

Remark: In some ways losing 20% of your HP is more generous than the default rules because it only takes one roll to stabilize, and someone who is just barely at negative HP may take five failures before they die. A wound which takes you down to -1 HP is extremely unlikely to kill you. In other ways though, it is less generous because stabilizing doesn't wipe out past failures--that requires actual healing. Furthermore, if you're deep in the negatives, a single failure will kill you, possibly before anyone else can intervene.

15.) Parry: This is a special type of attack which attacks attacks. When you Attack on your turn, you may choose to dedicate one or more of those attacks to Parrying. If an enemy attacks you with a melee weapon before your next turn, you may roll a melee weapon attack and replace your AC with your attack roll against that attack. You can do this a number of times equal to the number of attacks you dedicated to Parrying.

Example: Robilar the Mighty, an 11th level fighter, has been attacked in his bed by two assassins. Unarmed and unarmored, he snatches up a nearby log to use as an improvised club, and dedicates two of his three attacks to parrying. Robilar inflicts some damage on an assassin with his remaining attack, but then the assassins strike back. On the first assassin's attack, Robilar parries, and rolls d20+8 on his melee attack (for Strength 18 and proficiency bonus +4), getting a total of 23, which he uses instead of his normal unarmored AC of 10. The assassin rolls d20+6, gets a 15, and fails to hit AC 23! Then the second assassin strikes, and Robilar rolls d20+8 and gets a 14. The assassin rolls d20+6 and gets 17, so Robilar is hit! The assassin rolls 5d6+4 poison damage and inflicts 27 HP of damage on Robilar--Robilar is in trouble if he doesn't finish them off soon!

16.) To avoid breaking the game, Simulacrum works more like AD&D Simulacrum than PHB Simulacrum. Instead of an almost-perfect copy of the original, Simulacrum produces a dull, listless imitation of the original. If the original creature has any class levels or special abilities, the copy has only 50% of those class levels or abilities, rounded up (the player can select which ones, e.g. if you copy a dual-classed Fighter 5/Wizard 6, you can pick which feats to keep and if you want a Fighter 5/Wizard 1 or a Wizard 6).

In exchange for this nerf, Simulacrum is now not restricted to humanoids, and it may regain spell slots as normal by resting, but it never increases in power (never gains levels).


Complex changes

1.) Open-ended d20 rolls. Since skill checks and saves, unlike attack rolls, don't auto-succeed on a 20 or auto-fail on a 1, but I always want there to be some chance of failure*, on a 20 you re-roll at +10 and take the highest roll. Roll again at +20 if you roll another 20, etc. If you roll a 1, re-roll at -10 and take the lowest. If it's obvious that you've already failed or succeeded you can of course stop rolling already.

*Unless you have Reliable Talent.

2.) Concurrent multiclassing is an option. With concurrent multiclassing, you can advance in two classes or three at the same time, e.g. you could be a 10th level Battlemaster/Necromancer with the abilities of both a 10th level Battlemaster and a 10th level Necromancer. See http://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/...-rules_29.html for more details.

3.) XP awards. All characters get a share of XP proportional to their share of the total levels or CR (rounded up to 1) on their side of a combat. For example, in a party of three 9th level PCs and one 5th level PC (total of 32 levels), if they earn 2000 XP from defeating twenty orcs, the 9th level PCs will all earn 9/32 * 2000 = 562.5 XP, while the 5th level PC earns 5/32 * 2000 = 312.5 XP. But if one of the PCs casts Animate Objects and temporarily animates 10 Tiny Objects during the fight, then there are 42 total levels/CR, so the 9thl level PCs earn only 9/42 * 2000 = 428.6 XP, while the 5th level PC earns 238.1 XP.

Purpose: this rule does not exist to punish you, it exists to keep the game interesting, so that you have a good excuse NOT to make the game too easy by flooding every fight with animated dead, purchased mastiffs, and summoned creatures unless you genuinely need them to survive and beat a tough enemy.

4.) Different initiative variant, WE-GO instead of IGO-UGO, and is designed to enhance player engagement and teamwork by reducing the amount of time players spend waiting for their turn to interact with the DM, while also making more intelligent characters and monsters seem more intelligent.

Procedure: DM secretly decides all monster actions while players consult each other and declare everyone's actions for the round together. Then actions are resolved in an order determined by the DM's best judgment of realism and convenience (e.g. arrows are faster than human feet so an arrow attack may happen before a move-and-melee-attack; but the DM might also resolve them both at the same time if the order isn't likely to change any outcomes), with initiative contests when the DM calls for one to decide potential ties.

Once you've declared an action or movement usage for this round you are committed and can't change it except how you initially specified (e.g. you can declare "I'm charging the goblins (moving towards them and Dashing if necessary) and attacking whoever gets within range if I didn't need to Dash"), but you can delay action declaration (or explicitly declare Delay). At any time before the round ends, you can declare an action or movement usage that you haven't used yet (e.g. "I'm standing up" after someone knocks you down, if you have enough movement left, or "I take cover") but then you automatically lose any initiative contests the DM calls for against those who declared actions before you. When the round ends, the DM will pause briefly for additional declarations, and if none are made (e.g. if a Mexican standoff occurs), any unused actions or movements are lost and a new round begins.

During initial action declaration for the round, faster thinking (a tighter OODA loop) is represented by letting highly intelligent creatures gain extra knowledge about other's actions before acting. A character (or monster) who wishes to observe other creatures before declaring an action may take a penalty of N on any initiative contests this round. If so, that character or monster may learn the action declarations of any characters or monsters with intelligence less than or equal to [character's own Int] - 10 + N, before declaring their own action. Example: if Erac the Mage (Int 17) does Observe 4, Erac's player may ask the DM what any monster with Int 11 or less is doing (which could be Delaying) before Erac has to declare his own action. If Erac chooses to Fireball because a group of goblins is preparing to scatter in all directions, and if the DM decides that an initiative contest is needed to see if the goblins scatter before the Fireball detonates, Erac will have -4 on that initiative contest because he paused to study the goblins before acting.

True surprise is rare and occurs only when an unwary target has effectively declared a non-combat action such as "read a book" at the same time a hidden attacker is preparing to attack them. If a target is wary (e.g. an adventurer in a dangerous dungeon) but unaware of a specific threat (the goblin aiming a crossbow at his back), at the start of combat the attacker will declare an action, and the target will be treated as having implicitly Delayed and will get to declare an action after the attacker's action is resolved.

Ask DM for details (or consult brief writeup here http://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/...ive-in-5e.html).

5.) Magic Resistance and Legendary Resistance works differently--requires a reaction and can dispel a spell it's affected by, regardless of whether or not it has a save. Details here: http://bluishcertainty.blogspot.com/...iant-rule.html Fundamentally, instead of advantage on saves, it's now like Dispel Magic as a reaction whenever a spell would directly or indirectly affect the monster.

If a creature attempts to use its magic resistance against a given spell and fails, that represents being unable to resist this casting of that spell unless its magic resistance improves--any retries will result in failure. E.g. if you've got a demon bound with Planar Binding, the demon gets only one chance to resist that Planar Binding. (But a crafty demon may not test the Planar Binding right away so be on your guard.)

If magic resistance fails due to temporary circumstances like Hex or Cutting Words, that represents a temporary failure which can be overcome if the creature retries without the hindance. In this rare circumstance, the DM may record the original d20 roll prior to the temporary modifiers, and re-use it on the subsequent attempts. (Or the DM may choose another equivalent method with the same probability curve.) Ditto for temporary improvements: a demon which rolls a 7 (failure) on its MR check against Planar Binding, but then receives Enhance Ability (Charisma) and tests the spell again, would roll one new die, compare it to the previous 7, and take the higher result.

[Rukelnikov]

I remember liking your Initiative system, and reading this there are a couple things here I'm gonna try next time I DM. Thanks for sharing these!

Btw, that Robilar sure likes to gamble with his life

[MaxWilson]

Btw, that Robilar sure likes to gamble with his life

Hey, that's what Action Surge is for, so that once you know how hard the assassins hit you can double-Dash away while yelling at the top of your lungs for help!

[Rukelnikov]

Hey, that's what Action Surge is for, so that once you know how hard the assassins hit you can double-Dash away while yelling at the top of your lungs for help!

That's what I'd call a sound strategy

Btw, are you up for debating these house rules or would you rather just leave this thread as a document and nothing else?

[x3n0n]

First: thank you! I've been one of those looking to see your rules assembled in one place.

Second: IIRC, you also have a variant version of simulacrum; are there other spells that don't exist at your table in PHB/XGtE form?

[MaxWilson]

First: thank you! I've been one of those looking to see your rules assembled in one place.

Second: IIRC, you also have a variant version of simulacrum; are there other spells that don't exist at your table in PHB/XGtE form?

Oh, thanks! You're right, I do need to add Simulacrum to the doc. There are no other spells that I've changed, although I do have spell research rules that aren't written up in this doc, for players who want to create custom spells during play. Edit: added this to the initial post.

16.) To avoid breaking the game, Simulacrum works more like AD&D Simulacrum than PHB Simulacrum. Instead of an almost-perfect copy of the original, Simulacrum produces a dull, listless imitation of the original. If the original creature has any class levels or special abilities, the copy has only 50% of those class levels or abilities, rounded up (the player can select which ones, e.g. if you copy a dual-classed Fighter 5/Wizard 6, you can pick which feats to keep and if you want a Fighter 5/Wizard 1 or a Wizard 6).

In exchange for this nerf, Simulacrum is now not restricted to humanoids, and it may regain spell slots as normal by resting, but it never increases in power (never gains levels).

That's what I'd call a sound strategy

Btw, are you up for debating these house rules or would you rather just leave this thread as a document and nothing else?

I see the distinction between debate and discussion as: a debate is about someone trying to win an argument regardless of what the actual truth is, whereas I prefer discussions where people instantly change their minds if they decide they are persuaded by the facts in question.

In general I try to avoid "debating" on this forum (hard to believe, I know) but I'm certainly up for discussing things with people I respect, which certainly includes you Rukelnikov. A lot of things will simply come down to taste, e.g. maybe unrealistic falling damage doesn't disturb you enough to spend a house rule on it, but once upon a time it bothered me enough to add it to my doc so that players can maybe kill elephants with pit traps. I don't mind you hypothetically pointing out that it hypothetically doesn't really bother you, but hopefully you don't expect to persuade me that it doesn't bother me. I also won't be offended if you say "I think I'll just make falling damage d20 per 10' fallen, x2 for Large, x3 for Huge, and x4 for Gargantuan" and maybe I'll even say "that's interesting, sounds like it could work." Discussion doesn't have to reach a consensus to be valuable.

If you persuade me at any time that there's a better way to do something than what I'm doing, I assure you that I will instantly change my mind and my rules doc accordingly.

[strangebloke]

Obviously I'm not going to adopt everything here. Everyone has their preferences, and I tend not to care too much about realism or verisimilitude or whatever you call it. Sure it makes sense for an ogre to take double fall damage but big monsters are already kind of hilariously weak for their size, lets not bully the poor dears more, shall we?

other things are obvious or have the virtue of simplicity. "Just double damage, the doubled dice on a crit thing is stupid" being one of them, the "you can move with a readied action" being another one. (The rules even cite an example of someone doing this even when its against the rules.)

But I'll speak to two things I like... that I'm also concerned about if used in conjunction. Points 12 and 14. Your dex drops to zero if incapacitated and you die when you reach your negative HP total. I like both these rules. The dexterity ruling is just obvious: you can't dodge if you're incapacitated, and the negative/bloodied HP rule averts the silly ping-pong nature of combat healing...

...but doesn't an incapacitated dexterity character just die? Their AC will be 7 if they're using light armor or 8 if they're using mage armor, and enemies will have advantage against them and be able to auto-crit. Naturally this already sort of was the case, but without the ability to reset death saves easily it feels like you've no choice but to win combat the round after your friend goes down or watch them bleed out very, very quickly. It doesn't matter if you're stabilizing if even a goblin can deal ~10 damage a round to you.

[Rukelnikov]

I see the distinction between debate and discussion as: a debate is about someone trying to win an argument regardless of what the actual truth is, whereas I prefer discussions where people instantly change their minds if they decide they are persuaded by the facts in question.

In general I try to avoid "debating" on this forum (hard to believe, I know) but I'm certainly up for discussing things with people I respect, which includes Rukelnikov. A lot of things will simply come down to taste, e.g. maybe unrealistic falling damage doesn't disturb you enough to spend a house rule on it, but once upon a time it bothered me enough to add it to my doc. I don't mind you pointing out that it hypothetically doesn't really bother you, but hopefully you don't expect to persuade me that it doesn't bother me.

If you persuade me at any time that there's a better way to do something than what I'm doing, I assure you that I will instantly change my mind and my rules doc accordingly.

Thanks for the confidence , and yeah I think we are on the same page, its not about "who is right" (in many scenarios "being right" isnt even a possibility), its about trying to pitch in to improve the game.

I liked the Disengage change, but im unsure of how do you handle movement within reach, which normally doesn't provoke. Like can I move say 10 ft within the threatened area of another creature and then half of my remaining 20 when I get out of his area? Or is it basically "taking disengage costs half your movement insted of an action"? I like the half movement costs for stuff, we used "half movement to drink a potion" for a while.

And regarding the falling damage, I get that it makes sense, and I know my group rarely uses falling damage as a tactic (I'm the most likely one to levitate enemies and drop them to the ground), but the damage looks really high. I guess you are limited by only being able to grapple a creature one size larger than you, but things like Levitate or Telekinesis would be dubbed the Giant Killers, idk maybe i'm just seeing ghosts were there are none.

We play with negative HP as you mention, but we do that any healing makes your next Death save an automatic success and you stabilize as usual at 3 good saves (or if you get to positivie HP of course). We opted for this change when we got to high levels and people were at -100 hp and still getting stabilized by 1 HP lay on hands.

Finally, I noticed many of these rules seem inspired by previous editions (mostly 3.x but I noticed a couple 2e ones too). My question is, why did you change the exploding die to +10 instead of +20? Is it because a Nat 20 in 3e was treated like a 30 (IIRC it was like that in the book where the exploding d20s were introduced), so in order to "relfect" the effect on 5e's bounded accuracy it needed to be lowered?

[x3n0n]

Oh, thanks!

My pleasure, and thanks again. :)

I'm trying to puzzle out the details of Parry.

Let's say I forego one attack as a Parry.

Then an enemy announces a melee attack against me. I decide *before seeing the attacker's roll* whether to "spend" my Parry on this attack. (1. Yes?)

If I do, then I roll a melee attack and decide whether to replace my AC with that attack roll for the purposes of this attack only, presumably keeping whichever is higher. (2. Yes?)

How does this interact with extant temporary AC modifiers (Haste, Slow, Agile Parry, Multiattack Defense)? How about with a shield held in the other hand?

For example, Ken the Way of Kensei Monk (Unarmored Defense AC 17) makes one unarmed strike during his Attack action while holding a kensei weapon (triggering Agile Parry for +2 AC), and chooses to MaxW-Parry with his other attack.

Ken then chooses to MaxW-Parry the first incoming melee attack with his bare hand, and rolls 18 (11 + 4 Dex + 3 PB). What is his AC for this incoming attack? (I'd like to guess 20: 18 replaces the base 17, +2 for AP.)

Same idea, but Frank the Fighter wearing Splint and carrying a shield (AC 17 +2) and a warhammer. Frank rolls 18 for a Parry; what is Frank's Parry AC?

(Hopefully I can figure out the edge cases from here.)

Thanks again!

[MaxWilson]

Obviously I'm not going to adopt everything here. Everyone has their preferences, and I tend not to care too much about realism or verisimilitude or whatever you call it. Sure it makes sense for an ogre to take double fall damage but big monsters are already kind of hilariously weak for their size, lets not bully the poor dears more, shall we?

other things are obvious or have the virtue of simplicity. "Just double damage, the doubled dice on a crit thing is stupid" being one of them, the "you can move with a readied action" being another one. (The rules even cite an example of someone doing this even when its against the rules.)

But I'll speak to two things I like... that I'm also concerned about if used in conjunction. Points 12 and 14. Your dex drops to zero if incapacitated and you die when you reach your negative HP total. I like both these rules. The dexterity ruling is just obvious: you can't dodge if you're incapacitated, and the negative/bloodied HP rule averts the silly ping-pong nature of combat healing...

...but doesn't an incapacitated dexterity character just die? Their AC will be 7 if they're using light armor or 8 if they're using mage armor, and enemies will have advantage against them and be able to auto-crit. Naturally this already sort of was the case, but without the ability to reset death saves easily it feels like you've no choice but to win combat the round after your friend goes down or watch them bleed out very, very quickly. It doesn't matter if you're stabilizing if even a goblin can deal ~10 damage a round to you.

I suppose you COULD keep attacking downed targets round after round until they're actually dead, but unless the target has already demonstrated a Troll-like tendency to get up and jump back in the fight, why would you bother?

I don't see players trying to finish off downed monsters, nor do downed monsters generally try to finish off downed PCs, because without pop-up healing as a threat there's just no reason not to move on to the next guy still standing. That doesn't mean predeclared attacks against a target who falls unconscious midway through can't rip you to shreds, and charging into the middle of way too many monsters is a good way to get killed (not just for Dexy characters BTW, for anyone especially Reckless Barbarians), but if you survive whatever sequence of attacks knocks you out, you're likely to take only incidental damage after that (AoEs) unless the whole party TPKs or retreats. Even then you might very well wake up after combat, if the monsters have no particular reason to care if you die or not, though you may also wind up broke and weaponless.

TL;DR they could, but IME neither the players nor the monsters usually have reason to act that way.

Edit: looks like I need to update the doc to say that if you try to stay conscious when over your max damage, even if you make your save to be stunned instead of unconscious, you're still vulnerable to auto crits. The intent is that staying conscious is for RP (cryptic dying mutters), not tactical damage reduction (avoiding auto crits). The fact that this interaction hasn't come up before now is maybe an indication of how rare attacking downed creatures actually is in my game.

[Rukelnikov]

...but doesn't an incapacitated dexterity character just die? Their AC will be 7 if they're using light armor or 8 if they're using mage armor, and enemies will have advantage against them and be able to auto-crit. Naturally this already sort of was the case, but without the ability to reset death saves easily it feels like you've no choice but to win combat the round after your friend goes down or watch them bleed out very, very quickly. It doesn't matter if you're stabilizing if even a goblin can deal ~10 damage a round to you.

I have always played with that same rule or a pretty similar one (a bit more punishing), thing is, an enemy needs to have a really personal hatred for the PC they are couping if they spend their action on that instead of fighting for their lives against the (presumably) still concious PCs. I did that only a couple times when they were fighting automatons that completely disregarded their own safety, but most creatures with an interest for self preservation will likely try to end the opposing side first before going around couping (unless they know/expect someone can heal the fallen during combat)

[GeneralVryth]

I will chime in and just say thanks for posting these. I was already a fan of your WE-GO system, and many of these make sense or are nice tweaks. This thread is definitely going in my list of saved threads for future reference if I ever run a new 5e game.

[strangebloke]

I suppose you COULD keep attacking downed targets round after round until they're actually dead, but unless the target has already demonstrated a Troll-like tendency to get up and jump back in the fight, why would you bother?

I don't see players trying to finish off downed monsters, nor do downed monsters generally try to finish off downed PCs, because without pop-up healing as a threat there's just no reason not to move on to the next guy still standing. That doesn't mean predeclared attacks against a target who falls unconscious midway through can't rip you to shreds, and charging into the middle of way too many monsters is a good way to get killed (not just for Dexy characters BTW, for anyone especially Reckless Barbarians), but if you survive whatever sequence of attacks knocks you out, you're likely to take only incidental damage after that (AoEs) unless the whole party TPKs or retreats. Even then you might very well wake up after combat, if the monsters have no particular reason to care if you die or not, though you may also wind up broke and weaponless.

TL;DR they could, but IME neither the players nor the monsters usually have reason to act that way.

Edit: looks like I need to update the doc to say that if you try to stay conscious when over your max damage, even if you make your save to be stunned instead of unconscious, you're still vulnerable to auto crits. The intent is that staying conscious is for RP (cryptic dying mutters), not tactical damage reduction (avoiding auto crits). The fact that this interaction hasn't come up before now is maybe an indication of how rare attacking downed creatures actually is in my game.

well it depends on the monster. Slavers would leave them alive, naturally, and something like a dragon would know to eliminate threats as fast as possible, but something unintelligent motivated by a hatred for living things (skeletons, demons) or a suicidal determination to do what damage they can (kobolds) might just try to permanently kill at least one opponent.

It all depends! Of course such enemies are very scary under default rules as well, its just easier to bring them back up.

[Eldariel]

...but doesn't an incapacitated dexterity character just die? Their AC will be 7 if they're using light armor or 8 if they're using mage armor, and enemies will have advantage against them and be able to auto-crit. Naturally this already sort of was the case, but without the ability to reset death saves easily it feels like you've no choice but to win combat the round after your friend goes down or watch them bleed out very, very quickly. It doesn't matter if you're stabilizing if even a goblin can deal ~10 damage a round to you.

Well, it's just like in 3e. If an enemy chooses to spend their round attacking a downed person, hitting them and damaging them is fairly easy (as it should be!) unless they're literally clad in steel all over. However, consider for a moment:

1. This is no longer a yoyo healing land. If you manage to down somebody, the chances of them coming back up are slim.

2. There are still other enemies alive.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of the Goblin. You are in the middle of a battle. You manage to drop the fiendishly quick burglar with a lucky arrow. You've never, ever in your life seen a person get back up after they took an arrow to the eye. There are people actively trying to kill you around you. Do you:
1) Choose to try and kill the downed thing deader?
2) Choose to try and kill the living things trying to deadify you?

I think the choice is obvious 99 times out of 100 (one is likely to end your life, one is not) and indeed, this mirrors historical battles for a good part of more recent history (you don't kill people who are no longer viable threats since you stand to gain nothing while with prisoners you can at least ransom them for money or put them to indentured service - I don't remember when exactly the idea of ransoming knights became the de-facto custom but it was a medieval idea to get wealth instead of bodies since wealth is more useful than bodies) but really since time immemorial.

One of the primary reasons downed characters get targeted is yoyo healing. Remove that and enemies are generally poorly inclined to waste attacks on things not swinging pointy sticks or slinging fireballs at them over targets that actively are. Of course, you can still heal downed allies: you just have to use an actual leveled healing spell instead of "Healing Word for 1d4+5" on level 20, because 1 HP is basically as good as 20 when enemies do over 20 damage with each hit.

In other words, picking an ally back up depends on the gravity of the wounds and as a consequence, enemies who see someone downed and badly wounded can be fairly confident that they'll stay down. Thus they will not target that person over someone who is still a viable threat.


EDIT: Well I got badly Illusionisted.

[MaxWilson]

I liked the Disengage change, but im unsure of how do you handle movement within reach, which normally doesn't provoke. (B) Like can I move say 10 ft within the threatened area of another creature and then half of my remaining 20 when I get out of his area? Or is it basically "taking disengage costs half your movement insted of an action"? I like the half movement costs for stuff, we used "half movement to drink a potion" for a while.

And regarding the falling damage, I get that it makes sense, and I know my group rarely uses falling damage as a tactic (I'm the most likely one to levitate enemies and drop them to the ground), but the damage looks really high. I guess you are limited by only being able to grapple a creature one size larger than you, but things like (A) Levitate or Telekinesis would be dubbed the Giant Killers, idk maybe i'm just seeing ghosts were there are none.

We play with negative HP as you mention, but we do that (C)any healing makes your next Death save an automatic success and you stabilize as usual at 3 good saves (or if you get to positivie HP of course). We opted for this change when we got to high levels and people were at -100 hp and still getting stabilized by 1 HP lay on hands.

Finally, I noticed many of these rules seem inspired by previous editions (mostly 3.x but I noticed a couple 2e ones too). (D) My question is, why did you change the exploding die to +10 instead of +20? Is it because a Nat 20 in 3e was treated like a 30 (IIRC it was like that in the book where the exploding d20s were introduced), so in order to "relfect" the effect on 5e's bounded accuracy it needed to be lowered?

(A) Conveniently, it turns out that Levitate has a 500 lb. limit, and Telekinesis has a 1000 lb. object limit that I'd also apply to creatures (I think that's a ruling that doesn't need to go in the doc but let me know if you think it would be important to tell players) when it comes to lifting them. I.e. you could restrain a giant with Telekinesis but couldn't lift it for falling damage. If you manage to knock one off a 500' cliff though or out of an airship it will probably die, just like a normal human would, whereas a spider would survive, and to me that's a feature worth having as part of the game world even though it's rarely gameplay-relevant.

(B) Yes, "taking Disengage costs half your movement" is also an accurate way to describe it. If you carefully step backwards 10' so you can then stab my buddy, I don't get to opportunity attack you (but I can follow you).

Your movement speed is set by you for the whole round. In this case you are moving 30' this round, full speed, so you must be "turning your back" and therefore provoke an opportunity attack (ditto if you are paralyzed or incapacitated while within melee reach, or cast an action spell without Warcaster), unless you're a creature without a back like a Beholder.

A fringe benefit of Dashing at half speed (instead of Disengaging, because there is no Disengage) is that the same carefulness which protects you against opportunity attacks also protects you from caltrops and ball bearings.

(C) Oh, did I forget to say that healing stabilizes you? It does.

I take it that your way requires 3 death saves to die, but a death save failure doesn't cost you HP per se? That's valid and interesting. I take it you are viewing death saves as basically going into shock--can kill you, but doesn't injure you more per se. I'm treating them more like bleeding out. In actual play I could probably swap my rules for yours and never notice a difference, since they both are designed to elicit a similar behavior.

(D) I never played 3E (except a couple of video games, IWD2 and ToEE), had no idea it had exploding dice. I stole my rule idea from a computer game called Dominions, in which sometimes weak units like human shepherds do highly improbable things like kill an enormous giant with a single sling stone. Basically I didn't want a Skulker Rogue 2/Shadow Monk 3 to be completely and totally invisible to a whole town of peasants. I wanted at least one or two peasants to spot him every once in a while. -10 per natural 1 gave me a probability curve that felt about right.

well it depends on the monster. Slavers would leave them alive, naturally, and something like a dragon would know to eliminate threats as fast as possible, but something unintelligent motivated by a hatred for living things (skeletons, demons) or a suicidal determination to do what damage they can (kobolds) might just try to permanently kill at least one opponent.

It all depends! Of course such enemies are very scary under default rules as well, its just easier to bring them back up.

Yeah, I can agree. It depends.

I've never DM'ed for a PC knocked unconscious by skeletons or vengeful kobolds, but going for murder/revenge over victory makes sense for both scenarios. If so I have no objections, although my wargamer/tactician side wants to remark that that is a scenario where you probably ought to Fireball your unconscious buddy because it's less dangerous than letting N skeletons crit him repeatedly, if N is largeish.

Well, it's just like in 3e. If an enemy chooses to spend their round attacking a downed person, hitting them and damaging them is fairly easy (as it should be!) unless they're literally clad in steel all over. However, consider for a moment:

1. This is no longer a yoyo healing land. If you manage to down somebody, the chances of them coming back up are slim.

2. There are still other enemies alive.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of the Goblin. You are in the middle of a battle. You manage to drop the fiendishly quick burglar with a lucky arrow. You've never, ever in your life seen a person get back up after they took an arrow to the eye. There are people actively trying to kill you around you. Do you:
1) Choose to try and kill the downed thing deader?
2) Choose to try and kill the living things trying to deadify you?

I think the choice is obvious 99 times out of 100 (one is likely to end your life, one is not) and indeed, this mirrors historical battles for a good part of more recent history (you don't kill people who are no longer viable threats since you stand to gain nothing while with prisoners you can at least ransom them for money or put them to indentured service - I don't remember when exactly the idea of ransoming knights became the de-facto custom but it was a medieval idea to get wealth instead of bodies since wealth is more useful than bodies) but really since time immemorial.

One of the primary reasons downed characters get targeted is yoyo healing. Remove that and enemies are generally poorly inclined to waste attacks on things not swinging pointy sticks or slinging fireballs at them over targets that actively are. Of course, you can still heal downed allies: you just have to use an actual leveled healing spell instead of "Healing Word for 1d4+5" on level 20, because 1 HP is basically as good as 20 when enemies do over 20 damage with each hit.

In other words, picking an ally back up depends on the gravity of the wounds and as a consequence, enemies who see someone downed and badly wounded can be fairly confident that they'll stay down. Thus they will not target that person over someone who is still a viable threat.


EDIT: Well I got badly Illusionisted.

I do want to add that a Goblin might potentially give a downed foe a few more whacks, not because he's seen healing magic before, but because he's familiar with the concept of playing dead. Pretending to be dying is sometimes a better way of ending an attack sequence than dying for real, but the counter-counterplay for that is attacking a bit more (autocrits since you're mimicking the Unconscious condition).

Sometimes faking death is also a way to get ranged enemies to move closer enough to loot the body, and bring themselves within your reach. (Mostly applicable to melee PCs traveling alone.)

[Eldariel]

I do want to add that a Goblin might potentially give a downed foe a few more whacks, not because he's seen healing magic before, but because he's familiar with the concept of playing dead. Pretending to be dying is sometimes a better way of ending an attack sequence than dying for real, but the counter-counterplay for that is attacking a bit more (autocrits since you're mimicking the Unconscious condition).

Sometimes faking death is also a way to get ranged enemies to move closer enough to loot the body, and bring themselves within your reach. (Mostly applicable to melee PCs traveling alone.)

I personally run with 3e-style CdG rules: if you don't move during your turn and spend your entire making a single attack against a helpless (incapacitated) opponent, you can deliver a Coup de Grace which is an autocrit and forces a Constitution save vs. death (damage dealt being the DC - I dropped it from 3e's 10+damage dealt since in this edition you tend to do way more damage and Con-save scaling is far slower). Nice for killing sleeping enemies you catch in their tent. Nice with some spells. Nice for finishing off downed enemies. But the opportunity cost of using a full turn to do that is of course significant, and there's counterplay since it takes lining up the shot properly and thus I placed the movement restriction on it which means if someone sees an ally about to get CdGd, they can try to knock the prospective CdGer back or try and kick the body away. It's lead to few fun interactions at our table.

But yeah, I don't say the chances of a goblin trying to confirm a kill are zero but of course, I don't think the Goblin will stop to do that if someone shot an arrow at it or is next to it with a sword the same turn it downed one enemy. If it has a moment of respite, maybe, but if its life is in active peril it's obviously forced to prioritise survival over everything else (as with basically every living thing aside from the obvious: fanatics, mindslaves, desperados, etc.).

[Rukelnikov]

(A) Conveniently, it turns out that Levitate has a 500 lb. limit, and Telekinesis has a 1000 lb. object limit that I'd also apply to creatures (I think that's a ruling that doesn't need to go in the doc but let me know if you think it would be important to tell players) when it comes to lifting them. I.e. you could restrain a giant with Telekinesis but couldn't lift it for falling damage. If you manage to knock one off a 500' cliff though or out of an airship it will probably die, just like a normal human would, whereas a spider would survive, and to me that's a feature worth having as part of the game world even though it's rarely gameplay-relevant.

The weight limit for both spells seems like a good solution.

(B) Yes, "taking Disengage costs half your movement" is also an accurate way to describe it. If you carefully step backwards 10' so you can then stab my buddy, I don't get to opportunity attack you.

Your movement speed is set by you for the whole round. In this case you are moving 30' this round, full speed, so you must be "turning your back" and therefore provoke an opportunity attack (ditto if you are paralyzed or incapacitated while within melee reach, or cast an action spell without Warcaster), unless you're a creature without a back like a Beholder.

A fringe benefit of Dashing at half speed (instead of Disengaging, because there is no Disengage) is that the same carefulness which protects you against opportunity attacks also protects you from caltrops and ball bearings.

Cool, I hadn't thought about the caltrops and ball bearing actually :P

(C) Oh, did I forget to say that healing stabilizes you? It does.

I take it that your way requires 3 death saves to die, but a death save failure doesn't cost you HP per se? That's valid and interesting. I take it you are viewing death saves as basically going into shock--can kill you, but doesn't injure you more per se. I'm treating them more like bleeding out. In actual play I could probably swap my rules for yours and never notice a difference, since they both are designed to elicit a similar behavior.

Yeah both systems are pretty similar, your is more lenient with stabilizing, since you only need one source of healing to stabilize, and the one my group uses is more lenient with failing death saves since it doesn't incurr extra damage. I like the bleeding idea tbh, it makes sense for someone 1 hp from dying to die faster than someone at -1 HP.

(D) I never played 3E (except a couple of video games, IWD2 and ToEE), had no idea it had exploding dice. I stole my rule idea from a computer game called Dominions, in which sometimes weak units like human shepherds do highly improbable things like kill an enormous giant with a single sling stone. Basically I didn't want a Skulker Rogue 2/Shadow Monk 3 to be completely and totally invisible to a whole town of peasants. I wanted at least one or two peasants to spot him every once in a while. -10 per natural 1 gave me a probability curve that felt about right.

Oh, yeah that basically what it was for, also so that commoners couldn't hit deities on a nat 20.

[Kane0]

On your disengagement, can’t you simply spend the extra movement to back away, then turn around to run the rest at regular speed? D&D tends to handwave facing which may muddy the waters here.
Also, i’m guessing there is no escaping a flank and that is intentional?

[diplomancer]

There is no Disengage. Opportunity attacks occur when you move at full speed away from an enemy (turning your back), or whenever you are paralyzed/unconscious. You can back away at half speed without turning your back.

Isn't this a buff to ranged characters? RAW, once a melee character closes in, and assuming same speeds, the ranged character has several bad choices:
1- Disengage and move back; no attack of opportunity, but unless there's some ally nearby, nothing stops the melee attacker from closing in (and attacking) the next round.
2- keep trading attacks at disadvantage. Not good.
3- dash away; ranged character eats an attack of opportunity, and melee character can just dash as well to close the distance again.
4- If ranged character has Extra Attack and Expertise in Athletics, there's a decent chance that he can use one of his attacks to shove down the melee opponent, even with lower Str; in that case, he can move away and still shoot with his other attack(s)

None of these is ideal; but with your houserule, there's a much better option; Ranged Character just moves back at half speed (no action cost) and shoots. So the one advantage melee has over ranged (IF they manage to close in, ranged may be in trouble) goes away.

[Eldariel]

Isn't this a buff to ranged characters? RAW, once a melee character closes in, and assuming same speeds, the ranged character has several bad choices:
1- Disengage and move back; no attack of opportunity, but unless there's some ally nearby, nothing stops the melee attacker from closing in (and attacking) the next round.
2- keep trading attacks at disadvantage. Not good.
3- dash away; ranged character eats an attack of opportunity, and melee character can just dash as well to close the distance again.
4- If ranged character has Extra Attack and Expertise in Athletics, there's a decent chance that he can use one of his attacks to shove down the melee opponent, even with lower Str; in that case, he can move away and still shoot with his other attack(s)

None of these is ideal; but with your houserule, there's a much better option; Ranged Character just moves back at half speed (no action cost) and shoots. So the one advantage melee has over ranged (IF they manage to close in, ranged may be in trouble) goes away.

If the turns are simultaneous, it's impossible to put distance between you and melee, much less if you're moving at half speed while they are sticking to you at full speed. You need to dash at full speed while they attack you to get away, losing a turn too.

[diplomancer]

If the turns are simultaneous, it's impossible to put distance between you and melee, much less if you're moving at half speed while they are sticking to you at full speed. You need to dash at full speed while they attack you to get away, losing a turn too.

Ah, good point. But I can still see some issues;
Let's say A is a Warlock with Repelling Blast invocation, and B is a melee brute. They are at 40' distance when the round begins. A goes first, and hits B twice; distance now is 60'. B now dashes (as he was planning to anyway) to close distance to A. A, who hasn't moved yet, says "I back away". Next round A, now at 15' distance, again goes first and hits B twice (with no disadvantage), distance now is 35' and, again, B can't reach A without dashing. Is there anything I'm missing in the house rules that would stop that?

[Rukelnikov]

Ah, good point. But I can still see some issues;
Let's say A is a Warlock with Repelling Blast invocation, and B is a melee brute. They are at 40' distance when the round begins. A goes first, and hits B twice; distance now is 60'. B now dashes (as he was planning to anyway) to close distance to A. A, who hasn't moved yet, says "I back away". Next round A, now at 15' distance, again goes first and hits B twice (with no disadvantage), distance now is 35' and, again, B can't reach A without dashing. Is there anything I'm missing in the house rules that would stop that?

Well in the standard rules A could have pushed B to 60 ft, and then take his move to end up at 90 ft, so even dashinB wouldn't be at melee.

Anyway im sure there are some scenarios that play differently, if it were exactly the same, then it would just be standard PHB.

But I do understand the concern, ranged has already quite many benefits over melee.

[ZRN]

The initiative system is interesting to me - it seems like given the general attention to detailed technical stuff, I’d expect your players to be big on detailed tactical combat, and if so it’s hard to conceptualize how that would mesh well with the DM making a lot of the specific decisions on positioning, etc. (E.g., if a psi warrior wants to shoot and push an enemy away from allies, or if a wizard wants to fireball a group of moving enemies, they won’t know the exact positioning when they make that choice.)

Does there tend to be back and forth on those details? (“Okay, you said Zedd is going to shoot the goblin away from his friends, and the goblin has moved 10ft before he gets a shot off, so tell me what square you’re pushing him to”) or do you just generally try for the best fit based on their initial stated intent?

[MaxWilson]

On your disengagement, can’t you simply spend the extra movement to back away, then turn around to run the rest at regular speed? D&D tends to handwave facing which may muddy the waters here.
Also, i’m guessing there is no escaping a flank and that is intentional?

No, for the same reason even the PHB won't let you "move at half speed" over caltrops to avoid damage and then full speed the rest of the round. The intent is that your speed is measured over the course of a round. If you back away without taking an opportunity attack, your speed this round is half normal.

If it were a big deal to a player to back away 5' and then move normally 15' I can imagine increasing granularity to the point where what you are talking about would work, if the enemy you back away from doesn't follow you. I don't have any particular reason I want it NOT to work, but it's more detail / complexity than I have needed up to now. The main problem would be "how to do this without making caltrops useless?"

Isn't this a buff to ranged characters? RAW, once a melee character closes in, and assuming same speeds, the ranged character has several bad choices:
1- Disengage and move back; no attack of opportunity, but unless there's some ally nearby, nothing stops the melee attacker from closing in (and attacking) the next round.
2- keep trading attacks at disadvantage. Not good.
3- dash away; ranged character eats an attack of opportunity, and melee character can just dash as well to close the distance again.
4- If ranged character has Extra Attack and Expertise in Athletics, there's a decent chance that he can use one of his attacks to shove down the melee opponent, even with lower Str; in that case, he can move away and still shoot with his other attack(s)

None of these is ideal; but with your houserule, there's a much better option; Ranged Character just moves back at half speed (no action cost) and shoots. So the one advantage melee has over ranged (IF they manage to close in, ranged may be in trouble) goes away.

You're missing some RAW options:

5) step back 5', eat an opportunity attack, shoot without disadvantage instead of Dashing away. This is basically always better than #2 (trade attacks at disadvantage) once you get Extra Attack.

6) step back 5', DON'T eat an opportunity attack because the melee opponent's reach is greater than 5' so you haven't left their reach, and shoot without disadvantage.

So if it's a buff to ranged guys, it's a small and situational one which doesn't even matter against many (possibly most) monsters. Meanwhile it's also a buff to melee guys as well, who no longer have to take opportunity attacks to reposition themselves on the battlefield, e.g. make a fighting retreat down a corridor.

Mostly it's just a buff to realism/verisimilitude, making stories and rules align better, not a balance change. For example, #6 is absolutely stupid and yet it works RAW, because RAW opportunity attacks are incoherent. Why should a Balor's 30' reach whip make it WORSE at punishing archers who get to close than if it discards its whip? I want rules that make greater reach never be an unrealistic hindrance for that Balor--if you show your back to or get paralyzed within 30' of the Balor, it's going to exploit the opportunity and hit you, full stop.

Ah, good point. But I can still see some issues;
Let's say A is a Warlock with Repelling Blast invocation, and B is a melee brute. They are at 40' distance when the round begins. A goes first, and hits B twice; distance now is 60'. B now dashes (as he was planning to anyway) to close distance to A. A, who hasn't moved yet, says "I back away". Next round A, now at 15' distance, again goes first and hits B twice (with no disadvantage), distance now is 35' and, again, B can't reach A without dashing. Is there anything I'm missing in the house rules that would stop that?

In that specific situation, B can just move forward 30 and use a 5' reach weapon to attack A, or grapple A. A made a mistake in not backing up after going first, and B can exploit it.

Is there a reason A didn't just turn move 30' away after blasting B on round 1, instead of waiting until B was in melee range and then backing away 15'? He would have spent only 10' of distance that round, even under RAW, instead of spending 25'.

But in general it's true that winning initiative is powerful against human-speed melee enemies if you have Repelling Blast. Repelling Blast is a virtual speed boost when kiting. You're not missing anything in the rules that makes Repelling Blast or Mobile not work, although I think they work even better under RAW. (But fast monsters, speed 70'+, ideally 120'+, can sometimes get away with using knives in a gunfight, especially when dive bombing to close initial distance rapidly.)

The initiative system is interesting to me - it seems like given the general attention to detailed technical stuff, I’d expect your players to be big on detailed tactical combat, and if so it’s hard to conceptualize how that would mesh well with the DM making a lot of the specific decisions on positioning, etc. (E.g., if a psi warrior wants to shoot and push an enemy away from allies, or if a wizard wants to fireball a group of moving enemies, they won’t know the exact positioning when they make that choice.)

Does there tend to be back and forth on those details? (“Okay, you said Zedd is going to shoot the goblin away from his friends, and the goblin has moved 10ft before he gets a shot off, so tell me what square you’re pushing him to”) or do you just generally try for the best fit based on their initial stated intent?

I don't have a problem with back and forth, but no, it isn't often needed. I use a lot of TotM (sometimes with whiteboard diagramming to get everyone in the same page, but more like football sketches with Xs and Os and arrows than like battlegrids with every monster drawn individually) and generally lean in the players' favor as a general principle when determining e.g. how many Githyanki Warriors you can hit with your Fireball.

Bear in mind that the detailed technical stuff done by the DM exists so that players don't have to think about detailed technical stuff while playing, because the gameworld rules are more aligned with how they're imagining it. My goal is for them to imagine what it's like to fight hobgoblins behind fortifications, etc., and do what makes sense, instead of looking for rule technicalities. So no, most(?) players aren't into detailed tactical combat for its own sake at all, they're just into roleplaying, if that distinction makes sense, including the wacky stuff that I can never predict in advance.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Some good stuff here.
We also track negative hp. Maybe this comes from many years of other editions, or just the total lack of realism I get from someone being downed from a dragon breath and popped up again from the most minor of healing.
I really like the idea of getting something from an odd ability score; I'm definitely adding this to my house rules.

It's definitely smart to get these things out of the way in writing as players come to the table. I've heard the nerf vs. buff arguments, but I've never had any serious push back from a player who knows what's up before we start.

[ZRN]

I don't have a problem with back and forth, but no, it isn't often needed. I use a lot of TotM (sometimes with whiteboard diagramming to get everyone in the same page, but more like football sketches with Xs and Os and arrows than like battlegrids with every monster drawn individually) and generally lean in the players' favor as a general principle when determining e.g. how many Githyanki Warriors you can hit with your Fireball.

Bear in mind that the detailed technical stuff done by the DM exists so that players don't have to think about detailed technical stuff while playing, because the gameworld rules are more aligned with how they're imagining it. My goal is for them to imagine what it's like to fight hobgoblins behind fortifications, etc., and do what makes sense, instead of looking for rule technicalities. So no, most(?) players aren't into detailed tactical combat for its own sake at all, they're just into roleplaying, if that distinction makes sense, including the wacky stuff that I can never predict in advance.

Oh, that’s interesting - my groups are typically similar, but at the same time most of them wouldn’t care about most of the house rules you list here for that reason - like, they aren’t doing the math to figure out when -5 to hit for +5 damage would be a good deal so they’d just not use that option. But if it makes things run smoother for you as DM when you’re the one facilitating the work of making sure they have a great experience while you worry about the technicalities for them, more power to you.

[EggKookoo]

3.) XP awards. All characters get a share of XP proportional to their share of the total levels or CR (rounded up to 1) on their side of a combat. For example, in a party of three 9th level PCs and one 5th level PC (total of 32 levels), if they earn 2000 XP from defeating twenty orcs, the 9th level PCs will all earn 9/32 * 2000 = 562.5 XP, while the 5th level PC earns 5/32 * 2000 = 312.5 XP. But if one of the PCs casts Animate Objects and temporarily animates 10 Tiny Objects during the fight, then there are 42 total levels/CR, so the 9thl level PCs earn only 9/42 * 2000 = 428.6 XP, while the 5th level PC earns 238.1 XP.

I already do this for PCs and levels, but I never thought to do it for summoned creatures and CR. I always thought of summoned or pet creatures as an inherent part of the PC class. Not opposed to it, just digesting...

[Keravath]

It seems to me that the disengage in this case can never actually work.

You decide to back away at half speed as your declared action. The creature attacking you declares its action as attacking you even if you decide to move away. Since it is not trying to disengage, its movement is not reduced so even if the creature tries to dash to disengage, the creature just follows and attacks anyway and the person trying to run away gains nothing.

Even trying to run away from an attacker - the only way to be successful seems to be to take the dash action to double your movement, as long as the attacker hasn't also decided to dash, it will only have 30 feet of movement so it will still get its attack (because it declared it would attack and stay in contact with their opponent) but the extra movement will allow the character to break contact and end the turn 30' away from the creature they were engaged with.

Basically, I don't see how this version of disengage actually accomplishes anything except walking backward around the battlefield while an attacker, and possibly more than one, follows you.

[KorvinStarmast]

Simple changes

On ability checks only, an odd score gives an extra +1. So Str 19 means you have +4 to Strength-based attacks and saves, but +5 to Strength checks.

I am keeping this one. Nice.

Furthermore, Remarkable Athlete now stacks with proficiency. So a Str 18 Champion 9 with Athletics proficiency would have +4+4+2=+10 to Strength (Athletics) checks, not just +8.

That too.
The rest are too much work to try out, with the people I DM for. KISS in this case means "keep it like what's in the book" or they'll get confused again.

[da newt]

I can see the benefit / purpose of your house rules, but they seem to put a great deal of responsibility / trust in the DM to always resolve things in a very fair and equitable way while also hand waiving the specifics of turn by turn and battle map placement, and seem to add complexity to an already complex system of rules.

In my (limited) experience, I don't think I've run across a DM that I believe can both function at a high enough level to keep all of that straight and remain objective / fair.