The rule I like is a once per campaign, every player gets a "I know a guy" moment. It's a no question asked, get out of jail free card for any role play moment. They give me a brief rundown of the NPC and we go from there.
We used that one time. My character had mafia ties and I used the I know a guy to get us false identities to get around town because we got framed and needed to get in somewhere where the actual perpetrator was.
I use this rule, but instead of a once-per-campaign limitation, I simply leave it to reasonable connection and not being overused (DM discretion). Upon declaration and approval, that NPC exists, and the player gives a brief description while leaving room for the DM to flesh out the NPC. DM will then roll a Charisma check behind the screen with the players CHA modifier to determine the NPCs reaction to the PC, whether very friendly, pleasantly acquainted, neutral, disapproving, or even hostile. Neither the PC nor player knows the result until the NPC is met. I leave it open to use because I personally love my players manipulating the world in a realistic way. People know people, and generally, they know a lot of people. How well and how good the relationships are vary wildly, however. Thankfully, my players are very respectful of not abusing this, and so far, has only been used twice in some 40 sessions, but both times were fantastic. A slight mod to this rule is making up histories with NPCs. For example, one player is a merc and the party were on a mission with mercs from his old outfit. He got into a bad disagreement with one of the NPC mercs and started talking about a contract they took together years ago, and I played along with it naturally. It ended up making for a really cool narrative encounter.
Once I had a @$&!ing stupid DM that wouldn’t let the players do things that made perfect sense. i.e. I was a Druid and wanted to be a giant octopus, and to become an animal as a Druid you must’ve seen it before. I came up with two reasons why I had seen one. Once washed up on the shore of the swords coast and once being sold at the waterdeep market. He said it didn’t make sense as I had made it up on the go and it was no where in my backstory. IT’S NOT LIKE IM GOING TO WRITE DOWN EVERYSINGLE DAM ANIMAL MY CHARACTER HAS SEEN IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE, LIKE WTH??? Anyway I’m still salty about it to this day and it truly pisses me off when DM’s don’t realize that the point of D&D is to have a good experience with your friends and the wacky things you do in game, and yes there are instances when your players can be unreasonable, but it would get to the point where I’d leave the session less happy then when I’d entered it.
Yeah. I let our orc barbarian give advantage to the rogue for stealth on opening a door. I asked how he did that. He said he drooled over the hinges. It was funny in the moment. Now I have to decide if the hinges are exposed for every door they want to open quietly to see if the orc is going to drool on them...
@@isaacporter6450 Ehh tbf without context, i still side with your GM on that one. Regular octopus? Sure. Thing with stat sheet? Unless I have thrown it at you*, no.
@@isaacporter6450 Next campaign, hand him a 300 pages bundle, detailing every single animal your character has ever seen during their lifetime, every single experience they've had, all poisons they've heard of, every tale they were told as a kid, the shape and location of every large rock you've visited...
Back in like 2020 one of my favorite characters died and I was devastated. I tried to figure out any and all bargaining chips I had. Luckily I thought of something so stupid it worked. I asked, “If I can drink this 2-liter of sprite within five minutes can I be granted one wish?” My DM, who was very much intrigued, said, “Bet.” I began destroying that 2-liter so fast it hurt. The burping and the pain was well worth it though seeing as my character is alive and kicking now in 2024. To this day he has a rule that once per campaign you can take the challenge and gain, “The Sprite to a Wish.”
In one of the campaigns I’m part of right now, my DM and the group basically came up with the rule that if you take a Healing potion you have two options: 1.) As an action, it’s the full 8 points of healing. 2.) As a bonus action, it’s whatever the d8 determines it to be. The idea is that in you’re making sure that you get the full effect of the potion when taking an action and are focusing on consuming every last drop of it. When taking it as a bonus action, it’s done quicker and your character is not as focused as they would be when taking the full potion (I like to imagine you’re so focused on the situation that they might be spilling the potion or could end up choking on it in their haste to heal).
Challenge rolls. One of our DMs can never remember if ties go in the favor of the attacker or the defender when it comes to exactly matching ACs or DCs, so if that happens, he and the player roll a d20, and the description of the scene gets MUCH more cinematic. Players *barely* duck under the sword aimed for their face, or *nearly* collapse from the poison they managed to overcome.
DC was clarified to me when I first started out as "meet or beat," so ties are in favor of the attacker, with the odd exception of the examples given in the PHB of "character(s) trying to bar a door vs. character(s) trying to force said door open," where a tie results in an unchanged state
Brutal criticals; when a crit is rolled for an attack, roll your dice as normal and add the max value of the dice on top, so a 1d6+4 becomes 1d6+10. It makes criticals feel much more punchier and meaningful
in my campaign, if you wore chainmail or full plate armor you were immune to slashing damage because you cant cut through chainmail or steel plate. chainmail could still be defeated with blunt and piercing damage but plate could only be beaten by blunt damage. it made fighting knights, guards, paladins, and other heavily armored enemies more difficult and we had to find a way to subvert the armor through magic, the environment, or pulling actual tactics from history like switching the grip on our swords to the "mordhau" grip (grabbing the sword by the blade and bludgeoning them with the hilt) for weak blunt damage, or having one person grapple them while someone else stabs the person in the face or throat. we also had it so headshots were almost always lethal, slit/stabbed throats would take 30 seconds to knock someone out and 30 more seconds to kill them, and being stabbed in the heart would kill you after 5 minutes. all to represent more accurate combat because we were all medieval nerds and we had a med student in the group.
I believe what you are describing as "Mordau grip" is actually called "Half Swording" unless you knew that, then you can disregard this. Also a medieval nerd, to an extent myself. Also I enjoy the non-instant death, reading Wereworld by Curtis Joblin, and I find it annoying when someone is stabbed in the heart/stomach and somehow the character "Dies" instantly when they should still be able to do something before they actually die. (Unless beheaded.)
@@adtrlthegamer7449 i have heard people call the "mordhau" kind of grip "half swording" too but people more commonly say "half swording" to refer to grabbing the sword halfway down the blade for better thrusting control, so i just call them what i hear most others call them.
Castles & Crusades has optional rules for a similar style of play in its Castle Keeper’s Guide. High damage reduction against slashing weapons for chain/plate armor as well as special mechanics for hitting different body parts (each body part has its own HP pool based on the creature’s total HP, and you can either roll a d8 to see where you hit or do a called shot to target specific locations). IIRC, reducing a target’s head or torso to 0 HP forces a CON save that can result in instant incapacitation or death.
I like the cursed item rule, but I'd change it a little bit. I'd make it so it only effects items that are attuned to the deceased, and rather than trauma due to the death, it's a result of the attunement being suddenly corrupted/turned off like a computer unplugged while it's updating.
There wasn't a " wisdom " save in 3.5. There was fortitude , reflex and willpower saves. I'm sure the mention of the wrong saves was just an oversight. But I thought it was worth a reminder.
My DM created, more of a system than a rule, called "burn". What it does is take the existing system of "Exhaustion" and gives it value to the players as last resort bursts. The difference is that you gain the ability to do things that you normally couldn't with each roll. Such as casting multiple high-level spells on the same turn or taking multiple attacks or even breaking free of previous restrictions/spells. The obvious downside being that with each point of burn you take, the more exhaustion effects you gain and the closer to death you become. There are 6 total points of burn that act like their equivalent number of exhaustion. Ex: 1 point - disadvantage on rolls. 6 points - Death. The more points you use at once, the higher the effect. In essence, you are "burning away" your life force to try to get just a little more out of your turn to help your party.
A rule my players enjoy is my "dice karma" system. Basically, it's meant to soften the blow of terrible dice rolls and help reduce the feeling of your efforts being ruined by bad luck. Whenever a player rolls a natural 4 or lower on a d20 roll and fail whatever they were attempting, they gain a "karma point", which carry over between sessions. A player can then spend their karma points after making a d20 roll to effectively change the roll they got, to a max of 20, naturally. So, for example, if a player had a string of terrible rolls in the past and has 8 karma points, and they roll a natural 15, they could spend 5 of their karma points to make it as if they rolled a natural 20. It isn't tacked on as a modifier, but as an alteration to their roll, so while it could turn a normal roll into a critical hit or save the player from a critical failure, it can't modify the roll any higher than what they'd get if they rolled a natural 20. So, for DMs who don't count nat 20's as auto successes, if you wouldn't succeed even on a nat 20, you can't use karma points to bump it any higher - it's purely to tilt luck more in the favor of the players, not serve as a means to accomplish things you normally couldn't.
I have two rules that I kinda like. 1. Everyone can cast spells from scrolls. The problem is that if the said spell does not belong in your class (or if your class just cannot cast spells), you have no idea what the spell does. Makes for some very interesting moments. 2. Divine magic, such as that produced by paladins and clerics, has a sort of flavour depending on the god that grants that magic. For example, Talona's magic makes all the enemies feel poisoned and sick, but does not actually grant the POISONED condition. It does not have any mechanical effects, but it makes for good flavour
It doesn't get cooler than the Rule of Cool. Creativity and a well thought-out maneuver deserves its reward, within reason.. (especially if you know they're gonna succeed anyways!! Literally zero harm, then)
I have my PVP rules. To avoid PVP being used to solve out of character drama, but to leave the options available for in character drama I have a rule that any PVP, upon initiation, may only be done with consent of the player who’s character is opposing the check. If you roll to attack a PC, the targeted player does not want to do that, the action never happens. This includes any rolls for combat, actions that force another to save, opposed skill checks, any attempt to steal from another’s inventory, or any other action as ruled by the DM. Due to the nature of the game, there is an implied consent is give for hostile acts against characters controlled by the DM. The only exception to this is that Consent must be given to romance any character played anyone at the table because it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law.
That's in my session zero contract. Any game I do, not matter the platform. - PvP is only allowed if ALL players are fine with it. - PvP might only be initiated, when both players agreed on it. (The GM is to inform/consult.) - You can always decide to fail, but have to roll if you suceed. I once played in a cmpaign, where the two players shared their body. I knew we were a split personality, he did not. (GM did not tell me the BBEG was number 3, lol.) Absolutely LOVED that campaign, but the other player was just not into it, when he found out. It would not have worked with his explicit concent. But he didn't deal with it well and the character felt taken away from him. So a few sessions later the group crumbled, sadly. Since then, I try to be very mindful of when I do things like that and ensure everyone is clear about the expectations.
my DM lets any race with a breath weapon have access to the breath weapon recharge mechanic. it makes breath weapons actually viable in combat, and if it doesn't do much due to resistances, counters, or reactions, you never feel like you wasted it. rolling a 6 on a d6 comes up rarely enough to actually feel balanced in the long run.
One rule I have in my campaign is if you roll a natural 20 you get to roll again if you get yourself another match 20 (19 if you are a champion) so you do full damage. In my campaign Homebrew, this was one of the biggest things that people actually got excited about. The Rogue in the group role for True damage and what would usually be like 3D6 (sneak) plus 1d6 for a sneak attack and if it becomes a critical. In other words, the Rogue managed to successfully nuke an enemy. Heck I even give extra bonus depending on contact sensitivity, like one of them the champion rolled two natural twenties in a row the other enemies had a sheer heart attack dying instantly
One of my favorites is if you call a shot for targeting a specific part of an enemy and you roll five higher than it's AC or score in that 20. There would be some sort of debuff granted to the enemy. But if the enemy had higher than 11 intelligence. They could use the same. I used it for more gritty kind of campaigns and it worked out well
not technically HB, but a few alternative rules from the Star Wars 5e PBH that the groups I play in use for DnD crit rules: 2x the damage dice, but half of those are automatically maxed basically, roll like normal and add a max roll to whatever you roll on top of your normal modifiers this finds the perfect middle ground for making crits feel impactful without making them OP. the max damage you can do is unchanged, but the minimum damage is significantly increased nothing feels worse than getting a nat 20 with your great sword...only do teal 8 damage (minimum damage roll+ +4 str mod) with this rule, the minimum damage you can deal with a greatsword on that nat 20 is 18 Dichotomous leveling: the rules for this are simple it takes 2x as much XP to level up (n/a if you're doing milestone leveling) you cannot multiclass you level up 2 subclasses simultaneously. so you can be the ultimate raging tank by being both a beat totem AND zealot barbarian at the same time there is also Gestalt leveling, which has the same downsides, but instead you level up 2 classes simultaneously the sor-lock just got a WHOLE lot more powerful, baby
Once you drink a potion you add an empty bottle, or vial to your inventory. That way when you wanna collect a bit of slime, or similar substance, or use the glass in crafting then you're all set.
Though they havent come yet (Ive only DM'd one session so far) there are 2 rules that I think are cool. The first is all martial classes get the Martial Adept feat for free. It doesnt give them a huge power boost but it lets them do more than attack. The second is that if you dont have disadvantage you cant Crit Fail in a skill you are proficient (I know theyre not RAW anyway but like most tables we use them). That way the level 10 rogue and master of stealth cant just fail because of luck.
i have a few rules i really like. 1. Plot Armor. once per campaign if a player character would die they instead are stabilized. this is because i run about 80/20 percentage to homebrew to official creatures so its to help lessen accidentally having an over powered creature or just general accidents. players can chose not to use it if they feel its best to let the character die. or use their one use in the campaign. 2. getting downed causes exhaustion. in base dnd exhaustion is super rare. to the point some campaigns can go by without it ever coming up. so when a player is knocked unconcious they gain a level of exhaustion. this is to make stabilizing an ally more useful and to nerf healing them for a very low amount of hp and getting them back up. 3. anyone can use spell scrolls. i find it very fucking stupid that the only people who can use spell scrolls are those who have that scroll on their classes spell list. it makes scrolls very underused. and so while someone will need to make an arcana check to use it with a DC of 10+ the spell level anyone from your 4 int barbarian player to your 20 int wizard can still cast spells through scrolls. also allows me to add them to loot and it not just be a useless bauble they will sell off.
Accidents can happen and therefor I really like those life saving rules. I allow players to retcon a situation with an unsatisfying death, BUT they need to take a flaw for it. Lose a leg, gain a phobia, develop a tick, nightmares, ... (They DO gain the experience points they would have got for the flaw at character creation. Not a DnD thing, but fair for most games.)
yah accidents happen and in my experience my plot armor rule does still make them a bit more careful since its once per campaign. on the flaws part i dont do that. they gain scars and shit but not much else and i hate exp systems in ttrpgs as they never reward roleplay and just combat so i use progression leveling and my party all get a level up at the same time and only during the completion of main story quests.@@Haexxchen
@@svartrbrisingr6141 We can give out XP for anything we want. I also give them for plot points. May that be social or battle encounters or even a puzzle. But I am talking about systems, where merits and flaws can be purchased/exchanged for XP at character creation. (I actually don't like DnD rules, but most online content is centere around it, so here I am.)
A few homebrew rules on my games that my players told me they like: -rolling dice when leveling up can be rolled with advantage -having a good map of a wild region can provid advantage on survival cheecks. -Each hour you expend on a hostile enviroment (Forest, swamo, artic region) you have to roll a random enconter table (wich can be combat, RP, both, or none If the creatures are inteligent and do not wish to expose themselvs. -in addition to the previous rule, the hostile regions have the CR table pre determined. (The dark side of the Forest becomes way more scary when you roll on a enconter table that is a few levels above the party. It is not supposed to be Fair, but realistic to the dangerous of the world. Also helps with the feeling of progression when you finally recive a Quest that directs you to a more dangerous place. -a Second addition to the previous 2 homebrew rules, If the group IS in a random encounter region when its night time, the table becomes worse. A table of Challenge 1-4 becomes 5-8 and this way foward. -this one is not homebrew, but its more of a "remember to do more often: *Class locked itens": helps to spread the itens among the party and make sure Everyone gets at least 1 item, instead of on members of the group finding and keeping them all. Homebrew rules that BG3 inspired me to add/make: -some potions can last longer than what the books Tell you. Ex: strengh potions can last up to 8 HOURS (its always been annoying to save thoses and never get the most out of It for being scared tô waste it. And, in the end, they don't even feel like a game changer when used only in one combat. -Some magical itens can give extra spells and bonuses, depending on their origin. Had a were Tiger befriend the group and gift then with his silver-rapier. The wepons gives you a +2 in Nature. Instead of the wepon going to a fighter ir rogue, our druid got the wepon. Just helps spread a bit more of the loot with Everyone and not Just for combat, but helps It with interacting with the world. Theses are the ones I remember from the top of my head
I made a magic mist in the main area of the game. I gave it illusory abilities so people wouldn't wander off and I made a rule regarding magic used within. If a certain elemental or environment spell is cast while in the veil, the user has to roll 1d4. 1 and 4 ensure the spell fails, backfires, or works _too_ well. 2 and 3 let it work as normal, but with a little added flavor text. It's going pretty well too. One guy's begun using false life on himself, running out into weaker mobs, then purposefully trying to fudge a Firebolt roll as a makeshift suicide vest.
Better Backgrounds. This is a bonus set of power ups every odd level based entirely on the character's background. Our Barbarian made moonshine so when he raged he drank a bottle of his moonshine and got a random effect like falling asleep or extra 5 ft of movement. Later levels let him use unusual ingredients like monster parts to get special effects based on the parts. Our divination wizard studied devils and could summon a devil minion. He has an imp and Succubus now. My life cleric is a pirate and he is built to take hits and dish them back. Improved improvised weapons let him deal up to a d8 in damage, he gets a chance to hop back to 1 hp when taken down to 0 and IF he is reduced to 0 he can counter for triple damage. If I get to level 15 that can also be a spell too. Imagine a 3x damage on a Sunburst. That's 36d6 as an AOE.
My DM uses our PC characters' mental state to determine if you get an advantage or disadvantage on rolls. If both your rolls on advantage or disadvantage are 18 and above, he boosts the spell or action you were trying to take. Making it way more powerful than it normally is. If you roll badly 10 and below on both, your character gets disadvantaged the next round. Worse if one of the rolls was a nat 1. It's a fun mechanic to play with and makes role play more interesting.
I got four that have all proven immensely popular. 1) BG3 rules for rituals, spell durations, and short rests. If you need to cast a ritual spell that doesn't require a reagent, you can cast it right away so long as the party is out of combat. Spells witth a duration longer than 1 minute last 'until next short rest' and spells that last longer than 10 go until 'next long rest'. Additionally, a short rest only takes 5-10 minutes but you only get 2 per long rest. Suddenly, players were a lot more willing to do short rests and started doing a lot of stuff they would have avoided even trying before because the ritual takes ****ing 10 minutes to cast. So they start doing stuff like talking to animals (which is fun as heck. 'I'm a fish. Blub blub. You're a big fish. Do you swim through the sky? You're not a fish? But you have scales. Blub blub. What's a dwagonbown? blub?") 2) All newly created characters start with an amount of temp HP equal to their max HP. Turns out, people HATE dying at level 1 because some baddie got a nat 20 before they even got their first turn. But with that little extra padding suddenly not only do player deaths plummet, but the group is generally happier. 3) This one is more behind the scenes but... All nat 1's are, somehow, comedic in nature. The swashbuckling master rogue rolled a nat 1? He accidentally cuts his own belt and his pants fall down. Goblin tries to attack you and rolls a nat 1? He launches himself at you so hard but you deftly step out of the way causing him to smack into a table. Nat 1's have gone from being dreaded to being the highlight of every battle; especially when just the most INSANE stuff actually happens. Like a Succubus rolled a nat 1 on initative once. She was so taken with the rangers pet she spent the entire fight trying to, well, pet the wolf and give him cuddles cause she thought he was just the cutest little thing ever. The party eventually just let her go after giving him a petting and she ended up on friendly terms cause she loved that doggie so much. 4) This was very impromptu. Basically I was playing a drow who was supposed to be NE. In a good-aligned party. Nothing wrong with that; except they kept on insisting she reform, be nice, and everything. Once again, nothing wrong with that, but it felt increasingly out of character for her to be such a goody two-shoes. So I asked the GM if I could do a bit of house ruling and he agreed. Come the following day the party awoke to find their bard extremely irritable and looking very off-color. She explained that drow have certain... needs. They need to, well, be DROW with all that entails and, while they *can* be nice, if they go too long being nice and good and everything without any sort of release, it starts to literally kill them. They NEED to be evil and do all the typical drow stuff because, as cruel as it is to an outsiders viewpoint, it's *healthy* for them. So while they *can* be a sweet and tender loving mother or heroic adventurer, if they can't, say, get their spouse to whip out the handcuffs and whip or have some wild and crazy drow NSFW stuff or all that other stuff, it will eventually *kill* them. This little lore re-write/house ruling changed so much because suddenly people went from encouraging her to be a goody two-shoes, loving mom, loyal wife, heroic figure, and everything into trying to find ways to channel her... drowness... into ways that would help the party. EX: Instead of 'torture is evil' it's 'we need to interrogate this guy and it just so happens our drow needs her daily dose of vitamin Evil... I see a way to resolve both these problems at the same time!' I'm going to see if I can try this with other groups and how well it works out, but I'm looking forwards to an 'orcs NEED to be violent and rage and an orc/half-orc who doesn't will slowly shrivel up and die' set-up and see how players react to that. Might even throw an odd hook and have the orc be a wizard or something. Magical Girl WAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGdoka!
I just love 2 and 3, but naturally do 3 because it is so much fun.^^ 4 is something that is great in the world of darkness. You don't have alignments, but a background system, where you gain back willpower points for acting upon your steretype. BUT you choose one you are on the inside (nature) and one you display to others (demeonor). I think it is far surpirior to the alignment system. Despite having 9 different alignments it feels so black and white.
In my last dnd campaign, we made a homebrew rule for bow damage after watching a video on how bows actually worked. The rule was that your strength determined your damage dice, not the type of bow, as a stronger person would be able to shoot arrows with more force, doing more damage. So a higher strength score would do more potential damage with a short bow than a lower strength using a long bow or recurve bow. Now, you would need a bow that's rated for higher power to do this irl, but as we weren't really getting that many opportunities to change out equipment, nor was the upgrades to strength very often, we chose to forgo that aspect. We also included a "war archer" feat that operated similarly to sharpshooter, -3 attack bonus to add the strength modifier to damage. Because I was playing a ranger, with the numerous bonuses to attack I had, I was still +10 to hit with this active, so I just had it active all the time for the bonus 2-3 damage.
The DM in a game I'm in allows known casters (such as bards and warlocks) to swap out a single spell once every long rest, rather than each level up. It's nice because it gives a little more versatility, but not as much as for a prep caster.
One rule we are using to speed up our game and to make certain spells less cumbersome is that the caster of any summoning spell or polymorph type of spell needs to know whatever he is summoning or turning somebody into. By knowing we mean having an official statblock ready or one that was already approved by the DM. If the player doesn't have the stats ready he can't use the summon/polymorph and needs to pick one he has the stats ready. That way we don't need to search for statblocks during combat or get into discussions if ones somebody found online is ok or being rigged. Also we changed the remove curse spell so it no only removes a curse, but also all magical properties of the item. If one would want to remove a curse and keep the benefitial magic, they would need to remove the curse the proper way, which usually involves passing some kind of ritual for which they need to get some kind of maggufin or something like that. This is a nice way for adding questhooks and if they don't want to do the quest they can still bail out by using the spell.
In my games critical hits get some extra spice. Each crit causes the character to gain a level of exhaustion. It works both ways of course and can make for some very dramatic and desperate combats.
My favourite is a death save rework. Normal death and its rules are so poorly done. Here are my rules in full: Last Stands When a player drops to 0hp, instead of falling unconscious and making 3 death saves, they fall prone, and then make a Last Stand. When they do so, they use Last Stand points. They start with 6 when they fall to 0hp and lose 1 at the start of each turn. They gain 2 on successful death save, losing 1 on a failure. They gain 1 per 10hp healed, lose 1 per 20 damage taken, die if they reach 0 and collapse unconscious but stable if they reach 10. Rolling a natural 20 results in them gaining 5 Last Stand points, and a natural 1 causes them to lose 3. A medicine check as an action of a DC equal to 23 - the amount of Last Stand points a character is on can successfully stabilise them if they have 4 or more Last Stand points, and a healer’s kit is required to make the check if they have fewer than 4 points. If a character has 4 or more Last Stand points and the check is made using a healer’s kit, the DC is reduced by 5. Whilst making a Last Stand, a character is treated as if they had 3 levels of exhaustion, unless they already had more. These levels of exhaustion disappear when the Last Stand ends. On their turn, a character can spend Last Stand points to do various things: ➢ 0 to move
I made a skill tree for my dwarf blacksmith fighter. He could spend points on skills and bonuses in the skill tree to make his warhammers more powerful. Definitely took a while to make, but worth it :)
I haven't actually run a campaign but the rule that I want to implement for monks is that you can go over the normal limit of ki points. The caveat is that if you do so you must roll a con save. If you fail the save you take 1d8 damage (type determined by whatever you were doing) for each level above your normal limit, plus only regenerate half your ki points on the next long rest
Homebrew? I have a good one for you, baby! (Yep, this is for Brian) We all know about the superiority of spellcasters over martial characters. And it seems to me that I have found a solution that slightly (but unfortunately not completely) reduces the gap. All martial characters gain the Battlemaster subclass abilities. Aaand that's all. You get level 3 - you get combat maneuvers, regardless of whether you are a rogue, monk or barbarian. Fighters can choose a second subclass or increase the number of superiority and maneuver dice. Half-casters don't get this bonus, they already have magic. This is not much, but it greatly increases the number of options and actions for the characters. And at the same time, the balance of the game does not suffer at all (in my opinion).A
Regarding the Intelligence thing: Investigation plays a huge role in my games, even just as important as Perception, but for looting bodies, discovering non-magical traps, and a slightly more vague idea of "putting two and two together" which could mean noticing that an apparutus is lined up with a window, or a shopkeeper's ledger has some wrong numbers that indicate they are committing fraud. Also, Arcana (or rather, Spellcasting) checks in combat used to be a lot more common in 3.X when counterspelling was a whole system instead of a single spell that may as well be a reverse Uno card.
"putting two and two together" is more Insight territory. That said, investigation is a very useful skill, and Arcana is quite prevalent so it's nice to have, but everything else intelligence offers is fairly negligible, and it gives literally no benefits beyond improving skills that you could already roll to begin with, so it should definitely do SOMETHING else. I think it giving extra skill proficiencies is a good idea, and I used it in my most recent game, although I didn't limit it to just mental skills. It makes sense too. You might be good at persuasion because you're naturally charismatic... Or you might be good because you read several studies on how to APPEAR more charismatic. You might be good at Athletics because you're naturally strong... Or you might be good at it because you're educated on the exact proper form to execute the most efficient jump, or how to exploit enemy weak points to more effectively grapple them. I also gave a bonus to what is in my opinion the second worst stat, strength, as Dex does pretty much everything it does better, so it's the de facto dumpster for pretty much any caster. It does have its uses, such as grappling, jumping, and carrying capacity, but all of those are either niche or ignored by most tables, so I altered Shields to give it a boost. Shields, instead of giving a flat +2 to your AC, give +1 + your STR Mod (max 2). This buffs shields on strength-based characters who would otherwise likely just use a two-handed weapon, and it encourages characters who would normally dump strength without a second thought to perhaps invest in it, as they won't be able to benefit from their Shield as well as they normally can without at least giving it a +1.
@@SSL_2004It's funny, I actually give insight a lot less weight than it probably deserves. For example, investigation is what you do with the information a person gives to you, Insight is how you look at the way they give it to you, and it is strictly a social skill. When I say "putting two and two together", I was not referring to social situations at all, but rather evidence leading you to something that can't be plainly spotted in a room or location; such as a hidden trap, secret passage, or something disguised to look like something it's not. Ultimately, it's up to how you want to GM your games, and how well (or necessary) you can accomodate your player's play styles, and the balance comes from how you interpret and implement the rules as they are (or in your case, add on to them)
@@SSL_2004this is one big thing i like about pathfinder. The higher your intelligence the more skill points you have to put into different skills. So let’s say you have a +3 to your intelligence with some classes you start at 4 skill “points “ so now you have 7 to put in whatever. Comes in handy if lets say wisdom or charisma are your dump stats cause you can put ranks into things like perception, intimidation, bluff, etc to offset it
No Potionmaker would ever make a healing potion that does not heal much: if your roll is less than half your dice could do, you reroll until you make it high enough.
Better Crits. If you crit on a weapon attack, instead of rolling damage dice twice you roll you dice once and add the maximum number on all dice. So if the rapier deals 1d8 (plus modifiers), a normal crit means you roll 2d8 which means 2 low rolls could mean your crit means nothing. So in my rule they do 1d8 + 8 plus modifiers.
In the Yugioh Themed Campaign my DM ran, cards had their anime effects... example being Card of Sanctity allowing both players to draw til they have 6 cards. Translated loosley into DnD thatd like saying Target one Enemy spell caster withib 30ft if you, restore x number of spell slots of both targets
The best homebrew rule in my D&D game is to use a ruleset that is not D&D, because of I had to run D&D, I would homebrew it until it was unrecognizable as D&D.
3:44 if you look around the internet this has already been done and fairly well. Last I checked there is a you tube video with a creator explaining his way of doing exactly this. His system was cheap to access and well done.
We use the roll under system for stuff like item crafting. Basically everything that would have used the Craft and Profession skills in previous editions. This has a side effect of natural 1 being the best possible result.
Lightning and fire DMG are twice as effective in my campaign. This is because of implants in my game (mixed fantasy/cyberpunk). Insta-kill for lightning if they have a pacemaker or other life-saving implant.
This is only a small change but I love it so much: Being able to change spells during a short rest. This helps fix the imbalance of classes that need short rests and those that dont. Usually classes that dont have a ressource that refiills on a short rest have a spellbook and vice versa. This gives all classes a motivation to short rest and helps remove the situation where one guy has to keep asking for short rests because he is the only one that needs it.
I have an alternative inspiration rule. I give each of my player a coin, and they can use it on any check they make/any check that affects them, making it an advantage/disadvantage (whatever benefits them). However when I have the coin, I can do the exact same. Give disadvantage on one of their checks or advantage one something that affects them. It allows them to always have this Hail Mary when they really need to succeed a hard check, and it allows me to give them a bit of divine karma. There’s also been situations where I wouldn’t allow a check unless they give me their inspiration (it could never work out unless something super lucky would happen) and is generally a flexible rule. We’re still trying it out, but so far it’s more fun than regular inspiration
Less of a rule and more of a tradition my tablemates naturally came up with. In moments where we can’t decide whether our characters will say/do something nice or rude in a situation, they roll a die and decide based on the results of the roll. The “Good Boy Die” is used mostly for low key situations where the player thought of something funny but isn’t sure if they want to say it in character. Not a major shake up by any means but it comes up more than you’d think.
For a little bit of added realism, if we’ve been severely wounded or something similar without any magical healing, our long rest puts us a few points below our maximum because “you can’t sleep off mortal wounds”. Fair.
Two homebrew rules I've heard and like are as followed. If you take a whole turn in coblmbat to drink a potion, the effect is its maximum with no dice needed. The reason is the difficulty and spillage that would occur to drink it on the move as opposed to being in place, also to drink it after you move half distance. The other is for you to get crit damage on someone if you beat their ac by 10 or more. The concept is in you manage to get such a solid hit on someone, there should be a bonus. It would work in reverse as well. By this rule you could theoretically be able to increase your crits say if someone was prone or being held as well to make it easier. Do it and aim for the head or heart for twice the crit, thrice if weapon crit occurs.
I like the idea that if you use an action to consume a health potion, you get the full extent of its benefits, however if you want to attempt to consume a health potion as a bonus action, you have to roll for it, because it insinuates you did it as a second thought and might spill some. Similarly when you’re administering it to a downed player and use an action etc.
In my campaign, I use exhaustion points and starvation points system. If you sleep somewhere in a bad place to (like a nearest ditch) or do not sleep at all for 24 hours, (even worse) you get exhaustion points. Each point decreases max health by 10% and gives -1 to all checks, up to 3 points. But if you sleep in somewhere good and luxurious, then you'll have a "good rest" points that gives opposite. Points of starvation by other hand decreases your max health by 20% and all checks by 2, up to 4 points. You get those if you don't eat enough food throughout the day, but you lose them when you eat all lacking nutrition.
My fav homebrew I use for games: 1. Everyone gains 1 inspiration at start of every session, and they can use it to gain advantage before roll or add d6 to result after roll. 2. Crafting and tools system. Not all players want to craft magic items, but some do and I made my own rules for that. And i am trying to make tools more usefull outside of crafting too. Also am doing "point-buy" crafting rules for homebrew items for them. 3. When you drop to 0hp you need to make DC 10 save (sanity or wisdom) or gain 1 level of exhaustion. DC increase by 5 each time you drop to 0 hp until it reset at end of long rest.
Our best House rule IMO comes in 2 parts: Part 1 is that in initiative monsters always get 7.5. While players roll and plan I set up the mob HP trackers, get stat pages ext. Since players know mobs get 7.5 every time they know as soon as their die comes up if they beat the mobs or not. (7.5 because players can never tie and will usually but not always go first - adjust to your own needs, but keep the .5 on there) Part 2 of that is the players can coordinate their turns - switching orders or working together - as long as everyone involved has a turn before next monster round. Basically the same idea as how BG 3 lets you switch characters if they are grouped.
A game I'm planning on running with friends has a mana point system instead of spell slots. This is a homebrew rule that I'm still fleshing out. Once a spellcaster runs out of mana, they can still cast a spell, but it might very well be the death of them. When a spellcaster without mana casts another spell, whether the conditions of the spell succeed or not, they must make a CON saving throw (starting DC of 10, but increases by 2 every time the caster casts another spell thereafter before taking a short/long rest). If they fail the saving throw, they become inflicted with mananemia, or mana deficiency. There's 5 stages, and 5 almost always results in organ failure or death, or permanent loss of mana (which would effectively "kill" a caster PC). A PC afflicted with mananemia can take a long rest and reduce 1d4 stages, or have a spell like Greater Restoration casted on them by another caster. After this, they will not have regained any mana points until after ANOTHER long rest. I want to try encouraging more spell casting (esp by warlocks that have like no spell slots or known spells), but still add a potentially deadly edge to it. Make a sort of "you can definitely do this, but save it for a bad day" thing
Best home brew rule I use is less of a rule and more of an explanation. Higher level characters CAN take an axe to the face and shrug it off. Hit points are not abstract in any way, shape, or form. It's a magical fantasy world. People that push themselves become hardier because it's magic damn it.
"If your bullshit makes sense, I will entertain the idea at a reasonable cost." If you want to jump ahead your set distance, you can, but it counts as a bonus action. You can attack, but you can't use an item and jump forward in that turn. If you want to help your enemy for a fair fight, you'll be able to do so, but it's up to the enemy pattern to decide whether or not they attack you or the next closest player (This pattern has even helped with developing character interactions with future NPCs). If you want to mix your random food items into a smoothie, roll to see if it succeeds. If it works, you have a unique item with special perks. Want to persuade a shopkeeper into selling it on their shelves? Roll for it, a successful roll will give you 1d10 * itemcost / 3 of the item profits for the next few sessions.
For a bit of fun in a 5e campaign, I homebrewed races from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. The option to play as a moogle was very popular, since each player chose to play as one without communicating with the rest of the party. I don't think it was any of the mechanics that I gave to the subclasses. I think they just wanted to play as small fluffy things that have pom-poms on their heads. That was one of the most enjoyable campaigns for my players and I.
When you hit 0 HP you are not unconscious, but you are bleeding out. Attack rolls against you still have advantage, any hit is a critical and you have disadvantage on strength and dexterity saving throws, You also still make a death save at the start of your turn, but once per round, on your turn (with the exception of a reaction) you can do ONE of the following: 1. Move up to 1/4 of your movement, taking 1 point of exhaustion 2. Move up to 1/2 of your movement, taking 2 points of exhaustion 3. Use a bonus action, taking 2 points of exhaustion 4. Use an action/reaction, taking 3 points of exhaustion Some things to note • While dying, you can still speak weakly without incurring exhaustion • As per rules as written, when you reach 6 levels of exhaustion you die • Taking any noticeable action will possibly aggro nearby enemies (who will not see you as dead), which could be very very bad • You can choose to do nothing (other than your death save) to not draw aggro (doing nothing is effectively identical to current death save rules) • Movement speed stacks with exhaustion, so at 2 or more levels the values of 1 and 2 above become 1/8 and 1/4 respectively • 3 levels of exhaustion does apply disadvantage to subsequent death saves • Other characters can still use an action to administer a potion to the downed character, which they can drink as a free action without incurring exhaustion (also pouring liquid in an unconscious persons mouth is a terrible idea, so remaining conscious and able to actually swallow is a great way to not die of asphyxiation. Literally drowning to death in health potion is just awful!) • Dying condition will also apply to major enemies, which means they could potentially get themselves back up or even have a chance to unleash something devastating with their dying breath. It also can make the killing blow a bit more predictable, allowing for more cinematic moments. The idea isn't that you'd use them every turn, it's that they are available. Much of the time it may well be more advantageous to lie still until someone can get to you. If you're right on the edge of a Cloudkill you can take 2 points of exhaustion to drag yourself out of harms way before collapsing and waiting for help. If the enemy is almost dead you can push yourself up on a knee and take 3 points of exhaustion to make one final blow. If nobody can get to you in time you can use a bonus action to get yourself back up with a health potion, but at a serious cost. It increases survivability a bit, but that can easily be made up for by throwing bigger, nastier enemies at you [😈] It also makes character death much more meaningful since you're still in the fight and can intentionally take actions that you know could lead to your own death, instead of doing nothing and leaving it entirely to random chance. Rules as written, your character's vision goes dark and then you spend a few turns doing nothing but rolling to see if they wake back up or not. Now imagine lying there, bleeding out, watching your friends fall around you. You are weak and feel helpless, waiting for someone to rush over and give you a health potion. You muster what little strength you have left to drag yourself away from the nearby lava pool to avoid taking further damage from it. You fail your first two death saves. You have 4 points of exhaustion. The last of your friends scrambles over to you, but suddenly gasps, blood trickling from their mouth as they collapse to the ground, an arrow in their back. Your eyes lock with theirs as they reach a weak hand out to you, but it comes up short. You close your eyes, remembering the adventures you've had, the places you've seen, the friends you've made along the way. You feel at peace. You struggle to breathe, but you no longer feel the pain. You open your eyes and look around at your friends, lying on the ground nearby. You have just enough strength to choke out a raspy whisper, almost imperceptible. With one final breath, a single word escapes your lips. A word of healing. Mass healing.
PERSONALLY, I take intelligence and I measure attunement slots based off of it. So your attunement slots equal your proficiency bonus plus your intelligence modifier (Min 1) so if you have a 10 int at level 1, you have 2 attunement slots but if you're int I'd a 20 and you're at 13th level you can attunement 10 items
My personal favorite is "backrooms rolls" The concept is simple, before the start of every session, the DM and players each publicly roll 2d20. If a player rolls 2 nat 1s, they are teleported to the backrooms, and embark on pretty much an entire improvised session to escape, where I as the DM only have a few denizens of the backrooms fleshed out, and the challenges and encounters are all theater of the mind, improvised moments. If the DM rolls 2 nat 1s, the entire party slips into the backrooms instead. This has only occurred once in the 2.5 years since the rule was created, but the resulting session of that player's chaotic adventure through the backrooms, watched by the peanut gallery of players around him, was so iconic among our group that the rule has become a staple of our campaigns.
I like the curse item idea, it gave me an idea for a kind of 'curse-smith' trade, where mundane items can pick up a magical curse and such items can made into 'basic' magical items by a skilled tradesman. This could, naturally, lead to all kinds of conflicts, different nations having different regulations on cursed items, curse-smiths and also smuggling and black markets. Along with criminal groups doing the obvious thing and 'manufacturing' a steady supply of lucrative magical material.
I have several as I've played for 4 decades, but here are a couple . 1) 3/4 static HP. At 1st level you get max HP for your hit dice . There after you get 3/4 max. This prevents the barbarian from rolling 1 or 2 while the wizard rolls 4 most the time and becoming more tanky than the barbarian. Barbarians ( a D12 class ) get 12 + con mod at 1st level and then 9+ con mod every level thereafter. The wizard (D4 class) gets 4+ con mod at 1st and then 3+ con mod thereafter. For D6 and D10 classes the D6 classes at 2nd and later levels alternate 5 then 4 then 5 then 4 etc. D10 the alternating numbers are 8 and 7. 2) Damage reduction armor : in 3.5 attended armor cannot be sundered. This eventually leads to the mithral breastplate of never damaged ( mithral reduces the medium armor to light which can be slept in without fatigue meaning its never unattended) . I believe armor should be damageable ( more realistic) . In my worlds armor provides 1/2 It's normal AC bonus . It also provides the remainder of its " AC bonus" as damage reduction. The armor also has 10 x its normal AC bonus in Armor points ( hit points for armor) . In the case the armor provides an odd number the higher half is AC and the remainder is DR. When a character takes damage this is an example of how it would break down: character wearing studded leather ( armor bonus +2 DR 1 armor points 30 ) take 6 damage the armor reduces the damage to 5. 3 of that damage is dealt to the armor. The character takes 2 Damage. The armor now has 27 armor points. There's a little more that goes into it ie as the armor is damaged it loses DR and AC , but the basics of the home rule are as described above. The downside ( for players ) is you have to repair your armor. The upside is that the armor absorbs some of that damage you would normally take so ... increased survivability. This rule lead to a change In the spell "make whole" , but that's another story.
I think these things (HP and attributes) should never be rolled at character creation or later. It is totally frustrating if everyone is on a different power curve, builds resentment or makes well planned characters weaker. This is nothing, tthat should be luck based. (Same as potions btw.) I remember re-rolling my BG1+2 characters over and over until I got a total of 50+ points to spend... Stupid.
i wanted to play a Bladesinging wizard that was 1/3 support, 1/3 melle and 1/3 ranged spells. i struggled with the support, grabbing spells like healing elixir or wither and bloom was all i could do. but then, my dm made a ruling that everytime i start the bladesong, i roll a d20. 1-13 - no added effects, 14-19 - i choose 1 ally within 40ft of me and give him inspiration or bardic inspiration (d8), i could choose. 20- every ally gets inspiration or bardic inspirration (d12) (bardic inspiration bcuz lorewise, when Aerendyl {my wizard foreclaimer, a hb race from dingo doodles} was starting the bladesong, he starts singing "providence" from poor mans poison and playing it on his medieval guitar/keyboard )
Players and Pcs can curse others at death, and breaking an oath or promise also curses you. make it proportional to the power of the person, or the magnitude of the oath/promise
I am a little late to this and have not DMed my own game yet but I have a homebrew rule that you can cast more spells than you have spell slots but there are consequences for overusing this power. 1 example is that wizards gain disadvantage on all checks that use their mind. Another would be sorcerers would start to feel their blood boil as they keep overusing their magic. Warlocks would have their patron"s start messing with their powers or begin to be constricted and be unable to move if they abuse their gifted power. These are just a few examples of how this rule would work.
Getting rid of the popup healing tactic (allowing characters to drop and then heal them for a small amount to get them back into combat) by giving a level of exhaustion when dropped to zero HP.
Crunchy Crits. When you roll a crit, you roll the damage normally but then add the maximum that you could have rolled. This includes Sneak Attack and Smites and the like.
For my homebrew rule we made it so that crits give you a max damage roll plus whatever you roll so if your attack deals 4d8, you get 32 damage plus what ever you roll so you dont get boned by luck by rolling low.
One of my rules, thankfully one I haven’t had to implement yet, is that if a PC dies while conscious in combat they get one free action to do something heroic before their time is over. I seriously need to implement a time limit though, combat always takes forever.
One my dm does is called the let it slide die. Where you take a d6 and the dm determines what you need to succeed such as and odd number, even number, 4+, or 3-. The roll is essentially hey thats a really cool thing your doing this is to see if it works. With this rule one of players managed to have a train jump over i giant sandworm creature.
“You have a specific amount of time to complete all the objectives. When you hit 0 HP, you roll a 1d4 on a successful death save or 2d4 on a failed save. Your roll dictates how many weeks you will take to recover, keeping you out of any story progression locked behind combat
If you roll a nat 20 to hit in combat it hits regardless of AC. One of my players said this was a “homebrew rule” cuz they didn’t know I was doing it for my campaign. Looks like my homebrew rule is so good they added it to the official rules lol.
Two fun ones: 1) BS Point: 1/Long Rest a 20+ Int or Wis character gets to freely solve a puzzle or make an insight of choice, or the GM warns them of a bad decision/option being made. 2) Martial Classes add Proficiency Bonus to Initiative. A third tip would be to rewrite the entire 5e crafting system. Too expensive for how weak the magic is
In my campaign, instead of death saves, the DM has you roll play flashbacks, with a random question like “You remember your best moment.” This is useful if you would rather not die, but it does decrease the risk, so it isn’t for everyone.
Don't usually comment but wanted to say the editing choice to add the sound/ titlecard for narrator/scriptwriter thoughts is appreciated. I often have these videos on in the background and being able to identity which thoughts are from the original post and which are your comments is nice, so I definitely hope y'all keep it up!
for the int stat I took from d20 slayers where pc get a number of spells equal to their int mod, I would limit it to cantrip or maybe 1st level give them a level 1 wizard spell slot or use magic points a second option Anyone can cast spells they have the same spell slot progressive as a wizard or use of magic points. To cast they must have knowledge on how to cast it either by reading it in a book or scroll or seen it casted before, they make an arcane check to see if they remember how it was casted. The dc is 10+spell level, on a success check cast the spell as normal or fail they lose the spell slot and action.
Epithets are exactly as you think, names and titles for the character. You get them 1st level but it replaces feats. But they can range in craziness. As you progress through story you can become known for another reason. And that’s how your epithet and its ability can change.
I am thinking of making a combat rule where if you miss a weapon attack, you only deal half damage. You also don't gain any benefit from spells or effects that would increase the damage beyond your typical hit. I think it makes martials no longer have waisted attacks.
On a skill check: If it’s a Nat1, after all modifiers and bonuses, subtract your Proficiency modifier. If it’s a Nat20, after all modifiers and bonuses, add your Proficiency modifier.
So, they rolled their lowest possible outcome and are fucked over even more by going into negative numbers? What's happening here? Is a Nat 1 that lands on a 2 less bad than one that lands on -3?
The bigger they are the harder they fall rule: damage dice from falling damage scales up and down with size catagory, a small character will only have to roll d4s while an enlarged character will have to roll d8s. It benefits players for the most part since most things size category large or bigger are going to be monsters they are fighting.
My main one is on regular "trash" enemies, a nat 20 is a kill, not double damage, and removed vorpal weapons. My interpretation is that hitting a weak or vital area on most things is basically a death sentence. Players and "boss" enemies are much stronger than average goons making them exempt from the rule
My best rule: Small creatures do not have disadvantage with heavy weapons. Creatures with less than 13 Strength have disadvantage with heavy weapons. I did this because it doesn't make sense that the 18 strength Halfling Barbarian who is in full rage mode has a gimped chance to hit with a greatsword... compared to our geriatric wizard with 7 strength and psoriasis.
I think small creatures should rather have that disadvantage with huge weapons, because a sword double your size is kinda hard to handle, not because it is heavy, but because the movement is akward. Think of moving house and carrying a 20kg box or a 20kg bed frame dwn the stairs. You need help with the bed frame, even though you can perfectly lift it strength wise.
I don't really do nat 1s or 20s on skills (as per the rules), but I do have The D4 of Fate: on a 1 on a d20 roll, the roller can choose to roll a d4. On a 4, the result becomes a success, on a 2 or 3, treat the 1 as the rolled number, and add modifers as normal. On a 1, however, the result is a failure and something additionally bad happens. I did it because I kinda like the idea of taking a chance on fate to help improve a bad situation, but also the idea of a double nat 1 having something go wrong. Also, the d4 is not limited to once a turn, but also they are not mandatory; it's always a choice.
its probably a simple one but asi/feat choice at character level instead of class level.. this opens up much easier multiclassing as you arent worried about losing out on a feat or asi just because you're a 3/5 split instead of a 4/4 split..
Not my or my current table, but one DM I played with online. When you hit 0 HP, you roll 1 Death save, succeed and gain an exhaustion level instead and stay at 1. Fail, you fall unconscious, but have 1HP. If Crit don't suffer negative effects of an Exhaustion level. If Crit Fail, you roll again next turn, fail again, you die, Crit fail twice, you get -1 to Level if resurrected, to a minimum of 1. If your HP hits 0, you die. If you die from Exhaustion in combat, you can't be resurrected. Unless by True Ressurection. Really upped the stakes of combat.
I allow each of my players 1 free level up per campaign. It is instant and also acts as a long rest. I tell them about it in their session 0 and they can use it at any point in the campaign. They seem to like having it in their back pocket to turn the tied of a hard battle or really double down on an important role play moment for their character. Recently the party was losing a battle to the rangers arch enemy they had been tracking since session 1 as all looked lost he finally used it (we’re like 1.5 years into this campaign) to pull him self back from the brink of death the be able to strike down his nemesis.
The one with the curse on death items. Would make a positive spin caveat. So getting to death saves and getting back up from self stabilize not magical healing. Would increase the power of a random item. With a nat 20 being a reflection of pure force of will which grants a major magical evolution, the item becomes a growth item and gains intelligence. When the player rps things that fit thw personality of that item it grows in power. And thats how legendary items are made. This may even magically reshape the item to look cooler. And when these items show up in future campaigns held by there old pc or their decendants npcs.. well there ya go too
I suppose it's a homebrew rule but it's really more of a practice that helps curb metagaming and it goes like this. When you encounter a monster I will do one of two things. 1) I will tell you "This is a " and that is the player's cue that knowledge of this monster is common. You know what a troll is and you know its weaknesses. or 2) I will describe the creature but not name it and I will allow an appropriate check to identify it. So if for some reason I made trolls rare in my campaign I can go yes with an DC5 nature check you know what a troll is and know they're weak to fire.
A Homebrew I've been working with is shared initiative by the party. So the party will always go first in combat and then the monsters will follow up after. And inspired by Monster Hunter the enemies have a stunning threshold so if the party deals enough damage in that round the monster is stunned for his turn. To counteract this it also allows me to use slightly tougher enemies for my party to help even things back out. My party has loved the challenges, and I love using certain enemies that some campaigns may not get the chance to use, or the chance to show how scary an enemy can be when encountered outside of the recommended CR.
The rule I like is a once per campaign, every player gets a "I know a guy" moment. It's a no question asked, get out of jail free card for any role play moment. They give me a brief rundown of the NPC and we go from there.
That's the beauty of this hobby. Haven't come across that one yet. Thanks
We used that one time.
My character had mafia ties and I used the I know a guy to get us false identities to get around town because we got framed and needed to get in somewhere where the actual perpetrator was.
Good. I’ll be a cleric and roleplay calling for divine intervention without actually using the ability 🤣
Either you have the same rule as my DM, or you are my DM! Mitchell, is that you?
I use this rule, but instead of a once-per-campaign limitation, I simply leave it to reasonable connection and not being overused (DM discretion). Upon declaration and approval, that NPC exists, and the player gives a brief description while leaving room for the DM to flesh out the NPC. DM will then roll a Charisma check behind the screen with the players CHA modifier to determine the NPCs reaction to the PC, whether very friendly, pleasantly acquainted, neutral, disapproving, or even hostile. Neither the PC nor player knows the result until the NPC is met.
I leave it open to use because I personally love my players manipulating the world in a realistic way. People know people, and generally, they know a lot of people. How well and how good the relationships are vary wildly, however. Thankfully, my players are very respectful of not abusing this, and so far, has only been used twice in some 40 sessions, but both times were fantastic.
A slight mod to this rule is making up histories with NPCs. For example, one player is a merc and the party were on a mission with mercs from his old outfit. He got into a bad disagreement with one of the NPC mercs and started talking about a contract they took together years ago, and I played along with it naturally. It ended up making for a really cool narrative encounter.
"If you can explain in detail why it works, i'll allow it"
Once I had a @$&!ing stupid DM that wouldn’t let the players do things that made perfect sense. i.e. I was a Druid and wanted to be a giant octopus, and to become an animal as a Druid you must’ve seen it before. I came up with two reasons why I had seen one. Once washed up on the shore of the swords coast and once being sold at the waterdeep market. He said it didn’t make sense as I had made it up on the go and it was no where in my backstory. IT’S NOT LIKE IM GOING TO WRITE DOWN EVERYSINGLE DAM ANIMAL MY CHARACTER HAS SEEN IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE, LIKE WTH??? Anyway I’m still salty about it to this day and it truly pisses me off when DM’s don’t realize that the point of D&D is to have a good experience with your friends and the wacky things you do in game, and yes there are instances when your players can be unreasonable, but it would get to the point where I’d leave the session less happy then when I’d entered it.
As an English/bullshitting a reason nerd, this is too much power for me to hold
Yeah. I let our orc barbarian give advantage to the rogue for stealth on opening a door. I asked how he did that. He said he drooled over the hinges. It was funny in the moment. Now I have to decide if the hinges are exposed for every door they want to open quietly to see if the orc is going to drool on them...
@@isaacporter6450 Ehh tbf without context, i still side with your GM on that one. Regular octopus? Sure. Thing with stat sheet? Unless I have thrown it at you*, no.
@@isaacporter6450
Next campaign, hand him a 300 pages bundle, detailing every single animal your character has ever seen during their lifetime, every single experience they've had, all poisons they've heard of, every tale they were told as a kid, the shape and location of every large rock you've visited...
Back in like 2020 one of my favorite characters died and I was devastated. I tried to figure out any and all bargaining chips I had. Luckily I thought of something so stupid it worked. I asked, “If I can drink this 2-liter of sprite within five minutes can I be granted one wish?” My DM, who was very much intrigued, said, “Bet.” I began destroying that 2-liter so fast it hurt. The burping and the pain was well worth it though seeing as my character is alive and kicking now in 2024. To this day he has a rule that once per campaign you can take the challenge and gain, “The Sprite to a Wish.”
That sounds awful and I love it
AO be like " amuse me puny mortal and gain my favor", lmao
As a fellow drink chugger I respect the hustle
In one of the campaigns I’m part of right now, my DM and the group basically came up with the rule that if you take a Healing potion you have two options:
1.) As an action, it’s the full 8 points of healing.
2.) As a bonus action, it’s whatever the d8 determines it to be.
The idea is that in you’re making sure that you get the full effect of the potion when taking an action and are focusing on consuming every last drop of it. When taking it as a bonus action, it’s done quicker and your character is not as focused as they would be when taking the full potion (I like to imagine you’re so focused on the situation that they might be spilling the potion or could end up choking on it in their haste to heal).
I like it.
I use this one too!
Yoooo that’s a good one. Using it from now on
I think XP to Level 3 also talked about this -- an action gives max health (2d4+2, so that's 10), but a bonus action is done by the book
Challenge rolls. One of our DMs can never remember if ties go in the favor of the attacker or the defender when it comes to exactly matching ACs or DCs, so if that happens, he and the player roll a d20, and the description of the scene gets MUCH more cinematic. Players *barely* duck under the sword aimed for their face, or *nearly* collapse from the poison they managed to overcome.
This is cool. Especially the fact that it gets more cinematic. Love that!
DC was clarified to me when I first started out as "meet or beat," so ties are in favor of the attacker, with the odd exception of the examples given in the PHB of "character(s) trying to bar a door vs. character(s) trying to force said door open," where a tie results in an unchanged state
Brutal criticals; when a crit is rolled for an attack, roll your dice as normal and add the max value of the dice on top, so a 1d6+4 becomes 1d6+10. It makes criticals feel much more punchier and meaningful
😅😅😅 and i was sure i was original when i came up with the same rule👍👍👍
Crunchy crits! We apply that to enermy crits too doe =D.
Ah yes, the Perkins critical. I do like that one.
in my campaign, if you wore chainmail or full plate armor you were immune to slashing damage because you cant cut through chainmail or steel plate. chainmail could still be defeated with blunt and piercing damage but plate could only be beaten by blunt damage. it made fighting knights, guards, paladins, and other heavily armored enemies more difficult and we had to find a way to subvert the armor through magic, the environment, or pulling actual tactics from history like switching the grip on our swords to the "mordhau" grip (grabbing the sword by the blade and bludgeoning them with the hilt) for weak blunt damage, or having one person grapple them while someone else stabs the person in the face or throat. we also had it so headshots were almost always lethal, slit/stabbed throats would take 30 seconds to knock someone out and 30 more seconds to kill them, and being stabbed in the heart would kill you after 5 minutes. all to represent more accurate combat because we were all medieval nerds and we had a med student in the group.
I believe what you are describing as "Mordau grip" is actually called "Half Swording" unless you knew that, then you can disregard this. Also a medieval nerd, to an extent myself.
Also I enjoy the non-instant death, reading Wereworld by Curtis Joblin, and I find it annoying when someone is stabbed in the heart/stomach and somehow the character "Dies" instantly when they should still be able to do something before they actually die. (Unless beheaded.)
@@adtrlthegamer7449 i have heard people call the "mordhau" kind of grip "half swording" too but people more commonly say "half swording" to refer to grabbing the sword halfway down the blade for better thrusting control, so i just call them what i hear most others call them.
Castles & Crusades has optional rules for a similar style of play in its Castle Keeper’s Guide. High damage reduction against slashing weapons for chain/plate armor as well as special mechanics for hitting different body parts (each body part has its own HP pool based on the creature’s total HP, and you can either roll a d8 to see where you hit or do a called shot to target specific locations). IIRC, reducing a target’s head or torso to 0 HP forces a CON save that can result in instant incapacitation or death.
I mean I like the idea, but you're only nerfing martials more, like they need to be any weaker...
I like the cursed item rule, but I'd change it a little bit. I'd make it so it only effects items that are attuned to the deceased, and rather than trauma due to the death, it's a result of the attunement being suddenly corrupted/turned off like a computer unplugged while it's updating.
There wasn't a " wisdom " save in 3.5. There was fortitude , reflex and willpower saves. I'm sure the mention of the wrong saves was just an oversight. But I thought it was worth a reminder.
My DM created, more of a system than a rule, called "burn".
What it does is take the existing system of "Exhaustion" and gives it value to the players as last resort bursts.
The difference is that you gain the ability to do things that you normally couldn't with each roll. Such as casting multiple high-level spells on the same turn or taking multiple attacks or even breaking free of previous restrictions/spells.
The obvious downside being that with each point of burn you take, the more exhaustion effects you gain and the closer to death you become.
There are 6 total points of burn that act like their equivalent number of exhaustion. Ex: 1 point - disadvantage on rolls. 6 points - Death.
The more points you use at once, the higher the effect.
In essence, you are "burning away" your life force to try to get just a little more out of your turn to help your party.
I love that. Let them be fucking heros!
A rule my players enjoy is my "dice karma" system. Basically, it's meant to soften the blow of terrible dice rolls and help reduce the feeling of your efforts being ruined by bad luck. Whenever a player rolls a natural 4 or lower on a d20 roll and fail whatever they were attempting, they gain a "karma point", which carry over between sessions. A player can then spend their karma points after making a d20 roll to effectively change the roll they got, to a max of 20, naturally. So, for example, if a player had a string of terrible rolls in the past and has 8 karma points, and they roll a natural 15, they could spend 5 of their karma points to make it as if they rolled a natural 20. It isn't tacked on as a modifier, but as an alteration to their roll, so while it could turn a normal roll into a critical hit or save the player from a critical failure, it can't modify the roll any higher than what they'd get if they rolled a natural 20. So, for DMs who don't count nat 20's as auto successes, if you wouldn't succeed even on a nat 20, you can't use karma points to bump it any higher - it's purely to tilt luck more in the favor of the players, not serve as a means to accomplish things you normally couldn't.
I have two rules that I kinda like.
1. Everyone can cast spells from scrolls. The problem is that if the said spell does not belong in your class (or if your class just cannot cast spells), you have no idea what the spell does. Makes for some very interesting moments.
2. Divine magic, such as that produced by paladins and clerics, has a sort of flavour depending on the god that grants that magic. For example, Talona's magic makes all the enemies feel poisoned and sick, but does not actually grant the POISONED condition. It does not have any mechanical effects, but it makes for good flavour
1:16 seriously? How does he get ADHD struggles better than most of my teachers??? Thanks man.
It doesn't get cooler than the Rule of Cool. Creativity and a well thought-out maneuver deserves its reward, within reason.. (especially if you know they're gonna succeed anyways!! Literally zero harm, then)
I agree with you completly. I've had a blast the times the rule of cool came to play when I've been a DM.
I have my PVP rules. To avoid PVP being used to solve out of character drama, but to leave the options available for in character drama I have a rule that any PVP, upon initiation, may only be done with consent of the player who’s character is opposing the check. If you roll to attack a PC, the targeted player does not want to do that, the action never happens. This includes any rolls for combat, actions that force another to save, opposed skill checks, any attempt to steal from another’s inventory, or any other action as ruled by the DM. Due to the nature of the game, there is an implied consent is give for hostile acts against characters controlled by the DM. The only exception to this is that Consent must be given to romance any character played anyone at the table because it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law.
That's in my session zero contract. Any game I do, not matter the platform.
- PvP is only allowed if ALL players are fine with it.
- PvP might only be initiated, when both players agreed on it. (The GM is to inform/consult.)
- You can always decide to fail, but have to roll if you suceed.
I once played in a cmpaign, where the two players shared their body. I knew we were a split personality, he did not. (GM did not tell me the BBEG was number 3, lol.)
Absolutely LOVED that campaign, but the other player was just not into it, when he found out. It would not have worked with his explicit concent. But he didn't deal with it well and the character felt taken away from him. So a few sessions later the group crumbled, sadly.
Since then, I try to be very mindful of when I do things like that and ensure everyone is clear about the expectations.
I'm a simple woman, I see Mr ripper, I click
my DM lets any race with a breath weapon have access to the breath weapon recharge mechanic. it makes breath weapons actually viable in combat, and if it doesn't do much due to resistances, counters, or reactions, you never feel like you wasted it. rolling a 6 on a d6 comes up rarely enough to actually feel balanced in the long run.
I will respectufully steal this one thank you
One rule I have in my campaign is if you roll a natural 20 you get to roll again if you get yourself another match 20 (19 if you are a champion) so you do full damage. In my campaign Homebrew, this was one of the biggest things that people actually got excited about.
The Rogue in the group role for True damage and what would usually be like 3D6 (sneak) plus 1d6 for a sneak attack and if it becomes a critical.
In other words, the Rogue managed to successfully nuke an enemy.
Heck I even give extra bonus depending on contact sensitivity, like one of them the champion rolled two natural twenties in a row the other enemies had a sheer heart attack dying instantly
One of my favorites is if you call a shot for targeting a specific part of an enemy and you roll five higher than it's AC or score in that 20. There would be some sort of debuff granted to the enemy. But if the enemy had higher than 11 intelligence. They could use the same. I used it for more gritty kind of campaigns and it worked out well
not technically HB, but a few alternative rules from the Star Wars 5e PBH that the groups I play in use for DnD
crit rules:
2x the damage dice, but half of those are automatically maxed
basically, roll like normal and add a max roll to whatever you roll on top of your normal modifiers
this finds the perfect middle ground for making crits feel impactful without making them OP.
the max damage you can do is unchanged, but the minimum damage is significantly increased
nothing feels worse than getting a nat 20 with your great sword...only do teal 8 damage (minimum damage roll+ +4 str mod)
with this rule, the minimum damage you can deal with a greatsword on that nat 20 is 18
Dichotomous leveling:
the rules for this are simple
it takes 2x as much XP to level up (n/a if you're doing milestone leveling)
you cannot multiclass
you level up 2 subclasses simultaneously. so you can be the ultimate raging tank by being both a beat totem AND zealot barbarian at the same time
there is also Gestalt leveling, which has the same downsides, but instead you level up 2 classes simultaneously
the sor-lock just got a WHOLE lot more powerful, baby
Once you drink a potion you add an empty bottle, or vial to your inventory. That way when you wanna collect a bit of slime, or similar substance, or use the glass in crafting then you're all set.
Though they havent come yet (Ive only DM'd one session so far) there are 2 rules that I think are cool. The first is all martial classes get the Martial Adept feat for free. It doesnt give them a huge power boost but it lets them do more than attack. The second is that if you dont have disadvantage you cant Crit Fail in a skill you are proficient (I know theyre not RAW anyway but like most tables we use them). That way the level 10 rogue and master of stealth cant just fail because of luck.
By RAW there are no Crit fails on checks
@@sidecharacter7165 I said that
i have a few rules i really like.
1. Plot Armor. once per campaign if a player character would die they instead are stabilized. this is because i run about 80/20 percentage to homebrew to official creatures so its to help lessen accidentally having an over powered creature or just general accidents. players can chose not to use it if they feel its best to let the character die. or use their one use in the campaign.
2. getting downed causes exhaustion. in base dnd exhaustion is super rare. to the point some campaigns can go by without it ever coming up. so when a player is knocked unconcious they gain a level of exhaustion. this is to make stabilizing an ally more useful and to nerf healing them for a very low amount of hp and getting them back up.
3. anyone can use spell scrolls. i find it very fucking stupid that the only people who can use spell scrolls are those who have that scroll on their classes spell list. it makes scrolls very underused. and so while someone will need to make an arcana check to use it with a DC of 10+ the spell level anyone from your 4 int barbarian player to your 20 int wizard can still cast spells through scrolls. also allows me to add them to loot and it not just be a useless bauble they will sell off.
Accidents can happen and therefor I really like those life saving rules.
I allow players to retcon a situation with an unsatisfying death, BUT they need to take a flaw for it. Lose a leg, gain a phobia, develop a tick, nightmares, ...
(They DO gain the experience points they would have got for the flaw at character creation. Not a DnD thing, but fair for most games.)
yah accidents happen and in my experience my plot armor rule does still make them a bit more careful since its once per campaign.
on the flaws part i dont do that. they gain scars and shit but not much else and i hate exp systems in ttrpgs as they never reward roleplay and just combat so i use progression leveling and my party all get a level up at the same time and only during the completion of main story quests.@@Haexxchen
@@svartrbrisingr6141 We can give out XP for anything we want.
I also give them for plot points. May that be social or battle encounters or even a puzzle.
But I am talking about systems, where merits and flaws can be purchased/exchanged for XP at character creation. (I actually don't like DnD rules, but most online content is centere around it, so here I am.)
A few homebrew rules on my games that my players told me they like:
-rolling dice when leveling up can be rolled with advantage
-having a good map of a wild region can provid advantage on survival cheecks.
-Each hour you expend on a hostile enviroment (Forest, swamo, artic region) you have to roll a random enconter table (wich can be combat, RP, both, or none If the creatures are inteligent and do not wish to expose themselvs.
-in addition to the previous rule, the hostile regions have the CR table pre determined. (The dark side of the Forest becomes way more scary when you roll on a enconter table that is a few levels above the party. It is not supposed to be Fair, but realistic to the dangerous of the world. Also helps with the feeling of progression when you finally recive a Quest that directs you to a more dangerous place.
-a Second addition to the previous 2 homebrew rules, If the group IS in a random encounter region when its night time, the table becomes worse. A table of Challenge 1-4 becomes 5-8 and this way foward.
-this one is not homebrew, but its more of a "remember to do more often: *Class locked itens": helps to spread the itens among the party and make sure Everyone gets at least 1 item, instead of on members of the group finding and keeping them all.
Homebrew rules that BG3 inspired me to add/make:
-some potions can last longer than what the books Tell you. Ex: strengh potions can last up to 8 HOURS (its always been annoying to save thoses and never get the most out of It for being scared tô waste it. And, in the end, they don't even feel like a game changer when used only in one combat.
-Some magical itens can give extra spells and bonuses, depending on their origin. Had a were Tiger befriend the group and gift then with his silver-rapier. The wepons gives you a +2 in Nature. Instead of the wepon going to a fighter ir rogue, our druid got the wepon. Just helps spread a bit more of the loot with Everyone and not Just for combat, but helps It with interacting with the world.
Theses are the ones I remember from the top of my head
I made a magic mist in the main area of the game. I gave it illusory abilities so people wouldn't wander off and I made a rule regarding magic used within. If a certain elemental or environment spell is cast while in the veil, the user has to roll 1d4. 1 and 4 ensure the spell fails, backfires, or works _too_ well. 2 and 3 let it work as normal, but with a little added flavor text.
It's going pretty well too. One guy's begun using false life on himself, running out into weaker mobs, then purposefully trying to fudge a Firebolt roll as a makeshift suicide vest.
Better Backgrounds. This is a bonus set of power ups every odd level based entirely on the character's background.
Our Barbarian made moonshine so when he raged he drank a bottle of his moonshine and got a random effect like falling asleep or extra 5 ft of movement. Later levels let him use unusual ingredients like monster parts to get special effects based on the parts.
Our divination wizard studied devils and could summon a devil minion. He has an imp and Succubus now.
My life cleric is a pirate and he is built to take hits and dish them back. Improved improvised weapons let him deal up to a d8 in damage, he gets a chance to hop back to 1 hp when taken down to 0 and IF he is reduced to 0 he can counter for triple damage. If I get to level 15 that can also be a spell too. Imagine a 3x damage on a Sunburst. That's 36d6 as an AOE.
My DM uses our PC characters' mental state to determine if you get an advantage or disadvantage on rolls. If both your rolls on advantage or disadvantage are 18 and above, he boosts the spell or action you were trying to take. Making it way more powerful than it normally is. If you roll badly 10 and below on both, your character gets disadvantaged the next round. Worse if one of the rolls was a nat 1. It's a fun mechanic to play with and makes role play more interesting.
I got four that have all proven immensely popular.
1) BG3 rules for rituals, spell durations, and short rests. If you need to cast a ritual spell that doesn't require a reagent, you can cast it right away so long as the party is out of combat. Spells witth a duration longer than 1 minute last 'until next short rest' and spells that last longer than 10 go until 'next long rest'. Additionally, a short rest only takes 5-10 minutes but you only get 2 per long rest. Suddenly, players were a lot more willing to do short rests and started doing a lot of stuff they would have avoided even trying before because the ritual takes ****ing 10 minutes to cast. So they start doing stuff like talking to animals (which is fun as heck. 'I'm a fish. Blub blub. You're a big fish. Do you swim through the sky? You're not a fish? But you have scales. Blub blub. What's a dwagonbown? blub?")
2) All newly created characters start with an amount of temp HP equal to their max HP. Turns out, people HATE dying at level 1 because some baddie got a nat 20 before they even got their first turn. But with that little extra padding suddenly not only do player deaths plummet, but the group is generally happier.
3) This one is more behind the scenes but... All nat 1's are, somehow, comedic in nature. The swashbuckling master rogue rolled a nat 1? He accidentally cuts his own belt and his pants fall down. Goblin tries to attack you and rolls a nat 1? He launches himself at you so hard but you deftly step out of the way causing him to smack into a table. Nat 1's have gone from being dreaded to being the highlight of every battle; especially when just the most INSANE stuff actually happens. Like a Succubus rolled a nat 1 on initative once. She was so taken with the rangers pet she spent the entire fight trying to, well, pet the wolf and give him cuddles cause she thought he was just the cutest little thing ever. The party eventually just let her go after giving him a petting and she ended up on friendly terms cause she loved that doggie so much.
4) This was very impromptu. Basically I was playing a drow who was supposed to be NE. In a good-aligned party. Nothing wrong with that; except they kept on insisting she reform, be nice, and everything. Once again, nothing wrong with that, but it felt increasingly out of character for her to be such a goody two-shoes. So I asked the GM if I could do a bit of house ruling and he agreed. Come the following day the party awoke to find their bard extremely irritable and looking very off-color. She explained that drow have certain... needs. They need to, well, be DROW with all that entails and, while they *can* be nice, if they go too long being nice and good and everything without any sort of release, it starts to literally kill them. They NEED to be evil and do all the typical drow stuff because, as cruel as it is to an outsiders viewpoint, it's *healthy* for them. So while they *can* be a sweet and tender loving mother or heroic adventurer, if they can't, say, get their spouse to whip out the handcuffs and whip or have some wild and crazy drow NSFW stuff or all that other stuff, it will eventually *kill* them.
This little lore re-write/house ruling changed so much because suddenly people went from encouraging her to be a goody two-shoes, loving mom, loyal wife, heroic figure, and everything into trying to find ways to channel her... drowness... into ways that would help the party. EX: Instead of 'torture is evil' it's 'we need to interrogate this guy and it just so happens our drow needs her daily dose of vitamin Evil... I see a way to resolve both these problems at the same time!'
I'm going to see if I can try this with other groups and how well it works out, but I'm looking forwards to an 'orcs NEED to be violent and rage and an orc/half-orc who doesn't will slowly shrivel up and die' set-up and see how players react to that. Might even throw an odd hook and have the orc be a wizard or something. Magical Girl WAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGdoka!
I just love 2 and 3, but naturally do 3 because it is so much fun.^^
4 is something that is great in the world of darkness. You don't have alignments, but a background system, where you gain back willpower points for acting upon your steretype.
BUT you choose one you are on the inside (nature) and one you display to others (demeonor).
I think it is far surpirior to the alignment system. Despite having 9 different alignments it feels so black and white.
In my last dnd campaign, we made a homebrew rule for bow damage after watching a video on how bows actually worked. The rule was that your strength determined your damage dice, not the type of bow, as a stronger person would be able to shoot arrows with more force, doing more damage. So a higher strength score would do more potential damage with a short bow than a lower strength using a long bow or recurve bow. Now, you would need a bow that's rated for higher power to do this irl, but as we weren't really getting that many opportunities to change out equipment, nor was the upgrades to strength very often, we chose to forgo that aspect. We also included a "war archer" feat that operated similarly to sharpshooter, -3 attack bonus to add the strength modifier to damage. Because I was playing a ranger, with the numerous bonuses to attack I had, I was still +10 to hit with this active, so I just had it active all the time for the bonus 2-3 damage.
The DM in a game I'm in allows known casters (such as bards and warlocks) to swap out a single spell once every long rest, rather than each level up. It's nice because it gives a little more versatility, but not as much as for a prep caster.
My DM has done the extra proficiency for higher INT thing for years. I love it
One rule we are using to speed up our game and to make certain spells less cumbersome is that the caster of any summoning spell or polymorph type of spell needs to know whatever he is summoning or turning somebody into. By knowing we mean having an official statblock ready or one that was already approved by the DM. If the player doesn't have the stats ready he can't use the summon/polymorph and needs to pick one he has the stats ready. That way we don't need to search for statblocks during combat or get into discussions if ones somebody found online is ok or being rigged.
Also we changed the remove curse spell so it no only removes a curse, but also all magical properties of the item. If one would want to remove a curse and keep the benefitial magic, they would need to remove the curse the proper way, which usually involves passing some kind of ritual for which they need to get some kind of maggufin or something like that. This is a nice way for adding questhooks and if they don't want to do the quest they can still bail out by using the spell.
In my games critical hits get some extra spice. Each crit causes the character to gain a level of exhaustion. It works both ways of course and can make for some very dramatic and desperate combats.
My favourite is a death save rework. Normal death and its rules are so poorly done. Here are my rules in full:
Last Stands
When a player drops to 0hp, instead of falling unconscious and making 3 death saves, they fall prone,
and then make a Last Stand. When they do so, they use Last Stand points. They start with 6 when
they fall to 0hp and lose 1 at the start of each turn. They gain 2 on successful death save, losing 1 on
a failure. They gain 1 per 10hp healed, lose 1 per 20 damage taken, die if they reach 0 and collapse
unconscious but stable if they reach 10. Rolling a natural 20 results in them gaining 5 Last Stand
points, and a natural 1 causes them to lose 3.
A medicine check as an action of a DC equal to 23 - the amount of Last Stand points a character is on
can successfully stabilise them if they have 4 or more Last Stand points, and a healer’s kit is required
to make the check if they have fewer than 4 points. If a character has 4 or more Last Stand points and
the check is made using a healer’s kit, the DC is reduced by 5.
Whilst making a Last Stand, a character is treated as if they had 3 levels of exhaustion, unless they
already had more. These levels of exhaustion disappear when the Last Stand ends.
On their turn, a character can spend Last Stand points to do various things:
➢ 0 to move
I made a skill tree for my dwarf blacksmith fighter. He could spend points on skills and bonuses in the skill tree to make his warhammers more powerful. Definitely took a while to make, but worth it :)
I haven't actually run a campaign but the rule that I want to implement for monks is that you can go over the normal limit of ki points. The caveat is that if you do so you must roll a con save. If you fail the save you take 1d8 damage (type determined by whatever you were doing) for each level above your normal limit, plus only regenerate half your ki points on the next long rest
Homebrew? I have a good one for you, baby! (Yep, this is for Brian)
We all know about the superiority of spellcasters over martial characters. And it seems to me that I have found a solution that slightly (but unfortunately not completely) reduces the gap. All martial characters gain the Battlemaster subclass abilities. Aaand that's all. You get level 3 - you get combat maneuvers, regardless of whether you are a rogue, monk or barbarian. Fighters can choose a second subclass or increase the number of superiority and maneuver dice. Half-casters don't get this bonus, they already have magic. This is not much, but it greatly increases the number of options and actions for the characters. And at the same time, the balance of the game does not suffer at all (in my opinion).A
Regarding the Intelligence thing: Investigation plays a huge role in my games, even just as important as Perception, but for looting bodies, discovering non-magical traps, and a slightly more vague idea of "putting two and two together" which could mean noticing that an apparutus is lined up with a window, or a shopkeeper's ledger has some wrong numbers that indicate they are committing fraud.
Also, Arcana (or rather, Spellcasting) checks in combat used to be a lot more common in 3.X when counterspelling was a whole system instead of a single spell that may as well be a reverse Uno card.
"putting two and two together" is more Insight territory. That said, investigation is a very useful skill, and Arcana is quite prevalent so it's nice to have, but everything else intelligence offers is fairly negligible, and it gives literally no benefits beyond improving skills that you could already roll to begin with, so it should definitely do SOMETHING else.
I think it giving extra skill proficiencies is a good idea, and I used it in my most recent game, although I didn't limit it to just mental skills. It makes sense too. You might be good at persuasion because you're naturally charismatic... Or you might be good because you read several studies on how to APPEAR more charismatic. You might be good at Athletics because you're naturally strong... Or you might be good at it because you're educated on the exact proper form to execute the most efficient jump, or how to exploit enemy weak points to more effectively grapple them.
I also gave a bonus to what is in my opinion the second worst stat, strength, as Dex does pretty much everything it does better, so it's the de facto dumpster for pretty much any caster. It does have its uses, such as grappling, jumping, and carrying capacity, but all of those are either niche or ignored by most tables, so I altered Shields to give it a boost.
Shields, instead of giving a flat +2 to your AC, give +1 + your STR Mod (max 2). This buffs shields on strength-based characters who would otherwise likely just use a two-handed weapon, and it encourages characters who would normally dump strength without a second thought to perhaps invest in it, as they won't be able to benefit from their Shield as well as they normally can without at least giving it a +1.
@@SSL_2004It's funny, I actually give insight a lot less weight than it probably deserves. For example, investigation is what you do with the information a person gives to you, Insight is how you look at the way they give it to you, and it is strictly a social skill. When I say "putting two and two together", I was not referring to social situations at all, but rather evidence leading you to something that can't be plainly spotted in a room or location; such as a hidden trap, secret passage, or something disguised to look like something it's not.
Ultimately, it's up to how you want to GM your games, and how well (or necessary) you can accomodate your player's play styles, and the balance comes from how you interpret and implement the rules as they are (or in your case, add on to them)
@@SSL_2004this is one big thing i like about pathfinder. The higher your intelligence the more skill points you have to put into different skills. So let’s say you have a +3 to your intelligence with some classes you start at 4 skill “points “ so now you have 7 to put in whatever. Comes in handy if lets say wisdom or charisma are your dump stats cause you can put ranks into things like perception, intimidation, bluff, etc to offset it
I love Mr ripper content :)
No initiative, it's a combat round. We go around the table.
Do enemies all go at once before the players or after the players?
No Potionmaker would ever make a healing potion that does not heal much: if your roll is less than half your dice could do, you reroll until you make it high enough.
Better Crits. If you crit on a weapon attack, instead of rolling damage dice twice you roll you dice once and add the maximum number on all dice.
So if the rapier deals 1d8 (plus modifiers), a normal crit means you roll 2d8 which means 2 low rolls could mean your crit means nothing. So in my rule they do 1d8 + 8 plus modifiers.
This is the way.
2:27 Arificers: are we a joke to you?
PANR has tuned in.
In the Yugioh Themed Campaign my DM ran, cards had their anime effects... example being Card of Sanctity allowing both players to draw til they have 6 cards.
Translated loosley into DnD thatd like saying Target one Enemy spell caster withib 30ft if you, restore x number of spell slots of both targets
The best homebrew rule in my D&D game is to use a ruleset that is not D&D, because of I had to run D&D, I would homebrew it until it was unrecognizable as D&D.
Good rule. First swap the D20 with a D100 to not have a 5% chance to fail miserably at anything.
5% steps are just to huge.
3:44 if you look around the internet this has already been done and fairly well.
Last I checked there is a you tube video with a creator explaining his way of doing exactly this.
His system was cheap to access and well done.
Will not post links or describe channel because.... That's how comments disappear.
We use the roll under system for stuff like item crafting. Basically everything that would have used the Craft and Profession skills in previous editions. This has a side effect of natural 1 being the best possible result.
Lightning and fire DMG are twice as effective in my campaign. This is because of implants in my game (mixed fantasy/cyberpunk). Insta-kill for lightning if they have a pacemaker or other life-saving implant.
5:47
This sounds alot like mcdm's concordance system out of stronholds and followers.
But its not held to lvl and it allows summoning through favor.
This is only a small change but I love it so much: Being able to change spells during a short rest.
This helps fix the imbalance of classes that need short rests and those that dont. Usually classes that dont have a ressource that refiills on a short rest have a spellbook and vice versa. This gives all classes a motivation to short rest and helps remove the situation where one guy has to keep asking for short rests because he is the only one that needs it.
I appreciate how any time this question comes up, without fail at least one answer just reinvents an aspect of Pathfinder 2e 😂
I have an alternative inspiration rule. I give each of my player a coin, and they can use it on any check they make/any check that affects them, making it an advantage/disadvantage (whatever benefits them). However when I have the coin, I can do the exact same. Give disadvantage on one of their checks or advantage one something that affects them. It allows them to always have this Hail Mary when they really need to succeed a hard check, and it allows me to give them a bit of divine karma. There’s also been situations where I wouldn’t allow a check unless they give me their inspiration (it could never work out unless something super lucky would happen) and is generally a flexible rule. We’re still trying it out, but so far it’s more fun than regular inspiration
Less of a rule and more of a tradition my tablemates naturally came up with. In moments where we can’t decide whether our characters will say/do something nice or rude in a situation, they roll a die and decide based on the results of the roll. The “Good Boy Die” is used mostly for low key situations where the player thought of something funny but isn’t sure if they want to say it in character. Not a major shake up by any means but it comes up more than you’d think.
For a little bit of added realism, if we’ve been severely wounded or something similar without any magical healing, our long rest puts us a few points below our maximum because “you can’t sleep off mortal wounds”. Fair.
Two homebrew rules I've heard and like are as followed. If you take a whole turn in coblmbat to drink a potion, the effect is its maximum with no dice needed. The reason is the difficulty and spillage that would occur to drink it on the move as opposed to being in place, also to drink it after you move half distance. The other is for you to get crit damage on someone if you beat their ac by 10 or more. The concept is in you manage to get such a solid hit on someone, there should be a bonus. It would work in reverse as well. By this rule you could theoretically be able to increase your crits say if someone was prone or being held as well to make it easier. Do it and aim for the head or heart for twice the crit, thrice if weapon crit occurs.
I like the idea that if you use an action to consume a health potion, you get the full extent of its benefits, however if you want to attempt to consume a health potion as a bonus action, you have to roll for it, because it insinuates you did it as a second thought and might spill some.
Similarly when you’re administering it to a downed player and use an action etc.
In my campaign, I use exhaustion points and starvation points system. If you sleep somewhere in a bad place to (like a nearest ditch) or do not sleep at all for 24 hours, (even worse) you get exhaustion points. Each point decreases max health by 10% and gives -1 to all checks, up to 3 points. But if you sleep in somewhere good and luxurious, then you'll have a "good rest" points that gives opposite. Points of starvation by other hand decreases your max health by 20% and all checks by 2, up to 4 points. You get those if you don't eat enough food throughout the day, but you lose them when you eat all lacking nutrition.
My fav homebrew I use for games:
1. Everyone gains 1 inspiration at start of every session, and they can use it to gain advantage before roll or add d6 to result after roll.
2. Crafting and tools system. Not all players want to craft magic items, but some do and I made my own rules for that. And i am trying to make tools more usefull outside of crafting too. Also am doing "point-buy" crafting rules for homebrew items for them.
3. When you drop to 0hp you need to make DC 10 save (sanity or wisdom) or gain 1 level of exhaustion. DC increase by 5 each time you drop to 0 hp until it reset at end of long rest.
Our best House rule IMO comes in 2 parts:
Part 1 is that in initiative monsters always get 7.5. While players roll and plan I set up the mob HP trackers, get stat pages ext. Since players know mobs get 7.5 every time they know as soon as their die comes up if they beat the mobs or not. (7.5 because players can never tie and will usually but not always go first - adjust to your own needs, but keep the .5 on there)
Part 2 of that is the players can coordinate their turns - switching orders or working together - as long as everyone involved has a turn before next monster round. Basically the same idea as how BG 3 lets you switch characters if they are grouped.
A game I'm planning on running with friends has a mana point system instead of spell slots. This is a homebrew rule that I'm still fleshing out. Once a spellcaster runs out of mana, they can still cast a spell, but it might very well be the death of them. When a spellcaster without mana casts another spell, whether the conditions of the spell succeed or not, they must make a CON saving throw (starting DC of 10, but increases by 2 every time the caster casts another spell thereafter before taking a short/long rest). If they fail the saving throw, they become inflicted with mananemia, or mana deficiency. There's 5 stages, and 5 almost always results in organ failure or death, or permanent loss of mana (which would effectively "kill" a caster PC). A PC afflicted with mananemia can take a long rest and reduce 1d4 stages, or have a spell like Greater Restoration casted on them by another caster. After this, they will not have regained any mana points until after ANOTHER long rest. I want to try encouraging more spell casting (esp by warlocks that have like no spell slots or known spells), but still add a potentially deadly edge to it. Make a sort of "you can definitely do this, but save it for a bad day" thing
Best home brew rule I use is less of a rule and more of an explanation. Higher level characters CAN take an axe to the face and shrug it off. Hit points are not abstract in any way, shape, or form. It's a magical fantasy world. People that push themselves become hardier because it's magic damn it.
"If your bullshit makes sense, I will entertain the idea at a reasonable cost."
If you want to jump ahead your set distance, you can, but it counts as a bonus action. You can attack, but you can't use an item and jump forward in that turn.
If you want to help your enemy for a fair fight, you'll be able to do so, but it's up to the enemy pattern to decide whether or not they attack you or the next closest player (This pattern has even helped with developing character interactions with future NPCs).
If you want to mix your random food items into a smoothie, roll to see if it succeeds. If it works, you have a unique item with special perks. Want to persuade a shopkeeper into selling it on their shelves? Roll for it, a successful roll will give you 1d10 * itemcost / 3 of the item profits for the next few sessions.
For a bit of fun in a 5e campaign, I homebrewed races from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. The option to play as a moogle was very popular, since each player chose to play as one without communicating with the rest of the party. I don't think it was any of the mechanics that I gave to the subclasses. I think they just wanted to play as small fluffy things that have pom-poms on their heads. That was one of the most enjoyable campaigns for my players and I.
When you hit 0 HP you are not unconscious, but you are bleeding out. Attack rolls against you still have advantage, any hit is a critical and you have disadvantage on strength and dexterity saving throws, You also still make a death save at the start of your turn, but once per round, on your turn (with the exception of a reaction) you can do ONE of the following:
1. Move up to 1/4 of your movement, taking 1 point of exhaustion
2. Move up to 1/2 of your movement, taking 2 points of exhaustion
3. Use a bonus action, taking 2 points of exhaustion
4. Use an action/reaction, taking 3 points of exhaustion
Some things to note
• While dying, you can still speak weakly without incurring exhaustion
• As per rules as written, when you reach 6 levels of exhaustion you die
• Taking any noticeable action will possibly aggro nearby enemies (who will not see you as dead), which could be very very bad
• You can choose to do nothing (other than your death save) to not draw aggro (doing nothing is effectively identical to current death save rules)
• Movement speed stacks with exhaustion, so at 2 or more levels the values of 1 and 2 above become 1/8 and 1/4 respectively
• 3 levels of exhaustion does apply disadvantage to subsequent death saves
• Other characters can still use an action to administer a potion to the downed character, which they can drink as a free action without incurring exhaustion (also pouring liquid in an unconscious persons mouth is a terrible idea, so remaining conscious and able to actually swallow is a great way to not die of asphyxiation. Literally drowning to death in health potion is just awful!)
• Dying condition will also apply to major enemies, which means they could potentially get themselves back up or even have a chance to unleash something devastating with their dying breath. It also can make the killing blow a bit more predictable, allowing for more cinematic moments.
The idea isn't that you'd use them every turn, it's that they are available. Much of the time it may well be more advantageous to lie still until someone can get to you. If you're right on the edge of a Cloudkill you can take 2 points of exhaustion to drag yourself out of harms way before collapsing and waiting for help. If the enemy is almost dead you can push yourself up on a knee and take 3 points of exhaustion to make one final blow. If nobody can get to you in time you can use a bonus action to get yourself back up with a health potion, but at a serious cost. It increases survivability a bit, but that can easily be made up for by throwing bigger, nastier enemies at you [😈]
It also makes character death much more meaningful since you're still in the fight and can intentionally take actions that you know could lead to your own death, instead of doing nothing and leaving it entirely to random chance. Rules as written, your character's vision goes dark and then you spend a few turns doing nothing but rolling to see if they wake back up or not.
Now imagine lying there, bleeding out, watching your friends fall around you. You are weak and feel helpless, waiting for someone to rush over and give you a health potion. You muster what little strength you have left to drag yourself away from the nearby lava pool to avoid taking further damage from it. You fail your first two death saves. You have 4 points of exhaustion. The last of your friends scrambles over to you, but suddenly gasps, blood trickling from their mouth as they collapse to the ground, an arrow in their back. Your eyes lock with theirs as they reach a weak hand out to you, but it comes up short. You close your eyes, remembering the adventures you've had, the places you've seen, the friends you've made along the way. You feel at peace. You struggle to breathe, but you no longer feel the pain. You open your eyes and look around at your friends, lying on the ground nearby. You have just enough strength to choke out a raspy whisper, almost imperceptible. With one final breath, a single word escapes your lips. A word of healing. Mass healing.
PERSONALLY, I take intelligence and I measure attunement slots based off of it. So your attunement slots equal your proficiency bonus plus your intelligence modifier (Min 1) so if you have a 10 int at level 1, you have 2 attunement slots but if you're int I'd a 20 and you're at 13th level you can attunement 10 items
My personal favorite is "backrooms rolls"
The concept is simple, before the start of every session, the DM and players each publicly roll 2d20. If a player rolls 2 nat 1s, they are teleported to the backrooms, and embark on pretty much an entire improvised session to escape, where I as the DM only have a few denizens of the backrooms fleshed out, and the challenges and encounters are all theater of the mind, improvised moments. If the DM rolls 2 nat 1s, the entire party slips into the backrooms instead.
This has only occurred once in the 2.5 years since the rule was created, but the resulting session of that player's chaotic adventure through the backrooms, watched by the peanut gallery of players around him, was so iconic among our group that the rule has become a staple of our campaigns.
I like the curse item idea, it gave me an idea for a kind of 'curse-smith' trade, where mundane items can pick up a magical curse and such items can made into 'basic' magical items by a skilled tradesman.
This could, naturally, lead to all kinds of conflicts, different nations having different regulations on cursed items, curse-smiths and also smuggling and black markets.
Along with criminal groups doing the obvious thing and 'manufacturing' a steady supply of lucrative magical material.
I have several as I've played for 4 decades, but here are a couple .
1) 3/4 static HP. At 1st level you get max HP for your hit dice . There after you get 3/4 max. This prevents the barbarian from rolling 1 or 2 while the wizard rolls 4 most the time and becoming more tanky than the barbarian. Barbarians ( a D12 class ) get 12 + con mod at 1st level and then 9+ con mod every level thereafter. The wizard (D4 class) gets 4+ con mod at 1st and then 3+ con mod thereafter. For D6 and D10 classes the D6 classes at 2nd and later levels alternate 5 then 4 then 5 then 4 etc. D10 the alternating numbers are 8 and 7.
2) Damage reduction armor : in 3.5 attended armor cannot be sundered. This eventually leads to the mithral breastplate of never damaged ( mithral reduces the medium armor to light which can be slept in without fatigue meaning its never unattended) . I believe armor should be damageable ( more realistic) . In my worlds armor provides 1/2 It's normal AC bonus . It also provides the remainder of its " AC bonus" as damage reduction. The armor also has 10 x its normal AC bonus in Armor points ( hit points for armor) . In the case the armor provides an odd number the higher half is AC and the remainder is DR. When a character takes damage this is an example of how it would break down: character wearing studded leather ( armor bonus +2 DR 1 armor points 30 ) take 6 damage the armor reduces the damage to 5. 3 of that damage is dealt to the armor. The character takes 2 Damage. The armor now has 27 armor points. There's a little more that goes into it ie as the armor is damaged it loses DR and AC , but the basics of the home rule are as described above. The downside ( for players ) is you have to repair your armor. The upside is that the armor absorbs some of that damage you would normally take so ... increased survivability. This rule lead to a change In the spell "make whole" , but that's another story.
I think these things (HP and attributes) should never be rolled at character creation or later.
It is totally frustrating if everyone is on a different power curve, builds resentment or makes well planned characters weaker. This is nothing, tthat should be luck based. (Same as potions btw.)
I remember re-rolling my BG1+2 characters over and over until I got a total of 50+ points to spend... Stupid.
i wanted to play a Bladesinging wizard that was 1/3 support, 1/3 melle and 1/3 ranged spells. i struggled with the support, grabbing spells like healing elixir or wither and bloom was all i could do. but then, my dm made a ruling that everytime i start the bladesong, i roll a d20. 1-13 - no added effects, 14-19 - i choose 1 ally within 40ft of me and give him inspiration or bardic inspiration (d8), i could choose. 20- every ally gets inspiration or bardic inspirration (d12) (bardic inspiration bcuz lorewise, when Aerendyl {my wizard foreclaimer, a hb race from dingo doodles} was starting the bladesong, he starts singing "providence" from poor mans poison and playing it on his medieval guitar/keyboard )
Players and Pcs can curse others at death, and breaking an oath or promise also curses you. make it proportional to the power of the person, or the magnitude of the oath/promise
If the cat makes it onto the table.... Instant dragon attack.
I am a little late to this and have not DMed my own game yet but I have a homebrew rule that you can cast more spells than you have spell slots but there are consequences for overusing this power. 1 example is that wizards gain disadvantage on all checks that use their mind. Another would be sorcerers would start to feel their blood boil as they keep overusing their magic. Warlocks would have their patron"s start messing with their powers or begin to be constricted and be unable to move if they abuse their gifted power. These are just a few examples of how this rule would work.
Attack of Opportunity on movement and use an object actions.
Meaning: AoO on creatures attempting to stand up. AoO on using a magic scroll or potion.
Getting rid of the popup healing tactic (allowing characters to drop and then heal them for a small amount to get them back into combat) by giving a level of exhaustion when dropped to zero HP.
Crunchy Crits.
When you roll a crit, you roll the damage normally but then add the maximum that you could have rolled. This includes Sneak Attack and Smites and the like.
For my homebrew rule we made it so that crits give you a max damage roll plus whatever you roll so if your attack deals 4d8, you get 32 damage plus what ever you roll so you dont get boned by luck by rolling low.
I persuaded my DM to implement a rule that makes it so that crit fails on spell saves deal double damage, just like critical hits.
Pathfinder has a good fix for the Int dump problem. Basically you get to learn an extra language for each level of your Int modifier.
One of my rules, thankfully one I haven’t had to implement yet, is that if a PC dies while conscious in combat they get one free action to do something heroic before their time is over.
I seriously need to implement a time limit though, combat always takes forever.
Death saving throws only go away on a short or long rest.
One my dm does is called the let it slide die. Where you take a d6 and the dm determines what you need to succeed such as and odd number, even number, 4+, or 3-. The roll is essentially hey thats a really cool thing your doing this is to see if it works. With this rule one of players managed to have a train jump over i giant sandworm creature.
“You have a specific amount of time to complete all the objectives. When you hit 0 HP, you roll a 1d4 on a successful death save or 2d4 on a failed save. Your roll dictates how many weeks you will take to recover, keeping you out of any story progression locked behind combat
If you roll a nat 20 to hit in combat it hits regardless of AC.
One of my players said this was a “homebrew rule” cuz they didn’t know I was doing it for my campaign. Looks like my homebrew rule is so good they added it to the official rules lol.
Two fun ones:
1) BS Point: 1/Long Rest a 20+ Int or Wis character gets to freely solve a puzzle or make an insight of choice, or the GM warns them of a bad decision/option being made.
2) Martial Classes add Proficiency Bonus to Initiative.
A third tip would be to rewrite the entire 5e crafting system. Too expensive for how weak the magic is
In my campaign, instead of death saves, the DM has you roll play flashbacks, with a random question like “You remember your best moment.” This is useful if you would rather not die, but it does decrease the risk, so it isn’t for everyone.
Don't usually comment but wanted to say the editing choice to add the sound/ titlecard for narrator/scriptwriter thoughts is appreciated. I often have these videos on in the background and being able to identity which thoughts are from the original post and which are your comments is nice, so I definitely hope y'all keep it up!
for the int stat I took from d20 slayers where pc get a number of spells equal to their int mod, I would limit it to cantrip or maybe 1st level give them a level 1 wizard spell slot or use magic points
a second option
Anyone can cast spells they have the same spell slot progressive as a wizard or use of magic points. To cast they must have knowledge on how to cast it either by reading it in a book or scroll or seen it casted before, they make an arcane check to see if they remember how it was casted. The dc is 10+spell level, on a success check cast the spell as normal or fail they lose the spell slot and action.
Epithets are exactly as you think, names and titles for the character. You get them 1st level but it replaces feats. But they can range in craziness. As you progress through story you can become known for another reason. And that’s how your epithet and its ability can change.
I am thinking of making a combat rule where if you miss a weapon attack, you only deal half damage. You also don't gain any benefit from spells or effects that would increase the damage beyond your typical hit. I think it makes martials no longer have waisted attacks.
On a skill check:
If it’s a Nat1, after all modifiers and bonuses, subtract your Proficiency modifier.
If it’s a Nat20, after all modifiers and bonuses, add your Proficiency modifier.
So, they rolled their lowest possible outcome and are fucked over even more by going into negative numbers?
What's happening here? Is a Nat 1 that lands on a 2 less bad than one that lands on -3?
The bigger they are the harder they fall rule: damage dice from falling damage scales up and down with size catagory, a small character will only have to roll d4s while an enlarged character will have to roll d8s. It benefits players for the most part since most things size category large or bigger are going to be monsters they are fighting.
My main one is on regular "trash" enemies, a nat 20 is a kill, not double damage, and removed vorpal weapons. My interpretation is that hitting a weak or vital area on most things is basically a death sentence. Players and "boss" enemies are much stronger than average goons making them exempt from the rule
My best rule: Small creatures do not have disadvantage with heavy weapons. Creatures with less than 13 Strength have disadvantage with heavy weapons.
I did this because it doesn't make sense that the 18 strength Halfling Barbarian who is in full rage mode has a gimped chance to hit with a greatsword... compared to our geriatric wizard with 7 strength and psoriasis.
I think small creatures should rather have that disadvantage with huge weapons, because a sword double your size is kinda hard to handle, not because it is heavy, but because the movement is akward.
Think of moving house and carrying a 20kg box or a 20kg bed frame dwn the stairs. You need help with the bed frame, even though you can perfectly lift it strength wise.
I don't really do nat 1s or 20s on skills (as per the rules), but I do have The D4 of Fate: on a 1 on a d20 roll, the roller can choose to roll a d4. On a 4, the result becomes a success, on a 2 or 3, treat the 1 as the rolled number, and add modifers as normal. On a 1, however, the result is a failure and something additionally bad happens. I did it because I kinda like the idea of taking a chance on fate to help improve a bad situation, but also the idea of a double nat 1 having something go wrong. Also, the d4 is not limited to once a turn, but also they are not mandatory; it's always a choice.
its probably a simple one but asi/feat choice at character level instead of class level.. this opens up much easier multiclassing as you arent worried about losing out on a feat or asi just because you're a 3/5 split instead of a 4/4 split..
Not my or my current table, but one DM I played with online.
When you hit 0 HP, you roll 1 Death save, succeed and gain an exhaustion level instead and stay at 1. Fail, you fall unconscious, but have 1HP.
If Crit don't suffer negative effects of an Exhaustion level.
If Crit Fail, you roll again next turn, fail again, you die, Crit fail twice, you get -1 to Level if resurrected, to a minimum of 1.
If your HP hits 0, you die.
If you die from Exhaustion in combat, you can't be resurrected. Unless by True Ressurection.
Really upped the stakes of combat.
I allow each of my players 1 free level up per campaign. It is instant and also acts as a long rest. I tell them about it in their session 0 and they can use it at any point in the campaign. They seem to like having it in their back pocket to turn the tied of a hard battle or really double down on an important role play moment for their character. Recently the party was losing a battle to the rangers arch enemy they had been tracking since session 1 as all looked lost he finally used it (we’re like 1.5 years into this campaign) to pull him self back from the brink of death the be able to strike down his nemesis.
The one with the curse on death items.
Would make a positive spin caveat.
So getting to death saves and getting back up from self stabilize not magical healing.
Would increase the power of a random item.
With a nat 20 being a reflection of pure force of will which grants a major magical evolution, the item becomes a growth item and gains intelligence. When the player rps things that fit thw personality of that item it grows in power.
And thats how legendary items are made.
This may even magically reshape the item to look cooler.
And when these items show up in future campaigns held by there old pc or their decendants npcs.. well there ya go too
I suppose it's a homebrew rule but it's really more of a practice that helps curb metagaming and it goes like this. When you encounter a monster I will do one of two things. 1) I will tell you "This is a " and that is the player's cue that knowledge of this monster is common. You know what a troll is and you know its weaknesses. or 2) I will describe the creature but not name it and I will allow an appropriate check to identify it. So if for some reason I made trolls rare in my campaign I can go yes with an DC5 nature check you know what a troll is and know they're weak to fire.
A Homebrew I've been working with is shared initiative by the party. So the party will always go first in combat and then the monsters will follow up after. And inspired by Monster Hunter the enemies have a stunning threshold so if the party deals enough damage in that round the monster is stunned for his turn. To counteract this it also allows me to use slightly tougher enemies for my party to help even things back out. My party has loved the challenges, and I love using certain enemies that some campaigns may not get the chance to use, or the chance to show how scary an enemy can be when encountered outside of the recommended CR.